Forgotten Fiction

by Lloyd Eshbach

  Suddenly he was blinded by a flash of crimson, and a steady humming drone beat at his brain. It was maddening! He felt his strength oozing from him; frantically he fought the dreaded paralysis—and conquered it!

  To Kennard it looked as though a hundred, a thousand—ten thousand of the little red fiends were leaping, shrieking about him. These were the beings that threatened the earth! Of these were the two who had probably killed Norcott! Curse them! Doggedly he pushed forward.

  Then something struck his bent head. A blinding pain darted through it. A brilliant flash of every color of the spectrum—and Kennard went mad!

  His free hand went out, snatching, squeezing. When it unclasped, it left a bloody pulp where a head had been. His strength was amazing—whatever his hand caught was crushed flat; heads, sides, legs—all fell prey to those dreadful, grinding fingers.

  But through his madness, in a lucid moment, he realized that he could not go on like this for long. The pain in his head had grown exquisite. Something seemed hammering there with regular strokes—a red-hot sledge beating at his mind. But while he could remain erect, he’d go on—and—on——

  There came a time when a wide circle spread about him, a space in which there were no Red-men. Swaying drunkenly, he saw them gather in a solid mass before him, slender cylinders pointing. Dimly, yet in a fleeting moment, he saw them; dimly his mind sensed them.

  A solid wall of howling demons—and he must break through!

  Break through! Where had he heard those words? Oh, yes, that last Harvard-Princeton game! The cheering spectators; flags waving—red flags—blood-red! Bedlam! Then the Princeton stands had roared as one man, “Break through!”

  All at once the scene shifted—unaccountably. Why, those were the Harvard Reds before him now! Between him and the distant goal posts! He could see them—close together—beckoning!

  Kennard crouched, his head bent low. That head was ringing, but he could still hear the cheering mob—wild, mad, high-pitched cries. He tightened his hold on the ball under his arm. Head down, arm outthrust, stepping high, he leaped ahead.

  What! They were trying to tackle him? He cursed bitterly. He’d show them a trick or two! The ball was terribly heavy under his arm; his lungs were bursting; his feet weighed tons. But he had to—break through!

  Gathering his waning strength, he crouched—and shot suddenly high into the air. The Reds were below him—he was past. He broke into a long, resistless dash toward the goal.

  The Goal! There it was before him, strangely red! He reached it—crossed the line—and fell.

  “Down, down!” he gasped—and sank into oblivion.

  A FAINT, insistent voice, calling his name again and again, brought Kennard back to consciousness. He opened his eyes to see Craig’s worried face leaning over him.

  “At last!” the latter exclaimed with relief. “I thought you’d never recover your senses.

  “That was a great fight, John—what I saw of it,” he added, as he helped the groaning Kennard to his feet. “They hit you with everything they had, but they couldn’t stop you.” He broke off as a fit of violent coughing shook him, a hacking, tearing cough that was not good to hear. “I had a little difficulty myself,” he concluded as he spit a clot of blood.

  “Good gad, Nev! What’s wrong?” Kennard gazed at his friend in great anxiety, his own injuries—all of a superficial nature, he believed—forgotten.

  “I guess they got me, John! It’s some sort of gas; it’s eating out my lungs. They came shortly after you left, about twelve of the Red-men. I was watching your fight with the mob, and didn’t hear them approaching from behind. They threw some kind of gas bomb, and fled. But they didn’t get away; I got ’em with this little cylinder.

  “It’s all up with me now, though, so I guess you’d better start back while the going’s good. When you brought the Red-men in, he was almost crushed to death, but by means of threat and pantomime I got the dope about running the vehicle from him before he passed out; I’ll tell you what I know so you can go back.” He smiled bravely in spite of his ashen face; then another spasm of dreadful coughing shook him.

  Kennard caught him as he swayed dangerously, and led him toward the vehicle.

  “It’s not that bad, Nev. You’ll pull through. We’ll rush back to the moon, and from there to the earth, as fast as we can go. You certainly need medical attention, but a good doctor can fix you up in no time.” Kennard spoke with a conviction that he did not possess. Craig, he was afraid, was almost gone. Some gas, like the dreaded chlorine, was destroying the tissues of his lungs. Still, there was a bare chance that his condition wasn’t so serious after all; on the strength of that chance they’d have to get back to earth as quickly as possible, in spite of the fact that they had accomplished nothing toward the salvation of the world.

  At the base of the vehicle, Kennard paused, and taking Craig in his arms, leaped through the portal. In a moment the two men were bending over the huge machine, Craig instructing Kennard in its operation.

  When he had taught Kennard all he could, Craig announced his intention of descending to the workroom to lie down. He laughed at the other’s quick offer to help.

  “You start the vehicle down the tunnel of light. I can take care of myself to some extent, at any rate.” A few moments after Craig left the central chamber, Kennard set the mechanism into motion. The portal in the wall closed; the walls grew transparent; and the vehicle started drifting across the floor, shrinking into the red light beneath the microscope. A nauseating whirring, an almost indiscernible throbbing filled the car. Sensations similar to those they had experienced in starting toward the Supra-world. Again there was that sense of exhilaration—and the gradual return to normalcy.

  Down—down—into the infinitesimal the vehicle hurtled, shrinking along the crimson pillar of light. The blackness of space—island universes—whirling galaxies—through all of these it flashed, each successive one growing larger.

  Finally Kennard bethought himself of Craig, and tore his eyes away from their contemplation of the myriad wonders of space. He looked down through the transparent floor. Craig was not in sight. Probably concealed by some apparatus . . . perhaps dying!

  In a moment Kennard dashed down the spiral stairs, and entered the workroom. His companion was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where are you, Nev?” he cried. There was no answer.

  Greatly perturbed, he hastily searched the room, calling continually; but his efforts were fruitless. Finally, despairing of finding Craig in the workroom, and deciding to search in the observatory, he was about to leave when his eyes fell on a bit of paper lying on a bench close to the room’s entrance.

  Quickly he seized it, a scrap of parchment-like material torn from a note-pad of the Red-men, and scanned the scrawling words written thereon. A moment, and he stood like one stunned. More slowly he read the lines again.

  “Dear John, by the time you read this, you’ll have covered quite a bit of the distance to the moon, and you’ll probably know that I’m staying behind. I planned it all after I had learned from the Redman how to run the vehicle. If both of us were to return, our coming here would have been in vain, for we would have accomplished nothing. Besides, the risk that would follow our leaving the microscope unguarded is too great. If the beam were cut off while we were flashing along its length, we’d be lost in size and space. But with you alone returning, I can guard the microscope until you’ve had time to reach the moon. I’ll wait about two hours before I shut off the beam.

  “I am writing this while you are lying unconscious. I’m sure you’ll recover; I don’t think you’re seriously injured. As for myself, I don’t believe I have long to live. Better that one of us escape than that both of us die!

  “I’ll place the note in the workroom right after it’s written; then just as you’re about to start, I’ll get out of the vehicle . . . Goodby, John, and good luck—go back and rescue Norcott—and save the world.

  Craig.”

  Craig lef
t behind, awaiting certain death, while he, Kennard, was escaping! No! He’d go back! Madly he dashed up the steps to the central chamber—and stopped short before the machinery.

  His thoughts had been arrested by a vision of a great, crimson beam cutting a terrible, desolate cincture across the earth, blotting out life, stamping cities into the ground. Slowly, reluctantly, he admitted it; Craig was right. He was needed by the world.

  Sorrowfully he turned away. He felt that he had to go back for Craig; yet he couldn’t render his sacrifice fruitless.

  Down—down flashed the vehicle, and at last the universe that held the solar system lay below it, a little, concave lens of light. Rapidly it grew larger—and the vehicle was within it. And there, far below, was the sun, and her nine, whirling planets!

  The descent from the Supra-world to the Infra-world almost completed!

  On the vehicle flashed, through the crimson beam—then suddenly the tunnel of light was no more! Craig had shut it off; had removed one menace forever.

  A whirling hurricane of tempestuous, cosmic forces tossing the vehicle—a wild gyrating, a mad spinning—and miraculously, the moon flashed up to meet him. A huge lever thrown back—and the vehicle landed softly on the harsh Lunar surface.

  CHAPTER VI

  The End of the Menace

  KENNARD gazed through the vehicle’s transparent walls in unbelief; then a satisfied smile overspread his face. Such good fortune! There, but a short distance to the south, was the crimson light, the beam from Tycho! Norcott had evidently failed in his attempt to shut it off; but he, Kennard, could do that now, since some strange caprice of fate had placed him in such close proximity to it.

  But hold—what was that he saw? A great, varicolored, concave surface—a gigantic, glowing disc that filled the Lunar sky! The earth, almost touching the moon! And even at that distance Kennard could see that something was amiss on her surface; earth’s face was changing! Something astounding had happened while he was away, something that had drawn the two spheres together.

  Another moment Kennard scanned the altered face of the earth in fascination; then resolutely he turned away. There was work to be done. He turned a notched disc, bore down on a lever; and the vehicle started rapidly toward Tycho. And so great was its speed that it reached the huge crater a few minutes after starting.

  Hastily Kennard donned his space-suit, and turned on the air-purifier—hastily, for every passing minute meant more lives blotted out. A moment’s work to create the strange portal in the wall—and Kennard leaped far and high toward Tycho.

  He landed a few feet from the crater’s rim; a single jump carried him up to the broken segment of the rampart to a place beside the machine that was the key to the beam’s existence, a machine that had a great ray pointing from itself to the heart of the greater ray—the beam from Tycho.

  He studied the mechanism for a moment, searching for whatever served to control the beam. There seemed to be nothing; no dials, levers, switches—nothing. After a moment’s thought he cast his eyes searchingly about the top of the rampart. Suddenly they lit up with satisfaction; he saw that for which he sought. A great boulder that would have weighed all of nine hundred pounds on earth lay a short distance away.

  Grasping the awkward, rugged mass, he bore it to the machine—and hurled it mightily at the intricate device. There was a sudden, colossal explosion; and Kennard was hurled like a leaf from Tycho’s rim.

  Even as he whirled above the Lunar surface, he saw the crimson beam lengthen; saw earth leap back from her satellite, dwindling to her normal size, back in her customary place in the perfect balance of the Solar system. And then the beam in Tycho vanished!

  Bruised and shaken, Kennard picked himself up a few moments later, a paean of joy in his heart. He had done it; earth was free! Both beams were gone now, and the danger of future invasions was past.

  But as he moved toward the crimson vehicle, his joy was tempered by thoughts of Craig and Norcott. Craig was out of it; yet it was his sacrifice that had made earth’s freedom possible. Craig was gone—but there was a chance that Norcott still lived. He’d have to search for him.

  Kennard reached the vehicle, vaulted through the portal, closed the opening, and started across the scarred face of the moon. The logical place to look for Norcott and the Red-men, since they weren’t near Tycho, was back at the point where the Rocket had landed. He sent the vehicle in that direction.

  Minutes passed by while he flashed along high above the moon; then far below Kennard saw a flash of light—the Rocket, casting back the rays of the sun. Down dropped the vehicle toward it.

  Suddenly Kennard leaned forward, eyes wide. There on a great, level rock, two men were fighting, a red-armored giant, twenty feet tall, and a diminutive figure clad in a space-suit. A Red-man and Norcott! The latter was darting in and out like a fantastic shadow boxer, avoiding with ease the lunges and rushes of his great opponent. Whenever opportunity presented itself, his metal-clad fist lashed out with all the force at his command; still, there could be but one result to so uneven a contest.

  Hastily Kennard settled to the surface, and caused the portal to re-open. Then he leaped out.

  At the first appearance of the vehicle the fighting had ceased, both combatants gazing intently at this new factor. And then, when Kennard emerged from the portal, the Red-man turned and fled.

  Kennard followed at an amazing pace, clearing two hundred feet in a single bound. In a moment he overtook the fleeing Red-man; he seized him—and bent him backward until he broke! “That’s for Craig!” he exclaimed. Then he returned to Norcott.

  The latter, so diminutive when compared with his giant friend, was waiting. Kennard reached down and grasped him, and leaped with him through the portal. Placing him on the floor, he turned to the machine, and caused the wall to assume its normal solidity again.

  They waited a few moments while the air in the vehicle was being automatically replenished; then they removed their helmets.

  Norcott’s face was a study. Wonder, unbelief and gladness fought for possession of his countenance. But for the moment Kennard was more concerned with another matter than he was about the man he had rescued.

  “Where’s the other Red-man?” he asked in a voice that, to Norcott, was heavy and booming.

  The answer drifted up to him in a high treble. “He’s dead. When you and Craig escaped in the vehicle, you crashed into him. But say—” He stopped short when Kennard raised a silencing hand.

  “Just a minute, Dave. Here, help me to get small.” He gave Norcott directions concerning the manipulation of the diminishing ray. “Be careful,” he admonished, finally. “I don’t want to shrink out of sight.”

  The careful turning of a notched disc; a conical ray leaping out toward Kennard; a slow shrinking—and he was back to his normal, six-foot height. And, because of the slowness of the transition, Kennard, though dazed, had retained his senses.

  “By gad, John,” Norcott exclaimed, “I’m glad to see you—how glad I can’t tell you; you came when you were most needed. I couldn’t have kept that dodging game forever. But say, where’s Craig? What happened? Where have you been all this time?”

  Starting with their involuntary flight across the moon, Kennard told the entire story. Norcott listened intently, interrupting only once to speak regretful comment on Craig’s sacrifice. When Kennard concluded, he asked of Norcott: “How about yourself? What happened to you?”

  “Nothing much,” came the reply. “In fact, nothing, compared with your adventure. When you and Craig vanished in this car, I doubled my efforts to cut off the ray. It was all to no avail—effort wasted. I couldn’t do a thing with it, so I turned and fled. Then a moment later the surviving Red-man caught me. I suppose it was his first intention to kill me, but for some reason he didn’t do so.

  “I knew why in a short time. He had a better revenge in mind. Carrying me with him, he went to the machine on Tycho’s rim. In some way he adjusted the device; then we left it. And by and by,
I saw that the face of the earth was changing—growing larger, drawing closer to the moon. His revenge was to be my watching earth’s rapid approach, knowing that eventually a terrible collision must take place, and that all life would be destroyed. It was a diabolic idea, utterly inhuman—destroying a world for revenge on three men!

  “Nothing happened for the next few terrestrial days, except that we made our way across the moon to the Rocket to live therein. Neither of us had food or waiter; the Rocket contained both.

  “And then, a short while ago, I believe the Red-man decided to put me out of the way. We were seated in the projectile, when without warning he sprang toward me. I tripped him up; and while he sought to untangle himself, I eluded him and managed to get out of the Rocket. Then began that queer fight in which you took part at the crucial moment . . . And now—what?”

  “And now,” Kennard concluded, “we’re going back to earth!” He moved toward the huge machine that operated the vehicle—and paused. “But I don’t think well go in this vehicle. The machinery’s too big, for one thing; I don’t believe I could operate it. Besides, a strange machine might create havoc on earth; interplanetary invaders, you know. I hate to leave this, but I guess if it’s navigable, we’ll return in the Rocket. Later on, if we want to, we can return to the moon, and perhaps take the Supra-world vehicle to earth.”

  “We’ll have to do some repairing before we can use the Rocket,” Norcott informed him. “The Red-man repaired it in part in order to make it safe to live in, but I wouldn’t take a chance on a flight through space as it is at present.”

  “Very well then, let’s get busy!”

  * * *

  About forty-eight hours later, the Rocket was ready; with a stream of yellow fire roaring from her base, she hurtled out into the void. She was headed toward the earth, bearing the returning pioneers of space—homeward bound from the first space-ship’s maiden voyage.

  But where three had gone out, only two were returning. The third had exiled himself in a Supra-world of largeness unfathomable, sacrificing himself that countless others might live. And the two who where returning were saddened by the knowledge of the loss they had sustained.