Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  Yet it had not changed position. It still remained quiescent. Then the current was further altered, and the time and space co-ordinates set into new combinations. This change of the current was a progressive change. Controlled and carefully calculated by what intricate theoretic principles and practical mechanisms no scientist of our world can yet say.

  It is clear, however, that as this progressive change in space-time characteristics began, the vehicle perforce must move slightly in space and time to reconcile itself to the change.

  There never has been a seemingly more abstruse subject for the human mind to grasp than the theories involving a true conception of space-time. Yet, doubtless, to those of Tako's realm, inheriting, let me say, the consciousness of its reality, there was nothing abstruse about it.

  An analogy may make it clearer. The vehicle, hovering in the borderland, might be called in a visible but gaseous state. A solid can be turned to gas merely by the alteration of the vibratory rate of its molecules.

  This unmoving (gaseous) vehicle, is now further altered in space-time characteristics. Suppose we say it is very slightly thrown out of tune with its spatial surroundings at the time which is its present. Nature will allow no such disorganization. The vehicle, as a second of time passes, is impelled by the force of nature to be in a different place. This involves motion. A small change in the first second. Then the current alters it progressively faster. The change, of necessity, is progressively greater, the motion more rapid.

  And this, controlled as to direction, became transportation. The determination of direction at first thought seems amazingly intricate. In effect, that was not so. With space-time factors set as a destination, i. e., the place where the vehicle must end its change at a certain time, all the intermediate changes become automatic. With every passing second it must be at a reconcilable place--the direction of its passage perforce being the shortest path between the two.

  With this in mind, the transition from one world to another becomes more readily understandable. No natural change of space is involved, merely the change of the state of matter. It was the same change as that which carried the vehicles into a shadowy borderland, and then pushed further into new dimensional realms.

  The green light-beam weapons were merely another application of the same principle. The characteristics of the green light current, touching organic matter, altered the vibratory rate of what was struck to coincide with the light. A solid cake of ice under a blow-torch becomes steam by the same principle. The light-beams were swift and violent in their action. The change in them was progressive also--but it was so swiftly violent a change that nothing living could survive the shock of the enforced transition.

  * * * * *

  There was little to see during this strange flight. Outside our windows gray shadows drifted swiftly past--a shadowy, ghostly landscape of gray rocks. Sometimes it was below us, so that we seemed in an airship winging above it. Then abruptly it would rise over us and we plunged into it as though it were a mere light-image, a mirage.

  Hours passed. For the most part the shadowy void seemed a jagged mountainous terrain, a barren waste. There were great plateau uplands, one of which rose seemingly thousands of feet over us. And there was perhaps an hour of time when the surface of the world had dropped far away, so far down that it was gone in the distance. Like a projectile we sped level, unswerving. And at last the shadows of the landscape came up again. And occasionally we saw shadowy inhabited domains--enclosing walls around water and vegetation, with a frowning castle and its brood of mound-shaped little houses like baby chicks clustered around the mother hen.

  Tako served us with a meal; it was strange food, but our hunger made it palatable. Jane and Tolla remained in their nearby cabin. We did not see them, but occasionally Don or I, ignoring Tako's frown, called out to Jane, and received her ready answer.

  Occasionally also, we had an opportunity to question Tako. He had begun tell us the general outline of his plans. The important fact was that the army would mobilize just within visibility of New York.

  "Nothing can touch us then," Tako said. "You will have to explain what weapons will be used against me. Particularly the long-range weapons are interesting. But you have no weapons which could penetrate into the shadows of the borderland, have you?"

  "No," said Don. "But your weapons--" He tried not to seem too intent. "Look here, Tako, I don't just understand how you intend to conquer New York."

  "Devastate it," Tako interrupted. "Smash it up, and then we can materialize and take possession of it. My object is to capture a great number of young women--beautiful young women."

  "How?" I demanded. "By smashing up New York? There are thousands of young women there, but you would kill them in the process. Now if you would try some other locality. For instance, I could direct you to open country--"

  * * * * *

  He understood my motive. "I ask not that kind of advice. I will capture New York; devastate it. I think then your rulers will be willing voluntarily to yield all the captives I demand. Or, if not, then we will plan to seize them out of other localities."

  Don said, "Suppose you tell us more clearly just how you expect to smash New York, as you call it. First, you will gather, not materialized, but only visible to the city."

  "Exactly. That will cause much excitement, will it not? Panics--terror. And if we are only wraiths, no weapons of your world can attack us."

  "Nor can yours attack the city. Can they?"

  He did not at first answer that; and then he smiled. "Our hand light-projectors could not penetrate out from the borderland without losing their force. But we have bombs. You shall see. The bombs alone will devastate New York, if we choose to use them. I have also a long-range projector of the green light-beam. It is my idea, when the city is abandoned by the enemy that we can take possession of some prominent point of vantage. A tall building, perhaps." He smiled again his quiet grim smile. "We will select one and be careful to leave it standing. I will materialize with our giant projector, dominate all the region and then we can barter with your authorities. It is your long-range guns I most fear. When the projector is materialized--and we are ready to bargain--then your airplanes, warships lying far away perhaps, might attack. Suppose now you explain those weapons to me."

  Materialization bombs, we afterward called them; they played a diabolical part in the coming events. They were of many sizes and shapes, but most of them were small in size and shape, like a foot-long wedged-shaped brick, or the head of an ax. They were constructed of organic material, with a wire mesh of the transition mechanism encasing them, and an automatic operating device like the firing fuse of a bomb.

  * * * * *

  For an hour or more he questioned us. He was no fool, this fellow; he knew far more of the conditions ahead of him than we realized. I recall that once I said:

  "You have never been in New York?"

  "No. Not materialized. But I have observed it very carefully."

  As a lurking ghost!

  "We have calculated," he went on, "the space co-ordinates with great precision. That is how we have been able to select the destination for this carrier now. You cannot travel upon impulse by this method. Our engineers, as you might call them, must go in advance with recording apparatus. Nothing can be done blindly."

  It brought to my mind the three pilots now operating our vehicle. I mentioned the lens on their left eyes like a monocle.

  "With that they can see ahead of us a great distance. It flings the vision--like gazing along a beam of light--to space-time factors in advance of our present position. In effect, a telescope."

  * * * * *

  There were a few hours of the journey when Don and I slept, exhausted by what we had been through. Tako was with us when we dozed off, and I recall that he was there when we awakened. How much time passed we could not tell.

  "You are refreshed?" he said smilingly. "And hungry again, no doubt. We will eat and drink--and soon we will arrive at the predestined time
and place."

  We were indeed hungry again. And while we were eating Tako gestured to the window. "Look there. Your world seems visible a little."

  Just before we slept it had seemed that mingled with the shadows of Tako's world was the gray outline of an ocean surface beneath us. I gazed out at the dim void now. Our flight was far slower than before. We were slackening speed for the coming halt. And I saw now that the shadows outside were the mingled wraiths of two spectral worlds, with us drifting forward between and among them. The terrain of Tako's world was bleaker, more desolate and more steeply mountainous than ever. There were pits and ravines and gullies with jagged mountain spires, cliffs and towering gray masses of rock.

  And mingled with it, in a general way coincidental with it in the plane of the same space, we could see now the tenuous shapes of our own world. Vague, but familiar outlines! We had passed Sandy Hook! The ocean lay behind us. A hundred feet or so beneath us was the level water of the Lower Bay.

  "Don!" I murmured. "Look there! Long Island off there! And that's Staten Island ahead of us!"

  "Almost at our destination," Tako observed. And in a moment he gestured again. "There is your city. Have a good look at your dear New York."

  * * * * *

  Diagonally ahead through the window we saw the spectres of the great pile of masonry on lower and mid-Manhattan. Spectres of the giant buildings; the familiar skyline, and mingled with it the ghostly gray outlines of the mountains and valley depths of Tako's world. All intermingled! The mountain peaks rose far higher than the tallest of New York's skyscrapers; and the pits and ravines were lower than the waters of the harbor and rivers, lower than the subways and the tubes and the tunnels.

  "Another carrier!" Don said abruptly. "See it off there!"

  It showed like a great gray projectile coming in level with us. And then we saw two others in the distance behind us. Fantastic, ghostly arrival of the enemy! Weird mobilization here within the space of the doomed New York.

  "Can they see us?" I murmured. "Tako, the people down there on Staten Island--can they see us?"

  "Yes," he smiled. "Don't you think so? Look! Are not those ships of war? Hah! Gathered already--awaiting our coming!"

  I have already given a brief summary of the events of the days and nights just past here in New York. The terror at the influx of apparitions. The panic of the city's teeming millions struggling too eagerly to escape.

  It was night now--the night of May 19th. The city was in chaos, but none of the details were apparent to us as we arrived. But we could see, as we drifted with slow motion above the waters of the harbor, that there were warships anchored here, and in the Hudson River. They showed as little spectral dots of gray. And in the air, level with us at times, the wraiths of encircling airplanes were visible.

  "They see us," Tako repeated.

  They did indeed. A puff of light and up-rolling smoke came from one of the ships. A silent shot. Perhaps it screamed through us, but we were not aware of it.

  Tako chuckled. "They get excited, do they not? We strike terror--are they going to fight like excited children?"

  * * * * *

  We were under sudden bombardment. Fort Wadsworth was firing; puffs showed from several of the warships; and abruptly a group of ghostly monoplanes dove at us like birds. They went through us, emerged and sped away. And in a moment the shots were discontinued.

  "That is better," said Tako. "What a waste of ammunition."

  Our direction was carrying us from mid-Manhattan. The bridges to Brooklyn were visible. Beyond them, over New York, mingled with teeming buildings was a mountain slope of Tako's realm. I saw one of our carriers lying on a ledge of it.

  A sudden commotion in our car brought our attention from the scene outside. The voices of girls raised in anger. Tolla's voice and Jane's! Then came the sound of a scuffle!

  "By what gods!" Tako exclaimed.

  We all leaped to our feet. Tako rushed for the door of the compartment with us after him. We burst in upon the girls. They were standing in the center of the little room. One of the chairs was overturned. Jane stood gripping Tolla by the wrists, and with greater strength was forcibly holding her.

  As we appeared, Jane abruptly released her, and Tolla sank to the floor and burst into wild sobs. Jane faced us, red and white of face, and herself almost in tears.

  "What's the matter?" Don demanded. "What is it?"

  But against all our questionings both girls held to a stubborn silence.

  CHAPTER IX

  A Woman Scorned

  Jane afterward told us just what happened in that compartment of the carrier, and I think that for the continuity of my narration I had best relate it now.

  The cubby room was small, not much over six feet wide, and twelve feet long. There was a single small door to the corridor, and two small windows. A couch stood by them; there were two low chairs, and a small bench-like table.

  Tolla made Jane as comfortable as possible. Food was at hand; Tolla, after an hour or two served it at the little table, eating the meal with Jane, and sitting with her on the couch where they could gaze through the windows.

  To Jane this girl of another world was at once interesting, surprising and baffling. Jane could only look upon her as an enemy. In Jane's mind there was no thought save that we must escape, and frustrate Tako's attack upon New York; and she was impulsive, youthful enough to think something might be contrived.

  At all events, she saw Tolla in the light of an enemy who might be tricked into giving information.

  Jane admits that her ideas were quite as vague as our own when it came to planning anything definite.

  She at first studied Tolla, who seemed as young as herself and perhaps in her own world, was as beautiful. And within an hour or two she was surprised at Tolla's friendliness. They had dined together, gazed through the windows at the speeding shadows of the strange world sliding past; they had dozed together on the couch. During all this they could have been schoolgirl friends. Not captor and captive upon these strange weird circumstances of actuality, but friends of one world. And in outward aspect Tolla could fairly well have been a cultured girl of our Orient.

  * * * * *

  Then Jane got a shock. She tried careful questions. And Tolla skillfully avoided everything that touched in any way upon Tako's future plans. Yet her apparent friendliness, and a certain girlish volubility continued.

  And then, at one point, Tolla asked:

  "Are you beautiful in Bermuda?"

  "Why, yes," said Jane. "I guess so."

  "I am beautiful in my world. Tako has said so."

  "You love him, don't you?" Jane said abruptly.

  "Yes. That is true." There was no hint of embarrassment. Her pale blue eyes stared at Jane, and she smiled a little quizzically. "Does it show so quickly upon my face that you saw it at once? I am called Tolla because I am pledged soon to enter Tako's harem."

  Upon impulse Jane put her arm around the other girl as they sat on the couch. "I think he is very nice."

  But she saw it was an error. The shadow of a frown came upon Tolla's face; a glint of fire clouded her pale, serene eyes.

  "He will be the greatest man of his world," she said quietly.

  * * * * *

  There was an awkward silence. "The harem, I am told," Jane said presently, "is one of your customs." She took a plunge. "And Tako told us why they want our Earth girls. There was one of my friends stolen from Bermuda--"

  "And yet you call him very nice," Tolla interrupted with sudden irony. "Girls are frank in our world. But you are not. What did you mean by that?"

  "I was trying to be friendly," said Jane calmly. "You had just said you loved him."

  "But you do not love him?"

  It took Jane wholly back. "Good Heavens, no!"

  "But he--might readily love you?"

  "I hope not!" Jane tried to laugh, but the idea itself was so frightening to her that the laugh sounded hollow. She gathered her wits. This girl was jealous. Could s
he play upon that jealousy? Would Tolla perhaps soon want her to escape? The idea grew. Tolla might even some time soon come to the point of helping her escape.

  Jane said carefully, "I suppose I was captured with the idea of going into someone's harem. Was that the idea?"

  "I am no judge of men's motives," said Tolla curtly.

  "Tako said as much as that," Jane persisted. "But not necessarily into his harem. But if it should be his, why would you care? Your men divide their love--"

  "I would care because Tako may give up his harem," Tolla interrupted vehemently. "He goes into this conquest for power--for wealth--because soon he expects to rule all our world and band it together into a nation. He has always told me that I might be his only wife--some day--"

  * * * * *

  She checked herself abruptly and fell into a stolid silence. It made Jane realize that under the lash of emotion Tolla would talk freely. But Jane could create no further opportunity then, for Tako suddenly appeared at their door. The girls had been together now some hours. Don and I were at this time asleep.

  He stood now at the girl's door. "Tolla, will you go outside a moment? I want to talk to this prisoner alone." And, interpreting the look which both girls flung at him, he added, "The door remains open. If she wants you back, Tolla, she will call."

  Without a word Tolla left the compartment. But Jane saw on her face again a flood of jealousy.

  Tako seated himself amiably. "She has made you comfortable?"

  "Yes."

  "I am glad."

  He passed a moment of silence. "Have you been interested in the scene outside the window?" he added.