"Thia of the Drylands" by Harl Vincent, part 3

(part 2) (part 4)

This is the third installment of Harl Vincent's "Thia of the Drylands", a science fiction story from the Gernsback Era that first appeared in the July 1932 issue of Amazing Stories. Its only other appearance in print was in the Summer 1967 issue of Science Fiction Classics.

The story so far:
Cliff Barron is a spaceship pilot who has been disabled by a Martian disease. His boss, Leonard Sykes, President of Interplanetary Lines, refuses to allow Barron to travel to Mars to consult with the brilliant Martian surgeon Lintarg of Risapar. Barron is then approached by businessman Carl Vetter, who proposes to send him to Mars using a new technique he is developing: an electromagnetic space gun. Barron reluctantly agrees.

On Mars, Barron finds himself among a group of semibarbaric drylanders. One, Maranu, insists that he be killed, while another, Durvil, wants him imprisoned until the drylanders' mysterious plans are complete. The final decision, however, rests with the drylanders' ruler, the beautiful, quick-tempered Thia . . .

* * *

Cliff was taken to the room where he had first opened his eyes after the swift passage from Earth. More accurately, he was dumped unceremoniously on the stone floor by the guards and left to meditate on his rashness. A key grated in the lock.

“Of all the triple-plated damn fools!” he muttered, crawling painfully to his feet, “I am the brightest.” He sat heavily on the edge of the cot.

For some time he addressed audible and uncomplimentary remarks to himself by way of such jumbled echoes as might rebound from the blank walls. And then he had calmed in mind sufficiently to take stock of the situation and to speculate on the causes behind it all.

Either Vetter was in league with a gang of dryland cut-throats in some shady undertaking, or he was being duped by those in charge of the operation at the Martian end of his space tube. Cliff was inclined to the latter view.

Certainly Vetter had been frank enough and fair enough in his arrangements for the dangerous trial trip. And generous. Cliff had seen the letter of credit that was safely buttoned in his inside vest pocket. He could feel the wadded lump against his ribs now. Fifty thousand zaks of Risapar exchange -- enough to cover Lintarg’s fee and still leave the young pilot independent. And a personal letter to the great surgeon addressed in Vetter’s bold flowing hand. There had been no hitch at the other end; everything was open and aboveboard. But here -- something was badly out of gear.

It was mighty queer that all those he had seen at this end were drylanders. Tough ones, too, most of them -- like Maranu. And led by a woman like Thia! But Cliff recalled tales of desert pirates who preyed upon the rich cities of the canals and mining settlements of the parched interior as well. Bands of ruthless murderers, these were, and well organized -- the greatest problem of the militias and the red police of the scattered Martian communities. No reason a woman might not be leader of such a band -- especially one with eyes like Thia’s. No reason, either, that they might not be reaching out for new worlds to prey upon. And with this thing of Vetter’s in their hands . . .

Cliff raised his head and stared directly into those magnetic orbs of the girl Thia. She had entered noiselessly, and as noiselessly closed the door. But he had sensed her presence somehow. His head had come up without conscious volition.

Automatically he rose to his feet. Involuntarily he caught his breath. Her beauty, in this soft light, was dazzling. The curves of her youthful body were revealed rather than hidden by the draperies of a black gown that shimmered as she moved. She had bared her head of the tiara Cliff had seen there before, and a glorious crown of golden bronze hair tumbled in soft profusion about the creamy oval of her face. The scarlet lips were parted in a half smile. And her eyes, magically, had softened from the glinting jet to a liquid brown. Friendly eyes, and understanding now.

Cliff, getting a grip on his emotions, husked: “Well?”

“Well!” Thia smiled, and, smiling, she was radiant.

* * *

His suspicions rising afresh, the disabled pilot hardened himself against the spell of her. “What do you want of me?” he growled.

The long lashes dropped, masking Thia’s eyes momentarily. “I want to help you,” she murmured. And the harsh syllables of the dryland tongue were silvery and musical on her lips.

But unreasoning resentment had come to Cliff with the dropping of her eyes. He looked down at his dangling arms. “So that’s it!” he rasped. “Pity! You’re sorry for a poor crippled Earthling, and you want to help him, do you? Well, listen to me, young woman -- I don’t like the looks of things here and I don’t believe in your pretended friendliness. You’re the leader of this gang of thieves and killers and you are planning --“

“Stop it!” Thia’s voice cut in, coldly furious. Black rage had replaced the softness of her level gaze. She threw back her proud head and drew herself stiffly erect. Then, as suddenly as the fury had come, it had passed. “It’s untrue,” she said calmly. “All of it is untrue. I have some control over my people, yes, but we are no buccaneers as you imply, nor are our plans of such nature as to merit your censure.”

“What then?” Cliff’s tone was gentler, though he stood his ground. And his own gray eyes looked steadily into those flashing ones of jet.

“I refuse to answer; it is my prerogative. And now that you have taken this attitude I am telling you -- nay, commanding you to leave this place at once and go to Lintarg.”

Miraculously, the stern gaze had softened as she talked, and Cliff felt the angry color drain from his cheeks. “You -- you mean,” he stammered, “that I am free to go.”

“You must go -- and quickly.” Thia was suddenly ill at ease; nervously apprehensive, it seemed. “But first,” she said in liquid, throaty tones, “I must exact from you a promise.”

“A promise!” Cliff stared foolishly. This woman was offering him his freedom; his chance to be made whole once more. And he had berated her! “Anything,” he agreed huskily.

“First of all you will ask me no more questions concerning myself or my people. Secondly, and of utmost importance, you will reveal not one detail as to our whereabouts here, or Vetter’s in Terra, or of the means by which you traversed the distance between the two bodies. For so long as you may remain on the planet Mars, you will not reveal these things. Is it agreed?”

Cliff regarded his disabled members through eyes that suddenly misted, smarting unbearably. “Good God, yes!” he husked.

“You swear it by the purple Deity of Henes,” tensely.

“Yes, and more solemnly than than.” He looked up earnestly now into the soft brown eyes that were so anxiously upon him. “I give you my word of honor as a man -- as an American.”

“It is more than sufficient. Quickly now, oh Cleef Barron.” Turning swiftly then, she opened the door a trifle, peered through the crack, and slipped through into the corridor.

* * *

They hurried then through endless passages, some smoothly walled and artificially lighted, others rough-hewn in the solid rock, dankly odorous and in Stygian darkness. Where there was light, Cliff was scarcely able to keep up with the scurrying footsteps of his guide; where darkness closed in about them he felt the gentle pressure of her hand on his shoulder, leading him more slowly but just as surely toward their destination. Thia knew every twist and turn of the maze of underground workings.

The way led steadily upward and they had progressed a distance of perhaps three Earth miles when Thia called a halt. A metal-studded door closed the passage ahead of them.

“We have arrived,” panted the girl, “just inside the city wall at the bank of Canal Pyramus. The public way above will take you to the central square, where is located the establishment of Lintarg. Henes speed you on your way, oh Cleef.”

“Wait!” Cliff experienced a sudden anxiety for her safety and an interest in her he would not have believed possible. “I must see you, Thia, once more; must learn when and how I may see you again. Please tell me.”

“You forget, there are to be no question,” firmly.

“True, I promised.”

There was the click of a withdrawn bolt and the creak of rusty hinges. The great door swung open and the first lurid light of a Martian false dawn filtered in. Above them the city of Risapar was oddly still; the day had not yet begun.

Thia came out with him to the open air and inhaled deeply of its rare though invigorating substance.

“It is good to be alive,” she breathed. “Good to be outside.”

Cliff had seen that they were almost at the level of the black waters of the canal and that its steep bank led up from where they stood. But these things made no impression on him at the moment for Thia’s gaze was starry in the swiftly improving light of dawn.

“Farewell,” she whispered with face upturned, “and Henes be with you always. Think of Thia sometimes --“

“Think of you -- Lord! I’ll always think of you -- and be wishing to see you. If these arms --“

Amazingly then her face drew near. Unbelievably, her lips brushed his. And then, as swiftly as it had happened, she was gone. The door of the hidden entrance clanged shut.

Madly, Cliff dashed his body against the thick moss which covered its outer surface and made it safe from prying eyes. But to no avail. Hardly knowing what he did, he clambered up the nearest stairs to the nickel/cobalt roadway that stretched along the canal. Dazedly he stood there gazing out over the minarets and spires toward the east. Somewhere in the drylands out there beyond the city wall, he knew, was the screened opening through which the space car passed, and beneath it the dome room where Thia soon would sit calmly awaiting whatever adventure it was her people were planning. Dire forebodings came to intensify the new ache which had been so suddenly and unexpectedly implanted in his breast.

* * *

A little later, one of the early morning ronsals drifted to a stop before him. The operator yelled sarcastically as he stood staring vacantly into space. Shamefacedly he entered the passenger compartment of the wheelless vehicle. Swiftly rising from the metal surface, propelled and supported a few feet above by the repulsion energies it contained, the ronsal sped toward the great central square of Risapar.

Cliff gave no heed to the kaleidoscopic beauty of shifting colors that played over the multitudinous spires of the city as they whizzed past in the shifting morning light. His thoughts were of Thia and of her association with the drylanders she called her people. He had spent time in the communities of the parched plains between the canals which gave him some knowledge of the inhabitants. Somehow, Thia did not fit in with the pictures he carried in his mind. She was too delicately formed for a woman of the drylands; her creamy skin not at all like the bleached complexion of the drylanders. She was more like the women of the canal cities in every respect -- even her speech held something of a slurring accent that was different from those whom she considered as her own.

And yet those in the cavern of the space car appeared to be her loyal subjects. She was a veritable princess among them. A woman who commanded their respect and obedience; one whom they loved. Still she was marked as apart from them. Aloof, superior, different.

Cliff’s throat constricted unaccountably as he envisioned her in his mind. The memory of her impulsive farewell would remain with him until the end of time. Even now it haunted him . . . and the thought that she was gone from his life . . .

“Pada-nar!” bawled the operator of the ronsal, glowering back through the glass partition.

Roused from his reverie, Cliff saw they had reached the central square of the city. The ronsal had stopped and other passengers were waiting impatiently. Risapar had come to life; the activity of the new day was in evidence all about him. Hastily the embarrassed terrestrial quitted his seat and flung himself from the compartment.

Before him towered the slender obelisk-like building that was known throughout Mars as Tib-Lintarg. A worthy monument to the skill of the great physician whose name it bore. Cliff’s heart missed a beat as he viewed it -- his hard-earned and much-desired goal.

* * *

And then he was sprinting toward the institution like a man possessed. A new urge was upon him; he’d go back to help Thia. Thia, once these crippled arms of his were good as new! He’d return to the secret entrance by the canal and batter down the door. He’d --

“You’re Cliff Barron, aren’t you?” A stocky terrestrial stood before him, blocking the entrance of the building, a man Cliff had never seen.

“Why -- why yes,” he stammered, halting his mad dash. “Why?”

“Just wanted to ask you a few questions, that’s all,” the fellow drawled.

“By what right?” Something warned the young pilot and he was on his guard instantly.

“I’m an operative, League of Terra Secret Service,” in low tones.

“You can’t question me here.”

“I know -- not without extradition and all the mess of Martian courts. But don’t get sore. I think you’ll answer, for patriotic reasons. How did you get here from Earth?” There was a veiled warning in the stocky one’s words.

“That’s my business.” Cliff tried to shove past him.

“Just a minute, young fellow.” A heavy hand was on his shoulder. “Ever hear of Carl Vetter?”

“That’s my business, too.” The young pilot jerked free and went into the building, knowing full well the other dared not go further. And yet he was distinctly alarmed by the occurrence. Someone, somehow, was on the track. And Thia was in danger. The words of his promise flashed across his mind as he entered the cage of the lift. He gritted his teeth. A dozen ronsals couldn’t drag that secret out of him.

But Cliff Barron was a sick man, sicker than he knew. The strain of the past few hours had been terrific for a man in his weakened condition and was telling on him now. He reeled as he left the cage at the floor of Lintarg’s private consulting room.

A man was there in the reception hall, sitting on one of the lounges, a terrestrial. He sprang to Cliff’s side, offering him assistance. Swaying a bit, the disabled pilot regarded the man with owlish suspicion through eyes that saw only a blurred image.

“You another League of Terra man?” Cliff demanded thickly.

“I am,” in a hushed voice.

This one was leading him to a seat, or trying to. “Well, I’m Cliff Barron all right,” he jabbered loudly, “and if you want --“

“Hush,” the other warned him.

But Cliff, in his present state, was not to be gainsaid. “--if you want to cross-examine me you’re crazy,” he babbled on. “I’m here to consult with Lintarg and I’m telling nothing to you or to anyone else. Do you get me? Nothing -- how I came here, or any other thing about me you may want to know . . . get me? . . . not a word . . . “

And then Cliff Barron was falling forward. He had a confused picture of white-clad figures moving toward him . . . of an alarmed face peering into his own . . . kindly bearded Martian with white coat . . . falling, Cliff was, down through the building . . . hundred and six floors . . . peace and rest at bottom . . .

Utter darkness swooped down upon him. Nothingness.

(part 2) (part 4)

"Thia of the Drylands" by Harl Vincent, part 2

(part 1) (part 3)

This is the second installment of Harl Vincent's "Thia of the Drylands", a science fiction story from the Gernsback Era that first appeared in the July 1932 issue of Amazing Stories. Its only other appearance in print was in the Summer 1967 issue of Science Fiction Classics.

The story so far:
Cliff Barron is a spaceship pilot who has been disabled by a Martian disease. His boss, Leonard Sykes, President of Interplanetary Lines, refuses to allow Barron to travel to Mars to consult with the brilliant Martian surgeon Lintarg of Risapar. Barron is then approached by businessman Carl Vetter, who proposes to send him to Mars using a new technique he is developing: an electromagnetic space gun. Barron reluctantly agrees . . .

* * *

Twelve hours later they stepped from Vetter’s plane to the flat top of a mesa in the Painted Desert of Arizona. A spot far off the regular air lanes -- safe from prying eyes.

“You’ll understand the need for secrecy,” Vetter said when they entered a small building which topped a lift shaft that was bored into the solid rock of the mesa. “If Sykes learned of this he’d put his vast resources at work to head it off. His own vast investments at stake, he’d spare none of his influence or political power to squash the thing. Scientific progress and the benefit to mankind would mean nothing -- you know that.”

“Sure." Cliff Barron’s thoughts were upon the journey he was about to make; nothing else seemed important. A sick feeling came over him as the lift dropped into the darkness of the shaft.

In the hollowed-out heart of the mesa was massed a most amazing array of machinery. Cliff could only liken it to a huge power plant he had visited in 1997 when he was a fresh recruit of Interplanetary Lines. There were mighty generators here in the bowels of the mesa, generators driven by atomic engines whose fuel was common shale. Vetter told him that the atoms comprising this ordinary stone were disrupted in the retorts feeding the engines, and the enormous nuclear energy was thus liberated for use. Cheap and unlimited power. Huge coils of copper tubing surrounded the shiny projectile that was the space car, and great busbars connected these with the generators. This was the projector of the great invisible tube of space through which Cliff was to be hurled.

The blast of a whistle rose suddenly, shrilly. Men were running here and there, manipulating switches that started the main generators, operating controls that swung the giant coils and the space car itself around to a new angle. An observer was at the eyepiece of a great radio telescope signaling instructions.

“Just in time, Barron,” said Vetter. “They are preparing for the trial. We are now facing toward Mars at the proper angle.”

“I’m ready.” Cliff’s reply was in a steady voice, but he was as a man in a trance, moving listlessly and dazedly toward the car.

On a platform beside the entrance manhole of the steel projectile stood a small group of men, whom Cliff took to be the financiers or their agents, who were there to witness the start. The workmen in the great hidden laboratory, Cliff saw with surprise, were all blinded artisans or deaf mutes. But, of course, Vetter would employ such men in order to preserve secrecy the better.

They were inside the space car then, he and Vetter, and the older man was speaking rapidly of the appointments of the strange vehicle of the heavens. It was hollowly quiet in the heavily padded interior. Then Cliff heard the pumps of the oxygen-generating and carbon dioxide absorption apparatus. No propelling machinery was in the car; he well understood that he was to depend utterly on the ray-operators outside. If they made a mistake . . .

There were two compartments, one for freight and another for passengers. In the latter were about twenty deep-cushioned, spring-supported hammock berths. Vetter explained that these were to ease the pressure of acceleration and he assisted Cliff in disposing his body to best advantage in one of the comfortable berths. These swings were arranged so as to be reversible -- at approximately mid-point of the journey they would swing around to take care of deceleration as well . . .

Vetter’s voice droned on, but Cliff was listening to the pumps. He wanted to be off. The sooner the better.

A buzzer shrilled its wasp-like note.

* * *

“Three minutes now, old man,” exclaimed Vetter. “I’ll be leaving you soon. Here’s your Martian letter of credit and a note to Lintarg. My men at the other end will take care of you. Good luck, now, and au revoir. See you in a few hours.”

“Sure you will?” Cliff smiled; he was perfectly composed now that the time was at hand.

“Positive.” Vetter grinned encouragingly and then was gone.

Cliff heard only the pumps and the jangling of the bolts as the circular cover of the outer hatch was bolted to its hermetically sealed seat. He was alone in this man-made contraption that was to bring him his chance of life . . . real life once more . . . or of death.

Time passed at a snail’s pace as he waited. Funny, if Vetter was so positive, that he hadn’t made the initial trip himself. Cliff set his lips in a bleak smile. They never took any chances with their own precious lives, these promoters. Nor did they find it easy to get others to do so for them. Only in Cliff’s case it was different.

He thought of the things Vetter had told him. With Mars and Earth in their present relative positions, the distance between the two bodies was fifty-five million miles. And the trip was to require forty-five minutes!

The buzzer shrilled again. Sixty seconds to go, Vetter had told him, after that repeated signal. Cliff’s heart was pounding so loudly he could hear its thuds. Unconsciously he was holding his breath and was counting off the seconds. And he had stiffened his body in anticipation of the shock that was to come.

This would not do. Vetter had warned him to relax completely so his body might better withstand the pressure. He relaxed.

Sudden terrific vibrations gripped the car, causing the springs of the hammocks to resound noisily. Cliff was pressed into the cushions with tremendous force. The journey had begun.

* * *

It was incredible, impossible, that pressure which smashed him down. He body suddenly had acquired enormous weight, the weight of a behemoth. It was as if the paralysis of his arms and hands had taken hold of his entire being. He couldn’t move a muscle of his lower body or even turn his head.

And, second by second, the pressure increased until it seemed his bodily frame must give way under the strain. Breathing had become difficult, for the muscles of his lungs were overtaxed in expanding the unwonted weight of flesh and bone that covered them. His eyes burned in their sockets; his vision distorted. The weight of cornea and aqueous humour was depressing each lens so it no longer focused. And then, without warning, came oblivion. For Cliff Barron there was no further knowledge of the journey.

Faster and faster still the tiny space car drove on into the void, into the mysterious depths of the heavens towards Mars, where anxious observers awaited its coming.

* * *

Low voiced mumblings impressed themselves on Cliff’s returning consciousness. Sharp questions in a querulous rasping tone, answers in whispered syllables of the dryland tongue of Mars. Cliff opened an eye experimentally and saw a squat bearded Martian conversing with a second one of greater stature and forbidding countenance. They stood but a few feet from the cot on which he lay in a dim-lit and unfamiliar room. Cliff closed the one eye as his own name was mentioned in the uncouth speech of the parched plains of the red planet.

“It is he -- Cleef Barron -- of the paralyzed arms. Even as the ethergram advised us. But Vetter must be mad; we can not let this one go to Lintarg. He knows too much -- our plans would be ruined.”

“Hush!” The other was speaking. “He is about to awaken. It is wonderful, Maranu -- a complete vindication of Vetter’s claims. If this man Barron had perfect health and strength, he would have come through conscious and entirely unharmed. Even as it is, he is little the worse for the experience. Think what it means.”

“Surely I think. I know. But we must make away with him, I say; we must not heed Vetter’s message. He is a sentimental fool. It is too dangerous that this one be permitted to live.”

“Hush, I tell you -- he awakens.”

* * *

Cliff groaned and tossed, feigning a painful awakening. He had remembered the journey’s start and Vetter’s promises and was suddenly very much awake. If this was to be an argument as to his own life or death he wanted to take it standing. He dropped his legs over the edge of the cot and sat swaying weakly, though his head was now as clear as if he had just come out of a refreshing sleep.

“Where -- where am I?” he stammered.

The one called Maranu grunted disgustedly as the other, the squat bearded one, thrust out his hand to help Cliff to his feet.

“You haff arrived safe in Risapar,” the bearded one said in atrocious English. “No harm whateffer haff come to you. It iss --“

The big Martian Maranu shoved him roughly aside. “Enough!” he rasped in his own tongue. “It must be as I said, Durvil.” His hand moved to the flame pistol at his belt.

“No!” The one called Durvil reddened angrily and pushed himself in front of Cliff. “No killing now. I tell you we --“

Maranu choked him off with a huge hand closing on his throat and Cliff looked blankly from one to the other as if in complete ignorance of the speech of the drylands.

A clamor rose outside the door; someone was shouting excitedly in the corridor. Maranu let loose his grip of Durvil’s throat.

“They want to see him!” gasped the bearded one. “Maranu, you fool, they must see this man who has come across the void, else they will not believe. Are you mad?”

“True, we must show them,” the big fellow agreed. “I shall wait.”

Cliff would have welcomed any interruption at the moment. This byplay of the two Martians was puzzling; he could think of no reason why Maranu should want him out of the way. But he had no doubts as to the seriousness of the drylander’s intent, nor would he have gambled any great amount on the value or permanence of Durvil’s apparent friendliness to himself.

Maranu unlatched the door, grumbling, and there stood revealed in the hall an armed guard, a giant drylander who thrust his grimacing face into the room and jabbered unintelligibly in the lowest dialect of his race. Durvil, the squat one, lunged toward the guard.

“Outside!” he bellowed as the fellow tried to shove his way into the room. “We will bring the traveler to the dome room. Report this to your captain -- understand, scum?”

The big guard, a foot taller than the bearded one, cringed and withdrew. Cliff followed him in response to Durvil’s imperious gesture of command, and the two he had first seen in this place brought up the rear. Durvil was berating Maranu in husky whispers as they passed along the corridor.

It was a queer reversal of the first order of things. Now it was apparent that Durvil was the higher in authority, though before the guard’s coming Maranu had been the one to give orders. Cliff Barron knowing the temperament of the various races of Mars, was none the less puzzled.

They came out in a huge vaulted chamber that was quite like the one in the mesa of the Arizona desert. There were similar generators and the great copper coils of a projector of the hollow beam of ether vibrations. The space car itself rested on the receiving platform of the apparatus. It was from this place they had taken Cliff to the room where he returned to consciousness.

At the far end of the chamber was a group of Martians. Wondering, as he was led before them, Cliff saw that one was a woman. A strikingly beautiful woman, more like one from his own country, than like any he had ever seen in the drylands or canal cities of Mars. A woman of queenly bearing who sat on a cushioned and canopied couch surrounded by uniformed drylanders, and who stared at Cliff with the most remarkable of eyes. Wide-set eyes of lustrous jet in which a feral light glinted. Hypnotic eyes; compelling.

“It is the passenger, oh Thia,” said Durvil, making obeisance.

“He is quite well and uninjured after the voyage?” The black eyes of this Thia showed no change of expression.

“Not well, of course -- on account of his disability. But I can assure you, oh Thia, he has suffered no ill effect whatsoever due to the trip itself.”

Durvil’s voice was respectful but intimately confident. Evidently he was a personage of some account before this woman of dryland royalty, whoever she might be.

Thia’s eyes were on Cliff and he thought he detected a softening of the hard glitter. “Oh, yes,” she murmured, “the disability. He is to see Lintarg as Vetter requested?”

Maranu broke out in voluble objection, but was silenced by a fierce look from Thia.

“What say you, oh Durvil?” she purred, bending her gaze on the bearded one.

“I say there shall be no killing. Maranu was ever violent. But I say he should imprison the passenger until the thing is done, that he may do us no harm.”

“He must die!” rasped Maranu. “This one is a spy. Can you not see, oh Thia, by his attention to our speech that he understands? He is not ignorant of our tongue, as he has protested.”

“Is this true, Earthling?” Thia’s voice was cold and hard as were her eyes.

Cliff looked full into those blazing orbs and saw there could be no dissembling with this woman. “True, yes, that I comprehend your speech,” he admitted, “but that I am a spy, no. I know nothing of your plans and care less about them. I know only what Vetter told me; what he promised. I came here for one thing and one thing only -- to visit Lintarg. To try his skill in this --“

He hesitated, looking down at his paralyzed members. Little he cared what devilment these drylanders might be cooking up. All that mattered was what he had come after; he wanted to be out of this place and on his way to the famous surgeon.

* * *

Again there was the softening of Thia’s gaze, this time more noticeable. Again the grating expostulations of Maranu, silenced once more by the amazing woman who sat before them all.

“You see,” Cliff ventured hopefully, “I have only one desire -- I care nothing for your --“

“He must be imprisoned, oh Thia,” Durvil broke in firmly. “There is no other way, regardless of Vetter, regardless of --“

Something snapped then in Cliff Barron’s brain. Perhaps it was the nightmare of the journey; perhaps the thin atmosphere and the low gravity of the red planet. Whatever it was, it sent him into a wild rage and he threw himself at Durvil. Though his leg muscles had been greatly weakened by his illness, they were of ample power here, being accustomed to carry much more weight of body on Earth. And he soared high in his mad leap, landing on the squat Martian with both knees and smashing him to the pavement.

“Now go ahead!” he yelled. “Let Maranu shoot, damn him! Damn you all -- go on with your dirty work!”

The guards were upon him in an instant. With his useless arms in the way and encumbering him, he could only kick and butt. This was of little avail when they closed in from all sides. But he had the satisfaction of seeing Maranu go down when he brought a knee up into the big fellow’s midsection; saw that Durvil lay still where he had fallen.

And then Cliff was helpless in the hands of the guards. Though he struggled mightily, they carried him away. He looked back.

Thia was standing alone, and her scarlet lips quirked in an enigmatic smile.

(part 1) (part 3)

"Thia of the Drylands" by Harl Vincent, part 1

As promised, the Johnny Pez blog is proud to present the first installment of "Thia of the Drylands" by Harl Vincent, a Gernsback Era science fiction story that has entered the public domain. By posting this story, we hope to determine if someone at Project Gutenberg is watching us and attempting to match us story for story. It's all in the name of science.

Today's story, "Thia of the Drylands", was first published in the July 1932 issue of Amazing Stories magazine. However, unlike most of Vincent's stories, this one did not vanish after its initial magazine publication. The reason why goes back to 1965, when Ziff-Davis Publications, the then-owners of Amazing Stories, sold the magazine to some cheapskates called Ultimate Publishing Company. With Amazing itself came reprint rights to all its back issues, and Ultimate made heavy use of them, filling Amazing with reprinted stories and starting a new magazine called Science Fiction Classics to publish more reprints. "Thia of the Drylands" appeared in the first issue in 1967, alongside other Gernsback Era reprints from Amazing by Murray Leinster, Raymond Z. Gallun, and others. Science Fiction Classics went on to reprint four more Vincent stories between 1967 and 1972, "Invisible Ships", "Roadways of Mars", "Undersea Prisoner", and "Voice from the Void".

And now, without further ado, we present part 1 of:



Thia of the Drylands
by Harl Vincent

“Is that final, Mr. Sykes?”

“It is, Barron. Sorry, but I can say no more -- we’ve done all we can. You’re just out of luck, I’m afraid.” The president of Interplanetary Lines, Incorporated, could not meet the gaze of the tall young man who faced him across his polished mahogany desk.

Cliff Barron’s white lips set in a tight, grim line, and fire flashed from his shadowed eyes. He was sick, very sick, and disabled besides. Broke. Let down by the employers he had served honestly and faithfully for more than ten years. Hopeless of the future.

“It’s rotten, Mr. Sykes,” he husked. “I wouldn’t have believed it of Interplan - I - I --“

Scathing words of denunciation died in his throat. Leonard Sykes had turned to his papers and his pudgy finger was on the pearl button that would summon his secretary. The interview was ended.

Curbing his wrath and disappointment, Cliff rushed from the office and through the long main aisle of the repair shop where the slender shapes of several ether-ships rested in their cradles. Out into the open air and stumbling across the landing field, his paralyzed arms dangling woodenly at his sides and the clawed fingers, that once had been so sure and strong, resisting stiffly and without sensation the effort of his will that should have clenched them into hard fists.

* * *

Dazedly he wandered over the field to the small pavilion where visitors gathered on exhibition days. The place was deserted and he sank to a seat on one of the stone benches.

After a hideous pain-fraught moment he raised his eyes to where one of the small passenger-carrying ether-ships was taxiing to position for a takeoff. It was the J-18! His own ship -- the one he had last piloted. The one in which he had been stricken with this terrible thing that had made of him a useless, pitiful wreck.

There was the raucous shriek of a siren and the J-18 took to the air like a frightened bird. Climbing steadily under the tremendous lift of her helicopter screws, the little vessel was quickly lost in the low-flung clouds over the Long Island field. For a time Cliff could hear the pulsing throb of the motors used in atmospheric flying. Growing ever fainter, it was. And then even that sound trailed off into the gloomy silence.

The gray of the skies flashed brightly crimson; dulled again, and there was a second flash, less brilliant than the first. And now the heavens were rent by the hoarse scream of the vessel’s rocket tubes. Ear-splitting that first blast, giving rise to thunderous protestations of the riven air more than a mile above. The second discharge came as a faintly derisive echo of the first, and following long after. Many miles up there in the stratosphere by this time, the J-18 was plunging into space with the ever increasing speed of full acceleration. If only Cliff were able to be in that pilot’s seat!

He groaned aloud and, swinging his useless arms like a pendulum, beat the knotted hands frantically against the stone bench. A voice laughed crazily in the stillness of the deepening twilight; his own voice, cracked and unreal. Realizing then, that he was on the verge of complete breakdown, Cliff Barron fought desperately back to sanity.

But returning calmness of mind brought increased bitterness and intensifying hatred of Leonard Sykes. True, the corporation had paid most of Cliff’s hospital expenses and had provided for him the best medical attention available. But they had left him in this condition to shift for himself, disabled for life -- miserably. And the one chance he had for complete recovery had been denied him by Leonard Sykes, the hard-boiled financier, whose coffers Cliff had helped to fill. Denied for no good reason at all that Cliff could see -- Sykes had refused to discuss it almost; had offered no explanations . . .

A crunching footstep roused Cliff from his wrathful thoughts and he looked up to see a stranger approaching him. Not entirely a stranger, he saw on closer inspection, but a man he had met or seen somewhere. A man big in stature and of confident bearing.

* * *

“Your name is Barron, isn’t it?” he asked, addressing Cliff.

“That’s right.”

“Mine’s Vetter -- Carl Vetter. You may remember me as one of the passengers of the J-18 on the last trip you made as her pilot.”

“Oh, yes.” Cliff did remember; the man had been there, when the strange Martian fever laid him low.

“I’ve been interested in your case,” Vetter went on as Cliff rose from his hard seat, “and perhaps I can help you. You’ll not take offense if I ask you to talk it over with me?”

Wild hope surged through the young pilot’s being. “Why -- why no, Mr. Vetter. I don’t know how to tell you -- I --“

“Good,” brusquely, “that’s fine. Come along with me to New York. My autogiro is over here and we can be in my apartment in no time at all. Talking will be easier over there.”

The big man turned swiftly away from Cliff’s stammering protestations of gratitude and strode across the field toward the private hangers. The young pilot stumbled after him, torn by doubts and hopes. It was too much to believe -- but at least it was a chance to talk with someone who was willing to listen. Someone whose every action betokened sympathetic understanding.

A little later they sat in Vetter’s luxurious Park Avenue apartment, having covered the ninety miles to New York in less than half an hour of the man’s skillful piloting. Vetter, though bearing the air of a man of means and influence, was an adept at handling the little ship of the lower air levels.

* * *

“No doubt you are surprised at my approaching you this way,” Cliff’s host began. “But you’ll understand when I’ve finished. Really, I have selfish reasons -- several of them -- and I’m going to offer you a job you may not accept.”

Cliff hadn’t expected this. “A -- a job!” he stammered. “What sort of a job can I hold -- now?” Awkwardly but significantly, he swung one of his dangling arms, and a slow flush crept into his hollow cheeks. Was Vetter making sport of him?

“I mean it, Barron. This is a job you can take and can do well, if you’ll accept it. Anxious to visit Mars, aren’t you? Risapar, to be exact?”

“Yes, yes. How did you know?” Cliff half rose from his chair.

“I told you I had been interested in your case – I’ve been doing a bit of inquiring. Will you talk freely of what happened today in Leonard Sykes’ office?”

Cliff’s anger flamed. “Are you his friend?” he demanded.

“An acquaintance only -- formerly a business associate. You need have no fear of speaking out --“

“I haven’t. Listen, Mr. Vetter, I’m not quite thirty years old, but I’ve piloted etherships for Sykes more than ten years. Piloted with the best of them, and helped earn him a huge fortune. I contracted this Martian disease on one of his ships, as you know, and I claim he owes it to me to see me out of the -- the results -- if it is at all possible. Doesn’t he owe it to me?”

Cliff’s voice rose on the last and he stared hard at his host.

Vetter nodded slowly. There was pity in his friendly gaze and something of Cliff’s own rising anger. “I certainly think so,” he agreed feelingly. “Do you mean to say he refused you passage to Risapar -- that he refused to do anything further in your behalf?”

“He did just that, the swine! When I was discharged from the hospital they told me I had only one hope -- to see the great surgeon Lintarg of Risapar. He, they said, might restore my strength. My arms -- my hands that are . . . as you see them . . . “ Cliff swung the useless members hopelessly.

“And you told this to Sykes?” Vetter urged gently.

“Sure I told him -- told him everything. Begged him; asked him for passage to Risapar, for a loan to pay Lintarg’s fee. Told him I’d work it out when I recovered. And I know I would recover -- I know it! But what did Sykes care? I’ve salvaged more than a million for him in one trip, Mr. Vetter, and he had the nerve to turn me down. Can you beat it?”

“No, I can’t.” Vetter was obviously much moved by he recital. “Didn’t he explain his refusal in any way, Barron?”

“No. Just sat there tight-mouthed, looking out of the window. Said he was sorry. Sorry -- good God!” Cliff looked down at the talons that were his hands, shuddering.

His host arose and stood over him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “It’s a shame, Barron,” he said feelingly, “and I can’t say I blame you for feeling this way. It’s difficult to excuse him --“

“Excuse him!” I’d like to see him in my place -- done for -- maimed as I am maimed. I wish --“ Cliff choked, and his wasted face was contorted with hatred as he raised it to Vetter.

“Just so, Barron -- I can appreciate your bitterness. And really, what you have told me makes things a little easier -- about this job I want you to take, I mean.”

Cliff recovered his poise. “What’s that got to do with the job?” he inquired blankly.

“I’ll explain.” Vetter drew his own chair close and resumed his seat. He then launched forth in rapid speech.

“This action of Sykes and your feeling toward him does make a difference,” he said. “At least I feel it will make a difference with you. Because, Barron, my project is one that is in direct competition with Interplanetary; it will undoubtedly bring about the financial ruin of Leonard Sykes if it is successful. And if you accept this job you will be working against Sykes. See what I mean?”

“See! I’ll say I do!” hissed the young pilot. “Nothing would suit me better.”

“I have obtained control,” his host continued, “of a new means of traversing space that will render obsolete the present rocket-ships. The vast investment in Interplanetary Lines and Sykes’ control of it will become worthless. His ships will be so much scrap -- that is a foregone conclusion. But more important to you, I know, is that you will have the chance you long for -- you will go to Lintarg for this treatment which can cure you. And your name will go down in history, besides, as the --“

“How? Tell me?” Cliff’s cheeks burned; he was fevered with excitement.

* * *

“--as the first man to cross space by the new method. Instead of taking a journey of days to reach Mars, you will make the trip in less than an hour. Think of it! You will travel at a speed of twenty thousand miles a second. Safely. All mankind thereafter will traverse space at such speeds. Do you agree with me that it will mean the end of rocket-ship travel?”

“Lord yes, but how --“

“We will shoot you across space in a projectile-like car. Like being shot from a gun, excepting in this case the gun is a magnetic one and its barrel extends throughout the entire distance of the journey. It is a vast tube spanning the ether between two planets.”

“Wha-a-at!” Cliff began to doubt his own ears.

“Just that. It’s an invisible tube, of course, and is projected in much the same way as radio impulses are projected in a concentrated beam. A hollow cylinder of etheric vibrations is what it really is. The cylinder may be likened to the carrier beam used in radio, only the superimposed frequency serves an entirely different purpose. Instead of carrying voice or television impulses, the heterodyning frequency produces nodes of energy at regular intervals throughout the enormous length of the tube -- magnetic fields of unbelievable power which draw the projectile-like car along within the tube with ever-increasing velocity. All controlled, of course, from transmitting and receiving stations located on the planets between which the car travels. Don’t you see? -- the regularly-spaced fields of magnetic force are energized in swift succession and the car, which is of magnetic material, is speeded through each in turn. Gathering momentum with each pull until -- pfff! -- it is beyond comprehension.”

“I’ll say it is!” The flush had left Cliff’s cheeks. He was beginning to appreciate the seriousness of the matter. “And you want me to take the first trip in this -- this bullet?” he asked.

“Exactly.” Vetter rubbed the palms of his hands one over the other in nervous anxiety as to his guest’s reception of the proposal. “And don’t think I’m asking you to commit suicide, Barron. We have sent living creatures across to Mars -- guinea pigs first, then a dog, and most recently a small pony. All arrived safely -- quite unharmed. I swear it; I have proof. But to obtain adequate financial backing for the entire project I must have a man. Only by sending a human being across safely can I overcome the skepticism of the big men who are interested in the financing. And there must be secrecy until the project is well under way. Don’t you see? -- that is one of the reasons I chose you -- Barron --“

“Yes, I see.” Cliff rose jerkily and moved to the table where he stood with face averted, his dangling arms leaden at his sides.

Vetter maintained a discreet silence as his guest thought it out.

There would be a certain satisfaction to Cliff in obtaining some measure of revenge on Sykes in this manner. Certainly he had nothing but bitterness in him toward his former employer, nor would he feel any sympathy or regret if Vetter’s scheme actually came to bring about the man’s downfall. But this was relatively unimportant; his own idea of squaring the account was of something more personal. Once his vigor and the use of his arms and hands were restored he’d find a satisfactory way -- more satisfactory than mere financial ruin for Sykes. He’d make him suffer physically -- cruelly.

And he’d gloat as he did so.

Most important, though, was that he get to Lintarg. He must get to Lintarg. And Vetter’s proposal was a possible means of attaining that end. A long chance, maybe, much longer than Vetter would have him believe. Perhaps they had sent dumb animals across the gulf of space in this crazy bullet-thing. But would the reaction of such tremendous acceleration be the same on humans? That was what Vetter had to prove to his backers, of course, and he hadn’t been able to find a man willing to risk the trip.

For that reason he had taken advantage of Cliff’s disability and despair to . . .

Well, suppose he had? Vetter was sincere in his belief in this amazing contraption, and had been frank in divulging the details. If he was wrong, that trial trip meant death to the man who took it. Death. Cliff contemplated it in a new light. Rather have death than a life of this. Permanently disabled . . . he’d be a ward of the government; a derelict. Life? That meant activity to Cliff, the sort of activity he had always gloried in. Without the zest of that activity which had been his, he’d rather have the other – death . . . oblivion . . . release . . .

“I’ll do it, Mr. Vetter,” he blurted, wheeling suddenly and facing Vetter.

“Good -- good boy!” The big man thrust forth his hand, but let it fall swiftly when he saw the look of pain that flashed across the young pilot’s drawn features.

“Sorry, Barron,” he mumbled apologetically, “I didn’t think.” Then brightening with excitement: “But you won’t be sorry, boy.

“You’ll have it all back; be shaking hands with me in a month.

“Come on, we’ll arrange the details.”

(continue to part 2)

The Harl Vincent race

A year ago, when I first started my one-blog Harl Vincent revival, the only story by Vincent available online was the Project Gutenberg etext of "Creatures of Vibration". By posting "Terrors Unseen" last December, I brought the number of stories up to two. Since then, a total of eighteen of Vincent's stories have appeared online, to wit:

July 26, 2007: Creatures of Vibration, Project Gutenberg
December 1, 2008: Terrors Unseen, Johnny Pez
March 13, 2009: High-Frequency War, Johnny Pez
April 26, 2009: Old Crompton's Secret, Project Gutenberg
May 19, 2009: The Copper-Clad World, Project Gutenberg
May 31, 2009: Microcosmic Buccaneers, Johnny Pez
June 21, 2009: The Terror of Air-Level Six, Project Gutenberg
July 5, 2009: Vulcan's Workshop, Project Gutenberg
July 6, 2009: Too Many Boards, Johnny Pez
July 14, 2009: Wanderer of Infinity, Project Gutenberg
August 13, 2009: The Barrier, Johnny Pez
August 18, 2009: Neutral Vessel, Johnny Pez
August 23, 2009: Silver Dome, Project Gutenberg
September 6, 2009: Vagabonds of Space, Project Gutenberg
September 13, 2009: The Golden Girl of Munan, Johnny Pez
October 3, 2009: The War of the Planets, Johnny Pez
December 16, 2009: Once in a Blue Moon, Johnny Pez
December 17, 2009: Gray Denim, Project Gutenberg

The current total thus stands at nine stories each. Technically, I suppose, Project Gutenberg has ten stories, since they posted their own etext of "Terrors Unseen" on the day I posted the final installment of "The War of the Planets", but I posted that story first, so I figure theirs doesn't count. At any rate, I can't help noticing that, perhaps by sheer coincidence, we've been keeping pace with each other in a pretty steady manner. If I didn't know any better, I'd think that someone at PG is keeping tabs on this blog, and posting a new Vincent etext whenever I post in order to keep our totals even.

So, as an experiment to test out this theory, I'm going to follow up "Once in a Blue Moon" right away by posting the next story in my queue, "Thia of the Drylands". I should finish posting it before Christmas, which will put me ahead ten stories to nine, and then we'll see whether PG responds with another Vincent etext of their own.

Stay tuned.

Thinking "Once in a Blue Moon"

The moon has always been up there in the night sky, and for thousands of years people have speculated about traveling to it. As early as the 2nd century, Lucian of Samosata was writing about a ship being sucked into a waterspout and left on the moon. Later writers such as Johannes Kepler, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Daniel Defoe wrote about travels to the moon, and 19th century precursors of science fiction such as Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, and H. G. Wells did so as well. When Hugo Gernsback established science fiction as a literary genre, stories of the first trip to the moon were commonplace.

But once you’ve reached the moon, then what? What comes next? That’s the logical question to ask, and Harl Vincent asked and answered it in “Once in a Blue Moon”, written in 1931 and published in January 1932 in the Winter issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly. The story is set two years after the first trip to the moon in 2017 by Philip Meta. Meta brought back an unknown metal alloy called lunium that proved to be the key to cheap interplanetary travel. Now, two years later, lunium-hulled ships carrying scores of men travel to the moon to mine the alloy. As yet, the moon has no permanent settlements; only the mining ships arriving and departing.

Three years as a published writer have improved Harl Vincent’s writing skills. The author avatars of his earliest stories are gone, replaced by Clark Peters, the laconic, practical pilot; Mort Saunders, the phlegmatic, aging electrician; and Slim Downey, the young, nervous spy. While not on the level of Nick Carraway and Daisy Buchanan, they are still a marked improvement over such early characters as Professor Nilsson and Roy Hamilton.

The narrative structure of "Once in a Blue Moon" is also more complex than the linear narratives of the earlier stories. The story is told from the point of view of someone looking back from three decades later, relying on the newly-discovered diary of Clark Peters to explain the fantastic events of June 6, 2019. The reader is told at the outset that the story would end with the moon spinning halfway around on its axis, and only in the final paragraphs of the story is the phenomenon explained.

Finally, a word about the story's villain, Aleck Carter. Making the villain a wealthy, unscrupulous businessman determined to increase his weath at the expense of the rest of humanity strikes a chord with the reader in 2009. We've suffered, and are still suffering, and will doubtless continue to suffer at the hands of people just like Aleck Carter. This is less surprising when you remember that this story was written in 1931, in the depths of the Great Depression. Then, as now, ordinary people suffered the consequences of greed in high places, and popular anger against irresponsible greedheads was part of the fabric of everyday life. So, it's only fitting that Vincent's story be revived now, when we in the early 21st century find ourselves reliving the dark days of the 1930s.

If only the Tsar knew!

Glenn Greenwald speculates that the crappy healthcarereform bill coming out of the Senate is the result neither of ineptitude nor of bad circumstances. Rather, Greenwald believes that the current bill, which has neither the popular public option nor the popular Medicare expansion, but does have the unpopular mandate and the unpopular drug reimportation ban and the unpopular antitrust exemption, is just what Obama has been aiming at all along. The idea, per Greenwald, is to make the bill as corporate-friendly as possible in order to ensure that corporate money continues to flow into the Democratic Party's coffers.

In this version of events, Joe Lieberman is not acting on his own to make the bill as unpleasant to liberals as possible. Instead, Lieberman is simply doing what Obama wants him to do: stripping out the parts of the bill that the health-care industry doesn't like, while keeping in the parts that the industry does like. Greenwald notes that Lieberman has received no criticism from the White House for doing this. Rather, the White House has reserved its criticism for Howard Dean, who has pointed out just how corporate-friendly the bill has become and who has publicly called for the defeat of the bill.

This is politics the DLC way: a big wet sloppy kiss for corporate interests and a flip of the bird to the party's liberal base. These are the principles that Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, has espoused throughout his political career, and presumably that's why Obama made him Chief of Staff in the first place.

If this is what's really going on, then Obama is a DLC Democrat, and always has been. Those who defend Obama, saying that he was helpless to influence events, and that it was all Rahm's fault, or all Joe's fault, are in denial. It's no use crying, "If only the Tsar knew!" because, as always, the Tsar has known, and approved, all along.

"Once in a Blue Moon" by Harl Vincent, part 5

(part 4) (review)

This is the fifth and final installment of "Once in a Blue Moon", a Gernsback Era science fiction story by pioneering writer Harl Vincent. The story was first published in the Winter 1932 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly and reprinted in the 2001 anthology Rainbow Fantasia.

The story so far:
On June 6, 2019, the lunar mining ship Moon Rocket IV is half a mile south of Tycho Crater, mining the mineral lunium that makes interplanetary travel economical. The captain sees another ship, the Rocket VII, go down near Theophilus Crater, and orders auxiliary pilot Clark Peters to go to their rescue. The only men available to accompany Peters are Morton Saunders, an electrician in his fifties, and "Slim" Downey, a young stowaway.

Taking the Rocket IV's tender, the Hornet, the three men are north of Tycho Crater when Peters mentions to Downey that they are searching for the Rocket VII. Downey becomes frantic and tries to sieze control of the Hornet, and the tender dives into a deep chasm, then loses power. The Hornet comes to rest on the floor of a vast cavern ten miles below the lunar surface, near where the Rocket VII has landed. Downey admits that he was placed on board the Rocket IV by billionaire Aleck Carter, who has discovered an underground lunar civilization. While investigating, the three men are captured by a featureless green sphere.

Peters and Saunders learn via telepathy that the moon is hollow, and inhabited by three vast blue spheres known as the Great Ones, rulers of an ancient lunar civilization. In addition, there are the Lesser Ones, much smaller spheres that serve the Great Ones; the Dark Ones, enemies of the Great Ones; and the pigmies, stunted humanoids in the care of the Lesser Ones. Carter has promised the pigmies that he will move the moon onto the Earth's surface and allow them to plunder its wealth. The Lesser One in communication with them implores Peters and Saunders to put a stop to Carter's plan.

Making their way to Carter's base, Peters and Saunders realize that Carter's real plan is to destroy the Great Ones and sieze control of the moon. The two men encounter one of the Dark Ones, and are captured and led to Carter . . .

* * *

Next they knew they were lying bound before a small rostrum near which Carter’s machine had been set up. From it they could see that tier upon tier of balconies surrounded the arena, mounting into the high arches of the amphitheatre as far as the eye could follow. And these balconies groaned under the weight of the pigmy folk that crowded them.

It was a place of ceremonial; a temple. And Aleck Carter was in his element as he faced the multitude from the rostrum, one of the Dark Ones hovering at his side. The eyes of a world were upon him.

Pete knew that his strength was returning. His muscles answered to his bidding once more, but the bonds of the pigmies held fast.

“Huh,” he heard Mort Saunders whisper. “Old Carter’s putting on quite a show.”

Pete grinned. Saunders was all right, and so was he. If only they could free themselves. Carter had paid them scant attention; he was too deeply engrossed in the matter at hand, and confident that his bodyguard could handle these interfering snoopers if the pigmies and the Dark Ones could not. He was secure in his newly established position of power.

Silence fell in the huge gathering place when a mental message of the ugly swaying mass, that seemed to be the leader of the Dark Ones, swept out over the assemblage.

“The power of the Great Ones is at an end,” it conveyed. “The gods of Terra have kept their word and have brought their chief god with his machine to carry the ancient world of Luna to the land of happiness and plenty –“

“It’s a lie!” a voice screamed from near the machine.

“Thornhill!” Pete gasped. “He’s rebelling.”

The scientist, purple of face, was struggling with one of Carter’s huskies, trying to make his way to the platform. They saw his arms raised high, and his clenched fists threatening the man whose dominance of so much of Earth’s enterprise, was now reaching out here into the depths of the blue moon.

Aleck Carter’s flabby jowls quivered with rage; his basilisk eyes flashed fire. “Away with him!” he roared. “We’ll have no traitors alive here.”

They saw the gray-haired scientist go down. There was a flash and a report, the gunmen drawing back as the disintegrating charge of an atomic projector found its mark. The body of Earth’s most renowned physicist, who had made the mistake of bowing to the will of Aleck Carter, was a squirming, bloated thing on the crystal floor. Then, in a puff of incandescent vapor, it had vanished.

But Carter was shaken; his ponderous frame sagged as the gulping yells of the pigmies rolled out over the arena a vast screaming roar of amazed protest. The god-beings of Terra were not invulnerable.

“Thus perish those who oppose the chief god of our benefactors,” the Dark One’s voiceless message came instantly. “Keep to your places, pigmy folk, and observe the overthrow of the Great Ones.”

Carter brightened and raised his arm in a signal to his men as the Babel of pigmy voices was stilled in superstitious awe. And a shrill note of vibrant energy rose up from the throbbing machine.

Looking down into the blue cosmos, Pete saw the streaking light-pencils that stabbed out from the beam transmitters. Hundreds of miles beneath them a vast halo of white brilliance closed in on the Great Ones and caused them to draw together in a swift huddle. The crystal floor vibrated madly under the energy reaction and Luna’s outer shell was set quivering.

Succeeding events came with confusing swiftness.

* * *

The Great Ones, each a sphere of about seventy-five miles diameter, sent out long streamers of indigo flame and backed away from the man-made energy that attacked them.

Carter was shouting like a gleeful fiend; dancing like a lunatic there on the rostrum. And the telepathic voices of the Dark Ones were ghoulishly exultant. The Great Ones were retreating before the blasts of the Earth-gods’ machine.

A whining chant came up from the pigmy folk, a mad cadence of superstitious, religious fervor. The sound was awe-inspiring in its immensity, ghastly in its triumphant emotion.

And then, as the Great Ones battled ineffectually against Aleck Carter’s forces, the blue abyss beneath the crystal floor became alive with swirling forms that gleamed blue-white in the darkening realm. The Lesser Ones, legion in number, darting hither and yon in a panic of uncertainty.

A slender figure detached itself from the group at the machine and came running swiftly to the captives.

“Slim!” exclaimed Pete. “Slim Downey.”

“Yes,” the lad sobbed. “I couldn’t stand it. Know what this means? Carter’s figuring on throwing the whole damn moon out into space where Earth’s rockets can’t reach it. He’s energizing the Great Ones themselves – they’re mostly lunium – and the major deposits of the raw metal, to force the moon out from Earth’s attraction.”

“What!” Pete yelled. Slim was working at his bonds with a knife and one arm was free. “Out, you say?”

“Yes, out. Not in toward Earth, as he told the Dark Ones and the pigmies -- he’s too smart for that. Out. He’ll control all the lunium then, and be able to deal with the other planets without competition. Don’t you see? He was going to kill all of you on Rocket IV; I was his spy there. And the pigmies, he’ll kill. Pete, I’m afraid; I don’t want to be shot into space -- God knows where. He’s crazy.”

“I’ll say he is.” Pete stretched and worked his arms and legs to limber them up. “Here, give me that knife.”

He took it from the trembling lad and sawed rapidly at Mort’s bonds. “Get that, Mort?” he whispered.

“Sure did; the kid’s coming clean.” Mort was free in a moment.

“W-what are you going to do?” Slim was blubbering.

“You do it!” Pete demanded. His eyes bored into Slim’s.

White-faced and trembling, the boy stared. Then, quick as a flash, he streaked away toward the machine and flung himself into the main control switch -- bodily. Pete and Mort ran after him, yelling.

There was a bellow of rage from Carter. Agonized cries from the pigmy folk. And despairing mental outbursts from the Dark Ones. Pete was fighting Carter’s gang now, back to back with Mort. Desperately slugging, unmindful of the consequences. And the high reaches overhead were suddenly filled with gleaming forms of the Lesser Ones, doing battle with flashing energies as the Dark Ones sought to get away.

Pandemonium broke loose in the balconies. Luna lurched sidewise and threw the combatants in milling, struggling heaps.

The rest was confusion. Pete saw Otto Zimmerman scramble to the rostrum and jump astride Aleck Carter’s shoulders, throttling him with his hairy paws grimly and efficiently. The German scientist was one more rebel -- a game one.

He saw Mort, dragged away from him, fighting like a demon -- saw him pick up one of Carter’s huskies bodily and fling him into the mob. Slim Downey’s body was smouldering over there in the flaming switch of the frequency converter. But the great machine still sang its song of vast energies unleashed; on a different note now -- Slim’s sacrifice had changed the characteristic of the emanations.

All was chaos in the blue abyss. The Great Ones were swinging around in a wide arc that was carrying them ever nearer. Overhead, the Lesser Ones were victorious. One by one the Dark ones vanished in blue vapor puffs until all were destroyed. In the balconies, the pigmy folk were kneeling; a new chant had arisen, and in its wailing note was supplication, and dread of the wrath of the Great Ones. Their ages-old faith had returned.

Otto Zimmerman had joined Pete now. Together they beat off a half dozen of Carter’s maddened brutes. Mort flung himself into the tangle, cursing vividly. Blindly, desperately, the three fought.

And then there was a new lurching of Earth’s satellite, a general swaying and crunching and grinding of the space about them. Only half conscious of what transpired, Peters knew there were many of the Lesser Ones about them. They were rushed out of dark passages and through rose-lit vistas of blue columns, hustled from the melee by the spheres.

Now they were again in the pit bottom where Rocket VII and the Hornet lay waiting. There was much activity of the Lesser Ones, and a flow of liquid blue metal came in to close off the opening which led to the inner realm. Dozens of the blue-white globes converged on the great rocket ship, invisible energies crackling in their midst, and she melted down swiftly to join the blue torrent which already was congealing to seal off the ancient world within.

Urged on and assisted by the friendly Lesser Ones, they boarded the Hornet and soon were rising speedily out of the pit. And all was darkness and mystery beneath them.

But a majestic voice came out of the depths, a voice that was strong in the consciousness though it sounded not in the ears. It told them all was well in the blue realm; told them the conspirators were no more; told them Luna’s surface was free to those of Earth who might come in search of its treasures. They, the Great Ones, the Lesser Ones, and the pigmy folk, would remain inside until the end of time. The adventure was ended.

Clark Peters sucked in his breath sharply when the Hornet shot up out of the pit and over the crater’s rim. The blazing sun greeted them. It was a wonderful thing to see.

“Himmel!” Otto Zimmerman exclaimed, “Earth iss gone; der sun iss here. Id vos Downey’s act. Hiss body shorted der energy, made it negatiff. Ven der Great Vuns mofed der shall followed, und der moon turned completely ofer, nicht wahr? Now ve always see der odder side from Earth -- alvays.”

Mort Saunders wrinkled his brow and tugged at his fiery lip ornament. Figuring it out, Mort was. Pete laughed, then sobered on the instant.

“We’ll not speak of the Great Ones,” he breathed. “Or of any of it -- about the blue realm, I mean.”

The others agreed vociferously. No one would believe them, not in a million years. And besides, there was something -- perhaps that majestic voice; perhaps Slim’s deed -- which bid them keep silence. And so the story has been a secret these many years, coming to light only with the unearthing of Clark Peters’ diary.

Peters will be remembered as the hero of the Hyperionic disaster a year ago. He it was who saved eighteen passengers of the ill-fated space liner from certain death in the lava pools of Mercury ere he succumbed to his own burns and injuries. Of him no more need be said.

Otto Zimmerman is an old, old man who smiles and nods agreement when asked to confirm the tale of the diary.

But Mort Saunders, older still, and his once fiery hirsute adornments now white as driven snow, is more specific. Certain of the personal details about Pete that the diarist omitted, he will be perfectly willing to tell.

“Huh!” he has said. “Pete didn’t record the half. In my humble opinion, it was he who saved the Great Ones. True? Of course it’s true; go ahead and print it if you want to. Nobody will take any stock in it but Captain Wallace James.

“And he won’t believe it either.”

THE END

(part 4) (review)

"Once in a Blue Moon" by Harl Vincent, part 4

(part 3) (part 5)

This is the fourth installment of "Once in a Blue Moon", a Gernsback Era science fiction story by pioneering writer Harl Vincent. The story was first published in the Winter 1932 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly and reprinted in the 2001 anthology Rainbow Fantasia.

The story so far:
On June 6, 2019, the lunar mining ship Moon Rocket IV is half a mile south of Tycho Crater, mining the mineral lunium that makes interplanetary travel economical. The captain sees another ship, the Rocket VII, go down near Theophilus Crater, and orders auxiliary pilot Clark Peters to go to their rescue. The only men available to accompany Peters are Morton Saunders, an electrician in his fifties, and "Slim" Downey, a young stowaway.

Taking the Rocket IV's tender, the Hornet, the three men are north of Tycho Crater when Peters mentions to Downey that they are searching for the Rocket VII. Downey becomes frantic and tries to sieze control of the Hornet, and the tender dives into a deep chasm, then loses power. The Hornet comes to rest on the floor of a vast cavern ten miles below the lunar surface, near where the Rocket VII has landed. Downey admits that he was placed on board the Rocket IV by billionaire Aleck Carter, who has discovered an underground lunar civilization. While investigating, the three men are captured by a featureless green sphere . . .

* * *

Consciousness returned swiftly and painlessly. Clark Peters sat up on the hard floor he found under him and took in his surroundings with unbelieving eyes. He was in a great circular hall of many tall columns and with a high arched ceiling that glowed with the rosy light they had seen in the pit bottom. The air was fresh and warm. Mort Saunders lay close by, still unconscious, but breathing normally and with good color in his cheeks.

A quick search appraised Pete of the fact that they were without their weapons.

“You companion will recover shortly,” a voice sounded in his ears. No, it was not a voice; a mental impression more accurately. There had been no sound in the chamber.

Looking swiftly around him, Pete saw one of the spheres like those which had captured them. Certainly they were made of gleaming blue-white metal, yet they were possessed of miraculous powers of locomotion and of other qualities that made it certain they were not ordinary mechanisms of human manufacture. These things had brains. This one was resting on a tripod made of a multicolored translucent material like stained glass.

“I suppose that’s what talked to me,” Pete muttered foolishly.

“You have guessed the truth, Earth-man,” came the quick mental response. “And you may speak freely that which is in your mind. Or speak not at all, if you choose. We may communicate regardless. And the Great Ones of Luna have commanded me to enlighten you.”

Pete hooked his thumbs in his suspenders and regarded the metal globe curiously. After this experience, nothing he might see within this mad satellite or on its surface would surprise him.

“There are still more surprising things,” the mental reply flashed back. The eerie globe needed only his thoughts, not his speech.

And thought-images flickered across Pete’s mind in swift succession, after the fashion of a panoramic motion picture. Rather they flashed as shimmering light-images on the surface of the mysterious sphere. He saw that Mort Saunders had drawn himself erect and was staring goggle-eyed, plucking nervously at the bristles of his red mustache. Mort was seeing the same things, getting the same reactions as was Pete.

Under the sphere’s strange telepathic influence, the hall of the many columns faded away in blue mists and was gone. It seemed they were drifting freely in space then, Pete and Mort and the shimmering globe, hovering in the enormity of a cosmos where three other objects, three suns of indigo hue, bathed them in eerie light that altered all things in their perceptions.

They were deep in the moon’s interior, their minds were informed, hundreds of miles below the surface. Earth’s satellite was hollow! And the three suns lighting the blue realm were huge masses of lunium, charged with the sub-electronic forces and mind-energies of ancient Luna, possessed of powers far greater than those of the insignificant Lesser One which had been detailed as the mentor and guard of the Earth-men. The Terrestrials were in the presence of the Great Ones of a blue moon, in a realm unknown to the science of Earth.

Many puzzling things were made clear to Pete and Mort. The old uncertainty of astronomers as to why the moon always presented the same side to the mother planet was explained away. The hollowed-out heart of Luna, a cavity some twelve hundred miles in diameter, is concentric with the outer surface. But the Great Ones, enormous gravity masses in the Earth-moon system, hovered constantly near the huge lunium deposits in the inner wall that was nearest the mother planet. Luna’s center of gravity being thus offset a considerable distance from its mathematical center, Earth’s powerful attraction acted more strongly on the heavy side, keeping the same face of the satellite always in view. As a round-bottom, weight-loaded toy stands erect, so the moon maintained its position with respect to earth.

Millions of years older than Earth’s civilization, the original inhabitants of Luna had taken to their inner region when the atmosphere outside thinned out and had escaped. Evolution through subsequent ages made of them the complex, atomic structure now represented by the spheres which seemed to the Terrestrials only like globes of polished metal. These metal balls, the true Lunarians, were capable of existence without an atmosphere and without food. But there were the pigmy folk, cave-dwellers primarily and much lower in the evolutionary scale, and the Great Ones had decreed that these be cared for until the end of time. The Lesser Ones were their guardians and protectors.

And then had come the minions of Aleck Carter, stumbling accidentally into the great shaft which connected with the inner regions. The omniscient Great Ones envisioned their coming and sent the sub-electronic energies into the pit to break their fall. And there at the bottom of the pit, the pigmy folk had made friends with the first Terrestrials they had ever seen.

But the Great Ones and the Lesser Ones were suspicious of these visitors who had come to trade the bounty of the mother planet for their own vast deposits of lunium.

“Trade!” Pete blurted out the unnecessary words. “What can Aleck Carter offer in trade? How can he hope to acquire a monopoly of the metal which is so plentiful on the moon’s surface?”

If a smooth metallic sphere can shrug its shoulders, this Lesser One did that very thing -- mentally.

“You shall judge for yourselves,” its unspoken message came. “We go to the abode of the pigmies.”

* * *

Again there was the confusing sense of change. The blue mists came and advanced before them in tiny weaving wisps, then coalescing into shapes that were gigantic yet familiar in form. An endless vista of blue columns appeared before them, and they set foot on solid ground again. The Lesser One drifted before them as they walked.

“Are we awake, Mort?” Pete whispered.

“In my humble opinion we’re not,” Saunders returned. “Or else we are both quite hopelessly dotty. This business with the big ones and the little ones is too much --“

“No, Mort, look! There’s Aleck Carter himself.”

The avenue of the blue pillars had opened out into a great amphitheatre where hundreds of the pigmy folk were gathered about the machine which had been taken from Rocket VII. And in their midst was Carter, the man who was possessed of more ill-gotten wealth and vicious commercial influence than any man in the history of Earth -- bossing a gang of Terrestrials, riggers and mechanics, as if he were an ordinary foreman!

It all came to Pete then in a flash of understanding. Carter was reaching out for new worlds to conquer. If he could manipulate matters so as to obtain exclusive control of the supply of lunium, he alone of all humans would be able to traffic with the Martians and Venerians and with whatever races there might be found on other planets of the solar system. But to have risked the rocket trip itself; it was incredible.

“Huh!” Saunders grunted. “The old boy has let himself in for something this time. Look at him; his chest is puffing up like a pouter pigeon’s. And he’s yelling himself hoarse.”

“This Terrestrial plans to move Luna to Earth and has promised the pigmy folk everything which is available there,” came the mental advice of their attending sphere. “Everything, comfortable homes, fresh air in abundance for their weakened lungs, food for their primitive stomachs.”

“What!” Pete shouted. “He’s crazy. It can’t be done; the tides of Earth would submerge the land. There would be --“

“Only too well are these things known to the Great Ones.” There was dignity and patience in the unspoken voice of the Lesser One. “A vast cataclysm would result were this Terrestrial to succeed in his mad purpose. His own scientists should be able to tell him these things.”

“Certainly, certainly,” Saunders sputtered. “I myself, with my -- huh -- extensive knowledge of electricity and other natural forces might enlighten him. If he would listen.”

“Electricity?” The mental reaction of the sphere was questioning. “That is the force the Terrestrial is using. It is unfamiliar to us and we would know of its nature.”

Mort Saunders floundered hopelessly in the effort to explain. But it was apparent that the Lesser One gathered from his chaotic thoughts that which his rebellious tongue was unable to put into words.

“An elementary form of energy we have not developed,” the sphere commented wordlessly. “Our own sub-electronic energy is greatly superior. But there are possibilities in this force, and we would guard against the evil that might arise from these possibilities.”

“Then why not step in a put a stop to the thing?” the query rose to Pete’s lips. “Surely the Great Ones are powerful enough.”

“Yes,” the Lesser One assented. “But you forget, Earth-man. The pigmies have their own minds in the matter. It is not permitted that we interfere with them or assist them unless they call upon us for help.”

“It might be too late when they do,” Pete growled. He had no idea as to what deviltry Carter was planning, but he knew from past performance that it boded no good to the strange inhabitants of Luna -- nor to his own world.

“That is true, Earth-man, and is the reason we have brought you here with your friend. The Great Ones approve of you and bid me work to the end that you might be enlisted in their service.”

“You -- you mean to try and forestall Carter’s plans?” Pete asked incredulously.

“That is the plea of the Great Ones.”

Plea! These incomprehensible brain machines and energy sources of the blue realm were capable of forcing their will on Earth, man and pigmy alike. They had superhuman power over ordinary matter and were disseminators of unknown forces that could be as destructive as ten thunderbolts in one, yet they chose to plead with him and Mort. Pete could not bring himself to believe his senses.

“Huh!” Mort Saunders exclaimed. “We can do it, Pete. We’ll show Carter and his gang. We’ll --“

“Don’t know as I’d go so far as to say that,” Pete drawled. “You have an exalted opinion of yourself, Mort, and of me. But we can try.”

Some unexplainable force radiated by the expectant Lesser One was permeating his being, buoying him up. Fantastic as were his surroundings, mysterious as were the activities of the Lunarians and of Carter, his old Earth spirits and courage were returning. In Aleck Carter and his gang of hirelings there was a tangible inimical force; these could be fought with their own guile and weapons. And in the Great Ones and the Lesser Ones there were powerful friends.

“We can try,” Pete repeated softly. And the light of battle was in his eyes.

Mort Saunders grinned and tweaked his mustache apologetically.

A bright glow illuminated the surface of the Lesser One. In its approving telepathic reply there was exultation. And, quite as if the sphere had reached out with invisible arms to hand them over, their bullet projectors were restored to their hands. The Terrestrials gaped in amazement.

But the feel of the cold tube was comforting in Pete’s hands. He fingered the weapon lovingly.

“You will likewise learn of the Dark Ones of Luna,” came from the sphere. And there was sinister meaning in the telepathic flash.

Pete thought instantly of Slim Downey.

“No,” came from the Lesser One. “The Dark Ones are of our own realm. The Terrestrial youth was returned to his fellows. His thoughts were not wholly good, although at first the Great Ones were inclined to approve of him. And so he was sent to rejoin his former associates.”

With that information imparted, their attending sphere melted into the blue shadows of the great pillars and was gone. Pete and Mort stood there alone, gazing each into the puzzled eyes of the other.

* * *

“Illusions?” Mort whispered hesitantly.

“No, siree. Brain cases, these spheres, and real; impregnable housings of the most remarkable intellects in the universe. Superhuman minds with godlike emotions, and endowed with supernatural powers. All-seeing, all-knowing, all . . . oh, dammit, I’m talking like a preacher. You know what I mean.”

“Yes.” Mort Saunders turned toward the amphitheatre as in a daze. “But there’s nothing supernatural about them,” he argued. “It’s only that they know of forces we can’t comprehend. They --“

A whirling sound rose up from Carter’s mechanism and they saw the pigmy folk scatter and draw away from the devil-machine of the Earth-men. Mort and Pete ran swiftly down the sloping floor into the arena.

Unnoticed by Carter and his crew, and unmolested by the excited pigmy folk, they wormed their way through the press and drew near to the scene of action. And then they saw that the floor was of transparent crystal. Beneath them yawned the great cavity of the blue realm, infinitely vast and mysterious. The enormous globes that were the Great Ones hovered over there in all their majesty and silent watchfulness like heavenly bodies in a cosmos within this strange world of ancient Luna. Living, thinking mechanisms of slumbering potentialities.

Carter’s machine rested on skids that partly bridged the crystal floor. It was a ponderous thing and incorporated a mighty atomic power planet and two huge beam transmitters. There were frequency converters as well, like those of the Hornet, but vastly larger than hers.

“Lord!” Pete gasped, “the fool means it. He intends to energize the main lunium deposit.”

“No -- see there!” Mort returned. “The projectors are trained on the Great Ones themselves.”

It was true; Carter’s crew was preparing to send twin beams of ionized air across the gulf to carry the energizing frequencies to the very bodies of the Great Ones.

Thunderstruck, Pete stood undecided. They were in the shelter of a column where blue light from below struck up to mingle with the rosy illumination of the high arches above. Of course they might ruin Carter’s machine with their ultralite bullets -- easily. But their own lives would then be forfeit. Even if they could overcome Carter’s gang there were the pigmies to be dealt with. Thousands of them would stream in from the labyrinth of passageways; tens of thousands. And besides, Pete wasn’t sure of his ground; he saw Mason and Thornhill over there by the machine, and Zimmerman -- three of Earth’s greatest men of science, whom Carter’s gold had bought. Surely these men could not be contemplating a move that meant disaster on Earth.

His indecision was ended by a warning cry from Mort; a strangling horror-filled yell that caused Pete to whirl suddenly, crouching with his bullet projector in hand.

Behind them, a monstrous, black creature stood staring with red saucer-eyes; an object like a huge football poised on a single support that was more like the stem of a plant than the limb of an animal. Yet this thing was undoubtedly of the animal class -- and intelligent.

One of the Dark Ones of Luna!

Pete pressed the release of his bullet projector, but, even as the propelling ray sped forth, the creature was covered with a shroud of green vapor such as that which had enclosed Rocket VII. The ultranite charge exploded with a deafening crash, but made no impression on the green armor. And a quavering wail of terror rose up from the throats of the thousands of pigmies. The great amphitheatre was in instant confusion.

A sharp mental command came then from out of the green cloud; an order that carried with it the compulsion of a nameless force. Pete’s grip on the bullet projector was loosened, struggle though he might, and the weapon clattered to the floor. He was rooted to the spot, his limbs trembling and muscles paralyzed. Mort Saunders had slumped to the base of the column, a quivering nerveless heap in the blast of energy that radiated from the Dark One.

With a twang like that of a snapped violin string, the green vapor disrupted, and the Dark One trailed off silently across the arena, its single supporting member drawing up within the mass of the black ovoid as a terrapin withdraws its limbs into its shell. Drifting in mid-air as the Lesser Ones did, the weird shape hovered in the midst of Carter’s crew when it came to rest.

Others of the eerie creatures converged on the scene and the shoutings of the pigmy multitude rose high and menacing. Aleck Carter had leagued himself with the Dark Ones of Luna.

Desperately Pete set his will to the task of unbending his cramped fingers. Muscles refused his bidding and his knees gave way beneath his stiffened body. He crumpled helplessly to lie on his face, staring into the depths of the blue moon, his numbed lips framing wordless supplications to the Great Ones.

And everywhere about him were the pigmies; cold scaly hands pawed at him and rolled him over. Vacant bulging eyes peered into his own; cavernous mouths of scarlet jabbered. He struck out feebly and to no avail. There was not the strength of an infant in his puny blows.

It was all over; they were carrying him and Mort to the center of the arena, to Aleck Carter and the Dark Ones.

(part 3) (part 5)

"Once in a Blue Moon" by Harl Vincent, part 3

(part 2) (part 4)

This is the third installment of "Once in a Blue Moon", a Gernsback Era science fiction story by pioneering writer Harl Vincent. The story was first published in the Winter 1932 issue of Amazing Stories Quarterly and reprinted in the 2001 anthology Rainbow Fantasia.

The story so far:
On June 6, 2019, the lunar mining ship Moon Rocket IV is half a mile south of Tycho Crater, mining the mineral lunium that makes interplanetary travel economical. The captain sees another ship, the Rocket VII, go down near Theophilus Crater, and orders auxiliary pilot Clark Peters to go to their rescue. The only men available to accompany Peters are Morton Saunders, an electrician in his fifties, and "Slim" Downey, a young stowaway. Taking the Rocket IV's tender, the Hornet, the three men are north of Tycho Crater when Peters mentions to Downey that they are searching for the Rocket VII. Downey becomes frantic and tries to sieze control of the Hornet, and the tender dives into a deep chasm, then loses power . . .

* * *

Mort Saunders blundered into the control room. “Huh!” he exploded. “Machinery’s dead. I swear I did everything, Pete; no one could --“

He broke off grunting as he collided with the wriggling, whimpering thing that was Slim Downey. Pete heard him swear softly in the hollow silence and Stygian gloom.

The emergency lights flashed on then, illuminating the control room with their dim soft glow. Their batteries, at least, had not failed them. And Pete switched on the forward searchlight, sending forth its dazzling beam into the blackness of the pit.

Slim Downey yelled then, coughing painfully. “No, Pete, not the lights! They’ll see us. Turn them off.”

“You shut up,” the pilot snapped. Pete had thought there was a moving mass down there in the depths.

“Oh, God! -- you’ve got to listen.” Downey was dragging himself to his knees; his teeth chattered uncontrollably.

Pete growled savagely, continuing his search of the depths. The Hornet was dropping with swift acceleration into a seemingly bottomless pit that was fully a half mile across. Utterly helpless she was, her atomic motors paralyzed by some strange force that surrounded them.

“In my opinion,” Saunders was saying, “the boy knows something. I’d do as he says, Pete.”

“I’ll say he knows something!” Pete had caught the gleam of a huge steel cylinder down there; Rocket VII, without a doubt. And the big rocket ship was dropping even faster than they. He pulled on the switch and once more darkness closed in about them.

He reached for Slim Downey, saw a violent corona discharge crackling as his fingers closed in on the trembling arm. The very air of the control room was electrified.

The youngster moaned as Pete’s grip dug into his yielding flesh. “Let up, Pete,” he whined. “I do know something.”

“Spit it out then!” Pete relaxed his grip somewhat.

“It’s a -- a big job of Aleck Carter’s. His men were here before on the first trip of Rocket VI. There’s a world inside here, Pete, and it’s peopled with ghastly little devils that Carter wants to hook up with. Keep the lights off, for God’s sake. We may get away.”

“A hidden world!” Pete gasped. “How do you know?”

“Never mind. I know, all right --“ Slim blubbered as Pete’s fingers dug deeper. “Carter put me on Rocket IV,” he moaned then. “I won’t do his dirty work, though -- damned if I will. You’re the boss, Pete. I’ll do anything you say, see if I don’t.”

“I’ll see that you do,” Pete grated, shoving the lad away in disgust. So Aleck Carter was mixed up in this thing! His minions had found their way even here and were planning some new deviltry that would involve humanity still deeper in his toils. Carter, with his billions in wealth, would buy an entire civilization, good or bad, to serve his own ends.

“Huh!” Saunders blurted out of the darkness. “A likely story. You and I, Pete, will get at the truth of it when we --“

“When we crash? You’re optimistic, Mort.”

“There won’t be any crash,” Slim broke in eagerly. “This force of the pit will --“

And then, as if to belie his words, the Hornet struck heavily on the starboard side amidships. She rolled over and pitched the three men in a scrambling heap, then slid nose down along a gentle declivity, bouncing and careening over the rough surface. There was a ripping screech below as her landing gear was torn loose and she pitched over on her nose, coming to rest at an angle of about forty-five degrees.

“Well, I don’t know now,” Pere drawled. “This seems almost like a crash to me.”

His cheek was pressed to the icy glass of one of the floor ports and the wriggling weight of Mort Saunders lay across his shoulders. But there was no hiss of escaping air; the lunium hull of the staunch vessel was unpunctured.

* * *

Rosy light streamed in through the ports and they saw they were in an enormous cavern where Rocket VII stood solidly on her base, nose skyward and unharmed. The Hornet lay on a slope several hundred yards away, partly submerged in the powdery surface and hidden from the lower portion of the great rocket ship.

Mort Saunders pointed to the instrument panel. “We’re ten miles below the surface, Pete,” he exclaimed. “And, in my humble opinion, the pit has an atmosphere of some sort. Look at the manometer.”

The outside pressure was indicated at about seventeen inches of mercury, not much lower than that on the mountain tops of Terra. If this was air in the pit, they would be able to venture outside without their bulky Metz suits and oxygen helmets. The temperature was much higher than on the surface, showing as 48 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pete whistled. “This will be something to write home about,” he remarked. “What next, I wonder?”

“You -- you’re not leaving the Hornet?” Slim Downey asked.

“Nothing else but,” he said cheerfully, “and you’re coming with us, my boy. Here, Mort, we’ll have to use the lead boots.”

He had started toward the airlock where the heavy equipment needed in the moon’s low gravity was stowed, when there came the gentle rising purr of the atomic motors. The paralyzing effect of the pit had been released or “turned off.” Quickly Pete threw the starting lever forward and the purring died off into silence.

“You could leave at once --“ Slim Downey began.

“Not on your life! We’ll see this thing through, now we’re here. Step lively, boy.”

“You’re the boss,” the lad replied meekly. But his eyes did not meet those of the big man who stood menacingly over him.

With the lead-soled boots strapped to their feet, they dragged themselves out from the artificial earth-gravity of the Hornet’s interior, dropping one at a time to the thick dust of the lunar cavern floor. A sound of clanking machinery and the shouting of many voices came from beyond the knoll where the rocket ship reared its great bulk.

A curious sense of light-headedness came to Clark Peters with the breathing in of the thin, sharp air. His vision was distorted in the wavering roseate light. Young Downey had slipped to his knees and was wriggling his way to the top of the knoll.

“Stay where you are,” Pete called out cautiously. “And no signals to your friends, either.” Suddenly it had come to him that there was more to the Yellow Kid than he had thought.

The young fellow halted, crouching, and grinned over his shoulder. “You’re the boss, Pete,” he replied. But there was a new courage in his slightly superior smile, the courage of desperation and of a dark knowledge that was his.

Pete fingered the cold tube of the bullet projector he carried. He had taken care that only Mort and himself were thus armed, and with more than a hundred rounds of the ultranite ammunition in the possession of each, he was confident of their ability to cope with almost any situation. But he was darkly suspicious of young Downey.

Scrambling to the side of the strangely metamorphosed youngster, he raised his head to peer out over the vast floor of the cavern. Mort Saunders, with much puffing and grunting, drew himself alongside.

A scene of intense activity centered about the five massive pillars of Rocket VII’s base. Queer, stunted creatures, thousands of them it appeared, were clustering there before a massive mechanism that was being lowered from the crane arm of the rocket ship. Impossible pigmy beings that stood erect on two legs, bodies covered with iridescent scales, long arms dangling. Globular, hairless heads of chalky white, with bulging eyes and cavernous, scarlet mouths. And twenty or thirty Terrestrials in this midst, fraternizing with the ugly monstrosities!

“A rummy lot, in my opinion. Huh!” There was utter loathing in Mort Saunders’ much-used exclamation. That “huh” of his was capable of expressing his every mood and reaction.

Pete’s blood froze in his veins at the sound of a demonical shriek that rose unexpectedly from the lips of Slim Downey. He clapped an enormous paw over the crazy youngster’s mouth and shook him violently.

“Idiot!” he hissed. “You’ll have them on us like a pack of wolves.”

Things happened at once when Slim’s yell rang out in the huge open space at the pit bottom. There was a bedlam of shouting over by the rocket ship, unintelligible, gulping screeches of the moon-men and hoarse curses in vivid English. A muffled explosion sounded from behind the great vessel and a swirling cloud of faintly luminous green vapor rose swiftly, forming itself into an immense shimmering bubble that closed down over the scene. Rocket VII and the polyglot pack at its base were completely enclosed.

And Slim Downey developed muscles of steel and the agility of a cat. Like a coiled spring suddenly released, he popped out from beneath Pete’s swiftly flung bulk, leaving the amazed pilot to sprawl in the thick dust. And then he was sprinting toward the shining green bubble.

“Damned little rat!” Saunders snarled. “That’s enough for you.” He raised his bullet projector and fired from the hip.

“Mort, don’t!” Pete struck upward at the slender weapon, his arm deflecting the tube just as the propelling ray spat forth.

The explosive bullet went wide of its mark and an appalling crash echoed in the pit as its energy was expended harmlessly on the rubbery surface of the green vapor dome. The mighty force of the ultranite charge would have shattered a monolith, yet the gleaming bubble merely shivered under the impact, changing its smooth contour not at all.

Slim Downey tossed back a tantalizing laugh.

And now three globular objects burst out from the hemisphere of green; solid metallic shapes, apparently about four feet in diameter, drifting unsupported through the rare air of the lunar pit, coming swiftly in the direction of the knoll and floating waist high above the cavern floor. Still laughing crazily, young Downey flung himself on the nearest of the spheres and was immediately absorbed into the body of the uncanny thing. Just melted into its embrace and was swallowed up bodily as if the thing were a ball of jelly.

It might have been the disappearing act of a vaudeville magician. The weird globe changed not one whit in size or appearance, but halted its progress and hovered there in midair as if awaiting its fellows, which continued in their deliberate movement toward the remaining two Terrestrials.

Mort Saunders went berserk, firing rapidly from his bullet projector. Ear-shattering reverberations echoed in the cavern as ultranite charges exploded in swift succession against the spheres. But the drifting globes only came on the faster, their surfaces unmarred and undeterred in their ghastly purpose.

“Run for it, Mort!” Pete shouted, wheeling about to suit his own action to the words. “Quit shooting; they’re too close.”

He groaned as Saunders staggered and fell. One of the spheres was upon the older man in an instant. With a sucking, whistling sound the sturdy body was merged with its mysterious substance. Gone; vanished, Mort had, as Slim had vanished. Like water absorbed by a sponge.

Unreasoning fear had Pete in its grip. It was as if his feet were rooted to the spot. A nightmare! His voice, when he essayed a yell of unalloyed terror, died chokingly in his parched throat. Then the clammy metal of the third sphere enwrapped him.

The rosy light of the cavern was dimmed. Flame-shot blackness was in Pete’s vision. Frigid, unyielding metal congealed about him. Icy fingers of steel twisted in his vitals and he knew no more.

(part 2) (part 4)