“Did your flying lessons get as far as landing?” screamed Dale over the roar of the gale.
“I was afraid you’d ask that,” replied Flash, smiling despite himself.
Red bolts of jagged electricity shimmered and danced on the nose and wings. The atmosphere howled as if its very atoms were disintegrating into nothingness.
Zarkov’s hand trembled as he aimed the revolver at the cowering Munson. His mind full of questions dancing like skeletons in a graveyard, preying upon his sanity, his face remained impassive, his blazing eyes providing the only indications of the irrationality lurking beneath the surface of his personality. “Munson, you’ll go down in history as a putz.”
Munson folded his arms across his flabby chest and shook his head, his fat cheeks shaking in the dim light. “I don’t care. At least I’ll be a living putz.”
“I swear, Munson, I’ll shoot!”
Munson shrugged, his moving hands exhibiting his exasperation. “Get shot or go up in that thing—what’s the difference?”
“This way you’ll be giving your life to save the Earth! Haven’t you any spirit at all?”
As if to answer Zarkov’s question, Munson calmly walked away, through the greenhouse, toward the nearest exit.
I knew I should have hired that coed instead, thought Zarkov. You just can’t get good help these days. “I tell you I can’t get off alone. I need someone!”
But Munson ignored him. Zarkov swallowed something large and slimy that somehow had been manufactured in his mouth. Munson—the putz—had been right about one thing: Zarkov was indeed a man of peace. He nervously drew a bead above Munson’s head. Perhaps if he gave his assistant a little haircut, then he would begin to see things in a more reasonable light; he would be glad to sacrifice himself for the good of the billions on Earth. However, Zarkov was reluctant to pull the trigger because he could not keep his arm steady. Just as he began to increase the pressure on the trigger, a horrendous crashing—the impact of metal upon dirt—distracted him. He heard the whirring of propellers, the roar of coughing engines drowning out the crackling lightning and the eternally hissing wind. He glanced about, and was vaguely aware that Munson was walking toward the door as if nothing unusual was transpiring, perceiving bright lights tearing away the darkness, growing larger, approaching with the inevitability of a divine presence.
That plane is coming in for a crash landing.
Indeed. One wheel struck the dirt, ripping out great portions of sod. The pilot, whoever he was, was having severe difficulty keeping the plane straight. Then a sense of doom gathered about Zarkov, and he realized where the plane’s path would take it. “Munson!” His assistant was nowhere to be seen.
The door slammed open. Followed by the remorseless white light, a panic-stricken Munson dashed into the greenhouse. The plane crashed through the door and glass, creating a noise the sky could not have equaled if it had been rent asunder by Zeus himself. Bowling over pots and plants as if they were splinters, it crushed Munson beneath its terrific weight.
When the plane finally halted, Zarkov stared at the pool of blood seeping out from underneath the metal. Dazzled by the vision of what Munson must have looked like under there, he pictured his assistant totally flat, his bones broken and his organs crushed and his face mangled beyond recognition. Though this vision stunned and horrified Zarkov for a moment, he managed to keep his irrational wits about him. He realized the pilot of the plane was strictly inept, but very, very brave. He crept backward into the darkness.
Inside the cockpit, Flash wiped a trickle of blood from his forehead. “You all right?” he asked Dale.
She smiled. “I’m terrific.”
You sure are. “Come on, let’s get out of here before she blows.”
Though the gesture was perhaps unnecessary, Flash kicked open the cockpit emergency exit. But he was so full of joy, so glad to be alive, that he did not care. Each second stretched onward for an infinity of happiness. He jumped to the ground, turned, and held out his arms. Only the greatest restraint prevented him from spoiling the innocent pleasure of the moment and crushing Dale’s lithe body to his breast when she leaped into his embrace.
Holding the revolver behind him in the darkness, Zarkov raised his eyebrows. Hubba-hubba, what a pair of gams, he thought.
“Just hold me two seconds,” said Dale to Flash. “Then drop me and I’ll kiss the ground.”
As Flash set her down, Zarkov said, “Good morning.” Not an original salutation perhaps, certainly not one his future biographers would repeat, but under the circumstances, simplicity was the best. As the couple faced him, he took a step from his cloak of darkness. The hand gripping the revolver was cold and wet. “Are you injured?”
Forgetting the scratch on his forehead, Flash said, “Lord knows why, but it seems not.”
“A miracle. I expect you’d like to use my phone.”
“Thanks. I would,” said Flash, grateful for the stranger’s generosity, not noticing Dale was regarding the bearded man with suspicion.
“It’s in there,” said Zarkov, pointing to the capsule entrance. Fortunately, the capsule had not been damaged when the plane crashed into the greenhouse. It resembled a huge golden eraser; symmetrical projections jutted outward at equal distances apart throughout the exterior, providing the space capsule with an old-fashioned appearance that had appealed to Zarkov when he had designed it, but which he now regretted because it did not look like it could fly fifty yards without exploding. Zarkov walked behind the couple as they approached the capsule; should he take the man or the woman? It did not matter. The white light radiating from the capsule interior was like an altar in Zarkov’s mind. Or like a web.
Glancing about the wrecked greenhouse, seeing vegetables growing in the undamaged planters, Dale noticed the red stains beneath the plane and thought, Ah, we ruined his tomato crop. “We’ve wrecked your place,” she said. “I’m sure the insurance will . . .”
Zarkov interrupted her. “Please, don’t mention it.”
Flash asked, “What in hell’s happened to the sun?”
Zarkov shrugged, hoping he looked and sounded like an innocent layman. “Looks like an eclipse to me.”
“Are you sure?” asked Dale. “There wasn’t anything on TV last night about an eclipse today.”
Zarkov became so incensed that he nearly forgot the revolver behind his back and gestured with both hands. “Television! Pap for credulous fools! Insipid twaddle for people who twiddle their diddles!”
“You don’t have to lose control,” said Flash. “Television performs many valuable functions in today’s modern technological society, and criticizing the medium with such vehemence is not constructive.”
Zarkov cleared his throat. “You’re right, of course. Forgive me. I forgot that if you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem. I assure you my lapse was momentary.”
Unaware of the concealed revolver, Flash placed his hand on the scientist’s shoulder and looked directly into his eyes. “I’m certain it was. You must forgive my tendency to moralize. It’s one of the disadvantages of being in the public eye.”
“We’ve all been under a strain,” said Dale.
“Absolutely,” said Flash. “Unexplained phenomena invariably lend life a surreal texture that makes us all subject to Sartre’s nausea.”
“I couldn’t have put that better myself,” said Zarkov, laughing, indicating the ramp leading into the capsule. “Please, right in there. I’ll show you the phone.”
Flash nodded and smiled, then, taking Dale’s elbow, walked her up the ramp. Experiencing a premonition, he was unable to pinpoint its substance. This stranger was a good man—Flash’s instincts were certain of it; nevertheless, he could not ignore the distinct sensation of walking into danger. The muscles of Dale’s arms were tense.
Inside the capsule, Flash and Dale searched wide-eyed for a telephone. Or for anything resembling a telephone. Three cushioned black chairs with straps were bolted about a
white control stand. The white and pinkish-white walls were, for the most part, bare and ascetic, with console panels in two corners. Flash glanced at the instruments on the control stand; they were of the same nature but more intricate than those of the plane. It was impossible, completely surreal, but he had the sinking feeling that he knew exactly what kind of apparatus he and Dale had stepped into.
They turned almost as one to face the stranger leaning in the doorway. Dale, quite pale despite her excitement, exclaimed, “You’re Doctor Hans Zarkov!”
Zarkov performed a mock-bow, acknowledging his identity. “How did you know?”
“I saw you on ‘Sixty Minutes.’ No wonder you don’t like television.” She turned to Flash. “Don’t you remember? He’s the scientist who kept saying there’d be an attack on the Earth! They called him the poor man’s Billy Mitchell. They kicked him out of NASA and . . .”
“Enough!” said Zarkov. “Besides, I was laid off. There’s a difference, though the reporter from ‘Sixty Minutes’ can’t make the distinction.” He pointed the gun at them.
“Are you crazy?” asked Flash, raising his hands.
“Unfortunately not. The attack has begun. I estimate we have eleven days before our moon crashes down and destroys us. I need aid in taking off.”
“In what?” asked Flash, hoping to stall for time.
“In this, in my space capsule.”
“This is a space capsule?” exclaimed Dale.
“Indeed, my greatest invention. Like many dreamers, I have built a spaceship in the grand American tradition, without the aid of the government or a corporation, taking parts where I could get them, with only my native ingenuity to help me. Though my capsule wasn’t built in a backyard per se, it was built close enough to one so I can say that I’ve joined the honored ranks of backyard scientists! And unlike many dreamers, I have succeeded; my capsule works!”
“Have you tested it?” asked Flash.
“No, but I have faith.” Inhaling deeply, Zarkov straightened his shoulders, keeping his bead on the couple. “If not, then I wouldn’t have worked so hard. The engine for this baby was cannibalized from those of old bombers, and it sings like a bird. The body was welded from the husks of obsolete rockets I purchased from NASA. The other parts I needed I got from saving Green Stamps. No, this capsule hasn’t been tested, but I’ve my resources, young man, I’ve my resources. In just a few minutes, we’ll be taking off.”
“For where?” asked Dale.
“Up there. We are being attacked from the stars. I need one person to hold down that red pedal during blastoff.” Which one? thought Zarkov. He glanced at Dale’s shapely legs, felt the pangs of passion surging in his breast, and realized that if he survived his sally and was marooned in space, he would have other, deeper needs. He pointed the revolver at Dale. “You’re the lighter of the two. Sit down in the end seat.” To Flash: “You can leave. Tell the world what Hans Zarkov has done.”
He’s got a coach’s ego, thought Flash. He said to Dale, “I guess I’ll be running along.”
Attempting to keep a brave face, Dale replied, “Remember to put out the cat, will you?”
Flash took a step toward the exit of the capsule. For a moment he wondered what his life would be like, if he would be able to look at himself in the mirror, if he allowed this mad though decent man to kidnap the woman of his dreams and take her on a trip to the stars. He whirled and leaped like a sinewy cat toward Zarkov. “Run!” he shouted to Dale. Of course she did not.
For an instant Zarkov was afraid he would be forced to shoot the young man in cold blood, but his subconscious mind, which was much wiser than he, suddenly guided his motions. Like a man in a dream, he watched himself sidestep Flash and smash him on the back of the head with the revolver. This deed successfully accomplished, Zarkov felt a heady zeal he feared was totally out of character for a man of peace. However, he could not bask in his glow of victory for long. Before the young woman could act (she was distracted by her concern for her friend), he pulled shut the capsule door.
Shaking his head to ward off dizziness, Flash picked himself up and struck the madman in his soft belly. As the madman was woefully out of shape, Flash expected him to fold like cardboard, but the madman was driven by forces which habitually allow puny mortals to overcome the limitations of their flesh. Zarkov and Flash grappled like animals, struggling for superiority, as Dale watched with horror, waiting for Flash to deal the villain a telling blow. However, when the blow came, it propelled Zarkov directly into a big red button that appeared to have been liberated from Con Edison.
“Sit down!” shouted Zarkov. “Keep a foot on the red pedal or the G-forces will kill us all!”
Wow, he’s really dedicated, thought Flash.
The capsule began shaking like a Cadillac moving down a steep hill with its emergency brake in gear. The engines rumbled and the glass of the greenhouse shook as if the earth was moving. Flash became subliminally aware of chemicals mixing and reacting violently beneath his feet. He sensed fire and destruction only marginally harnessed. Fearing for his life, he suffered a paralyzing terror, for now the unknown was no longer an abstraction. At least he had known the capabilities of the plane; at least there he had been able to act. But suddenly the Fates had thrust him completely under Zarkov’s control.
Zarkov, who had already strapped himself in, shouted, “The red pedal! The red pedal!”
Flash experienced a curious weightlessness, though his feet remained firmly planted on the floor. Then a weight descended upon him. He saw Dale struggling to strap herself in the center chair.
The capsule was taking off!
Zarkov uttered something cryptic: “Sorry, Munson, you missed your opportunity.”
However, Flash had no time to ponder the remark’s meaning. The weight of a thousand griefs was pressing down upon him, flattening him. Every heartbeat and every tortured breath racked him with pain. He pulled himself toward the empty chair, fell into it, struggled to turn himself around. He was barely able to strap himself in. Without thinking, motivated by instinct more than his consciousness, he extended his foot and stamped on the red pedal, exerting an unexpected strength derived from a source deep within his spirit, a strength that had served him well during many exhausting football games. Just to glance at Dale (who had blacked out) cost him a tremendous effort.
Flash did not realize it, if Zarkov had told him he would not have believed it, but pressing the red pedal activated the mechanism which produced the force field affording them some relief from the murderous pull of gravity.
Zarkov mumbled, “Friendship—built this to send out in friendship—hands across the void—tentacles across the void—couldn’t bring myself to arm it—the end now—unless we three can—’less we can . . .” And he became silent.
Flash felt a twinge of concern for the scientist; he attempted to convince himself that it was a purely intellectual concern for the sanctity of a human life, but there was something engaging about that idealistic madman. Flash’s interest in Dale, however, evoked no doubts whatsoever. As he watched her still form, he was awash with love and anxiety. Then he turned his eyes upward, toward the white ceiling, and tried to see the stars through the material. Filled with the majesty of space, realizing he was fulfilling a lifelong dream he had never seriously hoped would become a reality, he, too, blacked out.
And the capsule carrying them journeyed into the inconceivable.
4
A Journey through the
Barriers of the Ether
FORTUNATELY, the trio strapped in Zarkov’s space capsule was unconscious throughout the majority of their journey, for if they had read the data of their instruments and peered through the portholes, they would have learned how puny were the most grandiose concepts of the universe in comparison with the reality; and it is doubtful that even the analytical mind of Zarkov could have grasped the sheer vastness and the startling array of colors through which his capsule passed.
In the fuel compartments
beneath the sleepy travelers, chemicals mixed and exploded, one releasing enough oxygen near the exhaust pipes so that a tiny flickering flame erupted into a bolt of fire behind the capsule. The fire died as the capsule, now an insignificant mote, neared Jupiter.
Unbeknownst to all but a few confused scientists who were scanning space for clues to the phenomena occurring on Earth, the vibratory patterns of the ether altered in unfathomable, subtle ways, through incomprehensible means.
The emptiness of space gave way to red and yellow and chartreuse mists borne from some unperceived location upon ghostly winds. Gradually the mists became tumultuous; gradually the capsule became ensnared in a swirling whirlpool of myriad colors, a whirlpool of such power and celestial force that no creature, whatever its species, whatever its resources, could realistically consider escaping. Nor could any creature, whatever its surveying abilities, hope to absorb all the minute shades of the infinite sea of colors writhing like the waters of an agonized planet. A man could liken it only to the fires of the primordial universe, save that this sea of colors radiated no heat. The capsule floated through mists formed not by atoms, but by the parts of atoms, parts searching for form and function and for the fulfillment of a balanced environment. It floated through mists of jasmine, platinum yellow, vermilion, salmon, and sapphire. It floated through scientific impossibilities made mundane by the true realities and physics of the universe.
Eventually, other conglomerations of matter joined the capsule on the journey through the mists. Charred husks, all that remained of burnt-out comets. Meteors. Tiny asteroids. Clouds of space gas. The corpse of an interstellar creature. Upon entering the mists, the capsule left the solar system. After it had traveled for a spell, it reached a location no Terran equation could account for. Perhaps there was no location, perhaps there were many. Or perhaps the capsule had arrived upon a dimensional plane where all concepts of space and time were meaningless abstractions bearing no relevance to these mists—mists of matter so dormant it could not even be accurately described as inert.
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