They Came From Outer Space

by Jim Wynorski (editor)

  McReady peered through a crack in the door. His breath sucked in huskily and his great fingers clamped cruelly on Barclay’s shoulder.

  The meteorologist backed down. “It isn’t,” he explained very softly, “Blair.

  It’s kneeling on something on the bunk—something that keeps lifting.

  Whatever it’s working on is a thing like a knapsack—and it lifts.”

  “All at once,” Barclay said grimly. “No. Norris, hang back, and get that iron of yours out. It may have—weapons.”

  Together, Barclay’s powerful body and McReady’s giant strength struck the door. Inside, the bunk jammed against the door screeched madly and crackled into kindling. The door flung down from broken hinges, the patched lumber of the doorpost dropping inward.

  Like a blue-rubber ball, a Thing bounced up. One of its four tentacle-like arms looped out like a striking snake. In a seven-tentacled hand a six-inch pencil of winking, shining metal glinted and swung upward to face them. Its line-thin lips twitched back from snake-fangs in a grin of hate, red eyes blazing.

  Norris’ revolver thundered in the confined space. The hate-washed face twitched in agony, the looping tentacle snatched back. The silvery thing in its hand a smashed ruin of metal, the seven-tentacled hand became a mass of mangled flesh oozing greenish-yellow ichor. The revolver thundered three times more. Dark holes drilled each of the three eyes before Norris hurled the empty weapon against its face.

  The Thing screamed in feral hate, a lashing tentacle wiping at blinded eyes. For a moment it crawled on the floor, savage tentacles lashing out, the body twitching. Then it staggered up again, blinded eyes working, boiling hideously, the crushed flesh sloughing away in sodden gobbets.

  Barclay lurched to his feet and dove forward with an ice-a. The flat of the weighty thing crushed against the side of the head. Again the unkillable monster went down. The tentacles lashed out, and suddenly Barclay fell to his feet in the grip of a living, livid rope. The Thing dissolved as he held it, a white-hot band that ate into the flesh of his hands like living fire. Frantically he tore the stuff from him, held his hands where they could not be reached. The blind Thing felt and ripped at the tough, heavy, windproof cloth, seeking flesh—flesh it could convert The huge blow-torch McReady had brought coughed solemnly. Abruptly it rumbled disapproval throatily. Then it laughed gurglingly, and thrust out a blue-white, three-foot tongue. The Thing on the floor shrieked, flailed out blindly with tentacles that writhed and withered in the bubbling wrath of the blow-torch. It crawled and turned on the floor, it shrieked and hobbled madly, but always McReady held the blow-torch on the face, the dead eyes burning and bubbling uselessly. Frantically the Thing crawled and howled.

  A tentacle sprouted a savage talon—and crisped in the flame. Steadily McReady moved with a planned, grim campaign. Helpless, maddened, the Thing retreated from the grunting torch, the caressing, licking tongue.

  For a moment it rebelled, squalling in inhuman hatred at the touch of icy snow.

  Then it fell back before the charring breath of the torch, the stench of its flesh bathing it. Hopelessly it retreated—on and on across the Antarctic snow. The bitter wind swept over it twisting the torch-tongue; vainly it flopped, a trail of oily, stinking smoke bubbling away from it McReady walked back toward the shack silently.

  Barclay met him at the door. “No more?” the giant meteorologist asked grimly.

  Barclay shook his head. “No more. It didn’t split?”

  “It had other things to think about,” McReady assured him. “When I left it, it was a glowing coal. What was it doing?”

  Norris laughed shortly. “Wise boys, we are. Smash magnetos, so planes won’t work. Rip the boiler tubing out of the tractors. And leave that Thing alone for a week in this shack. Alone and undisturbed.”

  McReady looked in at the shack more carefully. The air, despite the ripped door, was hot and humid. On a table at the far end of the room rested a thing of coiled wires and small magnets, glass tubing and radio tubes. At the center a block of rough stone rested. From the center of the block came the light that flooded the place, the fiercely blue light bluer than the glare of an electric arc, and from it came the sweetly soft hum. Off to one side was another mechanism of crystal glass, blown with an incredible neatness and delicacy, metal plates and a queer, shimmery sphere of insubstantiality.

  “What is that?” McReady moved nearer.

  Norris grunted. “Leave it for investigation. But I can guess pretty well.

  That’s atomic power. That stuff to the left—that’s a neat little thing for doing what men have been trying to do with 100-ton cyclotrons and so forth.

  It separates neutrons from heavy water, which he was getting from the surrounding ice.”

  “Where did he get all—Oh. Of course. A monster couldn’t be locked in—or out. He’s been through the apparatus caches.” McReady stared at the apparatus. “Lord, what minds that race must have—“ “The shimmery sphere—I think it’s a sphere of pure force. Neutrons can pass through any matter, and he wanted a supply reservoir of neutrons.

  Just project neutrons against silica—calcium-beryllium—almost anything, and the atomic energy is released. That thing is the atomic generator.”

  McReady plucked a thermometer from his coat. “It’s 120ø in here, despite the open door. Our clothes have kept the heat out to an extent, but I’m sweating now.”

  Norris nodded. “The light’s cold. I found that. But it gives off heat to warm the place through that coil. He had all the power in the world. He could keep it warm and pleasant, as his race thought of warmth and pleasantness. Did you notice the light, the color of it?”

  McReady nodded. “Beyond the stars is the answer. From beyond the stars.

  From a hotter planet that circled a brighter, bluer sun they came.”

  McReady glanced out the door toward the blasted, smoke-stained trail that flopped and wandered blindly off across the drift. “There won’t be any more coming, I guess. Sheer accident it landed here, and that was twenty million years ago. What did it do all that for?” He nodded toward the apparatus.

  Barclay laughed softly. “Did you notice what it was working on when we came? Look.” He pointed toward the ceiling of the shack.

  Like a knapsack made of flattened coffee-tins, with dangling cloth straps and leather belts, the mechanism clung to the ceiling. A tiny, glaring heart of supernal flame burned in it, yet burned through the ceiling’s wood without scorching it. Barclay walked over to it, grasped two of the dangling straps in his hands, and pulled it down with an effort. He strapped it about his body. A slight jump carried him in a weirdly slow arc across the room.

  “Anti-gravity,” said McReady softly.

  “Anti-gravity,” Norris nodded. “Yes, we had ‘em stopped, with no planes, and no birds. The birds hadn’t come—but they had coffee-tins and radio parts, and glass and the machine shop at night.

  And a week—a whole week—all to itself. America in a single jump—with anti-gravity powered by the atomic energy of matter.

  “We had ‘em stopped. Another half hour—it was just tightening these straps on the device so it could wear it—and we’d have stayed in Antarctica, and shot down any moving thing that came from the rest of the world.”

  “The albatross—“ McReady said softly. “Do you suppose—“ “With this thing almost finished? With that death weapon it held in its hand?

  “No, by the grace of God, who evidently does hear very well, even down here, and the margin of half an hour, we keep our world, and the planets of the system too. Anti-gravity, you know, and atomic power.

  Because They came from another sun, a star beyond the stars. They came from a world with a bluer sun.”

  THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD RKO/A Winchester Pictures Corporation

  Production 1951

  87 minutes. Produced by Howard Hawks; associate producer, Edward Lasker; directed by Christian Nyby; screenplay by Charles Lederer; director of photography, Russell Harlan, A
.S.C.; art directors, Albert S. D’Agostino and John J. Hughes; music composed and conducted by Dimitri Tiomkin; special effects by Donald Steward; special photographic effects by Linwood Dunn, A.S.C.; set decorations by Darrell Silvera and William Stevens; edited by Roland Gross; recording by Phil Brigandi and Clem Portnan; makeup by Lee Greenway.

  Cast Kenneth Tobey (Capt. Patrick Hendry), Margaret Sheridan (Nikki Nicholson), Robert Cornthwaite (Dr. Arthur Carrington), Douglas Spencer (Ned “Scotty” Scott), James Young (Lt. Eddie Dykes), Dewey Martin (Crew Chief Bob), Robert Nichols (Lt. Ken “Mac” MacPherson), William Self (Corp. Barnes), Eduard Franz (Dr. Chapman), Sally Creighton (Mrs. Chapman), James Arness (The Thing), Paul Frees (Dr. Voorhees), George Fenniman (Dr. Redding) .

  FAREWELL TO THE MASTER

  by Harry Bates filmed as

  THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

  (Twentieth Century-Fox, 1951 )

  Undoubtedly one of the ten best science fiction films that Hollywood ever produced, The Day the Earth Stood Still has enjoyed tremendous popularity with each new generation that views it.

  Part of the reason for this widespread acclaim certainly stems in part from the novel ideas presented in the original story. Rather than infuse his tale of an alien voyager with horror and menace, author Harry Bates chose to turn the tables and create a new type of otherworldly visitor.

  Instead of toting around the usual death rays and planning to conquer the world, benevolent spaceman Klaatu arrives on Earth promoting only peace and good will. Yet his upstanding intentions are met with fear, suspicion, and finally blind violence.

  Likewise in the motion picture, Klaatu, as superbly portrayed by the late Michael Rennie, discovers that Earthmen may not be as civilized as he thought. In a valiant attempt to save humanity from destroying itself with atomic weapons, the spaceman falls victim to treachery, injustice, and eventually a hail of murderous bullets. Only later, through the aid of his robot companion, Gort (Gnut in the short story), is Klaatu brought back to life.

  Screenwriter Edmund H. North, who co-scripted Patton and most recently Meteor, readily admits his loose adaptation of the Bates story contains many specific religious references . . . even beyond the obvious “resurrection” sequence. For instance, when Klaatu escapes from the hospital he identifies with the man whose suit he has taken. The name is Carpenter—one he adopts as his own. This too is part of the Christ parallel, a tack the original novella never explored.

  But even though the story and screenplay differ on many points, it is curious to note that both place heavy dramatic interest on the idea of a UFO landing in our midst. In 1940, when “Farewell to the Master appeared in Astounding Stories, the first rash of flying saucer sightings were coming in from pilots fighting overseas. By 1951, when the film version hit the screen, all America was scanning the skies in search of the disc-shaped craft.

  Director Robert Wise, the creative genius behind The Day the Earth Stood Still plus other fantastic films such as The Andromeda Strain and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, firmly believes in UFOs and things beyond human ken. Perhaps this is why he so effortlessly assembled what has become a milestone in science fiction cinema.

  FAREWELL TO THE MASTER

  by Harry Bates

  CHAPTER I

  FROM HIS PERCh high on the ladder above the museum floor, Cliff Sutherland studied carefully each line and shadow of the great robot, then turned and looked thoughtfully down at the rush of visitors come from all over the Solar System to see Gnut and the traveler for themselves and to hear once again their amazing, tragic story.

  He himself had come to feel an almost proprietary interest in the exhibit, and with some reason He had been the only freelance picture reporter on the Capitol grounds when the visitors from the Unknown had arrived, and had obtained the first professional shots of the ship. He had witnessed at close hand every event of the next mad few days. He had thereafter photographed many times the eight-foot robot, the ship, and the beautiful slain ambassador, Klaatu, and his imposing tomb out in the center of the Tidal Basin, and, such was the continuing news value of the event to the billions of persons throughout habitable space, he was there now once more to get still other shots and, if possible, a new “angle.” This time he was after a picture which showed Gnut as weird and menacing.

  The shots he had taken the day before had not given quite the effect he wanted, and he hoped to get it today; but the light was not yet right and he had to wait for the afternoon to wane a little.

  The last of the crowd admitted in the present group hurried in, exclaiming at the great pure green curves of the mysterious timespace traveler, then completely forgetting the ship at sight of the awesome figure and great head of the giant Gnut. Hinged robots of crude manlike appearance were familiar enough, but never had Earthling eyes lain on one like this. For Gnut had almost exactly the shape of a man—a giant, but a man—with greenish metal for man’s covering flesh, and greenish metal for man’s bulging muscles. Except for a loin cloth, he was nude. He stood like the powerful god of the machine of some undreamed-of scientific civilization, on his face a look of sullen, brooding thought. Those who looked at him did not make jests or idle remarks, and those nearest him usually did not speak at all. His strange, internally illuminated red eyes were so set that every observer felt they were fixed on himself alone, and he engendered a feeling that he might at any moment step forward in anger and perform unimaginable deeds.

  A slight rustling sound came from speakers hidden in the ceiling above, and at once the noises of the crowd lessened. The recorded lecture was about to be given. Cliff sighed. He knew the thing by heart; had even been present when the recording was made, and met the speaker, a young chap named Stillwell.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” began a clear and well-modulated voice—but Cliff was no longer attending. The shadows in the hollows of Gnut’s face and figure were deeper; it was almost time for his shot. He picked up and examined the proofs of the pictures he had taken the day before and compared them critically with the subject.

  As he looked a wrinkle came to his brow. He had not noticed it before, but now, suddenly, he had the feeling that since yesterday something about Gnut was changed. The pose before him was the identical one in the photographs, every detail on comparison seemed the same, but nevertheless the feeling persisted. He took up his viewing glass and more carefully compared subject and photographs, line by line. And then he saw that there was a difference.

  With sudden excitement, Cliff snapped two pictures at different exposures.

  He knew he should wait a little and take others, but he was so sure he had stumbled on an important mystery that he had to get going, and quickly folding his accessory equipment he descended the ladder and made his way out. Twenty minutes later, consumed with curiosity, he was developing the new shots in his hotel bedroom.

  What Cliff saw when he compared the negatives taken yesterday and today caused his scalp to tingle. Here was a slant indeed! And apparently no one but he knew! Still, what he had discovered, though it would have made the front page of every paper in the Solar System, was after all only a lead.

  The story, what really had happened, he knew no better than anyone else. It must be his job to find out.

  And that meant he would have to secrete himself in the building and stay there all night. That very night; there was still time for him to get back before closing. He would take a small, very fast infrared camera that could see in the dark, and he would get the real picture and the story.

  He snatched up the little camera, grabbed an aircab and hurried back to the museum. The place was filled with another section of the ever-present queue, and the lecture was just ending. He thanked Heaven that his arrangement with the museum permitted him to go in and out at will.

  He had already decided what to do. First he made his way to the “floating” guard and asked a single question, and anticipation broadened on his face as he heard the expected answer. The second thing was to find a spot where he would be safe f
rom the eyes of the men who would close the floor for the night. There was only one possible place, the laboratory set up behind the ship. Boldly he showed his press credentials to the second guard, stationed at the partitioned passageway leading to it, stating that he had come to interview the scientists; and in a moment was at the laboratory door.

  He had been there a number of times and knew the room well. It was a large area roughly partitioned off for the work of the scientists engaged in breaking their way into the ship, and full of a confusion of massive and heavy objects—electric and hot-air ovens, carboys of chemicals, asbestos sheeting, compressors, basins, ladles, a microscope, and a great deal of smaller equipment common to a metallurgical laboratory. Three white-smocked men were deeply engrossed in an experiment at the far end. Cliff, waiting a good moment, slipped inside and hid himself under a table half buried with supplies. He felt reasonably safe from detection there. Very soon now the scientists would be going home for the night.

  From beyond the ship he could hear another section of the waiting queue filing in—the last, he hoped, of the day. He settled himself as comfortably as he could. In a moment the lecture would begin. He had to smile when he thought of one thing the recording would say.

  Then there it was again—the clear, trained voice of the chap Stillwell.

  The foot scrapings and whispers of the crowd died away, and Cliff could hear every word in spite of the great bulk of the ship lying interposed.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” began the familiar words, “the Smithsonian Institution welcomes you to its new Interplanetary Wing and to the marvelous exhibits at this moment before you.”

  A slight pause. “All of you must know by now something of what happened here three months ago, if indeed you did not see it for yourself in the telescreen,” the voice went on. “The few facts are briefly told. A little after 5:00 p.m. on September 16th, visitors to Washington thronged the grounds outside this building in their usual numbers and no doubt with their usual thoughts. The day was warm and fair. A stream of people was leaving the main entrance of the museum, just outside in the direction you are facing. This wing, of course, was not here at that time. Everyone was homeward bound, tired no doubt from hours on their feet, seeing the exhibits of the museum and visiting the many buildings on the grounds nearby. And then it happened.