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

by Various

  * * * * *

  An hour later, some miles beyond that weird glass citadel that had been their objective, they found a wide stretch of empty desert, and there Jim brought the little plane down to a faultless landing, just as dawn was lightening the east.

  Stepping out, he drew a deep breath of relief. For had he crashed, or smashed that fragile tube, all would have been in vain.

  "Well, here we are!" he exclaimed, grimly cheerful, as Professor Wentworth stepped out after him. "Now let's--"

  Then he broke off, horrified, as he saw another figure follow the professor from the cabin.

  "Joan!" he gasped.

  "Present!" she replied.

  "But, my daughter!" the professor's voice broke in. "My dear child!" A sob shook him. "Why, why, this is--"

  "Please don't let's talk about it!" she begged, giving his arm a little pat. "I'm here and it can't be helped now. I was only afraid you'd find me before it was too late and take me back."

  Then, edging over to Jim and slipping her arm in his, she murmured:

  "Oh, my dear! Don't you see I couldn't stay behind? I had to be with you at the end, Jimmy, if--"

  "It won't be!" he cried, pressing her cold hand. "It can't be!"

  Then he turned to give his attention to her father, who had already mounted to the cockpit and was working absorbedly over his mechanism in the pale light of the coming day.

  Any moment, Jim knew, those flaming termites might discover them, and come swooping down. With keen eyes he scanned the horizon. No sign of them yet.

  "How are you up there?" he called.

  "About ready," was the reply. "But I shall want more light than this for my mirrors."

  Tensely, counting the seconds, they waited for the sunrise....

  * * * * *

  And now, as they waited, suddenly a sinister tinge of orange suffused the rosy hues of the east.

  "The Fire Ants!" cried Joan, shrinking. "They've seen us! They're coming!"

  It was true, Jim saw with a heavy heart.

  Turning to Professor Wentworth, he gasped out:

  "Quick! We've got to do something! You've no idea how fast they move!"

  "Very well." The professor's voice was strangely calm. "You may start your motor. I shall do what I can. Though if we only had the sun--"

  Jim leaped for the cabin.

  A touch of the starter and the powerful engine came in. Braking his wheels hard, to hold the plane on the ground, he advanced the throttle as much as he dared, and sent a high-tension current surging through the wires the professor had connected with his tube above.

  Soon came that high, whining hum they had heard in the laboratory--a thousand times magnified now--and the nib of the big tube glowed a livid, eery green in the lemon dawn.

  "Joan!" called her father sharply. "Get in the cabin with Jim!"

  She did so, her eyes still fixed in horrified fascination on the eastern horizon; and in that tense instant, she saw two things. First, a great orange arc of fiery termites, bearing down on them; and second, another arc, far greater--the vast saffron rim of the rising sun.

  Those two things Joan saw--and so did Jim--as their eardrums almost burst with the stupendous vibration that came from the gun in the cockpit. Then they saw a third, something that left them mute with awe.

  As Professor Wentworth swung his cannon ray upon that advancing horde, it melted, vanished, leaving only the clear yellow of the morning sunlight before their bewildered eyes.

  * * * * *

  But the professor did not cease. For five minutes--ten, fifteen--he swung that mighty ray around, stepping up its power, lengthening its range, as it reached its invisible, annihilating arm farther and farther out....

  Meanwhile Jim was radio-phoning frantically. The air seemed strangely full of static.

  At last he got Overton of The New York Press.

  "Carter speaking, out in Arizona," he said. "Getting any reports on the ray?"

  And back came the tremendous news:

  "Results! Man, the world's crazy! They're gone--everywhere! Tell the professor to lay off, before he sends us scooting too."

  "Right!" said Jim, cutting his motor. "More later!"

  And to Professor Wentworth he called:

  "All right, that's enough! That ray was stronger than you knew!"

  But there came no answer, and mounting to the wing-tip, Joan following, Jim saw a sight that froze him with horror. They beheld the professor, slumped against the tube, his whole body glowing a pale, fluorescent green.

  "Father!" screamed Joan, rushing to his side. "Oh, Father!"

  The man stirred, motioned her away, gasped weakly:

  "Do not touch me, child--until the luminosity goes. I am highly radio-active. I had no time to--insulate the tube. No time to find out how. Had to--hurry--"

  His voice waned off and they knew he was dead. The two stood there stunned by the realization of his great sacrifice.

  He and Joan had set forth on this venture knowing they stood at least a chance, thought Jim, but Professor Wentworth had known from the start that it was sure death for him.

  * * * * *

  The sun stood out above the eastern horizon like a huge gold coin, bright with the promise of life to spend, when Jim and Joan took off at last for the return home; but the radiance of the morning was dimmed by the knowledge of the tragic burden they bore.

  For some moments, as they winged on, both were silent.

  "Look!" said Jim at length. "Look ahead, Joan!"

  She looked, brightened somewhat.

  "Yes, I see."

  And after a moment, lifting her hazel eyes to his, she said. "Oh, Jimmy, I'm sure it means happiness for us."

  "Yes, I'm sure!"

  She stirred, moved closer.

  "Jimmy, you--you're all I have now."

  He made no reply, save to press her trembling hand. But it was enough.

  Silently, understandingly, they winged onward into the morning light.

  * * *

  Contents

  THE DIAMOND THUNDERBOLT

  By H. Thompson Rich

  Prof. Norman Prescott, leader of the American Kinchinjunga expedition, crept from his dog-tent perched eerily at the 26,000-foot level of this unscaled Himalayan peak, the third highest in the world. With anxious eyes he searched the appalling slopes that lifted another 2,000 feet to its majestic summit, now glistening in the radiance of sunset.

  Where was young Jack Stoddard, official geologist and crack mountaineer of the party?

  That morning Professor Prescott and Stoddard had set off together, from Camp No. 4, at the 22,000-foot level. Mounting laboriously but swiftly, they had reached the present eyrie by noon. There Stoddard had left the leader of the expedition and pushed on alone, to reconnoiter a razor-back ridge that looked as though it might prove the key to the summit.

  But the afternoon had passed; the daring young geologist had promised to return in an hour; and now it was sunset, with still no sign of him.

  Professor Prescott sighed, and a bitter expression crossed his bronzed, lined face. Just one more evidence of the cursed luck that had marked the expedition from the start!

  Well he knew that he must head down at once for Camp No. 4 or risk death on this barren, wind-swept slope, and equally well he knew that to go would be to leave his brave companion to his fate, providing he had not already met it on those desolate ridges above.

  Yes, and another thing he knew. The report of this latest disaster would mean the doom of the expedition. The terrified, superstitious natives would bolt, claiming the "snow people" had struck again.

  "Gods of the Mountain" they called them, those mysterious beings they alone seemed to see--evil spirits who kept guard over this towering realm, determined none should gain its ultimate heights.

  * * * * *

  Tensely Professor Prescott stood there on that narrow shelf of glacial ice, peering off into the sunset.

  A hundred miles to the west, bathed in the refulgence o
f a thousand rainbows, rose the incredible peak of Everest, mightiest of all mountains, yet less than 1,000 feet higher than Kinchinjunga. And down, straight down those almost vertical slopes up which the expedition had toiled all summer, lay gorges choked with tropical growth. Off to the south, a scant fifty miles away, the British health station of Darjeeling flashed its white villas in the coppery glow.

  An awesome spectacle!--one that human eyes had seldom if ever seen. Yet from the summit, so invitingly near!...

  Perhaps, even now, Stoddard was witnessing this incomparable sight. To push on, to join him, meant triumph. To head down, defeat. While to stay, to wait....

  Grimly, Professor Prescott left his insecure perch and headed up over that razor-back ridge whence the young geologist had vanished.

  As he proceeded cautiously along, drawing sharp, quick breaths in the rarefied upper atmosphere, he told himself it was ambition that was leading him on, but in his heart he knew it was not so. In his heart, he knew he was going to the rescue of his gallant companion, though the way meant death.

  * * * * *

  A hundred yards had been gained, perhaps two--each desperate foothold fraught with peril of a plunge into the yawning abysms to left and right--when suddenly he spied a figure on a twilit spur ahead.

  Panting, he paused. It must be Stoddard! Yet it seemed too small, too ghostly.

  Professor Prescott waved, but even as he looked for an answering signal, the figure vanished.

  "My eyes!" he muttered to himself. "I'm getting snow-blind."

  Then he called aloud:

  "Jack! Oh, Jack! Hello!"

  Only an echo greeted the call, and he did not repeat it but pushed on silently, conserving his energy.

  Was there truth after all in those persistent rumors of the natives about the snow people who inhabited the upper slopes of the Himalayas? His tired brain toyed with the idea, to be cut off sharply by the cheery call:

  "Hi there, Professor! Hi-ho!"

  And gazing upwards toward a jutting crag not ten rods beyond, he saw young Stoddard etched against the darkening sky.

  * * * * *

  In a few joyous steps, Professor Prescott had reached his audacious companion.

  "Thank God!" he gasped. "I'd given you up for lost."

  "Why give me up for anything so unpleasant?" was the genial reply. "I've just been enjoying the view."

  "Then--then you reached the top?" with a quick intake of breath.

  "Well, not exactly, but I feel on top of the world, just the same."

  The professor's spirits fell.

  "Then I can't see--"

  "Of course you can't see!" interrupted Stoddard. "But look at this!"

  As he spoke, he drew from a pocket of his leather jacket something that caught the last light of the dying day and refracted it with weird brilliance.

  Professor Prescott blinked.

  "Well?"

  "A diamond. As big as your fist! And here's another!"

  His left hand reached into his jacket and produced a second sparkling gem.

  "But--but I don't understand--"

  "Granted. But you will, when I tell you I've found the Diamond Thunderbolt!"

  The professor gave a shrug of scorn.

  "And no doubt you've seen the snow people and have had a perfect afternoon, while--"

  "No, I haven't seen any snow people, but I've had a perfect afternoon, all right! As I said, I've found the Diamond Thunderbolt; and here are a couple of chips, picked up from around the edge."

  * * * * *

  So saying, Stoddard extended his two specimens toward Professor Prescott, who disdained at first to touch them.

  "Nothing but quartz!" was the deprecating comment. "The snow has affected your eyesight, as it has my own."

  "I'll say it's affected yours, if you don't recognize diamonds when you see them. But wait till I show you the old Thunderbolt itself! It's--"

  "More quartz!" brusquely. "Be sensible, Jack. This Diamond Thunderbolt thing is a pure myth, like the snow people business. Just because this section of India is known as The Land of the Diamond Thunderbolt you think you're going to find some precious meteor or other, whereas the term applies merely to the Lama's scepter."

  "Granted it does,"--a little impatiently--"but did it ever occur to you that where there's smoke, there's fire? Meteor is the word! One struck here once--a diamond meteor!--and I've found it. Take a look at these two specimens and see what you think."

  Whereupon Professor Prescott accepted the glinting gems from his young friend--to gasp a moment later, as he held them tremblingly:

  "Good Lord--they're diamonds, to be sure! Where did you find them?"

  * * * * *

  Stoddard hesitated before replying.

  "Not far from here," he said at length, moving off. "Come, I'll show you."

  But the professor stood firm on their narrow ledge.

  "You must be crazy!" he exclaimed. "We'll have trouble enough now, getting back. It's practically dark already."

  "Then what's the odds?" retorted the young geologist. "We've got all night."

  "But our friends at Camp No. 4. Even now, they must think we are lost."

  "Then further thought won't kill them. Besides, we'll be back before morning--and they can't send out a relief party sooner."

  "But any moment a storm may come up. You know what that would mean."

  "Does it look likely?" scoffed Stoddard, waving his hand aloft. "See--there's the moon! She'll be our guide."

  Professor Prescott looked, saw a slender shallop charting her course among the stars, and for a moment was tempted. But speedily his responsibilities reasserted themselves.

  "No, I can't do it," he said with finality. "I owe it to the expedition to return as soon as possible. Furthermore, there's the matter of the authorities. We assured the British we would adhere strictly to our one purpose--to scale Kinchinjunga."

  "A mere formality."

  "No--a definite order from the Lamas. They closed Mt. Everest, after the last expedition, you will recall. The Lama's scepter is veritably a diamond thunderbolt of power in this region."

  Whereupon Stoddard's patience snapped.

  "Listen!" he said. "I hurried away because I knew you'd be anxious, but I'm going back, if I have to--"

  "And I say you're not!" The professor's patience, too, had snapped. "I'm not going with you, and you're not going back alone! As the leader of this expedition, I forbid it!"

  The younger man laughed raspingly, as he shook off the hand that clasped his arm, and for a moment it looked as though the two would fight, there on that dizzy ledge above the world.

  Then Stoddard got control of himself.

  "Sorry!" he said. "I see I've got to tell you something, Professor. You think I'm merely the geologist of this expedition, but in fact I'm a secret service man from Washington, on the trail of the biggest diamond-smuggling plot in history--and here is where the trail ends!"

  * * * * *

  Professor Prescott's astonishment at these words was profound. He stood there blinking up at Stoddard, scarcely believing he had heard aright.

  "You--you say you are--?"

  "A detective, if you want. Anyway, if you've read the papers, you must know that for the past year or more the diamond markets of the world have been flooded with singularly perfect stones."

  "Yes, I recall reading about that. They were thought to be synthetic, were they not?"

  "By certain imaginative newspaper reporters, not by the experts, for under the microscope they revealed the invariable characteristics of diamonds formed by nature--the tiny flaws and imperfections no artificial means could duplicate."

  "But didn't I read something, too, about some anonymous Indian rajah who was thought to be raising money by disposing of his jewels?"

  "More newspaper rubbish! For one thing, British secret service men traced the rumor down and satisfied themselves there wasn't a rajah in India unloading any diamonds. For another; no rajah could possibly h
ave the wealth involved. Why, do you know that since this plot unfolded, over five million carats' worth have made their appearance--and that means something like a billion dollars."

  "Whew!" whistled the professor.

  "Whew is right!" his companion agreed. "And not only have the diamond markets of the world been disorganized by this mysterious influx, but the countries involved have lost millions of dollars in revenue, due to the fact that the gems have been smuggled in without payment of duty."

  "But surely, my dear fellow, you don't connect this gigantic plot with your discovery of--whatever it is you have discovered?"

  "A diamond as big as a house! That's what I've discovered! And I most surely do connect the plot with it. Did you ever have a hunch, Professor? Well, I had one--and it's worked out!"

  "You leave me more in the dark momentarily!" declared the older man, glancing around as though to give his words a double meaning. "What was your hunch, and how did it come to lead you here?"

  Whereupon Stoddard told him, swiftly, for there was no time to lose.

  * * * * *

  When first assigned to the case, he said, he had been as baffled as anyone. But as he had studied the problem, one outstanding fact had given him the clue. All the gem experts agreed that the mysterious flood of smuggled stones was of Indian origin, being of the first water and of remarkable fire--in other words, of the finest transparency and brilliance.

  Therefore, since they were genuine and were seemingly coming from India, Stoddard had concentrated his attention on this country, seeking their exact source. Investigation showed that there were no mines within its borders capable of producing anything like the quantity that was inundating the market.

  But--and here was where the hunch came in--there was a district in the Sikkim Himalayas of Bengal whose capital was Darjeeling--Land of the Diamond Thunderbolt. Why had it been called that? Was there some legend back of it?

  There was, he had learned. For though in modern times the phrase had come to apply merely to the Lama's scepter, as Professor Prescott had pointed out, originally it had carried another meaning--for legend said that once a diamond meteor had fallen on the mighty slopes of Kinchinjunga.