The John Russell Fearn Science Fiction Megapack

by John Russell Fearn

  The controls moved again, and the journey across England to Scotland was covered at a stupendous rate. Central England had so far escaped the creep­ing menace, but it was rapidly approaching from the Irish and North Seas.

  Then began the most amazing journey Price and his wife had ever known. Flying with unremitting veloc­ity, they travelled over a weed-infested sea to Iceland, to find that country en­tirely obliterated, and so across a super-Sargasso to Greenland. Here, near the Arctic Circle, the weed was not so pro­lific. The cold was hindering it some­what, but nevertheless it was growing inevitably, forcing great roots through the massive ice-packs.

  The whole edge of the Arctic Circle, right into the misty reaches of the Arctic itself, was a pounding, beating mass of spray, ice and weed…and the weed was winning!

  The air-machine turned, flew across the blocked Atlantic to North America, which was completely out of sight, there being no distinction between sea and land, so thick had the growth become. Touching the now vanished frontiers of Alaska, the machine swung back to the Pacific Ocean and across South America, which was just as thickly covered with the relentless plant.

  So on and on, searching assiduously, across the Indian Ocean to Australia, then high above the Philippines to the vast continent of Asia. Here some parts were still visible, but manifestly doomed. During much of the journey the speeding flyers were enveloped in darkness, but powerful searchlights in the base of their machine made the scene of utter destruction below only too clearly visible…

  Over Asia, Benton turned at last, flew back across buried Africa, and so to the British Isles again. The setting sun smote the hurtling air-machine as it neared the weed-infested shores of England. A slackening of speed, a ver­tical descent, and the journey was ended.

  Some Mysteries Explained

  “I feel,” Benton said, when dinner was over, “that you are entitled to some explanations. Some of these explanations I shall give you now, and others I shall reserve until a more opportune time.

  “For one thing, I knew you were coming to see me the other night because, ever since I met you down here on your vacation, I have kept you con­stantly in range with a radio-televisor. This instrument is tuned to the fre­quencies of people, or objects, and follows them constantly if they be movable, no matter how far they may go, reproducing their movements upon a screen, even viewing them through solid buildings. All sounds made by these people are likewise trapped and reproduced through a loud-speaker. So, you see, I have watched over you both ever since that evening when you came up here to look round.

  “You remember that I asked you to examine two machines? One of those automatically registered your frequen­cies—your electrical body-energy—and after that my radio-televisor had merely to be tuned to those frequencies in order to follow you everywhere. The other machine emitted, all unknown to you, a force which made you both in­capable of being affected by my paralysis-machine.

  “That is why you escaped the effects. I, too, being likewise treated, also came to no harm, although the rest of the world succumbed when I extended the waves, instead of concentrating them upon the warring armies.”

  “But why did you bother to watch us?” Price asked puzzled.

  “Because I admired you both from the first moment I met you. You were young and fresh, full of ideals and hopes. There was another reason, too. You knew about the spores from Mars; you two were the only ones who knew about them, and I felt it was only fair you should see your once despised theory bear fruit.

  “I saw you find that root in the wood, too…”

  “What amazing knowledge you have!” Lucy exclaimed. “You’re a genius!”

  “Maybe I am,” Benton admitted with a faint smile. “As for our meals here, they are synthetic; practically everything here is synthetic or auto­matic. Everything you have found—beds, clothes, and so forth, I created specially for you. For my own part, I rarely sleep.”

  “You think up all these things and yet rarely sleep?” Price breathed. “Then who on Earth are you, sir? What are you? There’s something about you—”

  “All in good time,” the scientist in­terrupted, evasively. “I trust I have explained everything else?”

  “Not altogether, sir. There’s that champagne of yours, and also why the weed has not attacked your home. Why, when you can stop the weed, do you allow it to go on?”

  “In that, my friend, you probe too deeply. Later, perhaps.”

  Benton took out his watch and re­garded it. “At midnight precisely, according to my calculation, the entire Earth will be covered in the weed, buried under a dense, impenetrable blanket that no power can smash or break. A vast, super shock-absorber.”

  “You sound as though you’ve pre­meditated it, sir!”

  “Twenty feet thickness of rebound­ing weed,” Benton went on, his voice suddenly tense. “If everything has gone to plan, there is nothing to fear.”

  He put his watch back, calm and serene again. “Another hour will bring midnight,” he commented. “I suggest that we adjourn to the laboratory, and there I think I can promise you the most astounding experience you’ve had so far… This way.”

  CHAPTER V

  “Earth is Saved!”

  Benton closed the door of the laboratory softly and for a time inspected his gently humming machinery; then he crossed to a massive lever and pulled it over. From some­where on the roof came a grinding roar that soon subsided.

  “That was a thick metal sheathing covering the roof of my home,” he ex­plained. “Only the windows are free, and they are unbreakable.”

  “But what’s it all for?” Price ques­tioned in bewilderment.

  “You will learn only too soon.”

  Benton hesitated for a moment, as though considering some inner thought, then resumed in a meditative voice. “I have something to tell you both…

  “Millions of years ago—so long ago that earthly man has no record of the incident—Earth’s surface was rendered a pitted and scarred ruin by a bombardment from outer space. Geologists believe it was Earth’s internal upheavals that produced its mountains and sea-beds. They are wrong, as I have reason to know. The sea-beds were blasted out of the then fairly malleable Earth by showers of colossal stones and boulders from inter­stellar space, and the hills were created by the upward pushing of matter from the displaced areas, later to become the floors of its present-day oceans.

  “At that period, millions of years ago, Earth, travelling in her orbit, happened to cross the enormously elon­gated orbit of a slowly-travelling mass of rock and stone. By mass I mean an area some million miles wide, consist­ing of the remains of a planet which once burst asunder and whose frag­ments, in the form of titanic rocks, still move through space. Earth became bombarded with these fragments as she crossed this broken planet’s orbit, and the upheavals I’ve mentioned, with several others, took place.

  “Then Earth began to recover and man appeared, to invent other explana­tions for sea-beds and mountain ranges. The disintegrated planet passed on its way in its orbit, and Earth continued in hers. But calculation showed that millions of years later the same thing would happen again, when the two orbits crossed once more, and that unless steps were taken to prevent it, Earth would suffer something approach­ing annihilation—most certainly the destruction of all her cities and all her peoples.

  “The time for this terrific second bombardment has now arrived. Thanks to the giant weed, however, the shocks will be reduced to a minimum. Being elastic and springy in nature, as well as amazingly strong, the weed now cover­ing the entire Earth will cause this rain of missiles to rebound somewhat, and so break the tremendous force of their fall. Hence Man and his handiwork will be protected.

  “Nor can the frightful heat of these missiles cause any damage, because the weed destroys the phenomenon known as fire and won’t burn. So Man, buried deep beneath twenty feet of vegetation, will be untouched. Being unconscious, he will know and feel nothing. You understand?”

  “But
—but how do you know what happened a million and a half years ago?” Price almost shouted. “And how did the weed happen to appear on Earth so opportunely?”

  “Nothing happens in the realm of Science; everything is planned,” Benton replied calmly. “Now you know why I placed metal protections around this dwelling, to save it being destroyed in the approaching bombardment…”

  The Meteoric Onslaught

  For the remainder of the time until within a few minutes of midnight Benton hovered between the window and his machines. Then, at a minute to twelve, he became feverishly industrious. Seeming to forget the presence of the two young people, he busied himself with a switchboard, pulling over a number of two-pole switches with swift and dexterous hands.

  As a result the humming engines in the laboratory became silent. Price shivered involuntarily; Lucy crept closer to him. The atmosphere seemed indescribably eerie.

  His work done, Benton stood con­templatively by the window again, gazing out at the starlit sky. Sudden with an emotion rare to him, he gave an exclamation and pointed.

  “Here they come!” he panted. “Cal­culation has been justified! Look!”

  Price and Lucy went to his side, craning their necks. Then their gaze became fixed as, out of the blackness of the sky appeared colossal festoons of enormous falling stars, like titanic blazing hailstones thundering to Earth—planetary matter ignited by its terrific rush through the atmosphere.

  A remote and persistent drumming became evident. Some of the boulders and stones were striking the roof above their heads.

  The drumming became louder, while the skies grew brighter with the hurt­ling bolts. As far as the eye could see, the heavens were alive with darting, criss-crossing points of blazing efful­gence—tens of thousands of gigantic meteors battering Earth’s vegetation-sheathed surface. Many of the celestial rocks fell in showers of white-heat, but the instant they touched the massed plant below they expired strangely into harmless darkness.

  For nearly two hours the onslaught persisted, an onslaught which must have taken place in every quarter of the globe as the Earth moved along in its orbit. Then the meteoric rain became less heavy; fewer blazing bodies streaked across the heavens, and the stars, which had been blotted out, commenced to re-appear through the blaze. Presently the drumming on the roof ceased.

  “Finished!” Benton breathed, thank­fully. “We passed through the tail-end of the shower, instead of the central million-mile expanse. The time proves it. Earth is saved!”

  He turned away from the window and seated himself before an immense radio-apparatus. In another moment he had switched on the power and com­menced to operate the huge instrument. Immediately, terrific stabs of strange Morse pervaded the laboratory, and after an interval of several seconds, answering stabs, much fainter, came from a loud-speaker sunk in the wall above the transmitter.

  Benton listened with the ghost of a smile on his face, and for quite a while the exchange of messages went on. Price, who understood Morse, vainly tried to comprehend the message, only to realise it was not a code with which he was conversant. At length, the communication was over.

  “My transmitter is on the roof,” Benton explained. “Queer radio, mine; rather advanced. Works on the infra­red principle.”

  “But to whom were you signalling?” Price demanded. “The world is dead!”

  “I know…but Mars is not dead,” Benton replied, quietly. “You see, I—I am a Martian.”

  “A what?” Price and Lucy exclaimed, blankly.

  “Is it so very strange? I’ll explain in a moment. I must first use the Ounteracter to stop the universal paralysis. Also, I must cut out the controls of the machines which force the Martian weed to grow.

  “Yes, I know what you’re thinking. That weed grew by induced methods—from here. But now the danger is finished. Come with me into the lounge. I have much to tell you.”

  The Martian’s Story

  “It is, perhaps, a strange story,” Benton began, when they were all three seated. “On Mars I am a scientist, and, naturally, utterly unlike the man you see now.

  “My laboratory companion on Mars discovered long ago that Earth was due to be again subjected to the terrific bombardment that ravaged her millennia ago. Martians, you understand, live immeasurably long lives, and my companion was a young man when the previous bombardment of Earth occurred.

  “He showed me photographic records of the cosmic event, and we decided we must save our sister planet from a second disaster. Our ultimate experi­ments resulted in the discovery of a band of electrical energy capable of speeding up growth by some eighteen hundred times its normal rate.

  “We tested this discovery upon a fast-growing weed which flourishes in the Martian deserts, and produced colossal growth from primary spores and seeds. We also produced a process which quickly destroyed the results of our experiments and withered the plants to atoms. Then we searched for, and found, a method of inducing harmless paralysis in living organisms. So, gradually, we evolved a scheme, with the consent of our ruler, through which we might save your world from des­truction.

  “As the time for the second swarm of meteors approached, we fired a vast cloud of plant spores into space and guided them to Earth by directional radio impulses. Then my brain was re­moved from my own Martian body and transferred to a synthetic one, modelled on terrestrial lines. The study of human beings through our powerful telescopes, which also possess X-ray properties, enabled us to duplicate an Earthly body almost exactly, both in appearance and organic structure.

  “So, in human form, I came to Earth, making the journey in a spaceship, and bringing with me the machinery neces­sary for carrying out the rest of the scheme to a successful conclusion. Once here, I had no difficulty in learning your language, being some ten times as advanced in intellect as the inhabitants of this planet, whom we of Mars have safely delivered from a terrible menace.

  “Until you came, nobody suspected that I was anything but a human being, slightly eccentric, perhaps. Knowing the value of the metal on Earth, I trans­muted base metals into gold and became fabulously wealthy. I engaged men to build me this place, and installed my machinery, with which I promoted the growth of the weed and created hot summers to stimulate it further. On Mars, of course, we produce our own weather…

  “You know the rest: how the paralysis-machines were put into opera­tion, how they stopped the war and eventually paralysed the whole of humanity. I have now cut off the waves and started the machines which will destroy the weed in a very short time. My work is finished, and I must return to Mars, to resume my natural body.”

  ‘Hugh Benton’ stopped, and for an instant both Price and Lucy saw in his eyes that queer look which the girl had detected before—the light of infinite solitude.

  “You were naturally curious,” he went on. “I told you I was out to stop war. I didn’t know at that time how you might upset my plans. To all appearances I was just one of yourselves, and even when I asked you if my knowledge didn’t seem unusual you didn’t grasp the point.

  “There is little else to explain. That ‘champagne’ I gave you was a powerful Martian drug. I wanted you asleep whilst I radioed my planet for further information. As I told you, I never sleep, and I very rarely eat… What more is there to say?”

  “I cannot believe I am sitting here talking to a Martian,” Lucy breathed.

  “Why not? What am I but a distant foreigner? My name is not, of course, Hugh Benton, but Zal-Iked, First in Science of the planet Ralkan, or Mars…and I have something here that may repay you for my strange demands upon you.”

  ‘Benton’ dived into his pocket, and when he opened his palm there rolled on to the table two immense, glittering objects.

  “Good heavens, they’re not—” Lucy began, hardly daring to say the word.

  “Yes—diamonds,” the Martian nodded. “We have thousands of them on my planet and they’re valueless; but I find they are worth something on this world, so take them with my compli­ments.”<
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  “But they’re as big as hens’ eggs!” Price protested. “We can’t—”

  “Don’t be absurd, my young friend. Take them; all the better if they are big. They are the least I can offer after the way I’ve behaved towards you, and they will serve to remember me by…

  “I shall never return to Earth. In the far future the same danger will again threaten your planet; but it is up to man to fight it for him­self. If he has not the intellect to do it by then… well, he deserves to suffer.”

  Man’s Awakening

  Within two days the weed became a withered mass, crum­bling to powder the world over. The power employed, so Benton ex­plained, was similar to that which, used in a lesser degree, had prevented the plant from covering his home.

  So, before the eyes of the two young people, now immensely wealthy for the remainder of their lives, the Earth’s face began to reappear from beneath the protective vegetation. The mighty branches wilted into the consistency of fine ash which was blown on the winds to the four corners of the Earth.

  Then humanity, the counteracter having done its work, recovered from its insensibility, quite unaware of what had taken place, but utterly amazed at discovering thousands of stones and boulders in every civilised city. These, however, were soon disposed of. Only a few buildings were damaged; for the most part the stones were dumped in the sea.

  With the memory of the strange paralysis hanging over mankind, for quite a time a subdued world went about his business; but it was not long before the old order of bickering, villainy and greed reared its ugly head again. Price and Lucy took their farewell of Hugh Benton with deep regret, though he viewed their departure with that calm detachment so common to him. Back in London, they could well have believed the whole thing a dream save for the massive diamonds, which ultimately netted them a huge fortune, and the vision of the countryside the world over mangled and twisted where the Martian roots had preyed upon weaker vegetation. Buildings had stood the strain, being immovable, but trees blowing in the wind had immediately offered that resistance that made of the plant a ruthless destroyer. But Nature took charge of the rest, and the following Spring, after the Martian plant had disappeared, was more redundant with green than ever before.