Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1959

by The Dark Destroyers (v1. 1)

  Before him, as he stood in the pilot position, was set a round transparent pane in the curved bulkhead, partially obscured by frost. He leaned forward and scrubbed it clear with the cuff of his gauntlet, then gazed through it at the night. A half-moon had risen, revealing a floor of soft, smooth white clouds far below. He reckoned that h& must still be miles high, despite that sudden tumble during the fight. On one side of the port was clamped an arrangement that somewhat resembled a thermometer, furnished with an upright transparent tube bracketed against a board marked with lines. Inside the tube quivered a sparklike red pellet. This was a gauge of altitude, decided Darragh, and apparently indicated that the ship was progressing far below its maximum soaring height.

  On the opposite side of the portline opening were riveted two yard-square metal plates, one above the other.

  The uppermost of these bore an engraved diagram that quite evidendy was a plan of the ship. It stressed many mechanical devices, most of them seemingly located in the chamber aft of the control cabin. Darragh studied them, but despaired of understanding them properly. At the point on the diagram where the control apparatus would be located were various flecks of glowing light—green, blue, rose and yellow—approximating the positions of the various beads on the arms. Darragh changed'the position of the forward bead, and saw a fleck move. This diagram, he guessed, was to show whether all mechanisms were in working order.

  He looked here and there, but could locate no wire or lever connection between the controls and that picture, nor any battery to supply light for the moving flecks. He reflected that the Cold People were said to be masters of ray-mechanics. Undoubtedly there existed invisible bands of power here, beyond his own limited comprehension.

  He lectured himself on these matters, with no impulse toward humility. However he might lack understanding of the head, his hands and arms and legs and body had seemed to know what to do of themselves, and had done it. That brace of Cold Creatures he had slain—and what human warrior could claim as many as two such vanquished enemies, what fighting man of all history—had been supposed to be wise and informed beyond all Terrestrial possibility. Now they were dead. He adjusted the beads of the control mechanism, and gave his attention to the lower engraved square on the bulkhead.

  This quite plainly was a map of North America, most skilfully done, with the continent and islands rendered in greenish-brown, with blue for the oceans and lines and blotches of blue for rivers and lakes. Here, too, was a fleck of pale light that instandy caught his eye, hovering near the juncture of the peninsula of Florida and the main northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico. After a moment of puzzled study, Darragh set this down as an indication of the position of the very ship he now operated. As time went by, the gradual progression of the fleck to northward on the map confirmed his surmise. Here and there upon the outline of the continent showed other, softer glows, ruby-red and varying in size from a mere pinpoint of light to a disk a quarter of an inch in diameter. One of the smaller shining marks was visible upon the southeastern corner of the island of Haiti, from which Darragh deduced that the ruby lights marked the positions of forts or settlements of the Cold People. The largest and most numerous of these showed in northern Canada, Greenland and the islands above the Arctic Circle. Several, though, were set in what once had been the United States; and one of the biggest of these was situated at the southern end of Lake Michigan, near where once Chicago had been a crowning American city.

  Darragh tried to count these evidences of Cold People's communities. He could not do so while he must give partial attention to flying the craft.

  "Every one of those damned things is a city or town or village of these cold creepers," he muttered aloud into the scarf across his face, "and every one of them is full of inhabitants. They've certainly made themselves at home here where they're not wanted. I wonder just what the Cold Creature population of Earth adds up to."

  He wished that that war-eager council of chieftains he had left on the banks of the Orinoco River could see that map and understand the disheartening information it gave. Then he took time to wish that those same loftly and sneering gendemen could see him, conqueror of two of the enemy and captor and operator of the craft he had taken at point of his saber. Spence would have something to wag his long chin about, Megan could glower in awed confusion instead of conceited disdain; that Indian, Capato, would have to admit that a white man as well as red men did not fear to face and fight the invader, if he, Mark Darragh, came flying gloriously home with his prize. The scientists of the Orinoco communities could study the two slaughtered corpses sagging yonder. The best mechanics could survey and appreciate the mechanism of the ship itself, perhaps understand it, perhaps even imitate it and make other craft in its pattern to serve mankind. And for Darragh would be wide-eyed, wide-mouthed admiration.

  He almost ungloved to put his fingers to those beads on the control arms, coax them into position to achieve a U-tum and a course back to his home wilderness. But he paused in mid-motion.

  After all, he had made certain promises to Spence and the others. He had talked with all the young assurance in the world about bringing back definite information that would lead to the overthrow of the Cold People. The dramatic return he envisioned, complete with this little scouting craft, might bring him credit and praise; but it would not be sufficient to assure victory. His mission was still to be accomplished.

  He gazed at the map, at the little blob of radiance that marked his position upon it. Then he leaned forward to the port, judging by long hunting practice his direction by the stars. Then he set his course toward the big red blotch that meant a setdement of the Cold People on the margin of Lake Michigan.

  The night wore on. Despite his stout lappings of leather and cotton, he felt the penetrating cold of the upper atmosphere, and carefully manipulated the control beads so as to drop his ship close to the cloud layer. Experimentally he pushed the bead on the forward arm well along to increase speed ahead, but drew it back when the ship accelerated so suddenly as to frighten him. He had no way of telling what the mechanism's utmost rate of speed might be, and he knew that he really had no desire to find out just then. He felt safer when he slowed it to something like an estimated two hundred miles an hour. Skimming along above the clouds, he watched the progress-light move northwestward on the map-across what had been Georgia, then across what had been Tennessee. He was somewhere above Kentucky when the sun came up and made the floor of clouds a blazing glory.

  In the lower altitudes where he flew, the temperature rose until Darragh was fain to peel off his gauntiets, unship his goggles and unwind the soggy scarf from his face. He threw back the cowl-like hood of his jacket from his head. Awareness of hunger and thirst came upon him. He took a step away from the controls to pick up the string bag of fruit. A mango seemed soft and mushy—it had been frozen, he supposed, then thawed out. He sucked its pulp gratefully, then bent to grab for a little bundle that had cassava cakes and smoked meat. He gnawed these things with vigorous young appetite.

  At mid-morning, the fleck on the map told him that he was approaching that great center of the Cold People by the northern lake. Beneath his speeding craft, the clouds still showed, but were thinning here and there. He began to wonder how best to reconnoiter that settlement. It would be wise, he told himself, to set the ship down somewhere, hide it perhaps among trees or in a valley; then he could approach on foot, taking advantage of whatever cover he found. Surely those confident seizers of Earth would not be expecting a scout in these latitudes, would not keep a watch .. .

  Pondering thus, he was aware of a vibration in the metal floor under his moccasin soles, a silent taut quivering.

  Mystified and startled, he glanced toward the chart that showed the warning lights on the plan of the ship. None had shifted, changed color or intensity. The quiver departed, as abruptly as it had come. Then it was back again:'

  He felt a tightening of his nerves and muscles. Was the mechanism on the point of failure? But no—the ship
did not waver as it slid along above the wispy layer of clouds. Was it a matter of fuel, then, whatever the fuel was? He had come a long way .. .

  A second time the vibration had ceased. Even as he sighed in relief, it was back, stronger this time, and complicated with a deep audible undertone that, as Darragh listened, broke into a jerky semi-rhythmic succession of humming chirps.

  It sounded like telegraphy.

  Undoubtedly it was telegraphy.

  Up ahead, another aircraft had come from somewhere, a larger ship of plumply ovoid lines, its nose turning in Darragh's direction.

  "That damned thing's signalling me," he muttered aloud.

  He had no desire for conversation, even had he known how to achieve it. Nor had he desire for close companionship. As the egg-shaped craft approached, he touched the bead on the right arm of the control assembly, pulled it outward, and made his own little vessel slip abruptly sidewise and around the other. As he did so, the vibration and the rippling signal hum grew more intense, even insistent. His ears rang with it and he shook his dark-maned head to clear it. A new pattern of signal thrust itself into the cabin, seeming to stir the air around him.

  Another ship was accosting him.

  He leaned above the controls to look out at the port. Two or three more vessels were dropping down from above. Two more came struggling upward through the wispy mask of cloud. They converged toward him. They were closing in.

  "This is. an attack!" Darragh snorted aloud, and braced himself like a stanchion for the destroying impact of rays.

  But no ray came to smite him. Instead, the other craft bunched at his sides. He could see them through the ports to starboard and port. They wove closer and closer, as hunting wasps might close in upon a succulent spider. It was too late to do anything but try to run.

  But one of the pursuers maneuvered just ahead, swifter than he and with confident agility. No way out there, nor to either side. Perhaps he could drop away beneath, gain the earth and seek cover. Darragh pulled the bead down on the perpendicular arm; but they dropped with him. A whole storm of vibrations stirred the floor beneath him, the curved bulkheads, the air he breathed. And from below came spiralling another tormentor, a craft almost spherical and much larger than his. Again he raised the bead and sped straight forward, again he was overtaken and surrounded in flight.

  They came close, almost nuzzling him. They were driving him along a certain course.

  He cursed every Cold Creature piloting that swarm around him, as fervendy as earlier he had prayed for guidance and fortune. He went ahead because1 he must. Once more he tried to plummet down, and actually gained the clouds; but, when he had fallen through, he could see his hunters and herders all around, flying more swifdy and skilfully than he could hope to fly. And the vibration was more intense, more maddening than ever, seeming to rattle him inside die cabin like a pea in a gourd. He clung to the uppermost arm of the controls to keep himself steady.

  Below was ground, brown patches that seemed scalded and barren, with belts and clumps of woods between. Up ahead he saw a great blue-gray sheet of water, stretching far out to the northern horizon, and at the shore and upon hills to either side were tufts of timber. There rose at almost the water's brink, dead ahead of him, a great plump dome.

  An artificial structure? A haven of these Cold People? But it dwarfed the trees and the hills to nothing—it was like a mighty mountain, at least five miles in diameter and fully two miles high. As he swept toward it, he thought he could make out a pocking of ports—thousands of ports or entrances. Nearer now, in the midst of his escorting foemen, and he could see great veinlike abysses, that might be the cracks of great doorways ever to slighdy ajar.

  Surely, this was a capital city of Earth's conquerors, a dome so much larger and more complex than those he had seen in southern regions that they would be like buttons beside a parasol. And that flock of ships, darting and crowding around him, was forcing him toward it. Ever the vibration shook his fugitive craft, tingling his nerves and making his hair brisde, driving him half wild.

  He tried to swerve aside; his controls did not respond. That meant that something had taken hold of his vessel from outside, was guiding it. His speed checked. He felt himself drop, felt the sickening tilt of the floor as it slanted forward. Out of the port he looked at the dome, close in, as he approached it in utter helplessness.

  A round black pit opened suddenly in the great structure's swelling flank, as a dark passionless eye might open in a spacious face to stare at him. The pit was black for only a moment—then, deep within it, a green glare sprang out, and seemed to hurl itself upon him.

  This is going to be the finish, Darragh said hastily in his heart. This is the goodbye wave of the fortune that kept me alive and brought me all the way up here.

  That green radiance must surely be the explosion-ray of which he had heard utterly terrible tales. He seemed to be getting time enough to draw himself up straight, into a position of pride and defiance worthy of Spence or Capato, to die like a man.

  But he was not dying. He was not exploding.

  The floor still tilted, the craft still slid downward. But Darragh was alive inside it. He did not even feel discomfort. Those vibrations were gone from him and from around him. Then he knew that the ship was standing still, as though pedestalled upon the beam of green light that involved it.

  All around him, things had turned green, as if the light mushroomed there, flowing in at every port of the cabin. He himself seemed clamped in that braced erect posture he had achieved, unable to stir hand or foot, barely able to breathe. But he could see and think.

  A new sense came into him, as of lightness, of rising from the slanted floor. That was it; the floor was trying to drop from beneath him. The green beam was dragging him and the ship down to earth, down into the great round door in the dome.

  Seconds later, he jarred to a standstill.

  At once the green fight was gone from around him. All was dark outside, and the soft lights of his cabin, the little flecks on map and diagram, had blinked out.

  Some inspiration of saving himself compelled him to thrust on his goggles and scarf, to drag his gauntlets upon his hands, to pull the hood over his head again. Then he dived at the sail that once before had been a shelter to him, and wriggled under it and into it.

  He made that squirming crawl for a hiding place just in time. There were clanking noises at the hatchway at the side. A protesting scrape, then an abrupt ping, and the fastenings yielded as though somehow pulled open from outside. The hatchway moved open, and Darragh heard a heavy, dragging noise.

  Cold Creatures were coming in.

  CHAPTER VI

  At the first opening of the hatchway there had rushed in a wave of deadly cold that smote like a club. It pushed through Darragh's thick-wadded leather clothing, nipping and tingling his skin beneath. This, he knew, must be the temperature that best suited the comfort of the Cold People, a temperature in which they throve while the most vigorous man would freeze in it.

  Peeping once more through a half-open fold of the sail, he saw that there was light in the cabin, either turned on at the switches or somehow fetched in from outside. Three of the Cold Creatures had entered, unarmored and confident. Each of these held in one tentacle a curious little ray-weapon, no larger than a pistol but manifestly intricate of operation. Darragh could see the surface integuments of the things, smooth and waxy, rippling with motion, and in the midst of each bladdery body the dull cold gleam of that incomprehensible organ of lif e and sense.

  They did not seem to have any thought of where Darragh himself might be; their first attention was to their two dead fellows. Around these they crowded, and there was a complex fluttering of tentacles, as though they conferred and argued in that sign language of theirs. One of them prodded experimentally at the deep saber-slash in the pilot creature, and indicated this to his fellows. All their tentacles groped at the wound, then drew away to flourish and tremble in new discussion. They seemed to be at a loss
to account for that wound.

  Finally both bodies were lifted—the tentacles of the Cold People moved with amazing strength and deftness, even with such heavy bulks—and passed them out through the hatchway into the grasp of others.

  Then the things inside began to explore. Darragh's scattered possessions were scooped up, examined, passed from tentacle to tentacle. One of the creatures picked up Darragh's string bag and dumped out the last few pieces of tropical fruit. They fell to the floor with hard whacks, like lumps of wood; plainly they had frozen solid, even in the short time since the ship had come inside the dome. Another of the Cold Creatures lifted its ray-apparatus, and from its muzzle jutted a pencillean ray of sickly pale light upon a banana.

  That banana exploded, as violently as a cannon cracker, leaving only a puff of vapor that vanished in an instant, without even dampness to show where it had gone. That pale ray, then, was the destroyer, something entirely different from the green light that had bound and carried Darragh into this prison.

  Again the destroyer-ray pointed at a fruit and exploded it; to another and another. A moment later, the neighbor of the operator put out protesting tentacles. Plainly it urged its companion to desist. The rest of the fruits must be kept for examination, not destroyed.

  Not destroyed, at least, until later.

  Other tentacles gathered them up and passed them outside. Then a grasp was laid upon the sail, dragging it from Darragh, wadding it up to be given to those waiting beyond the hatchway. This, said Darragh to himself again as he lay exposed, must be his finish. He lay quiet on the stinging cold of the floor, feeling no terror or despair, only an utter exhaustion, as he waited for the ray of death. But it did not come.

  Instead, he felt the touch of those palmlike tentacle-ends upon his legs and body. They took hold of him, hard and elastic and facile. He was being lifted, moved, carried. No attack as yet. Maybe he did not seem alive to them. Completely encased in leather breeches, jacket, moccasins and gloves, with the hood and goggles and scarf to hide his face and head, he might have been some sort of image or effigy, something that would excite only mystified curiosity.