They went down toward the monolith. It wasn’t deserted now. Its base was hidden by thousands of the spheres, red and blue, united against a common foe. The Proteans waited, silent, alert, menacing . . .
THE tension increased almost to the breaking point. Step by step, crunching their heavy space boots through the gravel, the party advanced. The enemy made no move. Silently they waited at the base of the ebon monolith, under the white, churning skies of flame.
Silence . . . Ominous, torturing silence. Quade’s nerves were taut. He could feel the thrill of impending danger flooding through him, tugging at his mind, crying the nearness of peril. His hands swung loosely at his sides, never too far from the gun-butts. The rifle slung across his shoulder slapped his hips at each step. Gerry walked cautiously behind him. After her came the men, bizarre figures with the big water-tank cylinders jutting above their helmeted heads.
The nearest of the spheres was forty feet away—Thirty—Twenty-five . . .
The slope was not so steep now. Crunch, crunch went the metal boots. Hoarse breathing whistled through the audiophones.
“Chief!” somebody whispered.
“Steady,” Quade said. “Steady, fellas!”
Twenty feet separated the group from the Proteans. Fifteen . . . Ten . . .
Quade strode confidently toward the massed ranks. He walked into a gap between two of the monsters. And they gave way.
They drew back, puzzled!
Hesitation would have been fatal. Quade kept on, and a path was cleared for him as he moved. One by one, two by two, the Proteans shrank away.
In his track came Gerry and the others. The tension was unendurable.
“Chief,” a voice said. “They’re closing up behind us!”
“Let ’em,” Quade snapped, and kept going.
The wall of the tower loomed just ahead. Quade stepped over the threshold, stood for a second in the queer pale illumination streaming from within. The floor was carpeted with Proteans, some tiny, others six feet and more in diameter. He could not see Tommy Strike or the others.
Another path of Proteans opened across the floor of the tower chamber. Through that Quade advanced, in grim, deadly silence.
Forward he went, till he reached the center. There he paused.
At his feet lay five motionless figures, Earthmen all, unconscious and silent in their space suits and helmets. In a single glance, Quade saw that they breathed. But the strange spell of dream held them fettered.
“Tommy!”
GERRY sprang forward, knelt beside Strike. She put her palms flat on the transparent helmet, as though she could feel through it the flushed face of the man.
As though at a signal, the Proteans roused into activity! A stir of concerted movement rippled through the chamber. The spheres swayed, rocked. Suddenly they poured down on the Earthmen!
Quade’s gun snarled without hesitation. The men fired a single, continuous roar of bullets.
But from the start it was hopeless. Like the fabled legions of Cadmus, the Proteans seemed to spring into existence from empty air. Strange dream-beings, given the attributes of matter and energy by the power of the black monolith! Dreams made real—living, dangerous, roused now to furious activity.
Quade saw two of his men go down under the onslaught. He blew a blue monster to fragments, shattered a red one. Then he also fell under the attack of a giant. It rolled completely over him and was gone. It had vanished.
White flakes drifted down against Quade’s helmet.
He sprang up, somewhat dazed by his fall. He stared around.
The dream-legions had unaccountably thinned. At least half of them had vanished. But more were approaching, materializing from the air.
Standing above Strike’s body, Gerry Carlyle was using her tank-and-hose. H2O—plain, ordinary water—spurted high in the cyanogen atmosphere, and the precipitated ammonium oxalate fell like snowflakes.
“Use your tanks!” Gerry shrilled. “Forget the guns!”
Quade set the example. He twisted a valve, sent a fine spray of water shooting up. Immediately the others did the same. The salt had no effect on most of the Proteans.
But suddenly, without warning, a number of them snuffed out and were gone. Then a few hundred more disappeared.
“They’re waking up!” Gerry cried. “The seven sleepers—”
Seven sleeping Proteans, securely hidden among their materialized dreams, each identical with the originals. Now awakening came to them, one by one. Sensitive nerve-endings reacted to the irritant salt. No real Protean could remain in dreaming sleep under the circumstances. And whenever a real Protean awoke, his dreams vanished!
The hordes thinned. They were reduced quickly by leaps and bounds. Five hundred—two hundred—a few dozen—
Finally, seven spheres, four blue and three red, lay within the tower. Quivering slightly, they shuddered under the attack of the irritant salt and began to roll toward the doorway.
Quade blocked their path, lifting his sprayer threateningly.
The Proteans hesitated, not knowing what to do.
“Turn off the water,” Gerry commanded. “They won’t go to sleep again. I’ll try to communicate with them. I’ve learned how.”
She turned the valve of her tank and advanced toward the nearest blue Protean. It waited helplessly. The five-foot sphere looked like nothing so much as a gigantic Christmas tree ornament, Quade thought absently.
Gerry wasn’t saying anything, but the sphere was agitated. Pictures appeared on its surface membrane.
The girl turned to Quade.
“They’re telepaths, you know. They can read strongly projected thoughts. And I can piece out what they mean, more or less, from the pictures they make.”
There was another period of silence, while the strange, three-dimensional, color images flickered over the globe’s bluish skin.
“It’s all set,” Gerry remarked at length. “Tommy and the others haven’t been hurt. They’ll wake up by themselves pretty soon. Feed ’em caffeine and brandy and they’ll be ready to go.”
“They’re harmless now?” Quade said.
“Yes. As long as we don’t squirt water on them, they’ll play ball with us. The ammonium oxalate is complete torture to the Proteans.”
The movie man was glancing at his chronometer. He audiophoned the ship, and conversed briefly with Morgan. Then he turned back to Gerry.
“Yeah,” he said bleakly. “It’s nearly deadline. By putting all the men to work muy pronto we may get the engines repaired in time to pull free of the comet. But as for shooting any pictures, I can’t spare a man. Well, I’ll shoot what backgrounds I can on the way back to the ship.”
GERRY was communicating again with the Proteans.
“The Sun proximity won’t hurt these beasties,” she said. “Apparently they can resist electric energy much better than we can.” Her voice turned wistful. “Maybe we could come back to the comet after it rounds the Sun.”
“Nope.” Quade shook his head hopelessly. “No ship. Your Ark won’t be ready till too late, and there’s no other vessel. After we get through the coma again and pull away from the Sun—if we do—this boat of ours will need complete overhauling. When we leave Almussen’s Comet, it means goodbye.”
He pondered.
“Unless we can take some of the Proteans with us,” he added at length. “Find out, will you?”
The girl conversed silently. Then she shook her head.
“They won’t leave home. Although, I’ll tell you what. Go back and get to work on the ship. Take Tommy and the others with you. Pick me up here when you take off, and I may be able to convince some of the Proteans in the meantime.”
“Better get more than one,” Quade said, “or you’ll lose out.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed.
“I’ll attend to that,” she observed. “Scram.”
But Quade still hesitated to leave.
“Sure you’ll be safe?”
Gerry patted her water
tank.
“Plenty safe. My audiophone’s working, anyway. But I guess you’d better leave Tommy Strike here with me.”
Bearing their unconscious burdens, Quade and his men set out on the return journey. Luckily the gravity of the comet was so small that they were able to negotiate the trip without too much delay.
Once aboard the ship, every man pitched in and sweated and toiled over the motors. Even those who had been put to sleep were revivified without trouble, and they also contributed their efforts. Yet Quade watched his chronometer worriedly.
It seemed hours before the final tests were completed. The reliability of the ship was still uncertain, but there was no time to waste. The deadline was already past!
Quade worked hurriedly at the controls. The craft lifted waveringly, and slid along thirty feet above the uneven surface.
CHAPTER X
Too Near the Sun!
SOON they sighted the tower. Quade landed beside it. From the monolith emerged Gerry, Strike, and two blue Proteans. The girl called Quade on the audiophone.
“Two of them will go with us! One for you, one for me. Let me in the ship, will you?”
“Swell!” Quade replied, pressing a lever that opened the air-lock nearest Gerry. “Hop aboard.”
She and Strike complied. In the ship, they removed their helmets and rushed to the control room.
“Open the lock again,” Gerry gasped. “Get cyanogen into it. The Proteans can’t live in oxygen, so we’ll have to keep ’em in the lock till we can fix up an air-tight room for them.”
“Check.”
Quade opened the lock, and the two Proteans hastily rolled into it. The valve shut after them.
Gerry had already scurried off to prepare a home for her cometary guests. Strike remained with Quade, mopping his brow.
“What an experience! Worse than going under ether, Tony. I’ve got the damnedest headache.”
He fumbled in a closet for a pain-killer. “You’ll have a worse headache if luck isn’t with us,” Quade said grimly. “The deadline’s past, Strike. I’m going to take the biggest chance I’ve ever taken in my life.”
The other man turned.
“Eh?” he asked bewilderedly.
Quade sent the ship arrowing up.
“We’re a lot nearer the Sun than we should be. But this boat’s too strained to stand up long in the electronic bombardment of the coma. We can’t stay in it as long as we did before. Our only chance is to accelerate like hell and go straight through the thinnest part.”
Strike’s jaw dropped considerably.
“The thinnest part! You mean—”
“Yeah. The tail of a comet always points away from the Sun. The Sun’s energy pushes at the comet’s coma and tail. That means the thinnest section of the coma is directly opposite to the Sun.”
“Jumping Jupiter,” said Tommy Strike weakly. “We break through at top speed, headed for the Sun. And we’re inside Mercury’s orbit?”
“Way inside. Tell your side-kick to get the Proteans out of the lock in a hurry or they’ll be fried alive. Unless they can resist plenty of energy.”
Strike departed in a frantic rush.
QUADE crouched over the controls, his lean face grim and expressionless, a cold fire in his eyes. He was taking a long chance. But it was the only one. To remain on the comet an hour or two longer would means certain destruction.
He jammed on more acceleration. The ship streaked up like a thunderbolt, heading for the turgidly flaming skies. Faster—faster—
He called Morgan, spoke briefly over his shoulder.
“Strap me in. Bandage me. I’m accelerating plenty.”
The other man obeyed.
Quade, looking more like a mummy than a human being, snapped another order.
“Take care of the men. Ready them for acceleration.”
Morgan nodded silently and went out. Already the space devils were tearing at the ship. The struts groaned and shrilled under the terrific strain. But this was only the beginning, Quade knew. The real test would come later.
White fires loomed ahead. The coma! Quade jammed on more power, felt sickness tug at his stomach, felt his eyes press out of shape as the muscles strained to focus the delicate mechanism of vision.
And now they were in the coma!
Faster, faster! Added to the tremendous speed was the electronic bombardment that ripped at the fabric of the already weakened vessel. Once more the metal of the ship began to glow faintly. Again the craft yelled in shrill metallic protest.
The visiplate was a hell of raving white fire. It cleared without warning. In place of the curdled flames was a round, blazing disk. The Sun—
And the space ship was diving toward it at top acceleration!
Quade took a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he touched three buttons in rapid succession. Immediately he was flung sideward, as though by a giant’s hand. Glass shattered throughout the ship. Light metal bent like putty. Men screamed in agony as ribs and small bones cracked. Everyone was strapped into safety compartments, well padded, but those puny devices were far from enough.
The ship curved. At top speed it swerved away from the Sun. Quade had not dared decelerate, for the mighty mass of the Sun could overcome any number of gravity-screens at this small distance. The outer hull glowed flaming red. The straining motors hummed, rattled, hissed under the overload.
A pointer on a gauge before Quade hovered on a red line, went past it, hesitated, and crept slowly back. He breathed again. Gasping, he began to decelerate.
It was over. They were safe. They had fought against comet and Sun.
And they had won the fight!
EXACTLY one month later, Gerry Carlyle and Tommy Strike were sitting in the girl’s private office in the London Zoo, sipping cocktails and reading rave press notices.
“What a draw,” Strike chortled. “Our blue Protean is drawing customers like flypaper.”
“Uh-huh,” the girl said happily. “And that isn’t the best of it, either. I’m just waiting for a televisor call.”
Strike put down a clipping.
“You’ve been gloating over this secret of yours for a month. What the devil is it?” Gerry’s answer was cut short as the televisor buzzed. She sprang up and answered it. On the screen appeared the simian, contorted face of Von Zorn.
“You chiseler,” he yelped. “You double-crossing so-and-so! I’ll sue you from here to Pluto!”
Tommy Strike got in front of the screen. “Listen, drizzlepuss, you’re talking to a lady.”
Von Zorn turned a brilliant green. “Ha, a lady! Would a lady palm off a dream on me? A Protean? What a laugh! For a month it acted all right. And now, right when I was making a speech at the Rotary Club with the thing on the table beside me—it vanishes! Just like that!”
Strike turned to see that Gerry was helpless with laughter. Feebly she reached up and turned off the televisor.
“You palmed off one of the fake Proteans on Von Zorn!” Tommy accused.
“I told you they couldn’t play me for a sucker,” Gerry gasped, and exploded into a fresh outburst of merriment. “It’s turn and turn about. They tricked me into giving ’em publicity. So I just turned the tables.”
The televisor buzzed again. This time Strike turned it on. But it wasn’t Von Zorn. It was, instead, Tony Quade, and he was looking surprisingly happy.
“Hello,” he greeted cordially, removing a battered pipe from his firm mouth. “Everybody cheerful, I see. That’s nice.”
Gerry sobered suddenly. “Well?”
“Oh, nothing much. Von Zorn told you our little pet vanished, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“I just wanted to get It straight. You arranged with one of the Proteans to create a dream-duplicate, and for me to get the duplicate. And you fixed it up so my Protean would disappear after a time. That right?”
“That,” said Gerry, “is right. And I’m not apologizing.”
“Oh, don’t apologize,” Quade said urbanely.
“Everything’s just fine. I wanted to show you this.”
He lifted a three-sheet placard which read:
NINE PLANETS PRESENTS
CALL OF THE COMET
Produced and Directed by
Anthony Quade
Starring
The Proteans
and
Gerry Carlyle
THE girl gasped inarticulately. “It’s a fake!” she cried at last. “You only shot a few backgrounds on the comet!”
“Yeah,” Quade acknowledged. “But I managed to get acquainted with my dream Protean. He was as intelligent as his original, you know. He told me he was a fake, that he’d vanish after awhile. So I knew what to expect, and I took precautions.”
“It’s still a fake,” Gerry said stubbornly. “Think so? Remember how the Proteans communicate? By projecting colored, three-dimensional images on their skins. Those pictures can be photographed, Miss Carlyle.
“I got my Protean to think and project a complete photoplay—starring you—and we shot and transcribed it directly from the Protean’s membranous skin. I photographed a photoplay. I told you the creatures were intelligent.
“It’s a perfect reproduction,” Quade went on. “Nobody could tell it from the real thing. I’ve got the history of the Proteans, our arrival, your capture—everything that happened. Even that blonde your friend Strike dreamed about!”
“Hey!” Tommy said weakly. “You can’t do that! It’s illegal!”
“It’s illegal to pretend I’m in the picture,” Gerry snapped furiously. “I know that, at any rate.”
“You signed a contract in Von Zorn’s office,” Quade pointed out. “We’ve a perfect right to bill you as star of this picture.” He grinned. “It’ll be swell publicity for you, lady. And you don’t deserve it.”
Gerry breathed deeply. But the training of years stood her in good stead.
“At least, I’ve got the only Protean in existence in this System,” she merely remarked. “That’s something you can’t swipe.”
Quade chuckled maliciously.
‘“Yeah? How do you tell a real Protean from a dream one? The dream one vanishes. Yours hasn’t vanished yet, has he?”
Collected Fiction Page 149
