N O . 2 S 4 .S0 Tales of Scientifiction
S T A R o G P I R A T E Premiers in Coxtact* Tales of Siientifiction Number 2 August 1987 CONTENTS The Control Ro o m ...... 2 Corsairs of the Cosmos...... Lin Carter 3 Can the Daredevil of the Spaceways solve the secret of the Invisible mastermind of crime? The Other Place ...... Richard L. Tierney 14 A murderer and a scientist wash their hands of this world to take refuge among the alien beings of another dimension! The Eyes of Thar...... Henry Kuttner 27 She spoke in a tongue dead a thousand years, and she had no memory for the man she faced. Yet he had held her tightly but a few short years before! Rescue Mission 2030 A.D.. . .Charles Garofalo & Robert M. Price 38 Could Carmine withstand the missionary zeal of a fanat ical robot hunting for steel souls? Captain Future vs. the Old O n e s ...... Will Murray 41 Amazing links revealed between Edmond Hamilton and H. P. Lovecraft! Ethergrams Howdy out there, all you space- "The Other Place." And strap your hounds! This Is your ol' pard, Capt selves in for a brand new regular ain Astro, hoping that all you ether- feature, "Tales from the Time Warp," eaters have bought your latest copy which will resurrect stories from of that sterling publication Astro- the Good Old Days of Pulp Science Adventures! Leaping asteroids, Fiction, good ones, but neglected spacehounds, but have we got an issue . . until now, that is. Hop on for you this time— chock full of board for Henry Kuttner's "The Eyes sizzling adventures that will have of Thar" from the April 1944 issue all you spacehounds hocking your of Planet Stories. Thanks to Dan ion-blasters in order to afford our "Galactic" Gobbett, our reprint ed next one! We'll be leading off with itor, for coming up with this one! the latest epic adventure by that You'll get some cosmic chuckles master of space action, Lin Carter, out of "Rescue Mission 2030 A.D.," who gave you only last issue that a tale of religion run riot in the matchless masterpiece of planetary future by Charles Garofalo and Robert peril, "Murder in Space." Hold onto M. Price, and as befits studious your gravity belts while you read space-cadets, you'll learn a lesson "Corsairs of the Cosmos," the first or two from Will Murray's astro- adventure in a new space-spanning article, "Captain Future vs. the series featuring that rock-racing Old Ones," which first appeared in rogue Star Pirate! Fantasy Mongers #8, Fall 1983. Veteran spacehound Richard L. OK, that's enough chatter on the Tierney teases the iamgination with sub-space frequency! Let's clear a surreal saga of strange worlds, the static and tune in for thrills! STAR PIRATE BATTLES “THE BLUR" IN CORSAIRS OF THE COSMOS by Lin Carter Can the Daredevil of the Spaceways solve the secret of the in- visible mastermind of crime? 1. Villainy in the Void The burly Jovian stared in sur prise. "But, Captain— !" The Interplanet Lines freighter Sat "Do as 1 say, Mr. Urgon," growled urn Maid had just entered its parking the Mercurian officer in tones that orbit about Callisto, the jungle would accept of no demur. Baffled, moon of Jupiter. Present on the his officers disarmed themselves. bridge was Captain Nargo, a fat, The pressure of the proton needle dark-skinned, moon-faced Mercurian left the small of Nargo's back. With with the bright gold eyes of his furious eyes he watched as The Blur race. He was there to make certain crossed the bridge to scoop up the that his pilot entered orbit prop- weapons. As expected, he saw nothing perly. Satisfied, he turned to his but the slightest mist or haze where communications officer and was about the figure of a man should have been to tell him to signal up the fleet fully visible— The Blur was aptly of tugs which would unload the Saturn named, he thought bitterly to him Maid of her valuable cargo, when self. he suddenly froze. "Captain, we are being approached Someone was pressing the business by an unmarked cruiser!" yelped a end of a proton needle in the small young ensign. The Captain turned of his back— to stare at the forward televisor "This is The Blur speaking," a screen and saw a lean, rakish craft. soft voice whispered in his ear. It was painted dead black, and some "Kindly instruct your officers to thing about its slim, wolfish lines disarm themselves, and I assure you sent a cold shudder up the Mercur- that no one will be harmed." ian's spine. "Devils of the Darkside— !" the "That is my ship," The Blur whis plump Mercurian choked furiously. pered in his ear. "Instruct your Then he fell silent. Whoever the men that the forward airlock doors mystery mastermind known only as be opened." "The Blur" might be, he was the most "Open the forward airlock doors," cunning and successful corsair of Nargo growled, fat cheeks quivering the spaceways since the legendary with frustrate fury. days of Star Pirate himself. Al The young ensign gave him a star though, unlike Star Pirate, The Blur tled glance. "But, Captain— ?" did not hesitate to stain his hands "Do as you*re told, boy!" snapped with the blood of those foolish the Captain. "It may have escaped enough to get in his way. your notice, lad, but we are being "Mr. Urgon," the Captain said pirated, curse the luck! There’s in strangled tones to the pilot, a gun at my back even as I speak. a red-faced Jovian giant, "you will Open those airlock doors, and be remove your sidearm and lay it on quick about it!" And with bitterness the control console. You other gen in his golden eyes, the Mercurian tlemen will do the same." watched as a dozen unknown men with 3 4 / Astro-Adventures opaqued space helmets began trans in its power to catch this crook ferring crate after heavy and pon who calls himself The Blur and to derous crate to the nameless corsair bring him to justice! That's why craft. Those crates, he knew, held we have called upon persons such costly ingots of pure iridium, van as yourself to cooperate with us— " adium, chromium and ylemium from "Cooperate!" said Pendleton, with the metal refineries on Titan. The a rude snort. "Brannigan, everybody refined ore, almost one hundred per at Interplanet has cooperated fully cent pure, was worth an immense for with requests from the Patrol since tune. first this madman ran amok and began "You have been very cooperative, raiding our freighters! You re Captain," hissed that hated voice quested that we keep our ore ship in his ear. "Therefore, neither ments secret, and we kept them se you nor any of your officers or crew cret. You requested that we permit have suffered Injury. Be cooperative no passengers aboard our freighters, a brief while longer, and we will and passengers were forbidden, save no longer Interfere with your voy for our own employees. You requested age ..." that all officers go armed In space, "Go to the Devil, sir!" growled and we armed them all. And none the Mercurlan. of these measures did any good! Do A soft chuckle was his only an you know how many credits that ship swer. ment of rare metals The Blur pirated Moments later, the black cruiser from the Saturn Maid was worth, man? drifted away from its linkage with More credits than you'll earn in the Saturn Maid, and vanished— be your entire career! And this is coming as invisible to the human the sixth of these outrages this eye as had been its mysterious mas maniac has perpetrated against Inter ter. planet !" Within the hour, System-wide news "1 know, sir, but— !" services alerted a startled citi "But nothing!" growled Pendleton. zenry that The Blur had struck again! "I've had enough of you and your cautious half-measures. The time has come to bring into play extra 2. Calling Star Pirate! ordinary resources— the extraordinary abilities and skills of a truly ex The chairman of Interplanet Lines traordinary man. I refer to none was a large, red-faced man named other than— Star Pirate!" Pendleton whose hair was growing Brannigan flushed and bit his thin on top and whose temper was lip. That mischievous, devil-may- usually belligerent. As at the mo care rogue of the spaceways had long ment, for Instance. been a thorn in the Patrol officer's He glared accusingly across the side. In the days when he had been gleaming expanse of his huge desk, an outlaw, a thief and a living leg carved from a heavy slab of costly end, he had outsmarted, outwitted Venuslan goldenwood, at the Space and outflown Brannigan with merciless Patrol officer who had just entered ease; then, when he grew bored with the executive suite. This was a such easy victories and was offered granite-jawed veteran with thin lips an official pardon from the System and eyes like twin gimlets. His Council, following his heroic endea name was Brannigan. At the moment vors In the affair of the Solar he was perspiring freely and striving Queen, and turned his brilliant to hold on to his own temper. intelligence, his matchless skills "— I assure you, Mr. Pendleton, as a space pilot and his intrepid that the Patrol is doing everything bravery to the service of justice. Corsairs of the Cosmos / 5 he proved better at crime-fighting "But, sir, I— " than Brannigan, and had solved more "I've met your chief, Carew, a than one mystery crime that had left time or two. An excellent officer, the Patrol officer helplessly baf a shrewd judge of men, I'd say. I fled. understand he trusts this Star Pi "You mustn't do that, sir!" Bran rate implicitly. He's nobody's fool, nigan protested. "Whatever people Carew; fine old family. And if he think, the boy's nothing less than trusts Star Pirate, then 1^ trust a cunning criminal— pardon or no Star Pirate!" pardon! Oh, he's got everybody fool He turned to thumb his desktop ed by pretending to work on the side televisor to life. The sweet, heart- of the law— but 1 know better! And shaped face of a lovely girl with someday that clever young devil will honey-blond curls and eyes as blue trip himself up, and I'll have him as April skies melted into view. at last! You know the old saying, "Yes, Mr. Pendleton?" sir— a leopard cannot change his "Get me Commander Carew at the spots. Once a crook, always a Patrol base on Pallas, please, Robin. crook!" Person-to-person; I'll deal with The executive looked unconvinced. underlings no longer ..." "And I'll remind you of another old saying," he said tartly. "Set a thief to catch a thief." 3. Lost World of Space "But he's a common criminal— !" "Rather an uncommon one, I'd say," Between the orbits of Mars and snapped Pendleton sharply. "For Jupiter stretches that bewildering seven years he ran you and the Patrol zone of shattered moonlets and whirl ragged. Ship after ship fell to ing rocks known as the Asteroid Belt. him; he always showed you his heels In their unnumbered hundreds of thou and got away with the loot, and never sands, the fragments of "Aster"— that once did he so much as spill a drop lost world of space— circle in orbits of blood in accomplishing this thiev and counterorbits of such complexity ery. True?" that even computers are often Brannigan dug out his handkerchief helpless to deduce their periodicity. and swabbed his streaming brow. "True Some of the larger asteroids— Pal enough, sir, but— " las, for example, where the Patrol "The entire resources of the Pat maintains its regional headquarters, rol were hurled against him, and and Ceres, where the crops of corn you couldn't even locate his secret and wheat and barley are grown that base . . . what does he call it, feed the Belt and its peoples, and 'Haven'? As a matter of fact, even a few others— are large enough to now that he works on the side of have sufficient gravitational pull the law, it's my understanding that to hold breathable atmospheres. The you of the Patrol still don't know rest are airless rocks, sterile, where Haven is!" bathed in hostile radiation— mere "That's true enough, sir, but hazards to navigation. you don't— " Some of these, however, bear mys "Enough of this talk!" Pendleton terious ruins, the remnants of the said harshly. "You're a good man, architectural wizardry of time-lost no doubt, Brannigan, in your way. Aster, it may be. Little is known But you go by the rules . . . and for certain, although much is con what we need right now is someone jectured, about the Lost Planet which who's not afraid to throw away the was (it is theorized) torn asunder book and maybe even bend a law or in the grip of intolerable gravity two, just a little, in order to get tides in a relentless tug of war the job done." which took place many millions of 6 / Astro-Adventures years ago between the giant planets, which he had learned with infinite Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus on labor, and at the expensive loss the one hand, and the inner worlds of many radio-directed drone vessels. and the mighty Sun itself. In that Now it was home to him, who had contest. Aster was destroyed. . . no other home. but still its weird, enigmatic ruins thrust their mystery against the Star was working In his laboratory cold mockery of the uncaring stars, when the call came in from Pallas. on lost, unknown, unvisited moonlets He had programmed the computer with that whirl giddily forever through a complete knowledge and grammar the endless and cold night of space. of every known language, and of every Haven is one of these, save that, system of writing known— every form unlike most of the asteroids, this of charactery, cuneiform, plctograph, miniature worldlet is warm and fer alphabet, hieroglyphics— from Earth tile, with a breathable atmosphere and every other world with intelli and near-Earth gravity. This was gent life. This formidable program the result of the fact that, even he was now pitting against the mys though little more than a mile in terious characters cut in the solid width, the core of Haven is composed basaltic stone of the Asterian ruins entirely of the very heaviest of on Haven, in an attempt to crack metals. This lends Haven mass, and the secret of the enigmatic runes. mass means gravity, and gravity means "Star? Pallas calling," said the ability for a body in space to a soft, familiar voice in the hissing hold air and moisture, which would sibilants of a Venuslan. It was otherwise be uselessly dissipated Phath, his Venuslan sidekick and into the vacuum. general factotum, a slim, supple Star Pirate had discovered Haven man, as sly and nimble a thief as and its strange ruins years before. had ever opened a lock or picked Had not the twists and turns of for a pocket. He had the hairless pate tune made of him, for a time— but and albino pallor and pink eyes of only for a time— an outlaw and a a true Backwater Venuslan from the buccaneer of the spaceways, his keen, Swamp Country, and had been Star's searching intelligence and scholarly comrade and friend since that day, gifts might have made of him a space long ago, when the Pirate had risked archaeologist. For his true inter his own life to rescue the marooned ests lay with the Immeasurable reach Venuslan, then a complete stranger es of antiquity, the ancient past, to him, from entrapment in the vortex of Earth and every other world. of gravity tides beyond Uranus which Thus, as a youth, he had found men called the Sargasso of Space. Haven. Fascinated by its ruins and "Curse the luck," grumbled Star. their indecipherable inscriptions, Then, "I'll be right there." he had made his first base on the The televisor screen showed a tiny moonlet. Years later, when familiar figure, lean, ascetic, with he was being hounded from world to the hawk-face and silver hair of world by the Patrol, he remembered John Carew. His lean figure was the tiny, uncharted fragment of im clothed as usual in the dead black memorial Aster, and made of it his of the Patrol, the twin platinum secret base. For Haven had this comets of his rank agleam from his additional factor, beyond its warmth high collar. and atmosphere— it lay at the heart They exchanged a swift word or of a deadly whirling vortex of meteor two in greeting. On his part, the swarms which were sudden death to Commander saw a tall, long-legged any ship that did not know the tricks youth with broad shoulders and lean of safe passage through the vortex— hips. He had green eyes, sparkling Corsairs of the Cosmos / 7 with mischief and intelligence under already waited for two hundred mil a mop of unruly red curls, in a lion years, for their decipherment. space-tanned, clean-shaven face, and he wore, as usual, a drab one- piece zipper-suit of gray synthetic. A. Spaceward Ho! "What's up. Commander? The Blur again?" When Star Pirate concluded his Carew made a slow, rueful grin. conversation and Commander Carew's "Should have known you'd be one jump image had faded from the ground- ahead of me, Star," he chuckled. glass viewscreen, the lithe redhead Then, in terse, well-chosen words turned to order Phath to get the he described the latest daring ex Jolly Roger ready for space, but ploit of the mystery criminal. the white-skinned Venusian (who had The redhead nodded thoughtfully. shamelessly eavesdropped on their "As in all previous cases. The talk) was already lugging provisions Blur was already on board," he mused. into the cargo hold of the trim lit "But Interplanet has refused to ac tle speedster, and grinning at the cept any passenger, on request from prospect of some action for a change. the Patrol, right?" Star had his weird ancient stone Carew nodded, silver hair glis hieroglyphics to keep him busy be tening. "Outside of officers and tween adventures, but Phath had noth crew, the only others aboard the ing else but cooking their meals Saturn Maid were one company account to occupy himself with, and he some ant, a senior Interplanet executive times missed the good old days when returning from his vacation on Titan, the two of them had lived a wild and one of their scientists. Company career of outlawry and space piracy. men, one and all." Once aboard and vacuum-sealed, Star shrugged. "Not important; Phath took the controls. if you can make yourself invisible, "Where to, Chief? Callisto?" as The Blur can, you can come aboard Star shook his head slowly. anytime the ship is loading. He "We'll go there later; right now, could have walked aboard at Titan, head for Mars," he said. say, and stayed out of sight in the "Mars?" hold or an unused compartment, until "Mars." it was time to strike. Clever devil The Venusian shrugged. "Okay, the secret of invisibility Mars it is." Power surged from the has defied science until now. Wonder rocket engines and the trim little how he does it . . speedster, the Jolly Roger, lifted "The black cruiser vanished as on a plume of flame from the twilit, usual,” remarked Carew. "It did jungle-clad surface of the tiny moon- not land on Callisto, for the Port let. Phath switched on the computer Authority was keeping watch for just pilot, which alone had reflexes swift such an unlicensed descent and land enough to read the radio signals ing, and has been since the first flashed from secret beacons on the of these Blur robberies around Cal whirling meteors, and which alone listo." could safely pilot their craft "And it didn't venture into deep through the deathly storm of churning space either, I'll guess," said Star fragments of stone and metal. with an impish grin. His respect Phath joined Star Pirate in the for this Blur fellow was Increasing cozy little lounge and handed him by leaps and bounds, and he was look a steaming mug of good Venusian cof ing forward to matching wits with fee. "This guy. The Blur, has a the invisible criminal. The Asterlan ship that just plain disappears, runes could wait . . . as they had right, chief?" he inquired. ■i 8 / Astro-Adventures "That seems to be the case," ad Star Pirate with a pretense of stern mitted the redhead. "But how— and ness. "I'm taking a nap in my cabin; why— nobody knows." let me know when we get to Mount The Venusian shrugged. "Same Mern." way The Blur goes invisible, don't you think, Star?" Mars loomed ahead, huge and ruddy "It's not just a matter of becom and swollen in the vlewscreens, when ing invisible, Phath," said the oth Star awoke. The surface of the san er, sipping the delicious hot brew. guine sphere was laced with those "Visible or un, nobody searches for uncanny markings which had reminded a moving spaceship with eyes alone— the terrene astronomers of an earlier they move too fast. But they can't century of canals, but which had elude magno-detectors. Spaceships proved eventually to be nothing more have hulls, and hulls are made of than oddly symmetrical patches of steel— " a rubbery-leafed shrub which dis "Which show up on magno-detect- tilled moisture from dust-dry soil, ors," grinned Phath. "You're right, and was cultivated by the dwindling chief: spaceships are made of steel nomad tribes of Mars for precisely . . . excepting when they aren't■" that purpose. Star Pirate made a noncommittal Their goal, Mount Mern, rose in sound. Both he and Phath knew that a range of low, worn, age-old moun the Jolly Roger did not contain an tains In the southern hemisphere atom of ferrous metal, but was con of the Red Planet— a region called structed from an alloy of noble Ygnarth, which was in the Drylands metals so as to be completely un of Cotaspar. As the Jolly Roger detectable in space. It was one came floating down on braking jets of the many secrets of Star Pirate, to the narrow stone plateau which and one which had, back in the old served as a landing field. Star and wild, lawless days, enabled him to Phath suited up. Although the air come and go as he pleased, thumbing of Mars was breathable, even here his nose at the Patrol. on the top of one of her ancient But there were limits, even to mountains, it was thin and cold and such a trick. The Jolly Roger was dry, and an airmask was preferred a tiny two-man scout, while the lean, by Earthmen to the dreaded disease, black, wolfish cruiser of The Blur called drylung, which had claimed was capacious enough to house a crew so many of the lives of early colo of at least twelve, as counted by nists from Earth. eyewitnesses aboard the Saturn Maid, They emerged from their craft and to carry half a billion credits and plodded across the bare stone worth of ingots of iridium, chromium plain, flogged on by icy gusts. Ahead and vanadium— loomed a strange domelike structure He paused, struck by a sudden of dark stone. It was older than thought. It was as if the first Babylon, that dome of darkness; older ray of light had just penetrated than Egypt. It had already been the darkness which had up till now unthinkably ancient when the slim clung about this mystery. And Star little red men set into place the grinned, that impish, reckless grin cornerstone of the Great Pyramid of his that Phath knew so well. of Cheops. Perhaps it had been but "By Yakdar's brazen backside, newly built when the last of the you're on to something already, dinosaurs died in the steaming fens aren't you, chief!" yelped the of Earth, while the little mammalian Venusian admiringly. ancestors of humauklnd stared on "None of your heathen Swamp Coun with awe. try curses aboard m^ ship," said Phath restrained a fastidious Corsairs of the Cosmos / 9 shudder. Home to him were the fetid to his gun butt, eyes narrowing to bogs and bubbling fens of the Swamp dangerous slits. "Why, you leather Country of Venus . . . this bitterly skinned old dust-lizard, if I'd known cold, desiccated, withered old world it was you we were visiting, I'd ran against his grain. He hated have brought my sandmask to keep Mars, and everything about it— and out the smell!" especially the little old man they "Is that so, you pasty-faced, had come to see! pink-eyed scum of the Swamp Country!" The portal of the Incredibly an snarled Dr. Zoar. "Why, I've half cient monastery was of wood, but a mind to— " of wood so ancient that it had pet "If you had half a mind, you'd rified into a slab of grained and move off this dried-out dustball darksome stone. The symbol that of a planet, and find somewhere else portal bore was of a metal not unlike more damp and soggy and liveable— " bronze, in the form of two crescents, "Boys, boys," sighed Star Pirate linked back to back. The symbol wearily. But it was no use: the was that of the Twin Moons of Mars, feud between his Venusian sidekick and this monastery was, or had been, and the aged Martian savant was of ages agone, dedicated to the Moon long standing, and the two seemed Gods once worshipped by the ancient to thrive on insulting each other. race whose nomadic remnants still lurked in the dust-choked ways of the immemorial, half-deserted cities 5. The Secret of Callisto of the Red Planet. The man who answered the door, Within the fif teen-foot-thick however, was no monk, and in no way stone walls of the ancient Martian to be thought of as a holy man. He monastery, the air was purified, was diminutive, little more than thickened, enriched with oxygen, a dwarf, with a bald skull and an and humidified. A fire roared on ugly, wrinkled, froglike face, which the grate of the vast hearth, and bore a perpetual scowl which seemed warmed the empty room. The green permanently carven into place on skinned savant served them fine old his wrinkled green-skinned face. wine, curious Drylands fruits, na It amused his warped sense of humor tive cheese, and succulent sausage to wear the dusty, dark-red robes meat. and scuffing sandals of the long- "You will have a problem, lad, extinct order of Moon Priests. else you would not bother to intrude "No missionaries, no salesmen, upon my studies," said Dr. Zoar. and no beggars," rasped the frog Star grinned sheepishly and admitted faced green dwarf. Then, peering that this was so. The scientific more sharply into Star's face which part of his schooling had been left grinned behind the glastex faceplate to the hands of the green dwarf, of his air helmet, he blinked eyes who possessed an intellect that was like frozen chips of black ink and among the very finest in the system, stepped back, opening the door more and he had a healthy respect for widely. Zoar's mind. He discussed The Blur "Ah, lad, 'tis you! Come in, with the diminutive Martian sage, come in, and we'll share a drop of and the problem of invisibility. good wine to warm the blood! Welcome Zoar scowled over the problem, to yourself . . . and even to that munching his portion of cheese and damp-skinned, web-footed swamp-wrig- fruit and meat. Finally, the little gler you persist in keeping around, Martian shrugged. if only to draw the flies." "So science has never conquered Phath flushed, one hand going the problem!" he rasped. "Who cares? 10 / Astro-Adventures Of what possible utility would such on anything, except for their mutual a solution be? That is to say, how devotion to the redheaded youth who would the power to become invisible was their leader. be of any use to men?" "And is there another problem "I don't know," admitted Star with which I may help, perchance, with a grin, "but it sure helps The with my feeble wits?" purred Dr. Blur!" Zoar. He was feeling fine, having Phath uttered a bark of laughter, already solved the mystery of The almost strangling on a mouthful of Blur's invisibility— at least to sausage. Even Zoar permitted himself his own satisfaction. a rare grin. Then Star explained. Star Pirate cleared his throat, "If we know how he did it, we'd and mentioned the puzzle of the utter be a bit closer— perhaps— to learning disappearance of the dead-black crui who he is," said the redhead. Zoar ser, once it was finished robbing chewed some cheese, ruminating, un a cargo ship off Callisto. According able to find a flaw in Star's argu to the magno-detectors of the Callls- ment . tan Port Authority, the pirate craft "You know what angstroms are?" had neither landed in the fungus- he demanded suddenly. forests of that jungle moon, nor "The measure of electromagnetic had it journeyed into deep space. energy," said the Earthling. It had simply vanished from human "You know the angstroms which knowledge. measure the part of the electromag "Nonsense," snapped Zoar, helping netic spectrum devoted to visible himself to another noggin of the light?” excellent wine. "There is an answer "I do," said Star Pirate. Zoar to every question, elsewise that nodded, satisfied, then poured them question could not be asked. All all another cup of black Martian that is required is the application w i n e . of human intelligence . . . of know "And does your knowledge of the ledge . . .ah! Yes; of course; history of recent centuries extend or, at least, perhaps. For I cannot to the principles of radio-jamming? be certain, without investigation. Of broadcasting on the same frequency Tell me, boy— what is unique about in order to blanket, to negate, to Callisto, moon of Jupiter?" wipe out, the original broadcast?" Star Pirate wrinkled his brow, inquired the diminutive sage. frowning in thought. The light of cognition illuminated "Well," he said at length, "for the space-tanned features of the one thing, it's the largest known young redhead in the gray zipper- moon in the System, large enough suit. He nodded dumbly. to be counted as a planet, like Mer "Excellent!" said Dr. Zoar, reach cury, if it was in free orbit around ing for the cold stone bottle of the Sun and not in a captive orbit wine. "Do have a drop or two more about Jupiter." . . . I am delighted to learn that "True enough," grunted Dr. Zoar. your, ah, association with our web "But what else?" footed friend here has not, as I Star scowled, rubbing his brow. might very well have feared, dimmed "Well, it has an atmosphere, but, your intelligence." then, so have lo and Ganymede, and— Phath glowered, scowled, but said "No, not that. Think, boy! nothing. For one thing, his mouth Think!" rapsed the old Martian sav was full of sausage and cheese at ant . the moment. For another, there was Star racked his brain, s o m e w h a t nothing much to be said. He and befuddled by the old strong M a r t i a n Zoar had never been able to agree wine, but not to any great degree. Corsairs of the Cosmos / 11 Suddenly his brow cleared and he skinned Uranian called Quolk, pre grinned his famous grin, and uttered pared to instruct his communications a brief sentence of seven words, officer to call up the tugs which which made Phath blink Incredulously, would carry down to the surface of but Zoar grin with delight. the jungle moon his cargo of semi "Ah! Splendid!" crowed the old precious metals. savant. "It heartens me that your There occurred, however, an inter deplorable relationship with this ruption in these plans. In the form web-footed swamp-lizard has not— as of the muzzle of a proton needle, I feared it might do, by now— sapped thrust against the spine of Captain your Intellectual vigor! Well, my Quolk by a hand unseen. boy, I believe that you are now in A cold voice whispered in his possession fo all the data you re ear: "This is The Blur speaking. quire in order to bring the depreda Place your weapon on the console tions of this bandit of the spaceways and instruct your officers to simi to an end, so 1 will bid you and larly disarm themselves, and 1 will your, um, confederate, farewell, guarantee to you that none of your and return to my studies ..." people will be hurt. Disobey, and They waded back across the stony 1 refuse to become responsible for plateau, leaning against the bitter the consequences." wind, masked against the dry air, Quolk stiffened, glared, then all the way to where the Jolly Roger subsided, grumbling. He plucked awaited their coming. Star Pirate his proton needle from its holster had a pretty fair notion that he and placed it atop the control con now held the keys to this mystery sole. Then, just as he was about in his hands, but, as for Phath, to raise his voice and instruct the the milk-pale Venusian was completely others on the bridge to do the same, in the dark. an unexpected voice spoke from the rear. "This, friend Blur, is the pres 6. The Blur Unmasked! sure of a proton needle planted in your own back," the voice said plea The Interplanet Lines freighter santly. "Now, unless you would enjoy Uranus Cal paused briefly at Titan having a sizeable portion of your to take aboard a large shipment of backbone reduced to drifting atoms— semi-precious metal ore in purified which I really do not think you would ingot form, before breaking orbit enjoy at all— I suggest that you and directing its flight to Callisto. drop your needier on the floor. And The only persons aboard who were if you happen to bear any other wea not either officers or crewmen were pon, drop that one, too. Because, two company officials, a secretary in the ancient turn of phrase, Blur, in the employment of Interplanet the jig is up." and one of the Interplanet scient There ensued a few moments of ists, who had been studying radionic utter silence. Then there came to energy waves in the gulfs beyond the ears of all in the vicinity the Saturn. thud of a handgun dropped to the The purser, however, was a new flooring. Moments later, the weapon man, unknown to the crew. He had melted into visibility. curly red hair, mischievous green With one foot. Star Pirate kicked eyes, an impish grin, and had found it well away from where he stood it remarkably easy to make friends behind The Blur. aboard ship. He twisted the vernier on the In the course of time, the Uranus power unit he wore, this way and Gal arrived in parking orbit around that, until suddenly sparks sizzled Callisto, and the Captain, a yellow and a shadowy figure came slowly 12 / Astro-Adventures into view, standing between him and Star laughed and slapped Pertinax the Uranian, Captain Quolk. It was between the shoulders, where he ap slight, bent, and draped in a veil peared to have a natural hump. "Oh, of dark cloth. I doubt if you'll find anything other "Star Pirate, I believe," whis than this— it's the instrument which pered the veiled figure, with a made him seem invisible to us." slight bow of the head. "Is it really?" asked the Uranian, Star nodded slightly— not for curiously. "How does the thing one moment relaxing the pressure work?" of the proton needle he held firmly "Quite simply, really," said the against the spine of The Blur. Pirate. "It broadcasts a jamming "Professor Jonas Pertinax, I be frequency in the same wavelengths lieve," he said, and it was observed as visible light, but in a globular by Captain Quolk and one or another and heterodyning field, which in of the officers on the bridge that effect bends light around the figure the dark-veiled figure, now fully wearing it, so that it vanishes to visible, flinched violently. our sight. Clever, but not all that "How did you . . . know my name?" mysterious." hissed the veiled one. Star Pirate Stripped of his invisibility pro laughed, and reached out and twitched jector, The Blur was led off between away the veil, revealing a balding, burly men-at-arms. Quolk turned elderly Earthling with rheumy blue to his "purser" with rare good humor eyes, a large nose, and not much in his beaming smile. chin. "And what will we do about yonder "You were listed as present on black wolf?" he boomed, gesturing several of the trips made by Inter at the corsair ship. planet freighters when they were "Nothing. When the airlocks do raided by The Blur," he said. "And not open, The Blur's men will guess your speciality is in the field of something has gone wrong, and will electromagnetic radiation. It did flee to their base," said Star. "What not take very much detective work they will not guess, is that my own to discover that on three different ship is waiting— and that I already occasions you contested in court know where they are going!" Interplanet's claim to certain pat The Uranian bent upon the red- ents resulting from your work— " haired youth a stern but admiring "For which I was inadequately gaze. "You are quite a remarkable paid," hissed the balding scientist young man," he said softly. in venomous tones. "I decided to "Not at all, actually," grinned use my genius— which they valued Star. "Callisto is famous and unique so little!— to reduce Interplanet for more than one reason. One of to beggary. The which I would have these is that it is the only moon done, had not you come meddling into in the System— actually, it’s big affairs which have naught to do with enough to be considered a planet, you— " and would be, if, like Mercury, it "Captain Quolk, an unmarked crui circled the Sun and not another plan ser is suddenly in the vicinity, et— the only moon in the System, and is closing upon us with magnetic 1 say, that has a moon of its own. grappling beams," cried an ensign. This miniature moonlet is known as "Quite all right," declared the Callisto-Alpha. It's less than half yellow-skinned Uranian. "Bosun, a mile wide, and nobody ever remem conduct Professor Pertinax to the bers it's there . . . except for brig, and lock him up. But first a certain old Martian scientist I I want the prisoner subjected to happen to know. Well, that's the a strip-search, in case he has any site of the secret base of The Blur's of his nasty little gadgets on him!" raiders. It has to be: there's no Corsairs of the Cosmos / 13 where else to go; if you don't land ping of world after world, bringing on Callisto, or go off into deep Interplanet Lines to its knees. And space, you have to land on Callisto- when we investigate The Blur's base Alpha, to unload your ingots of rho on Callisto-Alpha, I'll bet you fifty dium and vanadium and— " credits we find a space-cruiser made "Why did The Blur concentrate of noble metals, and about on metals like that, anyway, I won half-built!" der?" muttered Captain Quolk. Star Captain Quolk heaved a hearty Pirate grinned again. sigh of relief. "I can even answer that one, too, "Young fellow, you are a remark 1 think! He wanted to get a suffi able person. And if you don't mind ciency of non-ferrous metals to build accompanying me to my quarters, 1 an indetectable space-cruiser that have been hoarding a cask of century- wouldn't show up on a magno-detector! old Martian fire-brandy for just This would give The Blur and his such an occasion as this one has gang of outlaws the freedom to roam proved to be ..." the spaceways at will, leaving the "Lead the way, sir," said Star Space Patrol helpless to pursue them. Pirate, with a smile. They could have preyed upon the ship Continued from p. 43: with science fiction adventure. As mon-sultan Azathoth" and hearing a matter of fact, I suspect the very "the thin monotonous piping of a SF elements that are inextricable daemonic flute held in nameless paws" with the Cthulhu Mythos are going — in his imagination, at least. to ensure that Lovecraft's work sur But for my part, having read of vives into the twenty-first century. Hamilton's shoggothian Kangas, I And if there are Earthmen venturing can now fully appreciate the dire into deep space a hundred years from suggestiveness of the line in At now, when they want a good scare, the Mountains of Madness which runs: they're not going to bring Stephen ". . . Abdul Alhazred whispered about King or Edgar Allan Poe with them, . . 'shoggoths' in his frightful they're going to bring along the Necronomicon, though even that mad works of H. P. Lovecraft, whose style Arab had not hinted that any existed has all the creepiness of the past, on earth except in the dreams of but whose tales of "the nameless those who had chewed a certain alka- larvae of the Other Gods" which might loidal herb." When Lovecraft wrote be pawing and groping at the hull that "the mad author of the Necro of a U.S. starship will definitely nomicon had nervously tried to swear be relevant to any future age. When that none had been bred on this plan the first exploration to a black et,” he was of course setting up hole nears its goal, I'm sure at his readers for the ultimate horror, least one astronaut is going to be but he seems also to have inspired thinking about "the spiral black Edmond Hamilton to write about shog vortices of that ultimate void of goths from Out There. Chaos where reigns the mindless de THE OTHER PLACE by Richard L. Tierney A murderer and a scientist wash their hands of this world to take refuge among the alien beings of another dimension! I hated Hal Norris, so I took my * time about killing him. The first bullet got him in the back and shat So now, at last, 1 had done it— tered his spine— I could tell that and now that it was done, I felt by the way he flopped and twitched no emotion whatsoever. For years on the floor. Ignoring his screams I had felt little but hate; now that (which I knew the neighbors would Hal, the main focus of that hate, ignore also, although I didn't real was dead, there was no feeling to ly care) I deliberately placed the take its place. I was an empty next four slugs in his kneecaps and shell. shoulder-joints. Then 1 left him I wandered casually away from to die in agony, vaguely hoping that the Loop, away from the blatant neon his death would be years rather than signs and the noise of sirens as moments away, yet not really caring. they began to converge on Hal's,ap When I walked out into the alley artment. A tingle of anxiety stirred afterwards I felt better than I had somewhere Inside me, and I realized for a long time. It was not the it still mattered to me whether I shooting that I had enjoyed so much got caught. Well, it was unlikely as the expression on Hal Norris' they would find me in the short time face when he knew that he was doomed. they'd have, but if they did I still He would never really understand had one bullet in my automatic, and my reasons for killing him, of course that bullet would put me forever — his kind never understands— but beyond their reach. that wasn't important; all I cared I walked until I came to the park about was that he should die in pain by Lakeshore Drive. Here I rested and know that 1 was his killer. on a bench and looked up at the That's how it is when someone stars. For a moment I thought of does you dirt, someone whose very just going out on the town— enjoying nature you hate and you can't get myself in one last spree before I'd back at them because the law is on have to blow my brains out or go their side. Hal knew the law— the down in a final shoot-out with the system— and he had used it to work police. Yet I'd promised the prof me over. But he had miscalculated. essor I'd meet him here— and anyway, He'd figured I'd come whining to for the moment my only desire was him in defeat; instead, I'd come to sit and rest and gaze up at the with a gun. bright, cold stars . . . Still, 1 might never have done it except for what he did to Noreen— It was perhaps five or ten minutes but, no, I don't want to tell about later that the professor's black, that. I swore I'd make Hal pay some two-door coupe pulled up in front day, and I did. But I'm not writing of the park bench on which I sat. this account in order to live all I quickly climbed in beside him, that over again. and he drove off. 14 The Other Place / 15 I think the professor was an old I can guess its nature— and sympath man, but 1 could never be sure, for ize. I left Germany some years ago his strange appearance somehow made after concluding a similar business, It difficult for me to estimate his I believe. It is good to have such age. His hair was white, what there things out of the way before going was of it— just a fringe that hung on a long journey." around the back of his long, narrow I was startled, and once again head from ear to ear. He was short amazed by this strange man who seemed and slender. Heavy, thick-framed so unlike all others. spectacles rested on the bridge of "I hated him," I said. "Maybe his long, sharp nose, and his head I hate them all. There's something seemed very large in proportion to wrong with all of them— something his body. Even then I'd had cause more than just stupidity. If there to know that he was by far the most weren't, men like him couldn't use intelligent man I'd ever met, and them the way they do. If there that in other ways he was unlike weren't something rotten about the other humans; knowing what 1 know human race in the first place, people now, I'm sure he was a mutant. like him would never exist at all..." Months ago, when my lonely wan I stopped speaking when I saw derings had led me to his door, he Weiss' eyes twinkling. Suddenly had told me that his name was Karl he laughed. Weiss. I think now that my hunted, "I know you— we are alike, you almost desperate air had more to and I!" He took his right hand from do with his decision to take me on the wheel and swept it in an arc as his assistant than did my college as if to include the whole city. background in the biological sci "You feel yourself superior to these ences. others, and you resent the rules they set up. You can't consider "What were you thinking about yourself one of them— one of the them?" he asked, gesturing upward crowd." as he drove. "You seem to know all about me," "About what?" I said. "Yes, I do feel superior— "The stars. You were looking I've always felt it. Even when I've at them when 1 drove up. So few doubted it, they've kept proving people look at them anymore! What it to me— over and over, all my life. do you think of them?" I've always felt their control over 1 shrugged. "I wasn't thinking me as somehow wrong— no, not just about much of anything, and I could wrong, but mindless! They never only see a few of them— too much think about anything ..." I sud downtown glare." denly contrasted all the humans 1 "Did you ever think of going out had know with the black, star-gemmed there?" sky above. "For instance, they never "Not since I was a kid," I said. think about what might be going on "1 never thought it might happen. out there I" I guess I still don't quite believe Weiss laughed again— a gentle we're going there now. Down deep, laugh that had no mockery in it, if you know what I mean." only sympathy. "And that, my dear Professor Weiss nodded. "Did Stephen, is why I chose you for my you take care of your last bit of— assistant and no other." business— satisfactorily?" "Yes." We continued in silence for "Good," said Weiss. "You have several miles, first south on not told me what that business was, Lakeshore Drive, then westward and 1 will not ask you, but I think through areas of tenements and grimy 16 / Astro-Adventures factories. Finally I asked Weiss: somehow resembled the dish of a radar "Have you decided where we will go?" scanner. "We will travel far," he said— "Have you thought of a name for "farther than any being has trav it yet?" I asked. elled before. We may never return. "No. It needs no name— but it Stephen, can you— if you must— live will take us farther than any man the rest of your life without the has ever gone." company of another human being?" It may seem strange, but never I knew he was serious— but I was during the long months of our labor no less so. I looked back over the had I doubted Weiss' sanity or com Chicago skyline and thought of the petence. As I have said, he was things which "human company" held different from other men. Now, in store for me should 1 return: standing there on the roof with that police courts, a prison cell, per fantastic machine in front of us, haps a death sentence. What did I knew it would do what he had I have to lose? designed it to do. "Yes," I said, "I can live with "Are you ready, Stephen?" out company. But you still haven't I took a last look at the skyline told me where we're going. Will of the city. "I'm ready. 1 was it be Alpha Centauri? Arcturus? just wondering about— after we're Or even beyond the galaxy . . .?" gone— what's going to eventually "I can't yet tell you where we're happen to all of them?" going," said the strange old man, "They will eventually destroy "because 1 haven't thought of a name themselves. I'm sure. That is why for it." I did not bother to do it myself, and Instead bent all my energies toward perfecting the light-drive." II. "And 1 still don't really under stand the light-drive, even after Weiss brought the car to a halt helping you build it." before an ancient brick warehouse "I have no time to explain it and we got out. After unlocking now," said the professor. "Come— the heavy metal door of the building, the sun will rise very soon, and he ushered me inside and locked it when it does we must leave the behind us. Once again 1 stood in earth." the great, cluttered room strewn He drew me over to the cylinder with electrical parts of every size, and through a small door in its side. shape and complexity. Weiss glanced There was a room inside just big briefly about the workshop in which enough for two people to be com we had labored secretly for so many fortable in. On the wall hung two mont h s . pressure-suits. "We're leaving them quite a puz "I'll give you a last briefing zle," he said. "They'll never put on the controls and equipment," he it together, I'm sure. Come, Steph said. He helped me into a pressure- en, let's go to the roof now." suit and went over its adjustments We ascended a rusty iron staircase with me. The control panel was next; and walked out on the flat roof, it was extremely simple, consisting and I saw it there once more, gleam of a speed indicator and a single ing under the starilight— a metal lever in a slot that read "start" cylinder perhaps thirty-five feet and "stop". I told the professor long, tapering to a point in front that I might master it, given time, and lifted at an angle toward the and he chuckled. night sky. On the back end of the "We still have half an hour until thing was a spidery framework that dawn," he said. "You still have time The Other Place / 17 to reconsider. If you decide to "Sunlight— the source of our pow back out, you are still free to do er," said Weiss. "We can leave any s o ." time now." "No. I made up my mind months "Will the acceleration be great?" ago." I asked, noting that the seats before "To be frank with you, Stephen, the panel were only moderately cush you will be something of a guinea ioned. pig on this voyage. Conditions in "There will be no sense of accel the place we are going may be utterly eration at all. The forces driving different from what they are here. us will act equally on every atom Your presence will give me an oppor inside the ship, including those tunity to study human reactions to of our bodies. You may remain stand those conditions objectively." ing if you wish." "Always the scientist, aren't As he spoke, he threw the lever you! Well, if I'm the guinea pig, on the panel slightly forward. at least you're in the experiment As he had said, I felt nothing. with me. And I've never felt that 1 looked out the quartz window and you're the type that miscalculates." saw that we were shooting upward at a terrific velocity, but I felt 1 returned to the roof and stood no sense of motion; it was like look looking toward the north, toward ing at a movie. Had I relied on the lights of the great city, while my senses and not my reason, I would Professor Weiss puttered around get have thought that we were stationary ting things checked for departure. and that the ground was dropping At that time I truly felt no regrets away from us! Chicago swiftly became for all that 1 was leaving; rather, a toy city of blocks, a huge irreg I was pleased to reflect that the ular gridwork, a dark splotch on law would never find me and that the ground, a small dot on the shore I, Stephen Randall, would be an eter of Lake Michigan, and was finally nal puzzle to the civilization I lost from view entirely. was leaving behind. "That should shake their eardrums The sky began to grow brighter. a bit," commented the professor, Soon it would be daylight, and I "but we won't be able to put on any would be leaving the earth for— what? real speed until we leave the atmos Where was this "other place" the phere." professor had often spoken of? And I said nothing, but secretly mar what was the nature of his "light- velled. If this was just a slow drive" which would take us there? crawl to his way of thinking, then Certainly Weiss was a man of unique what was his idea of speed? knowledge and ability, at least cen "We must attain the speed of turies ahead of his time— if Indeed light, of course," he said, as though the history of the human race would answering my unspoken question, "in ever include a "time" for such as order to cross over into the other h e ! place ..." "It is time to go," said the prof "The speed of light!" I cried. essor quietly. "The sun will be "You never told me your machine would up in a few minutes." do that!" We climbed into the machine and "It will. By tapping energy from sealed the door shut behind us. Weiss the sun." touched a switch and a low hum of We were already beyond the atmos power surged through the ship. Gazing phere. The professor nudged the through the thick quartz plate above lever forward, and I saw that our the control panel, I beheld the sun's speed jumped to the fantastic rate rim beginning to peep over the urban of 200 miles per second. Moreover, skyline. the lever was now slowly moving for 18 / Astro-Adventures ward on its own as some automatic return. 1 looked at the gauge and mechanism took over; we were steadily saw that it was now registering 4,000 accelerating. miles per second. "How do you know," 1 demanded, "But where does this ’other place’ "that there actually is an Other come in?" Planet?" "I was coming to that," said the "1 could explain it mathematic professor. "In gaining a dimension ally," said Weiss, "but you would of infinite time in relation to the not understand. I'll try a simpler, solar system, we lose a dimension though less accurate, explanation; of space. By achieving light-speed you know, of course, that the speed within the sun’s gravitational field of light is constant— that is, that It no matter how fast you are going, "Wait— I'm lost. What does the or what direction, light from any sun's gravitation field have to do source will always reach you at the with it?" velocity of about 186,000 miles per He looked at me as though I were second. a small pupil who hadn't read his "Yes, I know. So how can we ever lesson. "You realize, of course, go as fast as light?" that gravity is merely a property "We cannot— at least not in rela of space in the vicinity of material tion to light itself. We will, how bodies?" ever, be flying away from the sun "I'll take your word for it." at light-speed— even though the light "Then you can see that our accel from the sun can still be considered eration must take place in a gravi to be reaching us at 186,000 miles tational field such as the solar per second." system offers, so that our speed "That sounds absolutely imposs may increase in fairly close prox ible." imity to large bodies such as the "All a matter of perspective," sun and the planets. You see, we said Weiss, pacing the floor as he must be travelling at light-speed warmed to his subject. "As our vel in relation to something— something ocity increases, our time-rate slows fairly close and massive." down in relation to the time-rate I did not see, but kept silent of the solar system. Therefore, for fear he would try to explain even though we are receding from something else and get me even more the sun at great speed, a light ray confused. I looked again at the 186,000 miles in length emitted from gauge, found it indicating 12,000 its surface can pass us in one of miles per second. our seconds." "Therefore," Weiss went on in I glanced at the speed gauge. spite of my silence, "as our It f ■ n'1 miles per second! time-rate and velocity approach "In •irds," I said, " we’re infinity, so does our mass, along now living more slowly than people with a contraction of one of our on earth?" spatial dimensions ..." "Slightly. The difference is "You mean the faster we go, the negligible now, but as we approach heavier we'll get?" I ventured. the speed of light it will increase "No— our weight has nothing to drastically. Before long, one of do with our mass any more. In fact, our seconds will equal a thousand if you will get up, you will find years on earth— and eventually, when yourself nearly weightless. We we reach the speed of light, earth- are nearly at perfect free-fall point time will cease to exist altogether now." in relation to us." I did as he said— and found myself I knew now why we could never floating toward the ceiling. I felt The Other Place / 19 slightly giddy and sick and almost looked out the quartz porthole, sur as if 1 were falling. The gauge, prised to find the distant stars I noticed, read 30,000 miles per as bright and immovable as ever; second. I had expected to see them streaking "Our mass increase is proportional by, and only when I saw them motion to a spatial contraction in the di less still despite our terrible vel rection of our travel," he droned ocity did I gain an inkling as to on. "The greater our speed, the the enormity of our universe in space greater our mass in relation to an and time— and actually began to feel equal stationary volume of matter that enormity . . . of equal stationary weight— 'sta Then, even as I watched in those tionary' referring to the sun, of last seconds, the stars suddenly course— until, at light-speed, we sped off on a million wild tangents, shall become, in relation to all grouping, dissolving, and re-grouping earthly perspective, two-dimensional into cosmic whorls of chromatic and of infinite mass.” splendor— until, forming at last "It sounds like we'll be squashed into one mighty galaxy of whirling flat," I said. The gauge now regis motion, they seemed to explode in tered the unthinkable velocity of a final burst of kaleidoscopic over 100,000 miles per second. light— "No," said Weiss. "We'll merely And then they were gone. be squeezed out of this universe, so to speak— and into another one." I felt relieved to find that 1 III. seemed to be able to understand his last statement. Then I started to We were in the Other Place. There feel apprehensive. "Will we undergo was no sense of transition, only any— alteration— when we enter this the realization that there were no new universe?" longer any stars. They had vanished. "None that our senses will be But there were other things. able to detect. We will perceive They were not planets, nor suns, the altered dimensions as mere re nor anything we had ever seen before. orientations of the dimensions of Some loomed far off and might have our own universe. In other words, been as huge as worlds, while others we'll see it as another three-dimen- drifted by close at hand and were sional universe existing in time. only inches in diameter. All were It's all a matter of perception." alike, yet no two were exactly alike. "Another universe!" I cried. "So They extended Indefinitely in all that's what you meant by the 'other directions, seemingly infinite in place'! What do you think we'll number, each glowing with a soft find there?" blue light and having at its core The professor shrugged. "Any a spark of golden radiance, and the thing— or possibly nothing. To spec glory of them was beyond description. ulate would be useless in face of "What are they?" I murmured, feel an infinity of possibilities. But ing a strange wonder growing upon we shall soon know. Look— in ten m e . more seconds we shall achieve the "That we must go out and learn, speed of light!" Stephen." I glanced at the speed-meter and Though his words were matter-of- foudn that our velocity was 180,000 fact, the professor's voice was some miles per second. The indicator what hushed, and 1 knew he felt the was ever more swiftly moving toward same wonder as I. He began to get the mark that denoted infinity. I the pressure suits ready. I looked 20 / Astro-Adventures over at the speed indicator and found at last captured two of the smallest, the needle pointing at zero. we took them inside the ship. "We aren't moving!" The results they showed under "Naturally not. I.ight-speed in analysis were astounding, and Weiss our universe is equivalent to being finally concluded that they were motionless in this one. Here— get not composed of matter as we know into this suit, and we'll go out it at all. All chemical tests were side." negative; they would not react to I asked no more questions while anything. Nor did heating produce we helped each other into pressure- any results. Most surprising of suits, hoping Weiss would not start all, they seemed to lack that prop another of his scientific explana erty of matter known as "mass", and tions. My hopes were fulfilled, the professor concluded that they and when all was ready we passed would have no weight in a gravita through the airlock into unknown tional field. Yet they were unbe space. lievably rigid, and would not change Drifting free in the void, I ex shape under the greatest pressures amined the alien objects more close we could apply to them. ly. They reminded me more of crys "I can't understand it!" said tals than anything else— crystals Weiss when we had finished our test of every size. The smallest were ing. "They obey no laws of matter, about the diameter of golf balls; and they seem to be indestructible." of the more distant ones we could "Maybe they're the atoms of this form no accurate estimate, but they universe," I suggested. "Atoms are could well have ranged up to the as nearly indestructible as anything size of planets or even suns. They I can think of." were of every angular symmetry imag I was gratified to find that he inable, like snowflakes but more took my suggestion seriously. "You complex, their symmetry radiating may well be right, Stephen. The in three dimensions rather than the building blocks of this universe! snowflakes' two. All were a trans I'm glad you thought of that." parent blue in color, and in the "And yet, they're so big ..." heart of each there pulsed a soft "Size is relative, and space an gleam of golden light. Throughout illusion. Your hypothesis accounts all this fantastic space, as far for our being unable to detect mass as we could see, there was nothing in these objects with the crude tests but these cosmic sapphires, stretch we have made so far. What we regard ing away into a dim haze of blue as a frictionless surface in these and gold. crystals may only be the outer orbits A crystal about four inches in of electrons moving at fantastic diameter drifted by and the prof speeds. I think I can see a way essor reached out to grab it. It to prove or disprove it." slipped out of his hand almost like "How?" a cake of wet soap. "By bringing various crystals "Why— they're frictionless!" he in contact with one another," said exclaimed. "See if you can catch Weiss, "to see if they form mole one, Stephen— we must take some into cules." To demonstrate, he nudged the ship for analysis." our two crystals together in the This was not easy, but we finally air until they touched. Nothing developed the knack of holding the happened. smaller crystals by cupping our hands "I guess my hypothesis was cock together over them. Larger ones, eyed," I said. say a foot in diameter or more, we "Not necessarily. There is a could not handle at all. Having great diversity of crystals here, The Other Place / 21 just as there is a great diversity "Perhaps it was that big crystal of atoms and molecules in our own over to the right," suggested the universe. These two may only be professor. of sorts that won't combine with I felt myself sicken with horror one another. We'll have to go out as I caught the uncertainty in his side and continue this experiment voice. All our food supplies and on a larger scale." equipment for survival were in the When we were outside again, we ship! continued our strange game. Though "Good God!" I cried out. "These unable to handle the crystals, we crystals look the same from every were able to nudge them in the di angle!" rections we wished them to travel. "Easy, Stephen— we're not lost Before long, we saw that our atomic yet," said the professor. "If we theory was groundless, for although keep our wits about us, we might we tried crystals of every size and still— " shape in hundreds of combinations— He stopped speaking, and I saw even bombarding one as big as a hill him gaze hopelessly about in the with dozens of smaller ones— none immensity through which we drifted. of them would combine with another. In that moment I thought of the ship Occasionally we saw them collide as home, security, life— as every of themselves in their aimless drift thing 1 had ever wanted that was ings, always without results. We byeond reach. I wanted it desper were stumped. ately. I came closer to praying "I should have known we were than I had for all my adult life, wrong," said Weiss through the radio and felt that if 1 could only regain built into his helmet. "Some mole the ship I would never leave it again cular combinations can be expected to give off light during their forma And suddenly it was there, right tion, and we have seen no such flash in our line of sight, drifting toward es in all this immensity." us in a slow, impossible curve around "So what do we do now?" the flank of a mansion-sized crystal "Start gathering crystals in your that had concealed it from view. knapsack. We'll take them back to We gazed at it, spellbound. It the ship for further analysis." was a long moment before either of us regained neough composure to I started to do as Weiss asked, speak. and had gathered up half a dozen "How did it happen?” I said at of the crystals when a disconcerting last. thought struck me. I began to look "1 don't know," said Weiss, look around in every direction. ing around him wonderingly, "but "Where's the ship?" 1 asked. I think the crystals may have had The professor began to look a- something to do with it." round also. "I— I think it's over behind that hill-sized crystal we were testing— " IV. "Well, let's get back there! I don't like the idea of getting lost During the next few "days" we in this mess at all." ran extensive tests on the crystals We sped around the giant face — tests quite different from our of the crystal, propelled by the earlier ones. Though we did not small could move objects with them. By they're alive?" being in close proximity to a crys "Not exactly— but this may be tal and concentrating on any other a good example of life as we do not crystal close by, we could cause know it." the latter to drift in any direc "Does this theory of yours ex tion we chose. Moreover, any object plain how they move things?" within the ship, or even the ship "They do not do the moving," said itself, could be moved by this means. the professor. "Our minds do that. No longer did we have to rely on The crystals merely serve as cata high-pressure jets to travel outside lysts or amplifiers." in space; by merely taking a crystal There was no stopping him once along in our knapsacks, we could he started on something like this, will ourselves from place to place. so I made myself look as intelligent Nor did we have to worry any more as possible and listened. about getting lost— for, by concen "It is my belief," he went on, trating hard on the ship, we could "that all space-time is filled with make it come to us as it had on that a basic, boundless power which under first occasion. lies all other forms of energy. The Nor was this the only astounding anthropomorphically-minded call this property of the crystals. As we power God, and it is available to progressed, we discovered that we certain minds which have the property could not only move matter but also we call 'faith'— a property most change its atomic and molecular humans lack, unfortunately. These structure. This benefited us crystals, however, are completely enormously, for we merely had to open to this latent power of the visualize something we wanted and universe, due to their complete lack the crystals would supply it. We of what we think of as 'will power'. found that we could purify the air They possess complete faith, if you by simply converting waste gases want to think of It that way, and back to oxygen. Food and water also there is therefore nothing to stop would never be a problem for us, the inflow of universal power. Yet and we realized we would be able they are mere minds with no will— to exist in this strange universe vast Intellects calmly contemplating indefinitely. The crystals would the universe, possessing all know not, however, create matter out of ledge and power yet lacking any mo nothingness, and we had to save every tivation or desire to use it. They bit of matter we had brought with are static. But when we came into us from our own universe. the picture, we introduced the new Obviously our minds had some ef factor of will power. Somehow, when fect on the crystals— or vice versa— we are near a crystal, our desires which caused nearly our every wish are transmitted through it and acti to be gratified. It was almost as vate the 'power of the universe' if the crystals were watching over on our behalf." us. When I mentioned to Weiss my "That's a nice poetic fancy," impressions on this subject, he came I said, "but hardly a scientific forth with a possible explanation theory. In other words, you've run he had been mulling over. out of hypotheses and don't have "I believe you are right about the slightest idea what the crystals that, Stephen— in fact, 1 have come are or how they function." to the conclusion that these crys Weiss shrugged and grinned wryly. tals, whatever else they may be, "At least my poetry gives us an aes are conscious entities." thetic explanation to pretend we His theories were continually believe in, no?" astounding me. "You mean you think "I'm surprised at you! I'd like The Other Place / 23 to know how these things came to in this twilit blue-and-gold vast exist In the first place. Any Ideas ness, and I understood the feeling on that?" that had led the professor to theo "Yes," said the professor. "I'm rize about such things as God, faith inclined to doubt that they came and infinite power, even though we about naturally." both knew such theorizings could "Why? How else would they have not at all explain the awesome Fact. come about?" Then one "day" a change occurred. "Let me give you an analogy. Sup We were outside the ship in our pose a cabbage worm found himself pressure-suits, idly drifting and In a place where there were no ob gathering more crystals to test, jects but cabbages. He would have whent he soft light all about us his every need satisfied beyond meas began to dim. As far as we could ure. Yet, being incapable of see the crystals in every direction thought, he would not realize that slowly darkened down to a dim purple, he was in a vegetable garden where while the golden pulsings at their at any time the gardener might find hearts slowed and faded to a smolder and destroy him." ing red. At the same time a strange "You mean— you think something fear and melancholy settled down grew these crystals?" upon me, intensifying rapidly. I "Not 'grew' exactly," said Weiss, felt Instinctively as though some "but that's the general idea. The thing unutterably dangerous were crystals themselves are useless, abroad; I froze; my heart hammered but in partnership with minds pos and I floated In silence, fearful sessing will power fantastic things of making the slightest movement could be done. Yes, it's conceivable or sound, fearful even of my cau that beings inhabiting this universe tious breathing within my helmet might be 'growing' these things for and the rhythmic thudding of my their own use." heart. The professor floated as The thought was not comforting. motionless as I, and somehow I knew I found myself wondering what a bug for a certainty that he shared the feels like when the gardener sprays same awful dread. him. If there actually were beings Then, far off in the distance— cultivating these crystals In some it may have been miles, leagues or unimaginable way, they would be even astronomical distances away, mightier than anything the mind of for there was no way of estimating— man could imagine, more powerful a new phenomenon slowly expanded in their wisdom than man could ever into existence, bringing with it hope to be. new colors and configurations. It I did not sleep well that "night." was like a vast cloud of shining bubbles of many sizes, an iridescent I stayed with the professor for congeries of spheres that ponderously some time, during which the inevit swirled and grew, filling our space able happened: boredom began to set with a hard and somehow evil ra in and replace the wonderment I had diance. As we watched it in fearful originally felt at being in such fascination it slowly spread itself a strange place. There was a soft over the surface of one of the larg and soothing beauty about this uni est crystals until the latter was verse, but nothing ever changed. entirely hidden from sight; then, The ship's clock indicated that sev just as slowly, it began to contract. eral weeks had passed, but subject The harsh light gradually dimmed ively it seemed (paradoxical as it as the bubble-mass contracted, till sounds) more like years or moments. at last the phenomenon dwindled to One felt the presence of eternity a point and was gone, leaving no 24 / Astro-Adventures trace of the crystal or itself be "What about it? Can we go back?" hind. Then slowly the light of the "We'll see. Yes, I'll help you crystals returned to their normal go back if you wish. In a way it's pulsing blue and gold, and the hor very simple, and in another way very ror lifted itself from my soul. difficult." "My God— what was it?" I breathed "How do you mean?" when at last 1 was able to speak. "The easy part," said Weiss, "is "1 don't know." Weiss' voice, that in order to get back you merely filtered through the speaker inside have to travel any direction you my helmet, trembled with awe. "I choose at the speed of light, and don't know, but I think it may have you will find yourself back in the been— the Gardener." same place on the material body you departed from originally— in other words, on the south shore of Lake V. Michigan, on earth." "Is that all? Then what's the For some time an idea had been catch?" slowly forming in my mind, and the "The catch, Stephen, is that the "morning" after the frightening phen earth which we left no longer exists omenon 1 brought it up to the prof in time, in relation to us, except essor. as an infinity of time-points. You "Karl," 1 began, "you told me could come out at any point in when we left earth that we would earth's history from the time it probably never return. I'd like condensed into a solid ball to the to know just what the probabilities time of its extinction." of returning are." That was a big catch, all right. "You want to go back," he said. I thought about it for awhile. Fi "Yes. I've been thinking. When nally I said: "I'll chance it! I decided to come along with you, There's really not much to do here, I had nothing to lose. If I had and I'm afraid I'd eventually die stayed 1 might have gone to prison of boredom if I had to stay. The or even been sentenced to death. crystal should sustain me wherever But if I went back now, I'd have I come out in time— even if I hit nothing to worry about." the remote future, 1 doubt mankind "You mean . . will have anything to top it.” "Yes— the crystals. With just "Very well. Let's get things one of them we could be the masters ready." of the world. There's no need for During the next few days we con us to flee society now, because we structed a small, one-man space cap could destroy or remake It as we sule for my return— for the professor saw fit. Anyone who hindered or was determined to remain in the Other annoyed us could simply be willed Place. smoothly and painlessly out of ex "There's nothing for me in a hu istence. Just think, Karl— we could man-infested world, even if it's say to this mountain, 'Be thou re on my own terms," he explained. "Hu moved, and cast into the sea,' and manity can offer me nothing I de it would literally happen!" sire. Besides— " There was a far-off The professor smiled a little, look in his eyes— "there is so much but there was no surprise in his to learn here! Someday I might even expression. contact the powers or beings which "I've been expecting you to say I believe developed these crystals— something like this," he said, "ever if there are such beings. Think since we found out what the crystals of the knowledge to be gained from will do." them, Stephen— secrets beyond any The Other Place / 25 thing mankind has ever known or even place, and it was some time before imagined!" 1 grew accustomed to sunlight again. Remembering Che horror that I While I was waiting for my eyes had felt under the shining sphere- to adjust, I removed my pressure-suit cloud phenomenon, I felt anything and strapped on my knapsack. As but a desire to encounter such pow long as I had the crystals in my ers. "Is that your last word, then?" possession, the world was mine! I asked. When at last I stepped outside, "It is— but you needn't worry my eyes restored, I found that things about my welfare. The crystals will were greatly changed. The sun was supply me with all I need." small and dim in the sky, and the We stocked my space capsule with light which had blinded me was ac the few supplies I would require tually a fading remnant of its former for my return— food, air cylinders, brilliance. The earth was old. Chi scientific equipment of various sorts cago was gone, buried beneath the and medical items. Most if it, 1 sands of time, and no trace of it suspected, I would never need with remained. But far to the northwest, a crystal to aid me. I helped the the towers of a titan city reared professor construct a small-scale strange, dark spires above the hori light-drive and install it in the zon. Man was still here. capsule. The radiant energy in this Walking westward, I soon came universe was not Intense enough to to a great road that lay along the power such a device, but that prob shore of a wide, stagnant bay of lem was easily solved by installing black water— a bay extending south a crystal in the drive mechanism— a ward from a distant sea that might small one about two Inches in dia once have been Lake Michigan. And meter, since the design allowed no here I received the greatest shock room for a larger one. I took two since my return from the Other Place. extra crystals of the same size in Along this road dark forms were mov my knapsack, just in case I should ing, toward and away from the great lose one. city to the northwest. At first And so at last I said farewell I thought these things were vehicles, to my companion, the strange man but when 1 had advanced to a better who had so strangely befriended me vantage point and was able to view in the greatest crisis of my life— a them more closely, I cried aloud man who would give up all power in in wonder and horror, for I saw that order to gain knowledge. The last they were immense black beetles, glimpse I had of him was through each one many times larger than a the quartz pane of my capsule, as m a n ! he drifted weightless amid that crys tal profusion. I answered his part I had been on earth several months ing wave, then pushed the velocity- now, and have been over much of its lever forward. Everything vanished surface. I am convinced there is in a blur of speed; in this massless no human being alive but me. universe there was no inertia to My trouble, of course, was that overcome, and I achieved light-speed the age of the earth is so great, as quickly as I could push the lever and the time during which humanity over to its limit. I was on my way inhabited it was so ridiculously back to the stars. short. I must have had less than one chance in a million of hitting The first impression I received a time when human civilization flour to indicate that 1 was back on earth ished. "as that the light hurt my eyes. I've thought of going back to The crystal world had been a dim the Other Place and making another 26 / Astro-Advencures attempt, but I know now that that my capsule to roam the earth at will, is impossible. The crystals I though their power is not great e- brought with me simply do not have nough to lift me into outer space. the necessary power; whether because The beetles recognize me as an in they no longer have the reinforcement telligent being, and indifferently of all the other crystals in their allow me to wander and explore In universe, or whether the earth's their mighty cities and archives. gravitational and magnetic fields There is much that I am free to do, act as inhibitors, I do not know. and much for me to learn. 1 am the But then, it makes little difference, last man on earth, and sometimes as I'm sure I'd never live long I feel lonely with that thought; enough to hit that lucky chance in but on the whole, this world is not a million. a bad exchange for humanity. The beetles aren't so bad, now Sometimes 1 find myself wondering that I've gotten used to seeing them If Professor Weiss will return one around, but they're not exactly com day from the Other Place. Even if panionship. They're certainly not he should, I am sure I will never a menace, ignoring me for the most see him again; earth's history is part. They seem never to fight wars just too vast. And then, too, he or do anything else that requires may have met the Gardener . . . much energy; they float about the And now my account is finished. sky in great airships, or wander I shall bear this manuscript to the across the landscape in a leisurely giant beetle who is Keeper of the manner, pausing to suck the juice Archives in this great stone city of trees and plants. They build whose name I do not know, and he great cities of stone, and many of shall store it with the millions their buildings seem to be archives of other records that are kept here. and museums wherein are stored know I am sure it will be a puzzle to ledge and relics of many human and strange scholars in the long future pre-human civilizations. ages, before it, with the rest of I need not fear for survival, this fading world, crumbles to dust. for with my crystals I can power Continued from p. 37: Let me go!" that there was no one in the ancient She whirled out of his grasp with laboratory beneath his feet. sudden vehemence, turning her face He shut the door carefully and away so that he could not see her scraped soil over it. He did not eyes. Without glancing at him again mark the place. The dim red spot she bent over the shaft and found of the sun was rising above the can the topmost pegs, and in a moment yon wall. His face set, Dantan be was gone. gan walking toward the distant cav Dantan stood there, waiting. Pre ern where his aircar was hidden. sently he heard the muffled humming It was many miles away, but there of a muted bell, as though sounding was no one to stop him, now. from another world. Then he knew He did not look back. "TALES FROM THE TIME WARP" PRESENTS THE EYES OF THAR by Henry Kuttner She spoke In a tongue dead a thousand years, and she had no memory for the man she faced. Yet he had held her tightly but a few short years before, had sworn eternal vengeance— when she died in his arms from an assassin's wounds. He had come back, though he knew gotten knowledge of the past, glor what to expect. He had always come ious days of Martian destiny, when back to Klanvahr, since he had been bright towers had fingered up tri hunted out of that ancient Martian umphantly toward the Eyes of Thar. fortress so many years ago. Not Memories . . . the solemn, antique often, and always warily, for there dignity of the Undercities, in ruins was a price on Dantan's head, and now . . . the wrinkled shaman, inton those who governed the Dry Provinces ing his rituals . . . very old books, would have been glad to pay it. Now and older stories . . . raids by there was an excellent chance that the Redhelm Tribe . . . and a girl they might pay, and soon, he thought, Samuel Dantan had known. There was as he walked doggedly through the a raid, and the girl had died. Such baking stillness of the night, his things had happened many times be ears attuned to any dangerous sound fore; they could happen again. But in the thin, dry air. to Dantan this one death mattered Even after dark it was hot here. very much. The dead ground, parched and arid, Afterward, Dantan killed, first retained the heat, releasing it slow in red fury, then with a cool, quiet, ly as the double moons— the Eyes passionless satisfaction. And, since of Thar, in Klanvahr mythology— swung the Redheltns were well represented across the blazing immensity of the in the corrupt Martian government, sky. Yet Samuel Dantan came back he had become outlaw. to this desolate land as he had come The girl would not have known before, drawn by love and by hatred. him now. He had gone out into the The love was lost forever, but spaceways, and the years had changed the hate could still be satiated. him. He was still thin, his eyes He had not yet glutted his blood- still dark and opaque as shadowed lust. When Dantan came back to Klan tarn-water, but he was dry and sinewy vahr, men died, though if all the and hard, moving with the trained, nen of the Redhelm Tribe were slain, dangerous swiftness of the predator even that could not satisfy the dull he was— and, as to morals, Dantan ache in Dantan's heart. had none worth mentioning. He had Now they were hunting him. broken more than ten commandments. The girl— he had not thought of Between the planets, and in the far- her for years; he did not want to flung worlds bordering the outer remember. He had been young when dark, there are more than ten. But it happened. Of Earth stock, he Dantan had smashed them all. had during a great Martian drought In the end there was still the become godson to an old shaman of dull, sickening hopelessness, part Klanvahr, one of the priests who loneliness, part something less de still hoarded scraps of the for finable. Hunted, he came back to 27 28 / Astro-Adventures Klanvahr, and when he came, men of wasteland, perhaps. They saw it Che Redhelms died. They did not with the eyes of memory, as the Moth die easily. er of Empires which Klanvahr had But Chis time ic was Chey who once been, so long ago that only hunced, noc he. They had cue him the tales persisced, garbled and off from Che alrcar and they fol unbelievable. lowed now like hounds upon his track. A sighing whisper . . . he sCopped He had almost been disarmed in that living for a second, his breach halc- last battle. And Che Redhelms would ed, his eyes turned to emptiness. not lose the trail; they had followed That meant something. A thermal, sign for generations across the dying a river of wind— a downdrift, per tundras of Mars. haps. Sometimes these eon-old can He paused, flattening himself yons held lost rivers, changing and against an outcrop of rock, and look shifting their courses as Mars crum ed back. It was dark; the Eyes of bled, and such watercourses might Thar had not yet risen, and the blaze be traced by sound. of starlight cast a ghastly, leprous Well— he knew Klanvahr. shine over the chaotic slope behind A half mile farther he found the him, great riven boulders and jutting arroyo, not too deep— fifty feet monoliths, canyon-like, running jag or less, with jagged walls easy to ged Coward Che horizon, a scene of descend. He could hear the trickle cosmic ruin chac every old and of water, though he could not see shrinking world muse show. He could it, and his chirsc became overpower see noching of his pursuers, buC ing. BuC caudon made him clamber Chey were coming. They were sdll down che precipice warily. He did far behind. But chac did noc matter; noc drink dll he had reconnoicered he must circle— circle— and made sure that it was safe. And first, he must regain a little And that made Dantan's thin lips strength. There was no water in curl. Safety for a man hunted by his canteen. His throat was dust- the Redhelms? The thought was suf- dry, and his tongue felt swollen ficiendy absurd. He would die— he and leachery. Moving his shoulders muse die; buC he did noc mean Co .uneasily, his dark face impassive, die alone. This cime perhaps Chey Dantan found a pebble and puC ic had him, but the kill would not be in his mouch, chough he knew that easy nor without cost. If he could would not help much. He had not find some weapon, some ambush— pre tasted water for— how long? Too pare some trap for the hunters— long, anyhow. There might be possibilities in Scaring around, he took stock this canyon. The stream had only of resources. He was alone— what lately been diverted into this chan was it the old shaman had once told nel; the signs of that were clear. him? "You are never alone in Klan Thoughtfully Dantan worked his way vahr. The living shadows of the upstream. He did not try to mask past are all around you. They can his trail by water-tricks; the Red not help, buC Chey wacch, and cheir helms were too wise for that. No, pride muse not be humbled. You are there must be some other answer. never alone in Klanvahr." A mile or so farther along he But noching stirred. Only a whis found the reason for the diverted per of che dry, hoc wind murmuring stream. Landslide. Where water up from che discance, sighing and had chuckled and rustled along che soughing like muced harps. GhosCs lefc-hand branch before, now it took of Che pasc riding the night, Dantan the other route. Dantan followed thought. How did those ghosts see the dry canyon, finding the going Klanvahr? Not as this desolate easier now, since Phobos had risen The Eyes of Thar / 29 an Eye of Thar. "The Eyes thinking it the footsteps of the of the god miss nothing. They move Redhelms. Then, grinning sardonic across the world, and nothing can ally, he bent to his work again, hide from Thar, or from his des- and this time the handle moved. tiny. •» Beneath him the door slid down Then Dantan saw rounded metal. and swung aside, and the darkness Washed clean by the water that had below gave place to soft light. He run here lately, a corroded, curved saw a long tube stretching down ver surface rose dome-shaped from the tically, with pegs protruding from stream bed. the metal walls at regular intervals. The presence of an artifact in It made a ladder. The bottom of this place was curious enough. The the shaft was thirty feet below; people of Klanvahr— the old race— its diameter was little more than had builded with some substance that the breadth of a big man's shoul had not survived; plastic or some ders. thing else that was not metal. Yet He stood still for a moment, look this dome had the unmistakable dull ing down, his mind almost swimming sheen of steel. It was an alloy, with wonder and surmise. Old, very unusually strong or it could never old it must be, for the stream had have lasted this long, even though cut its own bed out of the rock whose protected by its covering of rocks walls rose above him now. Old— and and earth. A little nerve began yet these metal surfaces gleamed jumping in Dantan's cheek. He had as brightly as they must have gleamed paused briefly, but now he came for on the day they were put together— ward and with his booted foot kicked for what purpose? away some of the dirt about the cryp The wind sighed again down the tic metal. canyon, and Dantan remembered the A curving line broke it. Scraping Redhelms on his track. He looked vigorously, Dantan discovered that around once more and then lowered this marked the outline of an oval himself onto the ladder on metal door, horizontal, and with a handle pegs, testing them doubtfully before of some sort, though it was caked he let his full weight come down. and fixed in its socket with dirt. They held. Dantan's lips were very thin now, There might be danger down below; and his eyes glittering and bright. there might not. There was certain An ambush— a weapon against the Red- danger coming after him among the helms— whatever might exist behind twisting canyons. He reached up, this lost door, it was worth inves investigated briefly, and swung the tigating, especially for a condemned door back into place. There was m a n . a lock, he saw, and after a moment With water from the brook and discovered how to manipulate it. a sliver of sharp stone, he pried So far, the results were satisfac and chiseled until the handle was tory. He was temporarily safe from fairly free from its heavy crust. the Redhelms, provided he did not It was a hook, like a shepherd's suffocate. There was no air intake crook, protruding from a small bowl here that he could see, but he shaped depression in the door. Dan breathed easily enough so far. He tan tested it. It would not move would worry about that when the need in any direction. He braced himself, arose. There might be other things legs straddled, body half doubled, to worry about before lack of air and strained at the hook. began to distress him. Blood beat against the back of He descended. his eyes. He heard drumming in his At the bottom of the shaft was temples and straightened suddenly. another door. Its handle yielded 30 / Astro-Adventures with no resistance this time, and Like an animal scenting danger he Dantan stepped across the threshold shrank into himself, not crouching, into a large, square underground but withdrawing, so that a smaller chamber, lit with pale radiance that man seemed to stand there, ready came from the floor Itself, as though and waiting for the next move. Only light had been poured into the molten his eyes were not motionless. They metal when it had first been made. raked the room for the unseen speaker The room— — for some weapon to use when the Faintly he heard a distant hum time came for weapons. ming, like the after-resonance of His glance came back to the dark a bell, but it died away almost in screen above the machine. And the stantly. The room was large, and voice said again, in the tongue of empty except for some sort of mach ancient Klanvahr: ine standing against the farther "I am not used to waiting, Sanfel! wall. Dantan was not a technician. If you hear me, speak. And speak He knew guns and ships; that was quickly, for the time of peril comes enough. But the smooth, sleek func close now. My Enemy is strong— " tionalism of this machine gave him Dantan said, "Can you hear me?" an almost sensuous feeling of plea His eyes did not move from the sure . screen. How long had it been here? Who Out of that blackness the girl's had built it? And for what purpose? voice came, after a pause. It was He could not even guess. There was imperious, and a little wary. a great oval screen on the wall above "You are not Sanfel. Where Is what seemed to be a control board, he? Who are you, Martian?" and there were other, more enigmatic Dantan let himself relax a little. devices. There would be a parley, at any rate. And the screen was black— dead But after that— black, with a darkness that ate up Words in the familiar, remembered the light in the room and gave back old language came hesitantly to his nothing. lips. Yet there was something— "I am no Martian. I am of Earth "Sanfel," a voice said. "Sanfel. blood, and I do not know this San Coth dr'gchang. Sanfel— sthan!" fel." Sanfel . . . Sanfel . . . have "Then how did you get into San you returned, Sanfel? Answer! fel's place?" The voice was haughty It was a woman's voice . . . the now. "What are you doing here? San voice of a woman used to wielding fel built his laboratory in a secret power, quiet, somehow proud as the place." voice of Lucifer or Lilith might "It was hidden well enough," Dan have been, and it spoke in a tongue tan told her grimly. "Maybe for that scarcely half a dozen living a thousand years, or even ten thou men could understand. . . . A whole sand, for all 1 know. The door has great race had spoken It once; only been buried under a stream— " the shamans remembered now, and the "There is no water there. San shamans who knew it were few. Dan fel 's home is on a mountain, and tan's godfather had been one. And his laboratory is built underground." Dantan remembered the slurring syl The voice rang like a bell. "I think lables of the rituals he had learned, you lie. I think you are an enemy— well enough to know what the proud, When 1 heard the signal summoning bodiless voice was saying. me, I came swiftly, wondering why The nape of his neck prickled. Sanfel had delayed so long. I must Here was something he could not un find him, stranger. I must! If derstand, and he did not like it. you are no enemy, bring me Sanfel!" The Eyes of Thar / 31 This time there was something almost from— Earth, you say? What is that?" like panic in the voice. "Another planet. Nearer the sun "If I could, 1 would," Dantan than Mars." said. "But there's no one here ex "We have no planets and no suns cept me." He hesitated, wondering in Zha. This is a different universe if the woman behind the voice could indeed. So different I find it hard be— mad? Speaking from some myster to imagine what your world must be ious place beyond the screen, in like." The voice died. a language dead a thousand years, And it was a voice he knew. Dan calling upon a man who must be long- tan was nearly sure of that now, dead, too, if one could judge by and the certainty frightened him. the length of time this hidden room When a man in the Martian desert had lain buried. begins to see or hear impossibili He said after a moment, "This ties, he has reason to be fright place has been burled for a long ened. As the silence prolonged it time. And— no one has spoken the self he began almost to hope that tongue of Klanvahr for many centur the voice— the Implausibly familiar ies. If that was your Sanfel's lan voice— had been only imagination. guage— " But he could not go on Hesitantly he said, "Are you still with that thought. If Sanfel had there?" and was a little relieved, spoken Klanvahr then he must have after all, to hear her say, died long ago. And the speaker be "Yes, I am here. I was thinking. yond the screen— she who had known . . . 1 need help. I need It desper Sanfel, yet spoke in a young, sweet, ately. I wonder— has Sanfel's labor light voice that Dantan was beginning atory changed? Does the machine to think sounded familiar. still stand? But it must, or I could He wondered if he could be mad too. not speak to you now. If the other There was silence from the screen. things work, there may be chance. After many seconds the voice spoke . . . Listen." Her voice grew ur again, sadly and with an undernote gent. "I may have a use for you. of terror. Do you see a lever, scarlet, marked "I had not realized," it said, with the Klanvahr symbol for "that even time might be so different 'sight'?" between Sanfel's world and mine. "I see it," Dantan said. The space-time continua— yes, a day "Push it forward. There is no in my world might well be an age harm in that, if you are careful. in yours. Time is elastic. In Zha We can see each other— that is all. I had f i few dozen— " she But do not touch the lever with the used a I • .intan did not under 'door' symbol on it. Be certain stand, "— had passed. But on Mars— of that . . . Wait!" Sudden urgency centuries?" was in the voice. "Tens of centuries," agreed Dan "Yes?" Dantan had not moved. tan, staring hard at the screen. "I am forgetting. There ijs danger "If Sanfel lived in old Klanvahr if you are not protected from— from his people are scarcely a memory certain vibration that you might now. And Mars is dying. You— you're see here. This is a different uni speaking from another world?" verse, and your Martian physical "From another universe, yes. A laws do not hold good between our very different universe from yours. worlds. Vibration . . . light . . . It was only through Sanfel that I other things might harm you. There had made contact, until now— What should be armor in Sanfel's labora Is your name?" tory. Find it." "Dantan. Samuel Dantan." Dantan glanced around. There "Not a Martian name. You are was a cabinet in one corner. He 32 / Astro-Adventures went over to it slowly, his eyes screen was a window now, with the wary. He had no Intention of re world of Zha behind it. . . . And laxing vigilance here simply because in the center of that window— a girl. that voice sounded familiar . . . He looked once at her, and then clos Inside the cabinet hung a suit ed his eyes. He had felt his heart of something like space armor, more move, and a nerve jumped in his lean flexible and skin tight than any cheek. he had ever seen, and with a trans He whispered a name. parent helmet through which vision Impassively the girl looked down seemed oddly distorted. He got into at him from the screen. There was the suit carefully, pulling up the no change, no light of recognition rich shining folds over his body, upon that familiar, beloved face. thinking strangely how long time The face of the girl who had died had stood still in this small room at the Redhelm hands, long ago, in since the last time a man had worn the fortress of Klanvahr. . . . For it. The whole room looked slightly her sake he had hunted the Redhelms different when he set the helmet all these dangerous years. For her into place. It must be polarized, sake he had taken to the spaceways he decided, though that alone could and the outlaw life. In a way, for not account for the strange dimming her sake the Redhelms hunted him and warping of vision that was evid now through the canyons overhead. ent . But here in the screen, she did not "All ready," he said after a mo know him. ment . He knew that this was not poss "Then throw the switch." ible. Some outrageous trick of vis With his hand upon it Dantan hes ion made the face and the slender itated for one last Instant of wari body of a woman from another universe ness. He was stepping into unknown seem the counterpart of that remem territory now, and to him the unknown bered woman. But he knew it must meant the perilous. His mind went be an illusion, for in a world as back briefly to the Redhelms scouring different as Zha surely there could the canyons above for him. He quiet be no human creatures at all, cer ed his uneasy mind with the thought tainly no human who wore the same that there might be some weapon in face as the girl he remembered. the world of the voice which he could Aside from the girl herself, there turn against them later. Certainly, was nothing to see. The screen was without a weapon, he had little to blank, except for vague shapes— out lose. But he knew that weapon or lines— The helmet, he thought, fil no weapon, danger or not, he must tered out more than light. He sens see the face behind that sweet, fam ed, somehow, that beyond her iliar, imperious voice. stretched the world of Zha, but he He pressed the lever forward. could see nothing except the It hesitated, the weight of millen shifting, ever-changing colors niums behind Its Inertia. Then, of the background. groaning a little in its socket, She looked down at him without it moved. expression. Obviously the sight Across the screen above it a blaze of him had wakened in her no such of color raged like a sudden shining deep-reaching echoes of emotion as deluge. Blinded by the glare, Dantan her face woke in him. She said, leaped back and swung an arm across her voice almost unbearably familiar; his eyes. a voice sounding from the silence When he looked again the colors of death over many chilly years, had cleared. Blinking, he stared— "Dantan. Samuel Dantan. Earthly and forgot to look away. For the language is as harsh as the Klanvahr The Eys of Thar / 33 I learned from Sanfel. Yet my name is too different to offer you any may seem strange to you. I am Qui- shelter, though I suppose you could •• ana. enter it for a little while, in that He said hoarsely, "What do you protective armor that Sanfel made. want? What did you want with San But not to stay. We spring from fel?" soil too alien to one another's "Help," Quiana said. "A weapon. worlds. . . . Even this communication Sanfel had promised me a weapon. is not easy. And there is no safety He was working very hard to make here in Zha either, now. Now that one, risking much . . . and now time Sanfel has failed me." has eaten him up— that strange, cap "I— I'd help you if I could." ricious time that varies so much He said it with difficultry, trying between your world and mine. To to force the remembrance upon him me it was only yesterday— and I still self that this was a stranger. . . . need the weapon." "Tell me what's wrong." Dantan's laugh was harsh with She shrugged with a poignantly jealousy of that unknown and long- familiar motion. dead Martian. "I have an Enemy. One of a lower "Then I'm the wrong man," he said race. And he— it— there is no word! roughly. "I've no weapon. I've — has cut me off from my people here men tracking me down to kill me, in a part of Zha that is— well, dan now." gerous— I can't describe to you the She leaned forward a little, ges conditions here. We have no common turing. terras to use in speaking of them. "Can you escape? You are hidden But there is great danger, and the here, you know." Enemy is coming closer— and I am "They'll find the same way I alone. If there were another of found, up above." my people here to divide the peril "The laboratory door can be lock I think I could destroy him. He ed, at the top of the shaft." has a weapon of his own, and it is "I know. I locked it. But stronger than my power, though not there's no food or water here. stronger than the power two of my . No, if I had any weapons I race together can wield. It— it wouldn't be here now." pulls. It destroys, in a way I can "Would you not?" she asked in find no word to say. 1 had hoped a curious voice. "In old Klanvahr, from Sanfel something to divert him Sanfel once told me, they had a say until he could be killed. I told ing that none could hide from his him how to forge such a weapon, but— destiny." time would not let him do it. The Dantan gave her a keen, inquiring teeth of time ground him into dust, look. Did she mean— herself? That as my Enemy's weapon will grind me same face and voice and body, so soon." cruelly come back from death to waken She shrugged again. the old grief anew? Or did she know "If I could get you a gun," Dantan whose likeness she wore— or could said. "A force-ray— " it be only his imagination, after "What are they?" all? For if Sanfel had died as long He described the weapons of his ago as he must have died, then this day. But Qulana's smile was a little same lovely image had lived centuries scornful when he finished. and millenniums before the girl at "We of Zha have passed beyond Klanvahr Fortress. . . . the use of missile weapons— even "I remember," said Dantan briefly. such missiles as bullets or rays. "My world," she went on, oblivious Nor could they touch my Enemy. No, to the turmoil in his mind, "my world we destroy in ways that require no— 34 / Astro-Adventures no beams of explosives. No, Dantan, in coming here." Her voice died you speak in terms of your own uni away; a withdrawn look veiled her verse. We have no common ground. eyes from him. It is a pity that time eddied be After a long silence she said, tween Sanfel and me, but eddy it "The Enemy is coming. Turn off the did, and 1 am helpless now. And screen, Dantan. And goodbye." the Enemy will be upon me soon. Very "No,” he said. "Wait!" But she soon." shook her head and turned away from She let her shoulders sag and him, her thin robe swirling, and resignation dimmed the remembered moved off like a pale shadow into vividness of her face. Dantan looked the dim, shadlowless emptiness of up at her grimly, muscles riding the background. He stood watching his jet jaw. It was almost intol helplessly, feeling all the old de erable, this facing her again in spair wash over him a second time need, and again helpless, and him as the girl he loved went alone into self without power to aid. It had danger he could not share. Sometimes been bad enough that first time, as she moved away she was eclipsed to learn long afterward that she by objects he could not see— trees, had died at enemy hands while he he thought, or rocks, that did not was too far away to protect her. impinge upon his eyes through the But to see it all take place again protective helmet. A strange world before his very eyes! Indeed Zha must be, whose very rocks "There must be a way," he said, and trees were too alien for human and his hand gripped the lever mark eyes to look upon In safety. . . . ed "door" in the ancient tongue. Only Qulana grew smaller and "Wait!" Qulana's voice was ur smaller upon the screen, and it gent . seemed to Dantan as though a cord "What would happen?" stretched between them, pulling "The door would open. I could thinner and thinner as she receded enter your world, and you mine." into danger and distance. "Why can't you leave, then, and It was unbearable to think that wait until it's safe to go back?" the cord might break— break a second "I have tried that," Qulana said. time. . . . "It will never be safe. The Enemy Far away something moved in the waited too. No, it must come, in cloudy world of Zha. Tiny in the the end, to a battle— and I shall distance though it was, it was un not win that fight. I shall not mistakably not human. Dantan lost see my own people or my own land sight of Quiana. Had she found some again, and 1 suppose I must face hiding place behind some unimaginable that knowledge. But I did hope, outcropping of Zha's terrain? when I heard Sanfel's signal sound The Enemy came forward. again. . . ." She smiled a little. It was huge and scaled and ter "I know you would help me if you rible, human, but not a human; tail could, Dantan. But there is nothing ed, but no beast; intelligent, but to be done now." diabolic. He never saw it too clear "I'll come in," he said doggedly. ly, and he was grateful to his helmet "Maybe there's something 1 could for that. The polarized glass seemed do." to translate a little, as well as "You could not touch him. Even to blot out. He felt sure that this now there's danger. He was very creature which he saw— or almost close when 1 heard that signal. This saw— did not look precisely as it Is his territory. When I heard the seemed to him upon the screen. Yet bell and thought Sanfel had returned it was easy to believe that such with a weapon for me, I dared greatly a being had sprung from the alien The Eyes of Thar / 35 soil of Zha. There was nothing re and the veil that had masked the motely like it on any of the worlds screen was gone. He vaulted up over he knew. And it was hateful. Every its low threshold, not seeing any line of it made his hackles bristle. thing but the face and the terror It carried a coil of brightly of Quiana. But it was not Quiana's colored tubing slung over one gro name he called as he leaped. tesque shoulder, and its monstrous He lunged through the Door onto head swung from side to side as it soft, yielding substance that was paced forward into the screen like unlike anything he had ever felt some strange and terrible mechanical underfoot before. He scarcely knew toy. It made no sound, and its prog it. He flung himself forward, fists ress was horrible in its sheer re clenched, ready to drive futile blows lentless monotony. into the monstrous mask of the Enemy. Abruptly it paused. He thought It loomed over him like a tower, it had sensed the girl's presence, tremendous, scarcely seen through somewhere in hiding. It reached the shelter of his helmet— and then for the coil of tubing with one mal the glare of the light-cone caught formed— hand? him. "Quiana," it said— its voice as It was tangible light. It flung gentle as a child's. him back with a piledriver punch Silence. Dantan's breathing was that knocked the breath from his loud in the emptiness. body. And the blow was psychic as' "Quiana?" The tone was queru well as physical. Shaking and reel lous now. ing from the shock, Dantan shut his "Quiana," the monster crooned, eyes and fought forward, as though and swung about with sudden, unex against a steady current too strong pected agility. Moving with smooth to breast very long. He felt Quiana speed, it vanished into the clouds beside him, caught in the same dread of the background, as the girl had ful stream. And beyond the source vanished. For an eternity Dantan of the light the Enemy stood up in watched colored emptiness, trying stark, inhuman silhouette. to keep himself from trembling. He never saw Quiana’s world. The Then he heard the voice again, light was too blinding. And yet, gentle no longer, but ringing like in a subtle sense, it was not blind a bell with terrible triumph, ing to the eyes, but to the mind. "Quiana!" Nor was it light, Dantan thought, And out of the swirling clouds with some sane part of his mind. he saw Quiana break, despair upon Too late he remembered Quiana’s warn her face, her sheer garments stream ing that the world of Zha was not ing behind her. After her came the Mars or Earth, that in Zha even light Enemy. It had unslung the tube it was different. wore over its shoulder, and as It Cold and heat mingled, indescrib lifted the weapon Quiana swerved ably bewildering, shook him hard. desperately aside. Then from the And beyond these were— other things. coil of tubing blind lightning rav The light from the Enemy's weapon ened. was not born in Dantan's universe, Shattering the patternless ob and it had properties that light scurity, the blaze of Its color burst should not have. He felt bare, emp out, catching Quiana in a cone of tied, a hollow shell through which expanding, shifting brilliance. And radiance streamed. the despair in her eyes was suddenly For suddenly, every cell of his “ore than Dantan could endure. body was an eye. The glaring bril His hand struck out at the lever liance, the intolerable vision beat marked "door"; he swung it far over at the foundations of his sanity. 36 / Astro-Adventures Through him the glow went pouring, that fastened his clumsy armor. Qui washing him, nerves, bone, flesh, ana put out a quick hand, shaking brain, in floods of color that were her head. not color, sound that was not sound, "No," she said, and then stared vibration that was spawned In the at him again for a long moment with shaking hells of worlds beyond imag out speaking. Finally, "1 had not ination. known— I did not think this could It inundated him like a tide, be done. Another of my own race— and for a long, long, timeless while yes. But you, from Mars— I would he stood helpless in its surge, mov not have believed that you could ing within his body and without It, stand against the Enemy for a moment, and within his mind and soul as well. even with your armor." The color of stars thundered in his "I'm from Earth, not Mars. And brain. The crawling foulness of I didn't stand long.” unspeakable hues writhed along his "Long enough." She smiled faint nerves so monstrously that he felt ly. "You see now what happened? he could never cleanse himself of Ue of Zha can destroy without weap that obscenity. ons, using only the power inherent And nothing else existed— only in our bodies. Those like the Enemy the light that was not light, but have a little of that power too, blasphemy. but they need mechanical devices Then it began to ebb . . . faded to amplify it. And so when you di . . . grew lesser and lesser, until— verted the Enemy's attention and Beside him he could see Quiana now. forced him to divide his attack be She was no longer stumbling in the tween us— the pressure upon me was cone of light, no longer shuddering relieved, and I could destroy him. and waving in Its violence, but But I would not have believed it standing erect and facing the Enemy, possible." and from her eyes— something— poured. "You're safe now," Dantan said, Steadily the cone of brilliance with no expression in voice or face. waned. But still Its glittering, "Yes. I can return." shining foulness poured through Dan "And you will?" tan. He felt himself weakening, "Of course I shall." his senses fading, as the tide of "We are more alike than you had dark horror mounted through his realized." brain. She looked up toward the colored And covered him up with its blank curtain of the screen. "That is eting immensity. true. It is not the complete truth, He was back In the laboratory, Dantan." leaning against the wall and breath He said, "I love you— Quiana.” ing in deep, shuddering draughts. This time he called her by name. He did not remember stumbling through Neither of them moved. Minutes the Door again, but he was no longer went by silently. in Zha. Quiana stood beside him, Quiana said, as If she had not here upon the Martian soil of the heard him, "Those who followed you laboratory. She was watching him are here. I have been listening with a strange, quizzical look in to them for some time now. They her eyes as he slowly fought back are trying to break through the door to normal, his heart quieting by at the top of the shaft." degrees, his breath becoming evener. He took her hand in his gloved He felt drained, exhausted, his emo grasp. "Stay here. Or let me go tions cleansed and purified as though to Zha with you. Why not?" by baths of flame. "You could not live there without Presently he reached for the clasp your armor." The Eyes of Thar / 37 "Then stay." not even kiss her— again. He had Qtiiana looked away, her eyes taken his last kiss of the mouth troubled. As Dantan moved to slip so like Quiana's mouth, long years off his helmet her hand came up again ago, and he would never kiss it a- to stop him. galn. The barrier was too high be "Don't ." tween them. "Why not?" "You can't go back," he told her For answer she rose, beckoning in a rough, uneven voice. "We are for him to follow. She stepped a- of the same world, no matter what — cross the threshold into the shaft no matter how— You're no stranger and swiftly began to climb the pegs to me, Quiana!" toward the surface and the hammering She looked up at him with troubled of the Redhelms up above. Dantan, eyes, shaking her head, regret in at her gesture, followed. her voice. Over her shoulder she said brief "Do you think I don't know why ly. you fought for me, Dantan?" she asked "We are of two very different in a clear voice. "Did you ever worlds. Watch— but be careful." stop to wonder why Sanfel risked And she touched the device that so much for me, too?" locked the oval door. He stared down at her, his brain It slipped down and swung aside. spinning, almost afraid to hear what Dantan caught one swift glimpse she would say next. He did not want of Redhelm heads dodging back to to hear. But her voice went on in- safety. They did not know, of exorably. course, that he was unarmed. He "I cheated you, Dantan. I cheated reached up desperately, trying to Sanfel yesterday— a thousand years pull Quiana back but she slipped ago. My need was very great, you aside and sprang lightly out of the see— and our ways are not yours. shaft into the cool gray light of I knew that no man would fight for the Martian morning. a stranger as I needed a man to fight Forgetting her warning, Dantan for me." pulled himself up behind her. But He held her tightly in gloved as his head and shoulders emerged hands that could feel only a firm from the shaft he stopped, frozen. body in their grasp, not what that For the Redhelms were falling. There body was really like, nothing about was no mark upon them, yet they fell. It except its firmness. He caught his breath to interrupt, but she She did not stir, even when the went on with a rush. last man had stiffened into rigid "I have no way of knowing how immobility. Then Dantan clambered you see me, Dantan," she said re up and without looking at Quiana lentlessly. "I don't know how Sanfel went to the nearest body and turned saw me. To each of you— because It over. He could find no mark. I needed your help— 1 wore the shape Yet the Redhelm was dead. to which you owed help most. I could "That is why you had to wear the reach into your minds deeply enough armor," she told him gently. "We for that— to mould a remembered body are of different worlds, you and for your eyes. My own shape is— dif I." ferent. You will never know it." He took her in his arms— and the She sighed. "You were a brave man, soft resilience of her was lost a- Dantan. Braver and stronger than gainst the stiffness of the protec 1 ever dreamed an alien could be. tive suit. He would never even know 1 wish— I wonder— Oh, let me go! how her body felt, because of the armor between them. . . . He could Continued on p. 26 RESCUE MISSION 2030 AD by Charles Carofalo and Robert M. Price Could Carmine withstand the missionary zeal of a fanatical robot huntlng for steel souls? Carmine was a bounty hunter of an ly, the robot was dressed in a white tiques. He'd braved the worst parts long-sleeve shirt, corduroy trousers of New York to track down an eighty- and bow tie. Carmine also noted year-old comic book; he'd even ven that the mechanical's face had been tured Atlantic City's waterfront altered. The box-mouthed radio to collect a century-old print of speaker in its jaw had been removed, an obscure western flick. But he and what replaced It was a roundlform bit off more than he could chew the screen that looked like a TV day he went to Bayside Plaza. commercial grin. He made no overt moves when the Carmine kept the gun concealed heavy hand came down on his shoul and waited for the robot to make der. His accoster had no idea of the first move. the laser derringer that had auto "Hello, brother," the robot began matically shot out of his sleeve in a rusty but friendly voice. "Have into his right hand, or the dis you heard the GOOD NEWS?" ciplined tightening of Carmine's "I don't think so," Carmine began. stomach muscles, so as to prevent "But I'd be interested. Any good his ruining his pants in terror. news would be a change at this Carmine turned deliberately to point." face who or whatever had stopped "WHAT? You've never heard the him. He'd been warned to expect message of our savior Jesus Christ?” anything in this decrepit New Jersey the robot thundered. shopping center. He was equally "Well," Carmine stammered, "the willing to conceal the gun in his padre back at my high school used fist should the person prove to be to say somethin' along those lines, harmless, or to fire quickly re but— " gardless of the consequences. But "Have you ever taken Jesus into the sight of the seven-foot-tall your circuitry? Have you not yet robot caught even him by surprise. embraced the Lord of everlasting It was one of those old HumanForm function? Have you not been built or "android" models, a hulking cari again in HIS NAME?" cature in gleaming steel. With the "Er . . . I'm not too sure I want vacant calm of semi-hysteria Carmine to continue this." noted it was one of those scarce "Come, come, my brother"; the A-2683X model bodyguards, those mechanical gripped his arm. Car strong and sturdy mechanicals de mine's hand went nerveless with the signed for taking and dishing out unexpected pressure, involuntarily violence. The stainless steel finish releasing the laster-pistol, which of the robot gleamed; he had been dropped uselessly to the floor. "We well taken care of, or perhaps had all must be rebuilt. Bring Jee-zus looked after himself, since the mech into your functioning! Surely you anicals had been given emancipation are aware that no intelligence can by presidential decree. Incongruous enter the kingdom of God unless he 38 Rescue Mission 2030 A.D. / 39 be lubricated in the oil of the Lamb! scrapes before— those All-Hemisphere You must become a brand new model comic book conventions could be to receive everlasting function with death-traps. o u t need of repair!" Before long, they came in sight This was not what Carmine had of a building that had plainly been In mind, especially since he had abandoned some time ago, but recently c o m e looking for a rare 1942 original refurbished for new uses. The look print of Bedtime for Bonzo. Obvi of it was strange, downright tacky, ously this wasn't Bonzo. But it in fact, as if the place had been was a pain in the rear, and Carmine fitted for efficiency but with no usually went out of his way to avoid sense of decor at all. Almost as this sort of thing. The HumanForm if a machine had . . . The sign above didn't exactly notice his discomfort, the shabby storefront read "Eternal but he seemed to anticipate some Salvage, Inc." Carmine didn't like resistance, which accounted for his the sound of It. viselike grip of the bounty hunter's Sure enough, inside were rows arm. of equipment crates arranged like "Come, come," the robot urged. church pews. Lined up like display "You must be programmed in the Spir models in a showroom were more of it. Your whole life will be re the robots, all dressed like his newed!" As he spoke, the giant eyes captor, all mouthing programmed pie grew brighter and fiercer, his speech ties in a metallic drone. They all came faster and faster, and his grip faced a podium behind which Carmine crunched tighter and tighter. saw one HumanForm dressed differently Carmine tried and tried to think from the rest, in a polyester suit. of a way to distract the android This must be the high priest. His and slip away. Just then the robot's lenses quickly refocused in Carmine's grip increased to the same degree direction. as the grip of a Kenmore trash com- "Well done, brother! A new unit pacter. But contrary to the opinions comes to join our flock!" of Carmine's erstwhile contempora "Well, not exactly!" Carmine piped ries, he was not made of garbage. up. "That is, I'd like to think He was flesh and blood, though the about it some ..." robot didn't seem to realize the "No, no, my brother," shot back fact. the preacher-droid. "The Holy Pro At any rate, his next move was gram says, 'Now is the day of sal now clear: he'd better do just what vage '! How do you know you won' t this electric evangelist told him. walk out of here and be picked up And that was to follow him. With for scrap metal tonight? Then where a grip like that, he wasn't going would you be? Would you be with to have to worry about Carmine co the Lord at the Terminal of Grace, operating. or down in the smelting vats below?" They marched briskly out of the "I'll take my chances!" whim "■all, down the block, and through pered Carmine half-heartedly, knowing several alleys whose twists and turns he could never hope to penetrate confused even carmine's sharp trea- the mechanical's logic-loop. sure-hunter's sense of direction. "Bring out the BC-AD convertor," The android's grip seemed to loosen the hierobot was Instructing his a bit as he noticed Carmine wasn't assistant. "It should clear his resisting. But it was still imposs circuits of Original Static." The ible to break away; maybe once they other robot handed him a nasty-look- reached their destination Carmine ing device that looked something would find an opportunity for escape. like a set of headphones, but that After all, he'd been in equally tight had to be screwed into place. This 40 / Astro-Adventures might work on mechanicals, but Car ruse, he shouted a few "Amens!" as mine didn't think his fragile human he backed toward the door. skull could stand up to that kind It was working; the robots were of treatment. now going berserk with religious "Wait! Actually there's no need rapture, pounding the wails and for that! I . . . er . . . suddenly floor, rolling and leaping. Car see the flaw in my programming! I mine barely managed to avoid being repent! Praise the Lord! I have brained once or twice by waving an been rebuilt! The Spirit is in my droid arms as he made his way out. memory banks!" He was about a block away before "Come, brothers, let us lay hands he heard the crash. The overzealous on this new believer!" shouted the mechanicals had collapsed the build leader with well-oiled glee. ing on top of themselves! Most would A dozen robot arms, as gentle probably be crushed or at least im as policemen's billies, landed on mobilized, but some would no doubt Carmine's back and shoulders. He be able to free themselves and come crashed face-first to the floor. after him. And since they knew the The only good thing that had hap alleys better than he did, Carmine pened was that it was the robot's was afraid he might lose the advan grip that had broken off, not Car tage of his head start. So he start mine's arm as he had feared. ed running, huffing and puffing with "OOOHHHH!" groaned Carmine. Ac the effort (too much soy-simulate tually he said far more than just pizza lately!). that. He drew on a fine repertoire Then he stopped in his tracks. of words picked up from years of Why would they be following him any rambling through the slums of Brook way? Most likely they'd think he lyn and Harlem. Most of these words was caught in the collapse, and there had never been programmed into the was no reason to blame the crash mechs' memories and were new exper on him, after all. So Carmine paused iences for them. to rest, gain his bearings, and find "@!x?#ng:!" he bellowed, with his way back to the shopping mall. further variations on the theme. There was still that print of Bonzo "Get back, brothers, get back! to track down. Hallelujah, he's speaking in As he picked his way through the tongues!" garbage-choked alleys, he reflected "Hallelujah!" they all shouted on the day's experience and felt in electronic ecstasy. All lenses a keen sense of relief; though it were raised heavenward as Carmine was as close a call as he'd had in picked himself up, bruises and all, a long time, he had been saved (if up off the floor. Keeping up the you will pardon the expression). Captain Future vs. the Old Ones by Will Murray H. P. Lovecraft's ideas and crea Their investigation leads them tions have turned up In some of the to question a Roon named Gaa: damnedest places, and still do. The power of his Cthulhu Mythos has ex "Why have you Roons been attacking erted a strong Influence over several the colony?" asked the Brain's rasp generations of writers since the ing voice. heyday of Weird Tales. But of all "I have already told you," fal the places for the Lovecraftian in tered Gaa. "You starmen must leave fluence to creep in, the pages of Roo before disaster comes." the rather juvenile space opera pulp, "What disaster?" Captain Future, seems an unlikely Gaa hesitated, then answered. place to discover shoggoths. "The Old Ones will come back in Captain Future chronicled the wrath." star-busting exploits of a twenty- "The Old Ones?" There was a first-century superman born Curtis sharp, startled quality in the way Newton, but better known as Captain the Brain echoed it. Future. He saved the Universe a "What is it, Simon?" whispered whole bunch of times along with his Joan, impressed by his reaction. sidekicks, Crag the robot, Otho the Simon Wright did not answer her. android, and Simon Wright, the Living He spoke again to Gaa. "The Old Brain, in the pages of his own maga Ones cannot come back. They died zine and in Startling Stories between a million years ago." 1939 and 1952. Science fiction auth "No!" Gaa's voice rang with su or Edmond Hamilton wrote most of perstitious fervor. "They did not the Captain Future novels under his die. They are too mighty for death. own name and an occasional pen name, We have seen the omens with our own Brett Sterling. eyes! You must go away before you One of the Brett Sterling opuses wake them and bring horror upon us. was Red Sun of Danger (Startling That is why we must drive you from Stories. Spring 19A5; in paperback Roo." as Danger Planet), in which Captain Future journeys to the distant planet The term "Old Ones" is not new Roo, where the natives are becoming to Captain Future's ears. But he a problem. Roo, it seems is the doesn't connect the phrase to the sole source of a plant called vitron, works of H. P. Lovecraft— who is a kind of super-vitamin which slows evidently out of print in the twenty- down the natural aging process. The first century— but with a half-for- entire solar system is dependant gotten Interstellar race known as upon the stuff, which is harvested the Kangas. These Kangas are not hy human colonists. The native native to Roo (otherwise awful Roons, however, have taken to "Kanga-Roo" jokes would roll across attacking the Earth colonies and the page) and in fact supposedly disrupting the vitron harvest. no longer exit, but Captain Future Captain Future and his sidekicks, knows of them. collectively known as the Futuremen, He knows because of his archaeo Pile Into their starship and head logical expedition to the star Deneb for Roo. back in the novel, The Star of Dread A 1 42 / Astro-Adventures (Captain Future, Summer 1943), when We learned about that when we visited he went to investigate a planet circ Deneb. The Kangas vanished, became ling that star which was supposed extinct. to be the source of all human life "But superstitious dread of them in the universe. Edmond Hamilton still haunts many worlds. It's pres covered this topic first in his col ent even in the distorted legends umn, "Worlds of Tomorrow," in that of the Solar System. And the Roons same issue in a way that foreshadowed believe it utterly. They have an the events of Red Sun of Danger when ancient dread of the Old Ones. Now he wrote that prior to the Denebian something has made them believe that Empire, the Universe was ruled by the coming of the colonists is the Linids, "a mass of highly intel threatening to awake the Old Ones." ligent protozoa, who had learned the ability to cooperate in large That "something" is renegade Venu- or small numbers." Little was known sians who have tampered with the of the Linid, and even less about so-called Crypt of the Old Ones the pre-human race who came before (shades of Cthulhu 1) so that it ap the Linid, "they who held the galaxy pears to be opening. Captain Future long before us and reigned in great and crew instigate a frantic search ness, they of the darkness whose for this Crypt, which they discover name was fear, the mighty Kangas is on Black Moon, Roo's satellite. whose somber glory had passed away Or more precisely, on a white plateau and is forgotten." on the moon's surface, where it's All this sounds a lot like the visible from Roo. The plateau is milieu generated by H. P. Lovecraft not named, but Lovecraft readers in his stories of the Cthulhu Mythos might be Inclined to call it the with their dead but deathless Old Plateau of Leng. Ones and successions of pre-human Racing to the Black Moon, the races on Earth and on other planets. Futuremen are on hand for the awaken Captain Future tries to explain ing of the Old Ones: to another character about the first humans from Deneb and the various Up over the edge of the crater, pre-human races: from the newly gouged depths, was coming a fat, black, obscene thing. "According to archaeological re It was a big, semiliquid, plastic searches," Newton continued swiftly, mass, that heaved Itself painfully "before their time the galaxy was over the rim and was followed by ruled by a great pre-human race. another of its kind. We know almost nothing about them The Kangas! He was looking at except that they were a powerful, creatures no human eye had fallen wholly alien, star-travelling race. upon for ages. They were looking They are generally referred to as back at him. the Kangas, though the legends of For they had eyes. It was the many star-peoples speak of them as only recognizable feature of those the Dark Ones or the Old Ones. insanely plastic black bodies— the "The Kangas ruled this galaxy two enormous, pupil-less eyes that more than a million years ago. It fixed solemnly upon Captain Future. is thought that they were not many in number. They exerted their sway Fortunately for the Universe, through a subject race of protozoan Curt Newton has the twenty-first- creatures whom they created. But century equivalent of the Elder Sign the star-conquering men of ancient — the Denebian Wands of Power, ac Deneb found scientific means to de tually psycho-amplifiers which absorb feat the Kangas and their creatures. the powerful mental influence of Captain Future vs. Old Ones / 43 the Kangas and turn It back against interplanetary stories, and said them. The menace of the Kangas is so in letters and a Hamilton parody effectively squelched. he once wrote. He might have turned Fans of H. P. Lovecraft will rec over in his grave when Red Sun of ognize many borrowed concepts, in Danger was published. cluding a tendency on the author's So it's curious to see these Love part to contradict his own back craftian ideas materialize in a space ground. The "subject race" of pro opera epic. Or is it? tozoan creatures mentioned in Red Although Lovecraft wrote horror Sun of Danger are obviously the Lin- stories, they were forward-thinking idT Whether or not they were creat horror stories, with strong SF ele ed by the Kangas depends on which ments. At the Mountains of Madness, of Hamilton's accounts one reads. after all, first appeared in Astound In The Return of Captain Future ing Stories, a science fiction maga (Startling Stories, .January 1950), zine. And Hamilton was not the last Curt Newton encountered the last to borrow from the Cthulhu Mythos surviving Linid, which is described when writing space opera. Consider as consisting of a "central core the following scene from Chapter of denser darkness, cowled by looped 12 of Alan Dean Foster's Star Wars dark capes and veils." No mention novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, of the Kangas is given. when Luke Skywalker encounters the The essence of the novel, Red following In a temple on a jungled Sun of Danger, seems to be a retell planet: ing of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness with variations. The Each swimming in his or her own Kangas and the protozoan Linids more thoughts, the five walked across or less correspond to the star-headed the spacious floor toward the far Old Ones and their subject race, side of the temple. A colossal stat the shoggoths. Except that Hamilton ue was seated there against the dark describes his Kangas in terms rem wall. It represented a vaguely hu iniscent of Lovecraft's shoggoths, manoid being seated on a carved whom HPL described, variously, as throne. Leathery wings which might looking like a "plastic column of have been vestigial swept out in foetid black Iridescence" and "a two awesome arcs to either side of shapeless congeries of protoplasmic the figure. Enormous claws thrust bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and from feet and arms, the latter with myriads of temporary eyes form clinging to the ends of armrests ing and unformlng as pustules of on the throne. It had no face below greenish light . . ." The proto slanted, accusing eyes— only a mass plasmic qualities of the Linid are of Medusian, carved tentacles. also reminiscent of the shape-shift "Pomojema, god of the Kailburr," ing shoggoths, and I suppose there's Halla whispered, without knowing a vague correlation between the star why she was bothering to whisper. headed Old Ones who seeded the plan "It almost seems familiar, somehow." ets with various life forms and the She chuckled nervously. "That's human Denebians who colonized the crazy, of course." Universe with their seed. That Edmond Hamilton consciously Oh, I don't know. I think a lot borrowed from Lovecraft is unden of people would find Cthulhu famil iable, as his distinctly Lovecraftian iar, whatever he's called. adjectives prove. He was a regular When you think about it, Love jfeird Tales contributor and had to craft isn’t all that incompatible be familiar with HPL's fiction there. Lovecraft was no fan of Hamilton's Continued on p. 13 44 / Astro-Adventures ETHERGRAMS Astro-Adventures #1— I loved it! ulations are due to all parties in I know, nowadays you could not have volved with this effort. a story like "Prisoners of Vibra Charles Garofalo tion" (too many airplanes around; Wayne, NJ they'd have noticed the city before) or "Mnemoka" (Mars with natives), but the first was a masterful mad 1 enjoyed Astro-Adventures #1 great scientist adventure, and the second ly. The cover is super. was not only Clark Ashton Smith, Don Webb but Rood Clark Ashton Smith. Steve Austin, TX Behrends does a more than adequate job of finishing the Smith story. "The Soaring" was good "space the In general, As t ro-Adventures #1 is final frontier" stuff, and I was quite impressive. I especially liked sorry that "Murder in Space" was the Smith/Steve Behrends "Mnemoka"— not longer. Perhaps Mr. Carter would fantastic stuff! Both "Murder in be willing to expand it into a short Space" and "Prisoners of Vibration,” novel, for the second half of a doub meanwhile, threw me straight back le (they keep talking about bringing to the time of "pulp SF" (especially back those good old doubles). Also the latter), for which you're to 1 can't help noticing there was a be congratulated, along with Messrs great variation in themes and plots Carter and Jacobi, of course! On in the magazine: no story repeated "The Soaring," upon first reading, the other. "Soaring" had a mild I was unfortunately somewhat con philosophical slant to it. "Murder" fused, but the second reading seemed was adventure-mystery. "Prisoners" to straighten things out somewhat was a solid mad scientist adventure. and I've no longer any quibbles. And "Mnemoka" was a supernatural Overall, Astro-Adventures #1 de horror story set in a science fiction serves a certain thumbs-up, methinks. background, something only Smith Alex Bardy and C. L. Moore ever did. Congrat London, England STAR PIRATE RETURNS NEXT ISSUE IN ANOTHER ETHER-SIZZLING ADVENTURE called GHOSTS ON GANYMEDE ! Tllli OF Til Alt I t y m : \ l t Y k i m i it Mu1 spoke in n longue dead n thousand years, anil slip liml no nciuory fu r I>1 <- lumi she fa red . V cl In* liml held h er (if fIfvlfrDtion 6|f DOOl IN Copyright O 1987 Cover art by Stephen E. Fabian "Corsairs of the Cosmos" by Lin Carter "The Other Place" by Richard L. Tierney All other new material by Cryptic Publications Robert M. Price. Editor 107 East James Street Mount Olive, North Carolina 28365