The Big Book of Science Fiction

by The Big Book of Science Fiction (retail) (epub)

  When I regained consciousness two days later I discovered that I was the sole occupant of a cell in the state hospital for the insane. Mortified to the extreme, I pled with the keeper to bring about my release, assuring him that I was unimpaired mentally.

  “Sure, that’s what they all say,” the fellow remarked with a wry smile.

  “But I must be freed,” I reiterated impatiently, “I have a message of importance for the world. I must get into immediate communication with the secretary of war.”

  “Yes, yes,” agreed the keeper affably. “We’ll let you see the secretary of war when that fellow over there”—he jerked his thumb in the direction of the cell opposite mine—“dies from drinking hemlock. He says he’s Socrates, and every time he drinks a cup of milk he flops over, but he always revives.”

  I looked across the narrow hall into a pair of eyes that mirrored a deranged mind, then my gaze turned to the guard, who was watching me narrowly. I turned away with a shrug of despair.

  Later in the day the man appeared again but I sat in sullen silence in a corner of my cell. Days passed in this manner until at last a plausible means of communication with the outside world occurred to me. I asked if my good friend Professor Stearns might be permitted to visit me. The guard replied that he believed it could be arranged for some time the following week. It is a wonder I did not become demented, imprisoned as I was, in solitude, with the thoughts of the mysterious revelations haunting me continually.

  One afternoon the keeper, passing by on one of his customary rounds, thrust a newspaper between the bars of my cell. I grabbed it eagerly and retired to read it.

  The headlines smote my vision with an almost tactile force.

  “Second Mysterious Recession of Ocean. The Poseidonia Is Lost!”

  I continued to read the entire article, the letters of which blazed before my eyes like so many pinpoints of light.

  “Ocean waters have again receded, this time in the Atlantic. Seismologists are at a loss to explain the mysterious cataclysm as no earth tremors have been registered. It is a little over three months since the supposed submarine fissures lowered the level of the Pacific Ocean several feet, and now the same calamity, only to a greater extent, has visited the Atlantic.

  “The island of Madeira reports stranded fish upon her shores by the thousands, the decay of which threatens the health of the island’s population. Two merchant vessels off the Azores, and one fifty miles out from Gibraltar, were found total wrecks. Another, the Transatlantic, reported a fearful agitation of the ocean depths, but seemed at a loss for a plausible explanation, as the sky was cloudless and no wind was blowing.

  “ ‘But despite this fact,’ wired the Transatlantic, ‘great waves all but capsized us. This marine disturbance lasted throughout the night.’

  “The following wireless from the great ocean liner Poseidonia brings home to us the realization that Earth has been visited with a stupendous calamity. The Poseidonia was making her weekly transatlantic trip between Europe and America, and was in midocean at the time her message was flashed to the world.

  “ ‘A great cloud of flying objects of enormous proportions has just appeared in the sky blotting out the light of the stars. No sound accompanies the approach of this strange fleet. In appearance the individual craft resemble mammoth balloons. The sky is black with them and in their vicinity the air is humid and oppressive as though the atmosphere were saturated to the point of condensation. Everything is orderly. There are no collisions. Our captain has given orders for us to turn back toward Europe—we have turned, but the dark dirigibles are pursuing us. Their speed is unthinkable. Can the Poseidonia, doing a mere hundred miles an hour, escape? A huge craft is bearing down upon us from above and behind. There is no escape. Pandemonium reigns. The enemy—’

  “Thus ends the tragic message from the brave wireless operator of the Poseidonia.”

  I threw down the paper and called loudly for the keeper. Socrates across the hall eyed me suspiciously. I was beginning to feel that perhaps the poor demented fellow had nothing on me; that I should soon be in actuality a raving maniac.

  The keeper came in response to my call, entered my cell, and patted my shoulders reassuringly.

  “Never mind, old top,” he said, “it isn’t so bad as it seems.”

  “Now look here,” I burst forth angrily, “I tell you I am not insane!” How futile my words sounded! “If you will send Professor Mortimer Stearns, teacher of astronomy at Austin, to me at once for an hour’s talk, I’ll prove to the world that I have not been demented.

  “Professor Stearns is a very highly esteemed friend of mine,” I continued, noting the suspicion depicted on his countenance. “If you wish, go to him first and find out his true opinion of me. I’ll wager it will not be an uncomplimentary one!”

  The man twisted his keys thoughtfully, and I uttered not a word, believing a silent demeanor most effective in the present crisis. After what seemed an eternity:

  “All right,” he said, “I’ll see what can be done toward arranging a visit from Professor Mortimer Stearns as soon as possible.”

  I restrained my impulse toward a too-effusive expression of gratitude as I realized that a quiet dignity prospered my cause more effectually.

  The next morning at ten, after a constant vigil, I was rewarded with the most welcome sight of Professor Stearns striding down the hall in earnest conversation with the guard. He was the straw and I the drowning man, but would he prove a more substantial help than the proverbial straw? I surely hoped so.

  A chair was brought for the professor and placed just outside my cell. I hastily drew my own near it.

  “Well, this is indeed unfortunate,” said Mortimer Stearns with some embarrassment, “and I sincerely hope you will soon be released.”

  “Unfortunate!” I echoed. “It is nothing short of a calamity.”

  My indignation voiced so vociferously startled the good professor and he shoved his chair almost imperceptibly away from the intervening bars. At the far end of the hall the keeper eyed me suspiciously. Hang it all, was my last resort going to fail me?

  “Professor Stearns,” I said earnestly, “will you try to give me an unbiased hearing? My situation is a desperate one, and it is necessary for someone to believe in me before I can render humanity the service it needs.”

  He responded to my appeal with something of his old sincerity, which always endeared him to his associates.

  “I shall be glad to hear your story, Gregory, and if I can render any service, I’ll not hesitate—”

  “That’s splendid of you,” I interrupted with emotion, “and now to my weird tale.”

  I related from the beginning, omitting no details, however trivial they may have seemed, the series of events that had brought me to my present predicament.

  “And your conclusion?” queried the professor in strange, hollow tones.

  “That Martian spies, one of whom is Martell, are superintending, by radio and television, an unbelievably well-planned theft of Earth’s water in order to replenish their own dry ocean beds!”

  “Stupendous!” gasped Professor Stearns. “Something must be done to prevent another raid. Let’s see,” he mused, “the interval was three months before, was it not? Three months we shall have for bringing again into use the instruments of war that—praise God!—have lain idle for many generations. It is the only way to deal with a formidable foe from outside.”

  CHAPTER VI

  Professor Stearns was gone, but there was hope in my heart in place of the former grim despair. When the guard handed the evening paper to me I amazed him with a grateful “thank you.” But my joy was short-lived. Staring up at me from the printed passenger list of the ill-fated Poseidonia were the names of Mr. and Mrs. T. M. Landon and daughter Margaret!

  I know the guard classed me as one of the worst cases on record, but I felt that surely fate had been unkind.

  “A package for Mr. George Gregory,” bawled a voice in the corridor.
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br />   Thanks to the influence of Professor Stearns, I was permitted to receive mail. When the guard saw that I preferred unwrapping it myself, he discreetly left me to the mystery of the missive.

  A card just inside bore the few but insignificant words, “For Gregory in remembrance of Martell.”

  I suppressed an impulse to dash the accursed thing to the floor when I saw that it was Martell’s radio and television instrument. Placing it upon the table I drew a chair up to it and turned each of the levers, but not one functioned. I manipulated the dial, number five. The action was accompanied by the same hissing sound that had so startled my overwrought nerves upon the previous occasion. Slowly the wraithlike mist commenced the process of adjustment. Spellbound I watched the scene before my eyes.

  Again I had the sensation of a lofty viewpoint. It was identical with the one I had previously held, but the scene—was it the same? It must be—and yet! The barren red soil was but faintly visible through a verdure. The towering rocky palisades that bordered the chasm were crowned with golden-roofed dwellings, or were they temples, for they were like the pure marble fanes of the ancient Greeks except in color. Down the steep slopes flowed streams of sparkling water that dashed with a merry sound to a canal below.

  Gone were the thousands of beings and their metal aircraft, but seated on a grassy plot in the left foreground of the picture was a small group of the white-feathered, red-skinned inhabitants of this strange land. In the distance rose the temple-crowned crags. One figure alone stood, and with a magnificent gesture held arms aloft. The great corona of feathers spread following the line of the arms like the open wings of a great eagle. The superb figure stood and gazed into the deep velvety blue of the sky, the others following the direction of their leader’s gaze.

  Involuntarily I too watched the welkin, where now not even a moon was visible. Then within the range of my vision there moved a great object—the huge aerial gyroscope—and beneath it, dwarfed by its far greater bulk, hung a modern ocean liner, like a jewel from the neck of some gigantic ogre.

  Great God—it was the Poseidonia! I knew now, in spite of the earthly appearance of the great ship, that it was no terrestrial scene upon which I gazed. I was beholding the victory of Martell, the Martian, who had filled his world’s canals with the water of Earth, and even borne away trophies of our civilization to exhibit to his fellow-beings.

  I closed my eyes to shut out the awful scene, and thought of Margaret, dead and yet aboard the liner, frozen in the absolute cold of outer space!

  How long I sat stunned and horrified I do not know, but when I looked back for another last glimpse of the Martian landscape, I uttered a gasp of incredulity. A face filled the entire vaporous screen, the beloved features of Margaret Landon. She was speaking and her voice came over the distance like the memory of a sound that is not quite audible and yet very real to the person in whose mind it exists. It was more as if time divided us instead of space, yet I knew it was the latter, for while a few minutes of time came between us, millions of miles of space intervened!

  “George,” came the sweet, faraway voice, “I loved you, but you were so suspicious and jealous that I accepted the companionship of Martell, hoping to bring you to your senses. I did not know what an agency for evil he had established upon the earth. Forgive me, dear.”

  She smiled wistfully. “My parents perished with hundreds of others in the transportation of the Poseidonia, but Martell took me from the ship to the ether-craft for the journey, so that I alone was saved.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Do not mourn for me, George, for I shall take up the thread of life anew among these strange but beautiful surroundings. Mars is indeed lovely, but I will tell you of it later for I cannot talk long now.”

  “I only want to say,” she added hastily, “that Terra need fear Mars no more. There is a sufficiency of water now—and I will prevent any—”

  She was gone, and in her stead was the leering, malevolent face of Martell. He was minus his skullcap, and his clipped feathers stood up like the ruff of an angry turkey-gobbler.

  I reached instinctively for the dial, but before my hand touched it there came a sound, not unlike that of escaping steam, and instantaneously the picture vanished. I did not object to the disappearance of the Martian, but another fact did cause me regret; from that moment, I was never able to view the ruddy planet through the agency of the little machine. All communication had been forever shut off by Martell.

  Although many doubt the truth of my solution to the mystery of the disappearance of the Pegasus and of the Poseidonia, and are still searching beneath the ocean waves, I know that never will either of them be seen again on Earth.

  The Star Stealers

  EDMOND HAMILTON

  Edmond Moore Hamilton (1904–1977) was a US writer of science fiction whose work spanned many different publications and subgenres. His first story, “The Monster-God of Mamurth,” was published in 1926 by Weird Tales, which went on to publish more than seventy of his stories between 1926 and 1948. In the 1920s and 1930s Hamilton became popular as an author of space opera, a subgenre he is credited with creating alongside E. E. “Doc” Smith. His first story collection, The Horror on the Asteroid and Other Tales of Planetary Horror (1936), is widely thought to be the first hardcover compilation of stories identified as “science fiction.” Even more interesting is that link early on between space opera and horror, a link strengthened in the modern era by writers such as Alastair Reynolds and Iain M. Banks.

  In the 1940s, Hamilton wrote stories in the Captain Future series, a pulp SF story intended for juvenile readers, alongside writers such as Manly Wade Wellman and Joseph Samachson. But when the science fiction publishing field drifted away from high-adventure space-opera storytelling, Hamilton joined DC Comics as a writer; among other comics scripts, he wrote a Superman story, “Superman Under the Red Sun,” which appeared in Action Comics 300 in 1963. The story in many ways resembled Hamilton’s 1951 novel City at World’s End. He was also one of the first regular writers for the Legion of Super-Heroes and wrote stories for Batman.

  Hamilton married fellow writer Leigh Brackett in 1946 and moved into what is regarded as the most consistent phase of his career, writing stories such as “What’s It Like Out There?” (Thrilling Wonder Stories, 1952) and novels such as the aforementioned City at World’s End and The Haunted Stars (1960). Shortly after he died in 1977, Toei Animation debuted an anime based on his Captain Future novels, and Tsuburaya Productions adapted his novel Starwolf into a tokusatsu series, winning him new generations of fans internationally.

  “The Star Stealers” (1929) is classic Hamilton and compares favorably to modern science fiction. It represents the best of early Golden Age space opera, which was more sophisticated than is generally acknowledged. It is possible that H. P. Lovecraft was inspired by the alien descriptions in this story, as the story was published in Weird Tales years before Lovecraft created and wrote the Cthulhu mythos stories.

  THE STAR STEALERS

  Edmond Hamilton

  I

  As I stepped into the narrow bridgeroom the pilot at the controls there turned toward me, saluting.

  “Alpha Centauri dead ahead, sir,” he reported.

  “Turn thirty degrees outward,” I told him, “and throttle down to eighty light-speeds until we’ve passed the star.”

  Instantly the shining levers flicked back under his hands, and as I stepped over to his side I saw the arrows of the speed dials creeping backward with the slowing of our flight. Then, gazing through the broad windows which formed the room’s front side, I watched the interstellar panorama ahead shifting sidewise with the turning of our course.

  The narrow bridgeroom lay across the very top of our ship’s long, cigarlike hull, and through its windows all the brilliance of the heavens around us lay revealed. Ahead flamed the great double star of Alpha Centauri, two mighty blazing suns which dimmed all else in the heavens, and which crept slowly sidewise as we veered away from them. Toward
our right there stretched along the inky skies the far-flung powdered fires of the galaxy’s thronging suns, gemmed with the crimson splendors of Betelgeuse and the clear brilliance of Canopus and the hot white light of Rigel. And straight ahead, now, gleaming out beyond the twin suns we were passing, shone the clear yellow star that was the sun of our own system.

  It was the yellow star that I was watching, now, as our ship fled on toward it at eighty times the speed of light; for more than two years had passed since our cruiser had left it, to become a part of that great navy of the Federation of Stars, which maintained peace over all the galaxy. We had gone far with the fleet, in those two years, cruising with it the length and breadth of the Milky Way, patrolling the space-lanes of the galaxy, and helping to crush the occasional pirate ships which appeared to levy toll on the interstellar commerce. And now that an order flashed from the authorities of our own solar system had recalled us home, it was with an unalloyed eagerness that we looked forward to the moment of our return. The stars we had touched at, the peoples of their worlds, these had been friendly enough toward us, as fellow members of the great Federation, yet for all their hospitality we had been glad enough to leave them. For though we had long ago become accustomed to the alien and unhuman forms of the different stellar races, from the strange brain-men of Algol to the birdlike people of Sirius, their worlds were not human worlds, not the familiar eight little planets which swung around our own sun, and toward which we were speeding homeward now.

  While I mused thus at the window the two circling suns of Alpha Centauri had dropped behind us, and now, with a swift clicking of switches, the pilot beside me turned on our full speed. Within a few minutes our ship was hurtling on at almost a thousand light-speeds, flung forward by the power of our newly invented de-transforming generators, which could produce propulsion-vibrations of almost a thousand times the frequency of the light-vibrations. At this immense velocity, matched by few other craft in the galaxy, we were leaping through millions of miles of space each second, yet the gleaming yellow star ahead seemed quite unchanged in size.