[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
December 1952
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_When their sun began to wane, the Xlarnans at first retreated
underground to hoard the heat and life-supporting energies which their
nuclear generators could supply. But as their world grew colder,
century after century, they devised a means of creating a substitute
for the ionosphere--a protective layer of radioactive gases in the
upper reaches of the sky which could warm them by means of its slow,
controlled reaction, give them eternal light, and yet absorb its own
harder radiations._
_Thus--a planetary cell of life, isolated from the universe,
independent of solar heat. And the Xlarnans at last emerged from their
subterranean cities to take up life anew in a tropical Paradise that
knew neither nightfall nor seasons. They missed the starlit night
skies of old, the sunrises and sunsets, and most of all the stupendous
celestial rainbow, the Great Ring, which some of them believed to be
formed of the particles of a large satellite that had encircled their
world back in the dim Beginning._
_But the time arrived when they knew they were losing control of their
reaction sphere in the sky. The hard radiations increased inexorably
in spite of all the coolants they could generate and send aloft. They
had to admit that the day would come when they would be destroyed by
the very instrument that had given them an extra hundred millenniums of
life._
_At the end of time--the Xlarnans, pressed against a wall, the reaction
sphere, from which came hard radiations, burning them. The ethnic
urge to survive in the face of swiftly approaching death. Necessity
mothering invention. And then--_
_The Chronotron...._
_Electronic envelopes speeding faster than light. Three dimensional
nature rejecting the envelope. Only in Time can anything be in two
places--along the duration line._
_The Chronotron--planting new Cause in the beginning of Effect. And
there is alternate time._
_Large numbers of Xlarnans, through the Chronotron, back to the
beginning of the reaction sphere era, an already advanced race with
the course of another hundred thousand years to run before facing the
threat from the sky once more._
_The first cycle ends, and at the last extremity of alternate time
veritable super beings achieve immortality. With immortality, less
procreation. And at last, sterility._
_Still the deadly threat above them. The daily promise of sudden and
complete devastation. Now there are rockets at last, but certain
techniques and necessary discoveries in the fields of chemistry and
metallurgy elude them. Attempted space flights end in collisions with
meteors or death due to radiations in the outer void--but escape
velocity never achieved._
_Then came--THE THEORY...._
_Very vague and unidentifiable fossils discovered in astoundingly deep
strata. Nothing definite, but a bothersome hint of high development.
Hypothesis evolved into theory; Xlarn had known a complete geological
cycle before the Beginning, perhaps when the Great Ring around the
planet had been a moon! Granted this previous cycle, one might assume
a complete evolutionary development. If such a world had existed on
Xlarn previously then perhaps some highly intelligent race had evolved.
They might have been threatened by some cataclysm in their own time and
found a means of getting away from the planet--perhaps even to another
solar system!_
_Sheer desperation. Sterile immortals of Xlarn supercharging a greatly
improved Chronotron. A single emissary, shot through Time's great
darkness beyond Beginning...._
_A long wait at the end of time. The remaining immortals wondered at
the futility of it all. Theirs was the only life in the universe,
in all space and time. Or was it? Would their emissary actually
substantiate the theory of a world beyond Beginning?_
* * * * *
"Extrapolation!" exclaimed the nuclear physicist, with an air of
strained indulgence. His keen, blue eyes also told young Henry that the
scientist was vastly amused. And he resented it. "Sonny, if you'd keep
out of unabridged dictionaries until you were of age your mind might
have a better chance of catching up to itself _and_ the world around
you!"
Henry closed his science fiction magazine with as much of an indignant
"bang" as was possible with a well-worn pulp and turned his back on
the intruder. He tried not to listen to him as he went on arguing with
Uncle Andy. He tried to concentrate on the wisps of clouds straggling
low over the gray Atlantic Ocean ten thousand feet below. He watched
the giant nacelles of the right wing engines as the double-decked
strato-cruiser droned monotonously onward toward New York. But he could
not shut off his ears....
"Really, Dearden, you ought to watch that," the physicist was saying
to the kindly man who had adopted Henry. "A bright, adolescent mind
driving itself into the pit of self-delusion! Get him interested in
something more realistic than science fiction. Lord knows the world
needs some _practical_ minds these days!"
"Just now I could quote Henry in a lot of appropriate ways," Uncle Andy
replied. "He's very serious about this business of extrapolation. He
thinks it is a new perspective, a seventh sense, as it were, that Man
ought to develop. Furthermore, as long as you're interested...."
Good old Uncle Andy, thought Henry. A brilliant man, a leading
technological specialist, yet as old-fashioned and unassuming
as--as--Well, who _was_ like Uncle Andy nowadays?
In his mind's eye he could see him, while he listened to his quiet
conversation. Going on forty-five and looking the part, without
pretense--graying at the temples, balding, and with a front upper
plate in his mouth that was inoffensive but also no secret. He was a
little heavy, and as out of condition, physically, as was considered to
be average. But he had a good-looking, strong, kind face, clear gray
eyes and a restful, reassuring manner. The strongest impression one
gathered, outside of the fact that his pipe tobacco was abominable, was
that he was the turtle that outran the hare. The reliable type, _sans_
heroism, fanaticism or hysteria. A swell guy.
But what was that nosey Doctor Edwards putting in his two cents for? I
am _none_ of his business!--Henry decided abruptly.
"Doctor Edwards!" he interrupted, suddenly getting back into the
argument, "did it ever occur to you that orthodox scientists are _not_
the top of the intellectual pyramid?--that they are, in fact, the
robotic servants of those who _dare_ to think _originally_?"
* * * * *
Dr. Edwards, also a balding man in his middle forties, but rueful of
the fact, managed a thin smile, and Henry perceived that a tender spot
had been probed. "I'll overlook a rather unbecoming lack of respect for
your elders," retorted the scientist, "but go ahead! As an 'original
thinker,' Henry, you should be sufficiently philanthropic to at least
drop us groveling orthodox scientists a crumb of pure thought from
the overwhelming Cornucopia of your banquet table." His eyes narrowed
suddenly with disciplinary sternness. "To put it plainly--"
"You needn't paraphrase the innuendo," Henry cut him off. "And I'll
just _toss_ you a crumb!"
"Now Henry," chided Uncle Andy, tamping more tobacco into his pipe,
"come down off your Pegasus, boy!"
"No, let him go ahead," insisted Edwards. "This will be a good
measurement for both of us!"
Three men in the triple seat behind Henry were poking each other. He
could hear what they were saying.
"Get this kid!" one of them grunted. He was the slick, heavy-bearded
fellow in the powder blue suit, the one with the mean looking scowl
caused by a bright scar on one side of his mouth. But he was not being
critical. He was genuinely interested.
"Yeah. Smart alec!" a second man muttered.
"There's about eighty people on board," said the third. "Gotta be at
least one genius amongst 'em!" That was the big construction stiff from
the base where Uncle Andy had worked--in French Morocco.
Henry squared his mental shoulders, stuck out his sixteen-year-old chin
and thought--This is it!
"All right!" he said aloud, "how about a good hypothesis on novae,
arrived at by extrapolation?"
Dr. Edwards slapped his knee in mock enthusiasm. "Just the information
the world has been waiting for!" he exclaimed. "Go ahead!"
"I shall attempt to demonstrate that lightwaves produced by any
given nova were produced long before their appearance, regardless of
astronomical proximity to the observer, and that those waves actually
were propagated through Time, along the Fourth Coordinate," Henry
began, emphatically.
But there was an interruption.
"Well _really_!" exclaimed the Englishwoman, turning around to stare
back at Henry, as if the emotional and physical expenditure required
to deliver those two words were sufficient to handle the situation.
She turned abruptly to a resumption of her magazine reading, while the
plump, middle-aged governess beside her snored softly.
Henry's rather lean face lengthened as he contemplated the back of her
persnickety-looking hat, which he thought was a ridiculous assembly of
straw, lace and painted berries. He was blushing slightly as he looked
back at Uncle Andy and Dr. Edwards, who wondered if he was going to
ignore the lady's protest. When Henry looked at the three men behind
him and noticed the all too knowing smirks on their faces, he gave up.
"Aw, skip it!" he said, and he got up, making his way to the aisle.
"Wait, Henry--!" Dr. Edwards started to say.
"Let him go," interrupted Uncle Andy. Those were the last words Henry
caught as he hurried away down the aisle toward the stairway leading to
the lower deck and the observation lounge and commissary.
It was all on account of Martia, he thought sullenly. She was the
daughter of that stuck up English woman. He didn't like people like
that, with her airs and the big pretense she put up trying to appear
to be still the great lady, with her hatboxes and her governess. Lady
Dewitt his foot! Everybody knew that such anachronisms were on their
last legs now, with war economies eating away the foundations of landed
wealth in England. If Martia weren't merely fifteen years old or so,
Henry would have accused Lady Dewitt, in his mind, of coming to New
York to catch her daughter a wealthy American husband. Actually, she
was just another English evacuee. They were coming to Canada and the
States by the tens of thousands, on the eve of war, inasmuch as World
War Three's version of the V-2 was expected to be atomic--and England
was becoming a glorified foxhole.
* * * * *
Martia had seemed to reflect her mother's snobbishness, in a way, but
she was strikingly pretty and had the biggest, bluest--However, it
wasn't the color of her eyes that had made Henry fall all over himself
at the airport in London. He could not define it, but it was a powerful
thing that had made him seem not to care what anyone thought. Martia,
with her smug chin, pug nose, brunette bangs and patrician attitude,
had some indefinable something about her that he _knew_ he could never
find again--in his entire life. And which was vitally important to
_him_, alone.
So from that moment on, many of the passengers had been aware that he
was "that way" about the English girl, in spite of the Lady Dewitt's
determination to place all possible barriers in his path. She had
lost no time in investigating Uncle Andy and discovering that he was,
according to the passenger list, a mere construction engineer, and that
Henry was an adopted orphan whose genealogy had been lost in one of the
many obscurities resulting from World War II.
Heck!--thought Henry. I don't want to _marry_ the little snob! I just
wanted to--"Oh, excuse me!" he exclaimed, bumping into someone at the
head of the staircase.
He turned around and was surprised to discover that no one was in the
aisle. Yet he _had_ bumped into someone!
"What for?" asked a young G.I. seated at his elbow.
Henry looked at the friendly, round face of the soldier. He looked
at the other soldiers next to him, and at those in the seat ahead of
them. They were all looking at him strangely, but not belligerently. He
thought: They're coming home from U.N. duty. Troop rotation. Maybe soon
they'll have to go back and really use their guns. Uncle Andy said that
if by next spring, in 1960--
A strange ringing sound was in Henry's ears and he felt vaguely airsick.
"I thought I bumped into somebody," he answered, lamely. And he still
looked at the soldiers.
There were three who looked like Texans, all buddies, sitting in one
seat and playing rummy. Buddies. What buddies had _he_ ever had?
Never had there been much in common between him and his adolescent
associates, either in the war orphanage in France or after Uncle Andy
had adopted him. All kids were like--well, in a world apart. Except
that girl, Martia. He hadn't even talked to her--and yet the two of
them knew something. Something important concerning just themselves.
But what?
"You feel all right, kid?" asked the same soldier again.
_Kid!_ Henry was sixteen. The other was only twenty. Where did he get
off at--
The ringing in his ears was more insistent. He swayed, dizzily,
catching the stair rail for support.
One of the soldiers was a negro, one of those dark ones that almost
looked blue-black. But he was the friendliest of all. He even got up to
see what he could do.
"Man, you look like you're all mixed up," he said, smiling. "Are you
airsick, or constipated?"
The others laughed. Henry blushed again and ran down the narrow,
circular staircase, this time actually crashing into a large man in
a dark suit who looked like the ads in Esquire concerning "Men of
Distinction." He had gray at the temples and a ruddy, confident face
with penetrating gray eyes.
"Sorry!" exclaimed Henry, and went on. He had recognized the man. He
had been pointed out earlier as Congressman Burley, attached to some
world-touring congressional committee on something or other. Sure were
a lot of big shots on board, he reflected, as he came down onto B deck.
There were many of them here in the observation lounge--heavily braided
officers, some of them high-ranking women in the Service; scientists,
international businessmen, newspaper correspondents, entertainers--and
foreigners. Henry was especially impressed with the Prince from India
who wore thousand dollar turbans and beautiful jewelry. And the Swedish
movie star, a beautiful blonde who was anything but dumb. Uncle Andy
had been especially interested in her, as well as that young air
hostess over there talking to the bald-headed man by the magazine rack.
* * * * *
Suddenly, he saw Martia Dewitt at the commissary counter. There were
also two young women with year old youngsters in their arms, buying
suckers to keep them from yowling. But he was interested only in
Martia. This time he had caught her alone.
The girl was dressed neatly in a blue, pleated skirt, red jacket and
lacy blouse with a velvet tie and a yellow straw hat, red bobby socks
and black shoes; but there was a home-spun look about her clothes that
hinted at a struggle to maintain appearances.
When Martia spotted him, she lowered her eyes and attempted to hurry
past, but he caught her, gently, surprised at his own boldness. "We
might as well talk about it now," he said to her quickly. "There won't
be another chance."
She held her eyes averted, strained slightly to be released, then
relaxed. Her large, clear blue eyes found his and his head swam.
"All right," she answered, simply.
They could not find a seat by the observation panels, which was to be
expected, so they stood near the drinking fountain and looked at each
other's feet.
"Then it's true," said Henry. "We have something to talk about, don't
we?"
"Yes," she replied, glancing quickly at him and then looking down again.
"Well--what is it?" he asked.
"I--I don't know. I thought you--"
Henry swayed, his ears ringing insistently. To his surprise, she
grasped his arm seeking support. Her face paled.
This time their eyes really met. It was unnecessary for her to tell him
her ears were ringing too. He knew it.
"I'm scared!" she exclaimed. "What is it?"
"It--it isn't quite like ringing," he told her. "It's more like--"
"Like very high flutes going up and down a scale."
"Yeah--in a weird kind of way."
The small tots in the young mothers' arms were shrieking unaccountably
now, in spite of the suckers they had been allowed to taste.
Henry looked at them curiously. "Their ears are ringing, too," he said.
Martia did not question how he knew this, because she was also sure the
babies were hearing the eerie ringing of the flutes. And that no one
else heard--none of the adults on board....
"Your name is Henry," she said, irrelevantly.
"Yes, and yours is Martia. I feel like something is going to happen."
"That's why I'm scared."
She pressed against him and held on to him, shuddering in nameless
terror, as hysterical screams and shouts suddenly emanated from A
deck, above them. He held her, equally frightened, while the babies
screamed--and while the people on B deck began to shout and scurry
about in all directions.
"What in God's name--!" a man yelled, getting up from his seat by the
windows.
"Something's happened on A deck!" exclaimed the commissary steward.
"What the hell! It's a fight!" shouted a grizzled construction worker.
"Come on!" cried another, excitedly anticipating something to write
home about.
"Stay where you are! Don't panic!" shouted a newsman, fumbling
frantically with the straps of his camera carrying case.
No one could ascend the spiral staircase because a panic stricken mob
from A deck was descending, with the G.I. negro sliding down over
their heads. The whites of his eyes glistened in unreasoning terror.
Screams of women and the angry shouting and cursing of men filled
the staircase, while outside the muffled roar of the great engines
continued unabated.
"_All right! All right!_" came a tense voice over the P.A. system.
"_Passengers will remain seated and refrain from panic. Do not crowd
B deck as it changes the load factors and we'll not be able to trim
if you don't stay put!_" It seemed to Henry that the announcer wanted
to say more but was interrupted by the sudden press of the emergency,
whatever it was.
* * * * *
Henry caught sight of a young woman wearing the uniform of a WAAC nurse
sliding down upside down under the feet of the mob, her face bloodied,
eyes rolled upward into her head. Either she had fainted or been
knocked unconscious. Or she was dead. Grown men, frothing at the mouth
and shrieking curses, struck at each other with intent to kill. It was
blind panic riding on the animal instinct to survive.
Far from regarding the scene calmly, Henry was visited by an
instinctive desire to run through that crowd and find Uncle Andy, who
always knew the answer when the chips were down. But the quivering
girl beside him detained him, and her presence also made him fight
to control an incipient trembling of his chin. It was as though he
could smell events and the events there in the lounge had a stench of
disaster, of death, of tragic newspaper headlines. You couldn't really
smell such things, but Henry had no name for the strange sense that
gave him a vivid impression of the total human element surrounding him.
The air hostess maintained a clear head. She ran to two high-ranking
officers, one an Army Colonel and the other a Major of the Air Force.
"_Do_ something!" she exclaimed.
Which was sufficient to arouse them from their momentary paralysis.
With a look at each other, a few hurried words and quick nods of
agreement, the two officers sprang into action.
"All men on B deck!" yelled the Colonel, suddenly brandishing a
Service automatic. "Converge on the staircase and pull the passengers
out--women first where possible!"
Henry stared curiously at the gun. He knew it did not contain
ammunition. Although this ship was a MATS charter, ammunition was not
allowed for sidearms on such flights.
The Major and two Army non-coms were already at the staircase, working
fast.
"Come down single file, those of you on the staircase!" yelled the
Major. "All others remain on A deck! No fighting, you! Move!" He was
also waving a gun in the air.
When one man struck out wildly at another who was in his way, the Major
reached up and hit him over the head with his weapon--under the sudden
brilliance of the newsman's flash bulb. The man slumped, and a number
of B deck men heaved at him, pulling him through.
Henry wondered if Uncle Andy was playing it safe, staying in his
seat. Couldn't be a fire. No smoke. Something much different, more
dangerous, he sensed. He recalled the ringing in his and Martia's
ears. Then he also remembered having bumped into someone in the aisle
upstairs--someone that he could not see.... A prickly sensation crept
down his spine.
They had the unconscious WAAC nurse stretched out on a seat under the
observation windows. The air hostess was calling to the commissary
steward to break out the first aid supplies, and the Swedish actress
ran to get them for her. The Indian Prince had lost his turban and,
being quite bald, was trying to wrap it around his head again, while
his eyes stared in fright at the milling crowd and he cowered in the
farthest corner muttering prayers in Hindustani.
"What the hell's happening up there?" asked the Major of one male
passenger from A deck who seemed to be more rational. Henry remembered
that this was the scar-faced man who had sat behind him and Uncle
Andy. On his hardened face was an expression of deep concern, and his
forehead glistened with sweat.
"It's a--a man," he stammered.
"A man! Well what the--"
"A _monster_!" cried a woman, her hair disheveled, her dress and shoes
gone and her petticoat half ripped off. "Oh God help us!"
"Mother!" shrieked Martia, suddenly. She broke away from Henry and ran
toward the crowd at the staircase.
* * * * *
Henry ran after her and caught her by the wrist. "You'll get yourself
killed trying to get up there!" he yelled at her. "Stay here!"
"Mother!" she cried out again, sobbing hysterically and struggling
frantically to break away from him.
"Shush, girl!" commanded the Colonel. The P.T. speaker was blaring.
"_This is co-pilot Nelson speaking for Captain Merman_," came the same,
tense, male voice they had heard previously. "_All passengers are to
remain where they are. There is nothing wrong with the ship, except
we've got to keep trimming against that load in the lounge. I repeat,
there is nothing wrong with the ship. B deck passengers are advised
that we have been boarded, in some undetermined way, by a sort of--man.
He has made no move to harm anyone although he appears to be armed.
Captain Merman is trying to communicate with him. In the meantime
you are advised that we are under emergency conditions affecting the
rules of international travel. The Captain's orders will be followed
to the letter, by all nationalities represented on board, regardless
of rank or position. I repeat, this is an emergency. But there will
be no panic. Violators will be placed under arrest by any male member
of the crew or by any male commissioned personnel on board. All male
commissioned military personnel in the service of the government of the
United States are hereby deputized to make arrests and hold in custody
any offender. That is all. Stand by!_"
The two small children, Henry noted, were still crying, uncontrollably.
"Vot does he mean?" queried a bearded Russian at Henry's elbow. "Vot
iss a _sort_ of man?" It was a rhetorical question, with no answer
expected.
But Henry said, "Well, the Captain is _trying_ to communicate with
him. That would mean he does not speak our language, perhaps none of
the languages represented on board. It would mean he is not equipped
with equivalent articulatory organs." Several adults near Henry turned
their attention upon him. The negro G.I., whose bulging eyes had been
staring alternately at the staircase and the Indian Prince, now turned,
trembling, to gaze upon this new wonder. And Henry continued. "The
co-pilot said he _appears_ to be armed. This means he carries some
apparatus on him which is unrelated to current technology. That this
creature represents an alien intelligence and is capitalizing on the
utilization of an alien science is further demonstrated by his having
made an appearance on board a transoceanic stratoliner in mid-flight.
Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that we have with us either
an extra-terrestrial or a time-traveling superman out of some future
age--or both."
"_Proklaty!_" ejaculated the Russian. "_Ya nye ponye_--" He adjusted
a pair of heavy-lensed spectacles and stared at Henry in myopic
amazement. "I haf turned on a walkie-talking!"
"Ye gods!" exclaimed an American businessman, a fat man with a florid,
sweating face, blue-veined jowls and pale yellow hair that strove
unsuccessfully to cover a sunburned scalp. "Here's a quiz kid! Let
_him_ talk to the monster!"
"Poppycock!" snorted a lean, tweedy Englishman in his early forties.
"The child is a precocious egotist. This is a serious matter! It is
certainly not a time for youngsters to be heard at all--particularly
when they appear to be addicted to the utterly fantastic!
Extra-terrestrial, indeed! My poor, misguided child," he said to
Henry, "you must face reality! This is either some manifestation of a
Communist plot or--what would be worse--a perverted form of American
advertising that has come close to endangering the lives of all of us!
A rank publicity stunt! A hoax! A criminal _adulteration_ of propriety!"
"What's immorality got to do with it?" queried the negro, fearfully.
"Ah don't care if dis kid is a Republican or a vampire. Ah's worried
about dat _In-Between_ dey got upstairs!"
"Henry!" Martia, huddling close in the protective circle of his arm,
was whispering to him. "I think the same as you!" She was trembling.
* * * * *
By this time, the Colonel, the Major, the non-coms and the air hostess,
with the help of the commissary steward and the Swedish actress, had
restored some semblance of order--at gunpoint. Over two dozen cowering,
babbling, questioning passengers were lined up along both sides of the
observation lounge. The newsman was still taking flash-photos. The
staircase was deserted, because the Major stood there threatening to
shoot any unauthorized persons attempting to get down to B deck. Henry
wondered how many realized the gun was not loaded.
The now all important P.A. system sputtered, and all faces turned
toward it in nervous anticipation. The co-pilot's voice came slowly and
quietly now, but tensely. "_Everybody remain exactly where you are.
The--stranger--is moving down the aisle._"
Someone in the observation lounge started to cry out in alarm--one of
the women carrying a baby--but the Colonel said, "Quiet!" so vehemently
that she stopped, staring at the staircase with round glassy eyes.
"_Attention on B deck!_" came another voice over the P.A. speaker.
"_This is Captain Merman. I believe Colonel Rogers is among you. If
so or in his absence if there is any other commissioned member of the
Service present, you will immediately move all women and children
out of harm's way and organize the men to take up a position which
will enable you to ambush the intruder! He will not identify himself
and I consider him to be dangerous. By your combined efforts you are
authorized and directed to capture him, dead or alive. This is an
official order. Passengers are reminded that disobeying an order at
this time will be mutinous and subject to arrest and imprisonment.
Stand by!_"
This was followed by general silence. Henry and Martia listened for
sounds of activity from A deck. Had they heard screams or the sound of
mortal conflict above them they could not have been more terrified than
they were by this absence of any noise other than the muffled roar of
the engines outside. It was as though A deck were totally devoid of
human occupants and the ship were being piloted by phantoms.
Colonel Rogers silently motioned to everybody, herding the women and
children over to one side of the lounge, next to the drinking fountain
where Henry and Martia stood. The Major and the non-coms lined up the
men. There were whispered arguments.
"What the hell does he think he's doing?"
"Yeah, there's more guys on A deck! Why don't they pile him?"
Some of the men, by their facial expression and obvious emotional
condition, were considered inadequate for the task before them and were
excused. The scar-faced man, however, quietly followed instructions.
Henry wanted to go to him and ask him about Uncle Andy, but he could no
longer move against the press of the crowd.
"_He has stopped now at the head of the staircase_," Captain Merman
announced in a low tone. "_He is looking down into the lounge._"
* * * * *
Men and women pressed closely against the two adolescents. Henry could
sense their accumulated tenseness. He could hear grown men panting
and he could observe the dryness of their tightly compressed lips,
the animal-like flaring of nostrils, the hunted look in their staring
eyes. He saw one woman grip her husband's hand until he winced. Martia
pressed her face against his shoulder and would not look at the
staircase.
They waited. And Henry watched the Major.
He was a short, stockily built man with a clear, youthful face and
brown, wavy hair. On his chest were campaign ribbons and one small
medal of some kind. Henry saw his Adam's apple move as he swallowed
nervously. His blue-grey eyes never wavered from the staircase.
The scar-faced man stood slightly apart from the crowd, watching the
stairs with a quiet, expressionless intentness. About a dozen men
waited tensely on either side of the stairs, trying to remain out of a
direct line of sight from above.
"_He's coming down!_" said Captain Merman.
There was an audible drawing of breaths as they saw the alien intruder
descend the stairs. He came down to the second step from the bottom and
stood there surveying the scene before him.
He was taller than men, by about a head. His shoulders, arms and
musculature were not human. He was almost four feet across his sloping
shoulders, with ponderous arms and six-fingered hands that reached
below his thick knees. There was a thumb, in addition to the taloned
fingers, a prehensile, calloused extension of the heel of the hand. A
second set of three, prehensile appendages writhed slowly about just
above his multi-jointed wrists. His large, almost circular chest was
split by a multiple lipped orifice that slowly opened and closed like
a sea anemone as he breathed. He wore only a meager harness and loin
cloth, the plastic-like straps supporting a heavy instrument box at
his waist and a pack of apparatus on his back. His skin was leathery,
almost brittle appearing, as though he were partially exoskeletal,
and of mottled colors ranging from dark red to purple, like a mass of
birth-marks that left no room for normal pigment. His face was small,
chinless and devoid of nose or nostrils, but he had a round mouth the
lips of which were like the beak of a blow-fish. His cranium was large,
hairless, and heavily veined. Under absurdly accentuated, hairless
brows, a single, monstrous insect's eye with a thousand gleaming facets
rotated about, examining them balefully.
Martia could not see the alien. Henry could. She felt him shudder.
Three women quietly passed out, but no one paid them any attention.
Colonel Rogers and the Major stood there looking back at the creature
in the same attitude of momentary shock paralysis as the others. The
non-com soldiers and male passengers constituting the ambush on either
side of the staircase were all white-faced, staring. "Scarface" stood
apart, more or less facing the intruder.
Then--the alien spoke. The little beaks of his mouth moved, and a
rather high-pitched voice spoke, laboriously, in a language which was
gutteral, vaguely familiar, but nonetheless incomprehensible.
No one moved, but the men tensed, as though for action.
* * * * *
Henry recognized the menace of this creature, but he could not
refrain from reflecting, during those brief, weirdly timeless seconds
of inactivity, that to communicate with it might be worth a thousand
Rosetta Stones. A single, intelligible conversation, and Man might
conquer the stars! But this was the Unknown. Man, in his egotism,
abhorred the Unknown as Nature abhorred a vacuum. Man had to reduce the
Unknown to the level of his own understanding. "The only good Injun is
a dead one!" This superman from out of space or time, this harbinger
of wonders yet to be discovered, this mute, alien vessel of perhaps
incalculable knowledge--was suspect, and condemned to be taken, dead or
alive. Henry was aware of no sympathetic sentiments around him. He knew
that the mass reaction was for violence. The judgment: Death!
Suddenly, the newsman took a picture and the flash bulb caused the
alien to start and move one of his amazingly dextrous hands toward the
control box at his waist.
The two babies screamed, and the stranger turned his cyclopean eye upon
them for the first time. He moved down to the floor and started toward
them.
It was then that Scarface whipped out a gun and fired, point blank.
The loud report in that tensely silent place stimulated involuntary
muscular reactions and the crowd seemed to jump as one body.
The bullet made a round, neat hole to the right of the chest orifice,
and the alien stopped. Nobody wondered why Scarface happened to be
carrying a loaded gun. They merely sensed relief when he fired the
shot. A known element had entered the picture. Man had met the Unknown
with a gun, and the gun could do harm. It was effective.
The alien looked at Scarface briefly, then turned dials at his waist,
even as Scarface pumped three more shots into him in very rapid
succession.
Nobody was quite sure of what happened after that. Everyone's vision
blurred. There was a tumultuous ringing in the ears, a giddiness, and a
tendency to black out.
When their vision cleared, the alien had disappeared. And with him the
two babies....
* * * * *
Henry, Uncle Andy, Dr. Edwards, Scarface, the G.I. negro and the
Swedish actress were all shoulder to shoulder in the lounge, looking
down at the world.
Martia had been "rescued" by her mother, the Lady Dewitt, and the
governess, whose dough-like face had acquired red emotional splotches
similar to hives.
First aid was being administered to the injured and the
hysterical--including the two mothers whose babies had been stolen.
In spite of the overwhelming enigma below him, where the Atlantic Ocean
should have been, Henry kept remembering Martia--the look she had
given him when she had started back to A deck with her mother and the
governess. Her eyes had revealed a composite expression of sadness,
puzzlement and urgency. With them she had transmitted a message:
_Something unknown binds us together. I will see you again._
More important than that, it seemed to be imperative that he discover
_what_ it was that bound them together. Just the two of them. No one
else in the world.