The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume VII: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  "In the face of that, how can we rely on his one prediction about a meteor striking Moonbase One?"

  Taggert rubbed his forehead thoughtfully. "I don't know," he said slowly. "There must be a connection somehow."

  "Oh, Brian, Brian!" Her eyes were glistening with as yet unshed tears. "I've never seen you go off on a wild tangent like this before! On the word of an old fraud like Forsythe, a man who lies about half the time, you talk the Administration into sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into the biggest space lift in history!

  "Oh, sure; I know. The old fraud is convinced he was telling the truth. But were you tapping his mind when the prediction flash came? No! Was anyone? No! And he's perfectly capable of lying to himself, and you know it!

  "And what will happen if it doesn't come off? We're past the first deadline already. If that meteor doesn't hit within the next twenty-eight days, the Society will be right back where it was ten years ago! Or worse!

  "And all because you trusted the word of Mr. Phony-Doctor Forsythe!"

  "Donna," Taggert said softly, "do you really think I'm that big a fool?" He handed her a handkerchief.

  "N-no," she answered, wiping at her eyes. "Of c-course I don't. It's just that it makes me so d-darn mad to see everything go wrong like this."

  "Nothing's gone wrong yet. I suggest you go take a good look at Forsythe's mind again and really try to understand the old boy. Maybe you'll get more of the fine-grain structure of it if you'll try for more understanding."

  "What do you mean?" she asked, sniffing.

  "Look. Forsythe has made his living being a fraud, right? And yet he sent out those warning free--and anonymously. He had no thought of any reward or recompense, you know that. Why? Because he is basically a kind, decent human being. He wanted to do all he could to stop any injury or loss of life.

  "Why, then, would he send out a fraudulent warning? He wouldn't. He didn't. Every one of those warnings--including the last one--was sent out because he knew that something was going to happen.

  "Evidently, once he gets a flash about a certain event, he can't get any more data on that particular area of the future, or we could get more data on the Moonbase accident. I think, if we can boost his basic understanding up past the critical point, we'll have a man with controlled prescience, and we need that man.

  "But, Donna, the only way we're ever going to do that--the only way we'll ever whip this problem--is for you to increase your understanding of him.

  "You're past the critical point--way past it--in general understanding. But you've got to keep an eye on the little specific instances, too."

  She nodded contritely. "I know. I'm sorry. Sometimes a person can get too near a problem." She smiled. "Thanks for the new perspective, Brian. I'll go back to work and see if I can't look at it a little more clearly."

  * * * * *

  In the White House, Senator Mikhail Kerotski was facing two men--James Bandeau, the Secretary of Space, and the President of the United States.

  "Mr. President," he said evenly, "I've known you for a long time. I haven't failed you yet."

  "I know that, Mike," the President said smoothly. "Neither has your Society, as far as I know. It's still difficult for me to believe that they get their information the way you say they do, but you've never lied to me about anything so far, so I take your word for it. Your Society is the most efficient espionage and counterespionage group in history, as far as I know. But this is different."

  "Damned right it's different!" snapped Secretary Bandeau. "Your own Society, senator, admits that we've stirred the Soviets up with this space lift thing. They've got ships of their own going out there now. According to reports from Space Force intelligence, Chinese Moon cars have been prowling around Moonbase One, trying to find out what's going on."

  "More than that," added the President, "they've sneaked a small group aboard the old Lunik IX to see what they can see from up there."

  Secretary Bandeau jerked his head around to look at the President. "The old circumlunar satellite? Where did you hear that?"

  The President smiled wanly. "From the S.M.M.R.'s report." He looked at Kerotski. "I doubt that it will do them any good. I don't think they'll be able to see anything now."

  "Not unless they've figured out some way to combine X rays with radar," the senator said. "And I'm quite sure they haven't."

  "Senator," said the Secretary of Space, "a lot of money has been spent and a lot of risks have been taken, just on your say-so. I--"

  "Now, just a minute, Jim," said the President flatly. "Let's not go off half-cocked. It wasn't done on Mike's say-so; it was done on mine. I signed the order because I believed it was the proper, if not the only thing to do." Then he looked at the senator. "But this is the last day, Mike. Nothing has happened.

  "Now, I'm not blaming you. I didn't call you up here to do that. And I think we can quit worrying about explaining away the money angle. But we're going to have to explain why we did it, Mike. And I can't tell the truth."

  "I'll say you can't!" Bandeau exploded. "That would look great, wouldn't it? I can see the headlines now: 'Fortuneteller Gave Me Advice,' President Says. Brother!"

  "Jim," the President said coldly, "I said to let me handle this."

  "What you want, then, Mr. President," Kerotski put in smoothly, "is for me to help you concoct a good cover story."

  "That's about it, Mike," the President admitted.

  Kerotski shook his head slowly. "It won't be necessary."

  Bandeau looked as though he were going to explode, but a glance from the President silenced him.

  "Go on, Mike," he said to the senator.

  "Mr. President, I know it looks bad. It's going to look even worse for a while. But, let me ask you one question. How is the Ch'ien space drive coming along?"

  "Why ... fine. It checked out months ago. The new ship is on her shakedown cruise now. You know that."

  "Right. Now, ask yourself one more question: What is the purpose of Moonbase One?"

  "Why, to--"

  The telephone rang.

  The President scooped it up with one hand. "Yes?"

  Then he listened for a long minute, his expression changing slowly.

  "Yes," he said at last. "Yes, I got it. No; I'll release it to the newsmen. All right. Fine." He hung up.

  "Twelve minutes ago," he said slowly, "the old Lunik IX smashed into Moonbase One and blew it to smithereens. The Soviets say that a meteor hit Lunik IX at just the right angle to slow it down enough to make it hit the base. They send their condolences."

  * * * * *

  Brian Taggert lay back on the couch in his office and folded his hands complacently on his abdomen. "So Donna's theory held water and so did mine. The accident was due to human intervention. Forsythe saw something from space hitting Moonbase One and assumed it was a meteor. He never dreamed the Soviets would drop old Lunik IX on it."

  Senator Kerotski carefully lit a cigar. "There's going to be an awful lot of fuss in the papers, but the President is going to announce that he accepts the Soviet story. I convinced him that it is best to let the Soviets think they're a long way ahead of us in the space race now. There's nothing like a little complacency to slow someone down."

  "How'd you convince him?"

  "Asked the same question you asked me. Now that we have the Ch'ien space drive, what purpose does a moon base serve? None at all, of course."

  Donna Tadesco leaned forward in her chair. "Did you happen to notice the sequence of events, senator? We were warned that the base would be struck. We decided to abandon it. We organized the biggest space lift in history to evacuate the men and the most valuable instruments. But the Soviets thought we were sending equipment up instead of bringing it down. They didn't know what we were up to, but they decided to put a stop to it, so they dropped an abandoned space satellite on it.

  "If we hadn't decided to evacuate the base, it would never have happened.

  "That is human intervention with a vengeance. We still
don't know whether or not Forsythe's predictions will ever do us any good or not. Every time we've taken steps to avoid one of his prophesied catastrophes, we've done the very thing that brought them about."

  The senator puffed his cigar in thoughtful silence.

  "We'll just have to keep working with him," Taggert said. "Maybe we'll eventually make sense out of this precognition thing.

  "At least we've got what we wanted. The Soviets think they've put us back ten years; they figure they've got more time, now, to get their own program a long ways ahead.

  "When they do get to Mars and Venus and the planets of Alpha Centauri and Sirius and Procyon, they'll find us there, waiting for them."

  Senator Kerotski chuckled softly. "You're a pretty good prophet, yourself, Brian. The only difference between you and Forsythe is that he's right half the time.

  "You're right all the time."

  "No," said Taggert. "Not all the time. Only when it's important."

  THE END

  * * *

  Contents

  THE TENTACLES FROM BELOW

  By Anthony Gilmore

  CHAPTER I

  "Machine-Fish"

  "Full stop. Rest ready."

  These words glowed in vivid red against the black background of the NX-1's control order-board. A wheel was spun over, a lever pulled back, and in the hull of the submarine descended the peculiar silence found only in mile-deep waters. Men rested at their posts, eyes alert.

  Above, in the control room, Hemingway Bowman, youthful first officer, glanced at the teleview screen and swore softly.

  "Keith," he said, "between you and me, I'll be damned glad when this monotonous job's over. I joined the Navy to see the world, but this charting job's giving me entirely too many close-ups of the deadest parts of it!"

  Commander Keith Wells. U. S. N., grinned broadly. "Well," he remarked, "in a few minutes we can call it a day--or night, rather--and then it's back to the Falcon while the day shift 'sees the world.'" He turned again to his dials as Hemmy Bowman, with a sigh, resumed work.

  "Depth, six thousand feet. Visibility poor. Bottom eight thousand," he said into the phone hung before his lips, and fifty feet aft, in a small cubby, a blue-clad figure monotonously repeated the observations and noted them down in an official geographical survey report.

  * * * * *

  Such had been their routine for two tiring weeks, all part of the NX-l's present work of re-charting the Newfoundland banks.

  As early as 1929 slight cataclysms had begun to tear up the sea-floor of this region, and of late--1935--seismographs and cable companies had reported titanic upheavals and sinkings of the ocean bed, changing hundreds of miles of underwater territory. Finally Washington decided to chart the alterations this series of sub-sea earthquakes had wrought.

  And for this job the NX-1 was detailed. A super-submarine fresh from the yards, small, but modern to the last degree, she contained such exclusive features as a sheathing of the tough new glycosteel, automatic air rectifiers, a location chart for showing positions of nearby submarines, the newly developed Edsel electric motors, and automatic teleview screen. When below surface she was a sealed tube of metal one hundred feet long, and possessed of an enormous cruising radius. From the flower of the Navy some thirty men were picked, and in company with the mother-ship Falcon she put out to combine an exhaustive trial trip with the practical charting of the newly changed ocean floor.

  Now this work was almost over. Keith Wells told himself that he, like Bowman, would be glad to set foot on land again. This surveying was important, of course, but too dry for him--no action. He smiled at the lines of boredom on Hemmy's brow as the younger man stared gloomily into the teleview screen.

  And then the smile left his lips. The radio operator, in a cubby adjoining the control room, had spoken into the communication tube:

  "Urgent call for you, sir! From Captain Knapp!"

  * * * * *

  Wells reached out and clipped a pair of extension phones over his ears. The deep voice of Robert Knapp, captain of the mother-ship Falcon, came ringing in. It was strained with an excitement unusual to him.

  "Wells? Knapp speaking. Something damned funny's just happened near here. You know the fishing fleet that was near us yesterday morning?"

  "Yes?"

  "Well, the whole thing's gone down! Destroyed, absolutely! The sea's been like glass, the weather perfect--yet from the wreckage, what there is of it, you'd think a typhoon had struck! I can't begin to explain it. No survivors, either, so far, though we're hunting for them."

  "You say the boats are completely destroyed?"

  "Smashed like driftwood. I tell you it's preposterous--and yet it's the fact. I think you'd better return at once, old man; you're only half an hour off. And come on the surface; it's getting light now, and you might pick up something. God knows what this means, Keith, but it's up to us to find out. It's--it's got me...."

  His tones were oddly disturbed--almost scared--and this from a man who didn't know what fear was.

  "But Bob," Keith asked, "how did you--"

  "Stand by a minute! The lookout reports survivors!"

  * * * * *

  Wells turned to meet Bowman's inquisitive face. He quickly repeated the gist of Knapp's weird story. "We saw them at dusk, last evening--remember? And now they're gone, destroyed. What can have done it?"

  For some minutes the two surprised men speculated on the strange occurrence. Then Knapp's voice again rang in the headphones.

  "Wells? My God, man, this is getting downright fantastic! We've just taken two survivors on board; one's barely alive and the other crazy. I can't get an intelligible thing from him; he keeps shrieking about writhing arms and awful eyes--and monsters he calls 'machine-fish'!"

  "You're sure he's insane?"

  Robert Knapp's voice hesitated queerly.

  "Well, he's shrieking about 'machine-fish'--fish with machines over them!... I--I'm going to broadcast the whole story to the land stations. 'Machine-fish'! I don't know.... I don't know.... You'd better hurry back, Wells!"

  He rang off.

  * * * * *

  Keith slipped off the headphones and told Bowman what he had learned. Hardy, staunchly built craft, those fishing boats were; born in the teeth of gales. What horror could have ripped them--all of them--to driftwood, with the weather perfect? And a half-mad survivor, raving about "machine-fish"!

  "Such things are preposterous," Bowman commented scornfully.

  "But--the fleet's gone, Hemmy," Keith replied. "Anyway, we'll speed back, and see what it's all about."

  He punched swift commands on the control studs. "Empty Tanks, Zoom to Surface, Full Speed," the crimson words glared down below, and the NX-1 at once shoved her snout up, trembling as her great electric motors began their pulsing whine. The delicate fingers of the massed dials before Keith danced exultantly. The depth-levels tolled out:

  "Seven thousand ... six thousand ... five thousand--"

  "Keith! Look there!"

  Hemmy Bowman was pointing with amazement at the location chart, a black mesh screen that showed the position of other submarines within a radius of two miles. In one corner, a spot of vivid red was shining.

  "But it can't be a submarine!" Wells objected. "Our reports would have mentioned it!"

  The two officers stared at each other.

  "'Machine-fish!'" Bowman whispered softly. "If there were machines, the metal would register on the chart."

  "It must be them!" the commander roared, coming out of his daze. "And, by God, we're going after them!"

  * * * * *

  Rapidly he brought the NX-1 out of her zoom to the surface, and left her at four thousand feet, in perfect trim, while he read the instruments closely.

  A green spot in the center of the location chart denoted the NX-1's exact position. A distance of perhaps forty inches separated it from the red light on the meshed screen--which represented, roughly, a mile and a half. Below the chart was a thick dial, over which
a black hand, indicating the mysterious submersible's approximate depth, was slowly moving.

  "He's sinking--whatever he is," Keith muttered to Hemmy. "Hey, Sparks! Get me Captain Knapp."

  A moment later the connection was put through.

  "Bob? This is Wells again. Bob, our location chart shows the presence of some strange undersea metallic body. It can't be a submarine, for my maritime reports would show its presence. We think it has some connection with the 'machine-fish' that survivor raved about. At any rate, I'm going after it. The world has a right to know what destroyed that fishing fleet, and since the NX-1 is right on the spot it's my duty to track it down. Re-broadcast this news to land stations, will you? I'll keep in touch with you."

  Knapp's voice came soberly back. "I guess you're right, Keith; it's up to you.... So long, old man. Good luck!"

  * * * * *

  In Wells' veins throbbed the lust for action. With control studs at hand, location chart and teleview screen before his eyes and fifteen men waiting below for his commands, he had no fear of any monster the underseas might spew up. He glanced swiftly at the location chart and depth indicator again.

  The mysterious red spot was slowly coming across the NX-1's bows at a distance of about one mile. Keith punched a stud, and, as his craft filled her tank and slipped down further into deep water, he spoke to Hemmy Bowman.

  "Take control for a minute. Keep on all speed, and follow 'em like a bloodhound. I'm going below."

  He strode down the connecting ramp to the lower deck, where he found fifteen men standing vigilantly at posts. At once Keith plunged into a full explanation of what he had learned up in the control room. He concluded:

  "A great moral burden rests on us--every one of us--as we will soon come face to face with a possible world menace. Anything may happen. A state of war exists on this submarine. You will be prepared for any wartime eventuality!"

  Sobered faces greeted this announcement, and perceptibly the men straightened and held themselves more alertly. Wells at once returned to the control room. A glance at the location chart and its two tiny lights told him that the intervening distance had been decreased to about half a mile.