TTHE MAGAZINE OF |»]f^OTHETIC FICTIONS
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Twenty years of Radio Experience. First to estab- lish two-way amateur com- munication with Europe. Former Traffic Mana^r of American Radio Relay League. Lieut. Commander U.S.N.R. Inventor and De- signer Radio Apparatus. Consultant RadioEngineer. Now in charge of R. T. I. Radio Training — and you will like his friendly man- ner of helping you realize your ambition.
is kept right up-to-date with last minute information. In a few weeks you can be doing actual Radio work, making enough Extra Money to more than pay for your training. In a few short months you can be all through — ready to step into a good paying job or start a business of your own. A Big Job — Big Money — A Big Future. There is no other business in the world like it.
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I can.— Your student. J . Nokfsinqer,
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Do not think that you are barred from this altraciiva profession by lack of education. TilK CHEMICAL INSTITCTK has taught thousands of young men. many of whom had no previous schooling of any kind. Wo can train you thoroughly, and may even get you your first job. The celebrated course which we give is simplified to such a point that anyone can learn who is able to read and write English. AU we ask la interest in the work and willingness to devote your spare hours to it conscientiously.
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Effective this month we have reduced the tuition fee, so that this splendid course and equipment are within the means of every Individual who Is Interested in following (Chemistry, whether as a career or merely as a hobby. Fee can be paid on EASY MONTHLY TERMS. The one price covers everything. There are no extras to buy.
Plenty of Money in Chemistry
Why talk about hard times and lack of opportunities when Chemistry offers you a rich variety of ways to make a fortune? Every day the papers contain news of fresh discoveries in Chemistry, and for every one you read about, there are hundreds not recorded as news because their interest Is purely technical. The manufacture of steel and other metals, of glass, pottery, soap, perfumes, fertilizers, dyes, drugs, celluloid and explosives — paper making, the tanning of leather, toe refining of sugar — dairying, meat packing, presening, sugar refining, and the preparation of hundreds of food products — all these and a multitude of other activities engage the skill of a chemical army. Don't you think there Is room for you also?
Chemists are w’cll-pald employees and each one has the opportunity of discovering new chemical secrets with a literal fortune as his reward. Every one of the lines of business in any way connected with Chemistry — and you can see that there are thousands of them — has brought wealth to the many chemists who were associated with its development. Are 5’ou going to throw away your chances for the same reward, when schooling in Chemistry can be so easy and delightful as it is through our course?
No Exaggerated Claims
This Institute does not claim that every chemist makes millions: nor do we guarantee that you will immediately get a job paying $10,000 a year. But many have done it and there is no reason why you
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Not an Industry in the world — not a factory, mine, mill, ranch or plantation can get along without the services of chemists. Chemistrj- is utilized every- wliere. and so many new lines of business involving Chemistry are springing up dally that there is an actual shortage of men sufficiently trained to fill the best positions.
MR. CHARLES W. SUTTLE, .e?/ Forgan, Okia. (at left on top), is deeply^ interested in chemical research. He performs his experimental work in his well-equipped home laboratory.
MR. O. T. D. BRANDT, of Seattle. Wash, (center photograph), is an analytical chemist of demonstrated ability. In his home he has equip- ped a laboratory containing several thousand dollars’ worth of equipment, bought entirely with earni‘jgs from spare-time work while he was taking our course.
MR. VIRGIL REDGATE, of Hutchinson, Kans. (bottom right-hand photo), began doing professional analysis on commission, even before he completed his course. . He is also the inventor of several devices and processes used in photog- raphy.
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THE MAGAZINE OF PROPHETIC FICTION
Vol. 2, No. 4
Publication Office, 404 North Wesley Ave., Mt. Morris, 111.
Editorial and General Offices, 96-98 Park Place, New York City. ggp
Published by
STELLAR PUBLISHING CORPORATION
H. GERNSBACK, Pres. S. GERNSBACK, Treas. I. S. MANHEIMER, Secy,
SEPTEMBER, 1930
Table of Contents — September
THE WAR LORD OF VENUS
By Frank J. Bridge 294
Across thirty million miles and iifty million years they traveled to battle for the supremacy of a great ivorldt
IN 20,000 A.D.!
By Nat Schachner and Arthur L. Zagat..310
The revolt had come ... but then the great Jed threw over that mob his magnetic Power . . .
THE TRAGEDY OF SPIDER ISLAND
By Captain S. P. Meek, U.S.A 324
Against those monsters the rays had no longer their force . . . and xvhcn the tom-toms began beating , . .
THE KING OF THE BLACK BOWL
By R. F. Starzl 334
Cut oif by a wall of Nothingness , . , the great city lay helpless . . .
A RESCUE IN SPACE
By Lowell Howard Morrow 346
Third prize winner AIR WONDER STORIES Cover Contest
THE TORPEDO TERROR
By Edsel Newton 356
Across the nation sped those dreaded agents of destruction and terror . . . until the word was flashed . . .
WHAT IS YOUR SCIENCE KNOWLEDGE? 323
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 369
THE READER SPEAKS— LETTERS FROM READERS 370
ON THE COVER
this month from “The Tragedy of Spider Island,” by Captain Meek, we see the scientist’s youn^ daughter in the toils of the monster spider while her savior is attempting by means of the ray tube to fight off the gigantic animal. The animal’s size was produced by means of the secret treatments of the girl’s father.
NEXT MONTH
THE LIZARD MEN OF BUH-LO, by Francis Flagg. This author is probably the master writer of stories of time and di- mension traveling. His present effort, a dimensional travel story is undoubtedly one of his most unusual; and it has that quality that so many stories lack — naturalness. There is nothing strained and artificial about his characters or their strong experiences. They seem human and the things they do are real and convincing.
THE EMPIRE IN THE SKY, by Ralph W. Wilkins. Here is a truly different story of future aviation, the kind that delighted the hearts of future aviation lovers. It is well established theory that some of the ancient races — such as those who inhabited Atlantis — possessed a tremendous amount of scientific knowledge of things of which we are ignorant. If the catastrophe that engulfed that unfortunate nation had not occurred, perhaps we today might be in possession of secrets which would change our entire civilization! In this thrilling story of mystery and intrigue we get a picture of a nation which might have existed.
BEYOND THE UNIVERSE, by J. Harvey Haggard. This is the fourth and final prize winning story of the AIR WONDER STORIES COVER CONTEST. This story by its unusual idea, illustrates what a stir to the imagination Paul’s cover picture of the February 1930 AIR WONDER STORIES must have been.
THE WAR LORD OF VENUS, by Frank J. Bridge. The second installment of this struggle for the domination of unknown Venus brings the contending forces to grips. Our intrepid space travelers have become separated by fortune or fate, and now each of them is engaged in a desperate battle for his very preservation. Many astonishing things are due to occur in this strange world where highly-trained scientists are living together with savages and men hardly higher than the ape!
AND OTHERS.
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290
WONDER STORIES
291
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Why work at dull, uninteresting jobs that will never pay you more than $35, $M) or perhaps $50 a week? Make up your mind NOW and become a master of electricity! Train in 12 easy weeks to hold down the kind of a job that pays $60 and up a week, and which creates a constant demand for your services nearly any place in the world!
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small books, illustrated by artist Paul, are I printed ob a aood grade of paper. Tbey contain X brand new stories never publlsned before In any magaalne.
Each book (size 6x8 in.) contains one or two etories by a well'known scientific fiction author.
^ pbom mars
By Jack Williamson end MIlea i. Breuer 2— THE THOUfiHT PROJECTOR By David H. Keller. M.O.
8— AN ADVENTURE IN VENUS By R. hfiebelmere 4->WHEN the sun went OUT By Leslie Stone
6— THE BRAIN OF THE PLANET By Lilith Lorraine 6<->WHEN THE MOON FELL By Charles H. Celladay 7-.THE MECHANICAL MAN By Amelia Reye^ds Long
.^^e^age of tbe robot is just dawning and some of its infinite possibilities. Miss Long dips into It In this liirUllng story.
THE THOUGHT STEALER <Beok 7)
By Frank BMirne
That It may be possible, scanetlme in the future, for a brilliant scientist to penetrate the minds of others and examine their thoughts. Is the theme of this engrossing stor;^,:
8^TH£ TORCH OF RA . .By Jaek Bradley
Ail about us lias a tremendous amount of untouched powp; in the sun, in the cosmic rays, etc. This power, if obtained and concentrated, might be put to great use.
THE VALLEY OF THE GREAT RAY ^ By Pansey E. Black
We know very little about tfi« real potentialities of matter. There may be great civilizations that have found and utilized these potentialitlea far beyond Our own conception.
lO^THE ELIXIR
^ . By H. W. Hlgglnsen
Brain power Is often dependent on the infiuences et our glands. By proper aUmulatton of some kind. It may be possible in the future to produce great geniuses.
II— THE THOUGHT TRANSLATOR
, i. . Mortb, Eharl*
Mental telepathy is becoming generally accepted as an accomplished fact. Some of its uses, espeMally by mechanical means, may be very tragic or very amusing. THE CREATION (Book II)
V . By ”• “fton MItcholl It should be possible in the future to create living beings synthetically, and when this is done, there will be some amazing results.
12— THE LIFE VAPOR „ .By Clyde Farrar Mr. Farrar Is evidently an expert In Ms subject. He Shows how, by proper control, it may be possible to change the entire course of human life.
THIRTY MILES DOWN (Book 12)
By D, D. Sharp
Wpat lies far beneath the surface of the earth, still remains quite a mystery to us. Mr. Sharp has erected a rather amazing theo^.
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THE WAR LORD OF VENUS
JT has been said that Venus is probably in the same stage of its ^ evolution as the earth was fifty million years ago. What a fas- cinating subject for a story is the experiences of interplanetary explorers on such a strange, young world! The possibilities for adventures are endless, and our author makes use of them to con- struct a fast-moving, breath-taking mystery story.
{Illustration by Marchioni)
|E were lolling in Von Kressen’s library, he and I, and the principal topic of conversa- tion was the new comet that had been recently discovered at the observatory of Paris.
'Comets are funny things,” I informed the Von, who
had at one time been head of the ob- servatory of Berlin. “Seems they’re made of gas and electricity; isn’t that right ?”
“Rare gases, yes. And it is true that there seem to be electrical radiations present in comets.”
“And its tail is turned by the press- ure of sunlight. Hmph! Feathers haven’t got a look-in for lightness, compared to a comet’s tail, eh? Say, how does light get that powerful, any- way?” I wanted to know.
The German leaned forward in his rocker. “I’m glad you asked that ques- tion— ^that’s just what I’ve been study- ing for some time now. The repulsive force of light is due to — what shall I call it? I could hardly say emanation, because light itself is an emanation — but, the thing is — a certain ultra- violet ray, the identity of which I keep secret for a reason you will eventually learn, possesses the power to repulse tiny particles of matter. It is the pro- pulsive power of this ultra-violet ray that turns the train of a comet away from the sun. I have isolated this ray, condensed it, and made several experi- ments with it. I found that the action is effective only when electrical vibra- tions are combined with this radiation. The electricity in a comet’s head gives this secret ultra-violet wave the power to keep the gases forming the tail pointing away from the central luminary.
“From tests made in my laboratory, I know that this ray, when isolated, condensed, and combined with cer- tain electrical waves, has the power to lift enormous weights from the ground. I have lifted as much as one hundred pounds a distance of three feet from the floor. And that was only a small apparatus, and not a very powerful beam, compared to the tremendous energy that could be accumulated.”
I was silent a moment. “Whew !” I exclaimed then, “think of having this stuff to run our automobiles and airplanes ! Would it cost much to bridle this energy?” “No. After the apparatus to accumulate it is constructed, the energy itself would cost practically
295
296
W O N D E R STORIES
nothing. In fact, as soon as I can accumulate more of these rays, I expect to undertake a voyage to the planets — Venus first.”
“Well,” I laughed, “I suppose you’ve got the whole trip mapped out? Probably even know what to name your star-flyer.”
“I haven’t all the necessary details, but I’m going to name my machine the Flying Dutchman.”
“And the public will call you Von Kressen, the Fly- ing Dutchman,” I opinioned.
“The public will know nothing about it until it is all over. First, because others might learn my secret and beat me to an interplanetary voyage, and second, be- cause I don’t intend to be laughed at if my machine should fail to operate. Knowing you as a writer, Marx, I realize that you will be aching to spill the story to the public. Very well, you may narrate the events of the journey, but I absolutely forbid you to publish the details concerning the ultra-violet ray which will be the propulsive power of the star-ship.”
“Narrate the events of the journey?” I echoed. “Are you taking me with you?”
“Certainly. You wouldn’t miss an interplanetary voyage for all the wealth in the world, I know that. Be- sides, in your role as explorer, archae- ologist, and historian, you will be of inestimable value to us.”
“Who’s all going?” I wanted to know.
“You; Parri, the French astron- omer; Throck; and I.”
“When’s this going to be?” I demanded.
The Von shrugged his shoulders.
“Date indefinite — but as soon as I can build my space-ship.”
♦ *
Four months passed. I had put in the time exploring a newly dis- covered cliff dwelling in Arizona, which dated back about six thousand years. Then, loaded down with ancient pots, vases, spear-heads, and stone axes, I returned to the Archaeological Department of the Na- tional Institute at Washington, deposited my findings and reports, and called on Von Kressen.
After the greetings, I asked how the proposed trip to Venus was coming.
“Fine!” he assured me. “At my farm in Germany the Flying Dutchman is nearly finished, and my ray- reservoirs are filled. A great many of the necessary machines are finished, and in about a month I expect to have the ship assembled, provisioned, and ready to start. ' You’d better get a leave of absence immediately, else they’ll send you off to God knows where, and we’d have to wait until you return before we could start for Germany.”
“Why Germany?” I questioned. “Can’t you bring your contraption to this country?”
“I could bring it over here all right, but since the coming transit of Venus is invisible in America, and since I have a definite reason for starting our trip during that transit, the most advisable course for us to follow
is to leave for my farm in eastern Germany, where the transit will take place exactly at noon of June eighth.”
The Party Complete
ACTING upon his suggestion, I presented myself at xjL the Institute and asked for a leave of absence of indefinite duration, saying that a friend of mine pro- posed a trip to a locality he forbade me to divulge. I said, however, that should we find anything of archaeo- logical or anthropological value, I would present these to the institution, provided my friend permitted me.
The Chief raised a big kick at first, stating that he’d had a trip to Greenland all plotted for me, and now I was going away on some half-baked expedition and leaving him flat. But after I had argued and expostu- lated with him for about forty minutes, he at length consented to let me go.
Immediately I returned to the home of the astron- omer and physicist, and informed him that I was free to accompany him. Just then the door opened and another friend of ours, Raoul Parri, a French astronomer, entered.
“Say,” was his first demand, after we had exchanged greetings, “is this a pay-as-you-enter proposition? What’s our fare ? How much do you charge us poor devils per mile?”
“Answering your first question, I may state that this is a pray-zs-yon- enter proposition, and therefor all heathens and untutored savages are emphatically excluded. Since I some- what doubt your ability to pray, I am in something of a quandary as to the advisability of taking you along on this precarious undertaking. As to your fare — well, let me see — I should charge you one cent a mile, making each ticket $260,000.00, but I’ll let it go for a quarter million straight,” the Von affably informed us. “Do you want upper or lower berth?”
“Aw, can that nonsense,” I growled.
The Frenchman turned toward me. “He said he’s got a wave — he’d better quit hanging around beauty parlors, don’t you think? The old boy is fifty, isn’t he? And yet he insists on having a permanent wave put into his venerable locks. Young ideas. I’ll bet I could count all the hairs on his head on the fingers of one hand.”
“Sure,” agreed Von Kressen, running his hand through the grey mane that covered his head, “if you could count that far. Well,” he said, business-like now, “are you boys coming along or do I go alone to Venus ?”
“De Milo?” asked Parri. Then to me, “We’d better go along to take care of him. If he sees some of these proverbial Venusian beauties sporting around in Sylvan glades, et cetera, he’s liable to think he’s Apollo, or Adonis, or somebody else of that clan. I’d hate to think of some mermaid luring him to playing tag with the sharks.”
Von Kressen spoke up. “There’s one more going with us — Dr. Wilbur Throck, the English physician
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and bacteriologist.”
“Holy Smokes 1 Are you trying to establish a League of Nations on Venus?” I queried.
“Throck might come in handy,” replied the German.
“How?” asked Parri.
“From what little we know about Venus, it’s quite likely that the existing atmospheric conditions breed diseases unknown to us on Earth. So if we have someone with us who is versed in bacteriology we have a chance of overcoming these sicknesses. Throck, hav- ing a good knowledge of terrestrial bacteria and in- fusoria, can more readily cope with any strange ones vve may encounter on Venus,” explained the German.
Raoul turned a wry face to me. “Hear that? Wants to go flying around the stars just to study bugs and germs. If I want to contract any disease, I’ll just spend a couple of days in a nice stinky swamp with a bunch of playful mosquitos for company.”
Presently Throck came in.
“Hang it all — do I hear correctly that you, Mr. Von Kressen, are contemplating an interspatial voyage to Venus?” he asked.
“You do not hear correctly. You heard correctly. I advise you to wind your watch. It is twenty minutes since I ’phoned to you,” the Von corrected the new- comer.
After a minute’s silence during which Throck di- gested this, the Englishman spoke up again, demanding what our host meant "by “going to Venus — hang it all.” Von Kressen waved us to several chairs and prepared to give us again the basic principles of his idea. He said, in short:
“I had always wondered what gave light the power to press a comet’s train away from the source from which the light emanated. It is commonly supposed that this is a manifestation of the electro-magnetic ac- tion of light, and I believe so myself. All light has this repulsive power to some extent, but a certain range of ultra-violet waves possesses this power to a greater extent than any other wavelength, visible or invisible.
“I managed to isolate, confine and condense these waves, and learned that if a certain range of electrical waves was sent through it, this ultra-violet ray would become active in its repulsive power. Its intensity, and consequently its action, can be controlled in one way by the kinds of windows used.
“In a recent experiment, I succeeded in lifting five tons from the ground, using a gypsum window two millimeters thick, a comparatively weak ultra-violet beam, and not the best range of electrical rays. This last experiment shows me that it will be easy to lift twenty or thirty tons, using clear, colorless fluorite win- dows one millimeter thick, a powerful ultra-violet beam, and a powerful electrical vibration. This leaves the construction of my space-flyer a mere matter of mechanical detail, and that, as you know, is nearly completed.”
There was a moment of silence, during which the Von permitted the weight of his words to sink into our minds. Then we scraped our chairs, looked at one an- other, then at our host. Presently he spoke again.
“Professional jealousy, I must admit, has kept me from giving my invention to the world. I want to
amuse myself with it first, then, if I desire, the world may have my secret. In choosing my companions for the Venusian voyage, you will have observed that out of a dozen fairly close friends, I have taken only acquaintances who may be useful in such an expedition. I, as inventor of the machine, must of course go along. Raoul Parri here is to take control of the space-ship while I rest. Dr. Throck can take care of our bodily ills during the voyage and on our sister planet. His work is to inoculate us against diseases, if we should be stricken with any, provided that they come within his scope of knowledge and study. Kenneth Marx is taken as historian of the trip ; and in his knowledge of archaeology and anthropology can inform us as to what races of people we may come in contact with — assum- ing, of course, that there are human forms on Venus.
“From his experience he knows considerable of the psychology of ancient races, and we can prepare for battle or peace, whichever he tells us is a characteristic of the human forms we may meet. Lastly, as a veteran explorer and hunter, he can give a good deal of in- formation as to geological conditions, botanical life forms ; he is versed in the symptoms of diseases in different climes, and as he is an excellent shot, can bring in food for us, as well as take command of the party should we brush against any savage tribes on the surface of the yellow planet.”
I must confess that his enumeration of my virtues sounded good, but that I am a hypocrite is evinced by the fact that I acted embarrassed when I was in reality enjoying his eulogy of my prowess.
Finally the meeting broke up. Von Kressen remind- ing us to collect the clothes we thought necessary; as well as the implements and tools that advertised our professions. I had told Von Kressen to buy a number of heavy rifles, shotguns, and revolvers, while I took my personal guns, and managed to procure four auto- matic rifles and a machine gun from the War Depart- ment of the Government, after proving that I was a Government employee, bound on a dangerous exploring expedition. There was a good deal of red tape to go through — ^the bothersome official wanted to know where I was going, and so on, and I had the very devil of a time keeping the truth from him.
At last my share of the final preparations was com- pleted, as were those of my companions. The Flying Dutchman had been finished, and only a few of the interior fixtures and necessities awaited installation, as I learned from the Von, who had received a cable to that effect from a friend in Germany, who had under- taken the construction of the star-ship. It would take about a week more and we would sail for Europe and our Great Adventure.
CHAPTER II
Getting Ready
That last week seemed to be the longest I ever suffered. Contrary to the expectation that a lot of last-minute details would keep me occupied and in a flurry of excitement, the hasty accumulation of my supplies in the preceding weeks left me high-strung and chafing at the prolonged inactivity.
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And then!
The ’phone tinkled insistently. I grabbed it eagerly. I reckoned it would be the Von, but even if not, any message would be welcome to break the nerve-straining monotony.
“Hello Ken!” came the voice of the Flying Dutch- man, as I occasionally termed the inventor of that machine.
“Hello I shouted baek eagerly.
“Come over seven o’clock tomorrow morning so we can take a train and make the City of Weyland from Norfolk in the afternoon. We leave the States at three forty, and steam without a stop till Liverpool. From there we take the yaeht Gull to Bremen. Then to my Bauernhof. In ten days you’ll see the Flying Dutch- man. Bye-bye. Put in a little sleep tonight.”
Despite his admonition, I doubt if I slept a wink that night. I heard the church clocks strike every hour, and I don’t think I dozed between times either. And at four-thirty in the morning I was up, washing, dress- ing, and gulping down a brief breakfast of bread and milk, the latter still cold from the ice in the milkman’s wagon, and left scarce ten minutes before.
While the ensuing two hours dragged by I gathered all my luggage, ordered a cab for a little before seven, and waited. At last my watch registered fifteen min- utes to seven, and the cab drew up outside. I charged out of the house, fired my bags into the machine, locked my rooms (my little cottage, rather), bounded into the car, and was swirled away to the Von’s home.
Seven minutes later I dashed into the German’s library, where I found him conversing with the im- patient Frenchman and the bacteriologist. As soon as we had greeted, we again went to the respective cabs that had brought us hither, and were driven to our rail- way station, where we waited impatiently for the train that was to take us to Norfolk and our steamer. Once on the train, each of us inventoried the various articles he had brought along, and then assured that all was in proper order, we begave ourselves to silence and earnest reflections concerning our approaching adventure.
Promptly at three-forty the ship’s screws began to churn the water beneath, and with the assistance of several tugs we left the harbor in orderly manner. I need not recount the five uneventful days we passed in crossing the Atlantic, for each one of us had made the trip at least once, and there was nothing new in it. We made our change at Liverpool, and early in the morning of the eighth day since we last gathered at the Von’s house, we arrived at Bremen. Here we experienced more trouble with the German authorities, but at length we got through this also, and in the fol- lowing two days we traveled through the length of the German republic to the Von’s farm, where all was in readiness for our star-trip.
“Well,” smiled our host, the morning after we had arrived, “I imagine you are somewhat anxious to see the Flying Dutchman, yes?” He waved a hand at the barn wherein the star-shell was kept. With Throck, Parri, and mysel| chattering excitedly, he led us toward it.
The Flying Dutchman
Arriving at the structure, our friend opened a . door and led us to a great workshop built into the barn. The room was about forty feet long by thirty wide, and along one wall lay a great thing of shining metal. Van Kressen switched on the electric lights, and then led us toward the glistening, submarine-like object. Looking at it from the outside, it was slightly more than thirty feet long, and not quite spherical in shape. Rather, it was flattened on top and bottom. Its crosswise diameter was perhaps fifteen feet, and its vertical diameter about twelve. At each of the rounded ends was a circular window about two feet in diameter. Starting from these two points ran four rows of smaller windows about one foot in diameter each. One row ran along the top of the projectile, another just opposite it, along the ship’s keel, so to speak. On each side, midway between the top and bottom rows, ran another. Circling the shell in the middle ran a similar row, while about five feet from each end, just where the flyer tapered to the rounded extremities, another row of fluorite windows encircled the metal monster. Thus it was possible to discharge the repulsive light in prac- tically every direction, creating a propulsion in the opposite way.
So much for outward appearances.
Within, the form was similar to the outside, though of course in lesser dimensions. Its inside diameter measured twelve feet horizontally and nine feet ver- tically, and its length was thirty feet. Between the inner and the outer shells was a space free of matter, but which contained the imprisoned propulsive rays. Von Kressen never divulged how he could retain a wave-motion captive like matter, but I think that the chambers into which the ultra-violet light was directed simply reflected the waves indefinitely from wall to wall.
Lining the walls were box-like tanks which held more of these rays of propulsion ; at the forward and at the rear ends (I say forward and rear, though there was no distinction, the ship being built to run one way as well as the other) were air tanks. There was a unique sort of ventilating system within the car also — the air issuing from the forward tanks was slowly swept back- ward by an artificially induced draft, and the bad air we exhaled was taken baek to a sort of filtering ap- paratus, which divided the exhaled gas into its com- ponent parts. These were later reunited in correet proportion, the necessary amount of oxygen added, and passed forward, where it was released again for re- breathing. Thus we could breathe the same air over and over, without discomfort, and only a small amount of the various gases had to be taken along.
Running along the sides, the top, the bottom, and around the flyer in three places were searchlights — anyway, they looked like searchlights — one of them under each of the fluorite windows. These lamps pro- jected the repulsive rays and the electrical waves into space. There was a shutter-arrangement in them, so that the escaping beam was ejected in a series of in- visible flashes, each “kick” shoving the Flying Dutch- man in the opposite direction. The wires controlling
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the lights ran behind the walls or .under the floor, gath- ering under a table in the middle of the ship. The top of the table looked something like a telephone switch- board, for there were many numbered keys on it, these running in four rows in the direction of the flyer’s length, two isolated keys on either end, and three rows ran at right angles to the others. Each of these keys controlled one of the projectors behind the fluorite windows. A quick press on one would cause one “ex- plosion” of the corresponding lamp; holding the key down caused a continuous stream of emanation until the key was let up ; and if a steady flow of propulsion were desired, a little metal clip held the key down until released.
At one end of the machine was a little room con- taining two berths and a supply of food, another at the other end contained two berths and an equal amount of food. In the central room were the armament closets, bookshelves, and the little kitchenette.
Our survey completed, we filed out of the ship and turned toward the Von.
“Tomorrow, at noon, gentlemen. Noon — just when VTnus is in conjunction.”*
We nodded, and with final glances at the metal ship with the name Flying Dutchman painted in English on its prow — or was it the prow ? — left the barn in silence.
Noon, June 8th, 2004!
Congregated within a well-lighted chamber in a metal space-flyer were four men — Ludwig Von Kressen, the German astronomer and physicist; Raoul Parri, the French astronomer; Wilbur Throck, the English phy- sician and bacteriologist ; and I, Kenneth Marx, Amer- ican archaeologist, explorer, and author. The Flying Dutchman lay in the open field behind the barn, about it crowded a curious mob, held back by the dozen work- men Von Kressen had employed in constructing the star-ship.
The inventor moved the intensity-lever on the instru- ment table, and carefully selected the keys with which he would open the voyage to our planetary neighbor, 26,000,000 miles away.
Bong !
The single stroke from the clock on the wall was the signal.
Confident in his ability, the Von pressed several keys. The rocket tilted at an angle of about 45 degrees; we clutched at various objects to keep from falling; then suddenly the star-flyer leaped upward, jarring us from our holds, to fall into a tumbled heap at the rear end of the ship. Von Kressen was in a sling fastened to the operating table, and so did not share the misfortune of Parri, Throck, and myself. Realizing that we were as well off as possible in our present position, we three remained there, while the rocket slowly assumed an angle of 90 degrees to the plane of the field we had just left.
We were on our way to the yellow planet, Venus, hidden behind her veil of dense clouds. Yes, we were on our way — ^to what?
* Venus is in a direct line between the earth and the sun.
CHAPTER III
Off to Venus I
Five minutes slipped away. Then Von Kressen looked down at us where we were tumbled against the rear wall of the control cabin.
“Kenneth, you and Raoul go down into your room and look in your bunks. You’ll find a sort of harness there ; put ’em on, then come back and I’ll tell you how to use ’em.”
I crawled to the doorway of the rear “bedroom,” which Parri and I shared, and dropped through. Hang- ing from a hook on the side of my upright berth I found a belt about three inches wide, on the outside of which were many small quartz bulbs from which emanated the now familiar repulsive ray. Over the shoulders fitted two straps which placed the ray-belt slightly above the trouser belt, while a number of shorter straps could be attached to the waist belt, keep- ing the strip of bulbs always rigid. The whole belt was about an inch thick.
When we had fitted these “harnesses” about us, Parri and I clambered up the rope ladder that dangled into our room, into the central cabin.
“All set,” I told the Von.
“Well, do you see that metal box on the front of the belt? If you want to rise, move that little lever to the right — ^the faster you want to rise, the further you move it beyond that middle point marked ‘N.’ When you want to descend, move the lever to the left, toward ‘S.’ And when you want to remain stationary, wherever you are, put that lever at ‘Neutral.’ I just finished those belts personally yesterday, so I couldn’t explain ’em to you then. Now suppose you go up to my room and bring down the belts for Throck and me?”
Parri and I slowly moved our control levers to a little past the Neutral point, and slowly we ascended into the air of the upright room. We floated upward past Von Kressen at the instrument table, through a doorway above our heads, and then we shoved the levers to N as we took down the belts hanging on the berths, next we shoved them to a little left of N, and gracefully descended again. Parri handed the Ger- man’s belt to him as we drifted down, while I came to rest beside Throck, and assisted him in adjusting his harness.
Then I placed my lever to N, and moved easily about the room, propelling myself with slight pushes on the walls. The sensation was not just as if one weighed nothing, for gravity still affected one, but it was un- necessary to exert one’s muscles much in order to travel gently from point to point.
The Skipper, as we distinguished Von Kressen occa- sionally, had adjusted his own harness and now crawled out of the leathern sling that had been his seat.
“We’re doing fine now,” he said — “2,083 1/3 miles per second ! In eight minutes we’ll have gone a million miles. At this rate we should land on Venus in 3 hours 28 minutes — about three and three-quarters, consider- ing that we’ll slow down while driving through the planet’s atmosphere.”
He wafted himself aloft to fuss with the air tanks, while I, curious to know how he could measure his
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speed in space, floated to the speedometer and the vari- ous instruments that controlled it.
The instrument is in a way the largest in the car. At the front end of the ship, slightly above the fluorite propulsion window, is a lens, which can be turned in any direction except down and back. Behind the lens is a small telescope, which was now fixed on the sun, and some inches from the eyepiece was a screen, on which was thrown an image of the luminary. Cross- ing the screen in the middle, at right angles to each other are two wires of a greyish metal which the Von later told me are selenium. Fastened to the under side of the wires, and leading out of the screen through an almost invisible slit, are a number of very, very fine silver wires, which run to an electric calculator the iVon had devised. The most important part of this calculating machine is a clock, which is connecte^ to the various other parts of the machine. From the clock on the wall of the cabin, other connections lead to the calculator. The figures which the machine auto- matically clips out are reproduced on two dials on the instrument board, the one giving the distance traveled, and the other the speed.
My inspection of this apparatus finished, I gave my- self a shove and glided toward the Von, who was shoving aside a metal, circular plate on the wall. Then he touched a button, and another plate outside the ship flew back, enabling us to see beyond, into the starry void without.
Rapidly dropping away from our stern was the Earth, a gigantic disk, of which we could see about half, from our position high up on the side of the ship, filling about a third of the window. In a few seconds it sank from our view altogether, and we looked only on the multitude of stars that shone steadily through the eternal night.
The Landing!
A MINUTE passed since we had reached the pace that the Skipper would maintain throughout the journey — 2,083 1/3 miles a second — and the distance meter informed us that we had gone 125,000 miles in that time. The thought stunned me. Five times around the Earth at the equator, in one minute!
That minute drew itself out into two, three, four, five — eight minutes, and a million miles had slipped away beneath us. Throck, Parri, and I floated before a number of “open” windowlj^ and regarded the star- strewn depths of infinity that yawned on every hand; the Skipper hovered between the instrument table and the eyepiece of a long refracting telescope that aided him in steering the Flying] Dutchman through the Cimmerian void.
Thus the minutes dragged themselves into an hour, that hour into another, and presently into another. We grew excited again as we realized that another half hour would find us plunging through the atmosphere of our sister planet, now less than four million miles away from our projectile. Now the Skipper began “explod- ing” the forward lights to act as brakes, and our per second speed, in fifteen minutes, decreased to five hun- dred miles. The rear lights were shut off altogether, and only the forward projector was used, so that we
STORIES
entered the upper strata of the Venusian atmosphere at the easy rate of one mile a second.
Came a dive through two hundred miles of air, and then we struck the water of a great sea fading away on every side to a cloud-veiled horizon we knew not how distant, but which we knew must be about as far as a Terrestrial horizon because of Venus’s similar dimensions.
“A perfect trip, fellow-voyagers ! Three hours, forty-six minutes, and thirty-seven seconds to travel 26,010,713 miles. We will drive along the surface of this sea until we find some solid ground upon which we can disembark and set foot for the first time upon this planet, whose dense clouds have veiled her in per- petual mystery.”
So spoke Von Kressen to us where we stared out of the portholes at the restless, slowly swelling sea that lay about us. He touched the button that controlled the propulsive ray of the rear fluorite window, and we glided forward while the grey waters behind were churned and sprayed and torn by the power of the mysterious, though common emanation that our captain had made his obedient slave.
“Hang it all — give us some of the salient facts about Venus,” suggested Throck, “so that we can prepare ourselves for the unusual conditions existing upon this planet.”
“Venus,” began the Von obligingly, “is the second planet of the Solar system, for as yet no one has proved the existence of the mythical Vulcan, which was at one time supposed to revolve about the sun within the orbit of Mercury. Venus is 7,700 miles in diameter, is 67,200,000 miles distant from the sun, revolves about it in 225 of our days, and its own day is 23 hours, 21 minutes long. The inclination of its axis is level with the plane of its orbit, that is to say, the planet rolls on its side like a ball, so to speak, and always keeps its poles pointing in one direction. Thus at one point of its orbit, the planet’s North pole is pointed directly at the sun, and is the hottest part of the globe. At the immediately opposite side of the orbit the South pole points directly at the sun, while halfway between these two points the equator reaches the place nearest the great luminary. It is presumed to harbor creatures such as existed on our own Earth in past ages, but this assumption has yet to be verified.”
“It is verified,” broke in Parri, pointing out of a window, “Look!”
We crowded about him and looked out over the water. Twenty feet distant from us a shovel-shaped head towered and swayed on top of a long, thin, snake- like neck. It was the first living plesiosaurus that I had ever seen, but I had to marvel how our paleontologists had succeeded in reconstructing this creature with such wonderful accuracy.
Suddenly another creature shot down from the low- lying, rain-filled clouds; a gigantic pterodactyl, with a perfectly enormous wing-spread. Fully seventy feet stretched the great wings, as their possessor shot at the long neck of the plesiosaur. But the other dived its head and neck under the water, there came the churn of the great flaps, and the creature was gone. The long, toothed jaw of the flying lizard entered the water
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after the sea-reptile, apparently found a hold, and in a moment the entire pterodactyl had followed the other into the ocean. A moment later the attacker reappeared on the surface of the water, stretched its leathery wings, and soared away with a good-sized chunk of meat in its dripping beak.
“Say, don’t you think we’d better get away from this locality? If any plesiosaurus or ichthyosaurus should slam up against our fluorite windows, they’d smash the whole projector, then how would we get back to Earth?” I said.
“By Golly, you’re right, Marx. We’d better move on,” this from the Skipper. He moved the intensity lever, pushed a button, and we rose from the water, to fly in a westerly direction at a distance of perhaps a hundred yards from the surface of the planet.
“Hang it all, do you think all Venus is covered with water, and has no land at all?” Throck asked me.
“I don’t believe so. The pterodactyl, while amphi- bious to a slight extent, cannot altogether live on water, and so it is quite likely that there are places where the ocean floor is above the surface of the sea,” I replied.
The First Man on Venus
Perhaps a thousand miles had passed beneath us, in about ten hours, when land loomed up dimly through the distant mist. A moment later we were sinking to a level field on a low mesa, while below and around it flourished a great jungle of the Mesozoic age. ' In a little clearing of the tumbled maze three fierce- looking triceratops were feeding on the lush jungle grasses that grew about them, and a hundred yards away a great ceratosaurus fed on the carcass of a freshly killed trachodon. Now a titanic allosaurus leaped upon a long-necked, peaceful diplodocus, and here a nimble thescelosaurus battled with a sluggish-moving stegosaur. On every side Life and Death moved hand in hand; the more peaceful, herbivorous lizards gave up their lives that the fierce meat-eaters might live.
Everywhere was shown the first inexorable law of Nature — Death must be present that Life might con- tinue. Thus it has always been, thus it must always be.
Now we had come to rest upon the soft loam that covered the little plateau, and the momentous question was — who would have the inestimable honor of first setting foot on savage Venus? First Parri, Throck, and I had voted that the Von, being the inventor of the space-ship, should first step out upon the planet, but he said that as each one of us secretly desired the honor, every one should have an equal chance, so he brought out a deck of cards. These he shuffled and placed face down on the table.
“Whoever cuts the highest card,” he said.
Parri cut first — and brought up the Queen of Clubs. We agreed that he had the case pretty well cinched, but I drew, nevertheless. And I was glad I did — for I brought up the King of Hearts. Throck cut after me — and came out with the King of Diamonds! We would have to cut over again. Now Von Kressen cut the deck, but had only the seven of spades.
The deck was shuffled again, and again I cut.
Trey of Clubs! Bah!^
Throck laughed. “Hang it all, boys, open the door
for me!” he grinned as his hand moved to the deck. He cut, held it face down a moment. “Hang it all, I think I’ll take possession in the name of the King of England,” he ruminated. You see, Throck had at the time of our planning the interspatial trip been studying the methods of American physicians, so was still a loyal British subject.
“Turn up the cards — for God’s sake, don’t keep us waiting,” exclaimed Parri.
With a confident smile Throck turned up the cards in his hand very slowly, and showed — ^the Deuce of Spades !
“Wheeeeeeeeee !” I shrieked, and dashed to the arma- ment closet, where I unslung an automatic rifle and buckled my six-shooter about me. The others followed my example, and then I stepped to the door of the Flying Dutchman. Von Kressen opened it, and I stepped through and my foot touched the moist loam that covered the little mesa. A queer emotion strug- gled within me — ^the first man to step upon the planet Venus.
Behind me was Throck, then came Parri, and lastly Von Kressen. We were all assembled together outside the star-traveler, while above us circled half a dozen pterodactyls — like the ghosts of a time and a world long since dead and forgotten.
“Ten million years into the past,” breathed the French astronomer as he looked up at them, “Ten mil- lion years!”
CHAPTER IV
A Killing
The temperature of the planet was about 95 de- grees F., I imagined, and the high percentage of humidity made one feel sticky, bloated, uncom- fortable. The air was throbbing with a hundred dif- ferent sounds — ^the humming and buzzing of a million insects ; the harsh, discordant cries and the voluminous hissings of a dozen nearby saurians; the gurgle and swish of a running brook ; the low thunder of the surf half a mile away; the whispers of the lush ferns and grasses; the groaning of the more solid trees as they bent beneath the whispering, moaning, soughing breezes. All this magnified by the dense water-vapor in the thick Venusian atmosphere.
“Well?” I laughed, turning to the Skipper, “What now ?”
“We will explore. You and Raoul can go first — just see if there is any way we could be attacked up here.”
“Hmph !” growled Parri, as he and I began a circuit of the little plateau, “Hear that? He’s looking for a fight already. Wants to know if anybody can come up here and start a scrap.”
Presently we came to a natural stairway that led to and from the mesa. It was narrow and steep, so that any party of fnen climbing or descending it had to do so carefully and in single file. At the base of the cliff, which was about a hundred feet higher than the level of the ground beneath, several trees lifted their heads to the rim of our sanctum, but we did not deem it likely that anything would be able to reach the table-
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land from them.
Coming back to the Flying Dutchman, we held a council at which it was finally agreed that two men should take one of the small movie cameras and sally forth into the primeval Mesozoic jungle to obtain pho- tographic specimens of dinosaurs, as proof of our journey, to be used as soon as I opened the narrative to the public. So Throck and I set forth together to gather data on the existing climatic conditions, prob- able diseases, determine how long we could stay, do a little exploring of the neighborhood, and procure pho- tographs of all animal life we encountered. Warily the physician and I descended the rocky stairway lead- ing to our haven, and entered the carboniferous forest that swayed about us.
After a hundred yards of careful stepping through low, marshy ground overgrown with tangled fern-trees and similar verdure, we came to the little brook whose gurgling we had heard on the mesa. This stream seemed to originate on a neighboring hill a little to the left of, and not quite as high as that on which the star-shell rested.
We decided to follow the stream to its starting place in the hope we would find clear water there, for at the point we came to it, the brook was stagnant, muddy, and slimy. Accordingly we set off toward the left, fol- lowing the creek, till we came to a watering-spot where in the thick, soft mud we found the footprints of nearly every form of animal life Venus harbored. Mingled with the split hoofs of the Triceratops, the talons of the flesh-eating lizards, the claws of the cave tiger, and the webbed feet of the amphibious air-reptiles we dis- cerned also the toe-marks of the small, prehistoric camel, and — ^at last — ^the footprints of the tiny, five- toed horse.
Leading away from the drinking place, on each side of the brook, was a broad path where countless creatures had come for many years and. beaten down the thick verdure in their quest for water. Taking the one on our side of the stream, we followed it some hundred feet, then branched off again to the right and the hill. This we reached after forcing our slow way through the tangled marsh plants, and found, as we expected, the brook tumbling from a narrow crevice in the soft rock. At the base of the little waterfall a pool of muddy water had accumulated, and there we saw the first truly Venusian animal. It was almost exactly like an Earthly crocodile in many aspects, with the excep- tion that on its nose was a great curving horn, like that of a rhinoceros, except that it measured only about a foot in length. The whole reptile was about twelve feet long, and its color was a greyish green.
Throck unslung the automatic camera and pressed the button. The crocodile (as we called it for the sake of convenience) had been feeding on the fern-like growths at the pool when we came up, but now, after staring at us stupidly a moment, it emitted a steam- engine hiss and slid into the water, swimming in our direction. It opened its mouth once, and I saw that both jaws were movable; its front teeth were long and sharp, while the rear were broad and flat.
As the creature neared us I moved off toward the left, Throck remaining where he was, and then taking
down my rifle, aimed carefully at the slow-moving rep- tile’s right eye and squeezed the trigger.
The crocodile gave a final lunge which carried it to our shore, where it lay still save for a spasmodic switch- ing of the strong tail. I turned toward Throck, a smile of ektion on my lips, which was at once frozen when I saw my companion tottering on the edge of the pool, both hands clutching his left shoulder, from which spurted and rushed a thick stream of blood.
I rushed to his side and caught him as he lunged forward. Then I lowered him gently to the ground and took a hasty glance across the stream. Whatever had struck him had come from that direction. But I saw nothing, and so, assuring myself that there was no other presence in the immediate vicinity, I examined the wound of the now unconscious man. It was torn, ragged, and bleeding profusely, and was about an inch deep. Correctly assuming that it had been made by a rough, angular missile — a ragged stone, no doubt — I looked about me for a sign of the weapon, and shortly espied it in the grasses to my right. It was, as I thought, a rough stone which could only have come from a sling, since not only was there no stick attached to it, but such an ungainly object when fastened to a wooden shaft would invariably swing the missile wide of its mark.
Following the Trail
WHEN I had hastily bandaged Throck’s wound with our handkerchiefs, I laid him across my shoulders and made my way carefully to the dinosaur trail, which I followed to the creek, and finally back along our first path to the mesa harboring the Flying Dutchman and our two other companions.
We placed Throck in the ship, and Von Kressen set up a sort of filtering apparatus which drew as much humidity as possible out of the air, for we desired above all else to minimize the chances of Throck’s de- veloping a dangerous fever. Screens had already been put up to keep out the thousands of insects, and we kept the air within the shell as cool as we could. Next we attended to the physician with his medical kit, braced him with a shot of quinine, and let his powerful consti- tution do the rest.
Then the Von, Parri, and I examined the rock, which I had brought along, finally agreeing that the perpe- trator had been of a race similar to that which had flourished on Earth during the third interglacial period.
By the time we had decided this we all felt hungry, and so ate our evening meal — evening on Venus as well as on Earth, for the humid atmosphere of the planet was rapidly assuming a coppery twilight that always pre- cedes the Venusian night. The sky during the night- time is either a sullen copper with a slow, warm rain, or it is excessively black save when lighted momentarily by vivid lightning flashes. But always there is rain.
The thunder crashes, as I later learned, were simply frightful, but within the car we slept very well, since no sound could carry through the vacuum space between the inner and the outer shells of the flyer, and very little seeped in at the points where there were any connections between the walls.
The dawn of our second day on Venus came, by our
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watches, about 1 :00 A. M. The Skipper cooked our breakfast, and Parri took a tray of food to the physi- cian, who was awake and doing fairly well. When we related to him what had happened and what measures we had taken in his case, he said he felt sure he could direct his treatment himself now, which he did.
For three days we seldom left the plateau, staying inside the space-ship most of the time. Then one day Parri made a trip to the neighboring hill for clear water — and did not come hack.
Since Throck was now able to walk about and help himself, it was made out that he should remain in the star-ship while the Skipper and I set out to search for our missing friend. Accordingly, each of us armed himself with an automatic rifle, a revolver, hunting knife, plenty of ammunition, while the Von also took a com- pass and a camera. Then we climbed down the cliff and made our way to the waterfall, where we expected to find signs of Parri’s recent presence. And we did. In the soft loam where Throck had been wounded four days before, we found marks of a violent struggle, sev- eral hairs which may or may not have come from Raoul’s head, and a large strip of cloth torn from his shirt. The ground was stamped by many naked feet, examina- tion of these footprints showing that the men who made them were of arboreal habits to some extent, as shown by the long toes and the slender great toe extending at an appreciable angle from the rest of the foot. I could not just place the race to which these men belonged, since I had never seen just the same footprints on Earth, but I judged that they belonged to some form of the so-called Piltdown man.
Von Kressen and I tracked the party, which num- bered seven or eight barefooted attackers, two of whom were carrying the body of Parri. Froifi the regularity of the paces we deduced that the prisoner had been lying quiet, which led us to believe he had been either unconscious or dead.
No incident of importance occurred during the day, and nothing stopped us from following the party, which made no attempt to cover its trail. We made two short stops for hasty lunches, then pushed on after the cap- tors of our friend. But they traveled fast, and although we found signs of two short rests on their part, the Venusian night overtook us ere we caught a glimpse of them.
It seemed that the elements had been waiting for nightfall, for barely had the murky twilight deepened into night than there burst on the carboniferous land- scape the most terrific storm I had ever seen. The water gushed down — ^not in sheets — ^but in solid col- umns that drenched one through and through at the initial onslaught. Fuming and cursing at the delay and the certainty that we would be unable to trail our party the next day, the Skipper and I crawled into a little hollow of rocks and divested ourselves of our heavy, soggy clothing. In a little sheltered spot in the cave we found some dry wood and this the Von placed in a little pile. The wood wasn’t really dry — ^the humid- ity of the planet keeps everything moist even in “fine” weather — ^but at least it wasn’t rain-soaked. Next my companion fumbled with his dripping clothes and pres- ently pulled out a box of safety maches. The whole
affair was as flexible as a sheet of paper from the Soak- ing it had received, but still. Von Kressen took out one of those matches and tried to light it.
“Movie of a man making a fire,” I muttered solemnly, watching little spurts of water gush from the box under the pressure of the Von’s fingers while he slithered the flexible match across the side of the pulpy box.
As the futility of his efforts became painfully ap- parent, he groaned and fired the box out into the tor- rent, while his lurid ravings were adequately expressive of his disappointment. With a generous interspersing of colorful expletive, my companion informed me that the match wouldn’t light.
“Gee, Solomon, but you’re smart! If you hadn’t told me, I’d never have known that wet matches don’t light,” was my grumbling rejoinder.
However, the rain was not cold, so we curled up on a few layers of rotting leaves, and with a playful contingent of bugs and worms for bed-partners, fell into fitful dozes. Rapidly, though, the luke-warm rain changed in temperature till it became uncomfortably chill, and we woke shuddering as with ague. Looking out we saw that the storm had lessened a trifle, but the cold water falling on the warm earth caused a steam that prevented one from seeing more than ten yards in front of one’s nose.
A Dangerous Encounter
The Skipper and I crawled together for mutual warmth, though there wasn’t much for us to impart to each other, and wrapping our damp clothing about our shoulders, waited sleeplessly through the inter- minable hours till at last the rain stopped and gave way to a sullen, lowering dawn. Donning our rumpled clothes and eating a little of our small food supply, we faced the direction we had been traveling the day be- fore, and plunged on into the forest, following the easiest routes and surmising that the Piltdown men had done the same.
But we were soon aware that we had been following false leads, for after half an hour’s march we came baffled and weary to the bottom of a steep rocky es- carpment, unable to go further.
Here we sank to the ground, and leaning our backs against the stone wall, dozed off — z proceeding that one of my experience should have known enough to avoid — fatigued as we were by the discomforts of the pre- ceding night.
Suddenly my subconscious mind gave a warning of danger, and I roused myself to see, barely twelve feet away, a great sabre-tooth tiger, analogous to the former Terrestrial species Pogonodon platycopis. It was an enormous fellow too, measuring fully fifteen feet from the outermost point of its great head to the tip of; the long tail. The coat was of tan, legs and tail dappled with round spots of a slightly deeper shade, while the top of the head and the sides of the long, lithe body were crossed by tan stripes of the same shade as the circular spots.
He was eyeing us in a peculiar manner — ^half curi- osity, half hunger. I reached for my rifle, and that decided him (as again I should have known), for he
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crouched, moaned, and leaped — a monstrous gorgon of taloned destruction — just as I pressed the trigger. With my foot I kicked the half-sleeping Skipper out of the tiger’s way, and received that mighty body full upon myself.
“Exit Marx,” I recall thinking, when that mighty mass of destruction hurtled upon me. If the size of the tiger was great when I saw it at my awakening, it seemed augmented a dozen times by the crushing weight of the beast as it flattened me out like a pancake upon the rubble at the base of the cliff. The tiger rose from my prostrate body and lurched dizzily about a moment or two, then rolled lifeless at my side. Pure luck had guided my bullet through the beast’s right eye, and it was a carcass that had hurled itself toward the Von and me.
My companion, who had been awakened by the com- bined effects of the great cat’s moan, the shot, and my vigorous kick, now stooped solicitously over me — ^keep- ing a wary eye on the still quivering carnivore — and assisted me to my feet.
“Hurt, Ken ?” he asked, his face a trifle anxious.
I shook my head while I gasped in great lungfuls of air, the tiger having relieved me of my reserve supply, and finally, coughing, choking, and with watering eyes, managed to gulp out “No.”
After I had my breath fully recovered, I lay down a bit, relaxing as well as I might in order to terminate the violent trembling that had seized me as a result of the nervous tension induced by the too sudden action. When this desire had at length been accomplished to a satisfactory degree, I arose and we stood staring into the forest, figuring the best thing to do would be to move on, whither we knew not. We shouldered our rifles and I was about to step into the lead when I be- thought me of the slain tiger and what a fine blanket its coat would make. Turning, I explained to the Von that we had better skin the dead beast and save the hide for nights like the one before. Accordingly, we knelt down and commenced skinning the great cat on the ground, though I would have preferred hanging it from a tree. But there was no tree near that looked as though it could stand the weight of the beast, which I reckoned would tip the scales at some six hundred pounds at the least.
The Skipper wrinkled his nose during the process, and the acrid odof, I must say, was unusually strong, accentuated as it was by the high percentage of humid- ity in the air. But at last the pelt was removed, and we begave ourselves to the arduous task of tanning it. To this end we cut down four calamites, trimmed the trunks of smaller branches, and by notching and tying them together, made a frame about twelve by nine feet. On this we stretched the pelt, fur side down, and then with our hunting knives began scraping off the fat and meat from the flesh side. By nightfall we had this fairly well done, and then we looked about for a shelter.
Von Kressen found one some distance to our right — a cave worn into the cliff by the action of the winds and the rains. We lugged the hide over to it, ate a little food, and then covered the skin with several lay- ers of broad leaves in order to keep off the hosts of
hungry insects that would avail themselves of the hide’s hospitality during the night.
We slept comparatively well that night, our only annoyers being the swarms of mosquitos, ants, and flies. The next morning dawned with the promise of a “nice” day, and we were at first minded to continue after Parri and his abductors, but on second thought decided to finish the skin.
The Attack I
Beginning where we had left off the preceding day, we removed the tiger’s brain and worked it into the hide, adding the whites of several bird’s eggs the Von had found. When the skin had been made sufficiently pliable, we picked up several large rocks and with them pounded and ground down a few blocks of sandstone, making as fine a powder as we could get. Next we managed to take the lead out of a half dozen cartridges (all we dared spare), and removing the pow- der from the shells, mixed it with the pulverized sand- stone. This we sprinkled over the pelt, worked in a little, and waited for Nature to do the rest.
By noon we were finished, and I took my rifle and sallied forth into the wilderness with the intention of bagging some small animal for food, as we wished to preserve the small supply we had brought along. For fifteen minutes I slunk through the carboniferous jungle with its mighty, fern-like plants waving their monstrous fronds fifty, a hundred, and two hundred feet into the grey, rain-filled Venusian sky. Thus far I had not even glimpsed any small form of animal life, but on one occasion I dimly saw a great triceratops crash his way through the forest. Suddenly I heard a shout from the direction of camp, followed by two shots and a chorus of yells — the kind that a savage emits when he is sur- prised by some terrible, awe-inspiring monstrosity. Then came the Skipper’s familiar bellow, “Oh Marx !” I turned and ran toward camp, just skimming the larger, more substantial fern-trees, and crashing my way through the smaller growths. A score of times I tripped and fell, once nearly into the maw of the ugliest creation I had ever witnessed — a great, round, squat, slimy-looking thing with a disgusting shovel- shaped mouth that drooled fetid, slimy saliva. The creature was almost black in color, being a very dark brown, covered with warts, and in locomotion appar- ently oozed itself toward me.
Picking myself up again I ran on, bursting into the open just as the second attack began. For some min- utes I had heard the savage cries of the Von’s unknown opponents, and knew they were trying to bolster up their courage to the point where it would be strong enough to send them on a quick, though brief, fanatical dash toward my companion.
As I emerged upon the little clearing before our cave, I came to a sudden halt, fear and rage striving for mastery of my emotions. Dashing toward Von Kressen were a score of naked, white-skinned savages, while beyond them I saw the German lurch back against the wall of the cliff, firing his automatic pistol as fast as his finger could work the trigger, while from body and legs protruded four great spears, and from fifty other places he was streaming blood. He couldn’t hold out.
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of course, and he sank to the shale, firing weakly to the last.
With a bellow of wrath I jerked up my automatic rifle and began firing at the backs of the savages, my sight blurred by the tears of rage that welled up in my eyes. For a while they were getting the worst of it, my bullets mowing them down even though I did not aim carefully, until with a resounding klunh something hard and heavy landed on the back of my head.
A brief moment things began to swim before my drooping eyelids, then everything faded into nothingness.
CHAPTER V
The Cave Princess
WE were surrounded by a curious mob when I opened my eyes. The Skipper was still uncon- scious, his pain-racked body twisted into an awkward position, while over him bent a half-naked savage who was binding up my companion’s wound with broad, thick leaves. On the back of my own head was smeared a salve which I later learned was composed of a crude sort of lard, resin, and the bark, of a tree that somewhat resembled the sweet elder.
When the man had finished with my companion, he motioned three nearby warriors to carry the limp fig- ure into a large cave close by — one of several dozens that perforated a low cliff behind me.
One of the men now noticed I had my eyes open, and approached me. He jerked his head, indicating me to rise, and spoke something in a low voice. I com- plied with his request, and, surrounded by a score of jibbering savages, was marched off to the greatest cave- entrance in the face of the cliff. I looked at the men whose prisoners the Von and I were. They closely resembled the sculptured busts I had seen on Earth, of the race designated as the Cro-Magnon. They were very tall, all the men standing at least six feet, some even going up to about six-feet-eight, and the average six-feet-four. Their heads showed the same great cranial capacity as the skulls found on Terra, and were covered for the most part with thick shocks of black hair, though there were some red and some brown- haired individuals among them. The shades of these latter colors, however, were dark, the red hair being really auburij. Their faces were rather finely chiseled, and would pass as handsome anywhere on Earth. The cheek-bones were high, the chins well-developed and square. The mouths were not too large, and the lips straight and full, though not pendulous or brutal. The noses were straight and aquiline, while under the high, handsome foreheads shone intelligent eyes of brown. There were also blue and grey eyes among them, espe- cially among the women, who were themselves fairly tall, and with figures made perfect by the unfettered freedom in which they lived.
Garmenture and ornamentation varied according to the individual’s taste, with the exception that only leaders of the tribe were permitted the use of grey- black feathers fastened around their heads by snake- skins. Some of the men wore loin cloths of small rodents’ skins; others wore capes or cloaks of lion.
tiger, or the enormous Venusian cave-bear. Everyone had one or more strings of dyed animals’ teeth about his or her neck, and others had also anklets of bone, trimmed with vari-colored birds’ down.
The weapons of the men included long knives of bone or flint, fastened in a leathern sheath at the right thigh, a club or knob-stick hung from a thong at the right hip, while down the left side hung a quiver of arrows, and a little in front of that a stone axe. Across the men’s backs were slung strong bows, made of the rare hardwood that grows high up on the flanks of the great Venusian mountains. The long strong spears the men carried were also cut from this wood, which is very much like hickory.
Entering the mouth of the cave, we passed through a winding corridor illuminated at places by chunks of luminous fungus stuck into numerous little niches in the rock wall, and came presently to a great chamber lighted as the passageway. The room was roughly oval, about two hundred feet long, a hundred wide at its greatest transverse diameter, and twenty feet high. The gallery through which we had come entered the room on one side, and directly opposite the entrance was a wooden framework supporting a wooden bench, over which was spread a great bearskin.
And upon the bench sat, half -reclining, a young woman — and a very attractive young woman at that. She was garbed in the skin of a cave-tiger, wore all the smaller amulets of the lesser members of her tribe, and also wore a primitive crown of gay feathers, bound about her, head with a broad, glistening black serpent- skin. A single great Aepyornis plume, a yard long, rose from the center of her becoming head-dress.
Her hair was auburn, though in the somewhat bluish light that pervaded the chamber it seemed black. Her eyes I could not see at the distance I stood from her. Her face was beautiful though — and I know a beautiful woman when I see one.
Like most of her race, she was tall compared to most present-day Terrestrial women, measuring about five feet eight inches. Her body was slender and supple, and beneath the clear white skin rolled muscles like those of a young lioness. In the shapely right hand dangled a white wand that was her sceptre, and at her right hip was suspended a stone knife. Every inch she looked a real queen, or rather, goddess, of the primitive people she ruled.
After giving me a thorough inspection she sat up and ordered me brought forward. When sufficiently close, she fingered the strange clothing that encased my body and marveled at the shiny cylinders whose rims projected from the top of my cartridge belt.
Presently she spoke to me in a clear, musical voice ; but I, of course, could understand nothing. In polite- ness to her, however, I replied in every language and dialect with which I was familiar, though I knew my efforts were foredoomed to failure. She, in return, listened quietly to me, and when I had finished, turned and spoke a few words to an elderly courtier who stood like a graven image at the side of her primitive throne. When she had spoken he gave a low bow of acquies- cence and made a brief reply.
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An Accident
NOW a young warrior entered the chamber, and approaching the fair ruler, presented her two objects that glittered dully in the subdued, bluish light. She picked up one, which I saw was my six-shooter, and commenced fingering it. With a cry of warning I started toward her, only to be roughly jerked back by the three guardsmen who had charge of me. The Princess looked up in annoyance at my ejaculation, and at a sign from her one of my keepers clapped a palm over my mouth to dam the stream of protests that issued therefrom.
When she was through with the six-shooter she passed it to the elderly courtier with a short comment, and turned to the Von’s automatic, while the man pro- ceeded to examine my revolver; fingering the grip, “listening” to it, smelling it, and peering down the bar- rel, the girl doing likewise.
And then they did it. The two reports rang out almost as one; the girl dropped the gun as though it were red-hot, jerked her hands to her head with a little cry, twisted once, and sank back unconscious upon the wooden throne. As for the man — he still stared wide- eyed and wondering at the revolver, which was slowly turning in his hand as the grip of his fingers relaxed, then it fell to the floor while his knees sagged and his lifeless body lunged face down upon the stone floor.
This unexpected display of fireworks caused the hasty and undignified exit of a score of guardsmen who had been lolling against the walls to do the Princess’ pleasure, and two of my own guards bolted with the rest, while the one remaining was very much minded to follow his fellows, but loyalty to his fair ruler would not permit.
Freed from the grip of the savages, I leaped to the quiet figure lying on the crude throne and stretched it in a more comfortable position. The bullet had grazed her temple, but — ^thank God — she lived. I turned to the flustered guard and cried for him to bring water, gesticulating toward the prone body on the couch. But he couldn’t understand, so I dashed toward the exit of the cave, into the passage, and knocked myself dizzy against the wall at a turn which was not illuminated by the usual phosphorescent fungus torch. Picking myself up, I began to grope my way toward the day- light when the warrior in the room decided to evacuate also, and coming up behind me, bowled me over again, nearly braining me against the floor. Again I scrambled up and pursued my way to the open air, this time the warrior in front of me. Just as I emerged from the passage into the open, I found the body-guard of the Princess congregating for a return to the cave. I ran toward them and cried “Water, bring some water!” but of course, it didn’t take. However, I snatched a clay pot from the ground and ran to a spring I could see bubbling from the cliff a small distance away. There I filled my vase and returned to the cavern with the savage white warriors.
Reaching the chamber, I first appropriated the two short-arms lying on the floor before the throne, tucking them inside my shirt. Then I took a handkerchief, and wetting it, dabbed it at the wound. Fortunately
for the fair sufferer, it was only a flesh wound, the shell having merely grazed off a little patch of skin above the temple. Presently the village Witch Doctor and physician, the man who had patched the wounds of Von Kressen, came in and applied some of his salve to the girl’s hurt.
It was while he and I were tenderly working over her that the Princess opened her eyes. With a little gri- mace she touched the sore spot and brought away her fingers daubed with blood and salve. A minute passed before she comprehended the situation, and then she looked quickly up at the Witch Doctor and rne. I gave her a cheerful smile of encouragement, and was re- warded by seeing her lips curve in a brave, quiet little smile in response. In secret I complimented myself on having a way with women, and also reflected what a lovable captor this little savage was, and what a “lucky dog” I was to be her prisoner.
But when it comes to women, I’m good — really I am.
If I cared to, I could write a whole blooming book about my various love affairs — ^most of them one-sided, by the way — ranging all the way up from the worship- ful devotion of Mawaza, the shy black cannibal maid of Central Africa, with copper earrings and a woodeS platter eight inches in diameter in her lower lip ; to the frivolous and somewhat shallow affections of a popular French actress and dancer in Paris, who gambled away her earnings on the green, or checkered, tables of Monte Carlo and attempted suicide every six months to bring her before the public eye again, lest her popularity go
on the wane. In point of looks, I think Mile had
a slight advantage over Mawaza, but in point of faith- fulness I believe I would have preferred the ebon maid from the backwaters of the Congo.
Several minutes of silence followed the Princess’ revival, then she spoke to a few warriors, one of whom touched my sleeve and beckoned me to accompany him and his companions. His attitude was rather defer- ential, and he was very decent to me as they led me to another cave where they left me, the leader making apologetic gestures to me as he left one of the men to guard the entrance of my cavern.
With a smile of satisfaction I turned to the mat of leaves in a corner and lay down to await the fall of night. I was satisfied because I saw by the attitude of my guards that their ruler had taken a fancy to me and instructed them to treat me well ; this supposition being shortly verified by the appearance of a young woman bearing a pot of food and a clay cup of water. When I had finished my repast the copper-tinged night had enveloped the jungle and a slow warm rain com- menced. My guard drew into the passage of my apart- ment and squatted against a wall, a bear-robe wrapped about him. I tucked the two guns under my grass pillow, and drawing a stag-hide over me, soon fell asleep.
The next morning was the finest I had ever seen on Venus. The usual dark clouds floating two thousand feet above the land were gone, and in their place floated lighter clouds some four thousand feet above the ground. The day was much lighter than any I had seen thus far, and on several occasions there were dim shafts of radiance seeping through the clouds above.
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That the weather was becoming nicer I attributed to the fact that our position on the planet’s surface was coming closest to the sun.
An Imperial Call
Twenty or thirty minutes after my awakening, two warriors approached the guard of my cave, and the three had a short palaver, after which they came in to me and by polite gestures indicated that they wished me to accompany them. I rose from my seat on the grass bed and was conducted to the throne cavern of the day before, and once more presented to the Princess.
Followed thirty minutes of meaningless jabber on the parts of all concerned, the Princess carrying on quite a conversation with me by means of two inter- preters, who acted like the real goods, but imparted information to no one ; while I extolled the good points of the fair ruler, made remarks about the wonderful weather, and told jokes in any tongue I knew, just as the whim seized me. When the half-hour had passed, the entertaining little party broke up and I was returned to my apartment, the two “interpreters” going with me. Their object was soon apparent, for as soon as we had been seated in the lighted entrance of the cavern, one of them pointed to each of us and repeated the worn non. I correctly surmised he meant the equiva- lent of the English man. Then taking several fruits which someone had brought during my absence, he named each one, ending with the banana as gavo. Most nouns were of one or two syllables, as was to be ex- pected of a comparatively uncivilized race. It is true that the American Indians, and many of the black tribes of Africa have multi-syllabled words, but most savage tribes of my acquaintance had monosyllabic languages. My past experience in learning unfamiliar languages and dialects stood me in good stead now, and by the time for the midday meal I had made very satisfactory progress in nouns, pronouns, and a few verbs and adjectives. Conjunctions, prepositions, and adverbs were to come later.
After the meal, at which my instructors were my guests, they conducted me about the cave-village, show- ing me the various homes of the people, and introducing me to the several befeathered chieftains we met. On every hand the highest courtesy and consideration was extended to me, and a thousand times over I thanked Fate for my “way” with women. I was confident that all this sudden friendliness on the part of my captors was the outcropping of my more or less purely flirta- tious smile to the primitive Princess the day before. Presently my guides took me to the edge of the plateau on which the cave-village was situated, and there I saw a sheer drop of some two hundred feet to a steep slope falling for fully a mile to the green marsh-jungle below.
I was surprised to find high ground on Venus, for from the conditions on the lowlands, I had assumed that no high hills of hard rock existed on the planet. How- ever, as Venus is still in a very plastic age, I surmised that tremendous earthquakes had lifted the hardening crust of the planet up this far. And there really was no very hard rock on the mountain — just the usual lime and sandstone of the lower lands. Later I was to find
out that there are mountains on Venus, young as the planet is, that dwarf our highest Terrestrial hills into pitiful insignificance.
Our survey of the village completed, we returned to my “home,” where I indicated by signs and as much of my new language as I knew that I would like to see my companion “visitor” — Von Kressen. So one of them hunted up the Witch Doctor, who conducted us to the cave where lay his patient. The Von was asleep when we came in, but his face indicated a rise in the fever which had set in, and a coming delirium. I was thankful that the village was high above sea level. On the lowlands the fever would be fatal, I was certain. Two girls, who I subsequently learned were the phy- sician’s daughters, were applying skins soaked in cold water to the forehead and face of the patient.
My two teachers left me here, and I returned alone and unguarded to my cave, where my guard actually greeted me with a smile. I sat with him the rest of the afternoon, and when I made it known to him that I would like him to teach me a little more of his tongue, he was delighted beyond measure. Thus the afternoon passed quickly and entertainingly, and as I rolled be- neath my stag-hide that night it was with the knowledge that these handsome savages were no longer enemies, but friends.
The next day my instructors called again, and again the next, and by the time a week was up I had made wonderful progress in the tongue of my friendly captors.
It was early on the morning of the eighth day that they came with two other warriors, and entering, one of them addressed me.
“The Princess Deena wishes your immediate pres- ence in the throne-room,” he said, “to speak with you over a very important matter. Come !”
CHAPTER VI
A Strange Proposal
“T HAVE asked you to appear before me in order
A that I might discuss with you an important pro- posal that I am sure will prove satisfactory to all con- cerned,” began Princess Deena to me, as my party and I stood before her throne.
“It is a great pleasure to me to have the Princess Deena deign to notice me at all,” I replied, truthfully,
‘ and I shall most heartily do all in my power toward the furtherance of her desires.” This with the mental reservation, “Provided they do not interfere with the comfort and well-being of my companion and me.”
Deena nodded.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Kenneth Marx; Archaeologist of the National In- stitute at Washington, U. S. A.”
“How?” inquired the Princess, looking puzzled at my lengthy reply.
I repeated my statement, and when she asked what that meant, I explained to her as well as I was able. After that she wanted to know where my country was, to which I replied that it was very far away — a. great, great distance — and that had to satisfy her.
“The reason I have called you is this,” she spoke up
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then, “You and the white-haired one are mighty fight- ers. Alone you two killed twelve of my warriors with the strange weapons that slay at a long distance with a great noise. What I want to do is make you members of my tribe, and have you teach my warriors how to use the things that make the noise and throw fire. You will receive a large cave, will have all the chances of chieftainship that our men have, and each of you can choose as many wives as you can support from the many untaken girls in the tribe of Karna. I am sure that many of them would be perfectly willing to go through our marriage rites with you. What say you ?“
I scratched my head. In some ways the proposal was alluring. It meant that joining the tribe would render us immune to further danger through our cap- tors, and we could do as we pleased in the neighboring country. We were by no means bound to marry any of their women — ^though take it from me, there were none of them hard to look at. Further, we could more easily conduct our scientific research in ways of animal and botanical life forms. And lastly, by teaching the Cro-Magnons the use of firearms we would be giving mankind on Venus a tremendous advance toward the mastery of the planet.
“Well?” prompted Deena, when a minute of deep silence had passed.
“For my own part, I would greatly enjoy taking advantage of your generous proposal,” I replied, “But would it not be well to ask my companion also?”
Deena nodded. “I intend to ask him, when he is fully recovered. Just now he is too ill to be disturbed, but in a few days I will see both of you again. In the meantime you will be permitted full freedom of action within our community, and have ample time to reflect on the proposition I have made you.”
With that she rose and moved behind the throne to a bearskin hanging on the wall, behind which she dis- appeared, thereby terminating the interview. The war- riors congregated within the chamber now dispersed, save the few who were on constant guard beside the crude throne of stgtely Deena.
“Kenneth Marx, Aurignacian warrior,” I ruminated, reflecting as the Cave Princess had suggested, on the proposal made to me. I was in something of a quan- dary. If I accepted, my future on Venus was more assured ; but then, I might never again have an oppor- tunity to return to my own world. If I refused, it was quite likely that I might be requested to stage a wrestling match with the very substantial-looking rock set up in the center of the village, while an appreciative company of painted savages expressed their enthusiasm of my exhibition by accompanying it with a Stone Age version of the Undertakers’ Tango. And doubtless some aspiring young cook would, with the assistance of my bare feet, render an artistic performance of his culinary ability.
The morei I thought of it, the more rosy seemed the benevolent proposition handed me by the solicitous Deena. So I decided to accept her generous offering, but elected to wait with the announcement until Von Kressen had recovered from his illness ; and with this in mind I turned from the outer entrance of the throne room toward my own cavern. On the way I paused
at the Witch Doctor’s cave and looked in to see the Von, but he was still asleep.
Coming to my own cave, I sat at the entrance and looked out at the white, pillowy clouds that floated above, and saw that the sun was struggling to break through them. And at last — ^the clouds opened a little, and a shaft of light, dazzling by comparison to the murky days I had thus far seen, struck my eyes. A moment later I saw the sun — with a diameter apparently one and a third times as great as when seen from the Earth. Its color was a deep, reddish orange, for the dense water-vapor of the Venusian atmosphere absorbs all the shorter rays, and only the longer light-waves break through. On thin-aired Mercury the sun is no doubt white with a bluish tinge and in diameter seems two and a half times as great as when it is seen from the Earth.
Kidnapped !
WITH the sight of the sun came the desire to be doing something, and my mind turned to Raoul Parri, and the search that my convalescing companion and I had instituted for him. I wondered if Parri still lived. It was — ^let me see — sixteen days since we had landed on Venus, and eleven since Parri had disap- peared. There was little likelihood that our French colleague was stilT living, for if the savage warriors who had captured him had not already killed him, then he must have died from the merciless jungle fever that had certainly set in through his wounds. The idea of his death fairly made me boil, and then and there I vowed to avenge him. And the best thing to do to accomplish that would be to obtain the assistance of the Cro-Magnon men in whose village I was. There was no time for delay, and I would have to immediately in- form Deena of my decision regarding her offer. So I arose and moved to her cave. As I entered the throne- chamber, one of the half dozen guards accosted me. “What do you wish, stranger?”
“I have decided to accept the offering of Princess Deena, and come to notify her of my acceptance.”
The guard vanished behind the bearskin hanging on the wall, to emerge again in a few minutes.
“The Princess is not in her chambers. She has gone bird-hunting, her handmaid informs me.”
I was a trifle disappointed, but I nodded to the man and asked him to tell Deena of my decision when she returned, then moved out again into the sunlight.
Here I began a slow amble about the village, occa- sionally speaking with some of the savage warriors, or again playing with the dozens of naked imps who stared at me as though awe-stricken and then fell to shrieking and laughing as they raced like scared rabbits over the grounds of the village.
Presently I reached a place where there were no dwell- ings and no people, and thus comparatively quiet. I was on the point of turning back to the more settled part of the cave-town when there came faintly to my ears the muffled scream of a woman.
I stopped. Princess Deena — ? For a moment I could not place the direction from which the sound came, when I heard a sharp exclamation of pain, this time in the low, gruff tones of a man. The sound came
THE WAR LORD OF VENUS
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from my right, somewhere in the forest. I turned toward it and ran as I had to run to Von Kressen’s aid the day we were captured. A score of times I tripped and fell, to rise and race on again. Ahead of me I could hear nothing more, and it never occurred to me to shout in order to notify the woman who had screamed that I was coming to her assistance.
Suddenly I burst out upon a tiny natural clearing. I could not check myself quickly enough, and so tripped and sprawled over the prone body of a warrior who lay on his back in the loam. Rising I knelt beside him and examined him. I recalled seeing him as one of Deena’s trusted couriers; a chief very high in her esteem. Sticking from his chest was a wooden war- arrow of the ytpe used by the Venusian Cro-Magnons, shot with such force that half a foot of it emerged from his back, where it had broken as his dead body fell upon it.
In the soft loam I could see his footprints from where they emerged from the forest, and beside them were smaller ones, a woman’s, encased in leathern san- dals. Where the dead warrior lay the woman’s foot- prints were much deeper at the ball of the foot and the loam was shoved toward the toes, indicating that the maker of the tracks had come to a sudden and unin- tended halt.
Apparently Deena’s courtier had been killed from ambush, the deadly missile coming from the opposite side of the clearing than that from which he had emerged. At his feet the soil was torn and disturbed, and there were many interminglings of the woman’s sandaled feet with the great, naked feet of an unknown male assailant, no doubt the same who had slain the man.
Aind lastly, fluttering on the ground in the trampled area were several of the gaudy feathers torn from Deena’s head-dress. Only Deena wore the brilliant feathers — the other women of the clan had none, and the feather-bonnets of the men were composed of the grey-black plumage of the birds of prey. One of these feathers also lay on the soil.
Searching for additional clues, I presently found the footprints of the attacker leave the clearing, and that he bore a struggling, fighting burden was evidenced by the depth and irregularity of his footprints. These I followed fairly easily, since burdened as the man — there seemed to be only one — was with the not incon- siderable weight of Deena, he*could do little toward covering up his trail.
Care had to be taken that I might not lose the track, and this retarded my progress to a slight extent, but still I covered the ground at about twice the pace of Deena’s abductor. Now I assume he had some twenty minutes start of me, and it took me about ten minutes more to overtake him; but at that time it seemed an eternity ere I at length burst out upon a fairly large clearing, into the opposite edge of which he had just disappeared. Somehow I had a terrible fear that harm might befall Deena, but why I considered the whole affair so very personal to me, I could not have told you — ^then.
A Desperate Struggle
The brief glimpse I had obtained of the big warrior with his still struggling burden had served to toss all discretion to the winds, and I leaped after him, never thinking of the possibility of his lying in wait for me in the verdure at the edge of the clearing, ready to despatch me with an arrow as soon as I came close enough to insure success at the first shot.
But the fellow evidently expected no pursuit, and thus it was that I had shot into the forest after him and was already leaping for his back ere he could turn at the sound of my footsteps.
My hurtling body struck his right shoulder and sent him, his captive, and myself into a tangled mass of writhing bodies and kicking legs from which Deena, as the girl had indeed turned out to be, was the first to extract herself. Now she stood a little to one side while the warrior and I staged an all’s-fair rough-and- tumble between the boles of the trees, against which we frequently cracked our heads. My opponent had, to my way of thinking, the strength of an elephant, and with his two powerful arms about me was slowly but surely crushing my ribs. After a desperate effort I managed to grasp one of his wrists and twisted it until his hand-clasp on my back broke, then I struggled free and scrambled to my feet.
He was up right after me, and for the first time during the struggle I had a clear view of his face. I recognized him at once as one of Deena’s chieftains, whom I had seen on the occasions that I was presented at the throne-room. He was not bad-looking, as far as physical appearances go, but there was a glitter of lust and avarice in his eyes that aroused a deep distrust of him in me from the time I first saw him.
Now he glared at me and with a deep, sullen growl launched himself upon me. I braced myself, feinted at his abdomen with myjeft fist, and as his arms came down I corked him on the jaw with my right. A grunt of surprise was elicited by the blow and he staggered backward, his rush checked, but he did not fall.
But the blow had befuddled him, and he was open to all the hard swings that I planted at his face and body. However, he was the toughest egg I ever tried to crack, for though he swayed and rocked and staggered drunkenly under the force of my hits, I could not sink him. And one time he gave a wild swing with his right fist — and for some unknown reason I had to poke my face in its path. He nearly knocked me loose from my teeth that time. When his pile-driver connected with my jaw a singing and humming sound that was not altogether unfamiliar to me shot through my throb- bind head, and I executed a backward somersault which landed me against the bole of a tree, upon which I proceeded to bump my skull. The second crack, how- ever, tended to disperse the mist that had come before my eyes as a result of the first, and thus I was very much awake as I sprang to my feet, swearing.
The other was awaiting me, grim and silent, when a new element entered the combat. The fellow cocked his head to one side suddenly, and as I rushed at him he turned and shot swiftly into the forest.
{Continued on page 367)
IN 20,000 A. D.
By NATHAN SCHACHNER and ARTHUR L. ZAGAT
(.Illustration by Paul)
I could see the crowd and Karet floating above them. They looked like ghosts — red ghosts stretching away as far as I could seel
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IN ^0,000 A.D. !
By the Authors of "The Tower of Evir
|OT all superstitions are devoid of reality. Sometimes old wives’ tales come true. And then there is a grand gathering of the long- bearded clans, much arguing pro and con, and finally, perhaps, a triumphant bringing of the old wives’ tale under the aegis of science.
Take the case of the “Vanishing Wood’’ at Blaymont. Just outside that sleepy Long Island town a little grove of scrub pine and tangled underbrush had been shunned for centuries. Peculiarly enough, the taboo seemed to affect not only the human denizens of the countryside, but even the animals. No straying cattle had ever been known to seek the cool recesses . of the little copse. No wan- dering dog of the neighborhood ever investigated the tempting shad- ows of the little wood. No birds nested in its trees.
When an infre- quent visitor to Blay- mont, upon being solemnly warned against entering the “Vanishing Wood,’’ made inquiry, he could elicit nothing definite. But when
the natives were together, with no outsider present, old tales would be revived in shuddering whispers. Once long ago, a wild calf of old man Jones had dashed into those woods. He had never come out ! And sometimes a mother would frighten her erring youngster with the story of little Abby Green. How the two-year old had wandered away one afternoon. How search had been made for her, and her footprints traced to the mysteri- ous wood. How nothing had ever again been seen of her.
Oh, there were plenty of shuddersome incidents told with bated breath about
ARTHUR L. ZAOAT
HAT SCHACHHER
the “Vanishing Wood” of Blaymont ! But never such a tale as Tom Jen- kins told when at last he unsealed his lips.
Tom was the last man one would pick for a hero of wild adventure. A great, hulking farmer lad, his schooling had barely fulfilled the none too ex igent requirements of the law. His most errant thoughts, it seemed, never wandered far from the care of his widowed mother’s little farm. His wildest evenings were those spent in drawling conversation round the
rHE mere mention of words cannot convey truly the thrill that the editors experienced when they read this marvelous time-traveling story. Imagine yourself suddenly rushed through time and finding yourself thrown into the year 20,000 A.D. I Into a world of which we know nothing and one that even your most fantastic dreams cannot picture adequately!
We know that in 18,000 years the world will have changed so enormously (that is the human race and its civilization will have changed) that it will be practically unrecog- nizable. A man of to-day, even possessed of the broadest education and vision would find him- self in a terrible plight if thrown into that world. Imagine then the predicament in this startling story of a country boy who is forced to play a part in the stirring events of a great civilization!
pot-bellied stove in the general store.
It was one of those nights at the village social club that began Tom’s strange adventure. The talk had turned to the “Vanishing Wood.” First one, then an- other had spun his narrative; the tale handed down from some grandfather. As the mounting crescendo of horror had drawn the circle of chairs closer and closer to the glowing stove, Tom had become more and more excited. Some unsuspected streak of skepticism in his dull soul was being irritated by the superstitious talk. At last he could contain himself no longer.
“I don’t believe it!” he had suddenly burst out, to
the startled surprise of the rustic circle. “I don’t believe it! It’s all a pack o’ lies. For two cents I’ll go into that wood any day.”
The others looked at him in amazement. This was almost sac- rilege. “What’s the matter with you, Tom?” the post- master had ques- tioned. “Been sam- pling some of Si Per- kins’ hard cider ?” “No, I’m just as sober as you. And I Say again, I don’t believe that there’s anything queer about that wood. None of you have ever seen anybody disappear there. All these things you’ve been telling about are supposed to have happened long ago. That’s just a bunch of trees, and I’m a’going to prove it. No use going out there now. But tomorrow’s Saturday, and I’ll be done with my ploughing about noon. After din- ner I’m going in there, and I’ll come out, too. I dare any of you to come with me !”
There had been long and arduous effort to dissuade Tom from his rash project. But to no avail. He was
going into the wood, and they’d have to tie him up to stop him!
And so, the afternoon of October 10, 1931 had seen a little procession wending its way up the road to the dread pre- cincts. First came Tom, then the half dozen other nightly visitors to the forum at the general store. Then a fringe of tow - headed, barefooted youngsters whose unerr- ing instinct had warned them something exciting was afoot. The post- master and the village constable were still busily engaged in persuading the
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young farmer to give up his daring venture. That individual was obdurate however. Not that he was alto- gether easy about the safety of his intended deed. Per- haps there was some truth in the old tales. But to back out now would make him the laughing stock of the village.
The procession halted at last in a grassy meadow. Ten feet away was the little grove whose menace has so long cast its ominous shadow over these fair fields. A lone figure went on ahead. Tom’s knees were shak- ing, the palpitation of his heart seemed to him to be visibly rocking his massive form. But he managed to turn at the edge of the wood, waved a cheery hand, and called back “See you in ten minutes.” Then he plunged into the shadows.
The grey-bearded justice of the peace held his turnip watch so that all might see it. Five minutes, seven, dragged slowly by. Ten minutes; Tom should have been out. But no Tom appeared. With white faces the little group gazed anxiously at the dark trees. A quarter of an hour, thirty minutes passed slowly by. It seemed certain now that the lad had been swallowed up by the mystery of the wood.
All afternoon the little group kept its vigil, hope- lessly. They called and called, but no answering hail came from out those dread precincts. There was none so brave as to venture into that copse in attempted res- cue. At last, the fall of night sealed the death of hope. Sadly the villagers returned — each reproaching himself that Tom had not been restrained by force.
* * * *
“Look at this,” I said to my chum, pushing a news- paper into his face.
What is it?” He looked at me indifferently, “an- other one of your newspaper yarns.” Sid was tired, I guess, of having me show him my scoops. Sid was a scientist and took a superior attitude towards news- papers and reporters.
“Read it !” I urged him. And when he took the paper, the Blaymont Courier, and read a marked notice I read with him over his shoulder.
TOM JENKINS RETURNS— REFUSES TO TALK
Thomas Jenkins, whose mysterious disappearance in the “Vanishing Wood” six months ago will be well remembered by our readers, reappeared just as mysteri- ously yesterday. He was found wandering aimlessly, apparently dazed, in Brown’s Meadow east of the wood.
Tom was brought to his mother’s home, where he quickly recovered. The entire neighborhood gathered to welcome him, and hear the story of his adventure, but they were sadly disappointed. Jenkins refused to talk.
When the editor interviewed the returned wanderer, he could elicit nothing from him. After much effort, however, Jenkins did make this statement :
“If I told you where I’ve been and what I’ve seen I’d land in the lunatic asylum. So I’m not saying a word.”
And then be shut up like a clam.
“Well?” Sid handed the paper back to me. “What of it?”
“Doing anything tonight? Do you want to exercise yourself on helping me to pump young Mr. Jenkins?”
Sid’s face lighted up. “You mean that your paper thinks there’s something in this story.”
I grinned. “No, of course not. But it’ll make a good yarn.”
Sid was thoughtful for a few moments. Finally he looked at me queerly. “Let’s go,” he said suddenly. “I have a hunch.”
But Sid was wrong, he had no possible conception of the amazing truth of what we were to hear.
# * * >N
We had no trouble in finding the widow Jenkins’ house — everyone knew its location. A little knot of curious yokels lingered at the gate. They made way for us, then closed in again. Our knock was answered by a little old lady in black. She was bowed by years of toil and tribulation, her face seamed with care. But there was a kindly twinkle in her eye which encouraged our persistence in the face of her discouraging reply to our inquiry.
“No, you can’t talk to Tom. He says he won’t see nobody and won’t talk to nobody. ’Taint money he wants, neither. Just wants to be let alone.”
“But, Mrs. Jenkins, we’ve come all the way from New York to see him. Surely you won’t send us away without a word.”
“Well, I’ll ask him.”
A long wait. Apparently the old lady was engaged in persuading her son to see us. At last she returned.
“Alright. He says, being as you’ve come such a lon^ way he’ll see you. But it won’t be no use !”
We entered the dark and musty “parlor” of the little house. We were indeed honored guests ! A strapping farmer lad stood spraddled there to greet us. We intro- duced ourselves. A great paw engulfed our hands in turn. We sat down. I was very careful, I doubted whether my two hundred pounds might not crack through the “sofa” I had chosen as the most substantial piece of furniture in the room.
I left the talking to Sid. We had agreed that as a scientist he might succeed where a reporter would fail.
There’s no use in detailing the long argument. We were early convinced that Jenkins had passed through a most interesting experience. The level look of those blue eyes assured us of his honesty. But he would not talk. He was convinced that no one would believe his tale — ^that the narrative would be set down as the rav- ings of a madman — ^that he would be immediately incarcerated.
At last we reached a compromise. We would report the adventures through which he had passed, but would carefully conceal his identity. This we were never to reveal. On this condition he would tell us the story.
That is why you will find no Blaymont on the most detailed map of Long Island, ^nd Thomas Jenkins’ name is something entirely different. But the rest of the strange things hereinafter set forth are just as they were told to us.
We are utterly convinced that Jenkins did see and hear the things he told about. In the first place, he has nothing to gain by lying. He has absolutely refused to touch a cent of what we shall earn with this narrative. No other motive can be ascribed to him. But the clinch-
IN 20,000 A.D.I
313
ing proof of the authenticity of the narrative is this. Tom Jenkins could not possibly imagine ninety-nine per cent of what he told us. He has neither the educa- tion nor the experience. It is impossible to impute the requisite scientific knowledge to Jenkins.
Far into the night Tom Jenkins talked, and we wrote. Finally his tired voice ceased — our cramped fingers re- laxed. The tale was down in black and white, the narrative of the strangest experience man ever had. Here it is — in Jenkins’ own words.
CHAPTER II
Thomas Jenkins’ Narrative
WELL, (said Tom Jenkins, settling himself more comfortably in his chair, the while puffing con- templatively at his pipe) it was this way,
I couldn’t for the life of me see this Vanishing Wood business at all. I had some school learning when I was a kid, and I never put any truck in superstitions. So when every one was afraid to go near the spot, it was up to me to be the brave lad.
Up I marched to the very edge of the wood, the whole town afollowing me, every man jack of ’em opin- ing what a big fool I turned out to be. And for all my bold front and swaggering walk, that was just what I was beginning to feel. “You blooming idiot,” said I to myself. “Now you’ve gone and done it. Supposin’ there’s something to it, and it gets you. Then where’ll you be with your boasting.”
For a while I was minded to turn back, but I took one look at that bunch following and I says to myself. “Tom my lad, you’ll never hear the end of it, if you quit now — ^they’ll josh you all your born days.” So I put a bold face on’t, turns to the neighbors, waves my hand as cheerful as brass, and marches into the clump of trees.
Well sirs, I took a couple steps and nothing happens. My nerve sorta returned at that, and I began to feel chipper and scornful like. “Ho, ho, just as I thought, it’s all blarney,” I said: “Nothing’s gonta happen — ^this old wood’s just like any other.”
Meanwhile I’m walking further in. Another coupla steps and I come to a little clearing. It struck me as peculiar then. For on the opposite side the trees were acting funny. Instead of standing up tall and straight as honest self-respecting trees ought. I’ll be hanged if these trees didn’t all lean way over in a sort of a double curve. There was a path in between, and on each side the trees leaned away from it, like as though it was a funnel.
It was a bit queer all right, and I sure felt like turn- ing back. But my pride was up, and nothing had hap- pened yet, so in I went.
(Tom Jenkins paused. His pipe was out. Deliber- ately he knocked the ashes out, very slowly he filled it to the brim with fragrant leaf, tamped it down care- fully several times, lit up, and puffed leisurely until the blue smoke curled lazily overhead. And as for us, we were balancing on the edges of our chairs, wild with impatience for him to continue. In spite of my annoy- ance, I recognized a fellow craftsman. This farmer boy has a flair for suspense, I thought admiringly.
Now that his pipe was drawing to his entire satisfac- tion, Tom continued.)
“As I put one foot on the path, I felt a tug on my leg. Just a little one. As the other one came in and down, I knew something had happened. I tried to jump back, but it was too late.
I felt myself doubling up in the queerest way — my whole body was contorting like an acrobat’s, and strang-. est of all, just the same way as the trees. I was pushed by something down the path. The trees were gettin’ more and more twisted, and I was twisting with ’em till I felt all tied up in knots. The path opened a bit, and there — at the end of it — was nothing, absolutely nothing!’’
(Gone was Tom’s nonchalance now. He was leaning forward, tense with earnestness, with desperate anxiety for us to believe him.)
“Gentlemen,” he averred solemnly, “as God is my witness, the trees, the land, the grass, the ground — everything had disappeared. There was no sun, no air even, nothing but nothingness. And — ^this nothing- ness seemed curved, distorted, just like the trees, just like myself. Don’t ask me to explain it, or how I saw it — I can’t. Just take my word for it — I knew it.”
(A great light dawned on me. I knew enough of science to guess at the answer, I looked at Sid — it had struck him too, and he nodded back at me excitedly. Jenkins continued.)
I was pushed right into that emptiness. Instantly everything went dazzling white; showers of sparks danced and climbed all about me. I was falling and falling. Not straight down, mind you, but bending and twisting all the time, just like I was in the ocean and the waves was carryin’ me up and down, up and down.
It was the queerest feeling. Nothing to be seen but that blinding light, and my insides turning inside -out. How long it kept up, I don’t know. It seemed though as though I was goin’ on forever, failin’ and twistin’ !”
(Tom paused and relit his pipe. “How would you like to feel like a blooming contortionist, with your ears where your toes ought to be?” he demanded.
Meekly we replied, that we wouldn’t like the idea at all. Satisfied with that, he went on.)
Just as I was thinkin’ to myself “Tom old boy, you’re a goner. You’re dead and gone. Had you been a good lad back there, maybe you’da landed in Heaven; now you’re in the other place” — just as I was thinkin’ that, I came down with a bump that knocked me silly.
Seeing Things
WHEN I come to, there I was lying flat on my back right in the middle of the clearing, close by the entrance to the path. There were the same queer trees leaning the same queer way. My head hurt some- thin’ awful, but it all cleared soon, and I scrambled to my feet.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, I was that flabbergasted. I sure was tickled to find myself alive again, and back where I started. But at the same time I was a mite disappointed. All that failin’ and twistin’ and I hadn’t gotten anywhere. “Musta fallen over a root and hit my head a clout,” I thinks to myself, “and I dreamt it all while dizzy.”
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I had enough, so I turned to go out and tell the folks about it. I reach the edge o’ the woods all right, but there I stop. “What’s this,’’ I says, rubbing my eyes, “must be I’m dreaming yet.”
For there, where old man Brown’s meadow oughta be, wi’ the little brook running through it, an’ the cows feeding on the grass, an’ all the people watchin’ for me, — was nothin’ o’ the sort. They was all gone !
Instead, I’m looking at such a sight as I’d never seen in all my born days. Nor anybody else, I’ll be bound. ’Twas like something out of a fairy tale. You know, ^e kind you read when you was kids.
In front of me was a great big park, stretching along for miles. The grass was bright and green, just like a lawn. There were flowers and flowers — I never seen so many all together in one place. And such flowers — ■ great big ones a foot wide — ^yellow and red and purple. And the whole air was perfumed wi’ the scent of ’em, like honeysuckle and roses. There were paths all through the place, and lots of fountains that threw colored water into the air, and statues — queer statues. They didn’t look like anything I ever seen before. And I’ve been to the Museum of Art down in New York once, too.
“Tom, my boy,” says I to myself — ^you know I’ve a habit of talking out loud when I’m excited, sort o’ does my thinkin’ for me, “that clout on the head, you got, must ha’ been a whopper, you’re still seein’ things.*
Just then I look up into the air and I get another shock. The sky is full of all sorts of airships an’ aery- planes. But nothin’ like the kind we get flying over here every day from Mineola. There were some like great big ships, musta been a thousand foot long, made of a shiny white metal, and going at a terrific clip. Others were smaller, and some seemed like little specks — darned !if they didn’t look like people just flyin’ about wi ’nothin’ under them.
As I’m lookin’ at them, sorta dazed like, I see one great big ship leave the ground about a mile off, and shoot straight up into the air. No circlin ’or spiralling, or tryin’ to get a start, just vertical. And it keeps goin’ up at a great clip, gets smaller and smaller, and disappears in the sky. Looked like it was headed for the moon.”
(He looked at us defiantly, and said. “And by Jingo, would you believe it, I found out afterwards that was just where it was goin’, — to the moon.”
Evidently he feared our disbelief, so we hastened to nod our heads vigorously. A sigh of relief burst from the honest lad, and he continued more confidently.)
I got a crick in my neck watching it, an’ I looked back to earth again. Then I gets a real shock. Right in front o’ me, not a hundred yards off, stands a giant, twelve feet high if he’s an inch, an’ staring at me as
♦Jenkins had evidently fallen into a warp in space. The Vanishing Wood was a pucker — a fault, we might say, borrow- ing a geologic term — in the curvature of space.
Through this warp he had been thrown clear out of our three dimensions into a fourth dimension. There he slid in time over the other side of the ridge or pucker, into the same spot in the three-dimensional world, but into a different era in time. Notice that he had not traveled an inch in space; all his journeying had been purely in time.
STORIES
if his life depended on it. God, what a sight he was to scare one out of his wits. He had four hands, two where they usually are, and two more extending straight out sideways from his body from the hips, one on each side. And where his ears shoulda been, were large flaps, shaped just like clam shells. There was some- thin’ funny about his eyes too, but I couldn’t make it out very clearly, what wi’ the distance and the nervous state I was in. He wasn’t no white man either, he was black. Not black like our colored folks, but jet black, like a hole in the ground on a dark night. He had on a close-fitting yellow jacket that left his arms free, and wide baggy yellow breeches cornin’ to his knees. His legs were bare.
Well sirs, you kin just imagine how I felt. I started to say my prayers — I was so sure he was goin’ to eat me up — but I got stuck in the middle (I haven’t said ’em much since I was a shaver), and I had to start all over again.
So I closes my eyes, counts ten, and opens ’em. Darned if the giant hasn’t turned tail and is running away as fast as he could, boundin’ way up into the air on each jump.
A Strange Encounter
1WAS so relieved I cried wi’ joy. And make believe I wasn’t a bit proud o’ myself, chasin’ that big feller away like that.
But while I’m patting myself on the back, and won- derin’ what to do next, what should I see but this same Jack-and-the-Beanstalk feller hot footing it back straight for me. And right in back of him there’s somethin’ floatin’ in the air, keeping step with him. Looked like a canoe, and I could just see a head like a balloon sticking up.
This time I got real scared, and started to run back into the wood. But I remembered what was in there, and I didn’t dare. So I waited ta see what ’ud happen.
They came to a stop about ten yards away from me, the canoe standing still in the air, about five feet off the ground. The big fellow was jabbering away in great excitement to something in the boat, and pointing at me with one of his four arms.
The boat drops slowly to the ground, and out steps the queerest thing you ever seen. Even in my worst dreams I could never imagine such a creature. I couldn’t make out whether it was human, or an animal out of a zoo.
It was ’bout five feet tall, and all I could see at first was a great big round balloon head, bulging way out at the top. If was smooth and leathery; there was no hair on it. Its ears were flapped like the giant’s. ' The eyes on it were starey, and as it started to look at me, blessed if another pair of eyes didn’t pop out of a pouch where the eyebrows ought to be, and drop on a frame- work directly in front of the first pair, like a pair of blooming goggles, and all four eyes were examining me. Enough to give one the creeps.
The head rested on a short neck, and that on a body that was round and smooth and straight like the pillars that hold up a bank building, only much shorter, o’ course. There was no hips or curves in the body and the legs were also short and dumpy.
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The chap with the balloon head was through exam- faing me, and evidently satisfied with what he saw. His mouth widened, and he spoke. You coulda knocked me over with a feather, I was that surprised. He spoke English — leastwise it sounded a good deal like it — as though he was a foreigner. It was awfully hard to understand him — ^the words sounded queer, but I could make ’em out after a while. There were lots of words he used I couldn’t make head or tail out of, but gener- ally I got the sense. Afterwards, when I lived with 'em, I had no trouble about it. His voice, too, was sweet, like music, and it flowed along.
He was sayin’, “You seem to be human, like this Robot here,” he pointed to the giant, “but you are a weakling, undeveloped, inferior even to him. Where did you come from?”
I pointed to the wood. I was that dumfounded I couldn’t speak.
He seemed startled at that. “From there — impos- sible ! No one has been allowed to enter the Vanishing Wood this past thousand years!”
Then I found my voice again. “And I’m sorry I ever went in myself, or I wouldn’t be here now.”
“You speak our tongue, but strangely, barbarously. I wonder now, looking at you again.” I could see his four eyes focussin’ on me with great interest.
“But where am I,” says I. Where’s the meadow, an’ the brook, and Blaymont? I musta fallen into Africa somewheres. This aint Long Island, is it?”
He was puzzled, I could see. “Blaymont, Africa, Long Island” — he repeated the names with that foreign accent of his, as if he never heard of ’em before. Then he looked at me suddenly.
“Why, I’ve heard of Africa and Long Island. Not the other though. Those are old, old names. This was once called Long Island, ten thousand years ago. A»d you, why certainly, you resemble those ancient pictures we have of primitive man.” His excitement was grow- ing. “Tell me what happened to you in that wood.”
So I told him as best I could, from beginnin’ to end. When I finished, he looked at me sorta awestruck. “What a marvelous find,” he exclaims, “a primitive man from 18000 years ago! Alive! Now I know why that wood was forbidden. It’s an entrance from other ages and other times !”
“Come with me,” he says, “I’ll take you to the coun- cil at once.”
CHAPTER III
In 20,000 A.D.I
I WAS a bit worried, but he looked peaceful; so I jumps into the boat, as he motions. I looked about it curious. There was no motor or gadgets like we have in aeryplanes ; only a little metal box in front with buttons on it. Karet — that’s the fellow’s name — hoists himself in beside me, shoots out a funny hand, and presses a button. A blue light shines over the box, and the plane rises off the ground right up into the air. The Robot is left below. We’re up about 100 feet, when he presses another button. The light changes to red- dish, and off we shoot on a straight line.
I’m too busy thinkin’ to look where we’re goin’.
Somethin’ he said, keeps stickin’ in my mind. What was that about me bein’ primitive — a barbarian. I felt kinda sore about that. I may not be a world beater, and I ain’t got much book learnin’, but that don’t give nobody a right to call me names. Then he said some- thin’ about me bein’ from 18000 years ago. That stopped me. That meant I’ve gotten somehow into the year 20,000, as near as I could figger. That was too much, an’ I just stopped thinkin’.
While we was flyin’ along I studied this queer chap some more. I’ve told you ’bout his four eyes — now I saw that he had no nose, just an opening in the middle of the face — shaped like — like — what do you call it, with three sides ?
(“Triangular,” Sid interjected helpfully.
“That’s the word I meant.” Tom was properly grateful.)
Covering this tri — this three sided slit was a gauzy affair that moved in and out as the creature breathed. Below was the mouth. It didn’t have no teeth, it was just a round hole that widened out flat when it talked.
What give me a turn, though, was the chap’s arms and hands. There was only two of ’em, thank God, but they was long and wavy, just like on a devilfish, and they ended in five fingers, but the fingers was also long and wavy an’ could curl any which way. And the cteature could pull in its arms, till they was a foot long, or shoot ’em out for five or six feet. I never could get over that trick of theirs — it always gave me the jumps.
And his feet were queer too. They was long and flat, and solid like a horse’s hoof. They was all bone — no flesh on ’em. He didn’t wear no shoes ; didn’t need none, I guess.
Afterwards I saw that the other things, the Robots as the Balloon-heads called them, had the same kind of feet, only much bigger. Oh, and they also had four eyes— ronly they couldn’t push the extra ones back into their foreheads; they was fixed in front by a bridge coming out from the tops of their noses.
The plane comes down to the ground, an’ I looks around. I’m in a city, but what a city. I used to think New York was some pumpkins, but you can’t get me to pay any attention to that, after what I’ve seen.
There were buildings on buildings, all of blue tile, and all with great rose colored domes over ’em. On the blue walls was worked in little colored stones the most beautiful paintings, the same as in church win- dows. Each building was surrounded by a park, with fountains and lights, and great wide streets ran out from each building through the park like the spokes of a wheel.
As we got out, I saw lots of creatures like the Robot, and a few like Karet. Karet told me that they were the Masters, who ruled the world, and the Robots were the workers.
The Masters came up to us, and looked me over while Karet explained who I was. They seemed pretty much excited about it. The Robots crowded around, talking and jabbering, but quite a distance away. You could see they daren’t come too near to the Masters.
One of the balloon-heads says to Karet. “You'll have to take him before the Jed.” And Karet says
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“yes.” He turns to me and says. “Come along.”
So we go into the biggest building, that has a great gold sun in the blue tile over the entrance. Inside, it was all open, and the walls was covered with more pictures. I happened to look up to the dome, an’ half way between the top and the floor, I saw a great white ball bangin’ in the air. There was nothin’ holding it there, no ropes or cables or anything. Just resting on air. Over it was a platform, and two Robots was standing guardlike.
Karet saw me look up, and says. “That’s where Jed is — ^he’s the Superman. I’m taking you to him.”
“But how,” I wanted to know. “I don’t see no stairs to get up there.”
“I’ll show you,” he answers, and he makes me stand with him on a little platform in the floor. He turns a knob, and the next second, we both goes right up into the air. Before I could get real scared, we land on the platform. Karet speaks to one of the guards, an’ he bows, an’ opens a sliding door in the ball. I had time to notice it was made o’ thick glass — quartz, they tell me afterward.
I look down into it, expectin’ to see a man or a Master or somethin’ sitting on a throne like a King, but I sure didn’t expect what I did see.
Jed was a tremendous brain — nothin’ else, floatin’ in the middle of a liquid like calf’s foot jelly before it become hard. A great big gray brain, full o’ lines and ridges an’ deep twistings. It gave me the shivers to look at it. (Even now, at the memory, Tom shuddered.)
Would you believe it; thinkin’ of that Jed, I can’t eat calf’s brains any more — it goes against me. And I used to be very fond of ’em fried in bread crumbs. (He sighed regretfully at the lost epicurean delicacy.)
Karet, very respectful like, tells Jed all about me, though it did seem laughable to tell things to a brain floatin’ in jelly.
Then I gets a real shock. A voice speaks in my mind clear as a bell. “I already know of the coming of this Early American. It will be interesting to study him. Place him in the Robot barracks ; treat him well. Have our scientists observe and question him. It may be that even with his limited intelligence, he can give us a valuable picture of the world in those primitive times.”
Savage Revenge
1 LOOKED all around me, ta see who was talkin’.
But nobody was sayin’ a word, an’ how could Jed talk, seein’ he was only a brain, and had no mouth nor nothing. Karet explains to me, however, that when Jed thinks, everyone can hear ’im. He’s the only one can talk that way. Karet called it tele — tel — ^there, I do believe I’ve forgotten the word.
(“Telepathy,” suggested Sid.
“That’s it — sure enough. Say, you fellers know a lot, alright,” Tom responded admiringly. “Well, any- ways, where was I?)
So Karet took me down £^in the same way, and we get in the flying car, an’ start for the barracks.
On the way, he tells me about Jed. How he is the great Ruler of the World ; that 2000 years before, one of the Masters had become so wise and knew so much that his brain didn’t have room enough to expand in
the skull, big as it was, and he told the other Masters to operate on him, take his brain out, put it in a certain kind o’ jelly. They done that, and the brain has been growin’ and growin’ — ^all they have to do is to feed it once in a while. The brain became so wise that they made it ruler, and it’s been livin’ ever since. Karet said that it looked as if the Jed would live forever. An’ as he says that, he fetches up a huge sigh.
I look at him surprised, and I says to myself. “Ho, ho, so that’s the way the land lies ! Friend Karet here’s a mite jealous or ambitious. Bet he wouldn’t mind takin’ Jed’s place — jelly an’ all.” And I thinks how little human nature changes, even 20,000 years ahead, and these queer people so far advanced.
All this time we been floating along over the big beautiful park where the Vanishing Wood is. At last the car floated to the ground in front of a long white building that stretched and stretched over acres o’ ground. I never seen such a tremendous long building before. The place is full of those four-handed Robots, goin’ in and out, carryin’ queer things that resemble spades and shovels, an’ all kinds o’ strange tools I couldn’t make out the use of.
Karet stops one of ’em, and I recognized him as the one I saw when I came out of that plaguey wood.
“Charlie, have this Early American share your cubicle with you, until further orders. And don’t forget, gather the others together to-night in your room — the time is getting ripe for action.”
“Yes, Master Karet, they are all ready — waiting for the word to go.” Charlie’s voice was harsh an’ jagged, not like the Master’s soft smooth speech at all. It sure was funny, though, to hear this four-eyed, four-armed, big black giant called Charlie. It puts me in mind of old Charlie Jones here, and every time I think of how they would stack up against each other, I has to laugh.
(And Tom stopped in his narrative long enough to laugh heartily, slapping his knee with merriment. Then he sobered rather suddenly.)
But something happened next that wasn’t no laugh- ing matter. It only showed that underneath all their highfalutin’ civilization, they could be just as cruel an’ savage as any heathen Indian in the old days.
One o’ the Robots — a great hulking awkward brute — was walking along, minding his own business. He stumbles over something, an’ falls against a Master, who was walkin’ t’ other way, an’ knocks ’im down. The little feller musta gotten an awful whack, but ’twas purely accidental. I could swear for that.
The Master picks himself up, and the giant of a Robot backs away from him, apologizin’ like mad, and all four hands waving like he was pleading for mercy. If ever I saw anyone scared to death it was that big black fellow.
The little balloon-head says nothing, but takes out a little tube as big as a fountain pen outa his pocket, points it at the beggin’ Robot, presses somethin’, an’ a little spurt o’ flame comes out. The giant jus’ keels over like he’s been shot, crashes to the ground, and lays there quiet.
The Master sorta brushes off his long creeper hands unconcerned like, puts the tube back in his pocket, and motions to two other Robots who were standin’ there
IN 20,000 A.D.!
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wi’ no expression on their faces. They lift up the dead body, an’ cart it away.
All the while I’m standing there, dumfoundered, then I gets good and sore. For two cents I’da clouted that cold blooded little squirt one oh the side o’ his balloon that ’d a knocked him cold. But I hold myself in — for I remember where I am, an’ God knows what they mighta done to me for that.
I could see Charlie goin’ white wi’ fury under that black o’ his, his four great fists clench up tight, an’ he starts for the murderer.
But Karet shoots out a long hand, an’ stops him. "Careful, Charlie. That won’t get you anywhere, and will be fatal to our plans. Bide your time, we’ll soon put a stop to that sort of thing.’’
Charlie stops himself short — ^it was a great job for him to do it, too, — ^and unclenches his fists. “You’re right, Karet, we must wait. But he’ll pay for that, he will.”
A New Conspirator
Karet waves a tentacle, gets into his cSr. “Tonight then” and off he flies.
"Come with me. Primitive” says Charlie to me. “Who’re you callin’ names,” I answers indignant. I was gettin’ tired of the outlandish things they was sayin’ about me all the time. “I’ll have you know my name’s Tom Jenkins, and that’s as good as Charlie any day.”
“All right, Tom. Tom it is from now on,” laughs the giant. Twas the first time I see any one laugh in this place. The Masters couldn’t laugh if they tried, what wi’ their mouths so small, no nose to wrinkle up, cold eyes that couldn’t twinkle and smooth brown skin that had no puckers in it. The Robots generally were dumb sort o’ creatures, no more expression on their faces than a cow has. Only Charlie and some others like ’im looked an’ acted intelligent and human like.
I’m beginning to feel friendly for this fellow — ^he seems a good sort — and he’s the nearest to me they have around this place. An’ he seems to^ take to me also.
So in we goes, an’ it’s a sure enough barracks. It’s one long room, looks like a mile long, and on each wall there’s bonks built in where the Robots sleep. Just room to turn around in. No furniture, no hangings nor carpets, just bare. Some of the bunks is filled wi’ sleepin’ Robots ; in others, they’re turnin’ out an’ dress- in’! Simple enough too, justa pair o’ breeches and yel- low sleeveless shirt. All about the hall are hundreds of ’em, movin’ about, goin’ out, coming in.
Charlie steers me to a far corner of the place, that’s partitioned off into a number of rooms. We enter one, and the giant says: “Here’s where you’ll stay — over there’s your bed.” And he points to a cot about 15 feet long. The room has two of them, a coupla queer looking chairs, so high I have to hoist myself up to sit on one, with my legs adangling. Nothing much else.
“But* listen,” I says, “when do we eat? Haven’t had a bite since early this morning.” Only then do I realize how much has happened to me since then.
“Hungry!” the big fellow seemed surprised. "Here,
take one of these.” And fie fishes outta a box a little white pill, like calomel, and hands it to me.
“What’s this?” I ask, looking at it.
“Your meal,” says he.
I take a good look at him then to see if he’s kiddin’ me, but no, his face is as sober as a judge.
Then I get real angry. “What in ’ell do you think I am, a bloomin’ butterfly? I want somethin’ I kin wrap my jaws around — a nice juicy steak, say.”
He was puzzled at that. He didn’t always understand my language. For that matter their ’s had me guessin’ too, often.
“Steak,” says he, as though he was hearin’ the word for the first time.
“Yes, steak — or any kind o’ meat.”
You shoulda see his eyes all open up, and he looks at me as if I was a cannibal or somethin’. “Meat !” he gasps, “why, that’s vile. We don’t eat flesh or any- thing else but these capsules. They’re made up by the Masters and contain concentrated food. One a day is sufficient.”
I grumbled a bit, but seeing there was nothing else, I took it. I figured I’d have to eat a million. But when I swallowed it, all my appetite disappeared, an’ I felt like I’d eaten a full meal. It was wonderful. But I can’t say as I cottoned to the idea much. I like my victuals, and I like plenty of ’em.
Then Charlie closes the door carefully after peeking out to see if anyone is watching, an’ he turns to me.
“Listen, Tom, they say you came here somehow from a time 20,000 years ago. How, I don’t know, but here you are. You look like one of us, too, — different of course, but not like a Master at all. Were there any Masters in your time?” he asked anxiously.
I explained to him the best I could about us, how we live, how everybody looks alike, how there are no Masters nor slaves either ; how we’re all equal and one man’s no better from another.
He listens fascinated till I finish — ^then he jumps up in great excitement. “So there was a time when the Robots had everything, and there were no Masters, eh. They never told us that; they keep it a secret. Well, we’ll soon be free again, and wipe that damned race out.”
He spun around on me. “Are you with us or against us?” he asks hoarsely.
“I don’t understand — against what?” I answers.
“The Masters, of course,” he says impatient.
“Well,” I said slowly, “they haven’t harmed me any, and they seem pretty smart, too, but you fellows are nearer home to me, so I’d rather trail along with you. And I don’t like this idea of slaves — goes against the grain. Mind you,” I warned him, “that don’t mean I’d do anything against ’em.”
He nodded his head. “I think we can trust you. We’re holding a meeting here soon, do you want to stay?”
I’m a mite cautious. “Providin' I don’t have to com- mit myself to do anything.”
Charlie was satisfied wi’ that. “Providing you won’t give us away.” And to that I agrees. As though Tom Jenkins was the man to peach on anyone.
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CHAPTER IV Seeds of Revolution!
Then I starts to question him about lots o’ things been puzzlin’ me ’bout this world o’ theirs. He didn’t know much about it — said only the Masters knew everything, and they kept things to themselves.
First off, I asked him where were all the women. Hadn’t seen one around at all. Women? He’d never heard o’ them. So thinking maybe they had another word for the sex, I explains them a bit. Then he brightened up. "Oh, you mean the Mothers! They are kept in the buildings over to the east — ^that great structure surrounded by the high wall.’’
"And don’t they ever come out?’’
"Oh no, that is not allowed. They must remain there, and fulfill their functions.’’
I thought of my ma, and all the gals I knew, and it didn’t sound right to me. Jus’ try and keep ’em all locked up together. Glory, but there’d be a revolution quick enough. Tear our hair out.
Then it all came out. There really were no women here— or men either, for that matter. Thousands o’ years before, they’d stopped havin’ babies in the regular fashion, and so, since there wasn’t no use for men as men and women as women, why they simply stopped being. They’re all the same, what they called neuters.
Charlie had never seen the Mothers, but he under- stood they were the breeders of the children. The Masters controlled what the child was gonna be — Master or Robot. Seems like they took the eggs from the Mothers ’bout eight months before they should be born an’ brought them up in incubators. In Charlie’s case and some others like him there musta been a mis- take, for they gave ’em more brains and intelligence than they shoulda had. That’s why they kin see they’re slaves an’ they’re discontented.
While he’s tellin’ me all this, in walks half a dozen Robots in a bunch. Charlie jumps up an’ says hullo to them, and they answers very solemn. He interduces me around, an’ tells ’em where I come from. You shoulda seen how excited they get. We chin around for a spell — ^these birds are some more of the mistakes — ^they were given more brains than the regular dumb workers.
Then Karet walks in — an’ everybody get quiet. You kin see he’s their leader. Like I read in history — ^in the old days somewhere — a aristercrat leadin’ the slaves ’gainst his own kind.
He makes ’em a long speech — ^the kind you hear around election time. He tells ’em, even though he’s a Master, he always felt sorry for the poor Robots, workin’ day in an’ day out, so his class can live in idle- ness. True, he says, the Masters are far advanced, an’ able to do lots o’ things as a result. They’ve learnt everything there was to be learnt, they can live on the earth, in the air, in the water, or underground; they can travel to the other stars ; they know how the world come about an’ when it’s ending, they think great thoughts an’ things I couldn’t even understand, but, he says, what about the Robots ? An’ everybody nods their h^ds an’ says, yes, what about them.
They’re just animals, they’re bred deliberately to slave
and work, they don’t have ta think hard for that, so they weren’t given any brains, or just enough for their pur- poses. You here, and he waves a tentacle around, were accidents. The injections given you in the incubator musta had some drops spilled in ’em from the Master solutions, an’ you were bom vrith real brains. Do you know, and he shook that long hand o’ his impressively at 'em, — do you know, t’other Masters wanted to kill you off when they found out the mistake — ^they were afraid of how the presence of brains might make you dissatisfied. ’Twas only me who stopped ’em — ^I argued with 'em and told ’em you would be an interesting ex- periment So they let you live, but no more of you can be bom now, they’ve seen to that.
An’ who’s responsible for all this, may I ask, he says, talking like a politician on the 4th o’ July, who’s re- sponsible for havin’ Masters an’ Robots? He waits for an answer, but no one says anything. So he answers himself. Who but Jed, — ^Jed the immortal, Jed the all-powerful.
A thousand years ago, things were entirely different. There was two races on this earth then — one like us, and one like you. Your race came up by regular evolu- tion from early mankind, like our visitor here, an’ he points to me. T’other race, mine, was a special evolu- tion from certain wise men, 15,000 years ago, who learnt how to change their children, and their children’s chil- dren, to what they called supermen. But outside a cer- tain difference in brains in our favor, both races man- aged to get along together. That was because of the machines.
In those days, everything was done by machinery. All the work you do, and much more. No one had to work at all. But the machines were made better an’ better, until they become almost human. Their acts were so intelligent they become intelligent themselves.
One fine day, the machines banded themselves to- gether, an’ started a revolution against the human race. It was terrible. Before they were licked, they almost wiped out humanity. ’Twas Jed who saved us, and defeated ’em. How, I don’t know.
Ready for Action
Then Jed had all the machines destroyed, an’ all books about ’em, so they could never be built again. So as to have someone to do the work, he changed the solutions for your race, and you became what you are to-day, and the others became the Masters. Jed was one of us in the beginning, don’t forget.
Now here’s my plan. The Robots will follow you — I’ve shown you already how to control them. The 'Masters have their ray projectors, that can kill any- thing within twenty-five yards. So they could wipe you out if you attacked ’em.
But I’m in charge of the Mothers. If we all gather in the city of the Mothers, an’ seize ’em, then we can tell the Masters and Jed, unless they listen to our de- mands, we’ll kill off all the Mothers. Then there’ll be no more people bom, and the world will die out. Rather than that, the)r’ll surrender.
I’ll take Jed’s place as Ruler. We’ll try an’ build the machines again to do the world’s work. An’ we’ll fix the solutions for the unborn children so everybody of
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both races ’ll have equal intelligence, an’ be equal in everything.
The roomful starts to clap at this like mad, an’ it’s a funny sight to see those double sets o’hands bangin’ away, not to mention the noise they make.
Karet raises one o’ his long hands for silence. “You’ll be givin’ us away if a Master should happen to be around.” So they all stop, and it’s quiet again.
“Tomorrow noon is the time. Get everything pre- pared tonight. At noon, shout the control words and march the Robots to the city of Mothers as fast as you can. That’s all, now.”
The gang gets up and is ready to go, when Karet sorta sees me again.
“Oh, I’ve almost forgot,” he says, “Jed has ordered our visitor to be brought before the scientists. They will remove his brain for study. By examining its folds, they will be able to find out all he knovas about the world of 20,000 years ago he lived in. It’s much easier than asking him about it.”
You kin imagine how I jumped at that. Take my brain out o’ my head — over my dead body, — ^and I tells him so in plain language.
Would you believe it — he has the nerve to try an’ persuade me. It won’t hurt, he says, it’s in the interest of science ; they’ll put it back in again after, ’n I won’t even know it’s been out.
But that don’t make a hit with me at all. I tells ’em flat I won’t stand for it, even if I has to kill someone.
Karet shakes his head sorta puzzled, just like he can’t understand my feelin’s.
“Well,” he says finally, “they’re coming for you right away.”
“Lemme outa here,” I says wildly, “I won’t let ’em get me.”
“Where’ll you go to?” asks Karet, and that stumps me. They’ll sure catch me. I’m wishin’ I never went in that darned wood, ’n I was safe home again. A cold sweat breaks out, all over me. Take my brain out, I should say not. I’d ruther die first !
Karet shakes his head. “I’m sorry, my friend, I don’t think they’re going to ask you what you’d rather do. They’ll just go right ahead without askin’ any questions.”
I was all of a shiver. I didn’t like the idea at all. How’d I know that they could get my brain back? I grabs hold o’ my gun, I was goin’ to fight. Then, all of a sudden, I thinks of a way to make Karet, and Charlie, and the gang help me.
“Listen here,” I says to Karet, brash-like, “you say they kin read everything that’s in my brain.”
“Of course,” he answers.
“Every little thing I ever seed or heard,” I insists.
“Yes.”
“Well then,” and I taps with my gun on his chest, “how about this little cofab I just been listenin’ in on. They’ll read that, won’t they?”
That strikes him all of a heap. “He’s right” — ^he says to Charlie “we’ve got to hide him somehow !”
Just then I hear a noise outside, the sound of people cornin’.
“It’s the guard,” says Karet, excited, “they’re coming for you.”
I’m trapped, no mistakin’ that. “Tom my lad,” says I to myself, “you’re through; you’ll never see your poor old mother again, but you’re not givin’ up without a scrap.” So I pulls the gun an’ get ready to shoot the first one that comes in the door.
I could see the crowd in the room lookin’ at the pistol curious. They’d never seen one before. The footsteps gets louder. The guard’s almost at the door. My finger’s on the trigger, ready ta shoot.
Just then Karet jumps up. “I’ve got it. Charlie,” he orders rapidly, “take him through the trap over to the City of Mothers. Hide him in the top Tower. Quick !”
Someone presses a button, Charlie shoves me through a door that slides open in the wall, and closes it behind us just as the outside door opens. I hear “By order of
Jed, we’ve come for an’ we’re runnin’ in a
tunnel. Soon we come out in the open. It’s night, an’ the whole place is lit up beautiful. The buildings are all glowin’, the fountains are playin’ wi’ colored lights, the stars are shinin’, but Charlie jerks me impatient. “Come, we’ll have to move fast. It’s quite a ways.”
“Why don’t we take one of those air cars,” I says.
“Because I don’t know how to handle them — not allowed.”
Revolt I
SO we walks rapidly. I’m havin’ a hard job to keep up wi’ the giant; ducking every time we see a Master. About an hour, and we come to the place.
It’s a tremendous big structure, lit up with a golden light; there’s a center tower ’bout ten stories high, an’ there’s a wall all around the place, twenty-foot high.
There’s an entrance through the wall but a big savage- looking Robot stands on guard. We walks up to him, me shiverin’ like a leaf. Charlie says some word to him I don’t catch ; he looks at us dumb, and lets us in.
We hotfoot it for the tower, lucky not to meet any- one. Inside there’s a sort of airshaft leadin’ all the way to the top. Charlie looks at it puzzled.
“I forgot to ask Master Karet how to work it,” he explains, “there’s some way of getting up there.”
I remembered how I was brought up to Jed, and I looks around for the platform and button. Sure enough I found ’em, and shows ’em to friend Charlie.
“You go up and hide on the top,” he says relieved. “I daren’t stay around ; I’d be killed if a Master should find me in here. It’s forbidden. Goodbye — see you tomorrow at noon when things start humming.”
I shook one of his big hands, stood on the platform, pressed the button, and up I shoot into the air, up to the top where I land in a sort of entrance hall. Lots of doors leading out, all closed.
I take a chance an’ open one just a little bit. Peeking in, I see a great white room, with one o’ the most beau- tiful women I ever did see. Pretty as a picture, golden haired, but tall — ten feet easy. There "was a Master in the room, and he was carryin’ a dish filled with somethin’ to a tank.
I closed the door very quietly, an’ tried another door at t’ other end. This one was empty, so I eased into it, and closed the door.
For the first time, I felt dead tired. What a lot I’d
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WONDER
STORIES
been through since the morning. It didn’t seem pos- sible. Felt like months since I walked into the Vanish- ing Wood. And what was goin’ to happen to me? Would I ever get back? And as I’m wondering and worrying, my eyes jus’ naturally closed, and I fell fast asleep on the floor.
When I wake up, the sunshine is streaming in through a window. I look around a bit dazed, and wonderin’ where I am. Then it dawns on me, as I hear a great shouting, but faint as if coming from far off.
I jumped up and ran to the window. Way below I see a great sight. Thousands ’n thousands of Robots — tiny enough they looked from where I was — were marching towards me. They were yelling, and what a hullabaloo it made.
I seen Masters runnin’ up, an’ off in the distance aeryplanes skoOting along towards ’em. From the Masters I see tiny flames adarting, and down fall Robots. Some make a rush for the Masters. Most drop before they reach ’em, but every once in so often one or two manage to break through, and when they do — ^you see little bits of the poor Balloon-Head go flying through the air. Powerful brutes — ^those Robots.
The main body keeps marching fast to the gate, not stopping to fight. I prays for ’em to hurry, for I see the airships cornin’ dlong fast.
They’re at the gate as the first ships reach. The little flashes dart down among the mass, and the Robots are droppin’ like flies. I shut my eyes and groan. This is the end.
When I opens ’em again, a great bunch of ’em have scrambled thro’, an’ are rushing helter skelter into all the buildings. The next minute, there’s a racket out in the hall, and I grabs my gun.
The door bursts open, and in tumbles Karet, Charlie, an’ a dozen others. I almost shoots in my nervousness.
“We’ve got ’em now,” gasps Karet, exultant. “They daren’t use their tubes on the City of Mothers — ^they know they’d wipe out the race.”
They’re all excited and happy. I grabs Charlie and asks him what’s happened. He can’t hardly stand still in his excitement, but he tells me that there wuz so many of the Robots, and the Masters wuz so surprised, that Karet’s side has got control of the City of Mothers, as this place is called. I’m kinda glad too.
Karet gets a little calmed down. From somewheres he brings out somethin’ that looks like one of them French telephones I seen in the Bank in Mineola. There’s a coil of wire hangin’ onta it. He unrolls this and throws it out o’ the window. Then he talks into the dingus.
“Give me the general channel,” he says. Then he waits a minute, and then talks again.
“Master Karet speaking. To all Masters of Earth. I have captured the City of Mothers and hold it secure. Unless I receive word from you in ten minutes that you will bow down to me and obey my commands, all the Mothers will be killed, and all the eggs noW here de- stroyed. As you know, that will mean the end of the race. If you surrender to me I promise that I shall make good terms. I await your reply.”
Then he puts down the telephone and begins giving orders to Charlie and the other Robots. He trys to look calm, but I can see he’s all nervous. The rest o’ the
gang is jumping around and jabberin’ away at a great rate.
At 1st there’s a kind of a whistle from the dingus and Karet grabs it quick. “Karet listening.”
The gang gets quiet, and waits. I’m all worked up, too, and I’m shivering all over. All of a sudden Karet gives a great shout.
“They’ve given in!” he yells. “We’ve won! Run, tell them all!”
With that the gang rushes for the door, Karet after them. Pretty soon I hears a lot o’ shoutin’ and yellin’ from the mob below. I know that they’ve heard the news. So I goes below too, to see what’s goin’ to happen next.
(Tom’s pipe again needed replenishing. I seized the opportunity to shift to a chair whose seat was softer than the one I had been filling with my bulk.)
CHAPTER V
Tense Moments
WELL, sirs, after the mob got done hollering over this easy success, Karet got ’em all together out in the park in front of the City of Mothers. They was thousands an’ thousands of them, and they was all happier thain they had ever been before. Poor fellows, their happiness didn’t last long.
I’m tryin’ to figure out how I could get out of the whole thing. Somethin’ told me things was going too easy, I was sure somethin’ terrible was going to happen.
Karet floated in his canoe up where everybody could see him. He had some kind of contraption in his hand, somethin’ like a telephone an’ megaphone combined. He stood up and bgan to talk in it.
I was far away from where he was, way out on the edge of the crowd, but I could hear every word he says, just as if he was talking right to me.
He talked nice and smooth, and he got right down under the skin o’ them Robots. He told them what a wonderful victory they had won, and how they had showed themselves the aqual o’ the Masters. An’ he told them that he would keep his promises, and free them like he had said he would, and would give them each a part of all the good things that the Masters had always had.
That went over big, and the mob howled and cheered. And some o’ the poor fellows cried with joy. But I kept feelin’ that something terrible was agoin’ to happen.
Then Karet went on. He said that they wasn’t done yet, that they had only done half o’ what was necessary. And he spoke about Jed, and reminded them that it was the Jed that was the real Master, and that the Masters that had always kept them down was only doing what Jed told them. And he talked about that cold, unhuman Brain, and as how it had lived for hundreds and hun- dreds o’ years, and as how it would go on living forever so long as the jelly it floated in was kept just right.
As we listened to Tom’s unschooled rendition of the speech of the rebel leader I could picture the scene, and realize how this Superhuman was swaying the recently freed slaves with his eloquence.
And then Karet told them that so long as Jed still lived, they wasn’t safe. That they must kill him— and
IN 20,000 A.D,t
321
then the world would surely belong to the Robots.
The crowd kind o’ fell silent when their leader first mentioned Jed, and they was awful uneasy. But as he went on — ^and he was a wonderful talker, almost as good as our preacher down in Blaymont — they began to yell and shout. Somebody yelled “Down with Jed, kill him!” and the whole crowd took up the cry, “Kill! kill! kill Jed!” But I was thinking to myself — “So that’s your game. You’re goin’ to get these poor fools to kill your Master, and then you’re agoin’ to take his place, and God pity these poor Robots then.” For I didn’t trust the fellow, nohow. And more and more I felt that somethin’ awful was goin’ to happen, and I was trying to figure out how I could get out of the mess. But somethin’ kept me there. I just had to see what would happen next.
( Sid muttered to me, “I couldn’t have left that scene myself,” and I nodded in agreement. Tom was stuffing his pipe again, and I was on tenterhooks to hear what the next incident in the strange story would be. Through the window a faint lightening in the sky spoke of ap- proaching dawn, but none of us felt in the least sleepy. The room was hazy with smoke, and fetid with the odor of burned tobacco. Around our chairs, Sid’s and mine, were scattered oceans of cigarette butts.
At last Tom had finished replenishing his briar and began again.)
While the shoutin’ was at its height, I felt a touch on my arm. I turned, and saw Charlie standing there. In one o’ his hands he had something I had never seen before. It looked like a book, not very thick but very long and wide. But it wasn’t paper, it looked like some metal. Charlie’s eyes was kind o’ sad, all his excitement seemed to have died down. I asked him what he wanted.
“Tom,” he says, “I’ve got a feeling that I won’t live long. This here’s a record o’ the past that I’ve been takin’ care of. We Robots have hidden it from the Masters for many, many years. No one knows how old it is, and no one can tell what it says. But we have an idea that it’s older than Jed. I have sworn to see that it comes to no harm. Will you take it, and give it back to me if Jed is killed and I am still alive? If not, you keep it safe.”
Well, sirs, I didn’t know what to make o’ this queer favor he was askin’, and I didn’t much like the idea, but the poor fellow looked so sad and begged so hard that I couldn’t say no. So I took the book and shoved it inside my shirt and buckled my belt around it. It wasn’t very comfortable. I’ll tell the world.
(Sid had gripped my arm as Tom told of the book, so hard that I could hardly refrain from crying out. Now he burst forth. “Where is it, have you got it?”
Imperturbable as ever, Tom replied, “I’ll tell you about that later.” With this we had to remain content. We had learned that Jenkins must be permitted to tell his story in his own way.)
I never saw Charlie again!
By this time the crowd had started rushing toward the other end of the park, where Jed was. They was still yelling, “Kill! Kill!” and they was waving all their arms in the air. Have you ever seen the ocean in a storm, when the waves are rushing up on the beach? That’s how that mob looked.
The Dread Words of Jed
I DIDN’T want to go along. I was scared. But be- fore I could get out I was mixed up in that rushin’ crowd, and I was carried along with it. They ran through that beautiful park; over the grass and the flowers, and everything, tramplin’ it all down. They even threw down the fountains. I kept bangin’ back as much as I could, but I couldn’t get out of that crazy gang until we was in sight of the big building where the Jed was.
When I found myself free I began to run back. I had been getting scareder and scareder, and I had made up my mind I was goin’ back to the Vanishing Wood to see if maybe I could get back to my own days. I was so scared of what I could feel was coming that I didn’t care what happened to me so long as I wasn’t in that park any longer.
But I hadn’t run more’n a hundred yards when I heard a terrible sound. It was like a groan, but like no groan that I’d ever heard, ’cause it came from all o’ them thousands and thousands o’ black creatures that was shouting and running to kill Jed.
I turned around to see what had happened. I saw that the whole o’ that big crowd was standing stock still and looking ahead o’ them. Again my wanting to know what was going on got stronger than my being scared, so I stopped too. 1 couldn’t see what they was looking at, so I climbed a tree.
“I wish I hadn’t !”
(Tom paused, and put one huge hand over his eyes, as if to shut out some terrible sight. Sid and I looked at each other. What horror could have brought that look of terror into the eyes of this phlegmatic farmer?
A long pause, and then he spoke to us.
“I disremember if I told you about the Jedauds. Did I?”
I answered in the negative.)
Well, at certain times o’ the year the Masters from all over the world would come to this place to bow down to Jed. There was too many of them to all get inside the building so they would all stand in the big open space around it. And the building where Jed was would open out, so that there was nothing but a great roof floating up in the air, and the big white ball floating under it.
That’s what the crowd was lookin’ at. The sides of the building were gone, an’ there was that rosy roof ahangin’ ’way up in the air, and under it the big white ball in which Jed lived!
But, gents, that ball wasn’t still. No. Even from far away where I was, I could see that it was spinnin’ round and round. When I first see it, it’s turning very slow like, but as I watches, it goes faster and faster till it seems like it’s still again, it’s going so fast.
Meanwhile the sky’s gettin’ darker and darker. I don’t know what time o’ day it was, but it seems to me that the darkness was unnatural. It’s getting cold too, and a wind like ice blows towards me.
As it gets dark, that spinnin’ ball begins to shine. It’s white at first, and then different colors begin to come and go over it. Pretty colors. Like you see when you spill oil on the water in a swamp to kill skeeters. Only
322 K Q N D E R
these colors keep coming and going all over. Xhere’s a word for that kind of colors.
(“Iridescence,” Sid supplied.)
That’s it! Then all of a sudden I hears that sweet voice of Jed’s atalkin’ in my brain. Kinda faint, I’m a long ways off. But those words is burned into my brain. I’ll never forget them as long as I live.
(That look of horror had been deepening in Tom’s eyes. His pipe had gone out, and he had visibly paled. As he talked he had been staring at the flame in the oil lamp on the table, staring fixedly, unblinkingly. Now, as he spoke of the Jed, expression seemed to drain from his face, his eyes became glassy. He seemed to speak by rote, his unschooled locutions vanished. We seemed to hear the very voice of Jed.)
There was no emotion in that voice, yet somehow I felt an unutterable disdain, an abysmal contempt in its tones. I felt small, very small, and insignificant.
“So you came to kill Jed! Karet, you and your dupes ! And you think that you can succeed. Know you not that Jed is immortal? Aye, immortal not only against the natural processes that age and decay your paltry carcasses, but against violence and accident !
“You, traitorous Karet, would kill Jed and take his place. Before you can do that, before you can hope to match your paltry wits against my wisdom, you must live and learn, as I have, for ten thousand years.
“Think you that you, in your paltry span of three hundred years, with your circumscribed brain, body hampered, could hope to know a thousandth of what I know ? You would wrest the world from me ! For the first time since the invaders from Jupiter matched their puny might against mine, I am amused. Why, the Machines in their revolt were more potent by far than you !
“You and the other Masters, as you loved to style yourselves, dreamed that I lived at your sufferance, that I ruled by your good will. What presumptuous ignor- ance.
“I need not you, nor any other being on this earth. Were it not that I cared not to exert myself, I should have long ruled alone, to carry out the destiny of this fair planet. While you were faithful servants of my will I tolerated you. Now, that you delude yourself, I shall make an e^ of you, and of all your dupes. Pre- pare to meet your doom !”
(With this last dread sentence the voice fell silent. Tom’s eyes closed, he seemed asleep. Sid shook him, he woke with a start.
“Where was I, what happened?”
“You had just told us what Jed said, begin apiin where he stopped,” I said, soothingly.)
Through 18,000 Years
AS Jed sfopped talking in my head, (Tom went onj > I saw a shiver run over that crowd in front of me. They seemed to be tryin’ to get away, but they couldn’t move. I could see Karet, and he was pushing the but- tons on the box in his flyin’ machine, but it didn’t do no good. I hope never to see a look on any man like what was on his face then.
All this time the pretty colors had been runnin’ and flowin’ over the ball. But now they all flowed tc^ether, fend they all became violet. Not a pretty violet like the
STORIES
flowers, bujt a deep dark color. And the color got darker and darker till all of a sudden there wasn’t any light at all. I couldn’t see the ball, but I knem it was still there.
For a minute It was pitch dark, and I couldn’t see nothing at all. Then sudden like, I could see the crowd, and Karet floatin’ there above them. There wasn’t no light shining on them, they was shining themselves! They looked like ghosts, red ghosts, stretching away there, close together, as far as I could see. The light that was shining from them was a red light, an awful deep red.
They were shining brighter and brighter — now they all looks like red-hot iron just out of the forge. And they are hot, too, I can feel that heat coming to me like from a blazin’ furnace. The trees around begin to shrivel in the heat, and the grass.
I’m sittin’ there in that tree, spell-bound, with my mouth hangin’ open like any gapin’ fool. But when they begins to melt I’ve had enough. I lets out a shriek and falls out of my tree. I don’t know why I didn’t get hurt falling, I don’t even remember hitting the ground. All I could think of was the Vanishing Wood. I wanted to get away, to get out of that terrible place.
I run till my lungs are bursting, and at fast I see the blessed wood ahead of me. I don’t stop to look if the trees are twisted as before, and I don’t look behind me, but just plunges right in. There’s the path, and as I step on it I feel the same thing pulling me. I get into that Nothing again, all twisted up like I was at firsts and there I am, lying on the ground, way back there in the Vanishing Wood.
I lay there for a long time, trembling. I was awful scared. I was scared for fear that I hadn’t gotten out of the time I had run away from, and I’m scared for fear I landed in some other terrible time.
At last I pull myself together and walk slowly down the path. When I get to the edge, I hide behind a tree and stick my head out, fearful o’ what I should see.
Thank God ! There’s old man Brown’s meadow, an’ the cows, an’ the little brook. I’m saved from those terrible things — ^I’m home again!
4: >l< 4c * >|c
Tom’s tired voice ceased, his head drooped wearily. We too slumped back in our chairs, terribly tired by the tense strain of the long listening. Amid the ashes and the half-burned cigarettes were strewn the white sheets on which we had scribbled the story of the strangest adventure man has ever had.
The man to whom all this had occurred straightened. A challenge was in his eyes.
“Do you believe me?” he demanded.
In one voice we assured him we did, and we were not lying.
“’Cause if you don’t,” he went on, still unconvinced, “there’s the Vanishing Wood out there, and you can go and see for yourselves!” He pointed to the window, bright now with the new day.
Sid and I looked at each other. Then we shook our heads.
“No, Tom, we’ll take your word.”
We gathered our papers, donned our hats and/ coats, fumed to thank Tom again and say goodbye. Suddenly Sid started.
IN 20,000 A.D.!
323
“My God, I almost forgot! The book, Tom, what happened to the book ?’’
“Why, I’ve got it right here. It was still inside my shirt when I got back.” He went to a cupboard, opened it, and came back carrying something.
Eagerly we seized the volume. The size and shape of the old school geographies, it was made of some light metal. The leaves were thin, almost as thin as gold leaf. On them we could make out many symbols, closely written.
“What are you going to do with this, Tom?”
“Take it. I don’t want it around. I want nothing that’ll remind me of that terrible trip.”
All our protests; our offers to pay well for the
volume, were useless. Either we’d take it as a gift or he would destroy it.
* * * * ♦
We have been studying that book. It appears to be a compilation of epochal events in the history of the world, for some thousands of years in what is to us, the future. Each event is narrated by a participant or eye- witness. As we translate, we grow more elated at our find.
But a great fever seizes us. We" want to see that strange world of the future. We talk about it, Sid and I, and speculate on what we shall find. And perhaps some day we shall quietly step into the Vanishing Wood and bridge the gap that separates us from the year 20,000 A. D.l
The End.
In the October Issue'.
“THE WAR LORD OF VENUS”
By Frank J. Bridge
A continuation of this marvelous struggle for control of a world removed thirty million miles and fifty million years.
“THE EMPIRE IN THE SKY”
By Ralph Wilkins
A thrilling "air wonder” adventure into a nation existing in the great blue skies — with mystery, intrigue and a startling climax.
“THE LIZARD-MEN OF BUH-LO”
By Francis Flagg
He stepped through a door in space and disappeared. Years passed before word came. Don’t mind this latest dimension-traveling story by our well-known author !
AND MANY OTHERS.
SCIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE
1. What is the velocity of the cathode stream? How is it produced? (Page 337)
2. What is the penetrating power of cosmic rays? (Page 337)
3. How is sound sent over light beams? (Page 341)
4. What is the most necessary feature in the radio control of bombing planes ? (Page 357)
5. What is it that turns the train of a comet away from the sun? (Page 295)
6. What does the “conjunction of Venus with the earth” mean? (Page 299)
7. What is the minimum distance of Venus from the earth? (Page 299)
8. What is the diameter ; distance from the sun ; period of revolution and period of rotation of Venus? (Page 300)
9. How many moons has Mars? (Page 346)
10. What is the great factor in determining our
mental and physical growth? (Page 326)
THE TCAGEET CE
By CABTAIN
LL WEBSTER recovered consciousness with a groan. His eyelids lifted for an instant but dropped quickly at the glare of the tropical sun overhead. Slowly and with infinite effort he rolled himself over and again opened his eyes. He