The Stone From the Green Star

by Jack Williamson

  DICK’S rather lengthy speculations about the matter!

  will appear in full in “A Vision of Futurity.” Space does not permit me to go into this interesting question at greater length, here.

  However it may have been done, the monster was able to hurl a part of itself at Dick, across a distance of half a mile, which it coiled around his body, holding him helpless until the weird being—or the rest of it—arrived.

  As he waited, Dick’s sensations were peculiarly unpleasant. He strained every muscle in his body in a furious attempt to break free of the thick rope of red-blue fire that held him. But it seemed to have the strength of steel. And there was alert intelligence in the way it took instant advantage of his every motion to entwine him more securely.

  The thing was bitterly cold, inconceivably cold. Cold seemed to be part of its nature, as warmth is of the higher animals. Dick supposes that the strange substance of it is chemically stable only at temperatures near the absolute zero. The piercing, numbing cold of it penetrated his heavy garments; he shivered with its strange chill.

  There was horror unutterable in waiting there. Alone. In a strange world, frozen and barren. A planet outside our universe, where the sky was black, and the rugged mountains and the barren wastes of snow shone with eldritch emerald light. He was held helpless by a rope of pulsating purple flame. And bearing swiftly down upon him was an entity so strange, so inconceivable, that he found no better name for it than the Thing of Frozen Flame.

  Dick trembled, shivering as much from ungovernable horror as from the intense, penetrating cold radiated from the luminous coils that bound him; he was breathing swiftly; his heart was pounding. And a cold sweat had broken out upon his body.

  After his first wild and frenzied struggle, he realized that physical strength would avail him nothing against the terrible, living energy of the red-blue rope of fire entwined about him. He forced himself to relax his desperate, panic-stricken efforts to break loose. He tried to calm his dazed brain, to consider, to think.

  His time was all too short. The amazing creature was not half a mile away, over the desolate plain of shimmering green snow. It was gliding down toward him at the speed of an airplane. He had no idea what its intentions were—but he knew that it was malignant, alien to humanity; and he was terribly afraid.

  What was the chance of rescue? He thought of the Ahrora, the wonderful flier a few hundred yards behind him, with Midos Ken aboard, and Don Galeen—and Thon. And he was suddenly sorry that he had told them of this creature, over the television. What could they do against such a thing as this? He hoped that they remained hidden, that they made no attempt to save him.

  The atomic pistol was still in his hand, held against his side by the luminous coils about him. He must cling to the weapon. He might have a chance to use it, if he were cautious. It was his only hope.

  Then he relaxed completely. He dropped his head, let his eyes half close. His shoulders sagged. But he kept the muscles of his right arm tense, kept the weapon firmly grasped. The strange coils of purple fire about him supported his weight; they did not let him fall.

  He dropped back, inert, relaxed. And he kept in such a position that he could watch the weird entity gliding so swiftly toward him.

  Long, snake-like body, green and glittering. Slender wings glistening with iridescence, like wisps of frozen rainbow, like lace of diamond needles. Cold crimson eyes, lidless, unwinking, utterly alien and malignant. Strange ovals of purple light at the sides of its head—from one of them had come the rope of frigid fire that bound Dick so securely.

  It glided swiftly toward him. The wings were motionless. It seemed to move by mere will, as the part of it that had come to seize Dick had moved. The mind of it seemed to move matter by forces unknown to us.

  Dick recoiled from it, trembling with utter loathing, with horror that, he says, is inconceivable. Chills traversed his spine; icy sweat seemed to congeal upon his limbs. It took all his will to keep from making another mad struggle. But he waited, relaxed.

  The thing reached him, it hovered over him, fifty yards high.

  A winged serpent, green, semitransparent, shining, with glistening wings and malevolent red eyes, bright and luminous as crystal—as flame. And cold—inconceivably cold—a thing of frozen flame.

  Abruptly, he was snatched up toward it.

  The rope of purple fire lifted him in its frozen embrace, carried him toward that thing of nightmare hanging above.

  Dick struck as it swung him off the earth. He moved as swiftly as he could, trying to catch the monster unawares. The coils of fire about him had relaxed a bit. With a sudden twisting motion, he slipped his pistol arm from under the coil that held it, flung up the weapon, and fired at the glistening thing of cold fire above him.

  The concussion was terrific, deafening. He was flung to the ground. And he was, he thinks, unconscious for an instant.

  Then he was lying on snow that shone with pale cold green.

  He was free. The rope of purple light was rapidly uncoiling from around his body.

  And the thing he had fired at lay on the snow not far from him.

  It was shattered.

  The body of it was crushed. It lay scattered about the snow like great blobs of jelly, translucent and crystalline. The frail iridescent wings were shattered into a thousand prismatic fragments, glistening like diamonds. The red eyes were in a mangled fragment of the green body, half buried in the snow.

  But the thing was not dead.

  Dick saw the part that had been the head lift itself out of the snow, rise a few feet into the frozen, gloomy air. It hung there. At first it was a mangled, hideous thing. But swiftly it changed; it resumed its former appearance.

  The strange, unwinking red eyes shone malignantly again.

  And the rope of purple fire that had coiled about Dick writhed quickly toward the head, through the gleaming green snow. It leapt from the ground, toward one of those luminous violet patches at the sides of the head. It struck the oval, streamed swiftly into it, vanished.

  The part of the monster that had come to bind Dick had returned to it.

  And one by one the shattered parts of the body glowed with strange throbbing fire of life, lifted themselves from the ground and leapt up to it. Swiftly, all was put back together, as it had been before.

  It was incredible, uncanny.

  It was inconceivable to the human point of view, to the human mind familiar only with the life of this universe.

  Dick stood staring at it, in dazed wonder, and horror.

  He was uncertain what to do. If he tried to run away, he knew the creature would be complete, ready to pursue him again, before he had gone fifty yards. He thought of trying to blow it to pieces again. But he feared that the fragments might be about as dangerous as the entire being.

  HE hoped that it would go away, and leave him alone.

  Tense and alert, he stood there, staring at the alien entity that was so weirdly reassembling its shattered fragments. He kept the weapon on it.

  At first his mind had been dazed with incredulity and horror. Now he was himself again. He could admit the reality of the monster. And it was not wholly invincible. He had blown it to pieces, and secured at least temporary freedom—even if the thing were putting itself together again.

  “What do you say?” he called challengingly at it. “Want another dose?”

  The thing was watching him. Those red eyes were inches across, deep and glowing with cold crimson fires.

  Two feet of the glistening, translucent green substance of the thing separated them. They had no pupils, no lids. They did not wink. They were steady, bright, intensely malignant.

  The stare was hypnotic.

  Dick fought against it.

  “Damn you!” he shouted. “I’ll blow you to hell!”

  His voice somehow died in an uncontrollable choking gasp.

  He tried convulsively to pull the trigger of the pistol.

  His muscles were frozen; he could not move.r />
  The horror that he had felt upon the landing came over him again. Bitter cold, numbing, torturing, all pierced him with icy needles. He felt again that vertiginous sensation of endless falling. Queer blue darkness seemed to come about him.

  He felt the weapon drop from his nerveless hands.

  Then he was lifted from the green snow. By some force he could not understand, he was wafted toward the glittering thing of frozen fire. Shining, rope-like tentacles of purple flame, intensely cold, streamed out of the violent ovals on its head. They coiled swiftly about him, drew him up to the monster.

  He was held against that green, translucent, wormlike body.

  Intense cold from it struck into him—bitter cold, numbing, freezing, piercing his body.

  He tried in vain to struggle. His paralyzed muscles would not respond to his will. He felt that sickening sensation of plunging down through an illimitable abyss of cold, dim, blue light. And he felt oddly apart from his body—as if the amazing will of the creature had crowded out his mind, and taken its place.

  His body, he knew, had somehow become a part of that alien being. Its muscles were controlled by that inconceivable intelligence, as the rope of purple fire that had bound him had been.

  Then the strange, disk-like appendage on the thing’s face, between the red eyes and below them, was pressed against his body. A broad disk of green, jelly-like substance, pulsing with lights that were the life, the blood, of it.

  The tentacles of red-blue fire held him in their frozen grasp. And the green, viscid disk was pressed against his breast. Cold from it struck into him, numbing, gelid, bitter.

  And the disk sucked. Something streamed out of him into it. It was not blood—it was the very life of his body.

  Vampirism! The thing was sucking out the very essence of life. He felt shrunken, weak, exhausted. Suddenly he was feeble and old. He had no longer the strength to struggle against the paralysis that overcame him, against the freezing grasp that held him against the revolting, worm-like body of viscid, frozen jelly.

  Suddenly it quivered. He felt a shock of alarm run through it. The inconceivable mind of it seemed shocked, dismayed.

  It dropped him on the green snow.

  He lay there, too weak and sick to rise. The vertigo was gone, the sense of endlessly falling. The intense cold of the thing no longer stabbed him with numbing lances. He felt no longer the sickening sensation of having his vitality sucked away.

  But he felt exhausted, feeble, trembling. He felt old!

  With an effort he turned his head. He saw what had alarmed the thing.

  Thon was coming.

  Fleetly, she ran down the canyon, over the shimmering banks of green snow between the faintly gleaming dark cliffs. She was not swathed in heavy garments; she wore only the slip of soft blue silk. But her lithe body was nimbused in rosy flame. An aura of roseate radiance clothed her—as old Midos Ken had been clothed when he defied Garo Nark in his throne room on the Dark Star.

  Swiftly she ran down toward him, across the ghostly, gleaming green snow. In one small hand she grasped a thin black tube, no larger than a lead pencil. She had no other weapon.

  “Go back!” Dick cried. “My God, go back!”

  But she did not hear him. His voice was queerly changed. Its ringing volume was gone. It was shrill and high; it cracked unexpectedly. It was the voice of an old man!

  The monster hung in the air above Dick, surprise and alarm in its bearing. A long green worm, winged, with red eyes, and all semitransparent, bright and glittering, as bright as flame. Somehow it seemed not material, as we know matter—yet real enough, and cold—cold beyond conception—a thing of frozen flame.

  “Go back!” Dick tried to call again, in a voice so queerly cracked and weakened that he hardly recognized it. “Go back before it gets you!”

  But Thon was still running toward him, slender, lithe and graceful as a wild thing, lovely. She was like an angel, he thought disjointedly, with that nimbus of rosy radiance bathing her body.

  The monster struck.

  From one of the violet ovals on its head a long writhing rope of frozen purple fire streamed out. It straightened toward Thon. It separated from the body of the monster. Arrow-like, it sped through the air toward the girl.

  Dick groaned, tried to rise, fell back into the luminous snow.

  It struck her. But it recoiled from the rosy mantle about her body. It fell back into the snow, a writhing snake of cold red-blue light, writhing like a wounded thing.

  Then Thon raised the little black tube.

  A narrow jet of blackness leapt from it. A straight, fine black line stabbed from it toward the monster. It did not look like a black ray—it seemed a solid bar of utter blackness.

  It struck the glittering monster.

  And the weird thing recoiled. It seemed hurt—and frightened. It darted backward from its position over Dick. And the writhing rope of cold purple flame that had fallen beside Thon was suddenly drawn back to it, and streamed up into a violet oval.

  THE being of frozen fire retreated. It darted away, over the shimmering plain of green snow, driving fast and low. Before Thon had reached Dick’s side, it was gone from sight, in the direction of the cones of blue fire below the horizon.

  “Why did you come?” Dick cried as the girl dropped to her knees beside him—cried in that strange, querulous new voice of his. “It might have taken you.”

  Thon gasped as she looked into his face. And he read horror in her wide blue eyes—dazed, uncomprehending horror, and heart-breaking pain.

  Just a moment of that recoiling horror, and then she broke into tears, and lifted him against her breast. She lifted him into the roseate nimbus that mantled her. Fiercely she pressed his body against hers. She kissed him. And her tears rained upon his face.

  “Oh, Dick!” she sobbed. “Oh, my Dick! Why did I let you watch alone? Why did I?”

  “What’s the matter?” he demanded in the thin, shrill voice that sounded so hideously strange. “What has happened to me?”

  He wondered that she was able to lift him so easily.

  But Thon did not tell him—evidently she could not. She merely held his body to her, and sobbed out her grief.

  In a few minutes Don Galeen appeared. He came running down the dark canyon from the flier, over the gleaming green snow. His mighty, bronzed body Was clad only in his soft leathern garment, with the blue shell ornaments. Like Thon, he, too, was wrapped in an aura of soft, roseate radiance.

  He came as fast as he could run.

  Eagerly, fearfully, Dick watched his face. He saw horror and unbelief come over it, at sight of himself. The gigantic adventurer gasped, seemed to whiten a little. Then, with deep pity on his rugged face, he bent down and lifted Dick up like a child.

  Without a word, he started back over the snow toward the Ahrora, carrying Dick in his mighty arms. Thon, silent and white-faced, walked along beside him.

  They reached the flier. Don carried Dick inside, and down the corridor to his stateroom. He laid him gently on his bunk.

  For a few minutes longer Dick was conscious. He knew that they were busy about him, that they made a hypodermic injection into his arm, that they made him drain a glass of some effervescing liquid, which had a sharp, sweetish taste. And presently he slept.

  He was alone when he woke.

  He felt oddly tired, exhausted, weak. With some effort he threw back the light cover over his body, raised an arm. He stared in horror at the withered, gnarled hand that came up before him.

  His hand should have been strong, smooth-skinned, ruddy with fresh blood, and tanned a little. But it was a yellowed claw, shrunken, bony, covered with bloodless skin, wrinkled and dry.

  He cried out with amazement and horror. And the voice was not full and rich. It was shrill, broken, querulous with age.

  Abruptly he sat up and looked into the mirror on the wall of the little stateroom. He shuddered in disbelieving horror at what he saw; almost he screamed.

  He looke
d at the features of an old man.

  His body was shrunken, bent. The skin that covered his bony frame was loose, dry, creased with a thousand wrinkles, yellow with age. His face was shriveled, seamed, nose and chin projecting. His eyes were deep-sunken, dull, feeble. His hair was turned white as snow.

  He looked as old as Midos Ken.

  The others had heard his cry. They came into the room, silent, pitying. Thon came quickly to him and put her arm around his bent shoulders.

  “What’s happened to me?” Dick demanded in his shrill, unfamiliar voice.

  “That thing was a vampire!” Thon whispered. “It drew the life out of you. It left you old!”

  “We are searching for the catalyst of life, you know,” said old Midos Ken. “Age is a chemical process—and there is a chemical which keeps us young. It is that chemical that we want to make—it is the very essence of life. The body grows old as it is depleted, as the ductless glands secrete no more.

  “And the vampire sucked that chemical from your body. It sucked away your youth, your life. It made you old!”

  “Will I be this way always?” Dick cried. “It there no hope—”

  “You will get stronger, of course,” Midos Ken told him. “But you will never be young again—unless—”

  “Unless?” Dick repeated breathlessly.

  “Unless we succeed in finding the catalyst of life. Then we can make in the laboratory the precious vital fluid that was sucked from you. We can make you and all men young again, for so long as they want to live!”

  “And can we find the catalyst?”

  “We will have to fight the beings of this planet—the race of the one that attacked you. We will have to invade the cones of blue flame that are their cities.

  “And we shall have to fight Garo Nark.”

  “His ships have come to this planet?”

  “They have. They have found us. Two of them have landed in the canyon below us. They came several hours ago, while you were still sleeping. Garo Nark talked to us over the television. He offered to join forces with us, in return for immortal life for himself and his favorites—and for Thon.