Before The Golden Age - A SF Anthology of the 1930s

by Edited By Isaac Asimov

  * * * *

  The Towers Fallen, the City Exposed

  And as the towers fell, the pitmen moved forward into the ruins, and, concealing themselves, began the destruction of towers farther within the city. But they were not to continue their work of destruction for many minutes. Before a half dozen towers were destroyed, they found new parties of shelks opposing them, and in a moment of carelessness, two of tile Yakrans were slain before they could property con­ceal themselves.

  Within the city, now, the men from the Pit were at an advantage. The shelks, however desperate, did their best to slay their enemies without destroying their homes, while the men had no such compunction, and would have gladly destroyed all Shawn to kill a single shelk. And so, in spite of a number of casualties, Tumithak and his men moved forward until he reached a spot where he could attack, from a little elevation, the party that was defending the town from Datto and his men.

  Then the huge Yakran chief, his even huger nephew, and their savage warriors, dashed across the open space before the city and in a moment were in the town. With wild cries, they attacked the shelks, for­getful, now that they were at close grips with the creatures, of either fire-hose or disintegrating ray. And indeed, at such close quarters, the rays became double-edged weapons, liable to slay friend and foe alike, and even the shelks seemed to realize their danger and ceased to use them. Strange knife-like weapons ap­peared in their claws, sharp disks of steel mounted on sticks and rotating rapidly, like a child’s pinwheel; dangerous weapons, indeed, for whenever they touched an arm or leg or head, it was sheered off instantly.

  And so the battle raged in hand-to-hand conflict, like the battles of the ancient world, before the dawn of modern knowledge. For the first time in nearly two thousand years, Man was facing his enemies on equal ground, and a good showing he was making, too. The shelks already were yielding ground to the men, when a cry from beyond them told Tumithak that Nikadur and the Loorians had emerged from the pit. He gave a triumphant answering cry and attacked the shelks with renewed vigor.

  To tell all the details of the battle would require a story longer than all of this one. It had become a vast series of individual encounters, and in such a fight, heroes are made by the dozen. Thurranen of Nonone first distinguished himself in this fight, as did several others, who were afterward to become famous knights in Tumithak’s kingdom; Luramo verified Tumithak’s belief in him; while the others, Datto, Nikadur, Thopf, Nennapuss and Tumlook and their ilk showed added prowess by the fearful way in which they brought down shelk after shelk.

  * * * *

  The Battle Reaching Its End

  Twice Tumithak faced old Hakh-Klotta himself twice lesser shelks bravely died to allow the old governor a chance to avoid the leader of the pitmen. It was astounding to Tumithak to see how willing the shelks were to die defending this old ruler. It was his first contact with that strange social instinct that was afterwards to enable him to gain such great advantages over tile shelks. He was in after years to learn that a battle with the shelks was somewhat like a game of chess - capture the king and you capture all.

  But now the Loorian was ignorant of this fact and so when Hakh-Klotta avoided him he was content to attack some lesser shelk. And the battle continued, while shelk after shelk died in a manner that must have seemed strange beyond telling, to them. Imagine a man dying in a battle with sheep and hogs, with sheep and hogs that used guns, knives and that united together to destroy a village! That is probably as close an analogy to this strange raid as we of today can con­ceive.

  We must not suppose that the battle was entirely with the pitmen. In places the shelks would be tem­porarily victorious and dozens of men would die under the whirling knives of the shelks. In places, too, men would be isolated from the main battle, and then a fire-hose, wielded by some shelk, would blast them to cinders before they could flee.

  But for every man that died beneath the shelks’ whirling knives, two shelks would perish beneath the swords or the arrows of the men; and for every group that died under the fire-hoses of the shelks, another perished beneath the fire-hoses of the men of the Pits.

  * * * *

  Retreat to the Flying Machine

  Until at last, as the sun sank low in the heavens, the last group of shelks gathered close to the huge flying machine that lay in the center of the village, and attempted to make a last stand. They had hoped, much earlier in the day, to enter the flyer and escape, in order to bring help from the large city of Kaymak, some distance away; but Tumithak had forestalled them by ordering one of his men to play a fire-hose across the entrance from the protection of a nearby tower. And so they had been balked of their desire. They had made their last stand here however hoping that some last minute accident would enable them to enter the flyer and escape.

  It seemed that there would be little chance for them now. It would be but a moment until they were cut down. And then the Loorian, who had been guarding the entrance to the flyer, gave a cry and fell backward, his head burned to a cinder by the heat-ray of some concealed shelk sniper. Nikadur immediately directed his own fire-hose in the direction from which the ray had come, and had the satisfaction of seeing a burned shelk tumble screaming from the window of the tower, but the few seconds during which the door of the flyer was unguarded enabled fully half of the remaining shelks to enter the flyer and swing shut the door. Hakh-Klotta was the first to enter, needless to say, and then, as the door swung shut, the few remaining shelks died instantly under the rays of the Yakrans. Tumithak was just about to order the fire-hoses to blast the flyer to molten metal when a terrifying thought came to him. Tholura and the two captured Yakrans had not been seen in any part of Shawm dur­ing the fight. Was it possible that they were still in the flyer? If they were, to blast the flyer would mean their certain death. Tumithak turned sick at the thought of how close he had come to giving the order that would have slain them. He ordered his men back from the flyer and waited in anxiety to see if it would rise, bearing away with it the shelk chief and the one in all the world that Tumithak loved most. But as moment after moment passed, and the flyer did not move, he gained renewed hope. Perhaps the flyer was injured in some way, and could not rise.

  * * * *

  Tholura Is Now a Slayer of Shelks

  Perhaps the shelks were so seriously wounded that they could not operate the machine. And then, just as he was about to give an order to attack the machine and try to get within it, the door of the flyer flew open and a disheveled, white-faced figure stood in the doorway. It was Tholura; and on her head was a golden band such as the Governor-Inferior of Shawm had worn. And in her hand was a charred and dripping head—the head of Hakh-Klotta of Shawm!

  “Tumithak!” she called weakly, and then, spying him rushing toward her: “Tumithak,” she cried. “Take me. I love you and now I am worthy of you . . . and I too am a slayer of shelks.”

  * * * *

  CHAPTER VII - The Walls of Shawm

  Tholura’s story was soon told. As the flyer had swept toward Shawm, she and the two Yakrans had been drawn up into the body of the machine, disarmed, and thrown unceremoniously into a corner, where they had cowered in terror, won­dering what was coming next. The excitement caused by the news which the shelks in the flyer told on their arrival, and the tumult of the battle which immediately followed, evidently caused the shelks to entirely forget them; and so they remained locked in the flyer all dur­ing the fight. Toward the last, Tholura so far regained her courage as to begin a search of the flyer. She went looking around here and there, examined the controls and decided that they were too complicated to experiment with, looked here, there and everyplace in search of some sort of a weapon, and finally, to her surprise and delight, found the very arms which had been taken from them earlier in the day. The shelks had evidently tossed them carelessly into a chest used for storing baggage, and it was here that the girl found them.. It was obvious that here, as all through the battle without, the shelks had under-estimated the intelligence of
the men against whom they were fighting, and here, as in the fighting without, they were to pay dearly for their mistake.

  Grimly, Tholura strapped the box to her back and sat down at the entrance to await the return of the shelks. When the door opened, she hid herself until the entire party was safely within the cabin, and then she opened fire on them with the heat-ray. The shelks did not have a chance, but in her excitement, Tholura forgot how the use of the fire-hose in such confined quarters would raise the surrounding temperature. She and the two Yakrans also had almost been over­come by the heat, before they could manage to get the door open and escape to the cooler air of the outside.

  * * * *

  The Battle Was Ended—The’ Last Shelk Was Killed

  But now the battle was over, the shelks were dead to the last one, Tumithak and Tholura were united again, and the pitmen had cheered themselves hoarse when Tumithak announced his intention of marrying Tholura at the earliest opportunity.

  Then Tumithak, at Datto’s suggestion, allowed the warriors to disband and turned the city over to them for looting; while he gathered together his others to discuss ways and means of properly protecting the city proper.

  Next morning Nennapuss approached the Loorian chief with a very business-like air and asked permission to read a list he had compiled. Tumithak nodded permission and the Nononese cleared his throat, and, in the oratorical voice that was so characteristic of him began:

  “This is a list of all the engines and machines that have been captured in the taking of the city. I took the liberty of ordering all men who had obtained these machines to make a report of them, and the following is a summation of their reports. We have secured twenty-seven fire-hoses, which, added to the forty-four which the Tains provided, makes seventy-one in all. We have two hundred and fifty rods of the power metal, a cache of which was found in the tower of the chief shelk. Twenty-six small machines of the type that makes nothing of things, four strange going-machines which no one can make to go, one machine with strong arms that seems to be made for lifting large objects, one machine to fly through the air, and seventy-two machines of which at present we know not the use.”

  Tumithak smiled at the formidable list which the chief of Nonone had so carefully compiled, and then considered seriously for a moment.

  “The fire-hoses,” he announced at last, “and the rods of metal may become the property of those who found them. The machines of which we know not the use shall remain in the possession of those who have them until we find out their use. But the disintegrating machines shall become the property of the council, to be used for the protection of the city. Tell Datto and Zar-Emo to report to me.”

  The two chiefs came and Tumithak laid before them the plan which he had conceived for the protection of the city. Enthusiastically, Zar-Emo and Datto departed and busied themselves in setting up the disintegrating machines in the manner agreed upon. A huge circle was drawn on the ground all about Shawm and then, at equal intervals about this circle, the machines were set up, and Tains spent some time teaching the use of them to warriors who were assigned to operate them.

  For a guard, one of the many that Tumithak had placed in the towers and on the higher elevations of land beyond the city, came rushing to the chief to announce, in a voice laden with terror, that a number of great bird-like shapes had appeared on the distant horizon, and were moving rapidly toward Shawm.

  “They are shelk-flyers, Tumithak!" he cried in fear. “Let us flee to the Pits at once, Tumithak.”

  The shelk-slayer silenced him with a stern gesture, and, turning, ordered a messenger to summon the other chiefs. When they arrived he began at once to give them instructions for the defense of the city. Messengers were sent rushing to the guards who main­tained a constant watch at the disintegrating machines, others assembled the possessors of fire-hoses in the center of the city, while still others busied themselves with the work of herding the women and children into the Pits, that they might be safe in the event that the battle went against the defenders.

  By the time that all these preparations were com­pleted, the shelk fleet (which, although Tumithak could not know it, was probably little more than a group of freighters, ignorant of the conquest of Shawm, which were bringing supplies to the little city from some larger metropolis), had reached a point not over a few miles from the town. Standing on the little elevation near the center of Shawm, Tumithak, with Tholura at his side and his chiefs behind him, watched its ap­proach. The shelk flyers were ornithopters and the lazy flap-flap of the metal wings caused them to flash intermittently in the sun.

  On they came, suspecting nothing, until they reached a point but a few hundred yards away from the city and then they began to descend. The clattering hum of their engines could be heard plainly now, and Tumi­thak began to look anxiously toward the ground be­yond the city. Would his plan work, or were the pitmen about to participate in a desperate battle that would question their very existence?

  * * * *

  The End of the Fleet

  And then, just when the Loorian had given up hope, came tile event that he had been waiting for. There came a splitting roar from tile foremost of tile flyers, it gleamed momentarily with a brilliant a dazzling light—and then it was gone! There was a clap of thunder as tile sound of air rushing in to take the place of that destroyed by the ray reached their ears and that was all.

  Tumithak smiled a relieved smile and turned to Tholura.

  “The disintegrating machines” he explained. “They have been set up so as to form a huge cone of rays over Shawm through which nothing can pass until we shut off our machines. There is a watch over the machines, day and night, and whenever anything strange appears in the sky, the power is immediately turned on.”

  He turned and watched the remaining flyers. The main body of the machines, about seven of them, had been flying immediately behind the leader, and had not attempted to stop when the leader was struck. They had no cause to believe that the machine had been attacked from the ground, and apparently those who noticed its collapse credited it to some accident within the flyer.

  And so, before they could help themselves, they, too, had moved on within reach of the rays and in less than a minute they, too, had roared into oblivion. One straggler, indeed, managed to avoid the general fate for a few moments, and Tumithak watched it anxiously, fearful that it might succeed in escaping entirely, and reach some distant shelk center from which it could bring an army that would wipe out the pitmen entirely. But fortunately this was not to happen, the men who controlled the disintegrators, considering it a point of honor to completely wipe out the entire shelk fleet, directed the whole battery of sixteen machines against it and under such a barrage escape was impossible. The last flyer exploded noisily (the disintegrating rays were weak at that distance) and a fine rain of dust over the forest marked the last of the fleet.

  Tile breeze that had sprung up at tile moment of the turning on of the disintegrators, and which had grown until it was a brisk wind, died down now, and Tumithak turned to Tholura and gave her a kiss of triumph. Then he gave a sigil of fervent relief, for he had been uncertain as to how this method of defense was going to work.

  “We have triumphed once more,” he said softly, and then: “But they will come again, Tholura, they will surely come again . . . But when they do, we will be ready for them.”

  * * * *

  I continue to be amazed at Tanner’s realism. In the battle between the Mog and the woman, there was no last-minute rescue of the woman or any last-minute conversion of the Mog. It is clear that further sequels were in Tanner’s mind, but they did not appear.

  Nine years later, in the November 1941 issue of Super Science Stories, there was indeed a third story in the series, “Tumithak of the Towers of Fire.” I never read it, however. Perhaps I ought not; it might be a disappointment.

  The battle between human beings and the sheiks remained with me, of course, and influenced me in my description of the battle (on a large scale)
between human beings and the Lhasinu in The Black Friar of the Flames.

  * * * *

  The Great Depression had reached its low point in 1933 just before Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated president. The science fiction magazines felt the pinch. There was a general withering.

  Worst off was Astounding Stories. Actually, of the three, it was the most successful from the standpoint of circulation and earnings (I believe), but the publishers were having Depression-born troubles, and when the heart died, the limbs withered.

  The June 1932 issue of Astounding Stories was the thirtieth and last of the monthly issues. Thereafter, the magazine came out at two-month intervals. It staggered on, in this way, for four more issues, and with the March 1933 issue, the Clayton Astounding was dead.

  I was not greatly distressed at the loss of the Clayton Astounding, for I had never liked it. However, it was clear that its end was symptomatic of more general difficulties in the field, and as 1933 wore on, the evidence grew stronger and stronger that there might soon be no science fiction at all to read.