by Various
"Ya! Now is it too late to turn back. My hour is come. My power is upon me. Let Melek Taos claim his own!"
Merle went over to Gunnar, took his hand in hers, looked up into his gray face with the same look of shining inner exaltation Dale had seen as they lingered at the outer door.
"Yes, it is too late now to turn back," she affirmed. "For this last time you must endure your agony. The last time, Gunnar—my beloved. It shall swiftly pass to me. Can I not bear for a brief moment what you have borne so long? Through my soul and body this devil that possesses you shall pass to El Shabur, who created it. Endure for my sake, as I for yours."
"No! No! You cannot guess the agony—the torture——"
Dale sprang forward at her gesture, and drew about them a circle with oil poured from a long-necked phial. Instantly the two were shut within a barrier of fire, blue as wood-hyacinths, that rose in curving, swaying, lovely pillars to the ceiling, transforming the gray salt mud to a night-sky lit with stars.
"Ya gomâny! O mine enemy!" El Shabur's deep voice held sudden anguish. "Is it thou? Through all the years thy coming has been known to me, yet till now I knew thee not. Who taught thee such power as this?"
He strode to the fiery circle, put out a hand, drew it back scorched and blackened to the bone. He turned in savage menace. Dale's hand flashed, poured oil in a swift practised fling about El Shabur's feet and touched it to leaping flame.
Within this second ring the Arab stood upright. His voice boomed out like a great metal gong.
"Melek Taos! Melek Taos! Have I not served thee truly? Give aid—give aid! Ruler of Wind and Stars and Fire! I am held in chains!"
Dale breathed in suffocating gasps, He was cold to the marrow of his bones. He lost all sense of time—of space. He was hanging somewhere in the vast gulf of eternity. Hell battled for dominion in earth and sea and sky.
"To me, Abeor! Aberer! Chavajoth! Aid—give aid!" Again the great voice called upon his demon-gods.
A sudden shock made the room quiver. Dale saw that the fires grew pale. "Was I too soon? Too soon?" he asked himself in agony. "If the oil burns out before sundown——"
There was a crash. On every hand the solid ancient walls were riven. Up—up leaped the blue fiery pillars.
A shout of awful appeal. "Melek Taos! Master! Give aid!"
With almost blinded eyes, Dale saw Gunnar drop at Merle's feet, saw in his stead a wolf-shape crouching, saw her stoop to it, kneel, kiss the great beast between the eyes, heard her clear, steady voice repeat the words of power, saw the flames sink and leap again.
The issue was joined. Now! Now! God or Demon! The Arab, devil-possessed, calling on his gods. Merle, fearless before the onrush of his malice. Hate, cruel as the grave. Love, stronger than death.
Dale's breath tore him. Cold! Cold! Cold to the blood in his veins! God! it was upon her!
Gunnar stood in his own body, staring with wild eyes at the beast which brushed against his knee. He collapsed beside it, blind and deaf to further agony.
And still El Shabur's will was undefeated. Still beside the unconscious Gunnar stood a wolf, its head flung up, its yellow lambent eyes fixed, remote, suffering.
Again Dale felt himself a tiny point of conscious life swung in the womb of time. Again the forces that bear up the earth, sun, moon, and stars were caught in chaos and destruction. Again he heard the roar of fire and flood and winds that drive the seas before them. Through all the tumult there rang a voice, rallying hell's legions, waking old dark gods, calling from planet to planet, from star to star, calling for aid!
Dale knew himself on earth again. Stillness was about him. In a dim and dusty room he saw Merle and Gunnar, handfast, looking into each other's eyes. About their feet a little trail of fire ran—blue as a border of gentian.
Another circle showed, its fires dead, black ash upon the dusty ground. Across it sprawled a body, its burnoose charred and smoldering. Servant of Melek Taos. Victim of his own dark spells. El Shabur destroyed by the demon that had tormented Gunnar. Driven forth, homeless, it returned to him who had created it.
* * *
Contents
LOST IN THE FUTURE
By John Victor Peterson
They had discovered a new planet--but its people did not see them until after they had traveled on.
Albrecht and I went down in a shuttleship, leaving the stellatomic orbited pole-to-pole two thousand miles above Alpha Centauri's second planet. While we took an atmosphere-brushing approach which wouldn't burn off the shuttle's skin, we went as swiftly as we could.
A week before we had completed man's first trip through hyperspace. We were now making the first landing on an inhabited planet of another sun. All the preliminary investigations had been made via electronspectroscopes and electrontelescopes from the stellatomic.
We knew that the atmosphere was breathable and were reasonably certain that the peoples of the world into whose atmosphere we were dropping were at peace. We went unarmed, just the two of us; it might not be wise to go in force.
We were silent, and I know that Harry Albrecht was as perplexed as I was over the fact that our all-wave receivers failed to pick up any signs of radio communication whatever. We had assumed that we would pick up signals of some type as soon as we had passed down through the unfamiliar planet's ionosphere.
The scattered arrangement of the towering cities appeared to call for radio communications. The hundreds of atmosphere ships flashing along a system of airways between the cities seemed to indicate the existence of electronic navigational and landing aids. But perhaps the signals were all tightly beamed; we would know when we came lower.
We dropped down into the airway levels, and still our receivers failed to pick up a signal of any sort--not even a whisper of static. And strangely, our radarscopes failed to record even a blip from their atmosphere ships!
"I guess it's our equipment, Harry," I said. "It just doesn't seem to function in this atmosphere. We'll have to put Edwards to work on it when we go back upstairs."
We spotted an airport on the outskirts of a large city. The runways were laid out with the precision of Earth's finest. I put our ship's nose eastward on a runway and took it down fast through a lull in the atmosphere ship traffic.
As we went down I saw tiny buildings spotted on the field which surely housed electronic equipment, but our receivers remained silent.
I taxied the shuttle up to an unloading ramp before the airport's terminal building and I killed the drive.
"Harry," I said, "if it weren't that their ships are so outlandishly stubby and their buildings so outflung, we might well be on Earth!"
"I agree, Captain. Strange, though, that they're not mobbing us. They couldn't take this delta-winged job for one of their ships!"
It was strange.
I looked up at the observation ramp's occupants--people who except for their bizarre dress might well be of Earth--and saw no curiosity in the eyes that sometimes swept across our position.
"Be that as it may, Harry, we certainly should cause a stir in these pressure suits. Let's go!"
We walked up to a dour-looking individual at a counter at the ramp's end. Clearing my throat, I said rather inanely, "Hello!"--but what does one say to an extrasolarian?
I realized then that my voice seemed thunderous, that the only other sounds came from a distance: the city's noise, the atmosphere ships' engines on the horizon--
* * * * *
The Centaurian ignored us.
I looked at the atmosphere ships in the clear blue sky, at the Centaurians on the ramp who appeared to be conversing--and there was no sound from those planes, no sound from the people!
"It's impossible," Harry said. "The atmosphere's nearly Earth-normal. It should be--well, damn it, it is as sound-conductive; we're talking, aren't we?"
I looked up at the Centaurians again. They were looking excitedly westward. Some turned to companions. Mouths opened and closed to form words we could not hear. Wide eyes lowered, followi
ng something I could not see. Sick inside, I turned to Albrecht and read confirmation in his drawn, blanched face.
"Captain," he said, "I suspected that we might find something like this when we first came out of hyperspace and the big sleep. The recorders showed we'd exceeded light-speed in normal space-time just after the transition. Einstein theorized that time would not pass as swiftly to those approaching light-speed. We could safely exceed that speed in hyperspace but should never have done so in normal space-time. Beyond light-speed time must conversely accelerate!
"These people haven't seen us yet. They certainly just observed our landing. As we suspected, they probably do have speech and radio--but we can't pick up either. We're seconds ahead of them in time and we can't pick up from the past sounds of nearby origin or nearby signals radiated at light-speed. They'll see and hear us soon, but we'll never receive an answer from them! Our questions will come to them in their future but we can never pick answers from their past!"
"Let's go, Harry," I said quickly.
"Where?" he asked. "Where can we ever go that will be an improvement over this?" He was resigned.
"Back into space," I said. "Back to circle this system at a near-light-speed. The computers should be able to determine how long and how slow we'll have to fly to cancel this out. If not, we are truly and forever lost!"
* * *
Contents
POLITICAL APPLICATION
By John Victor Peterson
If matter transference really works--neanderthalers can pop up anywhere. And that's very hard on politicians!
Some say scientists should keep their noses out of politics. Benson says it's to prevent damage to their olfactory senses. Benson's a physicist.
I've known Allan Benson for a long time. In fact I've bodyguarded him for years and think I understand him better than he does himself. And when he shook security at White Sands, my boss didn't hesitate to tell me that knowing Benson as I do I certainly shouldn't have let him skip off. Or crisp words to that effect.
The pressure was on. Benson was seeking a new fuel--or a way of compressing a known fuel--to carry a torchship to Mars. His loss could mean a delay of decades. We knew he'd been close, but not how close.
My nickname's Monk. I've fought it, certainly, but what can you do when a well-wishing mother names you after a wealthy uncle and your birth certificate says Neander Thalberg? As early as high school some bright pundit noted the name's similarity to that of a certain prehistoric man. Unfortunately the similarity is not in name alone: I'm muscular, stooped, and, I must admit, not handsome hero model material.
Well, maybe the nickname's justified, but still, Al Benson didn't have to give the crowning insult. And yet, if he hadn't, there probably wouldn't be a torchship stern-ending on Mars just about now.
C. I. (Central Intelligence, that is) at the Sands figured Benson would head for New York. Which is why the boss sent me here. I registered in a hotel in the 50's and, figuring that whatever Benson intended to do would have spectacular results, I kept the stereo on News.
Benson's wife hadn't yielded much info. Sure she described the clothes he was wearing and said he'd taken nothing else except an artist's case. What was in that was anybody's guess; his private lab is such a jumble nobody could tell what, if anything, was missing.
C. I. knew his political feelings. Seems he'd been talking wild about the upcoming presidential election and had sworn he'd nip the draft-Cadigan movement in the bud. Cadigan's Mayor of New York City. He's anti-space. In fact, Cadigan's anti just about everything in science except intercontinental missiles. Strictly for defense, of course. Cadigan says.
* * * * *
A weathercaster was making rash promises on the stereo when the potray dinged. The potray? I certainly wasn't expecting mail. Only C. I. knew where I was and they'd have closed-circuited me on visio if they wanted contact.
The potray dinged and there was a package in it.
Now matter transference I knew. It put mailmen out of business. There's a potray in every domicile and you can put things in it, dial the destination and they come out there. They come out the same size and weight and in the same condition as they went in, provided they didn't go in alive. Life loses, as many a shade of a hopeful guinea pig could relate.
So the potray dinged and here was this package. At first glance it looked like one of those cereal samples manufacturers have been everlastingly sending through since postal rates dropped after cost of the potrays had been amortized. But cereal samples don't come through at midday; they're night traffic stuff.
The package was light, its wrapping curiously smooth. There was an envelope attached with my correct name and potray number. Whoever had mailed it must be in C. I. or must know someone in C. I. who knew where I was.
The postmark was blurred but I could make out that it had been cast from Grand Central. Time didn't matter. It couldn't have been cast more than a microsecond earlier.
The envelope contained a card upon which was typed:
"Caution! Site on cylinder of 2 ft. radius and 6 ft. height. Unwrap at armslength."
Now what? A practical joke? If so, it must be Benson's work. He's played plenty, from pumping hydrogen sulphide (that's rotten egg gas, as you know) into the air-conditioning system at high school to calling a gynecologist to the launching stage at the Sands to sever an umbilical cord which he neglected to say was on a Viking rocket.
I followed the instructions. As I bent back the first fold of the strange wrapping it came alive, unfolding itself with incredible swiftness.
Something burst forth like a freed djinn--almost instantaneously lengthening, spreading--a thing with beetling brows, low, broad forehead, prognathous jaw, and a hunched, brutally muscular body, with a great club over its swollen shoulder.
I went precipitously backward over a coffee table.
It stabilized, a dead mockery, replica of a Neanderthal.
A placard hung on its chest. I read this:
"Even some of the early huntsmen weren't successful. Abandon the chase, Monk. I've things to do and this--your blood brother, no doubt--couldn't catch me any more than you can!"
Which positively infuriated me.
Do you blame me?
A few cussing, cussed minutes later I realized what Al Benson had apparently done: solved the torchship's fuel problem.
Oh, I'd seen Klein bottles and Mobius strips and other things that twist in on themselves and into other dimensions, twisting into microcosms and macrocosms--into elsewhere, in any event. And here I had visual evidence that Benson had had something nearly six feet tall and certainly two feet in breadth enclosed in a nearly weightless carton less than eight inches on the side!
Sufficient fuel for a Marstrip? Just wrap it up!
The stereo's audio was saying: "... from the Museum of Natural History. Curators are compiling a list of the missing exhibits which we will reveal to you on this channel as soon as it's available. Now we switch to Dick Joy at City Hall with news of the latest exhibit found. Come in, Dick!"
On the steps of City Hall was a full size replica of a mastodon over whose massive back was draped a banner bearing the slogan: "The Universal Party is for you! Don't return to prehistory with Cadigan! Re-elect President Ollie James and go to the stars!"
And there was a closeup of Mayor Cadigan standing pompous and wrathful--and looking very diminutive--behind the emblem of his opposition party.
Dick Joy was saying, "Eyewitnesses claim that this replica--obviously one of the items stolen from the Museum of Natural History--suddenly materialized here. Immediately prior to the alleged materialization a man--whose photograph we show now--ostensibly bent down to tie a shoelace, setting a shoebox beside him. He left the box, walking off into the gathering crowd, and this mastodon seemed to spring into being where the shoebox had been.
"The mastodon replica has been examined. A report just handed me says it is definitely that from the Museum and that it could not conceivably have been contained in a shoe
box. It's obviously a case of mass hypnotism. The replica must have been trucked here. There's no other possible explanation. Excuse me!"
Dick Joy turned away, then back.
"I have just been handed a notice that Mayor Cadigan wishes to say a few words and I hereby introduce him, His Honor the Mayor, Joseph F. Cadigan!"
His balding, fragmentarily curly-haired Honor glared.
"Friends," he said chokingly, "whatever madman is responsible for this outrageous act will not go unpunished. I call upon the City's Finest to track him down and bring him to justice.
"I am for justice, for equality and peace. I--"
His Honor was apparently determined to use all the time he could. Being a newscast, it was for free.
I killed the stereo. And the visio rang. It was Phil Pollini, the C. I. Chief.
"Monk," he said, "guess you've seen the stereo. Al's out to fix the Mayor's wagon."
"Say that again," I said, having a brainstorm.
"Now, look--" he started.
"Maybe you've got something there, Chief," I cut in. "Cadigan's got the superduper of all wagons--a seven passenger luxury limousine with bulletproof glass, stereo, a bar, venetian blinds and heaven knows what else. Hot and cold running androids, maybe. He prowls the elevated highways with an 'In Conference' sign flashing over the windshield. So's he can't be wire-tapped or miked, I guess. It'd be a natch for Al Benson to go for."
Pollini grinned.
"So if you were Benson what'd you do to fix the Mayor's wagon?"
"Hitch it to a star," I said, "and the closest spot to a star would be the observation platform of the Greater Empire State."
"You're probably right," the Chief said. "Get going!"
I got.
Ten minutes later I walked out onto the observation platform on the 150th floor of the Greater Empire State Building--and found an incredulous crowd gathered around the mayor's limousine. I felt good. I'd predicted.
