The Void had spawned these hell-creatures
of destruction, had sown them deep within
Earth's soil. And now Earth was reaping a
whirlwind of death--weapons futile against
the immortal conquerors from another space.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Art Douglas saw one of the very first of them, found and brought in by
two drivers from the huge steel burrowing worm which was at that time
conducting the sub-crust explorations many miles below the rolling
Kansas prairies. Why the men should have brought the discovery to
an organization such as the Interplanetary Research Institute, was
something not quite clear to Art. They must have known, he reflected
bitterly, how utterly bogged down the Institute was, how close to
absolute disintegration, from inability to work or progress, and the
resultant effect on the morale of the highly trained scientists who
made up its staff.
But the weird organism which lay before him on the laboratory bench
dispelled all such thoughts immediately. His imaginative, yet
scientific brain leaped to meet the challenge and the Interplanetary
Research Institute became only a workshop full of tools, ready for his
use.
It was only natural that he should first assume that the
creature-plants were probably native to the level at which they had
been found, and that this was their natural environment. How terribly
wrong this was to prove! Of the terrible menace in the thing before
him, Douglas could not dream; although he could plainly see its
potentialities. For it had been found boring through solid rock.
It seemed to have been designed for just that. Its form was that of
spiral screw, about a foot long, tapering from a diameter of about an
inch at one end, to four inches at the other. In color it was a dull
blue-black, the surface fine textured and smooth, and steely hard.
Its strength was of steel also, for it was constantly whipping about,
trying to fasten its three needle sharp jaws, which were located at the
smaller end, in anything it might find. One of the men who brought it
had suffered a frightful gash in the forearm before they had learned
that this could be avoided by picking it up at the larger end. The
creature could not quite achieve the feat of bending itself double.
Art found that once it had hooked those fierce jaws into anything, it
started boring and could not be torn loose. However, it would bore
_only upward_! When laid on a flat table, it merely writhed about,
looking for some object above it. He held a thick piece of board over
it. The head had bored through in a few seconds, but when he turned
the board over, it backed out hastily, and flopped to the table again,
where it resumed its endless searching, searching for something,
anything overhead, in which it could fasten its tenuous grip.
Art called and had a huge two ton block of granite brought in by the
overhead crane. In its lower side he ordered some workmen to chip a
cavity, a little larger than the creature on the table. The thing was
dropped on the floor, and the block carefully lowered over it, so that
it was imprisoned in the cavity. Art had a hunch that it would have
made little difference to the creature whether it was allowed the
cavity, or merely had the block dropped on it. A little shudder ran
through him at the thought of such unearthly strength. He decided to go
to lunch, before he got too deeply involved.
* * * * *
Passing through the outer office, he met Elene Moor, lovely secretary
to Doctor Theller, Chief Director of the Institute and his immediate
superior. He had known Elene in college before securing this position,
and he remembered the sudden elation he had felt when he discovered
that he would be working near the girl for whom he had felt such a
hopeless yearning in school. She had been so popular, so surrounded by
young men whose zest for life, talent for fun, and supply of ready cash
had utterly overwhelmed him. Now, after five years of Interplanetary,
such a dull apathy had settled over him that even Elene's golden
loveliness failed to stir him.
"Might as well lunch with me, Elene," he said, seeing that she was
about to leave. "I have an interesting topic of conversation for the
first time in ages, it seems. In fact, I'm very anxious to tell you
about it."
She looked at him closely. Something certainly had aroused his
interest. His keen blue eyes were alight, and his rugged frame seemed
to be invested with a nervous energy which had long been dormant.
Elene was glad; he almost looked like the Art she had loved, and had
such hopes for, when he had first come to the Institute. But his
fine intellect had seemingly withered, stultified by the impossible
situation which existed at Interplanetary in the year 2186. Several
centuries of scientific struggling had finally produced a mode of
interplanetary travel. In 2135, successful landings and safe returns
had been made to and from Mars. A year later, Venus was also reached.
But fifty-one years had produced little knowledge of any value;
progress was at a standstill. Certainly the Martians had been found
to be a highly developed and scientific race. They were peaceful and
friendly. But they were also very wise. They were acquainted with
the history of man on Earth as far back as the time of Christ. Their
astronomical instruments made it possible to see plainly events there,
under the proper conditions. With the coming of wireless, they had
been able to intercept any and all signals they chose. They knew about
all they needed or wanted to know about Earth. That was what made
them so wary. For they had seen the torture of the early Christians,
and the cruel subjugation of the known world by the Romans. They had
seen in turn, the overrunning of Rome by the barbarian hordes. They
had known Attila the Hun. They had witnessed the Spanish Inquisition.
They had seen the slaughter of the aborigines in the new world, their
gradual extinction by the white colonists. They had known Napoleon,
and most monstrous and horrible of all, Hitler. They had finally seen
the Great Gas War, which had so decimated the ranks of mankind, that
it had been necessary to set up the International Peace Council, which
established peace by the only method which mankind seemed to be able to
understand--force.
* * * * *
It was rather simple. The laws were very strict: briefly, the
manufacture, transporting, or even possession of any kind of murder
weapon, other than what might be carried by a man for his personal
defense, was considered sufficient evidence of intent to kill, and
carried a death penalty. The agents and inspectors of the Council were
everywhere, entering any machine shop or factory at will, constantly
checking all sources of raw material, making almost impossible any
secret manufacture of any type of armament.
But even this could not convince the canny Martians--for they knew that
thousands of years of barbarism were covered only by a thin veneer.
At any time, man's innate desire to conquer, pillage, and exterminate
another race might break through. The Martians well knew the age-old
tactics of infiltration used by colonists of Earth. Consequently, only
a few scheduled rocket trips per year were permitted. The personnel of
each expedition was restricted to a few scientists, who were carefully
investigated. They were allowed to study the language, customs, and
art of Mars. But scientific achievements and secrets were taboo. No
Earthman was permitted to roam at will on Mars--the knowledge they
acquired there was given them by an interviewing committee of high
ranking Martians, whose ability to sidestep a direct question was
uncanny.
Of course, there were a few political hotheads on Earth who advocated
building a huge fleet of rocket ships, powered with disintegrators,
and sending an expedition to subdue the red planet. Naturally, this
merely served to corroborate the bad opinion of Earth held by the
superscientists of Mars. A few men, such as Doctor Theller and Art,
knew what awful disasters such a move would bring. Not only did
the Martians have weapons which made the terribly effective, but
uncontrollable, atomic disintegrator look like a clumsy toy, but they
could also throw up a force field around their entire planet, at an
unknown height, against which any invading ship would smash into
blazing fragments.
True, there was Venus. Venus, the Jungle Planet. There were two
environments of Venus--water and jungle. Both were filled with a
teeming growth of nightmarish monsters, among which had been found
no intelligent beings. The creatures of Venus were born, fought and
ate one another, bred and died. That was all. The whole thing was one
vast aquarium. Most of the species had been classified during the ten
years following the first landing. There had been many expeditions at
first. But gradually they tapered off. Attempts at colonization were
given up as hopeless. The climate was sultry and oppressive, but worst
of all was the fact that practically all of the vegetation of Venus
was poisonous to humans. Any food crops introduced from Earth were
strangled by the lush native vegetation, which grew at an incredible
rate. Venus had no economic value. Minerals there were, but the expense
of freighting them back to Earth by rocket ship made mining impractical.
As Elene mulled over these gloomy thoughts, she and Art had covered the
short distance from the office to the tube that led to Food Center. As
they entered, she saw that he also was preoccupied. In good time, he
would tell her what had aroused his sudden enthusiasm. An empty car
came by. A photoelectric cell registered their presence in the tube. It
stopped, Art dropped a token in a slot in its side, and the door slid
silently open. As they entered, Art grinned and said:
"They're junking these cars next year. Seems they have developed a new
model. They were losing money on these--they waste a lot of time. They
always stop for you whether you want a car or not; perhaps you're just
waiting to meet someone, or just got off a car."
"I hardly see what they can do about that," laughed Elene. "Telepathic
communication between man and a machine is something considered pretty
far in the future."
"They still use the photo cell," answered Art, "but now it registers a
complete picture of you. By a system of hand signals the prospective
passenger will be able to indicate whether he wants a car, where he
is going, et cetera. Even the control panel, which we now set for our
destination, will be eliminated."
* * * * *
Soon they were seated in the one huge cafeteria which served the entire
city of Washington. Various levels were frequented by different classes
of citizens, and Art and Elene chose a quiet one, usually patronized by
scientific and medical students. Their meal was ordered by dialing from
a numbered menu and arrived automatically in a few seconds, piping hot.
Once they were settled, Art began to tell the girl of the weird thing
that had been brought him.
"I've had no time at all to work on it, of course," he began, "but
this much I can almost say for sure--this thing is not an organism
like anything else on Earth's crust. Its life processes do not depend
on oxidation. It's not composed, as we are, principally of hydrogen,
oxygen, and carbon. Carbon, perhaps, yes; that might give it some of
its hardness--but it's inert, not involved in any chemical action. The
thing neither breathes nor eats!"
"Please, Art, start at the beginning--you haven't told me what it looks
like, or anything!"
"O.K., O.K.," he grinned, and obligingly did so, concluding with, "It's
not much, maybe--hasn't anything to do with planetary research, but
it's a job--something to keep me busy. That's hard enough to find,
these days."
"Art," she said quickly, "it seems to me that there's plenty to do now,
as never before; so much untapped knowledge right at our fingertips--"
"I don't see how you can say that," he interrupted bitterly. "I
wouldn't exactly call Mars at our fingertips."
"Why Mars? It's always Mars, Mars. You don't have to go there. Find out
the secrets they know for yourself. Just because you're stymied that
doesn't mean you can't go ahead yourself. A young man with initiative
could--"
"So I haven't any initiative!" he flared. "Well, how about yourself?
After all, a woman now is as good as a man, you know--with modern
advantages, physical strength and endurance aren't so important. A
woman with enough courage and will power can do as much as any man."
"Yes, Art, but a woman is still a woman. All the scientific progress in
the world can't change that--she still plays the passive role. Woman
would cease to be feminine otherwise. That was proved way back in the
twentieth century."
"I suppose you're right," he muttered. It had set him thinking. Was
he losing his manhood? The human race didn't have so much need for
expansion any more. Only greed and craving for adventure would set a
man exploring now. And he had neither. Or had he? He thought of the
daydreams he sometimes had--of roaming through the primitive jungles
of Venus, searching perhaps for a trace of a near human, intelligent
civilization, blasting his way through hordes of threatening monsters.
But all that was silly; he was a trained man, and it would be very
foolish to risk such a brain as his in that hotbed of violence.
Still, what good was that precious brain doing anyone at
Interplanetary? The shortage of radium prevented their going ahead with
the program of experiments which Dr. Theller had mapped out. The idea
of wasting their dwindling supply in a roundabout process of learning
what the Martians could so easily tell them, had turned the staff of
the Institute into a pack of frustrated malcontents.
* * * * *
The Earth easily supported its population of ten billion. Masterpieces
of engineering had irrigated and made fertile practically all of the
Earth's surface, except around the poles. There was no need to grow
crops, anyway, other than that fresh natural foods were more palatable.
Enough food for a hundred billion people could be manufactured
synthetically from the sun's rays. There was no need, say, for
colonizing Venus, but such a project would certainly provide an outlet
for the energies of a bored young scientist.
Art still sulked as they returned to the laboratory, but the idea had
been planted in his mind, and the more he thought, the nearer he came
to admitting that Elene was right. Little did he dream that he would
soon be so busy that looking for thrills would be the least of his
worries.
A white faced attendant met them at the front door of the laboratory.
"Dr. Douglas! That thing--we can't control it--it's--" Art ran to the
room where he had left the creature. The granite block was where he
had left it, but had a neat round hole in its top. Then he looked at
the opposite wall of the room. It was a crumbling ruin. The wormlike
animal had evidently wriggled its way to the plastocrete wall where it
had started boring. As the wall was only five or six inches thick, it
had kept emerging from one side or another, dropping to the floor, and
starting all over again. The attendants, not knowing how to pick it up,
had left it alone after suffering several gashes. They were afraid to
handle it too roughly, for fear of damaging it. Art smiled grimly at
this. He picked the thing up, threw it on the table. He decided that he
would dissect the specimen here and now, find the secret of its mighty
strength. But at that moment Dr. Theller came in.
"Well, Art, I hope you've thoroughly familiarized yourself with that
creature because--"
"To tell you the truth, Dr. Theller, I don't know a darn thing about
it!" retorted Art cheerfully.
"You're going to learn, Art--and mighty soon! I'm going to send you out
to Los Angeles. Something catastrophic is happening out there. I can't
get anything very clear over the televisor--I see confused pictures of
buildings crashing, utter panic everywhere. All the accounts I've heard
are garbled--but creatures like this seem to have something to do with
it!
"Find out what you can, do what you can, then report back. Of course,
the city has no defenses, other than the police force, and they are
armed only with shock guns." It was true--war was non-existent;
defensive armament was unnecessary. Everything was fireproof, making a
fire department likewise unnecessary.
Art took off in his strato flier from the roof of the laboratory,
climbing rapidly until he reached the thin isothermal layer, ten miles
up. Then he leveled off, and accelerated slowly to a speed of over one
thousand mph. At this rate, he would be able to reach Los Angeles in
not over two and a half hours. The time dragged as Art tried to picture
the disaster that had overtaken the West Coast city, and just how it
could have been caused by animals like the one he had seen.
Art always disliked riding the strato layer. Too far below him were
the rich, rolling prairies, the mountains covered with mighty timber
trees and lush greenery. There was no desert, no wasteland. Any land
not level enough to grow crops, or occupied by cities, was covered by
thick forest. The only exceptions were the higher peaks of the Rockies,
brilliant white patches against the green carpet. It was a beautiful
old planet, this Mother Earth.
Far ahead and to his right, Art finally glimpsed the sparkle of
sunlight of the Inland Sea. Once there had been a ghastly blazing hot
desert there, called Death Valley, Art remembered from his school
geography. Two centuries ago, engineers had dug a tunnel and let the
water of the Pacific in, thereby giving the surrounding desert land
a much moister climate. Such a primitive measure would not have been
necessary in modern times. Distilled sea water could be piped anywhere,
in any desired amount, for irrigation.