Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 by Various (ereader that reads to you TXT) đ
- Author: Various
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âThen we are below ground?â asked the flyer. âYou live here?â
âIt is all we have now. At that time of which I tell, it was the red ones who lived out of sight; they were a race of rodents in human form. They lived in the subterranean caves with which this planet is pierced. We could have exterminated them at any time, but, in our ignorance, we permitted them to live, for we, of VenusâI use your name for the planetâdo not willingly take life.â
âThey have no such compunctions!â Professor Sykesâ voice was harsh; he was remembering the sacrifice to the hungry plants.
A flash as of pain crossed the sensitive features of the girl, and the man beside her seemed speaking to her in soundless words.
âYour mind-picture was not pleasant,â he told the scientist; then continued:
âRemember, we were upon the world, and these others were within it. There came a comet. Oh, our astronomers plotted its course; they told us we were safe. But at the last some unknown influence diverted it; its gaseous projection swept our world with flame. Only an instant; but when it had passed there was left only deathâŠ.â
He was lost in recollection for a time; the girl beside him reached over to touch his hand.
âThose withinâthe red onesâescaped,â he went on. âThey poured forth when they found that catastrophe had overwhelmed us. And we, the handful that were left, were forced to take shelter here. We have lived here since, waiting for the day when the Master of Destinies shall give us freedom and a world in which to live.â
âYou speak,â suggested the scientist, âas if this had happened to you. Surely you refer to your ancestors; you are the descendants of those who were saved.â
âWe are the people,â said the other. âWe lived then; we live now; we shall live for a future of endless years.
âHave you not searched for the means to control the life principleâyou people of Earth?â he asked. âWe have it here. You seeââand he waved a hand toward the standing throngââwe are young to your eyes and the others who greeted you were the same.â
McGuire and the scientist exchanged glances of corroboration.
âBut your age,â asked Sykes, âmeasured in years?â
âWe hardly measure life in years.â
Professor Sykes nodded slowly; his mind found difficulty in accepting so astounding a fact. âBut our language?â he queried. âHow is it that you can speak our tongue?â
The tall man smiled and leaned forward to place a hand on a knee of each of the men beside him. âWhy not,â he asked, âwhen there doubtless is relationship between us.
âYou called the continent Atlantis. Perhaps its very existence is but a fable now: it has been many centuries since we have had instruments to record thought force from Earth, and we have lost touch. But, my friends, even then we of Venus had conquered space, and it was we who visited Atlantis to find a race more nearly like ourselves than were the barbarians who held the other parts of Earth.
âI was there, but I returned. There were some who stayed and they were lost with the others in the terrible cataclysm that sank a whole continent beneath the waters. But some, we have believed, escaped.â
âWhy have you not been back?â the flyer asked. âYou could have helped us so much.â
âIt was then that our own destruction came upon us. The same comet, perhaps, may have caused a change of stresses in your Earth and sunk the lost Atlantis. Ah! That was a beautiful land, but we have never seen it since. We have beenâhere.
âBut you will understand, now,â he added, âthat, with our insight into your minds, we have little difficulty in mastering your language.â
This talk of science and incredible history left Lieutenant McGuire cold. His mind could not wander long from its greatest concern.
âBut the earth!â he exclaimed. âWhat about the earth? This attack! Those devils mean real mischief!â
âMore than you know; more than you can realize, friend Mack Guire!â
âWhy?â demanded the flyer. âWhy?â
âHave your countries not reached out for other countries when land was needed?â asked the man, Djorn. âLandâland! Space in which to breedâthat is the reason for the invasion.
âThis world has no such continents as yours. Here the globe is covered by the oceans; we have perhaps one hundredth of the land areas of your Earth And the red ones breed like flies. Life means nothing to them; they die like flies, too. But they need more room; they intend to find it on your world.â
âA strange race,â mused Professor Sykes. âThey puzzled me. Butââless than human,â I think you said. Then how about their ships? How could they invent them?â
âOursâall ours! They found a world ready and waiting for them. Through the centuries they have learned to master some few of our inventions. The ships!âthe ethereal vibrations! Oh, they have been cleverer than we dreamed possible.â
âWell, how can we stop them?â demanded McGuire. âWe must. You have the submarinesââ
âOne only,â the other interrupted. âWe saved that, and we brought some machinery. We have made this place habitable; we have not been idle. But there are limitations.â
âBut your ray that you projectedâit brought down their ship!â
âWe were protecting you, and we protect ourselves; that is enough. There is One will deliver us in His own good time; we may not go forth and slaughter.â
There was a note of resignation and patience in the voice that filled McGuire with hopeless forebodings. Plainly this was not an aggressive race. They had evolved beyond the stage of wanton slaughter, and, even now, they waited patiently for the day when some greater force should come to their aid.
The man beside them spoke quickly. âOne momentâyou will pardon meâsomeone is callingââ He listened intently to some soundless call, and he sent a silent message in reply.
âI have instructed them,â he said. âCome and you shall see how impregnable is our position. The red ones have resented our destruction of their ship.â
The face of the girl, Althora, was perturbed. âMore killings?â she asked.
âOnly as they force themselves to their own death,â her brother told her. âBe not disturbed.â
The throng in the vast space drew apart as the figure of their leader strode quickly through with the two men following close. There were many rooms and passages; the men had glimpses of living quarters, of places where machinery made soft whirring sounds; more sights than their eyes could see or their minds comprehend. They came at last to an open chamber.
The men looked up to see above them a tremendous inverted-cone, and there was the gold of cloudland glowing through an opening at the top. It was the inside of a volcano where they stood, and McGuire remembered the island and its volcanic peak where the ship had swerved aside. He felt that he knew now where they were.
Above them, a flash of light marked the passage of a ship over the craterâs mouth, and he realized that the ships of the reds were not avoiding the island now. Did it mean an attack? And how could these new friends meet it?
Before them on the level volcanic floor were great machines that came suddenly to life, and their roar rose to a thunder of violence, while, in the center, a cluster of electric sparks like whirling stars formed a cloud of blue fire. It grew, and its hissing, crackling length reached upward to a fine-drawn point that touched the opening above.
âFollow!â commanded their leader and went rapidly before them where a passage wound and twisted to bring them at last to the light of day.
The flame of the golden clouds was above them in the midday sky, and beneath it were scores of ships that swept in formations through the air.
âAttacking?â asked the lieutenant with ill-concealed excitement.
âI fear so. They tried to gas us some centuries ago; it may be they have forgotten what we taught them then.â
One squadron came downward and swept with inconceivable speed over a portion of the island that stretched below. The men were a short distance up on the mountainâs side, and the scene that lay before them was crystal clear. There were billowing clouds of gas that spread over the land where the ships had passed. Other ships followed; they would blanket the island in gas.
The man beside them gave a sigh of regret. âThey have struck the first blow,â he said. He stood silent with half-closed eyes; then: âI have ordered resistance.â And there was genuine sorrow and regret in his eyes as he looked toward the mountain top.
McGuireâs eyes followed the otherâs gaze to find nothing at first save the volcanic peak in hard outline upon the background of gold; then only a shimmer as of heat about the lofty cone. The air above him quivered, formed to ripples that spread in great circles where the enemy ships were flashing away.
Swifter than swift aircraft, with a speed that shattered space, they reached out and touchedâand the ships, at that touch, fell helplessly down from the heights. They turned awkwardly as they fell or dropped like huge pointed projectiles. And the waters below took them silently and buried in their depths all trace of what an instant sooner had been an argosy of the air.
The ripples ceased, again the air was clear and untroubled, but beneath the golden clouds was no single sign of life.
The flyerâs breathless suspense ended in an explosive gasp. âWhat a washout!â he exclaimed, and again he thought only of this as a weapon to be used for his own ends. âCan we use that on their fleets?â he asked. âWhy, manâthey will never conquer the earth; they will never even make a start.â
The tall figure of Djorn turned and looked at him. âThe lust to kill!â he said sadly. âYou still have itâthough you are fighting for your own, which is some excuse.
âNo, this will not destroy their fleets, for their fleets will not come here to be destroyed. It will be many centuries before ever again the aircraft of the reds dare venture near.â
âWe will build another one and take it where they areââ The voice of the fighting man was vibrant with sudden hope.
âWe were two hundred years building and perfecting this,â the other told him. âCan you wait that long?â
And Lieutenant McGuire, as he followed dejectedly behind the leader, heard nothing of Professor Sykesâ eager questions as to how this miracle was done.
âCan you wait that long?â this man, Djorn, had asked. And the flyer saw plainly the answer that spelled death and destruction to the world.
CHAPTER XIVThe mountains of Nevada are not noted for their safe and easy landing places. But the motor of the plane that Captain Blake was piloting roared smoothly in the cool air while the manâs eyes went searching, searching, for something, and he hardly knew what that something might be.
He went over again, as he had done a score of times, the remarks of Lieutenant McGuire. Mac had laughed that day when he told Blake of his experience.
âI was flying that transport,â he had said, âand, boy! when one motor began to throw oil I knew I was out of luck. Nothing but rocky peaks and valleys full of trees as thick and as pointed as a porcupineâs quills. Flying pretty high to maintain altitude with one motor out, so I just naturally had to find a place to set her down. I found it, too, though it seemed too good to be true off in that wilderness.
âA fine level spot, all smooth rock, except for a few clumps of grass, and just bumpy enough to make the landing interesting. But, say, Captain! I almost cracked up at that, I was so darn busy staring at something else.
âOff in some trees was a dirigibleâSure; go ahead and laugh; I didnât believe it either, and I was looking at it. But there had been a whale of a storm through there the day before, and it had knocked over some trees that had been screening the thing, and there it was!
âWell, I came to in time to pull up her nose and miss a rock or two, and then I started pronto for that valley of trees and the thing that was buried among them.â
Captain Blake recalled the conversation word for word, though he had treated it jokingly at the time. McGuire had found the ship and a manâa half-crazed nut, so it seemedâliving there all alone. And he wasnât a bit keen about Macâs learning of the ship. But leave it to Mac to get the factsâor what the old bird claimed were facts.
There was the body of a youngster there, a man of about Macâs age. He had fallen and been killed the day before, and the old man was half crazy with grief. Mac had dug a grave and helped bury the body, and after that the old fellowâs story had come out.
He had been to the moon, he said. And this was a space ship. Wouldnât tell how it operated, and shut up like a clam when Mac asked if he had gone alone. The young chap had gone with him, it seemed, and the man wouldnât talkâjust sat and stared out at the yellow mound where the youngster was buried.
Mac had told Blake how he argued with the man to prove up on his claims and make a fortune for himself. But noâfortunes didnât interest him. And there were some this-and-that and be-damned-to-âem people who would never get this inventionâthe dirty, thieving rats!
And Mac, while he
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