The Arthur Leo Zagat Science Fiction Megapack

by Arthur Leo Zagat

  “You’ve thought of everything,” was the admiring retort.

  “Now to get into immediate communication with the conference chairman and unfold our plan.”

  “Right—there’s not a moment to lose. The fate of the world is in the balance.”

  In a few minutes, the radio transmitter was sputtering out the code call signal of the conference. A lapse of five minutes and word came back. “Radio Emergency Conference talking—what is it?”

  “Standish sending from the laboratory of Cameron in Colorado. Plan for combating menace has been evolved. Please connect me with the chairman.” Then, for a solid hour across the ether vibrated the saving word.

  Back came the answer. “Sounds all right. Our last hope anyway. Broadcasting immediately to all the nations to mobilize tractor, searchlights, ultra-violet apparatus. United States will mobilize on eastern length of Appalachian within twenty-four hours. Both of you report for service immediately at Allentown, Pa. Last reports show inundation extended as far as Scranton. Signing off.”

  “We need some sleep—let’s snatch a few hours—and start,” suggested Standish.

  “Righto, we can get there in fifteen hours. We’ll need only an hour or two for assembling our material here. That gives us plenty of time for a snooze.”

  Almost instantaneously, both were sleeping—drugged.

  * * * *

  When they awoke, it was dusk. Mary was still asleep—a peaceful smile flitting over her lips. Donald looked at her tenderly.

  “Let’s not disturb her. Poor girl—she has been through hell.” He brushed her forehead lightly with his lips, and the smile grew into ecstasy, but still she did not awaken.

  “Now to work!”

  They hurried into the laboratory. Cameron opened the door of a huge glass-lined oven, thermostatically controlled at blood heat. In the interior were twenty or more glass dishes, each containing a mass of tissue floating in culture media.

  “These are my cancer growths,” he explained. “They will live indefinitely in the cultures. Now to activate them so that when we cast them into the protoplasmic horror, they will grow and proliferate with extreme rapidity.”

  He turned to a row of glass stoppered bottles on his laboratory shelf, and took one down. It was filled with a pale green liquid. Carefully, with a pipette, he dropped five drops into each dish. A slight bubbling ensued—and then ceased.

  “Bring that cabinet in the corner over here,” he ordered, “and all the cotton wool you find in the end cupboards.”

  The cabinet was opened—a layer of cotton placed on the bottom—the cancer dishes placed carefully between layers of the soft material, and then the whole affair hermetically sealed.

  “Now we’re ready to go.”

  The two men quickly and silently donned their flying suits, and in short order the plane was trundled out of the hangar; the cabinet was carefully lifted into the cockpit, and they took their seats. The motor roared; and the plane took off on its flight across the continent.

  Next morning, as the first rays of dawn appeared over the serried tops of the Alleghany Mts., the haggard, wearied travelers descended stiffly from their plane after landing on the airfield outside Allentown.

  For a moment they gazed about them in dazed astonishment. The place was seething with activity. Hundreds of planes were landing on all sides; tractors were lumbering and roaring over the field, soldiers and vast crowds of workmen swarmed in organized disorder.

  “Where is the commander?” asked Donald of a big burly sergeant actively engaged in expending a stream of profanity at a company of men unpacking a huge searchlight.

  “Over there!” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the hangar at one end of the field, without deigning to turn around; and with hardly a pause in his flow of lurid objurgations.

  “Come on, Doug, let’s report at once, and see what we can do.”

  At the door, they gave their names to the guard, and were ushered in immediately.

  Seated at a rough pine board table, hastily built to function as a desk, was General Black, grizzled veteran of the World War, now commander-in-chief of all the American Armies! Officers dashed in—came to stiff salute—reported in staccato accents—received their orders even more crisply—and dashed out again. A field radio receiving set whined. The general put the phone to his ear. “What’s that—only thirty miles away! All right—report every fifteen minutes on its progress.”

  Turning around, he saw the two scientists. “Yes, what is it? Make it snappy!”

  They introduced themselves, and the general’s attitude became more cordial.

  “I hope your ideas are correct—if not, we’re all doomed.” He sighed. “Frankly, I’m not used to this sort of thing—out of my line. Artillery—machine guns—gas—yes! But not this new-fangled stuff.

  “However, we’ll soon find out,” he continued grimly, “my air scouts report it as only thirty miles away. At the rate it is traveling, it will be here in forty-eight hours. We’ll be ready for it in about thirty-six hours—and then—” he shrugged fatalistically. “In the meantime, I’ll get some quarters for you, and you can make yourselves comfortable until we’re ready to start.” He turned to an orderly, and soon the scientists were installed in a barrack-like room—their plane with its precious freight wheeled into the hangar, and placed under guard.

  The next thirty-six hours were filled with feverish activity. All through the day and night, tractors kept coming in—apparatus and the requisite machines were deposited from planes, railroads, automobiles, every conceivable method of transportation.

  In the meantime the radio reports were becoming more and more alarming. Inexorably the living tide was moving forward—swallowing everything in its path. Twenty miles away—fifteen miles—activity becoming frantic—ten miles—five miles—the last feverish touches—and all was in readiness for the supreme effort.

  As far as the eye could see, stretched serried ranks of tractors. Along the whole Appalachian range, thousands of tractors were ready to go at the signal of command. On each was perched a powerful searchlight or violet ray machine capable of casting directional beams over a ten-mile radius. The final orders were given—everyone not directly concerned in the management of the apparatus was sent to the rear.

  It was the zero hour!

  Already in the distance, the horizon was glowing with the dreaded greenish light—the vast menace was flowing—flowing forward.

  A hush fell on the embattled array. Could they stop it—was it victory or disaster? The bravest among them felt clammy hands clutching their hearts.

  The radio command roared its voice along the far-flung line. The motors roared—the current snapped on—and a blaze of light—intense—penetrating—flared out up and down the line. Another command—and the tractors moved forward—slowly—steadily. A ten-mile zone of intense illumination—blinding in its glare—moved ahead. It approached the green luminescence. Still the monstrous life flowed forward.

  Nerves tensed to the snapping points—blood pounded in thousands of hearts—God!—would it have no effect—the life of the planet hung on the next few moments.

  The wall of light reached the oncoming wall of alien life—touched it—overlapped it—swung over the top and over its viscous waves. Only three miles separated the opposing forces!

  Was it a delusion? Did they see aright? A rustling murmur grew on the scene—a confused Babel of voices—and then—a mighty shout blasted the air—a paean of deliverance—the world was saved!

  The oncoming mass had definitely ceased moving—the front reared high into the air—writhing and twisting as though in agony—and then—recession—slow at first—then faster and faster—the monster was in full retreat—vainly seeking to escape the deadly rays.

  Immediately the jubilant army moved forward—ever concentrating the dazzling light on the discomfited foe. Who thought of food—or sleep or stopping—back into the sea with the monster! For two days and a night, the front of war advan
ced—steadily the enemy was driven back—remorselessly as ever it had advanced—agonized, writhing before the avenging glare. Once more the face of the earth appeared—but strange, alien in aspect—more like some desolate moon aridly moving through space, than this fair, smiling world of ours. No trees—no houses—no verdure was left; the very surface of the earth was eroded away—pitted and scarred with deep holes and gullies, through which the tractors floundered and pitched.

  Back—back through the ruin of what had once been New York—into the sea it was driven—and the world was temporarily saved from overwhelming disaster.

  From all the endangered nations came the glad tidings of complete triumph. Everywhere the crawling life had been forced into the waters.

  Wild celebrations took place among the people of the earth. The names of Cameron and Standish were broadcast to the joyful millions as the saviors of humanity.

  But the menace was by no means over—though temporarily subdued. Orders were issued that no one was to approach within ten miles of the seaboards; and the armies of the world were placed on sentry duty to see that the orders were enforced.

  At a conference at Pittsburgh, the temporary capital of the United States, Douglas Cameron told of his discoveries in cancer research; his activating principle; and outlined his plan of scattering the tissues of cancer into the floating masses of protoplasm. He was listened to with the most flattering attention. When he finished, President Adams arose, and grasped his hand and then that of his co-worker.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, his voice quivering with emotion, “you have already placed the world under an incalculable debt of gratitude to you; if you succeed in your present undertaking, and rid the earth of this frightful scourge, your names will go ringing down the ages as long as life exists on this planet. I have placed at your service a cruiser of our air fleet, fully manned and provisioned for a cruise of ten thousand miles. Go and God bless you!”

  They bowed their thanks and left the meeting. In less than an hour they were seated in the cabin of the air cruiser, with their precious cabinet at their feet—the crew sprang smartly to their posts—and they took to the air.

  The coast was reached in slightly over an hour, and they soon were winging their way out to sea.

  The captain came into the cabin for instructions. “Drop to within five hundred feet of the water, and have your crew on the look-out for any traces of the beast. Have the first one to sight it sing it out.”

  “It shall be done,” and he retired. The great plane glided down, and whirled over the surface of the ocean. All eyes were strained in eager search.

  A shout from an excited lookout.

  “The Thing’s directly below, sir!” All hands rushed to the side. Sure enough—the surface of the ocean to the east was heaving, and tossing—a weird green light flickered and flared—the sea crawled with the shiny evil Thing.

  Quickly Cameron opened his cabinet and gingerly removed one of the dishes. Carrying it to the side, with one quick scoop, he ladled out the contents and threw it overboard. Down it spattered into the jellied mass—scourge set to fight scourge.

  For two days, the plane cruised over the broad Atlantic, dropping the seeds of destruction into the bosom of the visitation. When the last dishful had been dispatched on its errand, the cruiser turned homeward. Its work was done. The rest was in the lap of fate.

  The people of the earth waited in deep anxiety. Men of science—great biologists—broadcast learned opinions to the listening multitudes.

  Daily, clouds of speedy pursuit planes were flung over the broad bosom of the Atlantic to observe and report. Daily they reported no signs of disappearance. If anything, the areas of infestations seemed to be actually increasing. Once more fear reared its hideous head—if the cancerous growths proved ineffectual—it was only a question of time before the horrible Thing would once more approach the shores.

  But, ten days later, an observation plane reported seeing hard fibrous growths, like huge warts, covering the surface in one area. Then, in quick succession, other reports came in. The cancer had commenced its deadly work. Within a month the ocean was covered with dead, cancerous masses—the menace was a thing of the past. Slowly they heaved on the ocean tides, and slowly they sank beneath the waves. The earth was free of its hideous nightmare. The race was saved.

  * * * *

  On a mild October morning a little group filed into the rustic church near the laboratory. A little group—but every broadcast receiver, every television screen was attuned to the waves which were carrying each sound and sight in that church to every corner of the globe. All the people of the earth joined in a prayer for the good fortune of the couple whose wedding rites were being celebrated there. And as Mary Cameron became Mary Standish, all the earth joined in the hymn which welled out in a mighty chorus of thanksgiving whose echoing vibrations must have been heard even in far distant Andromeda.

  THE DEATH-CLOUD

  Written with Nat Schachner.

  We sat, Eric Bolton and I, at a parapet table atop the 200-story General Aviation Building. The efficient robot waiter of the Sky Club had cleared away the remnants of an epicurean meal. Only a bowl of golden fruit remained—globes of nectar picked in the citrus groves of California that morning.

  My eye wandered over the scene spread before us, the vast piling of masonry that is New York. The dying beams of the setting sun glinted golden from the roofs of the pleasure palaces topping the soaring structures. Lower, amid interlacing archings of the mid-air thoroughfares, darkness had already piled its blackness. Two thousand feet below, in the region of perpetual night, the green-blue factory lights flared.

  On three sides, the unbroken serration of the Empire City’s beehives stretched in a semicircle of twenty miles radius. Long since, the rivers that had made old Manhattan an island had been roofed over. But, to the east, the heaving sea still stretched its green expanse. On the horizon a vast cloud mountain billowed upward from the watery surface, white, and pink and many shades of violet.

  “That’s just the way it looked,” Bolton muttered, as he drew my attention to the cloud mass. “See that air-liner just diving into it? Just so I saw the New York—five thousand men—pride of the Air Service—dive into that mountain of smoke. And she never came out! Gone—like that!” And he snapped his fingers.

  He fell silent again, gazing dreamily at the drifting rings of pipe smoke. He smiled, the twisted smile which was the sole indication that one side of his face was the master work of a great surgeon-sculptor. A marvelous piece of work, that, but no less marvelous than the protean changes that Bolton himself could make in his appearance. It was this genius at impersonation that had won Bolton his commission in the Intelligence Service, when, in 1992, the world burst into flame.

  “Would you like to hear about it?” The obtuseness of the man!

  “If you’d care to tell me.” I spoke off-handedly. This was like hunting birds on the wing: too abrupt a movement of the glider, and the game was lost.

  This is the story he told me, in the low, modulated voice of the trained actor. He told it simply, with no dramatic tricks, no stressing, no climatic crescendos. But I saw the scenes he described, dodged with him through black caverns of dread, felt an icy hand clutch my heart as the Ferret stared at me with his baleful glance; was deafened, and stunned, and crushed by that final tremendous down pouring of the waters.

  * * * *

  I was standing—he began—on one of our rafts, watching the installation of a new ray machine. A storm was raging, but the great raft, a thousand feet long, and five hundred wide, was as steady as a rock. We were 700 miles out; the great push of ’92, that drove us back to within 150 miles of our coast and almost ended the war, was still eleven weeks off.

  Suddenly the buzzer of my radio-receiver whirred against my chest. “2—6—4”—my personal call. “2—2”—“Go to nearest communications booth.” “A—4”—“Use Intelligence Service intermitter 4.” The secret of that was known only to a half
-dozen men in the field. Headquarters wanted to talk to me on a supremely important matter.

  There was a booth only a short distance away. I stepped to it and identified myself to the guard. In a moment I was within and had swung shut and sealed the sound-proof door. I set the intermitter switches to the A—4 combination. Not even our own control officers could eavesdrop now. Then I switched off the light, and waited.

  A green glow grew out of the darkness. I was being inspected. Headquarters was taking no chances. Out of the green haze before me the general himself materialized. I could count every hair in his grizzled beard. The little scar at the corner of his left eye fascinated me with its distinctness.

  I saluted. “Captain Bolton reporting, sir.”

  “At ease!” General Sommers’ voice snapped with military precision. The general was standing in his private office in Washington. I could see his desk in the corner, and the great operations map on the wall. There were new lines of worry in the general’s grim face.

  He went straight to the point. “Captain Bolton, we are confronted with a problem that must be solved at once. While our information is meager, the Staff is convinced that a great danger menaces us. Of its precise nature, or how it is to be combated, we are unaware. I am assigning you to secure the answer to these two questions.

  “A week ago there appeared, ten miles east of the enemies’ first line, and directly opposite our raft 1264, what seemed at first to be merely a peculiar cloud formation. It rose directly from the surface of the water, and was shaped roughly like half an egg. The greatest dimension, lying along the water, parallel to the battle line, was about 5 miles; the height approximately a mile.

  “When two or three days had passed, and no change in the shape or dimensions of the strange mass had taken place, although wind and weather conditions had been varied, we determined to investigate. This was undoubtedly an artificial, not a natural, phenomenon. It was then that we discovered that there was a concentration of defenses along this portion of the front. Our scouts were unable to find any of the usual gaps in either the ray network in the upper air, or the gyro-knife barrier beneath the surface. At the same time, from scouting parties and deserters at other points we learned that rumors are rife throughout the enemy forces of some scheme now on foot that will overwhelm us within a very short time. No details have been given, but so widespread is the gossip, and so consistent, that we have been forced to the conclusion that it cannot be reasonably dismissed as mere morale-supporting propaganda.