John Russell Fearn Omnibus

by John Russell Fearn

The communication halted abruptly. Evidently something on that far-away world had startled the girl, and she had switched off. Howard Sykes got up slowly from his chair, brows knitted.

  Then his eyes brightened with excitement. “But perhaps I can!” he breathed. “Perhaps I can! I’ve got an idea. Come with me, Steve! The old brain shows sudden signs of returning to life!”

  CHAPTER VI

  Journey Extraordinary

  Walters’ bewilderment was obvious when he and Howard Sykes entered a huge disused foundry, designated as the incinerator for the Martian bacilli which had not escaped the desperate attacks of armed forces in New York. Here squads of men hurled the carcasses into raging furnaces, both dead and partly dead beings suffering the same treatment.

  Howard Sykes went through a systematic search and finally discovered one of the rod-shaped objects, bullets imbedded in its brain. He dragged it clear of the others and looked it over quickly.

  “Guess this’ll do,” he said briefly. “Intact, except for the shattered brain case. Now look, Walters—you once mentioned something about stuffing animals. You’re a taxidermist, aren’t you?”

  “Sure. Part of my former job as zoology chief.”

  “Anything to stop you from examining this thing, probing its entrails, to enable you to find out what makes it able to fly through space?”

  “I guess I could do it, but Good Lord, man, what are you driving at? You’re not suggesting that—”

  “I’m suggesting that a bacillus is the only thing that can get to Mars undetected. Find out what makes that bacillus tick; then, if you get that far, we’ll see what else we can do. Dammit, we’re going to beat these babies at their own game!”

  “Right! Give me a hand to carry the thing. I’ll need instruments, too.”

  Between them they lugged the heavy carcass out of the place, carried it to Walters’ newly equipped laboratory immediately under the headquarters office. Walters, tackling a job right up his own alley, went to work immediately, while Sykes returned to his office in another part of the building.

  Three hours later Walters came in through a private entrance, wiping his hands.

  “First time I ever had to analyze a creature with the help of physicists,” he observed. “The innards of that darned thing are like an electric battery or something in the way it works. As a glow worm can produce cold light by chemicalization, as a spider produces endless webs, so do these Martian bacilli utilize cosmic radiation—or so the physicists tell me.”

  “In what way? Howard Sykes demanded earnestly. “Be explicit, man!”

  “Here it is.” Walters tugged a sheaf of notes from his pocket and started to read from them. “There are radiations in the ether which we can only guess at—the ones which we understand as such are gravitation, light, cosmic waves, and so on. But there is also an accepted range of hundreds of radiations of which we know nothing.

  “As a bird can float on the air, as a fish can swim the sea, so can this bacillus utilize one fixed radiation forever in space in order to propel itself along. It is a radiation of force, as near as I can describe it. The force passes through the complex entrails of the thing and is there turned into a useful quantity by semi-electrical processes.

  “It can, so to speak, absorb the radiation at one end, change it in the middle by reason of its organisms, then discharge it at the tail for propulsion and guidance. Believe me, these Martian bacilli—the rod ones, anyway—are masterful creations of nature.”

  “We’ve got it!” Howard Sykes breathed, his eyes gleaming. “We’ve got it, man! I can get to Mars!”

  “Huh? Now, listen—”

  “No, you listen to me! Is it possible to make enough room in one of those damned things—the one you’ve examined, for instance—for me to lie out flat? Can you remove enough of the needless entrails without disturbing the vital natural organism it possesses?”

  Walters frowned. “I can try. But you’re not thinking of traveling yourself to Mars in the carcass of that thing?”

  “Why not? You know enough about the curing of pelts and the stuffing of animals to make the inside as near normal as need be. I’ll use a space suit to protect me during the voyage. If the weight of the superfluous entrails about equals my own weight, the thing will only carry the load it carried in its lifetime. See?”

  Walters’ mild eyes went wide as be caught onto the idea. “Yes, I see! It’s not only crazy—it’s tremendous!

  * * * *

  Howard Sykes himself was rather inclined to doubt the practicality of his astonishing plan as the days went by, until he saw the combined work of the physicists and Steve Walters. Between them they cleared out the weird and useless entrails of the object and left only the vital natural organs which utilized radiation. The heart was taken out and a chrome steel substitute operated by batteries put in its place.

  The valve system formerly needed to promote a sluggish circulation was now dispensed with, in that its function was radically altered to operate the numberless organs connected with the natural transformer system. When the time for the initial test arrived, Sykes got into his strange new spacecraft and propelled the almost uncanny conveyance at a steep upward angle for nearly two thousand feet, then planed it slowly back to Earth with never a hitch.

  Now only a favorable opportunity was needed. It came abruptly one morning, as Howard Sykes awoke from a restless night. He was just in time to see a flock of the rod-shaped bacilli creatures hurtling toward the skies, for all the world like a fleet of distant space machines. The crucial moment had arrived!

  It took the Earth official no more than five minutes to scramble into his space suit, fix the helmet, and ease himself inside the narrow interior of his conveyance. The end of the carcass closed over his leaded boots as he lay at full length. His helmeted face was pressed close against the spot where the thing’s head bad been. Two tiny holes enabled him to see in front of him.

  Sykes shifted one of the organisms with his gloved hand. Instantly the carcass lifted, curved in a long arc and swept with effortless ease into the clouds. Sykes swept on through the mist, following close in the wake of the spaceward bacilli horde. At last he caught up with the vanguard and kept within reach. No attention was paid to him. It was clear—the creatures considered him one of themselves.

  It was beyond doubt the most ghastly trip Howard Sykes had ever known, one that called for every ounce of his endurance and courage. The only thing in his favor was that the bacilli objects did not move at a speed too crushing for him to keep up with them. Even so, it was a journey which brought him close to collapse on several occasions. Hardly able to move, stretched out as he was in his cramped position, with naught but all the void around him, he had to resort to restorative pills on several occasions. He gave up imagining how long he lay there, sometimes half-conscious, at other times torpidly aware that the bulk of Mars was growing ever larger. And then they had arrived—the horde of bacilli was sweeping downward to the familiar landscape of Mars, its surface dotted with the six scientific Zones. In the interval of his absence, Sykes noticed, the destroyed Zones had been rebuilt and repopulated. He turned his own craft downward, thankful beyond measure that his term of self-inflicted anguish was nearly at an end.

  Most of the bacilli headed toward the city as the landscape rose up to meet them. Sykes turned swiftly northward and headed for the specially created pastureland to the rear of the former Biology Zone. Once there, he landed his strange conveyance in the safety of a newly sprouted wood. Here, prying eyes were unlikely to detect him.

  Emerging from his craft was like waking up in winter with a stiff neck. The least movement was filled with intolerable pain.

  His legs numb, his back and shoulders scourged and taut. By degrees, setting his teeth, he did the thing he had planned. Pulling out his knife, he gradually slit the carcass wide open, dragged himself out of it little by little. Pins and needles surged through his entire body, set him wincing and gasping; then very slowly he began to recover, eased himsel
f up, sat breathing hard as he tugged off his helmet.

  At last he was rid of his suit. Sykes stood up and breathed the first lungfuls of Earth-like air he had known in months.

  CHAPTER VII

  A Matter of Organism

  As Howard Sykes had anticipated, work for the day had ceased when he arrived in the Zone formerly relegated to biology. From the look of the new buildings, it appeared that engineering work was going ahead. Biological research had obviously been suppressed by the Martian Triumvirate.

  Sykes went quickly along the sidewalk, and no particular attention directed to him by the similarly attired men and women homeward bound. The one thing he did notice, however, that most of them had changed a lot in the interval. There was a sullen look on their formerly eager faces, a light rebellion in their eyes.

  Possessing no Martian currency as yet, Sykes walked the distance along the pedestrian ways to the city itself, hoping against hope that Brown had kept his word and allowed Eva Wayne to retain her former apartment. As he strode along he cast occasional glances at the night sky.

  Mingled with aircraft were occasional mighty bacilli forms floating against the nearer moon as it scurried on its eternal journey across the heavens. But in the city, things were the same as ever. Lights were on; the workers were following out their usual forms of entertainment. Evidently the Martian Triumvirate had not excluded popular amusement.

  The large block of apartment dwellings wherein Eva Wayne resided was apparently unchanged. With a fast racing heart Howard Sykes entered the building, paused as the armed guard to the entrance hall barred his way.

  “Number, name, Zone, and purpose of visit?” the guard asked mechanically.

  Sykes thought fast. This was a new angle. Certainly it had not been in force before.

  “Forty twenty-two,” he replied at random. “Name, Robert Carfax. Zone of Astronomy. Urgent message for Worker Eva Wayne.”

  The man seemed to hesitate momentarily, then said briefly,

  “Pass. Worker Wayne’s room is on sixth floor—Number One Twenty-one.”

  With a sigh of inward relief Sykes raced to the giant staircase and pelted up the stairs three at a time. His frantic tapping on the door panels of Room 121 brought Eva Wayne herself to open it. She stared at him with a most extraordinary look. Fear, relief and delight seemed to fight for the mastery of her features.

  “Howard!” she whispered thankfully. “Oh, Howard—”

  He shut and locked the door behind him, caught her in his arms. For a moment or two they were silent in each other’s embrace. Then he held the girl gently at arm’s length.

  “All okay?” he asked anxiously. “Nobody’s harmed you?”

  Eva shook her blonde head earnestly. “No—no, nobody suspects. I risked a lot sending those messages, but so far nobody is the wiser. I’m a worker in the Engineering Zone now. Dr. Brown kept his word. No liberties have been curtailed, as long as I don’t do anything ‘foolish’.”

  She smiled a little twistedly. “Hardest part of the lot was sneaking a mobile radio truck with which to send my messages to you. But I made it— Howard, how on earth did you get here without being detected?”

  He drew her down beside him in the wide armchair and went through the account of his experiences.

  “And what are you going to do now?” the girl asked anxiously.

  He shrugged. “No fixed idea. I thought maybe you could give me a lead. If we’ve got to destroy the bacilli in control of Brown and the Triumvirate, how do we start?”

  “That’ll take plenty of pondering,” Eva said worriedly. “The only thing I can suggest is that you disguise yourself somewhat to avoid detection and become one of the workers. Incidentally,” she looked at him in startled surprise, “how did you manage to get past the sentry in the hall?”

  “By a fluke, I guess. I told him my number was forty twenty-two and that I was from the Astronomy Zone. This outfit I’m wearing is okay, and so—”

  “Forty twenty-two! Eva cried in dismay. “But—but Howard, there isn’t such a number any more! They changed all the numbers of the workers when the Triumvirate came in—and three hundred is the highest number! I’m only Number Twenty-two myself. In the Zone of Astronomy, I believe there are even less workers.”

  Howard Sykes’ lips tightened. “Hell, that’s bad! Puts us both on the spot. I was caught quite unawares and—”

  He broke off startled at a thunderous hammering on the door. Eva looked around in helpless anxiety for some quick hiding place for him, but there was no time. A flame gun slashed the lock and the portal swung wide. Armed officials entered, led by Dr. Brown in his normal civilian attire. He turned slowly to look at Howard Sykes.

  “So the sentry was right!” he commented. “I wondered what method you would adopt to get back here, Mr. Sykes. I still don’t know how you did it, but since you are here it doesn’t matter. Fortunately, the sentry was puzzled by your passwords and general behavior. He passed the information on to headquarters and—”

  Brown smiled thinly. “You were not very sensible coming straight to this apartment, Mr. Sykes.”

  “But wait a minute, Doctor!” Eva broke in hoarsely. “Howard—I mean Mr. Sykes—hasn’t done anything wrong. All he did was come here to assure himself that I was safe. After all, we are engaged to be married.”

  “I’m afraid romance does not reconcile the situation,” Brown said coldly. “Such an excuse is a ridiculous distortion of fact. Do you think that we of the Triumvirate do not know that Sykes here would give anything to be able to destroy us? Why else do you think we endeavored to stop him from getting back here?

  “No, Mr. Sykes, there is only one end to this escapade—and that’s the lethal chamber! The same applies to you, Miss Wayne. You were warned at the outset what would happen if you dared to enter into any conspiracy against the Triumvirate.”

  “Not death for her!” Howard Sykes shouted hoarsely. “Good God, man, it’s insane! She had nothing to do with my coming here! Besides—”

  “Out with them!” Brown snapped, his jaws snapping shut. “Take them to the lethal chamber before they do any more damage. I’ll come afterward and view the results. That is all.”

  Both Sykes and the girl put up a desperate struggle as they were seized by the guards, but within five minutes they were rendered helpless. Half carried, half dragged, they were forced down the long corridor to the ominous steel door of the lethal chamber. Still fighting, they were forced inside, literally hurled into the narrow confines of the enclosed chamber wherein the death sentence would be carried out.

  The door slammed; only its tiny grille of glass was visible. Overhead was the yellow bulb, casting a pale glimmer oil the two prisoners’ haggard, sweat-dewed faces.

  “I—I guess this is all my fault,” Howard Sykes panted. “That seems to be the appropriate thing to say. My God, Eva, if I’d ever even thought—”

  Eva, about to reply, broke off and stared in horrified fascination at wisps of pale blue gas surging in increasing density from the grille under her feet. Below the floor, obviously, the devilish poison gas machine was already at work!

  Sykes tried to speak again, but the words stuck in his throat. The vast certainty of death paralyzed his nerves. Eva stood motionless in the haze, striving to keep her courage to the bitter end.

  Moments passed and the cloud of deadly gas continued to rise—but the incredible thing was that neither them felt any different! It was like standing in the midst cool steam or an ordinary winter fog. At last Sykes turned, groped through the dark, and caught Eva’s arm. Very faintly he could distinguish her face in the nearly obscured yellow light.

  “Say, what’s wrong?” he exclaimed. “I don’t even feel giddy yet. How long does this damned gas take to become effective?”

  “No idea,” she replied quickly. “It’s a new sort of gas which the Triumvirate have invented for the rapid killing of traitors to the cause. So far, we are the first who’ve dared to challenge them; therefore I suppose we ar
e the first to get the gas.

  “But—” Eva stopped. “It certainly is not having any effect,” she admitted in a baffled voice.

  That fact was clear enough. For the flow of gas began to cease; gradually the mist began to disperse through vents in the roof which had suddenly been opened. The gas, then, was assumed to have done its deadly work.

  Howard Sykes said abruptly, “Wait! I’ve got something! This is the first trial of this gas, you say?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “And it’s an invention of the Triumvirate—in other words, the Martian bacilli working through Doctors Brown, Latham and Poste. The bacilli invented this gas as a destroyer of life—but they’ve slipped up! They’ve judged life from their standards, not ours. You know, like a horse can eat grass and we can’t. All a matter of organisms. This gas evidently kills bacilli but doesn’t kill us—”

  The girl’s breathing came faster. “I get what you mean! But what can we do about it? The sentries and Dr. Brown will come in here after a while, find we’re alive, and devise other means to kill us!”

  “They won’t be here for a while yet, anyway,” Sykes said quickly. He dropped to his knees and pulled at the grating in the floor. “Nobody is likely to be below here, either, because of the effects of the gas. There may be a regular arsenal stored below here.” Within ten minutes he had smashed and broken one of the gratings and begun to ease himself through the hole into the basement below. Reaching up, he helped the girl down after him.

  The light of his small torch revealed the remote-controlled gas apparatus and also the immense underground fortress loaded with all manner of munition supplies, each graded and marked in sections.

  “Look!” Eva pointed excitedly. “Gas bombs!”

  Howard Sykes stared at the vast rack wherein were loaded tens of thousands of pineapple-like objects, each one as large as a duck egg. For a moment or two he eyed them thoughtfully.

  “Nice going—if they are composed of this gas,” he muttered. “I’m going to find out. With me, Eva?”