John Russell Fearn Omnibus

by John Russell Fearn

  The unknowns were clearly beings of a higher mental order than Earthlings. They used weapons that drew on the ether for supply. They hurled walls of shattering vibration down upon the defenses. In places the protective screens of the Earthlings smashed and buckled. Beneath these gaps whole cities rocked and split up amid a million thunders. Tens of thousands of gallant defenders died in the onslaught. Those who did survive surged to other points to reinforce their desperately pressed comrades.

  Deep down in the bowels of the earth shining armies of robots marched to the tune of the Armament Master, robots which carried an unceasing flow of material and ammunition to the battling Earthlings on the surface. If the onslaught could only be stemmed there was a chance — a slim but still a real one — that Earth might yet survive …

  In a still-quiet room, buried a mile below the carnage of the surface, Lester Carr worked silently, undisturbed. Though fully aware of the danger threatening the world, it was not to his task to deal directly with it. As First Physicist to the Governing Council he had his especial duties to perform. Right now he was bending over a series of tubes and dials, in the center of which reposed a grayish looking mass not unlike flesh.

  Silently a woman entered. Lester Carr did not look at her even though he was aware of her presence.

  “Catalyst Seventy-X-E,” he ordered, regarding the substance on the testing plate. “Quickly, please!”

  It was handed to him. He held the phial over the intake valve of his strange instrument. The stuff mingled instantly with the fleshy mass. It fumed saffron yellow, emitted a choking discharge. Carr closed a petcock and looked up with a grim smile.

  “It may interest you to know, Freda, that our enemies are from a planetary system which has Morcas-Eighteen as its sun.”

  The girl started. “But that’s a colossal distance away. As far as our present day telescopes can penetrate.”

  “It still remains a fact,” Lester Carr said. “We know the contents of Morcas-Eighteen, and since the planets of a particular sun take on the qualities of the primary, or parent, there can be no mistake. This piece of flesh from one of the invaders contains elements which are only applicable to Morcas-Eighteen.”

  “But why should they pick on Earth for such an assault?” the girl demanded angrily. “Why not Mars, or Venus, or even some of the planets nearer to their own System? What have we done?”

  “Just nothing,” Carr shrugged. “The only explanation is that they chose Earth because they felt our science would not be able to master them, a fact which they were perhaps uncertain about in regard to planets near their own home. Why they should travel so far afield I can’t imagine — yet.”

  There was silence for a moment. Then with a smile Carr suddenly relaxed. The stern scientific authority of his still young face melted into affectionate lines.

  “In the stress of duty one would think us strangers,” he murmured. “Forgive my bruskness, dearest.”

  “At such times as these, Les, I forget too that we are married, certified A category, and have a perfect son designated by the Eugenics Council as Super-X-A.” The girl gave a little shrug of her white-coated shoulders. “After all, duty must come first. But seriously, how do you think we will make out?”

  “We’ve got to survive, Freda. For nearly two centuries we have built up an ordered civilization of science and progress, and the inhuman senselessness of war — even from the void — must not be allowed to destroy it.” Carr clenched a lean fist and beat it vexedly on the bench.

  “What beats me is the senselessness of this particular attack. Why did they pick on us? The only explanation seems to be that they were driven from their own world. And a power that can drive out master-scientists en masse must be something serious indeed. That is a solemn thought.”

  He turned suddenly and switched on the visiplates connected to the pick-up stations on Earth’s surface. Somberly he and the girl watched the sky thick with the hurtling hordes from Morcas-Eighteen, hurling forth their battering rams of scientific destruction.

  “Unless I am much mistaken,” Carr said at length, a touch of exultation in his voice, “we’re holding our own. That new Clark-Andrews multi-dimensional ray is our salvation. A bit longer and we may definitely turn the tide —”

  He turned as the door opened again. It was the Second-in-Command of the Defense Force who entered. With him came two heavily armed guards holding between them with magnetic attractors a squirming, putty-gray being whose shape utterly defied all human standards. He seemed to be composed of one jellylike body, a protuberance for a head, in which were two vast hate-filled eyes. He moved with clumsy slowness on blocky legs.

  “Perfect specimen of the enemy here, Carr,” the S-in-C said briefly. “Find out what you can from him and report back to headquarters.”

  Carr nodded and motioned the guards aside. In thirty minutes he had the brain-frequency amplifier at work on the creature and exchange of thought waves began.

  “Do you come from a planet which has what we call Morcas-Eighteen for a sun?” Carr demanded, indicating the spot on a cosmic map.

  The jellyhead gave grudging acknowledgment.

  “Then why have you attacked us? What are you seeking? Why such a wholesale flight into the void?”

  “Why not?” vibrated the sullen inquiry. “It was done before us. Ages ago, when the Black Infinity threatened to engulf Miras, our nearest neighbor, the inhabitants of that planet also fled into space seeking safety. Wisely, they avoided our planet knowing that within a few thousand years it too would be engulfed. They came to Earth, vanquished the inhabitants, lived for awhile in comfort — Then, with their scientific resources built up again after the conquest, they moved on once more. Always traveling, always trying to escape the inevitable maw of the Black Infinity.”

  Carr stood puzzling for a moment. “This Miras you speak of. How far away was it from you?”

  “Possibly as far as Sirius is from you — that is on the side away from Earth.”

  “Not far from the rim of the universe, then?”

  “Just so. But that rim overtook and threatened to destroy Miras. Hence the exodus. Nor was there any warning because the Black Infinity moves faster than light and hence gives no warning of its approach. Finally it will engulf all planets, even this one.”

  Carr asked thoughtfully. “Just how long is it, in Earthly time, since the Miras scientists vanquished the Earth?” The creature hesitated as it assimilated Carr’s thoughts, then:

  “It would be about the middle of your Mesozoic Era.”

  Carr meditated over another question as the radiophone to the surface buzzed for attention. He listened, gave a grim smile, then switched off.

  “It may interest you to know, my friend, that your invasion has failed,” he announced. “The news has just come through.”

  All the assurance and power seemed to evaporate from the man of far-away.

  “For me,” came his thoughts, “there is nothing left!”

  And with sudden, stupefying force his center of consciousness built up to a brief anguishing concentration. Literally he destroyed his fleshly cage with the force of his own thoughts!

  Carr and his wife stood astounded by the occurrence for a moment. Then Carr sighed gloomily.

  “A pity he had to do that. There was so much more I wanted to ask.”

  “What does it matter now?” Freda cried, her eyes dancing. “We’ve won. We’ve smashed the invasion. Don’t you see what it means?”

  “Yes,” Carr said slowly, with unwonted grimness. “I think I do.” He became suddenly alert. “We’d better hurry to headquarters and get the news first hand.”

  The return of peace and the chance to rebuild the damage done occupied the attention of practically every scientist — except Lester Carr. In hours of duty he had, of course, to do the work assigned him by his superiors. But for him the real work began when the city synchro-buzzers announced the time for recreation.

  In his own modest laboratory, adjoining his city
apartment, he spent a great deal of time weighing up the things he had heard and learned from the invader with whom he had communicated.

  “There’s no doubt,” he said one night to Freda, who had followed his investigations with never-flagging interest, “that something real and deadly is going on, way out in the Universe — something defying our telescopes because it moves faster than light can travel. It is something so remote that it would take whole generations of spacemen ever to reach it and return with a report. Those beings of Morcas-Eighteen were not flesh and blood. Their power to annihilate by thought proved that. Possibly they were a form of crystalized thought, hence able to move at a speed far in excess of light. That’s the only explanation for them attacking us so suddenly and without warning.”

  Freda watched him for a moment. “But what does it matter?” she insisted. “The danger is over and done with.”

  “I don’t think it is,” Carr interrupted grimly. “In these past months I’ve spent a lot of time studying the newly found records of Atlantis and Mu, produced by the Lang Expedition of Twenty Thirty-five. You will remember that they added to earlier findings of the Twentieth Century, wherein — even that long ago — it was postulated that some cataclysm or other wiped out Atlantis and other early civilizations. The cataclysm was not one of Nature, however, but an invasion like the one we’ve just defeated.”

  “Are you sure of that?” inquired Freda.

  “There are countless evidences,” Carr went on restlessly. “There are samples out of the sands and ruins themselves to prove that inhabitants of another world had been present. Most of the samples, according to my tests, coincide with the elements one would expect to find from invaders inhabiting such a world as Miras must have been. And the time coincides. Our captured friend said Earth was conquered in the mid-Mesozoic Era, which was approximately the time of the Atlantis tragedy. Obviously Atlantis was submerged by attack from space and the invaders became masters over the remainder. Then the invaders moved on, farther and farther away from — the Black Infinity.”

  Carr’s words trailed off as he lost himself in speculation.

  “This Black Infinity seems to suggest a hole in space — some overwhelming force beyond science to master,” he resumed. “Miras was overtaken first. More recently a planet, infinitely nearer to Earth, was abandoned for the same reason. It requires no imagination to see that this unknown horror will finally reach here, too.”

  “But what is the Black Infinity?” Freda demanded.

  “We don’t know for certain. But we can assume that it is vastly destructive, since whole populations flee from it. There may be other invasions yet, as successively nearer systems to Earth are overwhelmed.”

  Carr straightened up suddenly. “We’re facing danger from two sources, Freda. Future invasions by races using Earth as a stopping place — and the menace of the Black Infinity, itself. We shall have to prepare against the one and master the other. I must try and get a scientists’ convention arranged.”

  “Dearest, wait a moment,” Freda caught his arm. He turned in surprise and her voice was serious. “How long do you think it will be before this Black Infinity reaches us?”

  “How can I say when I don’t know what it is? As a rough guess, estimating the distances between Miras and the Morcas-Eighteen System, I’d say perhaps two hundred years. But this unknown thing may — and probably will — increase its speed. Why?”

  “Just that I’m wondering what you can do about it. What can any of us do about it? We’ve not solved eternal life. As generation follows generation — especially if no more invasions come — the peril of the Black Infinity will no longer seem to be a real menace as it does to you right now. We know of it, but it is to posterity that we must hand down the knowledge. And unfortunately peril loses its sharpness with time.”

  Carr frowned. “There has got to be a way to hand it on,” he muttered. He reflected, pacing agitatedly up and down. “And I’ll find the way somehow,” he said finally. “Now I must go.”

  The governing council, however, refused Lester Carr his application for a convention. He was listened to, purely out of courtesy, and his whole earnest speech was recorded — but that was all. Politely but firmly the council made clear to him that he was chasing rainbows.

  At first he was bitter, disconsolate. Then new ideas took hold of him. For months he worked in secret. Then, one day, he returned home with his son from the State-crèche.

  Carrying him in his arms Carr motioned his wife to follow him into his laboratory. For the first time she saw the machine on which he had spent so much time and energy.

  “This,” he said eagerly, settling the child down, “is a special improvement on the Telepath we have at the laboratory — the one with which I communicated with that invader. You see, Freda, study has shown me that it is actually the particular qualities of a certain brain which produces genius, the ability of the brain that is to adapt itself uniquely to the incessant thoughts flowing in from space.”

  “Space!” Freda ejaculated, astonished.

  Carr nodded. “Jeans of long ago referred to a mathematical God. He also referred to space itself being a mathematical abstraction. Later scientists in our own time have averred that space, if not pure thought itself, is certainly close to it. Therefore our brains simply become the transformers by which these inflowing thought waves are transformed into activities of greater or lesser intellectual power, according to the brain which receives them.”

  Freda nodded slowly, pondering.

  “Those brains better suited than others become geniuses for that reason.” Carr finished. “Such a brain has Richard here. Our Richard!” he went on proudly, rubbing the boy’s curly hair. “By ordinary standards alone — according to his State grade-card — he would grow up into an extremely clever man. But I intend to make him a superman — one who will be able to carry the vast scientific responsibility which will one day be his!”

  Freda’s voice revealed anxiety for the first time.

  “Les, just what are you going to do?”

  “Use the device you see here. This machine of mine will stimulate Richard’s brain with extra energy every time he is allowed to be with us at vacation period. Thus, even as a battery is sharp when freshly charged, so will his brain assimilate State lessons with consummate ease, as well as absorbing the new, untold thoughts from the void itself. He will realize where he fits in the great pattern of mortal evolution. I shall teach him what I wish him to know during the vacation periods, and I believe he will understand and retain all that I shall impress on him, thinking about those things until next vacation time comes round.”

  Carr stopped talking and placed the leather helmet of the device on the child’s head, then stood back to survey it critically. Freda bit her lip anxiously, for the first time wavering in her trust of her husband’s scientific skill. A thousand foolish yet forgivable thoughts welled in her mother’s soul. They reached an agony of apprehension when Carr closed a switch dispassionately and listened attentively to the humming of the small engines embodied in the machine.

  To Freda’s intense relief Richard went on playing unconcernedly with the tool he had picked up. Carr watched him hawkishly, glanced at a gauge, then at last switched off.

  “That’ll do for this time,” he commented, to Freda’s satisfaction. “Now let’s get him out of here and start in to teach him a few simple facts. This for us is our supreme experiment — indeed our sacrifice, and for it generations as yet unborn may have cause to be devoutly thankful. Come on.”

  Weeks passed into months — and months into years, but Lester Carr never once let up in his extraordinary experiment. By carefully graduated doses, timed to match the boy’s age, he instilled into the young, razor-keen brain the whole story of the invasion from Morcas-Eighteen, together with the threat of the Black Infinity. Richard Carr absorbed it all silently, then discussed it. At the age of ten he had the wits of a fully-grown, clever man.

  At twenty Richard Carr was certificat
ed as Double Grade-A, a degree of brilliance usually assigned only to those who were acknowledged masters of one or many sciences. At twenty-five he reached the sacrosanct region of Chairman to the Supreme Scientific Council. It seemed inevitable that he would finally become the elected ruler of the new generation.

  Lester Carr had every reason to feel proud of his experiment, and indeed Freda too. They felt content now to stay in the background and watch full fruition — but this was denied them. A fault on the Tenth Traffic Parallel hurled the pair of them to death one summer evening. When he heard the news Richard Carr realized that he was alone in the world, the sole custodian of his father’s grim warning of disaster to come.

  To the surprise of everybody when it came to the Presidential nominations Richard Carr refused to stand. He pleaded important work in research and sought retirement to study out the problem wished on him by his far-seeing but much less brilliant father. Money he had aplenty from his scientific inventions.

  Muriel Clegg, his one assistant, though a Grade-A student in astrophysics and mathematics, found Richard Carr an utterly complicated and rather arid being. He was emotionless, coldly precise, with a wizardry over science and its mysteries that was somehow godlike. In appearance he was handsome, and to hear him talk was to be aware of a calm, self-centered ego that was little short of exasperating. He treated the pretty brunette Muriel as a well precisioned machine, utterly blind to the admiration — slowly deepening to affection — which she had for him.

  In his laboratory one evening he seemed to forget that the girl was even present and talked half to himself.

  “There is only one explanation for the Black Infinity. The Universe, as we know it, began from the explosion of a gigantic primal atom, its matter rushing outwards from the central core to form the expanding universe. We, of the Universe, and all other matter in it, are the parts of the initial explosion. But outside of the Universe — and inside it, the central core from which the primal atom exploded — there is nothing. A non-space time …”