Waring pulled himself erect. “Have you some method by which the corridors could be cleared?”
“The disintegrator beams can be adjusted to the necessary frequency,” Grevellon answered. “But it is a slow business at best.”
“If the openings are to be made large enough for an army—yes,” Waring flashed back. “But not if only for just a few men.”
“What good can just a few accomplish?” Grevellon protested.
Waring spoke eagerly. “Don’t you see? An army would warn Varranagh as before. But a few, penetrating his lines by stealth, might reach the Arsenal in safety.”
Grevellon’s eyes gleamed in sudden enthusiasm. “We can try it. The mission will be a perilous one—yet better than waiting here. If we can reach and activate the robot soldiers, Varranagh is doomed. We will go—Evansu, you, and I. My men will remain behind so as to deceive Varranagh into thinking that we are all still here.” He turned to give rapid instructions to his various subordinates.
Waring explained the plan to Sally. She put up a quick protest.
“But, Lon, you can’t leave me behind! Don’t you see? If you fail, we fail here, too. And if I have to die, I’d rather that it be with you.”
Waring frowned in aching thought. Then he nodded with reluctant slowness. “I’m afraid you’re right, Sally. The only thing to do is take you along. But I wish—” Waring did not finish. He turned away, his eyes filled with pain.
Evansu had strapped the combination device to his slender waist. Both he and Grevellon now gripped cylindrical ray projectors. They were ready to start.
Grevellon frowned when Waring revealed that Sally was to accompany them. “As few as possible would be safest. But if you wish it, then so be it. Now come.”
Grevellon chose a roundabout route to the Arsenal, one which led through a series of corridors that were least likely to be heavily guarded by the rebels. They started forward, the projectors eating narrow tunnels through the debris which filled the blocked passages. At first the going was comparatively rapid; the nearer corridors were entirely free of guards, since they had been so effectively blown down that Varranagh obviously had not thought them worth watching.
Soon, however, their progress had to be made with the utmost caution. As Grevellon and Evansu emerged once from a tunnel made by their projectors, they found themselves confronting three startled rebel guards. Fortunately, these were dispatched before they could give an alarm. But from then on, they went more slowly as the element of surprise could not always be counted upon.
Grevellon and Evansu developed a tactic which was greatly successful in its results. They would carve slowly through the debris of the blocked passages with their projectors until only a thin wall separated them from the space beyond. Then they would listen for the location of the rebels. Having determined this, they would burst suddenly through the thin crust, raking the corridor with their deadly rays. In this dangerous and painstaking fashion, they made much progress.
And then Grevellon turned to Waring, his large eyes glowing excitedly. “There is not much further to go. We will soon reach the Arsenal.”
Waring nodded, though he could not shake off a premonition of impending disaster. Things had been going entirely too smoothly. It just couldn’t last.
And disaster struck. They had turned from a branching corridor into one that was still intact, and were making their way swiftly toward its upper end. Suddenly, from the lower end behind them, a shrill challenge rung. There was but one answer to make.
“Run!” Grevellon snapped.
They plunged forward, all caution now abandoned. Behind, them, the rebel guard released shriek after shriek of alarm.
Down the corridor they raced. A turn—and then, set in a deep recess in one wall, they found themselves before the massive doors of the Arsenal.
“Quick—the combination,” Grevellon told Evansu. “Varranagh and his pack are warned. We have not an instant to waste.”
Evansu fumbled the combination device from his belt. He adjusted several small dials on its face, then pointed it at a circular grid set in the Arsenal doors. The device hummed faintly.
Waring gripped Sally’s arm, a grin of joy and relief starting at the corners of his mouth. It was over. Incredibly, they had won through.
But the doors of the Arsenal did not open. Evansu’s face paled.
“What’s the matter?” Grevellon prompted.
“The adjustment of the frequencies was not sufficiently exact,” Evansu stammered. Again he set the dials—and again the doors failed to open.
The clamor of voices and footfalls grew louder and ever louder. The rebels were approaching with dismaying rapidity.
Evansu’s hands trembled as he sought frantically to find the correct adjustment of electronic frequencies. His breath sobbed in his throat.
Waring snatched up Evansu’s ray projector and leaped to the edge of the recess. He had watched the method of the weapon’s operation, and now he knew just what to do. Pressing the stud in its side, he pointed the projector into the corridor. The disintegrator beam flashed out, and the nearest of the oncoming rebels vanished abruptly.
Grevellon hurried to join Waring, and for a moment they managed to stem the advance. But soon ray after terrible ray licked toward their refuge, and at last they were forced to duck back.
Evansu released a sudden yell of triumph. Waring whirled, his eyes widening in delight. The doors of the Arsenal were open!
Almost simultaneously, the rebels reached the recess. Waring and Grevellon were caught napping by their momentary diversion of attention. Before they could do so much as complete their individual motions of turning, the rebels swarmed over them.
Waring went down beneath a surge of stick-thin bodies. For some seconds, he struggled fiercely, but sheer weight of numbers soon overcame him. His arms gripped by fully a dozen rebels, he was finally hauled to his feet. He found himself facing a Drurian whose splendor of garb outrivaled even Grevellon’s. But there was no sympathy and gentleness in this face. It was sternly and coldly cruel.
“Varranagh!” Grevellon spat.
The rebel smiled with malicious triumph. “At your service, my dear Chief Coordinator. But not for long, I might add. We shall part very soon.” Varranagh’s smile broadened. “I see that you have managed to open the doors of the Arsenal. It was indeed thoughtful of you to provide me with the old weapons. They will make the remainder of my task that much easier.”
“They would have meant your death, if I had but had a few seconds more,” Grevellon said evenly.
“You didn’t, however,” Varranagh reminded mockingly. His features abruptly hardened. “But enough of this chatter. You die, my dear Chief Coordinator, and with you your alien companions!”
Varranagh snapped an order. Waring and the others were released. They stood together, a tiny group of four, while the execution squad of rebels lined up before them.
Varranagh raised his hand, narrowed eyes glittering. When it came down, Waring knew, death from a dozen projectors would leap out at them.
And then—strangely and illogically—the thought made him recall something. Out of this recollection he formed an abrupt plan. It was wild, almost silly, yet with extinction only split-seconds away, Waring did not waste time in doubt. He acted. Bending toward Sally, he whispered urgently into her ear.
Varranagh’s hand tensed preparatory to lowering. The rebels gripped their weapons more tightly, waiting for the signal. The scene held for an instant like a tableau of wax dummy figures. All was very quiet and still.
And then—before Varranagh’s hand could descend—Waring sneezed, a loud, lusty sneeze that exploded startlingly into the tense silence. A moment later Sally sneezed also.
Again Waring sneezed. He clutched at his chest and frightening grimaces writhed over his face. Strangling sounds came from his lips. His eyes rolled madly.
There was a stunned, utter silence. The rebels gazed at Waring and Sally as if they were the sudden materialization of every supernatural fear ever known to Drurians. Then the corridor echoed to a sudden bedlam of screams, shrieks, and yells. Flinging away their weapons, the rebels fled in terror. Kicking, clawing, and cursing, they fought frenziedly to get away.
“It’s a trick!” Varranagh shouted. “Come back, you fools!”
But the rebels were too intent on fleeing the scene to obey. The confusion had become ordered flight. The rebels streamed down the corridor and away. Within seconds only Varranagh was left in sight. His face was a distorted mask of insane hatred.
“Curse you!” he shrilled it Waring.
“I’ll finish it—myself!” His hand flashed to a projector hanging at his hip.
Waring left the floor in a leap. His clutching arms caught Varranagh about the middle. They sprawled violently backward to the floor. Waring was the first to his feet. With one hand he pulled Varranagh upright. The other, balled into a vengeful fist, leaped out from his shoulder. There was a dull crunching sound.
The rebel leader bounced from the opposite wall of the corridor and slid slowly to the floor. One glance at his queerly dangling domed head showed clearly that he would never move again. His neck had been broken by Waring’s blow.
Waring turned triumphantly to Grevellon and Evansu. But the two backed quickly away from him, covering their faces with their hands.
“Keep away!” Evansu cried. “You’ve got it—the Sneezing Death!”
“You are my friend,” Grevellon said. “I cannot thank you enough for what you have just done. But—please do not come any nearer.”
Waring threw back his head and released peal after peal of laughter. “It was a trick,” he explained. “I haven’t got the Sneezing Death any more than you have. You see, when the rebels faced us, their projectors made me think of flashing death. And that reminded me of the Sneezing Death. Knowing how greatly Drurians fear the disease, I got the idea of sneezing, just to see what would happen. And…well, I was more surprised than the rebels were!”
A moment later it was all Sally could do to pull the two wildly delighted Drurians from off Waring. “Give me a chance at him too,” she pleaded.
Waring translated. Grevellon smiled.
“She can have you for the present. Right now Evansu and I have work to do. Once we get the robot soldiers activated, there won’t be a rebel left on all the face of Drur!” Gesturing to Evansu, he disappeared into the gloomy depths of the Arsenal.
“Look at me,” Sally ordered Waring. “What do you see in my eyes now?”
“You looked darned glad to be alive,” Waring decided.
“Is that all, Lon? Can’t you see something else?”
“Yes,” Waring answered softly. “Yes, Sally.”
She went on eagerly. “And, Lon, can’t you see the future—your future and mine? With the Aliens back, the cities will no longer be almost entirety deserted. More colonists will come, and more. Faltronia will enter a new life. But most important, someone will have to act as go-between for Terrans and Drurians, and only you will be able to do that, because only you will be able to communicate with them. You won’t be tied down to a desk job any longer. You’ll be famous—and needed. Lon…can’t you see?”
Waring saw. His eyes were a little moist with the seeing…
QUEST OF THE SPLIT MAP
Originally published in Mammoth Adventure, November 1946.
The cab purred off into the evening darkness, leaving Gregg Stacey alone on the curb. He wasted no time lingering there. A street lamp several feet away enclosed him within its circle of illumination, made his figure too conspicuous. He wasn’t certain yet that he hadn’t been followed.
Bending quickly, he gathered up his bags and strode across a stretch of lawn to the sidewalk. A short distance away, he sighted a broad, shadowed opening between two buildings, flanked by tall bushes. It was the entrance to a driveway. He turned into it, stopping where the shadows were thickest. He couldn’t be seen from the street, now.
He set down his bags again, and pulled out his pipe. He began filling it from an oilskin pouch, watching the street, unable to shake off a feeling of unease that lay like a black, cold shadow on his mind.
Cars passed frequently on the street. They went rapidly, going somewhere, not slowly as though looking for something. There were occasional pedestrians, but they came and went with a definiteness that carried no hint that they might be searching.
Finally, carefully, Gregg Stacey lighted his pipe. The match, flickering in his large, brown hand, illumined his face. It was a youthful face, broad, with a pleasantly wide mouth, and thick dark brows that almost met over the bridge of a short blunt nose. The eyes, narrowed intently over the pipe, were a clear candid blue, fringed heavily with dark lashes. They were quick, straight, intelligent eyes that many people would find disconcerting. An easy humor showed in the lines around his mouth and eyes, but they were deepened now by grimness and strain. He wore a belted tan gabardine trench coat over a gray tweed suit, and a brown felt hat, the brim of which had been pulled low over his forehead.
The pipe going satisfactorily, Stacey resumed his watch of the street. He thought of the girl named Norma Reddick, and impatience began to build up within him. Norma Reddick held the answer to the mystery that had brought Stacey to Seattle. She lived just around the corner, in the next block, if the cab driver who had brought Stacey here knew his directions. Stacey had given an address near the girl’s, in case he might be followed. He hadn’t wanted to lead pursuit directly to her, even though he had changed cabs twice since leaving the airport.
Norma Reddick wasn’t entirely unknown to Stacey. He had seen her several times, the last being some ten years ago, when both were little more than kids. These meetings had taken place on the infrequent occasions when their respective fathers, Ben Stacey and Warren Reddick, came down from Alaska to visit them. The two men were inseparable friends, and as partners operated a couple of mines near Fairbanks.
Stacey remembered Norma as an impudent skinny brat, with hair of an indefinite blonde shade and a disdainful snub nose sprinkled generously with freckles. He hadn’t liked her, and he doubted that he would like her now. He reminded himself that his only reason for coming to see her at all was because she knew the explanation behind the half of a map which he had received a few days before. It had been sent by Chinook Vervain, a half-breed servant of his father and Warren Reddick. With the map fragment. Vervain had enclosed a badly scrawled, barely legible note, containing Norma’s address and informing Stacey that the girl had the other half of the map and would explain the matter. Vervain had added a strange warning for Stacey to be careful; as it developed, the warning hadn’t been an empty one. The next day Stacey received a visit from two men, obvious toughs, who had offered to buy his half of the map. He had refused to sell. That evening, while Stacey had been out making arrangements for his trip to Seattle, his room had been painstakingly searched. The map half hadn’t been found for the simple reason that Stacey had taken it with him.
The two men had followed Stacey afterward, their purpose now evidently one of robbing him of the map. But doubly warned, Stacey had managed to elude them. So far anyway, he thought. It was possible that the sinister duo had followed in another plane, landing but scant minutes behind him, and even now might be hot on his trail, with a lead furnished by a swift check-up of cab drivers.
Heavy, dark brows meeting in a frown of perplexity, Stacey puffed at his pipe and watched the street. For the dozenth time, he wondered what the split map could mean. To what did it lead? Apparently to something valuable enough to have brought his two hard-faced visitors all the way from Alaska in the effort to buy or steal it. Who were these men? Who was behind them? And above all, Stacey wanted to know why Chinook Vervain instead of his father or Warren Reddick had written to him. The fa
ct that the map had been divided showed the two partners had expected trouble of some kind in connection with it. Did their silence indicate that something had happened to them?
The pipe went out between Stacey’s teeth. He knocked it empty on the heel of his hand, decision crystallizing in his mind. He was going to see Norma Reddick. He’d waited long enough to be sure that he hadn’t been followed.
Tucking away the pipe, Stacey picked up his bags and left the driveway. It was only a short distance to the corner. A sign there assured him that the intersecting street was the one he wanted. He turned into it, striding rapidly, watching the house numbers. He hadn’t entirely abandoned his sense of caution. He scrutinized closely the people who went by and the cars that drove past. But still he saw nothing that hinted of danger.
Norma Reddick’s address proved to be that of a tall apartment hotel. Walking toward the entrance, Stacey heard a car door slam behind him. The noise was followed by the sound of swiftly approaching feet. Stacey whirled, thoughts flashing in alarm.
Two men were coming toward him. He relaxed a little as he saw they were not the men who had visited him in Los Angeles. But there was a purposefulness about them that showed Stacey was their immediate objective.
Stacey measured them grimly. He hadn’t heard a car drive up. The two must have been waiting for him all the time. He discarded the idea of bolting into the building as soon as it came. He wouldn’t have been able to make it.
“You’re Gregg Stacey, aren’t you?” one of the men asked, in a politely inquiring tone. He was fully as tall as Stacey, though somewhat slimmer, with sharp olive features that narrowly escaped being handsome. Even white teeth showed in a smile below a thin, carefully trimmed black mustache. He was smartly and even foppishly dressed. His black Homburg was tilted a bit too rakishly, and his gray double-breasted topcoat fitted a bit too snugly at the hips.
The 38th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK Page 38
