The commander had climbed to his feet also, and was at his second officer’s side, pushing him from the periscope.
“Take full diving command,” he ordered. “What was it that—” And he suddenly froze to the periscope wheel, his eyes widening in horror, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
Words came after another frozen instant of terror. Choked, hoarse, maddened words, tumbling one on the other.
“Ach, du lieber, gott!” the commander gurgled. “Hands, no, no NOOO!!!”
The U-boat was suddenly twisting and turning crazily as a tremendous pressure squeezing in around its metal sides began to split the seams asunder. The confusion and terror inside the submarine was beyond imagination . . .
SHAN held the first of the metal fish aloft, scrutinizing it carefully, as his huge fingers tightened inexorably around it, crushing it until it was a scant third of its original width. Then he tossed it from him, and bent again to search the murky green waters around his legs with both hands.
His haul this time was two of the metallic fish. One, like the first he had scooped from the water, was curiously marked with a crooked cross on the snout. The other was marked by a blazing red circle.
Shan shook the one with the crooked cross experimentally. Then he held it to his ear. The signs of life in it had stopped. He tossed it from him. The fish with the blazing circle on its snout was eliminated in the same way. Then Shan was groping through the water again, intrigued by this hunting game.
He scooped up three more of the metal fish, when he was suddenly aware that others had converged on him, more than a dozen of the metal finned little monsters. And they were slashing angrily at his legs.
And Shan suddenly recalled that on Jupiter all undersea fish life—there was little of it—was poisonous. Perhaps these fish of this strange planet were likewise.
Shan lost no time in further contemplation. He went swiftly into action, scooping up others, crushing them with one wrench, stamping still others into the sand bed below the water as he threshed his great legs about.
And finally there were no underwater metal creatures remaining, save for a scattered, dying few that floated off out of striking distance to him.
Shan had been so absorbed in the metal fish that he had forgotten the preparations that had been underway along the shoreline of the city of tiny dwellings.
And now the dawn was coming up over the horizon, and Shan could see the fleet of many hostile craft manned by little creatures turning forth to seek him and cut him down.
Shan sighed. He did not like leaving this way. But of course there was no other alternative. Some other time, some other year, and all this would be accomplished.
He sloughed through the water over to his great space ship. After a few minutes tinkering of valve mechanism on the side of the craft, it floated to the surface of the water.
Minutes later Shan was in the cabin compartment, sitting before the maze of controls at the instrument panels. He turned to look into the rear radii-screen once before gunning the rockets. The hostile little people were starting out. But they wouldn’t see his departure in this extremely heavy fog.
Shan threw the rocket compression power on full. The tubes blasted deafeningly, and the craft shot forward, lifting from the surface of the water . . .
CHAPTER VII
Doomed Nazis
THE United States destroyer, Huxley, sliced through the gray Pacific waters, listing slightly with the swirling foggy winds that howled over her decks.
On the bridge, Admiral Hallet braced himself against the pitch of the ship and swept his gaze over the choppy, cold water.
The destroyer he was aboard was one of the units scouring the area for an explanation of the explosion heard the previous day.
The lieutenant commander who was acting captain of the destroyer came to his side.
“Our lookouts haven’t sighted anything as yet,” he said. “I have contacted the other ships in the patrol and they report the same story. No evidence of anything—”
The captain’s sentence was suddenly obliterated by a thunderous explosion off the destroyer’s port bow. Before the stunning reverberations of the blast died away another sound was heard; a long, wailing, whistling shriek that grew gradually fainter and finally fading into silence.
Admiral Hallet peered worriedly up into the dense foggy sky. The wailing shriek had seemed to pass directly above them. The sound reminded him of the banshee-wail a sixteen inch shell makes as it screams over its objective.
The lieutenant commander was staring ahead, jaw tense.
“What now, sir?” he asked.
“Proceed in the direction of that sound,” the admiral snapped. “Change our course a few degrees to the port. The only way we’ll ever find out what’s going on out here, is to sail right smack into the middle of it. Radio our course and position to the other units and instruct them to proceed under full steam to this approximate location.”
A moment later Admiral Hallet felt the ship shift slightly and ease off to the port. And it was only five minutes after they changed their course that they sighted the first U boat!
The fog lifted slightly. Admiral Hallet, straining his eyes to the limit, was sweeping his gaze over the ship’s course, when, out of the swirling mists, he saw the slim black hull of a German submarine!
He caught his breath sharply. Even in the fog he could make out the bulky figures on the wave-washed deck of the sub, working furiously repairing the demolished conning tower.
“Captain!” he snapped. “Submarine off the port bow. Order the forward gun crews into immediate action.”
The captain stared incredulously in the direction of Admiral Hallet’s pointing arm, at the deadly U-boat slowly materializing out of the greenish fog.
“My God!” he gasped.
He turned and leaped for the communication hose, and Admiral Hallet heard him barking crisp dynamic orders to the chief petty officer on deck.
But the bulky figures on the sub’s deck had seen the Huxley. Admiral Hallet saw them, frozen in astonished horror, then galvanizing into action.
TWO of them sprang toward the heavy swivel gun beside the conning tower, while the rest scrambled down the hatch below deck.
Almost instantly orange flame belched from the mouth of the gun and rattling tokens of death blasted into the destroyer.
The forward gun crew was stripping the tarpaulin from their deadly four pounder, swinging it around to cover the sub. The admiral saw one of the crew stagger back and fall to the deck, as the merciless fire from the U-boat sprayed across the destroyer’s bow.
“Damn!” he grated. “We’ll pay you back for that.”
A roar from the four pounder blasted above the rattling noise of the German gun. A split-instant later the German gun was silent.
One of its crew lay sprawled on the sub’s wet deck and the other was crawling desperately for the conning tower.
The first blast from the destroyer’s gun had scored a direct hit!
The German seaman who was still alive dragged himself painfully toward the hatch, but before he could reach the opening, the cover closed with a sudden vicious bang and the sub began to submerge. A pitiful scream carried through the fog as the rising waters claimed him.
His head was visible for an instant, a blob on the cold gray water. Then it was gone.
“They can’t get away!” Admiral Hallet barked.
“They won’t,” the lieutenant commander said.
Already the destroyer’s giant steel arm that tossed the depth charges was going into action. It swung down and then up hurling its load of canned dynamite onto the back of the settling sub.
A thunderous explosion rocked the destroyer a moment later. A geyser of air and oil boiled to the surface of the water, and a wild exultant shout broke from the throats of the destroyer crew.
“They didn’t get away,” the lieutenant commander said grimly.
They heard a salvo off the starboard bow then. The admira
l clenched his fists anxiously.
“We’ve run into a nest of rattlesnakes,” he said. “They must have been attempting a surprise attack.”
The lieutenant commander’s brow was damp with sweat.
“We haven’t enough naval strength here to stand off a flotilla of subs. If they were planning a mass attack on the West coast they have dozens of U-boats concentrated here. We’re in for a battle and the odds are heavily against us.”
BUT it didn’t turn out that way. The only subs the American force discovered were on the surface and unable to submerge because of their battered condition. Three were sunk when they opened fire, and two others were captured, with their crew complete.
From the German crews Admiral Hallet learned that the original Jap and German attacking force had comprised twenty ships. What had happened to the great bulk of the force the Germans would not, or could not, say. They looked at one another and dropped their eyes. And in their eyes a furtive fear lurked.
“It would have been disastrous,” Admiral Hallet said to the lieutenant commander, “if we hadn’t intercepted this nest of snakes. They might have put our entire Pacific fleet out of commission.”
“What do you suppose happened to the rest of the sub fleet?” the lieutenant commander asked. “If that fleet had reached this area in full strength the outcome of this battle would have been just in reverse.”
“I know,” Admiral Hallet said quietly. He was silent a moment, staring unseeingly at the lifting fog. The sun’s rays were striking the waters like brilliant lances, and above the sky was blue. “Maybe I’m just plain old-fashioned,” he said after a while, “but I think when something happens like it did today, someone is responsible for it. Napoleon said that God was always on the side of the strongest army, but I rather think he’s on the side of the right army. If that’s an answer you’re welcome to it.”
The lieutenant commander looked at the admiral’s stern, chiseled profile and the silvery hair that fell over his keen blue eyes. He smiled.
“That’s a perfectly good answer,” he said.
ALREADY on the radii-screen panel in the compartment of Shan’s great space ship, the lesser planet was fading away into a tiny, blurred ball.
And heavy-hearted, Shan of Jupiter gave it one last farewell glance. Regretfully, he measured what he had lost, and sadly acknowledged that the union of the two planets might well have advanced the universe many millions of years ahead of the normal cycle.
In his heart Shan held not bitterness toward the little creatures on the planet fading behind him. It was no fault of theirs that his presence affected them as it did. It was merely unfortunate that he was so many many hands larger than they.
And yet Shan could not shake the futility of regret from his heart. One thought uppermost in his mind would not be dislodged.
“I could have done so much for them, for their civilization,” Shan realized. “And instead, I failed.”
Bitterly, Shan shook his great head in sorrow . . .
THEY FORGOT TO ‘REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR’
First published in the June 1942 issue of Amazing Stories.
Even a court martial and dishonorable discharge couldn’t make Ward Blackson forget Pearl Harbor!
CHAPTER I
THE large, well-appointed conference room was already filled when Ward Blackson arrived. Smoke curled in lazy layers over the gleaming, durametal table, around which an even dozen men lounged comfortably, enjoying good cigars.
Several of the men wore uniforms, and the only girl present wore a severely tailored military tunic, with the insignia of the Reestablishment Corps stitched to the right sleeve.
This girl stood up as Ward Blackson entered the room. She was tall and slender, with blue eyes and ash blonde hair. Her cheeks were slightly flushed as she moved to his side.
“Please, Ward,” she whispered, “don’t do it.
Everyone is saying—”
Ward Blackson looked down at her and there was misery in his young face.
“I’m sorry, Ann,” he said through stiff lips.
Then he stepped by her and seated himself at the long conference table. Ann returned to her chair in silence.
There was a nervous stir at the table then, as several of the men cleared their throats and shuffled papers awkwardly. For a full minute nothing was said, but finally the uncomfortable silence was broken by a good-humored chuckle.
Glancing down the table, Ward saw that it was Commander Reynolds, Vice-Admiral of the United Space Navy, who had laughed. The commander was a large, heavy set man with a red, beaming face and small twinkling blue eyes, almost lost in thick rolls of fat. Wheezing slightly, he rose to his feet.
“I realize that this is a serious occasion,” he said, in his booming voice, “but still I can’t help but smile when I look down at Ward Blackson. Why, only yesterday it seems, I was bouncing him on my knee and playing with him on the floor of my office. Now, here he is, grimmer than death, ready to raise the very devil with me for being a befuddled, thoughtless old fool. Isn’t there something funny in that?”
A lean, black-haired, immaculately-uniformed officer seated directly opposite Ward glanced briefly at Commander Reynolds, then looked down at the papers in front of him.
“I see nothing funny in what amounts practically to insubordination,” he said, in a cold bitter voice.
“Now, now, Major Slade,” Commander Reynolds said placatingly, “this, after all, is an informal committee. Since Lieutenant Blackson has asked for an opportunity to express his opinions, and we, his superior officers, have granted him that wish, it is only right that we treat him with a certain respect. I feel sure that we all know what Lieutenant Blackson is going to tell us. His opinions on the subject this committee is discussing are practically a family tradition. An heirloom, you might say, handed down to him from his father and grandfather. We owe those opinions our attention.”
Major Slade looked arrogantly at Ward and the full impact of his dislike was in the glance.
“Allow me to apologize,” he said sarcastically. “Please proceed, Lieutenant Blackson, to amaze and enlighten us with the profound wisdom you have acquired in your six months of military experience. I, for one, will be delighted to listen.”
Tiny muscles bunched along Ward’s clean jaw line and he clenched his hands to keep them from trembling as he rose slowly to his feet.
HIS eyes ranged over the circle of faces at the table. They were all watching him, some with amused tolerance, some with irritation which they made no pretense at concealing.
The blonde girl dropped her eyes, but not before he saw clearly the contempt mirrored in their depths.
He fought his stubborn temper and managed to control it. Anger gained nothing, he forced himself to remember.
When he spoke his voice was quiet, but there was a burning sincerity, an unmistakable emphasis to his words that commanded the reluctant attention of almost everyone at the conference table.
“In the year 1941, almost a hundred years ago, the United States of America entered a war that eventually brought an end to tyranny and dictatorship throughout the world.”
Ward paused for an instant and noticed that Commander Reynolds, hands folded over his protruding stomach, was nodding sleepily. Major Slade leaned back in his chair and yawned elaborately. His mocking glance brought a flush of color to Ward’s cheeks.
“Is the history lesson over?” the Major asked ironically.
Ward placed his fists on the table and leaned forward, his square young jaw savagely outthrust.
“The history lesson has been forgotten,” he said bitterly. “This committee has apparently forgotten that it took the United States and her Allies almost forty terrible years to defeat the Axis powers. Until 1980 the entire world was plunged into the misery and brutality of war—war brought on by the insatiable lust of the mad dogs of Europe and Asia. That fact seems to be forgotten by everyone today, particularly the members of this committee, whose job it is not to forget i
t.” Major Slade rose to his feet angrily. His thin, arrogant face was white with controlled rage.
“The members of this committee are capable of determining their jobs without your insulting reminders, Lieutenant Blackson.”
He turned stiffly to Commander Reynolds, who was blinking in befuddled surprise at the scene.
“I move that the hearings on the issue before the committee be officially closed and Lieutenant Blackson be officially rebuked for his presumptious attitude and remarks.”
Commander Reynolds coughed noisily, peered up at the major.
“Let us all,” he said drily, “make an attempt to control our emotions.”
He turned blandly to Ward.
“Are you through?” he asked.
“Not quite,” Ward said grimly. “In fact, I haven’t started.”
“Then, by all means, start,” the commander said peevishly.
“Thank you,” Ward said.
“ONE minute, please,” a tall, white-haired man, who had been sitting next to the girl, Ann, held up a hand for attention. When Ward turned to him, he rose slowly to his feet.
Ward recognized him as Senator
Evans, one of the most sincere idealists in the World Council. A man of unimpeachable integrity, incorruptible honesty and genuine kindliness, he believed seriously in Utopia for all. Ann idolized him.
“Please accept my apologies for interrupting,” he said in a surprisingly mild voice, “but since everything has been so informal, I hope no one will mind my intrusion.”
He turned to face Ward directly. “Lieutenant Blackson, you have reminded us of the Great War that ended in 1980. That, I might remind you, was sixty years ago. Your grandfather and I attended the diplomatic meetings that followed that war, and we were both present at the World Court when sentence was passed on the leaders of Axis nations. Your grandfather pleaded for their immediate execution. I, I am proud to say, pleaded for mercy.”
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 91
