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

by John W. Campbell

  Tarrano had not moved, save that single step sidewise to avoid my onslaught. As I stood there now with my face like fire and my brain whirling with the blood congested in it, I heard his quiet voice:

  “Do not fear, Lady Elza. This Jac Hallen—as I promised you—is quite safe with me.”

  His gesture waved her aside, that she should not come within those deadly vibrations he was flinging at us. And I saw his other hand lift a tiny mouthpiece from his belt; heard his voice say into it: “Argo? Argo! That Georg Brende—”

  He stopped; a look of annoyance came over his face. Argo did not answer! Dimly to my fading senses came the triumphant thought, the realization that Argo outside, upon whom Tarrano depended to seize Georg—had failed.

  Action had come to Tarrano. He snapped off his weapon. Released from it, Wolfgar and I wilted to the floor—lay inert. The returning blood in my limbs made them prick as with a million needles. To my sight and hearing, the room was whirling and roaring. I felt Tarrano bending swiftly over me; felt the forcible insertion of a branched metal tube in my nostrils; a hand over my mouth. I struggled to hold my breath—failed. Then inhaled with a gasp, a pungent, sickening-sweet gas. Roaring, clanging gongs sounded in my ears—roaring and clattering louder, then fading into silence. A wild, tumbling phantasmagoria of dreams. Then complete unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER X

  Georg Escapes

  I come now to recount events at which I was not present, and the details of which I did not learn until later. Fronted by Tarrano, in those few seconds of confusion, Georg made his decision to escape even at the cost of leaving Elza and me. He murmured his hurried goodbye. The moment had arrived. He could see Tarrano dimly through the sparks. He leaped backward, through that wall of electrical disturbance which surrounded us. The sparks tore at him; burned his clothing and flesh; the shock of it gripped his heart. But he went through; crept for the balcony. It was dark out there. He would have rushed for Tarrano instead of the balcony, but as he came through the sparks he had seen that the barrier surrounding our tower was momentarily lifted. Argo had cut it off to admit Tarrano a few moments before. He had not yet replaced it—absorbed, doubtless, in watching in his finder what Tarrano was doing with us. He must have seen Georg reach the balcony; and jumped then to replace the barrier. But too late. Georg was over the balcony rail with a leap. The insulated tubes were there—upright gleaming tubes of metal extending downward to the platform below. Tubes smooth, and as thick as a woman’s waist.

  Georg slid down them. The barrage, above him on the balcony, had been replaced. He saw below him the figure of Argo come running out. A weapon in each hand. The burning pencil-ray swung at Georg, but missed him as he came down. Had it struck, it would have drilled him clean with its tiny hole of fire. Then Argo must have realized that Georg should be taken alive. He ran forward, swung up at Georg the paralyzing vibrations which Tarrano at that instant was using upon Wolfgar and me.

  Georg felt them. He was ten feet, perhaps, above the lower platform; and as he felt the numbness strike him, he lost his hold upon the tube-pipe. But he had presence of mind enough to kick himself outward with a last effort. His body fell upon the onrushing Argo. They went down together.

  Argo lay inert. The impact had knocked him senseless, and had struck his weapon from his hand. Georg sat up, and for a moment chafed his tingling, prickling arms and legs. He was bruised and shaken by the fall, but uninjured.

  Within our tower, Tarrano was still occupied with us. Georg leaped to his feet. He left Argo lying there—ran over the spider-bridge; down a spiral metal stairway, across another bridge, and came upon the small park-like platform which stood at the bottom of the other tower. He had passed within sight of a few pedestrians. One of them shouted at him; another had tried mildly to stop him. A crowd on a distant terrace saw him. A few of their personal flashes were turned his way. Murmurs arose. Someone at the head of one of the escalators, in a panic pulled an alarm-switch. It flared green into the sky, flashing its warning.

  The interior-guards—seated at their instrument tables in the lower rooms of the official buildings—had seen Georg in their finders. The alarm was spreading. Lights were appearing everywhere.… The murmurs of gathering people…excited crowds…an absurd woman leaning down over a faraway parapet and screaming…an ignorant, flustered street-guard on a nearby upper terrace swinging his pencil-ray down at Georg.… Fortunately it fell short.

  For a moment Georg stood there, with the gathering tumult around him—stood there gazing up at that small tower. The tower wherein the Princess Maida was confined. It was dark and silent. Black rectangles of doors and casements, all open—but barred by the glow of the electrical barrage surrounding it.

  Georg jerked from his belt the cylinder Wolfgar had given him. Metallic. Short, squat and ugly, with a thick, insulated handle. He feared to use it. Yet Wolfgar had assured him the Princess Maida was prepared. He hesitated, with his finger upon the switch-button of the weapon. But he knew that in a moment he would be too late. A searchlight from an aerial mast high overhead swung down upon him, bathing him in its glare of white.

  His finger pressed the trigger. A soundless flash of purple enveloped the tower. Sparks mounted into the air—a cloud of vivid electrical sparks; but mingled with them in a moment were sparks also of burning wood and fibre. Smoke began to roll upward; the purple flash was gone, and dull red took its place. The hum and angry buzz of outraged electricity was stilled. Flames appeared at all the tower casements—red flames, then yellow with their greater heat.

  The trim and interior of the tower was burning. The protons Georg had flung at it with his weapon had broken the electrical barrage. The interference heat had burned out the connections and fired everything combustible within the tower. A terrific heat. It began to melt and burn the blenite.10 The upper portion of the tower walls began to crumble. Huge blocks of stone were shifting, tottering; and they began to fall through the glare of mounting flames and the thick black smoke.

  Georg had tossed away his now useless weapon—emptied of its charge. He was crouching in the shadow of a parapet. The city was now in turmoil. Alarm lights everywhere. The shrilling of sirens; roaring of megaphoned commands…women screaming hysterically.…

  A chaos, out of which, for a few moments, Georg knew no order could come. But his heart was in his mouth. The Princess Maida, within that burning building.…

  He had located the tiny postern gate at the bottom of the tower where Wolfgar had told him she would appear. The barrage was gone; and in a moment she came—a white figure appearing there amid the smoke that was rolling out.

  He rushed to her. A figure wholly encased in white itan11 fabric with head-mask, and tubes from its generator to supply her with air. Wolfgar had smuggled the equipment in to her for just this emergency. She stood awkwardly beside Georg—a grotesque figure hampered by the heavy costume. Its crescent panes of itanoid begoggled her.

  Behind him, Georg could hear people advancing. A guard picked them out with a white flash. The mounting flames of the tower bathed everything in red. A block of stone fell near at hand, crashing through the metallic platform upon which they were standing. Broken, it sagged beneath their feet.

  Georg tore at the girl’s headpiece, lifted it off. Her face was pale, frightened, yet she seemed calm. Her glorious white hair tumbled down in waves over her shoulders.

  “Wolfgar—he—” She choked a little in the smoke that swirled around them. Georg cut in: “He sent me—Georg Brende. Don’t talk now—get this off.”

  He pulled the heavy costume from her. She emerged from it—slim and beautiful in the shimmering blue kirtle, with long grey stockings beneath.

  A spider incline was nearby. But a dozen guards were coming up it at a run. With the girl’s hand in his, Georg turned the other way. People were closing in all around them—an excited crowd held back by the heat of the burning tower, the smoke and the falling blocks of stone. Someone swung a pencil-ray wildly. It seared Georg like a
branding-iron on the flesh of his arm as it swung past. He pulled Maida toward the head of an escalator a dozen feet away. Its steps were coming upward from the plaza at the ground level. Half way up, the first of an up-coming throng were mounting it.

  But Georg again turned aside. He found Maida quick of wit to catch his plans; and agile of body to follow him. They climbed down the metal framework of the escalator sides; down under it to where the inverted steps were passing downward on the endless belts. Maida slid into one of them, with Georg after her, his arms holding her in place.

  They huddled there. No one had seen them enter. Smoothly the escalator drew them downward. Above them in a moment the tramp of feet sounded close above their heads as the crowd rushed upward.

  They approached the bottom, slid out upon a swinging bridge which chanced at the moment to be empty of people. Down it at a run; into the palm-lined plaza at the bottom of the city.

  Down here it was comparatively dim and silent. The alarm lights of the plaza section had not yet come on; the excitement was concentrated upon the burning tower above. The crowd, rushing up there, left the plaza momentarily deserted. Georg and Maida crossed it at a run, scurried like frightened rabbits through a tunnel arcade, down a lower cross-street, and came at last unmolested to the outskirts of the city.

  The buildings here were almost all at the ground level. Georg and Maida ran onward, hardly noticed, for everyone was gazing upward at the distant, burning tower. Georg was heading for where Wolfgar had an aero secreted. A mile or more. They reached the spot—but the aero was not there. They were in the open country now—Venia is small. Plantations—an agricultural region. Most of the houses were deserted, the occupants having fled into the city as refugees when threats and orders came from Washington the day before. Georg and Maida came upon a little conical house; it lay silent, heavy-shadowed in the starlight with the glow of the city edging its side and circular roof. Beside it was an incline with a helicopter standing up there on a private landing stage.… Georg and Maida rushed up the incline.

  A small helicopter; its dangling basket was barely large enough for two—a basket with a tiny safety plane fastened to its outrigger.

  In a moment Georg and the girl had boarded the helicopter. She was silent; she had hardly said a word throughout it all.… The helicopter mounted straight up; its whirling propellers above sent a rush of air downward.

  “These batteries,” said Georg. “The guards in Venia can’t stop us. An aero—even if we had it—I doubt if we could get power for it. They’ve shut off general power by now, I’m sure.”

  She nodded. “Yes—no doubt.”

  As they mounted upward, the city dwindled beneath them—dwindled to an area of red and green and purple lights. It was silent up here in the starlight; a calm, windless night—cloudless, save for a gray bank which obscured the moon.

  Ten thousand feet up. Then fifteen. The city was a tiny patch of blended colors. Light rockets occasionally mounted now. But their glare fell short. Georg’s mind was busy with his plans. Had the helicopter been seen? It seemed not. No rocket-light had reached it; and there was no sign of pursuit from below.

  Maida crouched beside him. He felt her hand timidly upon his arm; felt her shy, sidelong glance upon him. And suddenly he was conscious of her beauty. His heart leaped, and as he turned to her, she smiled—a smile of eager trust which lighted her face like a torch of faith in the spire of a house of worship.

  “You are planning?” she said. “You know what it is we must do?”

  He said: “I think so. The volan12 out there is large enough for two. You’ll trust yourself to it with me? You’re not afraid, are you?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “What you say we must do, we will do.”

  “We must go higher, Maida. Then, you see.…”

  He told her his plans. And mounting up there into the silent canopy of stars, his fingers wound themselves into the soft strands of her hair which lay upon him; and his heart beat fast with the nearness of her.… Told her his plans, and she acquiesced.

  Twenty thousand feet. The cold was upon them. Shivering himself, he wrapped her in a fur which the basket contained. At 25,000, they took to the vol plan. It was a padded board a dozen feet long and half as wide. Released, it shot downward; a hundred feet or more, with the heavens whirling soundlessly. Then Georg got the wings open; the descent was checked; the stars righted themselves above, and once again the earth was beneath.

  They had strapped themselves to the board, and now Georg undid the thongs. Together they lay prone, side by side, with the narrow, double-banked wings beneath the line of their shoulders, and the rudder-tail behind them. Flexible planes and tail, responding to Georg’s grip on the controls.

  Fluttering, uncertain at first, like a huge bird of quivering wings, they began their incline descent. A spiral, then Georg opened it to a straight glide northward—rushing downward and onward through the starlight, in a wind of their own making which fluttered the light fabric of Maida’s robe and tossed her waves of hair about her.

  A long, silent glide, with only the rush of wind. It seemed hours, while the girl did not speak and Georg anxiously searched the sky ahead. Underneath them, the dark forests were slipping past; but inexorably coming upward. They were down to 5,000 feet; then Georg saw at last what he had hoped, prayed for, but almost despaired of. A beam of light to the northward—the spreading beam of an oncoming patrol. It was high overhead; but it came forward fast. A sweeping, keenly searching beam, and finally it struck them. Clung to them.

  And presently the big patrol vessel was almost above them. It hung there, a dark winged shape dotted with colored lights. A signal flash—a sharp command to Georg, but, of course, he could not answer. Then the Director’s finder picked him out. The volan was fluttering, spiralling slowly as Georg struggled to hold his place.

  And then the patrol launched its tender. It came darting down like a wasp. A moment more, and Georg and Maida were taken aboard it. Thevolan fluttered to the forest unguided and was lost in the black treetops, now no more than a thousand feet below.

  Surrounded by amazed officials, Maida and Georg entered the patrol vessel. Georg Brende, escaped safely from Tarrano! The Brende secret released from Tarrano’s control! The Director flashed the news to Washington and to Great London. Orders came back. A score of other vessels of this Patrol-Division came dashing up—a convoy which soon was speeding northward to Washington with its precious messenger.

  CHAPTER XI

  Recaptured

  In Washington during those next few days, events of the Earth, Venus and Mars swirled and raged around Georg as though he were engulfed in the Iguazu or Niagara. Passive himself at first—a spectator merely; yet he was the keystone of the Earth Council’s strength. The Brende secret was desired by the publics of all three worlds. Even greater than its real value as a medical discovery, it swayed the popular mind.

  Tarrano possessed the Brende secret. The only model, and Dr. Brende’s notes were in his hands. Washington had ordered him to give them up, and he had refused. But now the status was changed. Georg held the secret also—and Georg was in Washington. It left the Earth Council free to deal with Tarrano.

  During those days Georg was housed in official apartments, with Maida very often near him. Inactive, they were much together, discussing their respective worlds. The Princess Maida was hereditary ruler of the Venus Central State—the only living heir to the throne. When Tarrano’s forces threatened revolution from the Cold Country she had been seized by spies, brought to Earth, to Tarrano in Venia, and imprisoned in the tower from which Georg had so lately rescued her. Wolfgar for years had been her friend and loyal retainer, though he had pretended service to Tarrano.

  In the Central State, Maida, too young to rule, had been represented by a Council. The public loved her—but a majority of it had gone astray when she disappeared—lured by Tarrano’s glowing promises.

  Maida told Georg all this with a sweet, gentle sadness that was patheti
c. And with an earnest, patriotic fervor—the love of her country and her people for whom she would give her life.

  She added: “If only I could get back there, Georg—I could make them realize the right course. I could win them again. Tarrano will play them false—you know it, and so do I.”

  Pathetic earnestness in this girl still no more than seventeen! And Georg, sitting beside her, gazing into her solemn, beautiful face, felt that indeed she could win them, with those limpid blue eyes and her words which rang with sincerity and truth.

  They sat generally in an unofficial instrument room adjoining the government offices. A room high in a spire above the upper levels of the city. And around them rolled the momentous events of which they were the center.

  The time limit of the Earth Council’s ultimatum to Tarrano expired. Already Tarrano had answered it with defiance. But on the stroke of its expiration, came another note from him. Georg read it from the tape to Maida:

  “To the Earth Council from Tarrano, its loyal subject—”

  A grimly ironical note, yet so worded that the ignorant masses would not see its irony. It stated that Tarrano could not comply with the demand that he deliver himself and the Brende model to Washington because he did not have the model. It was on its way to Venus. He now proposed to recall it. He had already recalled it, in fact. He assured the Council that it was now on its way back, direct to Washington. He had done this because he felt that the Earth leaders were making a mistake—a grave mistake in the interests of their own people. Georg Brende was in Washington—that was true. But Georg Brende was a silly, conceited young man, flattered by his prominence in the public eye, his head turned by his own importance. Dr. Brende had been a genius. The son was a mere upstart, pretending to a scientific knowledge he did not have.