Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Astounding Stories, July, 1931 by Various (ebook reader library TXT) 📖
- Author: Various
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The Voice said: "Oh, I'm so glad you're better! I thought you'd never come to!"
Mechanically Clee asked: "Who are you?"
"Vivian Gray," came the quick answer; "from Boston. And you?"
Clee did not answer, but started to lie back again. Things were all wrong: he couldn't even see anyone. He'd go back to sleep, and wake up some other time. But the Voice wouldn't let him.
"Oh, you must listen!" it said. "I haven't much time!"
"Where are you?" he asked.[78]
"Why—right here!" came the surprised answer. "Can't you see me?"
"No," answered Clee, still not himself. He added categorically: "I can see Jim. I can see the door. I can see my hands, but I can't see you."
"Oh, then it must be true! Xantra told me he was going to make you one of his common slaves; but I hoped—I hoped—"
his didn't mean much to Clee; but with the words came memory of all that had happened, and with sudden concern he crept over to where Jim was lying, to see how he was. He found him blinking and stirring, aroused by the voices. Quickly he explained the invisible presence to him, warning him to be on guard.
"Oh, but I'm a friend—Vivian Gray—kidnapped from Earth just like you!" came quick explanation out of the air. "Xantra stole me from Cape Cod, where I was vacationing, about the time he took you. Xantra is the one whose space ship we are on. He looks much like a man; he is some kind of a man; but he's not from Earth—"
"You've seen him?" interrupted Clee, beginning to believe the Voice a little.
"Yes," came the instant response; "not when he abducted me—he had made himself invisible for that—but always after. Haven't you yet?" And then, without waiting for his answer, she gave it herself. "But of course you couldn't see him if he's already given you the universal atomic rhythm the slaves have. You'd then be able to see only each other, and the other slaves; not Xantra and not me.
"I think he makes his slaves that way for protection," she explained. "They can't very well plot or rebel against him when they can't even see him, and never know but what he's around."
"Who are these slaves you keep mentioning?" Jim broke in. "How many of them are there on this ship: and how many like Xantra?"
antra is the only one of his kind," came the answer. "The slaves are a race of inferior people found on his planet—wherever that is: I couldn't understand, from his explanation, just where. They are creatures much like ugly human beings with a touch of the ape, and are entirely bald, very strong and not very intelligent. There're seven or eight on board. Normally they are good-natured: but sometimes when they have a hard master, like Xantra, they take to hating him; and when they do that they can be very fierce and treacherous. That's the main reason for Xantra's stopping at Earth: to see what kind of slaves we humans will make. He is hoping that we will be more intelligent than those he has—and more docile, and safer to have around."
"Well," snorted Jim belligerently, "if Mr. Xantra thinks that I'm going to be safe to have around, he's a lot dumber than I am!"
"Oh, it's good to hear you talk that way," the girl's voice went on. "We three have got to stick together, and find some way to escape!
"I've so much to say!" she went on; "but I daren't stay long, for fear of getting caught. What you said is where my chief hope lies: Xantra doesn't realize how intelligent we are, and how dangerous; and we mustn't let him know! I think he believes we are much like his present slaves: he gets away with murder with them. You've noticed the lumps on the back of your necks? Well, they have them, too; it's something that's attached to the spinal cord and gives him telepathic control over them; also the power to hurt them dreadfully—as you've unfortunately found out. His slaves don't understand these lumps; they don't seem to know that he would[79] lose control if they could only in some way get rid of the things in their necks!"
or the first time since the girl started talking, Clee spoke. His voice was low and grave, and there was a tinge of suspicion in it.
"Just how does it happen," he asked, "that you know so much about things here?"
The girl's voice broke as she gave her answer.
"I'm ashamed to tell you," she said. "Xantra—he—he admires me as a healthy animal; one close, in species, to himself. He thinks by being nice to me that he might be able to make me a willing companion to share his trip!" For a moment the girl was silent; and when she spoke again there was a hard note in her voice.
"I let him have hopes," she said, "—deliberately. I planned to make him trust me, and give me the run of the ship, so I could find out all I could. So far—before you came—I saw no slightest hope of ever escaping back to Earth; but I had at least to look for a quick, sure way to death, in case—in case—"
"You—and us too!" exclaimed Clee impulsively. "No Earth-man—no American, at least—is ever going to submit to slavery. If the worst comes to the worst, we'll at least die together, Vivian!"
Jim added soberly: "And perhaps, if we do, no one from Xantra's planet will ever again come to Earth looking for 'docile' slaves...."
or a moment everyone was silent, affected by the thought behind what they had said. Then the girl's voice suggested, with a touch of Earth formality that was almost ludicrous under the circumstances: "But you two men have not yet introduced yourselves!"
Both Clee and Jim smiled, and told her their names, and in the slight pause that followed Clee said awkwardly, almost shyly: "Miss Gray, we don't know what's in store for us here, and it—it's possible that we may never know each other any better: so would you—I mean, I wonder would you mind if I reached out and touched you. In spite of all we have said. I—I can hardly realize that you are there, somewhere, before me."
Out of the nothingness came an impulsive soft hand that closed over his. There was both a smile and something deeper in Vivian's voice as she said, "Here," and raised his hand until it touched her brow and the thick smooth hair of her head. Then she placed it a little lower, over her face; and gently Clee's fingers told him what his eyes could not read.
"In case you never see me—why, I—I'd like you to know that I'm really, not bad looking," she said; and Clee knew she was blushing as he smiled at the eternal feminine in her.
ut the smile suddenly left his face. His hand had felt her give a distinct start. Then—
"He's calling!" she gasped faintly. "Xantra's calling for me to come to him!" Her voice, as she spoke, moved, and Clee knew she was going towards the door.
"No!" he cried impulsively. "Don't risk it! Stay here, and we'll begin our fight against him right now!"
"I will be safe," came Vivian's reassuring voice from the door. "I can manage him a while yet." Her further words came with a rush. "But I wanted to tell you—I had a faint plan. If I could get hold of the anaesthetic—the vial of stuff that smells like cloves—"
The door was closing now, and the two men knew she was moving down the corridor. They listened in vain for her to complete what she had been saying. Just before the door[80] clicked shut, Jim jammed his foot in it, preventing it from closing.
"Gee, that girl has courage!" Clee murmured.
For a moment the two men looked at each other. Jim was thinking about the opened door, and the chance they had to get out. But Clee's mind was on something else.
"Well, Jim," he said, "you and I have a nasty job ahead."
Jim looked at Clee wonderingly as he took out his pipe and stuck it in the crack of the door, allowing him to remove his foot. Clee explained to him what Xantra had told him with the thought-sending helmets; reminded him of what they had learned from Vivian about the lumps on their necks. After he had finished he said quietly but decisively:
"Now, we're going to try and remove whatever is under these lumps. Have you got anything sharp? Your knife? Something with an edge on it?"
It would mean escape from the domination of Xantra's will!—from his terrible stabbing punishment!—if they could remove them! Jim breathed a little quicker in his excitement.
"But once we do it—if we can do it—it'll mean that we'll have to make our break to escape right away," he reminded Clee. "We'll be caught if Xantra wills us to come to him and we don't appear!"
"You know what will happen to Vivian if we delay the attempt." Clee reminded him levelly: and Jim knew that Clee was right—that their break for freedom must start right then and there....
e looked through his pockets and produced some cigarettes, matches, a pipe, a nailfile and some utterly useless odds and ends. Clee's hands came out of his pockets empty. "I've got nothing at all," he said—and picked up the nailfile and looked at it questioningly. "We'll have to use this, I guess.... Well, I'm first."
He lay face down on the floor and loosened his collar. Quietly, he made several suggestions. "Light a match and heat the tip in the flame," he said. "The point's pretty dull, but cut as deep and quick and clean as you can. If I yell, pay no attention; I'll try to hold still. Unless it bleeds very much, best not make a bandage; we've nothing clean enough."
That was all he said; and Jim, his heart beating like mad, and a lump in his throat, could find no words at all. He sterilized the tip of the file as directed, studied the lump a moment, then, after a rough, affectionate shake of his friend's shoulder, he knelt close to his task. One quick hard cut; a sharp gasp from Clee; a repetition; then two more times crossways—and a firm, spongelike metallic disc lay revealed. Then the worst—raising it a little, and breaking the several fine wires that led from it through the flesh within....
Clee lay panting, the sweat running down the deep wrinkles of pain on his face. Dark blood oozed from the jagged wound. But he smiled a little, and some of the pain-wrinkles in his face smoothed away, when Jim showed him the disk....
For a short time Clee rested, quieting his nerves, while Jim staunched the flow of blood.
And then it was Jim's turn; and he bore the sharp agony as stoically as Clee....
It was perhaps a strange thing; but at this great moment in the lives of the two men they felt no need to talk. For the few minutes they rested after they had done, no word was spoken; but in that time a bond of friendship was formed that only death could ever break....
hey did not rest long. Every moment brought them nearer to the inevitable discovery of what they had done. Their muscles were[81] still quivering, the wounds on their necks still slowly bleeding, when Clee rose and aroused Jim. The most dangerous, desperate part of their wild revolt lay just ahead.
They were able to make but the vaguest of plans, not knowing what to anticipate outside. They only knew that they would first have to strike boldly for possession of the control alcove—which, without doubt meant they would have, somehow, to kill Xantra—to find and kill a man they could not see, yet who could see them. An enormous task. And only the first of several.
For a moment, realizing this, they hesitated at the door. But the die had been cast; there was nothing for them to do but go forward—and quickly; so, giving Jim a final warning that they must stick together, Clee opened wide the door and
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