World Without Chance

by John Russell Fearn

  “You won’t have a heart to worry about if this doesn’t work,” Clark panted, ripping the container from the belt. “This is a chance—and a mighty slim one.…”

  He fumbled clumsily with his gloves, snapped the container open. The creatures had begun to advance again now. Nan gave a little cry and squeezed herself behind Clark’s bulky form. Henshaw stood his ground, swaying a little. In his present mood of semi-intoxication he didn’t care much what happened.

  “Here goes!” Clark breathed, and scooping up a gloveful of tablets he tossed them unerringly into the mouth of the foremost grinning monstrosity. Then he crouched back, waiting agonizedly.

  He hadn’t long to wait. Suddenly the torchlight gloom of the cave was illumined by a blinding, sputtering glare of livid flame. The foremost creature gave one mighty yell, and that was all: the next instant flame spouted from his wide mouth; his whole body transformed in a flash into a blinding mass that sputtered and span wildly, consuming quantities of oxygen crystal from the floor.

  Blinded with the light, the three jerked their faces away, flung up protecting hands. Zero still sat on with closed eyes. The remaining creatures twisted wildly and fell over themselves in their frantic efforts to get outside.… Smoke, slowly evaporating, took the place of the flame. The former shadowy, torch-lit gloom returned.

  Carefully, Clark looked round, spots of color swimming before his gaze.

  “It worked!” he breathed thankfully. “It actually worked!”

  “Yeah; but what happened?” Henshaw demanded. “Those pills cost—hup!—money, and I haven’t so many left. I—”

  “It was the quantity of potassium in their basis that I relied upon,” Clark explained, as they started to edge to the cave opening. “I took the chance that those creatures were composed of the same stuff as Zero—oxygen, hydrogen, and water vapor. You know what happens when potassium gets mixed up with water?”

  “I’m no chemist,” Henshaw growled. “What?”

  “It drives the hydrogen out of the water at express speed, so violently and with such a release of heat that the hydrogen, mingling with the oxygen, catches fire. That’s what happened, luckily for us. The germ turned into a glorified Roman candle.”

  “How many did you give him?” Nan asked breathlessly.

  “Thirty! No wonder he blew up.… The whole tin full.”

  “We’d better get out of here before they come back,” Henshaw said uneasily; then he glanced back at Zero from the cave opening and waved his arm. “So long, Zero. Hope you make it!”

  “Though generations shall pass I will master the final problems of life and death,” came the droning answer—then the three were outside on the ledge again.

  IV.

  Nan glanced around her at the starlit sky, at the sloping ledge at the end of which, far distant, lay the spaceship.

  “No sign of dawn yet,” she remarked seriously; “and from what Zero told us it won’t have much effect even when it does come. Not up here, anyhow—”

  “Take a look!” Clark interrupted her, and nodded his head along the ledge.

  Not five hundred yards away the monstrosities, their first fright overcome, were returning, intent this time on vengeance, beyond doubt.

  “Uh-uh!” exclaimed Henshaw hastily, and started off at a blundering run. His own dizziness, the slippery ledge, and the lesser gravity made him a ludicrous figure; almost laughable had the danger not been so great. Finally he fell over and collapsed in the midst of the startled hydrogen birds further down the slope.

  “Hey! Come back!” Clark yelled. “I’ve got to fix the rope to your belt.…” Clutching Nan, he set off after him.

  “We’ll never make it,” Nan panted huskily. “They’re gaining on us. We’d be safe enough on that slope below, but it’s too far to jump. Following this ledge it will take us half an hour at least, and by that time—”

  “Look!” Clark yelled, stopping momentarily. “What the devil’s dad doing?”

  That was a problem. Instead of scrambling to his feet, Henshaw was rising as though dragged, tightly clutching a quartet of hydrogen birds in his huge gloved hands. In an instant he was off the ledge, floating away over the frozen slope below.

  “Dad!” Nan screamed wildly. “Dad, what’s happened?” And her voice thundered in echoes over the dreary reaches.

  “Dunno,” Henshaw’s receding voice echoed back. “Clutched their necks.… See you later.… I hope!” He drifted out of earshot, floating toward the distant spaceship.

  “I get it!” Clark whistled. “He must have grabbed a neckful of the things as he got up. They were inflating and lifted him right into the air. Actually they’re strangled, but can’t release their hydrogen gas—so they’re a sort of balloon. Weight here doesn’t amount to much. Four of those things could lift dad with ease— It’s an idea,” he went on hurriedly, resuming the scrambling run. “One way of getting off this ledge.”

  He cast another look around at the approaching Callistians, then at Henshaw’s far off drifting figure.

  “Why the blazes doesn’t he release hold of them one by one?” he said anxiously. “He’d drop, then— Gosh! He’s gone right over the edge of the slope toward the chasm. Disappeared! Come on!”

  They redoubled their efforts, only slowed down as they approached the swelling and deflating hydrogen birds. One or two flew off; the others jerked their ridiculous heads round on their scrawny necks.

  “Grab!” Clark ordered. “Four!”

  He dived simultaneously with the girl as eight of the birds started to inflate. They caught them at the peak of their inhalation. The things struggled wildly as they found it impossible to exhale.… Clark found himself lifted from the ledge, carried upwards swiftly with the smooth ease of a balloon, buoyed up by the heavier argon-x, as he mentally named the unknown gas.

  Behind him, clutching her own four birds tenaciously, Nan came. Back on the ledge the monstrosities arrived too late, were screaming and cursing threats in an unknown language.

  “Hang on!” Clark shouted. “We’ve got to find your dad. Keep hold until I tell you otherwise.”

  The girl’s helmet nodded. The drifting took them over the solitary, blocked spaceship to the yawning misty chasm beyond it. Nan closed her eyes at the frightful drop below, then opened them again at a cry from Clark.

  “The Sun! Look!”

  She stared across the misty wrappings, beheld the absurd far distant disk that was the Sun. Already at the touch of its slight but noticeable warmth the valley mists below began to stir curiously like cotton wool with a draft under it.

  “Drop!” Clark ordered. “Let go of your birds one at a time.”

  He set the example and she followed suit. Each time they released a bird they fell lower, until by the time they possessed only one bird each they were falling almost sheer into the midst of the stirrings and shifting of reforming, congealed atmosphere.

  Suddenly the clear, thin clarity of everything changed. They were in semi-gloom, blanketed under clouds. A sloping mass, presumably the foothills of the titanic cliff at the top of which rested the spaceship, rose up to meet them.

  “Drop!” Clark yelled, and released the last bird. Instantly he and Nan ceased their drifting and fell vertically, slowly owing to the lesser gravity, dropped to the ground and rolled over and over, sat up amidst billowing gusts of wind as the irregularly warmed atmosphere took on balance.

  They joined each other, stood up, surveying the towering height of cliff, clouds whirling savagely in the wind drifts at half way up its height.

  “Well, we made it,” Clark muttered, “but I don’t know what good it’s done us. Take a look at that cliff—it’s unclimbable without proper tackle, and we haven’t got any. Ice and snow ridges near the top, too—normal congealment.” He stopped and stared round the desolation. Here and there the Sun was starting to peep through the twisting, warming air.

  “There’s nitrogen present down here, anyhow,” he said thankfully, regarding the gauge on his bel
t. “Not that it does us much good with the ship way up there.…” He put the instrument back and yelled, “Dad! Dad! Can you hear me?”

  His amplifier at full strength his shout penetrated deafeningly, echoed from the cliff sides.

  “Dad!” he bawled again, and for a long time there was only the echoes of his voice. He prepared to shout again, then stopped abruptly at a distinct sound not very far away.

  “Yo-ho liety! Iddio—ladiay! Ooooo-yoohooo.…”

  Nan laughed in sudden relief. “Clark, it’s dad all right. He’s—he’s yodeling!”

  “Huh?” Clark gulped. “What the hell for?”

  “He’s always wanted to,” she said fondly. “Good old dad!”

  They stood waiting, calling at intervals. The yodeling went on, echoing weirdly. The tugging and puffing of the wind began to diminish, but far up the heights were curious rumblings and bumping as warmth surged upwards toward that forgotten waste, charging it with the lightning and thundering of heat and cold.

  Then suddenly old Henshaw appeared, reeling gracefully, a deflated hydrogen bird in his hand like a Christmas turkey.

  “Illi-idio!” he warbled, coming up on clumsy feet. “I—hup!—guess I always wanted to—hic—yodel. It’s the Swish—the Swiss in me.… Gosh, that was hard to say!”

  “Thank Heaven you didn’t break your neck,” Clark panted, seizing him tightly.

  “Mebbe you wanted me to, huh?” Henshaw demanded arrogantly. “Jus’ so’s you could inherit my money through Nan, huh? Nothin’—hup!—doin’! An, why shouldn’t I fall easily, and near here? I came down on the same wind drift, didn’t I?”

  Clark agreed, then said ominously, “Dad, you’ve been parking away too doggone many of those tablets. You’re tight again!”

  “Sure—an’ I like it!” Henshaw thrust out his chin behind his helmet. “S’what?” he demanded. “Without those teticol tablets you’d have been in a pretty—pardon me—fine mess back with those germ men, wouldn’t you?”

  He reeled round and stared up at the heights. The air had cleared a lot now. The weak sunshine revealed the basic rock soaring for a thousand feet and more, ending then in sheer snow and ice, pinnacles and buttresses of it joining the oxygen crystal plain. Somewhere up there, on the edge, reposed the spaceship.

  “Say!” he yelped, wheeling. “How the heck do we get back?”

  “I’m not good at riddles!” Clark sat down glumly on the black rock, stared moodily at the idiotic Sun, across the barrenness of the valley floor to the very near horizon.

  “Y’mean, we can’t—” Henshaw gasped, stumbling back. “But, Clark, we’ve got to! We can’t jush stop here.… It—it isn’t done.”

  “Lots of things aren’t done, but this one is,” Clark retorted. “If you hadn’t have floated so far we wouldn’t be in this mess. If it comes to that, you’re responsible for the whole darn business!”

  “Yes.…” Henshaw closed a rueful eye and sat down. His face was so utterly woebegone behind the glass that Nan could not help but smile a little. She patted his gloved hand.

  “Never mind, dad, we’ll find a way to the top somehow,” she said brightly. “There’s always a way up mountains and cliffs.”

  “With tackle, yes—not otherwise,” Clark told her gloomily. “You needn’t fool yourself, Nan. We couldn’t possibly scale those ice peaks at the summit. Our only chance is to rig up some kind of signal in the hopes of being seen by the regular Jove line space traffic. Mighty slim hope down here with the mountain range hiding things, but we might make it.”

  Henshaw twisted his head back and stared up at the snowy height.

  “Funny,” he muttered. “Funny to think we waited for the thaw and didn’t know it never thaws up there. In that case we might have risked getting into the ship.… And down here there’s the nitrogen we need.… Some things are mighty queer.…”

  Clark’s sour look silenced him. He beat his gloves together unconcernedly and started to yodel again, His ringing cries went beating against the cliff side.

  “Li-tiddly-oh-te-oh—! Gosh, is that a hot one! Listen, Nan. Yiddley!”

  “Oh, shut up!” Clark yelled exasperatedly. “Things are bad enough without you bursting our receivers. Lay off!”

  Henshaw shrugged, then suddenly his aggrieved expression changed slightly. He looked less stupefied. Swiftly he altered his sound transmitter to maximum output.

  “What’s the idea?” Clark demanded, watching.

  “Ha!” Henshaw waggled a huge finger. “Idea, m’lad.… Lishen!” And he burst forth again with a streaming cacophony of most unlovely noises, yodeling that would have struck a Swiss mountaineer stone dead.

  “For Pete’s sake—!” Clark howled imploringly, clapping a hand over his receiver. “What the hell are you trying to do? Deafen us?”

  “Nope—jush get ush out o’ this mess.…”

  Henshaw stood up, yodeled again and again with the most shattering din, sent the thundering cries rolling down the valley…then suddenly he twisted round sharply and stared upwards. The constant muttering of the storm-ridden heights had changed to a deeper note—the growling, crumbling thunder of sliding matter.

  “Avalanche!” Clark gulped abruptly, jumping up and clutching the startled Nan. “Yes—look!” He pointed upward. Already mighty boulders of frozen snow, oxygen, nitrogen, and other nameless elements were detaching themselves, moving downwards in a vast, overpowering flood.

  “It worked!” Henshaw yelled in delight, dancing clumsily. “I knew it—! My yodeling— Come on!”

  Sobered with the intensity of the moment he led the way. As fast as they could go they went blundering away across the stones, toward the steeply overhung level of the cliff itself. Directly underneath it they would probably escape the full force of the downfall.

  Not a second too soon they floundered into the welcome shelter. Behind them titanic masses of white banged and powdered and exploded with terrifying power—some were frozen air, bursting apart under the sudden warmth. Others were actual rocks.

  “You—you started this, dad,” Clark panted. “Your damned yodeling voice vibrations shifted the upper ice and snow peaks.”

  “That’s what I wanted,” Henshaw answered complacently. “I saw it happen somewhere once—Alps, I think. A guy hollered an’ a mountain fell down. Sound waves and that. I figured the ship would fall down too. Won’t be hurt much with snow and lesser gravity to cushion it.”

  “He’s right, Clark!” Nan cried breathlessly. “It might work at that. The ship was on the edge—”

  She broke off and stared anxiously at the curtain of white hailing down outside. Clouds of white foggy dust came drifting into the retreat.… When at last the concussions were over, they were facing a hill of white with barely room enough to scramble over the top.

  Clark began to claw his way through, held down a hand to the girl and her father. Standing knee-deep in snow they stared around them, amazed at the quantity of snow and ice that had dislodged.

  “There!” screamed Nan suddenly. “Isn’t that it? That black thing poking up?”

  She didn’t wait to be answered; she went floundering forward, waist deep in snow, until she gained the black protuberance nearly two hundred yards away. In a moment Henshaw and Clark were at her side.

  “It’s it all right,” Clark acknowledged thankfully. “Came down with the snow. Saved it from damage.… We’ll soon have this snow away.” He turned quickly to Henshaw. “Nice going, dad! The moment we get this snow clear and into space you can yodel to your heart’s content.…”

  “I don’t want to yodel,” ‘Henshaw mused, scooping the snow away in his gloves.”

  “No? What then?”

  “All I want is a darned good drink, mixed up with these makeshift tablets.…”

  THE DEGENERATES

  BY POLTON CROSS

  From Astounding Stories, February 1938

  This was to be the last ‘Weinbaum flavour’ story that Fearn would send to Schwartz under his ‘per
sonal’ pseudonym of Polton Cross. It was also one that was only indebted to Weinbaum for its Saturnian moon setting (including especially Weinbaum’s ‘bladder birds’). The plot was more or less original to Fearn, and the story’s main strength is its characterization and human interactions, not its borrowed alien ecology or SF tropes. It appealed sufficiently to Campbell for him to accept the story on 29 October 1937. But it was to be the last Fearn story appearing in Astounding.

  Successive commentators have assumed that Fearn simply couldn’t meet Cambell’s ‘higher standards’ and was ruthlessly discarded. But that simply wasn’t true,

  Canpbell fully intended to continue to use Fearn in his new Astounding, and wrote to him following his acceptance of “Red Heritage”. Fearn referred to Campbell’s contacting him in his letter to Walter Gillings dated 9th January 1938:

  “‘Dark Eternity’ (which Fearn had sold earlier to Tremaine in September 1937) marked the last thought variant story I ever intend to write. Come to think of it, it was a fitting closing story to a long run of crazy scientific expositions. ‘Red Heritage’ marks the birth of the new Fearn, with a new style story. Campbell has written me expressing his liking for this yarn and urges all future yarns be written in the same vein. Further (in confidence) he tells me that the readers are swinging from the heavy science thought-variant type of yarn to more interesting characters and lighter science. So I’ve changed my methods utterly. ‘Red Heritage’ was the start of the new method, and henceforth I shall change unrecognizably into the (in confidence) Polton Cross type of yarn. My latest yarn for Astounding, ‘Debt of Honor’ is almost straight fiction, but I think it’ll click. I hope so.”

  Clearly, Fearn had every intention—and expectation—of continuing to write for Astounding. He had also received a second letter from Campbell at the same time, addressed to ‘Thornton Ayre.’ Whilst he had accepted “Whispering Satellite,” Campbell gave notice that it was the last such story he was prepared to use. Apparently too many authors were “going like Weinbaum” and the editor was sick of it. He suggested that Ayre should write for him under a different style.