The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack

by John Russell Fearn

But the light was flooding forth now, silhouetting a single slender figure in a fur coat, standing at the door with arm upraised. It was Lucy, all right, holding something aloft.

  “Take it easy, Fowley!” Inspector Davison shouted as I blundered forward. “This wife of yours has got an explosive in her hand. She threatens to blow up this whole damned laboratory, and the river with it, if we go into this hiding place!”

  “I mean it too, Curt!” Lucy shouted, as I came into the fan of light. “You’ve gone quite far enough!”

  “Why the devil didn’t you catch her as she came up here?” I demanded.

  “Couldn’t. She came from inside the laboratory—”

  “From inside…!” I stopped, comprehension flashing into my brain.

  I swung and vanished in the fog so suddenly that Lucy hardly had time to notice it. Like a madman I floundered up the bank and back again to the mausoleum. Of course! Of course! If she had come from inside the laboratory, there must be a secret way into it—through the mausoleum! Because the footprints outside the tomb were still fresh! And though they went in, they did not come out!

  Lucy’s brandishing that explosive—if it was an explosive—was a stall, a stall while Dr. Coratti— Now I saw it! And I proved it a second later, as I heard the clump of running feet in the mud from the direction of the mausoleum.

  At the same moment, I heard the leathery beating of wings in the mist and the shrill unearthly cries of the Selenite monsters, which had obviously been at hand somewhere. Evidently they worked by instinct, for their sense of direction was unerring. Their cries, the mist, the running figure, now blended into some eerie nightmare chase—

  “Dr. Coratti!” I yelled. “Doctor, the game is up!”

  Coratti never had a chance to answer, for at that moment two of the unearthly birds swept into view like projectiles. I threw myself flat—and they missed me! They hurtled straight on and slammed the running, slender figure to the ground. Again and again they dived, while I went sick with horror. Then off they rushed into the mist, screaming their weird triumph.

  Feet were pounding behind me in the fog now. I went blundering forward again, reached the fallen figure and turned it over. It was Dr. Coratti, all right, horribly mangled—dead. I was holding his lifeless pulse when Lucy and Inspector Davison came up in the gloom.

  “She followed you—and we followed, her,” he said briefly. Then my wife pushed him aside and threw herself regardless in the mud at her dead father’s side.

  “Dad!” she screamed hysterically. “Dad… Oh, God! They got him after all. Those Selenites—Oh why, why, why? Dad—Dad!”

  At last I dragged up her shuddering form by main strength. She buried her head on my shoulder and gave bitter convulsive sobs.

  “Lucy—Lucy!” I cried. “Take a grip on yourself, child. Something like this was bound to happen.”

  It was minutes before she could get some coherence into her words, some calmness into her manner.

  “I thought Corattí was supposed to have died long ago,” Davison was saying. “How come he was running around—until now? Of course, he was the man we wanted?” he asked, glancing questioningly at me.

  Lucy herself answered. “Yes…yes, he was the man—the scientist who was clever enough to defeat the best brains in the country. It took you, Curt, to break things up. You see what’s happened—and I hope you’re satisfied!” she said bitterly.

  I said quietly, “Lucy, if a man insists on playing with fire, he’s going to get burned.”

  “Dr. Coratti stole industrial secrets, and that’s a crime,” Davison interrupted bluntly. “And it looks as though you helped him. That makes you an accessory.”

  Lucy said slowly, “I know that… But it did not seem wrong, the way father did it. His idea was to sell different industrial secrets to different firms at high prices—firms who can well afford it. Each firm had in the past refused to give him money to perfect his inventions. Check up and you will find each firm from which he stole secrets is one that refused him aid at some time or other…

  “The lunar venture took practically the last of his money—he had been wealthy before, you know—and he had to have funds to further his work. So he used the moon-weeds to make him simulate death.”

  “How?” the inspector demanded.

  “He used the weeds’ sap to make a drug. He knew what it could do. After many injections—which made him especially irritable and nervous—he found he could control his heartbeat and respiration sufficiently to simulate death. He put himself into a cataleptic trance.

  “Father had it all planned,” Lucy went on. “He knew he’d be put in the sarcophagus in the mausoleum—but the sarcophagus, built right into the floor, had a spring bottom which led to the underground laboratory he’d prepared. Matter of fact, he constructed that opening long ago against such a chance as this; when he found what the moon-weeds could do, he acted.

  “He thought his plan the best way to avoid the Selenites, which were after him for his probing of their secrets. He thought his scheme the best way to avoid the criminals who were trying to steal his secrets…”

  “And you knew this all the time?” I asked her slowly.

  “No! No, Curt, I didn’t!” Lucy’s voice was earnest. “That night when I went along the towpath, I also went to the mausoleum here for a last look at father’s tomb. But I heard noises in his sarcophagus. I found the tunnel opening at the bottom and went through it to the underground laboratory.

  “Father told me everything, warned me to watch for Selenites which might strike at me. I felt it was my duty to be loyal to him, as his daughter. I believed he did the right thing: those tight-fisted industrialists deserved all they got. That was why I was away from the house so long.

  “When Beryl was to be brought here, I kept you away, Curt; because I thought that when you saw the yellow mud here, you might put two and two together…”

  “What happened tonight?” demanded Inspector Davison.

  “Oh, that. I left the house in the fog and kept near the main road listening for your return. I knew that conference was a fake—it was so obvious, and I wanted to keep Dad warned if you were about. I went to the secret lab via the mausoleum, of course. But I had no explosive in my hand. That was a gag—but Curt jumped to the truth. Dad didn’t escape…the Selenites got him first,” Lucy finished bitterly.

  “And Beryl?” I asked slowly.

  “I can only assume she found out the double secret of the Selenite ants and the method of inducing a trance by injection of the moon-weed extract. Beryl must have come across these secret papers in Dad’s laboratory safe—the one in the hangar. The data on the moon-weeds undoubtedly gave their exact location on the moon, also.

  “The criminals—a tough bunch of gangsters looking for easy pickings—were anxious to get hold of Beryl or me after Dad’s supposed death. From newspaper accounts, they judged that he had discovered something very valuable on the moon; just what, he of course never admitted openly.”

  Lucy clenched her fists. “Well, when I discovered Dad in the secret lab after his ‘death’ he said Beryl found the double secret in the safe. The gangsters killed Beryl—in order to keep the information to themselves—and then stole the rocket ship for the trip to the moon.”

  I interrupted, “But why?”

  “Because,” Lucy explained, “they thought that if father placed so much value on these moon-weeds, there must be something to them. With such a drug in their hands, there’s no telling to what ends the gangsters would have gone.”

  That made sense. “Guess they learned how to operate the rocket ship from your father’s articles in scientific magazines,” I mused. “They knew it was right out here, waiting for them in the hangar.”

  Inspector Davison stroked his chin. “It’s still not quite clear in my mind why Dr. Coratti got himself into that trance. Didn’t your wife say something about that a while back Fowley?”

  “Yes. But I can understand how you would be confused. Well, Inspector, Dr.
Coratti had two obsessions. He knew the Selenites would be coming after him, and he was afraid that criminals would steal his discovery. Unfortunately, he was right on both counts.

  “So he thought he could get rid of both sets of enemies by pretending to die,” I explained.

  Lucy’s eyes were tragic. “The Selenites must be a very jealous species of—of monsters. They wouldn’t tolerate anyone’s use of their precious moon-weed. Well, they ought to be satisfied now. Beryl murdered, Dad mutilated”—she shuddered—“and they were after me, too. And now…”

  “They fly through space, then?” I put in quickly.

  “Father said they exist in the thin air inside the moon, but they can fly in the void with equal ease. Something to do with radiations.”

  “We still do not know how these damned little ants read secrets!” Davison broke in.

  Lucy gave a bitter smile. “It was a masterly idea, Selenite in origin. Selenites are identical to earthly ants on a big scale, and ants have a reasoning brain; therefore, they are capable of being hypnotized. On the moon, Dad learned a secret whereby hypnotic commands can be electrically enforced—in fact, Selenites rule each other that way.

  “On Earth here he duplicated the system and found it possible to order earthly ants anywhere he wanted. When they returned to the laboratory here, he killed them with gas, removed their eyes, and used the eyes as transparent slides in a projector.

  “Ultra-violet light shining through these ‘slides’ reproduced on a screen whatever the ants had seen at their destination. The previous hypnotic commands had made them keep their eyes closed going to and coming from their objective; they opened them only at the place where they had been forced to go.

  “Therefore,” Lucy explained, “only the things seen at the destination were imprinted on their retinas. With several ants doing this, Dad was really the owner of an inexhaustible supply of living, minute cameras.”

  “I’ve got to hand it to him—that was brilliant,” the inspector said, shaking his head a little ruefully.

  “Then on the night your father attacked us on the grounds, Lucy, he was digging for ants,” I said. “I guessed as much.”

  “Right,” Lucy nodded. “He’d run out of ‘supplies’ and remember there was a good anthill on the estate. He took the risk, armed with a paralyzing gun. There were paralyzing guns in the rocket ship too, which the crooks must have found how to use. That explains how they had them.”

  “How do the things work?” Davison wanted to know.

  “The gun ejects a spray which, when inhaled, clogs the brain-centers indefinitely and halts physical and mental action,” Lucy told him. “That was Dad’s own invention—one of many… And whatever you think, Curt, I did take sleeping tablets that night noting more.”

  “I believe you now,” I smiled. “But there’s one thing more—why did you blow up the hangar with its laboratory? What would I have found on the moon, that you were so anxious to stop me?”

  “I told you the truth when I said I didn’t want you to venture out into space. It would have meant your death—if the Selenites hadn’t gotten you first… Believe me, Curt, that’s the truth.”

  “And those Selenites may still try to get at you,” I breathed.

  “Perhaps… Unless, having got father—to them, the original thief—they are satisfied…”

  “Anyway,” said Inspector Davison, “you’d better come along with me to Headquarters and make a statement, Mrs. Fowley. You too, sir,” he added. “Got to have a record, you know!”

  * * * *

  Lucy made her statement all right. But of course the law had one or two things to say, for she had been an accessory to a crime against the state. As an attorney, however, not wanting to be active in my own case, I secured the services of the best legal brains available. Lucy was duly tried and convicted, but with a strong recommendation of mercy by the jury, which is what we had been fighting for.

  As I have already said, Lucy is a beautiful woman in any man’s eyes. The judge whom she faced was no exception. He let her off with a suspended sentence.

  After the trial, I sent her to the Berkshires to visit an old friend of mine and his wife. I wanted her to get away from everything, to become herself again.

  In the meantime, I am clearing up the affairs of the dead Dr. Coratti, and preparing an audit of his scientific inventions, so that they will become Lucy’s property when Coratti’s will is probated.

  It will not be long now before Lucy is back home again, in our snug little New York apartment. I will have good news for her when she arrives. Last night I drove out to the Coratti estate to arrange matters with the Butsons. As I came into the grounds there was a whir of wings overhead.

  I looked up and sighted a flock of pterodactyls, heading for the full moon.

  SUPERHUMAN

  He was a giant among me, not only in stature but in brain power…and he planned to usher in a new era.

  CHAPTER I

  The Secret Experiment

  Doctor Adison Boyd was recognisable to the outer world as a model husband, a consistent example of sobriety, tenderness and good spirits. Indeed, he had only two faults: one that he was a scientist, and the other that he was very dissatisfied with the world in which he lived.

  His wife, Ena, tolerated his calcu­lated, disapproving comments upon the world at large with due wifely detach­ment, until one day he burst upon her the most shattering bombshell of her young life.

  “Ena, Teddy is two months old, isn’t he?” he demanded, almost fiercely.

  She nodded, and cast a fond glance at the infant lying in the armchair oppo­site her own.

  “Yes, Ad. Why?”

  “I’ve been doing some hard thinking. Frankly, I believe he can save man­kind!”

  “Save mankind! Whatever is the matter with you, Ad? He can’t even talk yet; besides—”

  Ena stopped. Her husband was pacing the drawing room with method­ical steps, driving his right fist into his left palm with rhythmic precision.

  “I’ve got it, I’ve got it!” he re­iterated persistently. “I know I’ve got it! Listen, Ena…” He went down unceremoniously on his knees beside her chair and took her hand tightly.

  “I want you to listen carefully,” he said, gravely. “I am a scientist, my main line being biology and pathology—you know that. For years, ever since I was eleven years old, I have struggled persistently to find a way to help humanity grow out of its appalling, humdrum littleness…this—barren­ness! Expand its knowledge! And in our son lies the solution… Tell me, my dear, what do you know of the pituitary glands?”

  “Pituitary glands?” she repeated, startled.

  “I’ll explain to you; it is imperative that you know what I’m talking about. The two pituitary glands in the neck control growth; the thyroid gland keeps us firm and supple of body; the para­thyroid gland controls the blood­stream’s lime supply; and the two supra-renal glands give strength and energy. These glands are the founda­tion of a powerful and well-developed body. You see?”

  Ena nodded, but her face was still puzzled.

  “Well, I propose to treat our son’s various controlling glands in such a manner—with a compound having cal­cium as its base—that he will ulti­mately grow to a gigantic proportion among men. A creature of as yet un­determinable height, possessed of col­ossal strength, unshatterable endur­ance, and a super-mind. It is all in the glands—and I can do it!

  “Now do you see how our son can become a leader among men? How he can perhaps straighten out the muddles of life and leave the way clear for sim­ilar gigantic creatures to follow him? Until—who knows?—the entire world may be peopled by such beings!”

  “It’s horrible!” Ena declared prompt­ly, without hesitation, “You’ll play no such pranks on my child! Find some­thing else to experiment on!”

  But Adison Boyd was determined. He tried every means he could to obtain his wife’s consent, only to be met by stolid refusal. Finally he shrugged his shoulders and got to h
is feet.

  “Very well, my dear,” he said with ominous quietness. “Like hundreds of others before you, you are making the mistake of hindering the course of scientific progress; and I, as a scientist and inventor of the gland-treatment, cannot be expected to stand for that. For the moment you win, of course…but I do not give up hope.”

  Ena nodded contentedly and resumed her sewing. How she was to know that her husband had firmly resolved in his own mind that the experiment should proceed in secret?

  Hinder the course of science? Heavens, no! Not even his own flesh and blood could do that…

  The Drug of Destiny

  Two nights later Ena Boyd received a telephone call from a friend who wanted Ena to accompany her to the theatre. Ena left the infant in charge of the nurse while she went out.

  Half an hour after her departure, Ad­ison Boyd returned from his daily round at the laboratory in company with his closest friend, Professor Bruce Kemphill, several years his senior. An air of innocent quietness hung over them as they ate a hasty dinner, but when the cigar stage was reached Boyd began to converse on more technical matters.

  “My wife objected to the scheme, Bruce, so the only thing to do is to work without her knowledge. I’m rid of her for a couple of hours this evening on the strength of a fake telephone call from my secretary at the laboratory. In that time, while Ena is waiting for her ‘friend,’ we can do all we need.

  “The initial operation won’t take longer than four minutes, if that. Years will pass before the results will begin to show. I don’t like this trickery, but I could see no other way. She’s with the baby night and day, and if he gets too old the experiment will be useless. Understand?”

  Kemphill nodded. “Perfectly. Go on.”

  “It may be just a dream; the whole thing may fail,” Adison Boyd went on grimly. “That is the chance we must take with such an experiment. This is my plan…

  “I shall inject into the pituitary glands a drug, the basis being calcium, which by a process of natural expan­sion will cause the walls of these two glands to alter their natural dimen­sions, and so cause a different balance to be struck. The result will inevitably be giantism of enormous magnitude.