The Space Opera Megapack: 20 Modern and Classic Science Fiction Tales

by John W. Campbell

  Seaton, who had opened his mouth, shut it again ludicrously, without saying a word, and Margaret gave him a startled glance.

  “Now I have said it!” she exclaimed. “I’m not afraid of him, boys, really. What do you want me to do?”

  Seaton plunged in.

  “What we were trying to get up nerve enough to say is that he’d be a good man on the astronomy job,” and Crane added quickly:

  “He undoubtedly knows more about it than I do, and it would be a pity to lose the chance of using him. Besides, Dick and I think it rather dangerous to leave him so much time to himself, in which to work up a plan against us.”

  “He’s cooking one right now, I’ll bet a hat,” Seaton put in, and Crane added:

  “If you are sure that you have no objections, Miss Spencer, we might go below, where we can have it dark, and all three of us see what we can make of the stargazing. We are really losing an unusual opportunity.”

  Margaret hid gallantly any reluctance she might have felt.

  “I wouldn’t deserve to be here if I can’t work with the Doctor and hate him at the same time.”

  “Good for you, Peg, you’re a regular fellow!” Seaton exclaimed. “You’re a trump!”

  Finally, the enormous velocity of the cruiser was sufficiently reduced to effect a landing, a copper-bearing sun was located, and a course was laid toward its nearest planet.

  As the vessel approached its goal a deep undercurrent of excitement kept all the passengers feverishly occupied. They watched the distant globe grow larger, glowing through its atmosphere more and more clearly as a great disk of white light, its outline softened by the air about it. Two satellites were close beside it. Its sun, a great, blazing orb, a little nearer than the planet, looked so great and so hot that Margaret became uneasy.

  “Isn’t it dangerous to get so close, Dick? We might burn up, mightn’t we?”

  “Not without an atmosphere,” he laughed.

  “Oh,” murmured the girl apologetically, “I might have known that.”

  Dropping rapidly into the atmosphere of the planet, they measured its density and analyzed it in apparatus installed for that purpose, finding that its composition was very similar to the Earth’s air and that its pressure was not enough greater to be uncomfortable. When within one thousand feet of the surface, Seaton weighed a five-pound weight upon a spring-balance, finding that it weighed five and a half pounds, thus ascertaining that the planet was either somewhat larger than the Earth or more dense. The ground was almost hidden by a rank growth of vegetation, but here and there appeared glade-like openings.

  Seaton glanced at the faces about him. Tense interest marked them all. Dorothy’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes shone. She looked at him with awe and pride.

  “A strange world, Dorothy,” he said gravely. “You are not afraid?”

  “Not with you,” she answered. “I am only thrilled with wonder.”

  “Columbus at San Salvador,” said Margaret, her dark eyes paying their tribute of admiration.

  A dark flush mounted swiftly into Seaton’s brown face and he sought to throw most of the burden upon Crane, but catching upon his face also a look of praise, almost of tenderness, he quickly turned to the controls.

  “Man the boats!” he ordered an imaginary crew, and the Skylark descended rapidly.

  Landing upon one of the open spaces, they found the ground solid and stepped out. What had appeared to be a glade was in reality a rock, or rather, a ledge of apparently solid metal, with scarcely a loose fragment to be seen. At one end of the ledge rose a giant tree wonderfully symmetrical, but of a peculiar form. Its branches were longer at the top than at the bottom, and it possessed broad, dark-green leaves, long thorns, and odd, flexible, shoot-like tendrils. It stood as an outpost of the dense vegetation beyond. Totally unlike the forests of Earth were those fern-like trees, towering two hundred feet into the air. They were of an intensely vivid green and stood motionless in the still, hot air of noonday. Not a sign of animal life was to be seen; the whole landscape seemed asleep.

  The five strangers stood near their vessel, conversing in low tones and enjoying the sensation of solid ground beneath their feet. After a few minutes DuQuesne remarked:

  “This is undoubtedly a newer planet than ours. I should say that it was in the Carboniferous age. Aren’t those trees like those in the coal-measures, Seaton?”

  “True as time, Blackie—there probably won’t be a human race here for ages, unless we bring out some colonists.”

  Seaton kicked at one of the loose lumps of metal questioningly with his heavy shoe, finding that it was as immovable as though it were part of the ledge. Bending over, he found that it required all his great strength to lift it and he stared at it with an expression of surprise, which turned to amazement as he peered closer.

  “DuQuesne! Look at this!”

  DuQuesne studied the metal, and was shaken out of his habitual taciturnity.

  “Platinum, by all the little gods!”

  “We’ll grab some of this while the grabbing’s good,” announced Seaton, and the few visible lumps were rolled into the car. “If we had a pickaxe we could chop some more off one of those sharp ledges down there.”

  “There’s an axe in the shop,” replied DuQuesne. “I’ll go get it. Go ahead, I’ll soon be with you.”

  “Keep close together,” warned Crane as the four moved slowly down the slope. “This is none too safe, Dick.”

  “No, it isn’t, Mart. But we’ve got to see whether we can’t find some copper, and I would like to get some more of this stuff, too. I don’t think it’s platinum, I believe that it’s X.”

  As they reached the broken projections, Margaret glanced back over her shoulder and screamed. The others saw that her face was white and her eyes wide with horror, and Seaton instinctively drew his pistol as he whirled about, only to check his finger on the trigger and lower his hand.

  “Nothing but Xplosive bullets,” he growled in disgust, and in helpless silence the four watched an unspeakably hideous monster slowly appear from behind the Skylark. Its four huge, squat legs supported a body at least a hundred feet long, pursy and ungainly; at the extremity of a long and sinuous neck a comparatively small head seemed composed entirely of a cavernous mouth armed with row upon row of carnivorous teeth. Dorothy gasped with terror and both girls shrank closer to the two men, who maintained a baffled silence as the huge beast passed his revolting head along the hull of the vessel.

  “I dare not shoot, Martin,” Seaton whispered, “it would wreck the bus. Have you got any solid bullets?”

  “No. We must hide behind these small ledges until it goes away,” answered Crane, his eyes upon Margaret’s colorless face. “You two hide behind that one, we will take this one.”

  “Oh, well, it’s nothing to worry about, anyway. We can kill him as soon as he gets far enough away from the boat,” said Seaton as, with Dorothy clinging to him, he dropped behind one of the ledges. Margaret, her staring eyes fixed upon the monster, remained standing until Crane touched her gently and drew her down beside him.

  “He will go away soon,” his even voice assured her. “We are in no danger.”

  In spite of their predicament, a feeling of happiness flowed through Crane’s whole being as he crouched beside the wall of metal with one arm protectingly around Margaret, and he longed to protect her through life as he was protecting her then. Accustomed as he was to dangerous situations, he felt no fear. He felt only a great tenderness for the girl by his side, who had ceased trembling but was still staring wide-eyed at the monster through a crevice.

  “Scared, Peggy?” he whispered.

  “Not now, Martin, but if you weren’t here I would die of fright.”

  At this reply his arm tightened involuntarily, but he forced it to relax.

  “It will not be long,” he promised himself silently, “until she is back at home among her friends, and then.…”

  There came the crack of a rifle from the Skylark. There
was an awful roar from the dinosaur, which was quickly silenced by a stream of machine-gun bullets.

  “Blackie’s on the job—let’s go!” cried Seaton, and they raced up the slope. Making a detour to avoid the writhing and mutilated mass they plunged through the opening door. DuQuesne shut it behind them and in overwhelming relief, the adventurers huddled together as from the wilderness without there arose an appalling tumult.

  The scene, so quiet a few moments before, was instantly changed. The trees, the swamp, and the air seemed filled with monsters so hideous as to stagger the imagination. Winged lizards of prodigious size hurtled through the air, plunging to death against the armored hull. Indescribable flying monsters, with feathers like birds, but with the fangs of tigers, attacked viciously. Dorothy screamed and started back as a scorpion-like thing with a body ten feet in length leaped at the window in front of her, its terrible sting spraying the glass with venom. As it fell to the ground, a huge spider—if an eight-legged creature with spines instead of hair, many-faceted eyes, and a bloated, globular body weighing hundreds of pounds, may be called a spider—leaped upon it and, mighty mandibles against poisonous sting, the furious battle raged. Several twelve-foot cockroaches climbed nimbly across the fallen timber of the morass and began feeding voraciously upon the body of the dead dinosaur, only to be driven away by another animal, which all three men recognized instantly as that king of all prehistoric creatures, the saber-toothed tiger. This newcomer, a tawny beast towering fifteen feet high at the shoulder, had a mouth disproportionate even to his great size—a mouth armed with four great tiger-teeth more than three feet in length. He had barely begun his meal, however, when he was challenged by another nightmare, a something apparently halfway between a dinosaur and a crocodile. At the first note the tiger charged. Clawing, striking, rending each other with their terrible teeth, a veritable avalanche of bloodthirsty rage, the combatants stormed up and down the little island. But the fighters were rudely interrupted, and the earthly visitors discovered that in this primitive world it was not only animal life that was dangerous.

  The great tree standing on the farther edge of the island suddenly bent over, lashing out like a snake and grasping both. It transfixed them with the terrible thorns, which were now seen to be armed with needlepoints and to possess barbs like fish-hooks.

  The great tree standing on the farther edge of the island suddenly bent over, lashing out like a snake and grasping both. It transfixed them with the terrible thorns, which were now seen to be armed with needlepoints and to possess barbs like fish-hooks. It ripped at them with the long branches, which were veritable spears. The broad leaves, armed with revolting sucking disks, closed about the two animals, while the long, slender twigs, each of which was now seen to have an eye at its extremity, waved about, watching each movement of the captives from a safe distance.

  If the struggle between the two animals had been awful, this was Titanic. The air was torn by the roars of the reptile, the screams of the great cat, and the shrieks of the tree. The very ground rocked with the ferocity of the conflict. There could be but one result—soon the tree, having absorbed the two gladiators, resumed its upright position in all its beauty.

  The members of the little group stared at each other, sick at heart.

  “This is NO place to start a copper-mine. I think we’d better beat it,” remarked Seaton presently, wiping drops of perspiration from his forehead.

  “I think so,” acquiesced Crane. “We found air and Earth-like conditions here; we probably will elsewhere.”

  “Are you all right, Dottie?” asked Seaton.

  “All right, Dicky,” she replied, the color flowing back into her cheeks. “It scared me stiff, and I think I have a lot of white hairs right now, but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

  She paused an instant, and continued:

  “Dick, there must be a queer streak of brutality in me, but would you mind blowing up that frightful tree? I wouldn’t mind its nature if it were ugly—but look at it! It’s so deceptively beautiful! You wouldn’t think it had the disposition of a fiend, would you?”

  A general laugh relieved the nervous tension, and Seaton stepped impulsively toward DuQuesne with his hand outstretched.

  “You’ve squared your account, Blackie. Say the word and the war’s all off.”

  DuQuesne ignored the hand and glanced coldly at the group of eager, friendly faces.

  “Don’t be sentimental,” he remarked evenly as he turned away to his room. “Emotional scenes pain me. I gave my word to act as one of the party.”

  “Well, may I be kicked to death by little red spiders!” exclaimed Seaton, dumbfounded, as the other disappeared. “He ain’t a man, he’s a fish!”

  “He’s a machine. I always thought so, and now I know it,” stated Margaret, and the others nodded agreement.

  “Well, we’ll sure pull his cork as soon as we get back!” snapped Seaton. “He asked for it, and we’ll give him both barrels!”

  “I know I acted the fool out there,” Margaret apologized, flushing hotly and looking at Crane. “I don’t know what made me act so stupid. I used to have a little nerve.”

  “You were a regular little brick, Peg,” Seaton returned instantly. “Both you girls are all to the good—the right kind to have along in ticklish places.”

  Crane held out his steady hand and took Margaret’s in a warm clasp.

  “For a girl in your weakened condition you were wonderful. You have no reason to reproach yourself.”

  Tears filled the dark eyes, but were held back bravely as she held her head erect and returned the pressure of his hand.

  “Just so you don’t leave me behind next time,” she returned lightly, and the last word concerning the incident had been said.

  Seaton applied the power and soon they were approaching another planet, which was surrounded by a dense fog. Descending slowly, they found it to be a mass of boiling-hot steam and rank vapors, under enormous pressure.

  The next planet they found to have a clear atmosphere, but the ground had a peculiar, barren look; and analysis of the gaseous envelope proved it to be composed almost entirely of chlorin. No life of an earthly type could be possible upon such a world, and a search for copper, even with the suits and helmets, would probably be fruitless if not impossible.

  “Well,” remarked Seaton as they were again in space, “we’ve got enough copper to visit several more worlds—several more solar systems, if necessary. But there’s a nice, hopeful-looking planet right in front of us. It may be the one we’re looking for.”

  Arrived in the belt of atmosphere, they tested it as before, and found it satisfactory.

  CHAPTER XII

  The Mastery of Mind Over Matter

  They descended rapidly, directly over a large and imposing city in the middle of a vast, level, beautifully-planted plain. While they were watching it, the city vanished and the plain was transformed into a heavily-timbered mountain summit, the valleys falling away upon all sides as far as the eye could reach.

  “Well, I’ll say that’s SOME mirage!” exclaimed Seaton, rubbing his eyes in astonishment. “I’ve seen mirages before, but never anything like that. Wonder what this air’s made of? But we’ll land, anyway, if we finally have to swim!”

  The ship landed gently upon the summit, the occupants half expecting to see the ground disappear before their eyes. Nothing happened, however, and they disembarked, finding walking somewhat difficult because of the great mass of the planet. Looking around, they could see no sign of life, but they felt a presence near them—a vast, invisible something.

  Suddenly, out of the air in front of Seaton, a man materialized: a man identical with him in every feature and detail, even to the smudge of grease under one eye, the small wrinkles in his heavy blue serge suit, and the emblem of the American Chemical Society upon his watch-fob.

  “Hello, folks,” the stranger began in Seaton’s characteristic careless speech. “I see you’re surprised at my knowing your lang
uage. You’re a very inferior race of animals—don’t even understand telepathy, don’t understand the luminiferous ether, or the relation between time and space. Your greatest things, such as the Skylark and your object-compass, are merely toys.”

  Changing instantly from Seaton’s form to that of Dorothy, likewise a perfect imitation, the stranger continued without a break:

  “Atoms and electrons and things, spinning and whirling in their dizzy little orbits.…” It broke off abruptly, continuing in the form of DuQuesne:

  “Couldn’t make myself clear as Miss Vaneman—not a scientific convolution in her foolish little brain. You are a freer type, DuQuesne, unhampered by foolish, soft fancies. But you are very clumsy, although working fairly well with your poor tools—Brookings and his organization, the Perkins Café and its clumsy wireless telephones. All of you are extremely low in the scale. Such animals have not been known in our universe for ten million years, which is as far back as I can remember. You have millions of years to go before you will amount to anything; before you will even rise above death and its attendant necessity, sex.”

  The strange being then assumed form after form with bewildering rapidity, while the spectators stared in dumb astonishment. In rapid succession it took on the likeness of each member of the party, of the vessel itself, of the watch in Seaton‘s pocket—reappearing as Seaton.

  “Well, bunch,” it said in a matter-of-fact voice, “there’s no mental exercise in you and you’re such a low form of life that you’re of no use on this planet; so I’ll dematerialize you.”

  A peculiar light came into its eyes as they stared intently into Seaton’s, and he felt his senses reel under the impact of an awful mental force, but he fought back with all his power and remained standing.

  “What’s this?” the stranger demanded in surprise, “This is the first time in history that mere matter—which is only a manifestation of mind—has ever refused to obey mind. There’s a screw loose somewhere.”