The Stone From the Green Star

by Jack Williamson

  He looked in that direction. The black, rugged floor of the great cone rose in a low hill. The summit of that hill was in the center. Upon the summit was a low pyramid of what seemed a dull black metal—a sort of pedestal or altar.

  Upon the pyramid of black rested an amazing thing. The red needle pointed straight at it. Dick knew that it was the catalyst of life, which Midos Ken had sought through the universe.

  Like a great diamond, it was, flashing with prismatic rays of many colors, quivering rays of sparkling, living light darted from it, of hot, pure scarlet, of intense, ethereal blue and vivid green, bright as if it were the pure essence of life. Some were of warm orange, deep violet, flame-yellow. Every color of the spectrum flashed from that strange crystal.

  And among those rays was a new color, indescribable, for it is like none known before. Some combination of rays, which affects the human retina as those of no known color.

  Then Dick saw two of the vampire-things he had not seen before. They swam down toward the great crystal through the chill blue radiance, and hung motionless over it. Their green disk-like, sucking organs were extended toward it—drawing in its living fires!

  They were feeding!

  They consumed the force of life that streamed from the strange gem.

  Then a sudden movement drew Dick’s attention toward one side of the great cone. There he saw one of Garo Nark’s fliers. Semi-invisible, it was a vaguely defined blur of nothingness, among the black, volcanic rocks.

  A strange machine was set up beside it. There a few men were busy. And another of the Things of Frozen Flame was hanging over the machine. This, Dick supposed, was the telepathic device by means of which Garo Nark had established communication with the monsters.

  All of that he saw in a very few seconds.

  Suddenly the monster above the machine darted down. One of the men was lifted by a twisting tentacle of chill, purple light, which had been abruptly extended from a violet oval on the side of the monster’s head. The tentacle deposited him upon the long, green body.

  The Thing of Frozen Flame came plunging toward Dick, with the human rider clinging to it. The man raised a black, crystal tube. From it stabbed an intense blue ray, flashing like a glittering sword of cold through the dim, frozen blue gloom of the cone.

  A ray of cold. It struck Dick, pierced him numbingly. His teeth chattered. He was paralyzed with cold.

  Then Thon tugged on his hand, drew him backward into the rayless wall of darkness. They retired a few yards from the edge of the cone. Dick related, in a whisper, his account of what he had seen.

  “The crystal on the black pyramid!” Midos Ken cried, when he had finished. “That is the catalyst. It is the rare treasure that I have sought for so many years!

  “It is not strange that the monsters guard it so well—its life-giving emanations must be their very food. They may have been originated by the force of its rays alone.

  “Now we must enter the cone. Fight our way to the crystal. Take it, and make good our escape. And we will have given humanity the greatest treasure of all the universe!”

  Side by side the four of them burst through the wall of darkness into the cone of chill blue light.

  Three steps they advanced inside the tenebrous wall—four steps. Dick was watching alertly. He saw the Things of Frozen Flame drop swiftly from where they swam, high in the chill blue light of the cone. He saw them drop beside the half-invisible flier, pick up men armed with long black tubes, put them astride themselves.

  The monsters came darting at the four invaders, and carried the armed men mounted upon them.

  Arrows of frozen purple light darted from the violet ovals on the monsters’ heads at the party led by Midos Ken, blind as he was. Twisting, tentacular shapes of red-blue fire struck at them, recoiled, fell writhing about their feet. The roseate nimbuses still clung to the bodies of the four, enclosing them in electronic armor impregnable to the things of light.

  Frozen blue rays, intensely bright, radiated at them from the jet-black tubes carried by the riders, rays that absorbed all heat. The air before them fell in crystal flakes that glittered like tiny sapphires.

  Dick shivered, shrank involuntarily, and the rays smote them with numbing cold, even through the rosy electronic screens. Bitter cold was piercing his limbs. And suddenly he was afflicted with the nausea of falling, so that he reeled and stumbled.

  The monsters, with their weird riders, were flashing down upon them.

  “Try the black tubes!” tersely ordered Midos Ken.

  They raised the slender tubes, which projected the ether-exhausting force. Bars of blackness stabbed from them. But only for a few feet. At a distance of half a dozen yards the tenebrous bars faded, vanished. They did not reach the monsters. The ether-exhausting force refused to function in the glacial blue light of the cone.

  The winged green worms, with their human riders, were upon them. Black-clothed men, impatient with the slow effects of the chilling rays, leapt from their incredible winged steeds and advanced on foot, a score of them, hastening to join in physical combat.

  One leapt at Dick.

  Instinctively, he snatched out his atomic pistol. He had almost fired it, when he recalled that the explosion was likely to be fatal to himself, if he used the weapon at very close range. He sprang forward to meet the black-clad minion of Garo Nark, who was rushing at him with outspread arms, evidently with the intention of seizing him in a crushing grasp.

  Though Dick’s muscles, weakened by his incredible experience with the vampire-monster, responded indifferently to his needs, he ducked and contrived to evade those grasping arms. Swiftly, he raised the atomic pistol, brought the butt of it heavily down on his attacker’s head.

  The man crumbled, gasping, and collapsed at his feet.

  A cry of horror came from Thon.

  He whirled, saw the girl slowly stiffening in a dreadful paralysis, her face a frozen mask of incredulous horror. A huge, black-clad man was standing over her. He held something in his hand that he had snatched from her arm. Dick saw that it was the little instrument which generated the electronic screen.

  The roseate nimbus had vanished from the girl’s slender body. She had no protection, now, from the frigid rays, or from the horrible writhing shapes of purple flame from the monsters.

  Midos Ken and Don Galeen were surrounded in a milling mass of struggling men. Dick glimpsed the broad shoulders of the adventurer of space, swinging regularly as he dealt terrific blows.

  Dick swung on the man who had stripped the electronic protector from Thon, raising the heavy atomic pistol again. He brought it down with all the strength of his arm, behind the man’s ear. Without a sound he toppled to the ground.

  Then, with a quick motion, Dick unfastened the electronic armor generator from his own wrist, and snapped it about Thon’s arm.

  “Death to be without it!” he muttered. “And I can’t let her die!”

  Fearful cold struck him like a frozen blast when he slipped the little instrument from his arm. Bitter cold, numbing, piercing. And with it came incredible horror—the nausea and sickness of unbroken falling, and the hideous, waking nightmares of writhing, unnameable things that sucked all vitality from his body. Swift paralysis came over him.

  Even as he snapped the tiny device on the girl’s arm he swung about again, leveling the atomic pistol. He worked the trigger rapidly, as fast as he could move his finger. Tiny bright sparks spat from the little weapon.

  Crushing explosions came swiftly; blinding bursts of flame flashed before them. Terrific explosions shattered man and monster—explosions that released the incalculable energy of the atom.

  HE fought the paralyzing cold, the vertigo of falling. Slowly he swung the weapon, shattering the things of cold fire and their human riders with the fearful, deafening blasts of atomic energy. Even if the things can put themselves back together, he thought, I know the men can’t. This cold will get me pretty soon, but I’m selling myself high.

  Suddenly, th
ere were no more living men or moving monsters before him. He tried to turn, to see how Don Galeen was faring with the men he fought. But the swift-moving paralysis had seized his muscles. He could not turn.

  With all his will he swung his arm up again, in the direction of the half-invisible flier at the other side of the vast cone of blue light. He aimed, pressed the trigger a half dozen times with the last spasdomic efforts of his muscles.

  Blinding explosions hid the flier from view for a moment. Then it was but a twisted mass of white metal.

  Then the horror held sway. Icy needles of cold stabbed through his body. His skin seemed a stiff, frozen armor. And still he felt the vertiginous sensation of falling. He was falling through a void of chill blue gloom. And appalling monsters—writhing worms of cold green flame—were twisting about him, clinging to him, fastening viscid, green suction disks to his body. Then suddenly a hand drew him back from that void. The warmth of the rosy electronic screen was about him again. Thon had recovered, had picked up the little instrument from the inert hand of the man who had robbed her of it, and snapped it on Dick’s arm.

  Don Galeen, huge fists still clenched, was standing over the body of the last man he had knocked down.

  About them were the still bodies of half a dozen men. A few yards away the black rocks were splashed red with the remains of those Dick had blown to fragments with the atomic pistol. Beyond them were the scattered fragments of the Things of Frozen Flame—masses of glistening green jelly, and glittering scraps of the iridescent wings. Living fragments. They were still glowing with green, pulsating fires, stirring and coming together again.

  “Smash them up some more!” Thon cried, handing Dick the atomic pistol, which he had dropped.

  He took the weapon, fired it swiftly. In a few minutes the spot where the things had fallen was a smoking waste of shattered rock, the fragments of the things hidden in the pulverized mass.

  “Well, I guess they won’t get themselves back together very soon, anyhow,” he muttered, grinning.

  Thon threw her arms around his neck, kissed his cheek impulsively.

  “Oh, Dick!” she cried. “It was wonderful of you to save me. When you exposed yourself to do it. But you mustn’t do such a thing again! You mustn’t die!”

  “I’m an old man, now!” Dick muttered gruffly. “What does it matter about me?”

  “It matters a great deal,” she told him. “And you will soon be young again. Our way is clear to the catalyst!”

  Already Don Galeen was striding forward toward the glittering crystal on the black pyramid, guiding old Midos Ken with a strong hand on his shoulder. Hand in hand, Dick and Thon ran after them.

  At a stumbling run, they hastened over the rugged lava flows—a strange, fantastic scene. It was a waste of black rock, burned and twisted. A tenebrous roof above, and frozen blue light, surrounded with a cone of utter blackness. The four stumbled forward, over the rocks, toward a low pyramid of black metal, dull, unpolished. And upon that altar was a magnificent jewel—a great, strange crystal, scintillating with many prismatic colors, with gleams the human eye had never seen before.

  They reached it, panting with excitement and exertion.

  The pyramid was low, not three feet high. Its base was deep in the volcanic rock. The wondrous stone was set in its top. The crystal was a regular polyhedron, with many flaming faucets, four inches through, perhaps—darting forth scintillating rays of every hue—and of colors known nowhere else.

  Even when they were many yards from the stone, Dick felt its rays. They struck him with a stimulating warmth; they infused him with an odd exhilaration. He absorbed them, like a wine of delight. Sheer, buoyant ecstasy filled him.

  He ran the last few paces to the stone at a quickened pace. His blood was flowing faster. New fire was in his body. His mind quickened; his perceptions grew keen. Sharp desires flamed up in his breast, hungers, thirsts for achievements, for power. And with the desires he felt new ability and energy.

  He paused before the marvelous stone on the black pyramid, threw wide his arms, bathed in those living rays. Their subtle stimulation penetrated; his body seemed to swell with new life.

  “Oh, Dick!” Thon cried, beside him, “you are growing young again!”

  Time seemed no more as he stood there, washed in a river of life. His heart was beating swiftly; hot blood was rushing through his veins. His mind was a mad whirl of confused dreams, desires, ambitions. He was intoxicated with the fire of youth.

  Then abruptly the curious spell was passed, and he was again aware of his surroundings. The stone had wrought its change in him; its rays intoxicated him no longer.

  Midos Ken was standing near it as he had been, arms thrown out, a look of rapture on his face. And the old scientist was old no longer. A lean, tall youth he had become. His body was erect, arrow-straight. His muscles smooth and hard. His face was like a boy’s, every wrinkle gone, firm and suffused with the glow of youth. His hair was crisply black.

  But his eyes were not restored.

  Don Galeen, too, seemed extraordinarily stimulated. He had not been old. But his figure seemed a trifle straighter, his mighty shoulders a little broader, his clear brown eyes a little brighter. His tanned skin had a bit more of the ruddy hue of youth.

  “Dick, you are young again!” Thon cried, transported.

  She seized Dick’s hand, held it up for him to see. No longer was it a gnarled, yellow claw. The skin was fresh and pink, the flesh firm, the fingers smooth and tapering. A lean, strong hand—the hand of a youth!

  Then it struck Dick that Thon was remarkably attractive. The fire of the wonderful crystal seemed to have added to her already peerless youth and beauty. Her fair skin bloomed again; her eyes were flashing. She seemed to bubble with animated youth.

  “I’m so glad—for you!” she whispered.

  He closed his lean hand about the slim white fingers that had held it up for him to see. He looked into her deep blue eyes. They were aglow with delight, shining with tender concern—with love.

  Slowly, reverently, he put his other arm about her slender shoulders and drew her warm body against his. He bent his head, and kissed her solemnly on the lips.

  “QUICK!” Midos Ken shouted, in a new. deep voice that rang with energetic youth. “Break loose the stone! We must get back to the Ahrora. Garo Nark and his men are still at large, in the darkness outside the cones!”

  Thon and Dick slipped reluctantly from their close embrace.

  Don Galeen had turned quickly to the crystal. They stepped up beside him. The wondrous scintillant gem was mounted in the top of a low pyramid of black metal. It was deeply set, firm. Don caught it with a broad hand, tugged with all his mighty strength. It did not come free.

  Quickly Thon produced the slender black cylinder of an El-ray projector. She moved the sliding silver ring. A narrow violet tongue leapt from the end of it, blindingly brilliant. With slender, skillful fingers she plied it, cutting the black metal prongs that held the stone. Steam hissed up, condensed in spirals of white vapor, fell in white flakes of snow.

  The stone was loose.

  Don Galeen snatched it up, fastened it in the pack he wore on his great shoulders. They turned, hastened across the twisted volcanic rock, toward the unbroken black wall that enclosed the vast cone of blue light.

  Safely they passed the tom waste of shattered rock, where the explosions of the atomic pistol had blasted the Things of Frozen Flame into indistinguishable fragments. In time, the weird life that animated them might succeed in reshaping them. But it would be no quick process.

  They reached the tenebrous wall of the cone. Without hesitation they plunged into it—into the utter obscurity of the lightless space from which Midos Ken’s bomb had exhausted all the ether. They fell into single file again, with Midos Ken in the lead, finding the way by aid of his miraculous sense of hearing. Don Galeen came behind him, carrying the wondrous stone of life. Then Thon. And Dick, in the rear, guided by the girl’s light touch.

&nb
sp; “Silence!” came the whisper of Midos Ken. “It was somewhere out here that we left Garo Nark. The ether-exhausting bomb left the Things of Frozen Flame helpless. But it hurt Garo Nark no more than it does us. If I know the Lord of the Dark Star, he will try to make an opportunity to betray his strange allies, to attack us, and to make off with the stone. No weapon will function in this space from which the ether has been exhausted—we will be helpless if attacked by his whole band.”

  Anxious minutes went by. Making as little sound as possible, the four slipped forward through absolute midnight. But occasionally a rock was loosened beneath their feet, clattered down into some little declivity. Each time the sound seemed appalling. They paused in tense expectation of discovery and attack. And each time, hearing-nothing of an enemy, they went on again.

  At last Midos Ken paused, whispered. “We are just passing the summit of the range. We should be beyond Garo Nark—”

  “Perhaps,” came a low, mocking voice from the darkness beside them. “But not all is as it should be! I take it that you have brought me the stone?”

  Another jeering laugh came from the darkness. The malicious laugh of Garo Nark. And above it Dick heard the dry, demoniac chuckle of the scrawny, green-eyed man called Pelug.

  “Quick!” Don Galeen hissed.

  Touching the others, he made a mad dash to one side, away from that satanic, triumphant laughter. Leading Thon behind him, Dick lowered his shoulders and charged through the darkness, as if trying to break through the opposing line for a five-yard gain.

  Fate was against him. He stumbled over an unseen boulder, fell upon his face. Thon came down quite solidly on his back. Before either could rise, a score of men had rushed upon them from the blackness, piled upon them and held them to the ground.

  For a moment there were sounds of violent struggle from the direction Don Galeen had taken. Then he, too, was a helpless prisoner. Various voices announced to Garo Nark that all four were successfully captured.

  “The game is played,” he said tauntingly to Midos Ken, “and I have won! I have the stakes we played for. The stone that will give endless life to me and to those who earn my favor! And my blushing queen-to-be!