Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

Perhaps when he had been sent out into space in his rocket right after his death, the action of the cosmic void was to halt his slow death of the cells in his body, and hold him in suspended animation during the ensuing millions of years. Suppose he should really die--destroying his own brain? What lay beyond real death? Would it be a better plane of existence than the Zoromes could offer him? Would he rediscover humanity, or had they long since arisen to higher planes of existence or reincarnation? Did time exist beyond the mysterious portals of death? If not, then it was possible for him to join the souls of the human race. Had he really been dead all this time? If so, he knew what to expect in case he really destroyed his own brain. Oblivion!

  Again the intense feeling of loneliness surged over him and held him within its melancholy grasp. Desperately, he decided to find the nearest cliff and jump from it--head-first! Humanity called; no man lived to companion him. His four metal limbs carried him swiftly to the summit of a nearby precipice. Why not gamble on the hereafter? 25X-987, understanding his trend of thought, did not attempt to restrain him. Instead, the machine man of Zor waited patiently.

  As Professor Jameson stood there meditating upon the jump which would hurl him now into a new plane of existence--or into oblivion, the thought transference of 25X-987 reached him. It was laden with the wisdom born of many planets and thousands of centuries' experience.

  "Why jump?" asked the machine man. "The dying world holds your imagination within a morbid clutch. It is all a matter of mental condition. Free your mind of this fascinating influence and come with us to visit other worlds, many of them are both beautiful and new. You will then feel a great difference.

  "Will you come?"

  The professor considered for a moment as he resisted the impulse to dive off the declivity to the enticing rocks far below. An inspiration seized him. Backing away from the edge of the cliff, he joined 25X-987 once more.

  "I shall come," he stated.

  He would become an immortal after all and join the Zoromes in their never-ending adventures from world to world. They hastened to the space ship to escape the depressing, dreary influence of the dying world, which had nearly driven Professor Jameson to take the fatal leap to oblivion.

  * * *

  Contents

  THE FOURTH INVASION

  by Henry Josephs

  Dr. Clayton's face was impassive as a marble mask when he turned to young Corelli. For a moment, the little group stood there in embarrassed silence in the classroom, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, feigning interest in the paperweights upon Clayton's desk, or in the utterly uninspiring scenes on the sidewalk outside the window.

  "You say, Corelli, that you saw three—er, Martian—ships. Can you describe them?"

  Corelli blinked as he felt the weight of his colleagues' eyes boring into him. "I didn't say they were Martian, sir—only that they seemed to be unearthly. And they were not the conventional saucer-shaped things—they acted like saucers skimming across the water. That's what made me think they were genuine. And they didn't seem to be going fast enough so that I'd expect to hear a roar like a jet-plane.

  "It struck me that this might not be the way they fly, naturally, but the way they might fly if the pilots were having trouble adjusting the controls to a heavier atmosphere than they were used to."

  Clayton tapped the tabletop with his fingers. "What about you, Marty? Did you see three ships?"

  Big Gene Marty, football star, was the least nervous. "Can't be sure about ships, Doc," he rumbled. "I did see something strange disappearing over the horizon. It—I mean they—might have been what Tony says; but whatever it was, there were three of them. But I saw something else, because I was looking in another direction. What I saw first was a couple of funny-looking shapes floating down near the ground. Didn't look like parachutists, yet they seemed big enough to be men—or at least, small men."

  "Interesting. All right, what about the rest of you? How many saw the ships?"

  A chorus answered him. "I see," Clayton mused. "You all agree on the behavior. And you all think there were three—not four—not two. Three?"

  It was agreed.

  Clayton rustled the pile of newspapers. "The reports in here vary. I learn with amazement that you gentlemen seem to have missed completely the spurts of flame that issued from the alien ships—flame which is reported to have set a house on fire. And no one seems to have noticed that the invaders, in descending, glided on huge black wings."

  Corelli blushed a fiery crimson. "Dr. Clayton," he protested, "we aren't making these things up for popular consumption. We're just telling you what we actually saw—that is—what—what—we—saw looked like to us."

  Clayton nodded. "Of course. That is all people were doing back in 1938 when the Martians landed in New Jersey, at the time Orson Welles presented a radio version of H. G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds'. Or when the 'Flying Saucer' craze first started. Or when Fantafilm put on their big publicity stunt for the improved 3-D movie, 'The Outsiders', and people saw the aliens over Broadway and heard them address the populace in weird, booming tones.

  "Gentlemen, I am not pleased to find students of this University engaging in such unwanted extra-curricular activity as inventing interplanetary scares. I don't think Washington will be amused, either."

  Corelli clicked his heels. "Sir," he stated in dignified tones, "I resent these implications. I assume they have been directed at me. At no time have I talked about this to reporters, or in any way engaged in what you accuse me of. If you want my resignation from this school, you may have it."

  "Really? You think that an air of dignified innocence will undo the damage done? I am well aware of your experiments with the y wave, gentlemen—and it was on the y wave that the messages came. You may be interested to know that the number of lives lost, the property damage, the business losses due to the panic, have not yet been fully determined; but it makes the hysteria following the Fantafilm hoax very small potatoes by comparison.

  "You may withdraw now, gentlemen; this affair will be discussed at greater length later, regardless of what the FBI decides. I had hoped that the main culprit would try to save unwitting accomplices from a measure of grief. That is all."

  The seven students left Dr. Clayton's office in record time.

  Professor Elton rapped the table for silence. "Gentlemen," he began, "Dr. Clayton and I both extend our sincere apologies." He smiled wanly. "Of course, that does not exonerate anyone from the charge of gullibility. But Harvey Gale's confession has been fully confirmed by the FBI, and you—and this University—have been cleared. The public knows now that your testimony helped lead to the facts in the case.

  "To me, the most interesting feature of this business is the fact that Gale was able to put over this hoax, despite the fact that the public had been taken in three times before. The Orson Welles scare rode on a wave of war-hysteria; the Flying Saucer craze followed world war; the Fantafilm hoax came when the world was still in dread of sudden bombings. But the Gale Hoax—what can we call it but what is loosely known as the continuing gullibility of human beings?

  "We trust that this demonstration you have just observed will help you to remember that while seeing may be believing, it's wise not to believe until it has been established just what you saw."

  In his private office, Dr. Clayton leaned forward over his desk. Or, to be more exact, something that looked like Dr. Clayton leaned over the desk. The face was impassive as marble, but, from out a slit in his chest, a pair of black antennae-like feelers were vibrating into a framed picture on the wall, from which the picture had been slid aside.

  "Landing safely effected. Brief panic when several Terrestrials sighted ships; all clear now. Full report, containing details on latest successful persuasion of Earthlings that Martians or other aliens are imaginary, will follow."

  From the speaker beneath the desk came sounds of gasps, heavy breathing, then shuffling footsteps. Clayton pushed the picture back into place, then took off the skin-painted v
est he wore, with the flat box on its inside. He snapped a switch on the side of his desk.

  "There; now they can't hear—if any are still hanging around."

  Professor Elton looked at him bewilderedly. "I don't get it. After all the risk we went to, to convince the public that there ain't no ghosts—as the old saying goes—you arrange to have students hear you going into a 'report to the home planet' act. And you use a code they all know. What's the point in undoing it?"

  Clayton nodded. "It looks somewhat mad, doesn't it? Well ... the Psychology Team was sure of the necessity. You see, more and more humans remain unconvinced each time one of these hoaxes are exposed. The unconvinced are sure that something fiendish is going on beneath the surface, that the authorities—all kinds from civil to scientific—are engaged in a vast cover-up. We can't prevent this belief; we don't know how to keep it from spreading. So—the alternative is to direct it."

  Elton nodded slowly. "I can see possibilities along that line—but just what direction was this supposed to kind of bring about?"

  "Why, obviously, if large-scale invasion from Mars is imminent—and this is the belief that we're all catering to—then it follows that the invasion hasn't already taken place. The two of us, and Harvey Gale, will disappear shortly in one way or another, and gradually public cries for effective planetary defense will mount.

  "You know who will direct the defense."

  * * *

  Contents

  THE UNTOUCHABLE

  By Stephen A. Kallis

  "You can see it--you can watch it--but mustn't touch!" And what could possibly be more frustrating ... when you need, most violently, to get your hands on it for just one second....

  The man finally entered the office of General George Garvers. As the door closed behind him, he saw the general, who sprang from his chair to greet him.

  "Max! You finally came."

  "Got here as soon as I could. I wager half my time was taken up by the security check points. You are certainly isolated in here."

  "All of that," agreed the general. "Have a seat, won't you?" he asked, indicating a chair.

  His friend sank into it gratefully. "Now, what's this vital problem you called me about? You weren't too specific."

  "No," said Garvers, "I wasn't. This is a security matter, after a fashion. It's vitally important that we get technical help on this thing, and since you and I are friends, I was asked to call you in."

  "Well?"

  "I'm afraid I'll have to make a story of it."

  "Quite all right by me, but don't mind if I interject a question now and then. Mind if I smoke?"

  "Go right ahead," said Garvers, fumbling out a lighter. "Just don't spill ashes on the rug.

  "This all began on the Third of May. I was working here on some top-security stuff. I had suddenly got the feeling of being watched. I know it seems silly, what with all the check points that a potential spy would have to go through to get here, but that's just how I felt.

  "Several times I glanced around the office, but of course it was empty. Then I began to think that it was my nerves."

  "You always were a bit of a hypochondriac," observed his friend.

  "Be that as it may," continued Garvers, "it was the only explanation I had at the time. Either someone was watching me, which seemed impossible, or I was beginning to crack under the strain.

  "Well, I put my papers away and tried to take a short break. I was reaching into my drawer where I keep magazines when, so help me, a man stepped out of the wall into my office."

  "What? It seems as if you just said a guy stepped out of the wall."

  "That's just what I did say. It sounds crazy, but let me finish, will you? I'm not kidding, and I'll show you proof later if necessary.

  "Anyway, this bird stepped straight out of the wall as if it had been a waterfall or something, but the wall itself was undamaged. The only proof I had that he had actually done it was the fact that he was in my office, but that was proof enough.

  "To put it mildly, I was thunderstruck. After jumping to my feet, I could only stand there like an idiot. I was so shaken that I couldn't speak a word. But he spoke first.

  "'General Garvers?' he asked, just as if he had run into me at a cocktail party or on the street.

  "I told him he was correct, and asked him who he was and what he wanted. And how he got into my office.

  "He identified himself as a Henry Busch and explained that he was acting in behalf of a good friend of his, the late Dr. Hymann Duvall. Have you ever heard of Duvall, Max?"

  His friend twisted his face in thought. "Can't say that I have, off-hand. But the name seems to ring a bell somewhere."

  "Well, anyway, he said that Duvall had perfected an invention of great national importance shortly before his death and asked Busch to deliver it to the government if anything should happen to him. Then Duvall died suddenly of a heart attack."

  "And what was this invention?"

  "Isn't it obvious? A machine that would enable a man to walk through walls. And Busch has no idea how the thing works, other than the general explanation that Duvall gave him. And Busch was poles apart from Duvall. They were friends from college, but not because of professional interests. It seems they were both doublecrossed by the same girl.

  "Duvall was a brilliant but obscure nuclear and radiation physicist. He was one of those once-in-a-lifetime fellows like Tesla. He was so shy that he didn't bring himself to anybody's attention, save for a few papers he published in the smaller physical societies' magazines. It was only because he had inherited a considerable amount of money that he could do any research whatsoever."

  "Hm-m-m. I seem to remember a paper about wave propagation in one of the quarterlies. Quite unorthodox, as I recall," said Max.

  "Could be. But anyway, about Busch.

  "Busch majored in psychology at college, but took special courses after he graduated and took a Master's in English. He has written two novels and three collections of poems under various pen names. At the time of Duvall's death, he was working on the libretto of an opera. He has had no technical training, unless you want to count a year of high school general science. So he wasn't too much help in explaining how Duvall's instrument works.

  "And, just to make matters more juicy, Duvall kept no notes. He had total recall and a childlike fear of putting anything into writing that had not been experimentally verified."

  "And this machine, how is it supposed to work?"

  Garvers got up and began to pace. "According to Busch, Duvall devised the instrument after stumbling into an entirely new branch of physics.

  "This device of Duvall's is a special case of a new theory of matter and energy. Matter is made up of subnuclear particles--electrons, protons and the like. However, Duvall said that these particles are in turn made up of much smaller particles grouped together in aggregate clouds. The size ratio of these particles to protons is somewhat like the ratio of an individual proton to a large star. They seem to be composed of tiny clots of energy from a fantastically complex energy system, in which electromagnetism is but a small part. Each energy-segment is represented by a different facet of each particle, and the arrangement of the individual particles to each other determines what super-particle they will form, such as an electron. Duvall called these sub-particles 'lems'.

  "Busch says he was told that a field of a special nature could be generated so as to make the individual lems in the particles of matter rotate in a special way that would introduce a 'polarization field', as Duvall called it. This field seems to be connected somehow with gravity, but Busch wasn't told how.

  "The upshot is that matter in the initial presence of the field is affected so that it is able to pass through ordinary matter--"

  "Hold on," interrupted Max. "If a device can do that, then the user would immediately fall towards the center of the Earth."

  "Just you hold on. You didn't let me finish. A single plane of atoms, at the base of the treated object is the point of contact. It remai
ns partially unaffected because it is closest to the 'gravetostatic field center', which I guess is the Earth's center of attraction. This plane of 'semi-treated' atoms can be forced through an object, if it is moved horizontally, but its 'untreated' aspect prevents the subject wearing the device from falling through the floor.

  "Busch demonstrated this device to me, turning it on and strolling through various objects in this room. Think of it! No soldier could be killed or held prisoner. And--"

  "Now hang on," objected Max. "Let's not run away with ourselves. He may have perfected a device that would enable a soldier to avoid capture, but there would certainly be other ways to kill him than by bullets. Let's see now: suppose that the enemy shot a flamethrower at him. The burning materials might pass through him, but he would be cooked anyway. Or poison gas--"

  "Hm-m-m. As far as gas goes, I suppose a gas mask would be necessary. Busch doesn't know about the breathing mechanism, except that he had to take breaths. But as far as fire or radiation goes, the man's protected. If the radiation is either harmful by nature or by amount, the field merely reflects it. It is something called the 'lemic stress' of the field that causes the phenomenon.

  "That's why we need your help."

  Max scratched his head thoughtfully. "I don't understand."

  Garvers looked pained. "When Busch had finished his demonstration, he carelessly tossed the device on my desk. The thing skidded and hit my paperweight so that the switch was thrown on again. So now the device and my desk are both untouchable.

  "Go over to the desk and try to touch it," said Garvers dryly.

  His friend got up and ambled over to the desk. There he saw a small black box resting near a paperweight. Its toggle switch was at the "on" position, and it was lying on its side. He tried to pick the box up, but his hand slid effortlessly through it as if it were so much air.