Then and Now : A Collection of SF

by Raymond Z. Gallun

  Cliff Verden wondered if, in the faces of Mary and Jack, he now saw a slight resemblance to their former selves. A forming of features, a smoothing of skin under fading fuzz. But he felt his own great lungs—smaller than the lunarian norm—rasping dryly as they breathed air in whose rarity an untransformed Earthman would quickly suffocate; and he wondered how he had avoided madness in the change of forms, or how he could accept it almost casually, now. But he wondered also, if it was a means to a broadened understanding—of all the strange, unknown beings in the universe.

  He put an arm around Mary. Yes, she still was Mary; yet their present lines made even this gesture of protection, slightly grotesque and embarrassing. After a moment, he desisted.

  Inside the crystal dome, which was weirdly and beautifully carven, T’chack showed the Earthians the lunar version of a radio-receiver. It was a deceptively simple thing of crystal, shaped like a tuning-fork—with details of metal. But the fork vibrated—responding to the almost infinitely-weakened waves that managed to find their way from terrestrial stations, to this far side of the moon. The voice of the news commentator, seemed incongruous, here:

  “ 'I am grateful for air-force cooperation in granting me the rank of colonel, and full authority and assistance in [1] tered swamp vegetation and animal life has been sampled, and transferred to biological museums. The remainder has been destroyed... On the danger side, it is known that the moon would make a fine firing-platform for action against the Earth, with guided atomic-missiles. It is hardly a comforting thought, in the light of the reported scientific powers of the moon people. As to developments in prospect, I quote from Franklin Cramm’s statements:

  “ 'I am grateful for air-force cooperation in granting me the rank of colonel, and full authority and assistance in [1]

  dealing promptly with deadly danger. From photographs obtained by my robot-rocket, I know where I must go. Another incident gives me an idea of the kind of devils I may expect to find. Their valley is large, but limited, and I do not believe that they can be numerous. And I go, fully equipped, and with a picked crew of air-force men. Very soon. I thank all for the great honor that has been bestowed upon me...'

  “Unquote. So the matter rests for the moment. Security reasons bar revealing Colonel Cramm’s time of departure. But knowing his reputation, I am anticipating developments at any time. So, until five, pm...”

  Martial music replaced the speaker’s voice.

  JACK VERDEN’S mood had changed.

  “It sounded like Cramm, all right,” he said. Into his elfin tones had crept the shadow of a bitter growl.

  “Yeah,” Cliff commented. “But don’t cuss him too much; maybe it sounded more like anybody and everybody back home, seeing a threatening mystery from the dark side.”

  There was quiet, then, for a few seconds, everyone exchanging tense glances all around. Cliff wondered if T’chack’s great eyes were at once doubtful and pleading. Sympathy warmed in Cliff.

  His gaze wandered around the chamber, hunting a means to avert calamity, that hung over this strange beautiful valley like a malignant fate. But he mistrusted his own sympathy. Had he been so well-treated here, after all? Were lunarians less blunt than terrestrians?

  “But that’s not it,” he said aloud. “It all comes back to the same point—the getting away from the law of the jungle and of Genghis Khan for both sides, and the finding of understanding. That, past the terrible obstacle of instinctive fear of things so utterly different and separate. And to preserve, instead of destroying. To get along... There’s art, science—Lord knows what all—here...”

  “Right,” Mary put in. “Now for a way.”

  Cliff looked at the things which stood on a sort of table. There were two globes—models of Earth and its satellite. There was a model of what must be a telescope. The residual memories of the lunarian that had once ruled his present body, enabled Cliff to understand what was here. The great observatory was on the Earthward face of the moon. So was the point from which the small cylinder, that had enmeshed himself and his companions in a bizarre sequence, had been fired. Briefly he considered finding the means to go there—but he could discover no advantage in doing that.

  Mary made the obvious suggestion: “If we had a radio-transmitter strong enough—we might talk to Cramm—put him straight.”

  At first blush, the idea looked good. Cliff turned to the creature called T’chack. “Hear that, T’chack?” he asked. Oddly, then, he found himself repeating the question in twittered syllables. With halting explanations.

  “Transmitter we have,” T’chack answered. “But—no good to use. Already—they come. Too late... You not talk—to the ships...”

  This did not entirely make sense, but Cliff’s intuition for lunarian psychology suggested an explanation to him—the same hard barrier, built of mistrust for one whose soul was Earthly, though he might otherwise be a friend.

  Laughter, bitter or otherwise, being a human reflex action, did not come naturally to Cliff’s alien throat. But he did shrug. “No,” he murmured, “I guess it would be too much to expect that T’chack and his people would let us do anything that might make us seem to be running things—even a little bit. Even when they’re in a terrible jam. Nice—isn’t it? Yeah... But, of course, we don’t know that talking to Cramm would do any good, even if we had the chance. He’s a bullheaded character...”

  Cliff’s words were mild, but defeat and frustration were in them. What was there left to do but wait, ride along, see just how the debacle happened? Like the clash of two sides, that had met once, very recently, in a winter woods at night. Dread building unreason. Dread that chilled the flesh ... Cliff Verden felt the tense impotence of a swimmer being swept out to sea by the tide. Already Cramm was in space; there was no reason to doubt T’chack’s word, in this. In that airtight observatory on the other side of the moon, the watchers would know.

  IT WAS Jack Verden who now showed a minor defiance to circumstance. “We might as well go for a walk, gang,” he said. “Gonna try to stop us, T’chack?...”

  The latter only chirped worriedly, following. The Earthlings were almost casual, outwardly. They walked by a canal; they explored ruins where weathered carvings of odd charm were overgrown with vines as mobile as sluggish snakes. They watched moon-people prepare for trouble, mounting strange, glistening weapons, and studying the sky...

  And at an unexpected moment, T’chack burst into song—at least that was what it seemed to be. The trills and warbles of it were eerie and sad and beautiful.

  “It makes you think of stars,” Mary said. “Of distance. And maybe of the end of the universe.”

  Cliff agreed. But though stymied, and perhaps living his last hours—as very likely the charm of this valley was, too—he didn’t stop trying to plan....

  There was no reason to return to the buildings where they had been. The Earthlings ate strange, hard fruit; and when, during that week-long afternoon, they grew tired, they slept in the shadow of a wall, and in sight of the encroaching desert.

  But they were awake when the high, thin scream came; and they saw the dazzling streaks of fire high in the sky, as two rocket-ships, curving around the moon, braked their meteoric speed. They did not come low, then. Flying like planes on short wings, high up toward the rim of that cup of air that was the valley. Ten miles up, maybe. Large though they were, they were mere silvery slivers in the sunlight.

  Some lunarians nearby leaped to their weapon—a great globular knob mounted on a rod. They began a strange, soft chant, with whispers in it.

  “I don’t want to butt in, T’chack,” Cliff Verden said. “But if you value anything at all, don’t let them fire that rig. And hope that nobody fires—here, or up there... Come on—we’d better get back to the buildings....”

  Cliff’s spine chilled. The tension of each second was like a tight-drawn hair that might snap at any time. And was it so hard to visualize what was going on, up in those great rockets, which certainly had the most violent of hell-stuff i
n their bellies? Young guys, trained to hair-trigger living and duties, would be peering down with scopes, now, taking pictures, using radar—learning superficially about things that were worth lifetimes of study. Oh, they were good guys, and cool enough now—up there! They wouldn’t drop anything that was like a fragment of the sun’s heart—yet—not unless they were attacked, that is. But that was where the dreadful tightrope-walk toward the hope of understanding began!

  Jack Verden gave his views of his and his companions’ position, here in the valley. “Any time, some of the local folk are liable to jump us and commit murder,” he said. “Hmm-m! We’re the enemy within their gates.” He glanced nervously at T’chack’s slit-pupiled eyes.

  AT THE place where the Earthians had first looked on the moon through lunar eyes, the four waited, and watched the circling ships. T’chack was restive and inscrutable. To avoid some of the strain of dragging hours, with which little else could be done, Cliff Verden sporadically examined the apparatus of the life-forces that had brought him and his companions here; lunar memory enabled him to understand it a little better.

  The radio, in the nearby dome, brought only music, and substantially the same newscasts as before. With nothing to be gained by listening, the Earthlings gave way to talking—to T’chack, and to other moon-people who crowded around.

  “Got to bear down on the propaganda,” Cliff said. “But with plenty good reason. Don’t start any trouble. For Lord’s sake—don’t!... But to vary the routine—T’chack—ever think about crossing space? To Earth, or farther? Ever think what it would be like, if the water of this valley were replenished? If fear was over? If there were more of your people? If they could flourish again? Or don’t you dream?...”

  The Earthlings slept in relays—on the ground. When the sun was near setting—when the light reflected from the great mirrors high on the eastern wall of the Pit, was already dimming slightly—one of the tiny silver needles that were the space ships, that had circled steadily for so long, propelled by subdued threads of atomic fire, darted westward, out of sight.

  “The beginning of action, I’ll bet.” Cliff breathed. “That ship will probably be landing just outside the rim of the valley—to be fairly safe, and to be held in reserve, while the other one starts things. They must have been waiting for darkness. Dammit—do the toughest parts of this deal always have to happen at night?” Something in his mind chilled and quivered.

  “You’re nuts, Cliff,” Jack protested. “No sensible Earth-guys would go stumbling around on the moon for the first time, in the dark!”

  “Like hell they wouldn’t!” Cliff answered. “Those guys are picked men. Young; reckless; not scared of the devil. And they’ve been under training for trans-spacial stuff for a long time. No mere physical circumstances on a world as well known as the moon is by astronomical study, would stop them. Nope, that’s not their weak point. If they think there’s any advantage to the dark, they’ll use it. They’ve got careful theory and plans to follow. They’ve got goggles with night-lenses, for sure. And black-light equipment. And all the other latest stuff... The weak-point is elsewhere....”

  Slowly the daylight died; the valley filled with deepening blackness, over which the spacial stars burned. And from high in the sky came a faint whisper. From beside Cliff, eyes glowed faintly, like cat’s eyes. But it was Mary who spoke: “The ship’s coming down!”

  It did not use its jets; it only seemed to glide in, quietly, on its wings, guided, perhaps, by radar. It showed no lights—except a dim glow from its hot jet-nozzles—which made Jack say: “That’s not a real light—to human eyes, I’ll bet—but infra-red, which is heat-radiation. The dopes—they don’t know that our lunar eyes can see black light naturally.”

  “What help is that?” Cliff retorted. “With the moon-people seeing a target—well—that only makes the danger of a shooting-match worse.”

  The ship landed far out across the valley in the desert. The dimmest phosphorescence of the radiation of solar heat still left in the ground, marked its location—behind a screen of surrounding hills. That much shelter had been selected for it. Otherwise, you could call its being there fool-hardy, daring—which perhaps must take a part in a bout with the unknown, such as this.

  But what of the consequences of bluff and bravado? That ship was an instrument of mankind’s first brave lunge across the void; it carried a hope of good in the purpose. But certainly no cards could have been more stacked than now against such an outcome. Was it necessary, or even possible, to talk about it, with a dread-tightened throat? Cliff, Jack, and Mary all knew what should happen.

  There’d be a blue bolt from a lunarian weapon; that ship would be torn open in a radioactive blaze. Then its twin would come from wherever it had landed, beyond the valley. Revenge, in a widening flame of millions of degrees, would be blunt and swift, enveloping the whole valley... Not a victory—but a precedent of defeat for a dream ...

  THE SECONDS fled, and that awful glare didn’t come. But that must be sheerest luck—fear for once sharpening prudence, helping, no doubt. But how long could that last? Again by luck the time extended to several minutes. By then it was not too hard to guess what might be going on out there in stygian gloom, where, through the swift loss of solar heat after sunset, there was no longer even the phosphorescence of black light, for natural lunar eyes to see, or specialized Earthly goggles to detect.

  Two kinds of ghouls might be creeping toward each other. Human and lunar. To each, the other was a horror—a thing so strange and terrible that to hate and fear and fight it seemed the only possible course to follow. Emotional dynamite? What a feeble, archaic term!

  Once there was a flash—from a black light projector. A great blue spark followed it back to its source. Doubtless an Earthman died. Immediately, at a little distance, there was the sharp flare of an atomic bullet. Most likely that ended at least one moon horror. The Earthlings, too, here, had refined atomic small-arms. New and terrible.

  Cliff Verden was sure, then, that all was lost; now the storm would break. But once more—like the lucky turning of a wheel of fortune—nothing followed. What had happened was like the sputtering and dying of some ignited grains at the edge of a pile of gunpowder. Aside, Cliff wondered if the sweat of tension he felt on his body could be lunarian...

  Carefully he had avoided turning his back to T’chack; for one never knew what he might do, under present circumstances. Now Cliff moved closer to his brother and Mary. “Get on the other side of T’chack,” he whispered, “in case I can’t talk good enough to convince him. We can’t just stand here; luck’ll never last...”

  Then he spoke to the moon-creature. “For your own good as well as everybody’s, you got to let us go,” he said. “To save the valley, or lives, everything. Maybe we’ve got a chance ...”

  The other lunarians had all dispersed. T’chack’s lungs wheezed nervously for a moment, as if in indecision. Maybe there was a little light around the hope of understanding between worlds when he chirped, “Go...” Or maybe he was just afraid.

  The Earthlings hurried, stumbling across bizarre country where even that self-warming vegetation was going into the sleep of deep freeze in the cold murk of the night. Dimly, by the starshine, they saw long crystals of hoar-frost forming on the ground. The metal-fabric garments the three wore, generated heat. But even half-lunar skin, with its dead-air cells, was bitten by such a temperature.

  “We’ve got to peg as many of the large weapons of the moon-people as we can,” Cliff said tensely. “Especially near the ship. It’s the one chance to stop hell. Then, maybe we can talk sense into Cramm.”

  THIS, AT least, proved easier than it seemed. In the darkness they looked like, and could sound like, moonfolk. Approaching a weapon’s position, they would chirp a few syllables, allay suspicion, get close, and strike stunning blows with rocks. It was treachery for a good purpose—they hoped. There were more than two lunarians at a weapon, and passwords seemed unknown—or forgotten about—on the moon. A litt
le action with the same rocks, disabled delicate apparatus.

  Three weapons were knocked out before they got close to the ship. But mostly they were on the way—running, leaping, stumbling—hurrying to win against time and danger. Their lungs, no longer of lunar size, gasped from the exertion. Nearing the ship, they began to circle and search the surrounding hills. Five more knob-like things they found, and put out of business, stunning the beings that manned them.

  Cliff gave a low mewling call, more chilling, from an Earthly viewpoint, than a demon-cry. No lunarian voice answered it.

  The Earthlings felt half frozen, but elated. “Gosh, I hardly believe it,” Jack remarked. “But I guess we’ve done what we wanted—at least for a little while. The worst danger zone for trouble to start, is quiet.”

  Cliff put an arm around Mary. There was no embarrassment now, to be found in awareness of their strange forms. Together, they felt like part of the night. They were adjusting to the lunar environment. “Thanks for everything, Mary,” he said.

  But this lifting of their spirits was pathetically brief. For, from out of the dark, hard, metal-sheathed bodies rushed them. Their low twitters must have been heard, as well as Cliff’s cry; and the night-lenses of goggles must have made the best use of the starshine, to enable the wearers to see them. It was no mild assault. The blows, countering a fear of death and horror, on the part of those who delivered them, could have killed easily.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE NEXT thing that the Verdens and Mary Koven knew, they were dazzled by the white glare inside the ship. Clutching them were six young men in space armor. Instruments and white walls gleamed around them. And before the captives stood Frankie Cramm himself, resplendent in a spotless coverall.