Slaves of Ijax

by John Russell Fearn

  Peter was silent for a moment, then, “You once said that nothing would make the people see reason except the failure of Ijax to speak to them.... The influence over them would wane if not kept up at four weekly intervals. Like a drug. If only we could postpone Earth’s doom again and make it so Shaw never communicates again, we’d stand a fighting chance!”

  Lanning and Alza were silent. Peter’s gaze moved about the huge cavern and finally settled upon a massive metal door that had been inset in the rocks at the far end of the place.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Peter?” Alza murmured. “Shaw said he had a space machine in that cavern, open to the sky through a volcanic shaft. If only we could get at it—!”

  “I don’t see why we can’t do it,” Peter breathed. “You don’t lack for nerve when it comes to making a fight for it, and Lanning and I aren’t exactly weaklings. I vote we wait until one or the other of those three go to sleep, and then we’ll spring something. Use bare fists if need be: I’m more used to them than scientific weapons.”

  Lanning and the girl nodded and then relaxed, commenced after a while to feign sleep—but at length there was no need to feign it for they were more tired than they had believed and fell asleep. Peter found he must have done likewise, for he awoke with a sudden start. He did not move immediately but lay looking across the cavern.

  Anton Shaw was apparently asleep on a collapsible bed and his two cohorts were sitting at the table, talking, their energy-guns lying close to their elbows.

  Gently Peter nudged Alza into wakefulness, and she in turn awakened Lanning.

  “It’s worth a try,” Peter whispered. “They won’t think we have any particular reason for trying to escape, so that should help us. I’ll see if I can start. things off....”

  He got to his feet leisurely, stretching hit arms, strolled as near normally possible across the cavern against the lesser gravity until he came to the magnetized plates in the central area. The two broad-shouldered scientists at the table watched him but said nothing. Peter ignored them and went across to an apparently idle survey of the instruments against the wall. By degrees he drifted to the switch-panel, which—with the radio—had impressed him on his earlier inspection.

  It was the heavy knife-switch marked ‘Magnetism’ which he found so absorbing now. The relationship between magnetism and the gravity-plates in the centre of the cavern floor seemed too obvious to miss. He looked at the switch, noticed the cables from it went downwards until they buried themselves in the rock at his feet—then he slanted an eye at the two scientists. They were watching him narrowly. Anton Shaw seemed to be fast asleep.

  Peter acted with sudden and characteristic abruptness. His hand shot out and tore the switch out of the blades. A split second later he swung round and dived, arms outflung. The Moon had only a sixth of Earth gravity— He remembered that, and the jump he made lifted him well clear of the floor. His outflung arms caught both scientists at the backs of their necks as they jumped to their feet. They were spun backwards helplessly before they could even reach for their guns or properly balance themselves.

  In flying leaps Alza and Lanning came speeding across the cavern, just as though they had springs in their shoes. Lanning dived for one of the guns and Alza for the other.... Peter landed on his feet, swayed round, lashed up an uppercut just as the scientist nearest to him, snatched up his gun a second ahead of the girl.

  The lower gravity and the terrific force he put behind the punch gave Peter the satisfaction of seeing the scientist go sailing up towards the roof, his head snapped back on an obviously broken neck. Lurching from the reaction of the punch, Peter overbalanced— Alza crouched and fired point-blank, tearing a gaping hole in the chest of the already dead scientist as he fell back towards the floor—

  “Take it easy!” snapped the voice of Anton Shaw, and Alza unwittingly moved just in time to escape a sizzling jet of energy close by her head.

  Peter, getting up from the floor on all fours, hesitated. In front of him was the remaining scientist, gun in hand, which he had wrested from Lanning. Behind the scientist was Shaw, sitting up in the bed with twin guns in his hands. Peter registered it all in a split second—then he hurtled himself forward in a flying tackle, and trusted to luck.

  Over went the big scientist who stood in front of him. Unable to save himself he crashed backwards straight across the sitting figure of Shaw. Peter, too, helpless against the absurd gravity, landed on top of both men—and stopped there, his fists rising and falling with killing power. First left, then right, pounding the heads of both men mercilessly.

  Shaw fired wildly and the jet of energy missed—then Lanning had whipped both guns away from him. But the remaining scientist who had floundered across his chief still held on to his gun.

  Peter saw the weapon move below him, directed at him awkwardly. He aimed a frantic, smashing blow at the man’s thick neck, knocking him spinning sideways just as the gun went off. Jerked from its objective the javelin of energy struck Shaw clean in the face just as he sought to rise again. Instantly he fell dead, his entire head a charred cinder.

  Peter stared at the horrible sight for a second, then turned back to the remaining man. Lanning and the girl had both dived at him and dragged him to the floor. He was powerful, immensely so, and his gun was still firmly gripped. He turned it, fired it, and missed. Then Peter saw it sneaking round so that the muzzle was pointed straight between Alza’s shoulder blades, as she strove with Lanning to pin the man to the floor.

  Peter dived, knocking the girl away across the cavern. He landed on top of her, carried by the impetus of his leap. For a second or two they floundered together—Lanning straightened, made to seize the gun, but just missed it. The energy struck him right through the heart.

  Dazed, Peter and the girl watched Lanning drop without a sound to lie motionless. With a savage heave the massive scientist lying beneath Lanning struggled free of the imprisoning body and got to his feet.

  “He’s—he’s dead,” Alza whispered, staring. “Peter, Lanning’s dead—”

  “Yes, dead!” snapped the one remaining scientist. “Just as you’ll be before long! Get on your feet, both of you!”

  Peter helped the girl up. All she seemed able to do was stare dumbly al the silent figure of Lanning. It puzzled Peter. He could understand the girl being shocked, but she had never had any particular feelings of love for Lanning.

  Slowly, as though uncertain of what she was doing, she went to the chair by the table and gripped it to support herself. Then with her other hand she pressed against her eyes.

  Satisfied that her grief was genuine, the scientist looked back at Peter menacingly—and a second later the chair by which Alza had been standing crashed down with stunning force across his head and shoulders. Half senseless from the impact, he dropped his gun and saw the now stone-faced girl coming at him viciously. Her grief had suddenly changed into the ferocity of a tigress.

  With all the power of her strong young arms she slammed the chair into the man’s face, across his head, knocking him to the floor with blood streaming from minor cuts and gashes. Then she flung the chair away, snatched up the gun he had dropped and fired it—once, twice, three times.... The man dropped, burning holes gaping in his body.

  Alza dropped the gun nervelessly, and swayed. Immediately Peter had an arm about her quivering shoulders.

  “Nice going, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I always said you were no milk and roses girl....”

  She smiled tremulously. “I—I had to do it, Peter! He’d have killed you otherwise. I—I pretended to be sorry about Mr. Lanning, In fact I really am, only— I mean don’t think of me as—as a killer, will you?”

  Peter smiled and kissed her suddenly on her full mouth.

  “That’s what I think of you,” he murmured—then he brisked up again. “But we’d better get out of this charnel house....” He dived for the spacesuits hanging on the wall. “Here, get into this. Everything rests with us now.”

&nb
sp; They clambered into the spacesuits, screwed on each other’s helmet, then went across to the door leading into the second cavern and attacked it with energy guns. After some seconds the locks melted and they pulled the door forward on its rock-imbedded hinges.

  The gush of air from the cavern and up the volcanic shaft knocked them spinning. When they had picked themselves up they saw in the reflected light from the main cavern that Anton Shaw had not been lying. A small spaceship was there, its nose tilted so as to face exactly the narrow shaft that led to the surface, and in which was a vignette of jet-black outer space.

  “In you get,” Peter said, helping the girl through the airlock; then when they were seated at the control board with the airlock shut, he felt around for a lighting switch. Illumination came on suddenly from storage batteries and revealed a small driving cabin and control panel that was definitely complex.

  “Better keep our suits on,” Peter advised, pressing his helmet against the girl’s so that his voice carried to her faintly. “I don’t know where the air supply is in this thing. And it’s going to be no easy job trying to fly it either.”

  “Shaw said atomic-powered,” Alza answered. “That shouldn’t be too difficult. I understand modern fliers, remember. They can be entirely flown by the vessel’s electronic brain, on automatic pilot. This one will already be preset for the Earth, so all I need do is to activate it.... Quickly, get into that left-hand control chair and strap in,” she directed, settling into the chair alongside.

  She looked the board over, then: “Press that!” she suggested. Peter moved the switch indicated by her gloved hand. Instantly there was a droning from a power plant somewhere in the back of the machine. The vessel quivered, then with alarming suddenness it leapt upwards.

  Peter stared in fascinated horror in front of him as that circle of space became wider and wider and the walls of the volcanic shaft skimmed past as it seemed within inches. Every second he expected disastrous collision—but evidently the machine had been set dead true for it soared out over the lunar surface a few seconds afterwards, travelling upwards into the void.

  Peter waved his hands jubilantly at the girl in the sunshine and she nodded and smiled behind her helmet glass. Then after a while as their velocity continued they glanced back. Quickly she put her helmet in contact with his.

  “The Moon’s on the wax again, just past her first quarter!”

  Glancing back Peter saw what she meant. The Moon was definitely beyond the half stage and becoming gibbous. The need for speed became the dominating factor. After some exploratory work Alza found the accelerating control and they began to streak through space with such mounting velocity that they were pinned back breathless and leaden in their chairs.

  So by alternating terrific acceleration with fixed velocity—during which period they recovered themselves—they made the leap across the gulf, taking in all six hours, if the control panel chronometer was to be relied upon.

  They were on the dayside of Earth when they first contacted the atmosphere. Instantly the electronic brain that was controlling the vessel began firing the atomic power underjets, and unerringly charted a safe course at such an angle that they avoided being burned up like a meteor. As they reached a safe level, Alza took over on manual control and her aviating skill eventually—after flying nearly halfway round to world to reach England—resulted in them landing with only a jarring bump in rough country not more than five miles outside Metropolita itself.

  “That’s that!” Peter whistled thankfully, looking out into the sunlight. “We’ll walk the rest of the distance—and once in Metropolita we’ve got to act fast. Tonight will see that moondust energized if we don’t get it covered, or something.... Let’s get rid of these infernal suits and get on our way....”

  It was noon when they reached Metropolita, and in fact they had hardly entered the city’s environs before a passing Government officer reeognized them both. The expression on his face was almost comic for a moment; then his service gun was out and both of them were taken promptly to headquarters From here, at Peter’s insistent request, they were removed to the private office of President Valroy,

  He was a man well schooled m handling his emotions but even he showed signs of amazement at beholding before him two of the people he had himself seen fired into space.

  “First,” Peter said in a grim voice, “let me get one thing straight, Mr. President. The dictate of the law was carried out and therefore it has no claim any more over Miss Holmes or me, has it?”

  “None,” the President admitted, puzzling. “But how did you get back? Where’s Mark Lanning?”

  “Dead,” Peter answered briefly. “He was killed during our fight to overthrow Anton Shaw, the force behind Ijax. You may remember I told you at the trial that Shaw was probably behind Ijax?”

  “Where’s your proof?” Valroy demanded.

  “Listen to me,” Peter said. “Lanning told you that the Grand Tower is the flashpoint for the destruction of the world—and it is. Tonight! The moondust has got to be covered!”

  In detail he went into the whole story, explaining how space was not the death trap Shaw had made it out to be.

  “Yes, I understand all that now,” the President said slowly. “And for myself. Mr. Curzon. I believe you—but you will never convince the mass of the people that Ijax is a myth.”

  “Only one thing can do that,” Peter answered. “Disillusionment, and the failure to receive the hypnotic orders which keep them going. This failure will permit normal will slowly to reassert itself. Ijax should speak on September Twenty-Eighth—full Moon. But he won’t! Became Shaw is dead and there isn’t a living soul in or on the Moon. The failure of Ijax to speak should convince the people.... But what matters to us is to get that cover back over the moondust. Tonight is the Twenty-Sixth, the night of consummation of the Task. We must cover the moondust if the atomic explosive isn’t to be fired!”

  “The cover,” Valroy said slowly, “has been destroyed! After you had been fired into space the workers went to the Tower top, removed the cover, and in an excess of jubilation smelted it down—just in case anybody had similar ideas to yours.”

  Peter jumped up from his chair in dismay.

  “But—but it’s the only thing that will save us! It’s specially made! The only other alternative is to shift the moondust itself, and there’s such a vast quantity of it we’d never do it in time!”

  “Even if we could get anybody to help us, which I doubt,” Valroy answered grimly. “I’m only supporting you, Mr. Curzon, because your story seems to ring true—and until midnight on the Twenty-Eighth I’m prepared to stand by you. If Ijax does not speak then you have obviously told the truth. But if he does, the moondust will be exposed as he ordered....”

  He got actively to his feet.

  “Only the militia will help us,” he said briefly, “and then only became I shall order it. They will have to keep the mass of the people at bay while we fit a makeshift cover. I’ll instruct the engineers to get a fresh cover made as fast as possible, and we’ll have to trust to luck that they will obey orders. In the meantime I think your best course will be to resume your former position as figurehead and tell to the people, by radio and television the same story you have told me. They may see reason and help.”

  “Right,” Peter assented promptly. “And how soon will this makeshift cover be ready?”

  “By this evening at the latest. I’ll visiphone you the moment I know.”

  Peter caught Alza’s arm as she rose. “Come on, Alza, back to the old suite. Looks as though I’m going to take charge of this situation whether I like it or not....”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TRIUMPH

  After a rest, a change of attire, and a meal both Peter and the girl felt in better spirits. Somehow, with the familiar suite around them again and their former status automatically re-accorded to them they felt they had a fighting chance. Peter in particular realized as never before that without the guiding hand of Lanning
the whole thing rested on his shoulders. He could not make up his mind whether the prospect pleased or appalled him, but either way he had got to go through with it.

  Typically, he decided against a radio and TV appeal to the people and instead called for a mass-meeting in the city’s large park for three o’clock. Here, on a hastily erected dais before a microphone, with Alza seated just behind him, he spoke with an oratory begotten of genuine desperation. He made a clean breast of everything to the packed thousands of men and women who listened attentively.

  “You are men and women who believe in justice,” he declared at last. “Unknowingly you have been, and still are, under the spell of Ijax. I have told you that Anton Shaw was Ijax and that he will never speak again. Let the cover be placed on the Tower top without interference, and if Ijax does not speak two nights hence in the usual way then you know I have told you the truth. If he does speak, you can remove the cover and do all that he has ordered. At least I beg of you to accept the proposition in good faith. In no other way can you save yourselves and the world from destruction....”

  Peter waited, breathing hard, watching anxiously. The final words had been the close of an hour’s solid| hard talking. The packed thousands turned and murmured among themselves, then at last one of them, evidently appointed as a spokesman, stood forward.

  “Very well, Excellence, we’ll keep our part of the bargain until midnight two nights hence. But we will take no part in helping you to ruin—as we believe—the consummation of the Task; but neither will we interfere. If Ijax fails us then he is self exposed as a sham and the reward he promised us—power without end from the cosmos for all of us to use and enjoy—must also be nothing but a trap.... If, on the other hand, Ijax speaks again, we reserve the right to act as we see fit.”

  “Done!” Peter acknowledged thankfully, then he turned aside to the robots, waiting at the base of the platform. As he settled in the arm of one of them and Alza in the companion he said slowly, “So that’s what they thought they were going to get! Power out of the cosmos!”