Hell Stuff For Planet X

by Raymond Z. Gallun

  St. Claire had changed his tactics, because he had to. It would have been difficult to pose Knobs as a maniac now, before the crew, for the young mechanic could talk in his own defense, and they would see that he was not insane.

  But no immediate opportunity was given to Knobs Hartley to deny the accusation of criminal activities. For just then the whole landscape seemed to heave and buckle, as if in the grip of some super quake. The radite explosion wasn’t a single blast—rather, it was a long succession of violent shocks, vibrating up through the solid crust of Nemesis, shaking the metal plating of the Trail Blazer, and filling its interior with a dazing roar of sound.

  There was a weird sensation of falling. The ship tipped crazily toward its nose, and seemed to slide—to toboggan—toward a lower level.

  Many of the crew, assembled in the area before the inner valve of the airlock, were thrown off their feet. But even to the members of the Survey Group within the cruiser, the true magnificence of the spectacle was lost, for they could not see much beyond the windows of the well-built interstellar hull.

  So they did not observe the vast plume of frozen air and ice that geysered upward under the frigid stars, as radite capsules planted far underground went off in close sequence, releasing atomic energy in a form far too violent for the shell of an atomic-generator to have withstood, even for the millionth of a second!

  Mountainous heaps of white toppled grandly, and the ground sank away as the stupendous grottoes beneath collapsed. Countless trillions of tons of material settled inward toward the core of the planet. The full force of those successive explosions was far from evident, above ground; but the settling caused by the cave-in of the caverns produced a gigantic crater miles deep, and more than a thousand miles in diameter.

  The Trail Blazer, being on the surface in the first place, with the planet’s crust merely sinking under it, was in small danger of being buried. But, for a minute, the vast, glacier-like sheet of frozen atmosphere and ice on which it rested raced grinding toward the deeper bottom of the crater, before it lodged against a mass of rock.

  With quiet restored once more, St. Claire was quick to regain his voice.

  “You see, men,” he shouted to the crew. “We know what those explosions were. All the caves we could have reached, for even temporary safety and warmth, are gone now—destroyed. Before us, here, are the two people who are responsible! What should we do with them, men?” St. Claire’s voice was grating and vengeful.

  IT had become considerably colder aboard the Trail Blazer, since Knobs and the girl had made their excursion to the caverns. The heat was going gradually, sucked away by the chill of almost absolute zero outside. Through a murk of frosty breaths, Knobs saw eyes glaring at him sullenly.

  Rough space hands, believing that they would soon all be corpses, could not be expected to show him much mercy, as long as they failed to see his purpose in blasting the grottoes, which might have saved them for a time, even though the volcanic acids there would have killed them in the end. Even Doctor Welden, the young physician of the ship, showed a grim jaw.

  Evelyn, clinging to Knobs’ arm, was in danger, too. Women had never been released from responsibility for their acts, and so she was also in the shadow of a hard if mistaken justice. Would the monumental idea for speeding up the rotation of a world fail or succeed? That was the big question now. Young Hartley had thought out that idea carefully—every detail—but he could not escape a certain ghostly doubt, now.

  If his efforts proved a failure, death in disgrace would probably be his punishment. And Evelyn Farnway would be judged guilty with him. Even though he loved her, and though maybe she returned that love, now...

  A space man named Jansen drew his ray pistol. Another and another followed suit. With slow steps they advanced, while St. Claire watched, his smooth, effeminate face Satanic in anticipation of the deaths of the two whom he must have realized were his worst enemies—the people who would expose his treacheries, if anybody would.

  But Knobs could not accuse him of sabotage and murder, yet. His position as a noted scientist entrenched him too well in the respect of the crew. They wouldn’t believe a direct charge. He’d have to stall for time. He’d have to show the Survey Group the ancient principle of the wonder he had meant to accomplish.

  “Doc Welden,” he said quietly. “Do me a favor. Go to my quarters and get my dumb-bells out of the locker. Bring a stool, too—one with a rotary seat.”

  Welden looked puzzled; but he had plenty of fair play in his nature. Without commenting, he turned and disappeared down a corridor, while sullen space hands stood by, still threatening, but curious.

  Presently Welden returned with the stool and the dumb-bells. Knobs set the former on the floor. Then he took a dumb-bell in either hand and seated himself carefully, holding the heavy exercisers out to either side of him, at arm’s length. Next, kicking at the floor, he started his whole body spinning with the top of the rotary stool.

  Finally, with his feet free of the floor, he drew the dumb-bells inward, to his chest. Immediately, his rate of rotation on the stool increased very noticeably. He thrust the dumb-bells out laterally again, and slowed. He pulled them in for a second time, and speeded up once more.

  It was an old, old physics lab stunt, known to college and even high school students, a thousand years ago.

  “Not a difficult trick to understand,” Doc Welden commented. “When the dumb-bells are held out at arm’s length, they travel in a wide circle that has a pretty good distance around. But when you draw them inward, they try to travel at the same speed, because they’re massive, and possess a lot of inertia and kinetic energy. Still, drawn in, the circle they’re rotating in is much smaller, with a much lesser circumference.

  “So, in order to move at approximately the same speed that they did originally, they have to make maybe twice as many turns in a given time. Gear-up—like a big gear turning a small gear. The cogs of both travel at exactly the same speed. But the small gear makes several turns, while the big gear makes one.”

  KNOBS was sitting quietly now, with his exercisers against his knees. Evelyn, to whom he had already explained his idea fully, spoke for him.

  “That’s right,” she said, looking around at the glowering, puzzled men. “But don’t you get the rest of it now, too, Doc? All those cubic miles of stone and ore falling toward the center of Nemesis, when the caves blew up?”

  Welden’s eyes widened, and there was a surprised muttering among the men.

  “Why of course!” the young physician exclaimed. “It should be—the same thing, exactly! Normally, Nemesis rotates on its axis in seven Earth-days. The collapse of the grottoes—the shifting inward of so much mass toward the planet’s pivot of rotation—is precisely the same as the act of drawing the dumb-bells toward your chest! Mass, with the kinetic energy of a certain speed, forced to travel in a smaller circle! Nemesis should be rotating a little faster now! The dark hemisphere should be turning toward the dwarf sun! Friends, maybe we aren’t going to be changed to cold and stiff icicles after all!”

  Knobs looked challengingly at St. Claire. The latter’s face betrayed confusion. Scientist though he was—he was not accustomed to these ancient, simple principles of physics. Plainly he had not expected the mechanic, whom he had tried to blame for his own wrongs, to have such a sound idea!

  “It won’t work!” he stammered. “It’s silly!” But there was no conviction in his tone. Undoubtedly there was tremendous rotary energy in those cubic miles of rock that had shifted downward!

  Then Evans, the Expedition’s astronomer, burst into the room before the airlock. “The stars have moved a little,” he announced breathlessly. “Across the sky, and faster than is natural! What can it mean?” He hadn’t been present to watch Knobs’ demonstration, so of course he didn’t know what was happening.

  “The stars moving, eh?” Welden questioned quietly. “That’s the final evidence. We’re turning, boys—turning toward safety and warmth!”

 
; Eyes swung inquiringly toward Knobs and Evelyn, and toward Arnold St. Claire, who had painted them so blackly. Knobs felt a wave of fierce triumph. He had saved the Survey Group. He had saved the mines of Nemesis for free colonization from a greedy crook and murderer. Or so he thought, for a moment. He believed he had the scientist driven into a corner, where he must reveal his guilt.

  But St. Claire was clever, as the next moment proved. His confusion steadied.

  “Then I owe you an apology, Hartley,” he said with seeming sincerity. “You’re not what I thought you were—but a hero. Somebody else must have rayed Ned Kilmer, our leader, and stripped the atomic generators. I’m sorry for my mistaken attitude, Hartley.”

  And so Knobs could only feel a fierce frustration, as St. Claire hid behind a wall of innocence and error. Knobs was still sure of his guilt, but there was no concrete evidence on which to accuse him. Not a chance! But at least the scientist’s tricks were badly gummed-up, now. Getting rid of the Survey Group wasn’t going to be so easy for him.

  Yet all Knobs could do at present, was to give a warning.

  “Keep on your toes, folks,” he advised. “Somebody here is our enemy.”

  The ship’s company could only wait, now, watching the dropping thermometer, and the frost rimming bright metal here within the Trail Blazer, as the chronometers counted the passing moments.

  BUT when about a hundred hours had dragged by, a pale glow appeared in the east, spreading, brightening.

  “The dawn,” Evelyn said quietly, pointing. “The first dawn that this half of Nemesis has known for maybe a billion years!”

  She was right, of course. Slowly Olympia climbed over the frigid, hellish horizon, casting hot rays over blue-white snow.

  Olympia was a tiny star, but its distance was less than a million miles, its apparent diameter in the sky of Nemesis was almost four times that of the Sun as seen from Earth, and its radiations were torrid.

  Swiftly the frozen air began to steam and melt. Magnificent white mountains began to collapse and settle. Slush began to thicken in the vast crater produced by Knob’s blasting. Soon the Trail Blazer would be afloat on a sea of water.

  The entire Survey Group was gathered in the crystal-walled observation room. In awe, silent space men looked at the thrilling spectacle beyond those transparent barriers. The air and water of Nemesis were being released from the congealed graveyard of the dark hemisphere, where they had gradually accumulated through the ages.

  The air was being freed to circulate, now, all over the surface of this world. Nemesis, the planet of contrasting halves until now, one face a blazing, sun-blasted desert, the other a cold, black tomb, was becoming habitable again.

  In a few months, now, the colonists and miners would be arriving, from Earth. Free men, staking out their claims under Universe Government supervision. No tyrant would rule their labors—or so at least Knobs Hartley and Evelyn Farnway were thinking, as they stood arm in arm before the crystal walls of the observation room. The grandeur of what had happened thrilled them immeasurably—so that they forgot possible disaster.

  Arnold St. Claire wandered near.

  “Again I apologize humbly,” he told them with a slow smile. “Nemesis has a day and night, now, and will continue to rotate just as it is at present for hundreds of years before the tidal drag of Olympia can slow it again. Though I think modern science in the form of space-ship drive-units will be applied to speed up its spin still further when the mine colonies are established here. You’ve had a great triumph, Knobs.”

  Hartley was almost completely off guard at that moment, made so by the treacherous thrill of success, which prompted him even to be magnanimous with St. Claire.

  But the latter leaped back suddenly, two ray pistols leveled in his hands. Thus he faced the entire crew. He could blast them to ashes in an instant.

  “Yes, you had a great triumph, Hartley,” he sneered. “You had me badly confused for a while, with your clever if outmoded engineering! Yes, I rayed Ned Kilmer, our leader, and I stripped the generators, too, as I think you guessed. But I’m winning in the end, anyway. I’ll claim the mines when I’ve got rid of you all! See that metal box glistening out there in the snow? It contains the missing vitals of the generators.

  “I hid that box outside there in the ice and congealed atmosphere, and of course when the glacial mass on which the Trail Blazer rests slipped toward the bottom of the crater, the box was brought along, too... Everybody please move toward the main airlock. I don’t want any incriminating evidence aboard the ship when I go to some colonial planet. Now march—quick!”

  OBEDIENCE was the only way. Hoping somehow to have a further chance—a moment to plan escape from this true madman, the thunderstruck members of the Group all yielded to his will. And that was an unseen salvation in itself.

  In the slush on which it rested, the balance of the Trail Blazer was far from secure. Overbalanced by the weight of the humanity being herded into the airlock, it tipped suddenly on its side. With a grunt, Arnold St. Claire was thrown off his feet. The aim of his deadly weapons was completely spoiled, for one small necessary moment.

  A half dozen brawny men leaped, screaming revenge. When the commotion had quieted, Arnold St. Claire’s head was a crushed, pulpy mass, trampled against the steel floor.

  Knobs turned away, sickened. Evelyn clung to him, weeping in emotional relief. It was all over, now, they knew.

  After a few minutes Dr. Welden chuckled nervously.

  “I’ve got your wedding present all figured out, folks,” he said.

  Evelyn looked at him, startled.

  Curiosity was getting the better of her tears.

  “Why—what kind of a present is it?” she stammered eagerly.

  “It’s about Knobs’ grin,” Welden responded. “I'm going to lengthen that damaged tendon in his neck. A hero with a wife as beautiful as the girl he's picked can't go around looking like a Venusian jungle-imp....”

  The End

  ***********************************

  Hell-Stuff for Planet X,

  by Raymond Z. Gallun

  Startling Stories June 1943

  Short Story - 5767 words

  Like a Time-Bomb in Space, Asteroid QM-1 Hurtled Through

  the Heavens, on a Mission of Incalculable Doom!

  “GOOD glory, Frank! You look as though somebody promised you honey and gave you hornets! What have you been fighting with? There aren’t any wildcats here on Asteroid QM-1. And what have you got bundled under your arm?... Oooh! The thing's savage!”

  Arla Manly, trim brunette secretary for “Big Jack” Leland, boss of Leland Spaceship Manufacturers, stared at Frank Norvell, who had burst glowering into the little office shanty. What her senses told her, made her forget to be cool and business-like. Her dark eyes wide, she backed away to a perhaps slightly safer position behind her desk.

  Frank Norvell leered past a nasty welt on his cheek and a bloody cut under one eye. Though he was not massive and bullish in build, his feet were spread bullishly apart. His shirt and his once-neat engineer’s breeches showed evidence of wear and tear. His stiff hair was singed down the middle, as if it had been parted with a red-hot poker.

  And in a clutch like grim death, he gripped something against the side of his body with one tautened forearm. The object was muffled and wrapped in what was evidently the tattered remnants of his coat.

  The thing’s outline was rigid and cylindrical; but in spite of the padding, blindfolding effect of the coat, the partly masked monster still acted very much alive.

  It squirmed, and it tinkled like chains. It uttered weird hoots and shrieks, and strange syllables that sounded like a human voice cursing villainously in some unearthly tongue. Even now, it was almost getting the better of Frank Norvell.

  “Stop asking questions now, woman!” he snapped at Arla. It was certainly infrequent that he was ever irritated with her. “Dump those papers out of that steel packing box and bring it here—quick! I can’t hold onto this
devil from hades all day. And call the Chief!”

  ARLA complied as quickly as she could. Norvell deposited his malevolent burden inside the stout metal box without bothering to retrieve his coat. He slammed the lid and planted himself firmly and desperately on top, so that the crescendoing commotion within could not escape and tear the office shanty apart.

  “What’s all this? What happened?” Big Jack Leland growled as he raced into the room from the rear storage lean-to.

  He was designed something like a folding yardstick—tall and thin, and slightly bent, as if on hinges. His jovial red face, under his thatch of stringy white hair, was redder than usual now with consternation.

  Behind him slouched his plump nephew, Ames Leland, his fat fists thrust into the pockets of his checkered sports coat. A neutron-blast gun, which he toyed with eternally, dangled in the crook of his arm. He bragged frequently about his hunting exploits on half a dozen worlds.

  “Wel-l-l-l!” he drawled. “‘Little Boy Blue’ Frank Norvell seems to have brought something back alive! How very interesting!”

  “Shut up, Ames!” Big Jack Leland growled. “Now, Norvell, answer my questions! Just what have you got in that box?”

  Norvell began to talk, pronouncing his words slowly, to the accompaniment of the thumping and howling and general uproar that issued from the stout container on which he was seated.

  “I can’t open the lid and show you now, Chief,” he said with a tantalizing grin. “You can understand why, I guess. Anyhow, I might as well start from the beginning.”

  He looked out of the window almost sadly at the forest of moss-trees there; at the little brook, the plain, the rows of parked space freighters—all the evidences of general activity connected with the construction of a new colonial enterprise on a new world.