WINTER 1944 STRANGE ADVENT UF ON OTHER WORL- -THE UNIVERSE FUTURE CENT UR I 20c EEPER OF THE DEATHLESS SLEEP by ALBERT DE PINA [earn something shout your War Bonds The best thing a bulldog does is HANG ON! Once he gets hold of something, it’s mighty hard to make him let go! And that’s the lesson about War Bonds you can learn from him. Once you get hold of a War Bond, HANG ON TO IT for the full ten years of its life. There are at least two very good reasons why you should do this. One is a patriotic reason . . . the other a personal reason. You buy War Bonds because you want to put some of your money into fighting this war. But ... if you don’t hang on to those War Bonds, your money isn’t going to stay in the battle. Another reason you buy War Bonds is because you want to set aside some money for your family’s future and yours. No one knows just what’s going to happen after the war. But the man with a fistful of War Bonds knows he’ll have a roof over his head and 3 squares a day no matter what hap- pens! War Bonds pay you back $4 for every $3 in 10 years. But, if you don’t hang on to your Bonds for the full ten years, you don’t get the full face value, and . . . you won’t have that money coming in later on. So buy War Bonds . . . then keep them. You will find that War Bonds are very good things to have . . . and to hold! from this fellow / WAR BONDS to Have and to Hold The Treasury Department acknowledges with appreciation the publication of this message by FICTION HOUSE, INC. T. T. SCOTT, Pres. MALCOLM REISS, Gen. Mgr. W. SCOTT PEACOCK, Ed. AN OUTSTANDING NOVEL OF THE FUTURE KEEPER OF THE DEATHLESS SLEEP Albert DePina 36 Saturn had spawned a menace that meant to enslave the Solar System — had made the first treacherous move in the master game of death. THREE THRILLING NOVELETS OF STRANGE WORLDS MIND-STEALERS OF PLUTO Joseph Farrell 2 Ron Barnard, space newshawk, was writing his final scoop— his epitaph. CHIMERA WORLD Wilbur S. Peacock 62 Venus had become a charnel house — where dead men walked, and fought the living. COLONY OF THE UNFIT . . . Manfred A, Carter 84 The Red Planet was a prison world — waiting for a leader to battle its cause. FIVE SHORT STORIES OF STAR-TRAIL PERIL DOORWAY TO KAL-JMAR Stuart Fleming 19 The Ancient Gods of Mars had a weird revenge for those who desecrated Kal-Jmar. INVADER FROM INFINITY George Whittington 29 “You are expendable,” HQ had said — and the spacer flashed into suicidal battle. THE HAIRY ONES Basil Wells 76 Patrolman Rolf was fighting his greatest battle — to bring life to a dying world. LAZARUS COME FORTH Ray Bradbury 107 A traitor rode the Morgue Ship — willing to sell victory to the highest bidder. DOUBLE-CROSS James MacCreigh 112 Svan had plotted the perfect crime — forgetting such things have hidden Raws. P. S.'s DEPARTMENTS P.S.’s FEATURE FLASH 35 Meet Anderson, the artist, whose work graces this book. THE VIZIGRAPH 114 The department where the cash customer is always wrong — to somebody. Cover design by Parkhurst Winter Issue, 1944 Volume II, No. 9 THIS IS A FICTION HOUSE MAGAZINE PLANET STORIES: Published quarterly by Love Romances Pub. Co., Inc., 670 Fifth Ave., New York 19, N. Y. The entire contents of this magazine are copyrighted, 1944, by Love Romances Publishing Co., Inc. All rights re- served. While due care is always exercised, the publishers will not be responsible for the return of unsolicited manu- scripts. For advertising rates address THE NEWSSTAND FICTION UNIT, 9 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City. Printed in U. S. A. 20c per copy 52 MIND STEALERS OF PLUTO By JOSEPH FARRELL Ron Barnard had stack his nose into one news story too many. It had started with a lovely girl, a wily Chinese and a drug ring that circled the System. Now it was ending for him in a rogue space- ship— his epitaph a rocket’s red stream across the starways. Illustration by DOOLIN mmmm HP life mSm ISP . -v j , • - ; J>w.* •, c •*. / %’ L VA'- ^ V tigs* ■ Eg 2 R ON BARNARD leaned unhappily on Quong Kee’s bar and looked over the worst dive on Mars. This hell hole of Quong Kee’s was no lit place even for a newspaperman looking for a story on the dope ring that was haunting the outer planets. The habitues were cut- throats, fugitives from Earth and the space police. To say nothing of the neoin fiends. The two unshaven men hunched at a corner table, for instance. He eyed them in contempt. They were far gone in their addiction to the drug, and he would put no crime past them. They probably would murder their grandmothers for a gram of neoin. The two persons in question straightened as if a gun had been fired. They faced the bar, and their questing eyes found Barnard. One of them, teeth bared and hands bent into claws, started to move toward the reporter. “What did you think ?” the man de- manded. 7 - ~ . v ; • “< - '» I »i • * Vf >*4£ ; >U.'-.V Barnard’s dull eyes swung to the steady weapon, 3 4 PLANET Barnard dropped a coin on the bar and tried to walk carelessly to the door. He wanted no fights with a wt’ofw-filled mad- man. Silently he cursed himself for for- getting the extra sensory powers imparted by the drug. But the men had seemed too far gone to use their ESP. The man charged across the room. Barnard saw that escape was out and re- signed himself to a fight. He waited for the wild lunge, sidestepped and shot in a right that sent the addict reeling back. A few customers watched with mild interest. But this was routine at Quong Kee’s — nobody would interfere. Sullenly, the man glared at him, as if gathering courage for another charge. Barnard knew that actually the irrespon- sible creature was working himself up to a murderous pitch. Now he felt the waves of fury beating at his mind. He waited, tense and ready. From the corner of his vision he saw the drapes that cut off the back room come apart, and a figure hurrying out. A slender figure in faded coveralls. Then he looked again. It was a woman — a slender pale girl who clicked somehow in his memory. He had seen her around Kainor, this port city of Mars, several times in the past few days. Watching her, he almost missed the on- slaught of the neoin fiend. The fury of the charge backed him to the wall and he lashed out desperately against the claws and knees of the man. His head jammed against the wall and crimson streaks ex- ploded before him. He jabbed with ach- ing arms, trying to push the madman off. Dimly, he saw the girl trying to whisper something in the fiend’s ear. The man broke off clawing suddenly, a look of surprise on his twisted face. Barn- ard watched weakly as he backed off a few steps to listen to what the girl was whispering. Then the man glared with sullen respect at Barnard for a few sec- onds and went back to his friend. The girl turned swiftly and started back for the drapes. Barnard caught her arm. “Miss — ” He stared at her. It was his first good look, and he wondered where she had found the courage to interfere with a raging neoin fiend. If that man had turned on her — ! She wasn’t beautiful — she looked as if she hadn’t slept much lately. If some- STORIES body could put a few pounds on her in the right places — and a smile on her face — “Thanks,” he said, puffing. “I was in a spot — you can’t hurt those lads when they’re hopped. What did you tell him, anyway?” She shrank back a little. Strangely, he felt that the fear in her eyes was more of him than of the cutthroats in Quong Kee’s. Her face acquired a faint touch of color. “I told him,”- she said, “that I’d take away his neoin ration card.” She pulled loose and disappeared into the other room. B ARNARD stared at the drapes and grinned a little at the evasive answer. What had she told the fiend? If he knew, it might help him to get some news. And what was she doing here in this dive — he’d swear she wasn’t the type ! He thought of the boss back on Earth thundering through the news room as Barnard’s meager despatches dribbled through. But Hell! He’d done all any human could possibly do! He’d spoken with officials and spacemen and scientists, poked his skinny nose into dens like this where a man risked his life if he so much as thought out of line. He’d even bought some of the drug from the peddlers who operated almost openly, and he’d cultivated them, but they were only tools. The higher-ups might have been in- visible for all anybody knew about them. Nobody even knew where the drug came from. But wherever it originated, it was swiftly corrupting Mars and Venus, as well as the Jovian system and the asteroid belt. When small quantities appeared on Earth, the powers-that-be of the System News Service smelled news. Ron Barnard, star reporter who had unveiled many a scandal in gay twenty-third century New York, was sent to investigate. And Ron Barnard stood in Mars’ wildest dive, scratching his head and staring after a frightened, pretty girl. “That’s my sister,” said a childish voice beside him. Barnard stared at the big man beside him. The man was a splendid physical specimen, but his face — It was the face of a mindless idiot. Barnard felt repelled. The man’s fea- tures were not idiotic; they should have MIND STEALERS OF PLUTO been those of an intelligent person. But the eyes changed everything. They were blank and somehow — soulless. Barnard shrank automatically away from the apelike crea- ture. Then he understood what the idiot had said. “Your sister!” He stared unbelievingly. The gray haired shambling being gurgled, childlike. “My sister — Gail.” Barnard felt a curious shame in finding a human being in such a state, talking like a baby. But maybe he could learn some- thing. He dug into his pocket, thrust a coin into the idiot’s palm. “What does your sister do? Does she maybe sell little packages of gray powder to people ?” The creature looked naively at him. “Gail don’t like the gray powder. She says I must never eat the gray powder. Do you want some ? Lots of mans here sells some.” Barnard thought. He had seen that girl before. A hunch began to grow in him. “What’s your name?” he asked. “George Melvin,” the idiot said. “George !” It was Gail Melvin’s voice. Barnard saw her in the doorway of Quong Kee’s back room. George went dutifully to her, clutch- ing the coin Barnard had handed him. The girl took his hand and pulled him inside. Barnard regarded the doorway sourly. He looked around Quong Kee’s, caught the glance of the maniac who had attacked him. He took his coat and airpac and left hastily. A T THE communications center he sent another despatch. Nothing much to report, and he knew the boss wouldn’t like it. The System News Service firmly be- lieved that scoops grew on Martian trees and Ron Barnard was expected to pick out a nice one to feed the hungry public. Jingling the change in his pocket, he sensed something wrong, and pulled out the coins for a look. His lucky coin was missing — a rare twentieth century Buffalo nickel. He had given it to the half wit. He fingered the bruises the neoin fiend had made on his face and grinned humor- lessly. The coin hadn’t brought him much luck. He was going into his hotel when he sighted George Melvin shambling down the street. He paused, waiting for the half- wit to reach him. It was cold, and he wanted to get inside, but leads were scarce. He fell into step beside George. “Hello, George,” he said. “Where do you and Gail live?” The half wit looked innocently at him. His airpac was strapped around the collar of his coat. Evidently Gail did not con- sider him intelligent enough even to breathe properly on Mars! Barnard squeezed his own airpac in an automatic motion. Oxygen on Mars was just short of enough for humans. A man would sooner be minus ' his pants than his airpac, though Martian- born humans needed them only at time of exertion. “We live in Chicago.” “Yes — that’s on Earth. But where do you stay on Mars?” “In Chicago on Mars, too.” Barnard looked suspiciously at him. But the vacuous expression certainly was not feigned; George Melvin’s eyes were less intelligent than a fish’s. “Do you stay at Quong Kee’s?” the reporter tried. “Sometimes. At night we go back to Chicago. Where do you stay?” “In the fog, most of the time.” Barnard tried another line. “Where’s Gail now?” “In jail.” George Melvin said it with- out changing his tone or his expression. Barnard siezed his coat front and stared into the dull eyes. “In jail? George, what happened? Who arrested her? Why?” “A man came. A man with a star on his hat — ” “The Space Police!” Barnard released the half-wit. He stared happily toward the gray building of the Space Police. This was something — he felt the hunch too strongly to have any doubt. The story was going to break! The Space Police were relatively new, and it behooved them to be good to the press, for there was still much opposition to their existence. He hesitated a moment, thinking of the lack of enthusiasm with which Commander John Lansfer had re- ceived him. But Lansfer would let him in on the story, or there’d be some hot articles in the newspapers of the System News Service. He pushed another coin into George 6 PLANET Melvin'3 paw. “George, go back to Quong Kee’s and wait until I come. Do you understand? I’m going to find out about Gail.” Watching the half-wit disappear, he felt a pang where his conscience should have been. Somehow he didn’t like the idea of Gail Melvin as a part of this neoin ring. “Hell,” he growled to himself. “I can’t afford to be human. I have a job to do — and the System News Service comes first.” He pushed into a thin cold Martian wind and hurried toward the warmth of the police building. II B ARNARD looked through narrowed eyes at Commander Lansfer of the Space Police, and he knew the man was lying. All his newsman’s instinct told him that the dark-haired, sharp-featured police officer knew more than he was telling. He leaned across the desk. “Commander, I came all the way from Earth to get the inside on this dope ring. Who’s behind it? Where does it come from?” Lansfer shrugged slightly. His face was expressionless, as always. “We are work- ing on the problem,” he said. Barnard made a disgusted gesture. “We know that the outer planets are being flooded with neoin. Mars is full of human wrecks, and half the asterites are using the stuff. If it ever gets loose on Earth, the human race will have a worse enemy than the black plague.” “We will cooperate with the press,” said Lansfer, “as far as it’s practical to do so. In the meantime, you may be sure we’re not sleeping.” “I hope not.” Barnard glared at the policeman and made a mental note to pan the Space Police in his next despatch. “And how does Gail Melvin fit in?” “Gail Melvin is a minor peddler. We’ve nothing on her — just took her in for ques- tioning, to be sure she knew nothing im- portant.” A trace of annoyance shaded his eyes for a moment. “But we took her in quietly. How did you find out about it?” “From my special secret service,” said Barnard dryly. STORIES “Then,” said Lansfer, “your secret ser- vice can tell you the rest of the story. If you’re quite through — ” They stood and for a second faced each other across the desk. Lansfer, six hard feet of spaceman, hard jawed and poker faced. Barnard, six lean flexible feet of newsman, crowding his thermostats. Then Barnard whirled and went out. Standing before the building, he re- flected. No news meant the boss would be sending more spacegrams threatening to fire him — and meaning it. His hunch was still solid on Lansfer’s knowing some- thing. There was something behind the secrecy with which the space police worked, but — There was more than one way to find out. If Lansfer wouldn’t talk, other policemen might. He looked around, found the nearest saloon. Some of the space police had just finished their day’s work. Thought- fully jingling the platinum coins in his pocket, he went into the saloon. Alone at one end of the bar was a patrolman. Barnard took a place beside him and ordered a drink. “H’lo, Remish,” he said. “What’s the news on Gail Melvin?” Remish grinned and shook his head. Barnard felt a slight distaste for what he was about to do. It didn’t seem right. Hje took a balled fist from his pocket and opened it slowly, holding it between himself and the patrolman so that it was not visible to anybody else in the room. He opened it just enough for Remish to see the five Martian platins. Remish turned and faced the row of bottles behind the bar. His face was blank. For a long minute he said nothing. Then : “I don’t like that, Barnard. I could use that as well as anybody. But there’s something I like better.” Barnard hadn’t liked it either. But hell — after some of the police he’d met on the outer planets, he couldn’t help but be cynical. He raised his glass and threw down the drink. “It’s everyday stuff, of course,” Remish conceded. “But I’m going to be one cop who’s different. There’s talk enough now about the Space Patrol — that we’re front- ing for pirates and transporting neoin. And some funny things have been going on.” MI JVD STEALERS OF PLVTO He fingered his glass thoughtfully. “Nothing I can put a definite finger on,” he mused. “But maybe you’re the man who can do it. With the System News Service behind you — ” “I don’t know much,” he went on. “But I’ll play along with you — and I hope I’m doing the right thing. Gail Melvin — the chief had her under a Sokolsky lie detector. Greatest thing in lie detectors yet. She was clear — has no connection with the dope ring.” Barnard caught his breath. Gail Melvin had no connection with the neoin gang? But Lansfer had said she was a minor peddler ? The patrolman stared into his glass of boorsha for a moment, hesitating. He turned again to Barnard. “Another thing. That George Melvin is faking. He’s no more of a half-wit than I am — I hope. When I last saw him, he was on Venus running the swankiest gin mill in Lidice. He and his partner — Quong Kee!” Barnard stared incredulously at the patrolman. “George Melvin faking! Not a chance — he’s just what he seems to be, and I wouldn’t bet any more on a royal flush!” “I know,” Remish shrugged. “And do you want to know something else ? I haven’t been able to find a person who’s seen Quong Kee since he came to Mars!” Barnard slowly put down his drink and left the saloon. H E SAILED into Quong Kee’s, paused cautiously to see that the fiend who had attacked him was sleeping with his head on the table, and plunged through the drapes into the back room. There was an answer to this and he was bound he’d find it. A gray, tired Chinese looked up from behind a desk. His right hand had darted to the edge of the desk when Barnard entered. Thoughtfully, he studied the re- porter and folded his hands. Barnard faced him. “Quong Kee. You and George Barnard were partners at one time.” Quong Kee gazed back coolly, and Barnard saw that he’d learn only what the man decided he should know. After a while Quong Kee nodded. “Yes — Mr. Barnard. George Melvin was — and is — my partner.” “How did you know me?” Barnard demanded. “You never leave this room.” A tired smile flickered over the thin lips. “Earlier this evening I watched Miss Melvin extricate you from a difficult posi- tion. Until she informed me that you were seeking news, I never realized that journalism involved such jeopardy.” Barnard grinned involuntarily. He was beginning to like this Oriental who spoke in cultured tones. Since he realized that threats or bribes would do no good, he gave in to the impulsive liking. “Mind telling me something about Gail Melvin?” he asked. “And about things in general?” Quong Kee peered narrowly at Barnard through half-closed eyes. The reporter wondered uncomfortably if the man used neoin and was studying him with extra sensory faculties, but he swiftly rejected the thought. There was no trace of the drug in Quong Kee’s appearance. Maybe it was natural ESP — or just an old- fashioned sizing-up. “You are very anxious to secure this — scoop, aren’t you, Mr. Barnard?” Barnard thrust his face closer. “Quong Kee,” he said slowly, “I would give my right arm to break this story. I would cut every throat on Mars if it would help me to find out where neoin comes from.” He meant it — almost, anyway. Somehow the thought of cutting Gail Melvin’s throat persisted. He forced the thought back. No price was too high! “I, too, would give much to destroy the drug traffic,” Quong Kee said softly. “George Melvin and I operated an estab- lishment in Lidice, Venus — until neoin appeared. We were doing excellently. But then George became involved in a crusade against the drug peddlers. He found out some things — I do not know exactly what. “But he disappeared. And things began to happen to our establishment. Things like bombs, bullets, poison in the food — I was forced to close and barely escaped with my life.” He picked up the mounted photograph that Barnard had vaguely noticed on the desk and turned it for the reporter to see. Barnard recognized Quong Kee and 8 PLANET — George Melvin! But a George Melvin whose eyes were young and intelligent and flashing with the joy of living! “Gail located him,” said Quong Kee, “through the Missing Persons Division. He was here in Kainor, in the condition in which you saw him tonight. Gail and I packed what we could into George’s space ship, the Chicago, and we came here, where I opened this — ah — place of refresh- ment.” “Chicago,” Barnard mused. “I should have guessed that.” “Gail recognized you standing out there this evening,” said Quong Kee. Again the haunted smile crept over his lips. “I can’t understand her motivation for inter- vening in your quarrel. She told me you were a great reporter who might expose the criminals and she had to save you.” “Isn’t that reason enough?” Barnard demanded suspiciously. “What did she say to him?” “She told him you were a higher-up in the neoin organization and would see that his supply was stopped if he harmed you. A clever girl — but foolish.” Barnard didn’t ask why. “Where is George Melvin now?” he demanded. Before Quong Kee could answer, the pound of heavy feet sounded in the door- way. Barnard whirled and watched the three local policemen march in. “Where’s the body?” asked the leader. Quong Kee’s eyes flickered briefly toward Barnard, and he gestured toward something the newsman hadn’t noticed. In a corner of the room was a bed. With something on it. The policeman yanked a sheet off the something. Barnard felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin- ning to rise. He stared at the body of George Melvin. ff T HAD my men detain everybody,” A Quong Kee told the police. “But the body was discovered close to the door, indicating that the murderer escaped. Several fights were in progress at the time, and it is possible that he was struck by a stray knife, but I doubt it.” “No,” the policeman grunted. “The knife struck upwards and his pockets have been searched.” “Evidently he was enticed into the hall- way for that purpose,” said Quong Kee. STORIES Barnard frowned, watching the police examine the knife that protruded from George Melvin’s chest. Then the dope ring, fearing that he would divulge some- thing, had finished him off. But that didn’t make sense. They had seemed pleased to let him run loose before, probably as an example — why the sudden fear of his talking? He thought suddenly of the new lie detector mentioned by Remish, and wondered if that instrument could reach even into the mind that George Melvin did not have. He stayed close to the police as they made a brief examination, asking a few questions and then closing up their note- books and leaving. It was clear that they didn’t expect to solve the murder. To them it was routine — another derelict knifed by a neoin fiend. The whole thing made Barnard a little sick. He gazed uncomfortably at the corpse. The man had hardly known that he lived, yet — His lucky nickel hadn’t brought much luck lately. It seemed to have turned into a Jonah. He said nothing until the police had departed and the body had been removed. When he and Quong Kee were alone, he asked : “Does Gail know this yet?” “No.” “She’s the only lead now.” A thought made him uncomfortable. “Quong Kee — do you think she’s in danger.” The Chinese shrugged. He looked sud- denly ancient, tired. His weary eyes met Barnard’s. “Since I’ve been on Mars, I’ve never left this room. Call it cowardice or intel- ligence, but I dare not expose myself. They haven’t molested me here — my cur- rent clientele wouldn’t be disturbed by a few bombs, anyway. And here I am protected — you narrowly escaped death when you entered this room.” He ran his hand along the side of his desk. “I could fill this room with the dead- liest rays known to military science. I mention this by way of reminding you that you are not in a friendly game. You stand an excellent chance of being killed, or of losing your mind.” That shocked Barnard for about one second. But he had no time to be both- MIIVD STEALERS OF PLUTO 9 ered with danger. And the System News Service was all-important. “I’ll take the chance,” he said grimly. “Where’s Gail?” Quong Kee’s haunted eyes closed mo- mentarily. “She is on the Chicago. She needs somebody now, Ron Barnard. Go to her. I can’t help; I’m an old man and afraid for my life. You are young and strong. There is danger, but go to her. Even if only for your scoop.” Something in the old man’s voice was hypnotic. Barnard stared at him. “Where is this Chicago ?” he asked. “It’s at Main Spaceport, in the public field. If she is not there, use this key and wait for her.” Barnard rose slowly. He tried to shake a lump out of his throat, cursing himself for going soft. Sitting here listening to an old man mouth sentiment — he shook his head angrily and glared at Quong Kee. “I’ll go,” he said. “But only for the scoop,” III 0 UONG KEE’S faintly cynical smile didn’t make him feel any better. Leaving the place, he glared belligerently at the maniac he had fought with. March- ing to the spaceport, his feelings intensified so that he forgot to walk slowly, the first rule on Mars, and had to hold his airpac to his nostrils all the way. By the time he found the Chicago, his fingers were stiff from holding the instrument. “Damn that living relic of a Quong Kee,” he muttered, changing hands. “Damn everything !” So the girl needed him. He growled at the idea of the Chinese putting the girl ahead of the System News Service. His sense of humor came through then, and he laughed at himself. Ron Barnard, the hardest hearted reporter in the Solar System, was developing a crush on a girl he hardly knew ! He chuckled at his emo- tions as if they were somebody else’s. “If the boys in the city room ever hear of this,” he thought, “they’ll laugh me right off Earth. I’ll have to become a space-beacon keeper.” He stood for a minute sizing up the Chicago. Odd, he reflected, how the human mind before space travel had pictured space craft as wingless and cigar shaped. This rugged model, of an almost forgotten vintage, was short and stubby and wide winged. It scarcely looked space worthy, but the skies were filled with old craft like this one. He used the key Quong Kee had given him and found the ship deserted. The interior was better. He was pleased to find a three-inch layer of Selene between the hulls. The artificial spider silk, closely woven and specially processed, was as tough as any material in existence and it’s insulating qualities couldn’t be matched. In the spotless control cabin he found that the instruments were fully modern. The cabin was globular ; gyroscopes kept the gravity — if any — under its floor. A glance into other compartments brought a whistle to his lips — the Chicago was crammed with fuel and food. Gail Melvin must have prepared this as a permanent home. Two tiny sections were the sleeping quarters of Gail and George Melvin. He poked around them until a feeling of guilt made him stop. He sank into a spongy, bolted-down chair, damning his new-found ethics. He’d straighten out a few things when that female showed up. S HE DIDN’T seem surprised to see him. She glanced his way casually and started tugging off her heavy coat. A gentlemanly impulse almost had him out of his seat to help her, but he stifled it. Her nose was red from the mild summer weather of Mars, and he thought briefly that if hpr cheeks were a little fuller, she would probably be more or less good looking. As a matter of plain fact, she was too damned skinny. She must spend most of her time worrying about her brother. She was taller than he had thought, but still looked slight and helpless. And hopeless as well. Her shoulders drooped a little as she faced him. “I saw Quong Kee,” she said. “Oh — I’m sorry about your brother.” He hesitated. “Have you any idea who did it?” He almost squirmed when she looked at him. The expression in her eyes was not entirely friendly. 10 PLANE T “I have ideas,” she said. “And they’re not nice.” Her eyes were dark and smoldering now. “They questioned George with a new type of lie detector — Skolssolky or some such name. I wasn’t supposed to know — ” Barnard’s eyebrows went up. “The po- lice questioned George? Somebody must have found out!” Gail dropped her coat over the back of another chair and sat on the chair. She was pale and her eyes were haggard. “When I found the police had picked him up,” she said, “I took an espine pill and became en rapport with him.” She pressed her slender fingers against her temples. “I’m tired . . . espine isn’t as bad as neoin, of course, but it has a strong reaction. They found out some things from George that I’d never been able to find out. “This instrument reaches deeper into the subconscious than anything ever used be- fore. Even so, everything was vague. But George had been on Pluto. Somehow he’d followed the neoin trail there ; how, I don’t know. “But on Pluto, they did something to him. They took his mind and made him like a new-born child. His brain was perfectly blank. I’ve been teaching him as I’d teach an infant — but he was so slow learning.” “Pluto — ” Barnard stared. “Then neoin comes from Pluto. Lansfer knows this — ” He looked at the girl and damned his conscience again. There was a first aid box set into the wall, and he found a bottle of brandy in it. A small black bottle was there. He noted the label — Espine, another outlawed drug the authorities tolerated for emergency purposes. Not habit-forming, but continued use of it would soften the brain and wreck the nerve centers. He slammed the cabinet door on the black bottle. She had reason to be tired. He made her drink the brandy. She spoke softly, between sips. “When I heard that, I determined to go to Pluto. If something there could take my brother’s intelligence away, we might be able to reverse the process.”- “Or lose your own,” Barnard murmured. STORIES “When Quong Kee told me about the — George, it changed all that, of course. There was no need to go to Pluto.” “You’ve got your nerve,” Barnard growled. “You speak very calmly about invading Pluto single handed.” Definitely, Pluto was no place for her. But he had to be in on the kill. Would Lansfer cooperate? “Miss Melvin,” he said, “I’ll have to see the Space Police, find out if they’ll take me with them. I suspect they won’t. So I’m going to cable my boss for money, and if it’s all right with you, I’ll charter this ship — ” “I’ll be very happy,” she said, “to take you with me to Pluto — so you can get your story.” He stared. “But — you mean you still intend to go to Pluto? What possible reason could you have now?” HE REACHED for her coat and dug into the sleeve. Barnard blinked when three of her fingers came out at the shoulder. “That hole,” she said, “was made by a bullet. Somebody took a shot at me on the way over here, and I’ve been fol- lowed. Evidently they’ve decided I know too much. I’ll never step out that door alive.” She indicated a red pane of glass on the instrument panel. “If that glows, they’re approaching the ship. Be ready to give them a warning blast from the rockets.” Barnard thought wistfully of the gun he had left in his hotel room. “That means I’m here for keeps, too. But you can’t go to Pluto. I’ll drop you off at another Martian city — or on some other planet that’s on our route.” “Did you ever operate a space ship?” she asked. “No, but—” She shook her head. “Besides, they have agents everywhere. My life isn’t worth a counterfeit milliplatin. So I might just as well go to Pluto.” Barnard sprang to life as the detector signal glowed deep red. He leaped to the handles of the rocket jets, prepared to throw out a warning blast. There was a pounding on the hull. “Open up, in there ! It’s the Space Police !” MfVD STEALERS OF PLUTO 11 “That’s Lansfer’s voice.” Barnard hesitated at the lock. “That means we’re safe — or does it? Is this ship ready to take off?” “Yes—” “Then — just on a hunch — get at the con- trol board — ” He closed the inner door of the lock behind him before he opened the outer. No use silhouetting himself against the lighted interior. Lansfer almost lost his poker face. “You! You’ll get into trouble, Barnard, if you’re not careful. What are you doing here?” “Guest of Miss Melvin, commander. And you?” The officer indicated a paper. Barnard noted that his other hand remained close to his holster. “We’re impounding this ship. The Space Police can’t be responsible for old wrecks endangering human life and limb on the spaceways.” “Very thoughtful of the Space Police all of a sudden,” said Barnard. There were two other patrolmen with Lansfer, he saw. Remish and a red-haired man he knew to be named Grady. His searching eyes picked out several shadowy figures lurking at corners of the field. He looked again at Lansfer. “You have our word,” he said, “that this ship is to be used only as living quarters by Miss Melvin.” Lansfer stared coolly up at him. “This court order calls for the Chicago to be de- livered immediately into the custody of the sheriff and auctioned for scrap. You and Miss Melvin will leave it immediately.” Barnard nodded agreeably. “All right, commander. We’ll leave — right now.” Lansfer relaxed. He was about two feet below Barnard, the platform being that high from the ground. Barnard reached out carefully with his foot and shoved. The spaceman flew backwards into Grady, and the two of them crashed to the frozen ground. Barnard pulled the door swiftly. Lansfer was clawing for his gun and shouting for Remish to stop them. Remish’s gloved fingers fumbled as he drew and the outer door was closed before he fired. Barnard grinned as the bullets bounced off the door. That hull was more than tough enough to handle all the bullets the Space Police could throw at it. “Get off the ground, Gail,” he shouted. He slammed the inner door of the lock and swayed with the control room globe as the rockets went into action. The ship jumped forward a few feet, balked for a moment. Gail threw a lever that opened the shutters. They saw the three police- men scrambling madly to both sides as the Chicago started roaring down the field. They blasted away and left the ground, the police still firing after them. Barnard clung to a bolted-down chair as they lurched wildly. Gail pointed the nose up until the ship would have been hanging from its props, if it had any. “That’s all we needed,” said Barnard, sourly. “We’re both outlaws now — fair game for anybody. Our only hope is to break the dope ring. And Lansfer, if we can.” She looked distastefully at him. “That would make a good story, wouldn’t it? Daring reporter defies police ; smashes neoin ring. Of course, there might be some opposition.” “Which way is Pluto ?” he asked, chang- ing the subject. “I haven’t the faintest idea. Hand me that book — the big one — ” IV B ARNARD found that space navigation was more complex than he had thought. He watched in grudging admira- tion as the girl rejected course after course. Finally she looked up at him and frowned. “We have to go sunward — the sun is almost directly between us and Pluto. We can get there fast, and speed is our best bet to evade the Space Police. But it’ll be dangerous.” “I’ll take the chance,” said Barnard. “But don’t be reckless with your own life. How many months will it take?” “About four days.” He stared suspiciously at her. “It took me fourteen days from Earth to Mars. What’s this crate got that the Inner Planets Line hasn’t?” She smiled. “For a great reporter, you don’t know much. They could make the Earth-Mars run in a day — but that’s where the danger comes in. If a rock gets in their 12 PLANET path, they have to be traveling slow enough for the detectors to find it and change the course. That’s done automatically, but we haven’t powerful enough detectors yet to handle high speeds.” “Oh, a job for the instrument makers?” Barnard was beginning to realize his ig- norance. “You could put it that way. The chance of hitting anything big enough to hurt a space ship is small, of course, but with hundreds of ships in space, there would be a lot of wrecks if they all went as fast as we’re going to go!” T HEY plunged almost directly into the sun, nose forward to cut down the radiant energy. Gail sat in a sea of charts and tables, calling out instructions to Barn- ard, who was learning to handle the con- trols. She kept the rockets blazing, and before many hours had passed they could almost see the sun growing in size. In the growing warmth, the reporter dozed off to a restless, nightmarish sleep. He awoke with a start to find himself soggy with perspiration, his bones aching. Gail, hunched over her figures, looked up and grinned impishly. “Warm?” she asked. “The cooling units are going full blast. The vision plates are all shuttered, but if you want to look, I’ve swung dark glass into place.” She gestured to one of the darkened vision plates, and her fingers slid to a button that opened the shutters. Barnard looked and closed his eyes when he saw the monstrous body that was the sun. “I’ve seen enough,” he assured her. “Where are we?” “Inside the orbit of Mercury. We’ll be closer before we’re farther away.” Barnard studied her. At the most dan- gerous part of their journey, where space was filled with cosmic debris plunging into the sun, she had lost her hunted look and worked with a graceful nonchalance. She seemed actually to be enjoying the whole thing. The murderous forces of radiant energy pounded at and through the heavily insu- lated hulls. Barnard mopped his sweat- soaked face and waited for the metal of the space ship to ignite. He stared at the girl and wondered how she could be so happy and poised, though she was as be- STORIES draggled as he was. Was her mind gone, too? He decided so when she told him, much later : “Congratulations, Mr. Barnard. Right now you and I are closer to the sun than any other human beings ever have been — ” He studied her face. She stared through the darkened glass into the inferno. "Except,” she said thoughtfully, “for a few unfortunate ex- peditions that fell into it.” T HEN they were starting to recede. The Chicago was inside the eccentric orbit of Vulcan, and starting to plunge away from the sun. The tremendous velocity they had been building up was far more powerful than the titanic pull of the sun’s gravitational field. Gradually, the temperature went down to a cool 100 de- grees, and the two humans, limp and worn, took turns catnapping. Barnard lugged can after can of fuel for the tanks. The motors pounded con- stantly, building up greater and greater velocity. At timed intervals, Gail took sights of the visible planets to check their speed. Their course curved far above the plane of the ecliptic. No passage through the asteroid belt at this speed 1 That was Gail’s main worry. “We’re veering out of the crowded belt, but there’re stray asteroids far from the ecliptic plane. If we pass that region, we’ll be in fairly empty space, and more or less safe, except for the Space Police.” Barnard raised his eyebrows. “Space Police? How could they trace us at this speed ?” “We’re as obvious as a green spaced Venusian in New York,” she told him. “It’s the speed — we’re actually tearing up space. Lanfer’s instruments could pick us out from a hundred million miles. But that’s a lot of room.” She glanced slyly at him. “Now you can write science articles for the Sunday supplements.” “Lay off me,” he begged. His questing fingers found a cigarette as the clock ticked over to the hour. Smokes were rationed in space. He lit up and drew smoke into his hungry lungs, then passed the cigarette to Gail. “At least,” he said, “I have a job to do MAD STEALERS OF PLUTO 13 on Pluto, which is more than you can say. What are you going there for?” She passed the cigarette back. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said. Barnard stared silently at her. She looked strangely happy, plunging toward God-knew-what evils on far Pluto! He felt suddenly disgusted with the whole af- fair. They were two fools, defying the Space Police for the right to seek certain death. “Gail,” he said, “don’t go through with it. Slow the ship down and get off at the nearest human settlement — one of the Jovian moons, or Titan. I can handle this ship now. My syndicate will pay — ” The entire universe exploded then. He pounded brutally into the concave walls, whirling end over end as the ship spun madly out of control. His head crashed as the spherical control room escaped its gyro- scopes and he fought desperately against crushing blackness. Gail — was she man- gled, killed? There was a senseless spin- ning, and then it was dark . . . dark . . . H E FOUGHT his way out of the blackness. Something was searing his throat ... he coughed in agony and the shock brought him partly to his senses. Gail was pouring brandy into him. He saw her by the hard glare of the battery- run light. She was bruised and her cover- alls were torn, but she was alive. He came to his feet and gripped her arms. “Gail ?” Then he stopped. Her eyes were pained and misting. She swayed and collapsed in his arms. For a moment he was frantic. What to do? He carried her to her room, made her comfortable. Fervently, he hoped no bones were broken. But after a few min- utes she opened her eyes and made a face at him. “I’m not hurt,” she said dreamily. “Just a sissy. Go and see what happened.” Gratefully, he watched her relax. Pie rubbed his hands thoughtfully and studied the damage in the control room. The meteor couldn’t have hit very hard — they would have been killed without knowing it. A mere graze! He reached out fearfully and cut off the blazing rockets. The vision plates were blackened — no way of knowing which way they were going. That was his first job, then — to unshut- ter the vision plates. He reviewed his knowledge of the mechanism. Evidently the master switch that controlled them all had been short-circuited. The switch was in the very tail of the ship. He crawled through the hold and into the tiny com- partment in the tail. His pocket flash picked out the switch, * and he made with the screw driver. A few seconds later he looked proudly through the opened plate, feeling like a master mechanic. But he didn’t feel so happy when he saw a swifter-moving point of light in the star-filled sky. A spaceship was closing in on the Chi- cago. And goose pimples rose on his arms when he recognized it as the police ship of Commander Lansfer. He had to get back to the control room. The police ship was coming in at a half mile a second, relative to them. What both ships were doing relative to the sys- tem he didn’t know, or care. On his hands and knees in the close cubby, he scrambled around to get back to the control room. But already it was too late. Invisible beams of magnetic force leaped into life between the two vessels, as the law ship clamped down with its Duvals. Barnard was pitched heavily forward as the beams seized the Chicago. His head crashed into something hard, and he fell into a relaxed bundle. V I T WAS COLD, and he was beating his way out of a frozen death. He fought his way up from the floor, a sluggish chill in the marrow of his bones. Frigid . . . and he was sinking back. Remembrance shocked him into wake- fulness. He stared from the port before his face. The police ship was there, clamped by invisible forces to the Chicago. Dully, he watched the fore rockets blasting for deceleration. Deceleration — ? That brought him to frantic life. Were they nearing Pluto? How long had 'he been out ? And — why was it so cold ? His teeth and knees still chattering, he 14 PLANET wriggled down the narrow passage, pushed his light before him into the room where he had left Gail. He stared wildly. She was gone. Then the police had come aboard while he was unconscious and taken her aboard their vessel. Back in the control room, he stood help- lessly for a few seconds, his mind starting to black out again. No power — the ship was leaking its heat into space. His numbed fingers found the right switches. Heat started to seep into the room, and life seemed to flow back into his body. But Gail — what of her ? His distrust of the solemn-faced Lansfer became suddenly more intense. He had to find out — and he was separated from the police ship by fifty feet that might as well have been miles. There was another way. He fumbled in the medicine kit, snatched the black bottle labeled " Espine He’d take a pill, even if it killed him in his weakened con- dition, and use ESP to find out what went on aboard the other vessel. He tore the stopper from the container and turned it upside down over his palm. Nothing came out. He cursed the empty bottle fervently, because already the only other answer was coming to his mind. He almost tried not to think of it. But this was emergency. In one of his pockets he found the tiny packages of neoin he had bought while cultivating the peddlers on Mars. There was a tiny pinch of gray powder in the paper he tore open. One gram — a normal dose. Full strength, he was sure — the stuff was seldom cut. He hesitated. Even one dose of the drug created a craving for more. He vowed grimly that this first taste would be his last. But this made his fight personal. He must destroy the source of neoin in sheer self-defense ! Before the gray powder was past his tonsils, he knew he had taken too much for a beginner. A fantastic lift, a great self-confidence almost sent his mind out of the world. Grimly he fought to keep down the giddy exhilaration, and let his thoughts search for Lansfer’s ship. He had trouble coordinating his thoughts, because of the tendency of his drugged STORIES mind to stray. But he caught the control room of the police ship. Carefully, he kept away from the minds of the four people there. There was an added lift when he perceived Gail, small and defiant, facing Commander Lansfer. It was Barnard’s first experience in ex- tra-sensory perception. With all the power of his will, he focussed his thoughts on the scene. Gail was speaking. “I tell you,” she said, “the reporter is on Earth. He said something about hav- ing a big lead. I took the ship into Earth’s atmosphere and he bailed out in a para- chute. I was glad to be rid of him.” B ARNARD hoped that what she said was entirely untrue. “You say — ” Lansfer’s face was without expression — “that he forced you to do this?” “I said no such thing,” Gail told him. “And if you’re going to twist my state- ments, I’ll say nothing more.” Lansfer’s palm flicked out and Gail’s head reeled. A vivid patch of red appeared on her cheek. Barnard’s fingers tightened around the spongy arms of his chair. The commander turned swiftly to Remish and Grady. None of the officers noticed — but Barnard did — that Gail’s fingers were sliding along the control board. “Barnard is aboard that ship,” Lansfer snapped. “You two couldn’t have searched very thoroughly. This girl is lying — she couldn’t possibly have slowed down enough to let Barnard ’chute to Earth, and still have come this far.” Remish looked uncertain. “Commander — you’re the boss here, but — ” “But what?” Lansfer barked. Remish’s eyes darted briefly to where the red welts stood out on Gail’s cheek. He licked his lips and for a second his gaze met Grady’s. For a moment he hesi- tated, then faced Lansfer again. He shrugged briefly. “Never mind,” he said. “We’ll talk' it over at headquarters later.” Lansfer lost some of his poise. He glared at the two patrolmen. “You two get back to the Chicago. Find Barnard and bring him to me!” Barnard saw Gail’s hand hovering over the tiny bar. Suddenly he was shocked. He realized that the bar controlled the 15 1HI1VD STEALERS OF PLUTO Duvals — the magnetic beams that pinned the two ships together. Then she had felt his presence and was waiting for a signal from him. He shouted the thought: “No!” Swiftly she disobeyed him, and twisted the bar. In almost the same instant she snatched the gun from Lansfer’s holster. She backed away a step and leveled it at the officer. “Turn this ship around,” she ordered. “We're going back to Mars.” Lansfer’s narrowed eyes peered at the control board where she had disconnected the grapples. He turned to the girl. His voice was flat, sullen. “Give me that gun.” “No.” She backed away another step and he followed, hand reaching. Her face became paler. Lansfer stopped and stared into her eyes. His eyes were compelling, hypnotic. She stood motionless and tried to shake the effect. Lansfer moved a step closer. Reinish’s hand gently removed the gun from her fingers. Barnard swore disgustedly. Why had Gail cut the grapples ? She must have some fool idea that he could beat the police to Pluto, win out on his own. Maybe he could. There were only two little difficulties involved. First, he didn’t know where Pluto was, or how to find it. Second — the planet was Earth-size, and where on its millions of square miles of surface was whatever he wanted ? The second problem was partly solved. From Lansfer’s mind he had a vague pic- ture of a vast white sea, trapped in a ring of white mountains that knifed into a black sky. From Lansfer’s mind — ! Even in his neoin jag, a jolt came to him. How did Lansfer know that? Frantically, his thoughts speared back to the police ship. But it was too far now — only con- fused fragments came. But one image brought him to his feet, sobered and fearful for Gail’s safety. Wildly he searched space for the magenta blasts of the police ship’s rockets. Because his extra-sensory perception brought one clear image. In Lansfer’s pocket he had perceived the ancient twen- tieth century coin he had given to George Melvin. VI H IS FEVERED eyes studied tlie vision plate. Pluto — since they had been pointing toward it, must be ahead. He held his hand over a button, and cross hairs appeared on the plate. At the junction of the hairs was nothing. tout he found a grayish blob larger than the others at the edge of the plate. Ex- perimentally, he turned in the rockets and headed for it. It moved steadily to the right, so it must be the planet. Several hours later he was circling Pluto, searching grimly for the landmarks. A coating of frozen air covered everything — Pluto’s last snow. Luck was with him, for he had only half-circled the globe when he saw' what he wanted. There was no mistaking the scene. His pulse leaped as he dived inexpertly down. Down past the snow sheathed peaks, into a great snow filled valley. He leveled off over the plain and brought his vessel to the surface in the thin solar illumination. He didn’t know that landing on an airless planet was a feat for an expert pilot ; neither did he realize that he was landing with blazing rocket jets on frozen air. But the luck of beginners was with him. He plowed a mile through the icy crust and jolted to a stop. In his wake vast masses of freshly vapo- rized air clouded the valley and started to freeze again. Barnard’s eyebrows lifted when he looked out. “A snowstorm,” he marveled. He glared at the mountain wall a hundred yards distant. There was a structure there, of human origin. A squat building from around which the snow had been cleared. George Melvin’s space suit was too short for him, but he worked into it. Over the boots he fitted snow shoes. There was no sign of life from the shack, so he went out the lock and started trudging the hun- dred yards. Inside the space suit, his footsteps were distant crunchings — eerie misfits in this noiseless dead world! Still there was no indication of life from the building ahead. He noted that it was flush against the cliff wall. Was there a cave behind? A sudden craving for neoin filled him. He cursed and went forward more grimly. If 16 PLANET this was the source of the drug, he must destroy it. The door was unlocked. He hesitated, then stepped inside cautiously. He glanced back once. The snow was still falling. His light revealed a small room. It was bare, except for a few tins of food and some motor parts. He frowned, wonder- ing. Had he stumbled onto an innocent government post? There was a door leading back. Then his guess was right — this was a cave. He tried the door. It opened smoothly; and he followed his light in. There was a corridor. He paused for a moment, an instinctive fear bringing cold goose pimples. Something was here — something terribly alien, and terribly deadly. He waited, his heart pounding viciously. But nothing happened. Slowly he moved forward. On his right was a door. He reached to open it, but a strange reluctance made him leave it for the time being and continue on. The corridor ended in stairs, going down. He started down, his knees weak. Be- fore he reached the bottom, he saw what was below, the floor of the great under- ground room was covered with a gray powder. Neoin! VII K NEE DEEP in it, he stared at the tons of the deathly drug piled around him. This was it! The cache from which misery and nightmare death was dispensed to the human race! But what was its origin ? One huge heap of the gray dust rose half way to the twenty-foot ceiling of the crypt. His eyes caught the tiny disturb- ance at the peak of the pile, and followed a thin stream of the falling dust to the ceiling. The neoin came from above, then. And the door he had passed in the corridor above must lead to the place where the drug was formed. He plodded back up the stairs. Before the door he stopped, that chill fear again speeding his pulse. A racial fear of something not human, not of Earth, palsied him. He wanted a dose of neoin — His curse broke the spell and he flung STORIES the door open. He was inside, poking his flash into the distant corners of the huge cave. It must be two hundred yards to the far wall. The roof was fifty feet above. On the sloping floor was a film of neoin dust. In a corner was a rocket motor, turning senselessly. It served no apparent purpose. But he backed away. “Nothing here,” he murmured. Still the feel of alien life persisted. Suddenly in an unreasoning panic, he whirled for the door. And felt himself hurled back. Cold, slimy fingers seemed to be feeling inside his brain. He struck out at empty space, his involuntary scream pounding in his ears. The questing feeler went deeper into him and he staggered helplessly back until he rested against the cave wall. A chaotic jumble of thoughts whirled in his semi-consciousness. He felt that he was George Melvin, who had stowed aboard a ship belonging to a hard faced police officer. Ron Barnard fought back with a defiant blast of his will and for a moment the creeping things stopped. He was suddenly sober, for he knew that this was where George Melvin had lost his mind. These creatures — whatever they were — possessed all of George’s thoughts. And those thoughts included Lansfer. Lansfer was the man behind the neoin or- ganization. The things were back. He stiffened his knees, made himself rigid against the wall. Sharp pain lanced through his temples as the weird struggle continued. Desperately he fought the hungry tentacles that wiggled into his thought centers. One after another, he forced back the alien thrusts. But each time, the creatures took something with them . . . some part of him. He was losing. Soon he would be an- other George Melvin ... a drooling idiot. Already he was slipping. The feelers pushed themselves inexorably in. He noticed vaguely that his light was gone — somehow he knew that they had drained the juice from his battery. In the dark he stood swaying, waiting for the end. Suddenly he was aware that it was light. He gazed dully toward its source, saw that a silver-helmeted figure was approaching. MIND STEALERS OF PLUTO 17 Lansfer. The officer’s hard face relaxed a little in a short chuckle. “So you’ve found my secret, Ron Barn- ard. And you’re wishing you hadn’t — if you still have the wits to wish.” His eyes behind the faceplate were mock- ing. “My little friends were hungry. They aren’t of this solar system, Barnard — they’re true energy creatures, barely visible if you have good eyes. I was at- tacked by them while alone in a patrol ship — fortunate for me that I found out in time that silver renders them inert.” Barnard’s slow moving mind noted the silver covering over Lansfer’s helmet. He found himself on his knees, clutching un- intelligently at the neoin dust on the floor. The struggle in his mind had died out, as if the creatures had retreated unwillingly before the silver. “I brought them to this cave,” Lansfer went on. “You see the rocket motor in the corner — they live on energy and for the cost of a little fuel I get neoin by the ton ! Neoin is the waste product of their life cycle! Matter from energy — with liv- ing machines !” The officer motioned toward the door. His stubby gun was in his hand. “You’ll come back here, Barnard. A human mind is a rare treat for my helpers. But get out now and let your girl friend see what’s happened to you. The two of you forced my hand. Now I’ll have to get rid of Remish and Grady. It’s time for action — my days as a policeman are over.” His eyes were hungry. “I have gold here, Barnard. And platinum and radium. Neoin has made me rich. The next step is power — I have enough to buy Mars and Venus, and next I’ll bring neoin to Earth. In a few years I’ll be running the solar system. Wouldn’t you like to print that?” Dully, Barnard preceded him out. His brain was slow responding, as if he were drugged. Permanently drugged. But his will seemed left, as if the .energy creatures had been eating away the pillars of his driving force when they could not beat it down directly. “Silver in the door,” said Lansfer, clos- ing it behind him. “They can’t escape. Keep moving.” Back in the shack, Lansfer motioned him to a corner and peered out. More 2— Planet Stories— Winter snow was falling and three space suited figures were coming through it. Lansfer touched a switch and machinery began to throb. The room filled swiftly with air and warmth, and Lansfer removed his helmet and struggled out of his space suit. Gun in hand, he stood facing the double doors. Barnard’s gloved fingers were clenched. He gazed dully at his right palm, saw it filled with neoin he had unwittingly scooped up when he had clawed wildly in the cave of the energy creatures. He felt the craving coming back as he stared at it. Gail came through the lock, followed closely by Remish and Grady. They stopped when they saw the gun in Lans- fer’s hand. “What happens, chief ?” demanded Rem- ish. His hand was near his own holster. “And what is this place?” “First, drop your guns,” Lansfer in- structed. “Then take off your space gear.” The two patrolmen unbuckled their belts. Gail stared at Barnard. “Ron — they’ve done it to you!” There was a sob in her voice. “I should never have got you into this — ” Barnard’s eyes focussed stupidly on the girl. His thoughts came slowly. But the energy creatures had not finished their work — he was marshaling the mind power he had left, and a sullen anger was growing in him. With the slyness that often belongs to simple minded people, his gaze went to the handful of neoin, then to Lansfer, measuring the distance. Eight . . . ten feet. He pretended to stagger, came a little closer. Lansfer chuckled contemptfully. Gail was at his side. He reached out as if to push her away, and the same motion his hand shot out, releasing the neoin squarely into Lansfer’s face. I N THAT split second, Lansfer’s eyes widened in horror. His hands streaked to his face to keep the gray death from his lips and nostrils. Remish was across the room, batting the gun from his hands. While Lansfer still dashed the neoin away from him, Remish and Grady had guns trained on him. “Now,” said Grady, grimly, “what’s this all about, Barnard?” Barnard told them haltingly. He still 18 PLANET had sense enough to realize that his I. Q. was down about fifty per cent. His career as the top reporter of the system was done . . . all he had left was a grim determina- tion. He picked up the silver helmet, fitted it over his head. “Ron — ?” Gail’s eyes were shocked. “What are you going to do?’’ He turned silently, and they followed him to the door of the cave. He turned to Remish. “I’m going back in there,” he said. “No!” Gail clutched at his arms. “Don’t, Ron you’ll be George all over again, and I couldn’t stand that — ” He bent down and kissed her, then pushed her gently aside. He looked at Remish. The policeman hesitated. “You owe me this much,” said Barnard. “You’re putting me on a spot,” Remish growled. “But go ahead, if you must.” As Barnard started to close the door behind him, he was thrown to the floor by Lansfer’s sudden rush. The hard faced policeman threw a bolt over the door, then dived on Barnard, clutching for the helmet. The reporter fought back instinctively. His feet went into Lansfer as the other dived on him. He rose as far as his knees and delivered short solid punches to the body as Lansfer clawed desperately for the silver band. Suddenly Lansfer stiffened with an ex- pression of utter horror and fell away. For a minute Barnard watched, build- ing up his own strength. Then he tore STORIES the helmet from his head, hurled it far from him. “Come on, you devils,” he growled. “I want my mind back.” When Barnard dragged Lansfer out of the cave, his eyes were bright, and a happy grin was on his face. The first thing he saw was Gail, utterly miserable against a wall of the corridor. The first thing he did was kiss her amazed face. “You’re the boss now,” he told the equally amazed Remish. “If you’ll take a suggestion, let’s find Lansfer’s hoard and throw all the silver coins into that cave. That should put an end to the energy creatures.” Remish looked distastefully at the drool- ing thing that had been Lansfer and hol- stered his gun. He nodded. “And we’ll bring the rest of his treasure back to civilization. We can use it to re- habilitate neoin addicts.” He looked hopefully at Barnard. “When you print this, you won’t be too hard on the Space Police? We could use some favorable publicity — ” Barnard was whispering to Gail. Both were grinning widely. Barnard turned his grin to Remish. “We love the Space Police,” he assured the officer. “Now, as the highest official on this planet, you have the power to marry people. If you’ll hurry up, we’ll be start- ing back to Earth on our honeymoon.” He was suddenly thoughtful. “And maybe to do a column or two for the Sys- tem News Service!” * FOR YOURSELF, FOR YOUR FAMILY * * FOR AMERICA! * * FOR VICTORY! * * BUY MORE WAR BONDS NOW! S * ★★★★★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★★★★★★' Doorway to Kal-Jmar By Stuart Fleming Two men had died before Syme Rector’s gnns to give him the key to the ancient city of Kal-Jmar— a city of nntold wealth, and of robots that made desires instant commands. Illustration by ANDERSON T HE TALL MAN loitered a moment he turned, burying his long chin in the before a garish window display, his folds of his sand cape, and took up the eyes impassive in his space-burned pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more, face, as the Lillis patrolman passed. Then Above, the city’s multicolored lights were 19 20 PLANET reflected from the translucent Dome — a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the stars shone dimly. Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he had an- other, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city, after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman’s identity card, and he had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country, and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough. They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw — the very fact of the crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they didn’t know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most- feared raider in the System. In that was his only advantage. He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman’s harness disappeared over the top of the ramp, and then followed. The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel. Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite young, Syme saw, with a fight- er’s shoulders under the white leather, and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw. ‘’All right,” the boy said quietly. “What is it?” “I don’t understand,” Syme said. “The game, the angle. You’ve been fol- lowing me. Do you want trouble?” “Why, no,” Syme told him bewilderedly. “I haven’t been following you. I — ” The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. “You could be lying,” he said finally. “But maybe I’ve made a mistake.” Then — “Okay, citizen, you can clear — but don’t let me catch you on my tail again.” Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman’s eyes on the small of his back until he turned tire corner. STORIES At the next street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side a block away. He waited until he saw the boy’s broad figure pass the inter- section, and then followed again more cautiously. It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data, even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands on it, but the iden- tity card itself — that oblong of dark dia- mondite, glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity — that could not be imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill. Up ahead was the Founders’ Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation platform, and took the ele- vator. As soon as his car was out of sight in the transparent tube, Syme fol- lowed. He put a half-credit slug into the machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator whisked him up. T HE TOWER was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside. The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim, deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the silent figure. It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme’s passage in the still air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift, instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme’s pistol spat its silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest. Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms and thrust it over the parapet. DOORWAY TO KAL-JMAR 21 It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist. Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late, he realized what had happened — one of the hooks on the dead spaceman’s harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was falling, linked to the body of his victim ! Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm, felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a little and Syme’s fingers slipped a little with each motion. Gritting his teeth, he brought the mag- nificent muscles of his arm into play, rais- ing the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body. Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished. The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost lost his slip- pery hold on the balustrade. After a mo- ment he heard the spaceman’s body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below. He swung up his other arm, got a bet- ter grip on the balustrade. He tried cau- tiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold on for another minute at most ; then it was the final blast-off. He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge at him. He realized suddenly that the whole inci- dent could have taken only a few seconds. He croaked, “Get me up.” Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety. “Are you all right?” S YME looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy hair, a sharp nose, and — oddly conflicting — pale, serious eyes and a humorous wide mouth. He was still panting. “I’m not hurt,” Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his dark, lean face. “Thanks for giving me a hand.” “You scared hell out of me,” said the man. “I heard a thud. I thought — you’d gone over.” He looked at Syme ques- tioningly. “That was my bag,” the outlaw said quickly. “It slipped out of my hand, and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it.” The man sighed. “I need a drink. You need a drink. Come on.” He picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the elevator, then stopped. “Oh — your bag. Shouldn’t we do something about that?” “Never mind,” said Syme, taking his arm. “The shock must have busted it wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now.” They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a cafe around the corner. Syme wasn’t worried about the man he had just killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn’t be found until morning. And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of culcha, he took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There it was — his ticket to free- dom. He began feeling expansive, and even friendly toward the slender, mouse- like man across the table. It was the culcha, of course. He knew it, and didn’t care. In the morning he’d find a freighter berth — in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone. He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall, graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat. “Lissen,” said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped, caught him- self, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. “Lissen,” he said again, “I trust you, Jones. You’re obvi-obviously an adventurer, but you have an honest face. I can’t see it very well at the moment, but I hie! — pardon — seem to recall it as an honest face. I’m going to tell you something, because I need 22 PLANET your help! — help.” He paused. “I need a guide. D’you know this part of Mars well?” “Sure,” said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were div- ing and twisting in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their delicately- webbed feet and trailing long gauzy stream- ers of synthesilk after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feel- ing the glow of culcha inside him. “I wanta go to Kal-Jmar,” said Tate. Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense, a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big was coming — something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector. “Why?” he asked softly. “Why to Kal-Jmar?” Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms, he showed him what was in his little black suit- case. Syme had been right ; it was big. K AL-JMAR was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining city of the ancient Martian race — the race that, legends said, had risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines, the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many thousands of years. But they couldn’t be reached. For Kal-Jmar’s dome was not the thing of steelite that protected Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew anything about them or about Kal-Jmar. In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall. Later, however, when every unsuccess- ful attempt had precipitated a bloody up- rising of the present-day Martians — result- STORIES ing in a rapid dwindling of the number of Martians — the Mars Protectorate had stepped in and forbidden any further ex- periments; forbidden, in fact, any Earth- man to go near the place. Thus matter had stood for over a hun- dred years, until Harold Tate. Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a force that would break it down. And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits on his sleek, tigerish head. Syme’s smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild. For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not occur to him that he had been indiscreet. “This is native territory we’re coming to, Harold,” he said. “Better strap on your gun.” “Why. Are they really dangerous ?” “They’re unpredictable,” Syme told him. “They’re built differently, and they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns where there’s air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that way.” “Yes, I’ve heard about that,” Tate said. “Iron oxide — very interesting metabolism.” He got his energy pistol out of the com- partment and strapped it on absently. Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous hill coun- try in the distance. “Not only that,” he continued. “They eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the deserts — all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to xopite. They seem in- telligent enough — in their own way — but they never come near our cities and they either can’t or won’t learn Terrestrial. When the first colonists came here, they had to learn their crazy language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some, but not much. Nobody can. We don’t think the same.” “So you think they might attack us?” Tate asked again, nervously. “They might do anything,” Syme said curtly. “Don’t worry about it.” DOORWAY TO KAL-JMAR 23 The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars’ deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again on the other side. S YME stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared across their path. “Gully,” he announced. “Shall we cross it, or follow it?” Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. “Follow, I guess,” he offered. “It seems to go more or less where we’re going, and if we cross it we’ll only come to a couple dozen more.” Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike was in and would bear the car’s weight, and Syme started the car over the edge. As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides as they descended. Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground again and the cable reeled in. Tate had been watching with interest. “Very ingenious,” he said. “But how do we get up again?” “Most of these gullies peter out grad- ually,” said Syme, “but if we want or have to climb out where it’s deep, we have a little harpoon gun that shoots the anchor up on top.” “Good. I shouldn’t like to stay down here for the rest of my natural life. De- pressing view.” He looked up at the nar- row strip of almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his head. Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their harpoon gun. .They had traveled no more than five hun- dred meters, and the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted, “Look out !” and grabbed for the nearest steering lever. The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the gully. Syme was saying, What — ?” when there was a thunderous crash that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into the ground immediately to their left. When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread of the sand car was crushed beyond all recog- nition. Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate said, “I guess we walk from here on.” Then he looked up again and caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully toward them. “My God!” he said. “What are those?” Syme looked. “Those,” he said bitterly, “are Martians.” The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn’t see how many legs they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece — or, more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large as they ap- peared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the bloodstream. Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise; or, con- versely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now they were mostly black. The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears, although some had the slim Benson energy guns — strictly forbid- den to Martians. Syme stopped cursing and watched 24 PLACET tensely. Tate said nothing, but he swal- lowed audibly. One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience, could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same spot long enough. ON,” Syme said grimly. He V_>i rose and reached for a pressure suit, and Tate followed him. “What do you think they’ll — ” he began, and then stopped himself. “I know. They’re unpredictable.” “Yeah,” said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car whooshed into the near- vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out. The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded along under the weak gravity. They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps, they could see the walls of the gully — a tunnel, now — getting darker and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture. The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn’t decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though. “There’s air here,” he said to Tate. “I can see dust motes in it.” He switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane on the outside of the hel- met. “ Kalis methra” he began haltingly, “seltin guna getal.” “Yes, there is air here,” said the Mar- tian leader, startlingly. “Not enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets.” Syme swore amazedly. “I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial,” Tate said. Syme ignored him. “We had our reasons for not doing so,” the Martian said. STORIES “But how—?” , “We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Ter- restrial mind is to ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for several thousand years.” He darted a glance at Syme’s darkly scowling face. His own hairy face was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. “Yes, you’re right,” he said. “The language you and your fellows strug- gled to learn is a fraud, a hodge-podge con- cocted to deceive you.” Tate looked interested. “But why this — this gigantic masquerade?” “You had nothing to give us,” the Mar- tian said simply. Tate frowned, then flushed. “You mean you avoided revealing yourselves because you — had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?” “Yes." Tate thought again. “But — ” “No,” the Martian interrupted him, “re- vealing the extent of our civilization would have spared us nothing at your people’s hands. Yours is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you thought you were taking it from equals or not.” “Never mind that,” Syme broke in im- patiently. “What do you want with us?” The Martian looked at him appraisingly. “You already suspect. Unfortunately, you must die.” I T WAS a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet he could see no way out. He began to won- der, if he did, could he keep the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood, holding himself in check with an effort. “Will you tell us why?” Tate asked. “You were brought here for that pur- pose. It is part of our conception of jus- tice. I will tell you and your — friend — anything you wish to know.” Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the leader, who was stand- ing alertly on all fours a short distance DOORWAY TO KAL-JMAR away from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like trying not to think of the word “hippopotamus.” Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. “First why — ” he began. “There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar,” the Martian said, “among them a very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform Mars to a planet with T errestrially-thick atmosphere.” “I think I see,” Tate said thoughtfully. “That’s been the ultimate aim all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then we’d have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out. You couldn’t have that, of course.” He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked at them with a queer intentness. “Well — how about the Martians — the Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I’d dearly love to know the answer to that one.” “Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors.” “Several thousand years ago Mars’ loss of atmosphere began to make itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem was an eva- sion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained its slaves. They died of a plague — and other causes. “You see,” he finished gently, “our de- ception has caused a natural confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we.” “And yet,” Tate mused, “you are being destroyed by contact with an — inferior — culture.” “We hope to win yet,” the Martian said. Tate stood up, his face very white. “Tell me one thing,” he begged. “Will our two races ever live together in amity?” The Martian lowered his head. “.That is for unborn generations.” He looked at 25 Tate again and aimed the energy gun. “You are a brave man,” he said. “I am sorry.” Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the sights of the Martian’s Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the Martian. I T WAS like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn’t tear it out of the Martian’s fingers. And all the time he could almost feel the Martian’s telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern. He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian’s iron grip! He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped his lance and fell without a sound. The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader’s body and swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor. Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped his body into the air and landed up- right, his gun still blazing. His right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he Ignored it. And all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths, seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes, dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of his powerful lungs. At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his 26 PLACET ray, then dropped the weapon from blis- tered fingers. He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from the seared- open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid formed an air- tight patch. Only then did he turn, to see Tate flat- tened against the wall behind him, his hands empty at his sides. “I’m sorry,” Tate said miserably. “I could have grabbed a spear or something, but — I just couldn’t, not even to save my own life. I — I halfway hoped they’d kill both of us.” Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly, but with his feral, tigerish head held high. He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and didn’t know what to do about it. Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That was that. T HEY started off down the canyon, Syme urging the slighter man to a fast clip, even though his leg was already stiffen- ing. When they finally reached a climb- able spot, Syme was limping badly and Tate was obviously exhausted. They clambered wearily out onto the level sands again just as the small, blazing sun was setting. “Luck,” grunted Syme. “Our only chance of getting near the city is at night.” He peered around, shading his eyes from the sun’s glare with a gaunt- leted hand. “See that?” Following his pointing finger, Tate saw a faint, ephemeral arc showing above a STORIES line of low hills in the distance. “Kal- Jmar,” said Syme. Tate brightened a little. His body was too filled with fatigue for his mind to do any work on the problem that was baffling him, and so it receded into the back of his mind. “Kal-Jmar,” whispered Syme again. There was no twilight. The sUn dropped abruptly behind the low horizon, and dark- ness fell, sudden and absolute. Syme picked up the extra oxygen tank and the suitcase, checked his direction by a wrist compass, and started toward the hills. Tate rose wearily to his feet and followed again. Two hours later, Kal-Jmar stood before them. They had wormed their way past the sentry posts, doing most of the last two hundred meters on all fours. With skill and luck, and with Syme’s fierce, burn- ing determination, they had managed to escape detection — and there they were. Journey’s end. Tate stared up at the shining, starlight towers in speechless admiration. If the people who had built this city had been decadent, still their architecture was magnificent. The city was a rhapsody made solid. There was a sense of decay about it, he thought, but it was the decay of supreme beauty, caught at the very verge of dissolution and preserved for all eternity. “Well?” demanded Syme. Tate started, shaken out of his dream. He looked down at the black suitcase, a little wonderingly, and then pulled it to him and opened it. Inside, carefully wrapped in shock-ab- sorbing tissue, was a fragile contrivance of many tubes and wires, and a tiny para- bolic mirror. It had a brand new Elecorp 210 volt battery, and it needed every volt of that tremendous power. Tate made the connections, his hands trembling slightly, and set it up on a telescoping tripod. Syme watched him closely, his big body tensed with expectation. The field was before them, shimmering faintly in the starlight. It looked unsub- stantial as the stuff of dreams, but both men knew that no power man possessed, unless it was the thing Tate held, could penetrate that screen. Tate set the mechanism up close to the field, aimed it very delicately, and closed DOORWAY TO K AL-JMAR 27 a minute switch. After a long second, he opened it again. Nothing happened. The screen was still there, as unsubstan- tial and as solid as ever. There was no change. T ATE looked worriedly at his wiring, a deep wrinkle appearing between his pale, serious eyes. Syme stood stock-still but quivering with repressed energy, scowl- ing like a thundercloud. “It must be capable of working,” Tate told himself querulously. “The Martians knew — they wouldn’t have tried to stop us if — - Wait a minute.” He paced back and forth, biting his lip. Syme watched him with catlike eyes, clenching and un- clenching his great fists. Tate paused. “I think I have it,” he said slowly. “I haven’t enough power to hetro- dyne the whole screen, although that’s theoretically possible. But there must be weaker portions of the field — doors — set to open on the impact of a beam like this one. But I’ve only got power enough for two more tries. Jones, where would you put an entrance, if you’d built Kal-Jmar?” Syme’s eyes widened, and he stared around slowly. “A thousand years ago?” he muttered. “Two thousand? These hills were raised in five hundred. We can’t go by topography. “In front of one of the main arteries, then. But there are dozens, n© one larger than the other. Did they have dozens of doors ?” “Maybe,” said Tate. He pointed to the right, where the fairy towers of Kal-Jmar swept aside to leave a broad avenue. “It’s the nearest — as good as any other.” They walked over to it in silence, and in silence Tate set up his equipment once more. He shifted it from side to side, squinting, until he had it lined up exactly on the center of the avenue. Then he took a long breath, and closed the switch again. The switch came up. Syme stared with fierce eagerness, eyes ablaze. For a mo- ment there was nothing, and then — Tate clutched the big man's arm. “Look!” he breathed. Where the ray from Tate’s machine had impinged, a faintly-glowing spot of violet radiance! As they watched it widened, dilating into a perfect circle of violet, en- closing nothingness. The door was open- ing. “It worked,” Tate said softly. “It worked I” Syme shook off his grip impatiently, put his hand to the gun in the holster of his suit. Tate was still watching, fascinated. “Look,” he said again. “The color is changing slightly, falling down the spec- trum. I think that's a warning signal. When it reaches red, the door will close.” He moved toward the widening door, like a sleepwalker. “Wait,” Syme said hoarsely. “You for- got the machine.” Tate turned, said, “Oh yes,” and walked back. Then he saw the gun in Syme’s hand. His jaw dropped slightly, but he didn’t say anything. He just stood there, looking dumbly from the gun to Syme’s dark face. Syme shot him carefully in the chest. He dropped like a rag doll, but Syme’s aim had been bad. He wasn’t dead yet. He rolled his eyes up, like a child. His lips moved. In spite of himself, Syme bent forward to listen. “You’ll be — sorry,” Tate said, and died. Air was sighing out through the widen- ing hole in the screen. Syme straightened and smiled tolerantly. For a moment, he had been unreasonably afraid of what Tate was about to say. Some detail he had for- gotten, perhaps, something that would trap him now that Tate, the man who knew the answers, was dead. But — he’d be sorry ! For what? Another dead fool? He gathered up the delicate mechanism in one arm, and, filling his deep lungs, stepped forward through the opening. T HE TOWERS of dead Kal-Jmar loomed over him in the dusk as he strode like a conqueror down the long-de- serted avenue. The city was full of the whisperings of Kal-Jmar’s ancient wraiths, but they touched only a corner of his mind. He was filled to overflowing with the bright, glowing joy of conquest. The city was his ! His boots trod an avenue where no foot had fallen these untold eons, yet there was no dust. The city was bright and furbished waiting for him. He was intoxicated. The city was his! 28 PLANET There was a gentle ramp leading upward, and Syme followed it, breathing in the manufactured air of his pressure suit like wine. All around him, the city blazed with treasures beyond price. It zvas his ! The ramp led to a portal set in the side of a shining needle of a building. Syme strode up to the threshold, and the door dilated for him. He stepped inside; the door closed and a soft light glowed on. There was air here : good, breathable air. A tiny zephyr of it was blowing from some hidden source against his body. Greatly daring, he unfastened the helmet of his suit and flung it back. He breathed in a lungful of it. God, but it was good after that canned stuff 1 It was a little heady ; it made his head swim — but it was good air, excellent air ! He looked around him, measuring, as- sessing for the first time. This room alone was worth a fortune. There was platinum ; in ornaments, set into the walls, in furni- ture. That would be enough to buy the little things — a new ship, or perhaps even immunity back on Earth. But that was as nothing to the rest of it, the things three worlds would clamor for — the artifacts, the record books, the machines ! He strode about the room, building plan on grandiose plan. He could take back only a little with him at first ; but he could return again and again, with Tate’s mechan- ism and new batteries. But he’d explore the city thoroughly before he left. Some- where there must be weapons. An in- vincible weapon, perhaps, that a man could carry in his hand. Perhaps even a perfect body screen. With that he wouldn’t have to steal away from Mars on a freighter, hiding his loot and his greatness in a dingy engine room. He could walk into STORIES a Triplanet ship and order its captain to take him wherever he chose to go ! H E STOOD then in the middle of the room, arms akimbo, his head swim- ming with glory — and remembered sud- denly that he was hungry. He felt in the container of his helmet, extracted a couple of food tablets, and popped them into his mouth. They would take care of his needs, but they didn’t satisfy his hunger. No food tablets for him after this! Steaks, wines, souffles. . . . His mouth began to water at the very thought. And then the robot rolled on soundless wheels into the room. Syme whirled and saw it only when it was almost upon him. The thing was remarkably lifelike, and for a moment he was startled. But it was not alive. It was only a Martian feeding-machine, kept in repair all these millennia by other robots. It was not intelligent, and so it did not know that its masters would never return. It did not know, either, that Syme was not a Martian, or that he wanted a steak, and not the distilled liquor of the xopa fungus, which still grew in the subterranean gardens of Kal-Jmar. It was capable only of receiving the mental impulse of hunger, and of re- sponding to that impulse. And so when Syme saw it and opened his mouth in startlement, the robot acted as it had done with its degenerate, slothful masters. Its flexible feeding tube darted out and half down the man’s gullet before he could move to avoid it. And down Syme Rector’s throat poured a flood of x opa- juice, nectar to Martians, but swift, terrible death to human beings. . . . Outside, the last doorway to Kal-Jmar closed forever, across from the cold body of Tate, Invader from Infinity By GEORGE WHITTINGTON “Destroy the Invader,” the orders read — and Captain MePartland's expendable spacer flashed into suicidal battle. Illustration by ANDERSON C OMMANDER JON McPART- heard the unnecessary words of his Lieu- LAND stared with hard blue eyes tenant-Commander, Clemens: into his view screen. He watched a “Observation Officer reports enemy craft tiny dot in one corner grow slowly, and sighted. Sir.’’ 29 30 PLANET “Very good,” acknowledged McPart- land. “Have Lieutenant Parek compute their speed and course.” Clemens spoke softly into the intra-ship phone, and Commander Jon McPartland returned momentarily to his thoughts. His square jaw was set as though cast in bronze, with hard muscles machined into its contour. Here was the enemy — the unknown, the alien, who spoke only with destruction! This was the ship that had destroyed Sys- tem patrols ; later a full battle fleet of the Solar System’s most powerful space fight- ers. The interceptors had been unable to establish communication of any sort; and they were blasted into fiery chunks of space debris before getting close enough to use their own guns. “Well, here they are, Clemens,” the Com- mander said aloud, “and getting uncom- fortably close to the System. It looks like they’re some other System’s dominant in- telligence, and we’ve got planets they want.” “Yes, sir,” said the other, “and here we are, with the fastest, most heavily armed space fighter ever built — in the System.” “In the Universe,” snapped McPartland. His full lips curved into a grim smile. “Under sealed orders which every citizen from Pluto to Mercury knows are: ‘De- stroy this ship — or it conquers our Sys- tem.’ ” Lieutenant-Commander Clemens bent to his intra-phone, turned to relay. “Naviga- tion Officer reports enemy ship has altered course to head on. Speed fifty Spatial units.” “Thank you,” McPartland stepped to the phone himself. “This is it, men. You know what it means !” His hands flicked levers swiftly, as he spoke to component units individu- ally: “Propulsion — full speed ahead. Make every blast tell 1 “Navigation — evasive course. Swing wide to draw them away from the Sys- tem so that if — if — ” “I understand, sir,” came the crisp reply from Lieutenant Parek. “All ray stations,” went on McPartland, “fire at maximum range. Radio — any con- tact?” “None, sir.” STORIES “Magnetic screen interference?” asked the Commander. “No, sir. No magnetic defense screens apparent on enemy.” “Put ours up full power.” Jon McPart- land was smiling now, but his eyes were flashing hatred of the alien. Another ten seconds would find them in effective range. The enemy was looming in the view screen, a round glistening sphere — a ball of de- struction pitted again his own slim, sleek avenger. “Screens up, sir, full power,” came the response. Lieutenant-Commander Clemens had headphones clamped over his ears. He was standing by for reports from stations. He turned suddenly, face lined and taut, and reported almost in a whisper : “We’re hit, sir, right through our screens at this range ! Partial disintegration in sec- tion four. Bulkheads holding.” The Commander was standing wooden- faced, incredulous. But the hatred was building up in his eyes until Clemens shud- dered. “Through our defense screens at this range !” McPartland ground out savagely. He turned back to his view screen with a bitter oath. There was the sphere, gleaming, flashing against the bottomless black of space — catching starlight, and throwing it back as though the touch of that pure light was distasteful. What form of intelligence destroyed, killed without warning — without speech ? C LEMENS’ voice broke into the red haze that hovered over his Com- mander : “Hit again, sir, Section 8. Almost complete disintegration of hull. Bulkheads holding.” Jon McPartland spoke his thoughts aloud. “I saw the ray that time, just a faint glimmer across the black. It should have hit Section 6! And — and THEY have no magnetic screen !” His hand flicked a lever. “Navigation — break away! Straight course back toward the System.” There was a long pause before Lieuten- ant Parek replied. It was easy to guess his thoughts ; quitting, running away ! Then he answered; “Yes, sir!” Clemens’ voice, speaking softly to the INVADER FROM INFINITY 31 intra-ship, was suddenly the only sound in the control room above the muted whine of generators underneath. Jon McPart- land, his battle-ending order acknowledged, glared silently into his screen. There the hateful silver sphere shrank slightly in size. Once again McPartland caught the faint flicker of a ray, the star- studded blackness. The Commander looked a fierce question at Clemens. “No further damage, sir,’’ said the latter. He laid the headphones aside. “I believe we are out of range. Lieutenant Parek re- ports our speed sixty-five Spatial Units ; we are drawing away from the enemy.” There was no relief in the last words; and Commander McPartland felt a sudden surge of sympathy for the other break through his own bitter anger. Clemens had been gloomy about their chances in the battle; now, the Earth ship broke away from the fight, the Lieutenant-Commander was gloomier in the belief that they hadn’t tried hard enough — that they’d turned in cowardly flight. His eyes avoided his supe- rior’s. The latter looked about the room, and no glance was raised to meet his own. Reynolds, the Ray Control Officer stared glumly at his calculators, and fingered the phone that had waited vainly for his range data and fire commands. Clemens, stood quietly, awaiting orders. Engineer Mc- Tavish sat in stony silence, gaze fixed on the desk before him, where sensitive indi- cators flashed red damage signals against a three dimensional scale projection of the ship. McPartland felt his eyes misting, and ground his teeth, remembering the alien ship and using his hatred of it to fight back the weakness of his own pride in his men. They wanted to fight ! They hated coward- ice almost as much as they did the mur- derers they were running from; and these Earthmen thought their own commander a coward. But discipline and training held them to his judgment. “Hell!” barked McPartland. “We’re go- ing back after them.” His words shattered the silence and the gloom. Reynolds’ face was suddenly radi- ant; Clemens relaxed into an expression of smug worry; McTavish grunted. “Mister McTavish, what about that dam- age?” demanded the Commander. Engineer McTavish brought his lanky form up from the chair and into rigidity. “You gave no orders, sir,” he reproached, his grey eyes eager. “Have your men break out two space- suits, Mister,” said McPartland. “You and I will go through the bukheads and inspect the damaged hull.” “Yes, sir.” McTavish turned eagerly to his phone. “Mister Clemens,” snapped the Com- mander, “hold our course. And you may tell the men we’re not through fighting.” M cPARTLAND and McTavish stepped carefully through the darkness of section four. Behind them, the bulkhead door had been securely dogged shut against the vacuum of space; before them was a ragged jet patch from which distant stars sent faint light to outline the great rip in the hull. Both men carried powerful flashlights, but preferred to step carefully among dim outlines rather than use lights until they reached the hull. There had been a ray gun here — and its crew ; and men, suddenly exposed to cold and pressureless space, make grim corpses. At the thought, McPartland’s big hand gripped the hammer he carried, so that he almost felt the handle through his heavy gauntlet. He had an insane desire to leap out and wait for the other ship — to batter at its silver hull ! As though sensing the thought, the En- gineer broke in, speaking through his suit- communicator : “Here we are, sir.” The flashlight blazed in his hand, its beam spreading along the twisted broken metal of the ship’s side. Instantly the big hammer flashed into the beam and against the metal near its broken edge, swung with every ounce of fury and strength in Jon McPartland’s arm, shoulder and torso. “If I’m right,” he muttered with the swing,” we’ll know it now. We’ll have a fighting — chance.” He faltered on the last word, as his blow landed and sent some of its force smashing back up his arm and body. But the Commander knew — as a smith knows — the feel of metal under his strength; and Jon McPartland knew his hunch had been right even before McTavish cried : “You — you bent it!” 32 PLAN ET “Right, Mister. I bent it. And I couldn’t bend the steel that went into this ship’s hull, could I, McTavish?” “Blasting right you couldn’t, begging your pardon, sir. No man could.” “Then it isn’t steel any longer, McTav- ish — not near the edges of the spot their ray hit !” McPartland twirled the hammer in his hand, eager as a small boy just learn- ing how to whip the neighborhood bully. “Where that ray hit there was disintegra- tion at the center, transmutation at the edges.” Understanding was spreading over the Engineer’s face behind the transparent hel- met of his space suit. “Then, man, that ray has one magnetic charge; positive or negative, proton or electron.” “And your technicians will tell us which,” ordered the Commander. “Get them busy cutting out samples. We want to know quickly. But you and I have enough to do while we wait, Mister.” He led the way back to the bulkhead. Inside, McTavish gave orders, while shed- ding his space suit and starting down the corridor to the control room. McPartland explained as they went. “Our magnetic screens, having electrons and protons, bent their ray. I saw it. That made me think they used a mono-charged stream of particles. Some of the particles in the screen attracted the ray charges, others repelled them. You know, of course,” he went on, “how our screens diffuse our own type of duo-charge beam at long range and protect the ship against them.” “Yes, man!” His Engineer agreed, ex- citedly now. “And beams from the screened ship go through on initial velocity. But they couldn’t use a screen — the enemy : there’d be no balance of forces — they’d bend their own ray !” “The way we’ll bend it, Mister, when we go back after those murderers!” Jon McPartland took a deep, triumphant breath, and his face lit up with a battle smile that made the Engineer’s heart lift. “Mister McTavish, we’re going to string a space lifeboat out behind us on about two miles of cable. You are going to rig up our dynamos to make this ship and the lifeboat the poles of an electromagnet. When your Technicians determine the po- larity of the enemy ray, we’ll make the ship the repelling pole.” STORIES “Then, man, begging your pardon, sir, we go back and let them blast,” cried the Engineer. “Their ray curves away from us — toward the lifeboat. By the time they figure the trick out, we’ll be close enough to blast them wide open.” “We’d better be,” his superior concluded grimly. “Or the devils will blast away the lifeboat and the cable. Leave us without an electromagnet — right back where wq started from.” C OMMANDER JON McP ART- LAND stared with hard blue eyes into his screen. He watched a dot growing into a sphere, and, anticipating the words of Lieutenant-Commander Clemens, or- dered : “Have Lieutenant Parek compute their speed and course.” Clemens, with a look of gloomy reproach at not having been allowed to report, bent to the intra-ship phone. Before he could speak, he straightened, and turned to relay the information coming through his head- phones : “Navigation Officer reports course head on, sir. Speed fifty Spatial Units.” “Thank you.” The Commander looked at his Engineer. “All in readiness, Mister McTavish?” “All in readiness, sir,” replied the lanky engineer, his grey eyes twinkling as he added: They’re using an electron ray, and our ship is negative — but this’ll be a posi- tive jolt to the enemy, begging your par- don, sir!” McPartland smiled, the tense muscles along his jaw relaxing for the first time in hours. Clemens coughed and turned aside, bringing a hand up over his mouth. This effort to preserve his reputation was needed only for a moment. He straightened, adjusting his headphones, and reported : “Enemy ship changing course, sir, swing- ing aside.” The Commander glanced quickly at the screen, disbelief flicking momentarily over his square features. He leaped to the intra-phone, snatching the headphones from the Lieutenant-Commander. “Mister Parek,” he ordered, “swing with that ship. We must get in close — quickly!” Aside to McTavish, he added: “I hope INVADER FROM INFINITY 33 the cable to that spaceboat holds when it snaps around on this turn.” “It will hold, sir,” the Engineer assured him. “But we’ll lose some speed by the drag — only until we re-accelerate, sir.” McPartland tossed the headphones back to Clemens, left the intra-phone, and went back to his screen. For the next few min- utes he watched the alien silver sphere, flashing and glinting in the starlight. John McPartland whispered, half to him- self : “The cunning devils! They know something’s up when a beaten ship comes back to fight again.” “Begging your pardon, sir,” said Rey- nolds, the Ray Control Officer, in his quiet manner. “They must have seen the space- boat strung behind and become suspicious.” “You’re right, Mister,” acknowledged the Commander. “The killers are careful of their skins.” He glared at the hateful beauty of the other ship, growing no larger in his screen. “Come on,” he challenged. But the enemy avoided every effort of the earth ship to close in, turning inside. At last, the space fighters were carving a great circle in space, the Earthmen on the outside, traveling a greater distance so that superior speed was largely nullified. McPartland glared into his screen. Clem- ens stood by his intra-phone, relaying mes- sages from Parek. Reynolds sat before his calculators, unmoving except for fingers caressing the mike that still waited for his words. McTavish sprawled before his three dimensional model, his grey eyes go- ing over and over every line of it. At last the Commander spoke the thought in the minds of all four: “We’re six Spa- tial units apart. Maximum range of their ray is five units; ours is four. Coming head on, we pass through the gap between their range and ours in seconds — we almost made it last time! But, if we overhaul them from behind, it might take minutes to close that gap with our speed advantage.” “Right, sir,” McTavish agreed, “and minutes would be long enough for them to blast our spaceboat and cable away.” “And then us,” finished Clemens. He drew himself up. “I am ready, sir, when you give the order.” Blazing anger faded from the Comman- der’s eyes and face. “Thank you, Mister Clemens. I know you are, and so is every 3— Planet Stories— Winter man of our crew. But we’re here to save the System, and there’s still hope. “These animals have come a long way,” he said jabbing a fist toward the ship in the screen. “They think they can afford to wait us out. But maybe they can’t. Mister Clemens, ask Radio to try and contact Earth.” I T TOOK long, anxious minutes to make the contact. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Parek held the ship on the same course, with instructions to close at once if the enemy moved toward them. But the situation remained unchanged, the great circle being traced and retraced through space, ray guns trained, unused. At last. Radio reported contact. Jon McPartland stepped to the visa- phone. Before him, the faint image of Marshal Denton, supreme commander of all System forces, flickered uncertainly over the great distance. “McPartland,” came the Marshal’s voice, thin and wavering through the poor con- nection. “I knew you’d do it !” McPartland saluted smartly. “We have met the enemy, sir, and stopped their ad- vance toward the System, but — ” He went on, reporting their first en- counter, his decision and action, and con- cluded : “Sir, we can hold them here until help reaches us. One more ship — rigged as we are — even the slowest old hulk in the fleet — and we can finish them !” There was a long pause. Marshal Den- ton drew himself up, his face, only a dim blob on the screen, gave no hint of his emo- tions as he answered. “Commander Mc- Partland, I must refuse your request for reinforcements.” There was no mistaking his feeling in the next words: “Jon, I’ve got a System of confidence in you, but my hands are tied. The Su- preme System Congress of Specialists has met and made decisions for defense — deci- sions that are not subject to change. From here on, I can only carry their strategy into effect.” McPartland stood rigidly. He was stunned. He heard his own voice, as from far away; “And those decisions, sir?” “Every ship we have is concentrated just beyond Pluto’s orbit.” Denton an- swered. “They are arranged in a defen- sive pattern of depths, that the Specialists 34 PLANET consider impenetrable.” His voice was even. “Sir,” the Commander groaned, “this attacker has the range and a ray that makes our magnetic screens useless. These fiends will go through that fleet like light through glass. And the planets — they’ve been disarmed for years! They’ll be de- fenseless !” In the screen, the Marshal’s dim figure slumped. “Jon, the Specialists rule the System.” “I understand, sir,” McPartland heard himself say. “What are your orders, sir?” “Just your best. Commander Jon Mc- Partland. That will be the best any of us could give. Good luck!” “Thank you, sir.” McPartland turned from the visa-phone as Marshal Denton faded from view. Lieutenant-Commander Clemens stood ready beside his intraphone. Engineer McTavish sprawled before his model, his grey eyes going lovingly over every line of it. Ray Control Officer Reynolds fin- gered his mike. Jon McPartland swept them with his blue eyes, turned to glare again at the taunting silver sphere in his view screen. He started to speak, stopped as Reynolds raised his head. “Beg your pardon, sir,” said the Ray Officer. “May I give the men false range data when — when — you decide we’re fin- ished, sir? I’ll feel better just using this stuff, and the gun crews — those that are left — will feel better thinking they’re strik- ing a blow for the System. “It can’t do any harm, sir,” he pleaded as the Commander snapped his mouth shut, staring hard. <4 EYNOLDS,” bellowed the Coin- IV. mander, “ages ago there was an airfighter who opened fire on his enemy with machine guns before he was in range. The opponent usually took evasive action — thinking he was in danger — and lost speed, so that this fighter could overtake and destroy him. “Reynolds, you’re a genius!” “Man,” interrupted McTavish, “our rays would fall short ! Those devils wouldn’t be fooled by rays — two Spatial units away !” “No, Mister McTavish,” his superior re- plied slowly, “our disintegrator rays wouldn’t fool them. But we have landing STORIES searchlights that throw a beam a dozen Spatial units. “McTavish get down to those beams; stop a couple down to pencils ; shade them to throw a pretty violet-colored finger ; cut down the power so they’ll reach about six units! Get out of here!” The Engineer’s lanky body was already through the control room door. Jon McPartland was grinning. A grin that didn’t fade even when he looked back to his screen, to see the glinting silver sphere swinging serenely along beside them. He turned to Clemens. “Tell Lieutenant Parek to close at full speed the second they start for us. No evasive action — straight course and let the spaceboat and cable take it!” “Navigation acknowledges, sir.” Clem- ens replied solemnly, and the Commander knew his Lieutenant had anticipated and given the order. “All ray stations ready, sir,” added the quiet Reynolds. McPartland’s grin broadened. “Give them the straight data, Mister Reynolds.” “Yes, sir.” It was only seconds later that a voice rang in Clemens’ headphones, in accents loud enough to be heard through the silent, waiting control room. “McTavish report- ing. xMl in readiness.” “Let them have it then,” ordered the Commander. “But be sure you miss!” With the suddenness of calculated sur- prise, a thin pencil of violet light stabbed out from the Earth ship. It knifed through space, scant yards behind the silver sphere, and winked out. A second beam reached forth, passed beneath the gleaming enemy. Immediately, the sphere bobbed in space, began to weave an intricate course toward the Earth ship. It swelled in the view- screen before McPartland. He laughed, a low savage sound. “A super-race ego, to think our gunners are that bad. But they’ll learn!” R EYNOLDS began to drone into his phone, his eyes never leaving the cal- culators over which his fingers were flying. “Range five units, position — ” A faint flicker reached toward the Earth- ship, swung aside. McPartland laughed again. “Range, four point nine,” droned Rey- INVADER FROM INFINITY 35 nolds, and went on with steady flow of data. The pale alien beam reached out again. This time Clemens reported. “Spaceboat destroyed by direct hit, sir.” "Range four point six,” said Reynolds. The sphere was looming ahead of them now, its ray sweeping off to the side, di- rection steady even as the sphere danced and spun. “Range four point one — ” “Cable almost completely gone, sir,” Clemens said. “Steady,” McPartland answered. He took a deep breath and heard the voice of the Ray Control Officer rising triumph- antly : “Units one-three, five and seven, Fire! Range four point zero, position — ” Four livid fingers of red sprang hungrily toward the silver sphere. They struck al- most together, followed as the ship twisted and spun for brief moments. Then, when the ball of metal suddenly ceased its gyra- tions and floated limply, helplessly in space, those fingers probed, slashed unhin- dered through its vitals, over every foot of hull. It was a scene of awesome destruction, as the ship that had thrown back starlight so proudly, haughtily, was blotted out of existence, its atoms torn apart and hurled back to the universe as free energy. The glow in his viewscreen threw red highlights into McPartland’s black hair, matched the blazing vengeance in his blue eyes. But he watched, jaw hard, fist clenched, until destruction was complete. “They got what they gave our ships,” he said at last, “merciless destruction. They deserved no better. “We’ll go back to the System, and turn in our report. Our Scientists will perfect a defense against a mono-charge ray, and we won’t need to worry about handling any other ships that might follow this one.” “Right, sir,” said McTavish. “And, man, begging your pardon, sir, I hope we’re in on the handling !” Lieutenant- Commander Clemens shook his head moodily. “We did well. But the Congress of Specialists will be disap- pointed. We didn’t bring back prisoners for examination.” But his eyes were smiling — again. PS'S feature flash p LASHING you the highlights on one of the men you’ve met in preceding issues — those cosmic-minded artists who help to nourish Planet Stories and the Vizigraph. But before we do, we wish to state that An- derson makes a base canard or two below. There were no five bucks involved, there were only two — and we didn’t squeeze his neck — very hard. Anyway, just as we found him, clean, unspoiled, and almost unshaven, we give you — MONEY MAD MURPHY! Mageditor Peacock peered fiendishly through his horn-rimmed glasses. “Murph !” he said, said he, “my old pal! You old salt of the earth youl I love you more than my pay check !” Knowing such a love impossible, I immediately detected the distinctly unpleasant odor of a rat and turned to flee, but in vain. A long, scrawny arm snaked out; cold, clammy fingers collared me. It hauled me beneath the mad gleam of a science-fiction mageditor (you know, one of those horrid creatures who is eternally haunted by bug- eyed monsters, keeps a flask of choice Saturnian wine handy in the right-hand middle drawer of his desk, and goes around trying to slit the throats of people who dislike his magazine). “Murphy, old chum, old chap,” he menaced, “you’ll never know how much I love you!” “Okay, okay,” I managed to gasp as his fin- gers tightened around my windpipe, “how much do ya want, ya fiend?” His grip immediately loosened. “Why — uh — a fin till February first will be swell,” he gloated. So I slipped him a fin and sought to escape, but again his hold strengthened, and I knew that this time I could not buy my way out. Mageditor Peacock’s eyes gleamed like a fire- brand. “Oh, Murphy,” he drooled, “I know you’ll do me a favor, won’t you?” I squirmed help- lessly, unable to answer. So I’m writing this in self defense. ’Scuse please, but I gotta eat. Yeah, us artists eat just like humans. I was born July 9, 1926, in that beautiful re- sort town of Asheville, North Carolina, located high in the Blue Ridge Mountains. There I lived until the age of eight when my family migrated to Greensboro, N. C., which was to become my permanent home. In the spring of 1943 I graduated from high school by the skin of my teeth and then spent two quarters as a student at the University of North Carolina. Realizing that my time as a civilian was growing short, I decided to seek my fortunes as an artist in New York. By the time you read this, I shall have left the pages of Planet to don the Navy blue; but when this war’s over, you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be back. So, until then ... So long. . . . Murphy Anderson. Keeper of the Deathless Sleep by Albert De Pina Nardon, the Correlator, had banded together the greatest brains of the Solar System to battle the menace spawned by Saturn— was leading them into the stronghold of the Energasts themselves* 36 Illustration by ANDERSON Nar don’s stvord sang in his hand. << TT/~E CANNOT FIGHT ” An- §/£/' tar an said. “ Not now ... We ' ' must be patient a while longer. Venus still holds the secret of Vulcan base and without allotropic metal our fleet would be so much papier machel” He fell silent. In the soft, smoky-blue twilight of the great subterranean room beneath the Uni- versarium, BUI Nardon gazed expression- lessly at the angular austerity of the Coun- cil Leader’s face, and remained silent. “Three more spacers today!” Antaran sank slowly into the yielding firmness of a priceless crysto-plast chair. “Disappeared . . .” He paused. “Must you have this hellish blue fog, Bill?” He frowned in distaste. Bill Nardon smiled slowly from where he lay on a great couch of alabas- trine, utterly relaxed. “ Would you rather have a mountain night, a summer twilight, or dawn?” His great shoulders shook a little with silent laughter untU the mane of dark red hair that hung to his shoulders "37 PLANET STORIES 38 seemed to twinkle with pinpoints of light. He pressed a series of selectors on the back of the couch, and slowly a rosy light like a tardy dawn diffused through the room to- gether ivith the smell of the sea. ‘‘Don't look so outraged, Antaran; that Spartan conditioning of yours is a tragedy!” The aged Council leader shrugged his shoulders. “Listen to me!” Antaran said brusquely. “Half a hundred thousand men and women from six planets cannot be hidden away like so much plunder. Sooner or later someone is bound to escape and give away the mystery. Yet months have passed and no trace of them has been found. Corre- late that!” He sniffed at the marvelously fresh odor of the sea and blinked at the rose-gold light of the static dawn as if it weren’t a scien- tific and artistic miracle, but something not qu/ite decent. “The loss in terms of life and treasure is negligible. It’s what it purports in the long run that’s serious. Already Venus has clamped down on shipments of radio- actives and Mars has declared limited martial law. No trade with Neptune is possible in the face of their embargo, and the European coalition of Terrans and Panadurs have closed their world! The logical development of this psychological state of nerves is. . . .” “War.” Bill Nardon said softly, almost in a whisper that died in the faint sear breeze that eddied about the room. For a long time there was silence, while the “Correlator” played with the selectors on the couch unaware of doing so in his pro- found absorption, and the tardy dawn faded into bright daylight which in turn gave way to the perfumed mystery of a starry night deep within the mountains and the odor of pine stole about the room. A ripple of music almost as soft as a sigh invaded the chamber, gathering in volume and poesy of melody like an enchanted lullaby to a wonder child or, a woman utterly beloved. When the “Correlator” came to, Antaran had gone T HE RAIN'S silver curtain had lifted for some time — over an hour now — Bill Nardon mused. The blinding blue- ness of the skies was reflected on the satiny- sheen of the platino-plastic structures of the spaceport, now glorious in its display of opulence for the benefit of the arriving delegations of five worlds. The Terran display of grandeur had been planned to increase with exquisite skill all the way to the U niversarium. Which in itself was a piece of effrontery. Bill thought with a sardonic smile, con- sidering that with Earth, only six worlds were represented, which was far from be- ing the Universe. Not to mention that each planet was sovereign, jealously and hypersensitively suspicious of the slightest encroachment upon their rights and do- mains. Bill was certainly aware of the fact that the world Universarium would be a cause for resentment. They were arriving now. Upon the gigantic Ethero-solidograph that covered an entire wall of the spacious room, deep in the bowels of the Universarium, Bill Nardon could see the great interplanetary vessels emerge from outer space, where both space and time have but a remote and relative meaning, and flash like interstellar daggers into the outer fringe of the strato- sphere. “Warships 1 All of them!” He mused aloud, while the slightly satirical smile deepened, hovering on his square-cut lips, crinkling the corners of the long, strangely colored eyes — almost electric blue. “Warships?” he mused. Bill saw them extend lateral fins upon the icy fragility of the upper air, much as a bird extends its wings, and come shriek- ing through the tortured air in a mad race to be the first to land upon the ex- pectant Earth. In great flawless spirals — beautiful beyond belief — they lost alti- tude, leaving behind a vortex of clouds boiling furiously at their passage. Venus was in the lead. Bill Nardon recognized the powerful cruiser by its insignia of a serpent biting its tail, fashioned of Jos- mians — Venusian pearls. Close behind it was Europa, with the insignia of a blazing Jupiter on its side; Neptune with its em- blazoned shield of a tiered city, and little Mercury with the royal emblem of incan- descent Sol. And at the very end, aloof, disdainful, the truly magnificent work of science and art that was the Martian vessel, which characteristically wore no emblem at all, and seemed to be content to be the last to arrive, so long as it kept from being KEEPER OF THE contaminated by close contact with the races of other worlds than Mars. A great swirl of ceremonial music rose from the immense spaceport, the cathedral- like architectonics weaving intricate pat- terns upwards to the skies as if to receive in an ocean of melody the arriving dele- gates. Bill Nardon sighed, his task was about to begin. With a slight movement of his right hand, he touched the controls gleam- ing on the desk before him, and the scene at the spaceport rushed with vertiginous speed into close focus; still he was not satisfied, but continued to manipulate the Ethero-solidograph controls until the emerging occupants of the Venusian ship grew on the screen to life-size. With in- finite care he studied and analyzed their faces, their exquisite fragile bodies with the long, membranous wings; noted the almost imperceptible shadow of baffled ap- prehension beneath the mask of imper- turbability, and found — nothing. But that was to be expected. After all, of all the planets, Venus was the least warlike, which was fortunate indeed. T HE TALL, rangy Europans, off- spring of Terran colonists, with their strange, silver-furred Panadur co-rulers, came next. Bill lingered over the Panadur leader, so strangely human in his four feet of upright, slender body, completely furred in gleaming silver fur to the very throat-line, with the delicate triangular face dominated by immense beryl eyes. Strange creatures of a world within a world, drawing their sustenance from the eerie radioactive caverns of their great Jupiterian satellite. The Neptunians were descendants of Earthmen too, but subtly changed by the awesome environment of their gigantic world. The Mercurians were a problem in them- selves. For of all the planets, theirs was a ruthless Matriarchy. The striding, un- compromising Amazons that emerged from that blunt, utilitarian-looking ship, were in themselves a promise of trouble. They gazed around them out "of blazing dark eyes, and their metallic complexions seemed to flow oddly like quicksilver with their movements, as if their features were fluid. Only the eyes, hard, suspicious, expecting the worst, retained their unyielding char- DEATHLESS SLEEP 39 acter. When the Martians emerged, tall, tawny-haired, with their immense violet eyes and exaggeratedly narrow waists, that contrasted with their broad shoulders, it oc- curred to Bill that the least accident would precipitate an holocaust that would end in the most gigantic hecatomb the universe had ever seen. He shuddered to think what would happen if the least delegate were to meet with harm. From the very beginning, he had protested against this interplanetary meeting on Terra, and great as his influence was, profound as the re- spect was in which his unique powers were held, the Council vote had been against him. Still, Bill Nardon could not rid himself of the feeling that this was a wild goose chase, that nothing would be accomplished by a meeting of the highest dignitaries of the Inter-Planetary League — in short, that the great danger of an accident that was being incurred was not only unnecessary — but futile, which was far worse. Asprawl in the great hetero-plastic chair, his long legs extended, his superb torso completely relaxed, he looked as if even his great muscles wnuld never again lift that magnificent body upright. But all the while his unique mind was absorbed in as- sembling multitudes of details and facts, coordinating and correlating psychological factors and psychic coordinates with the speed of thought into a clear picture which in the end proved — absolutely nothing. He was baffled. To the tragic problem which would soon be under discussion in the stupendous Universariwn, expressly built for that momentous purpose, he would be able to bring precisely nothing. For once he had failed. And Bill damned the cold efficiency of the Master Neuro- graph machine that had unerringly sum- marized his strange mental coordinates. For Bill’s mind had the peculiar gift of being able to grasp a series of basic facts and from them deduce with supernal ac- curacy the individual answer to any human problem. What took the great Philosophers in Psychiatry VI days, and weeks, and even months to solve, Bill Nardon could coordinate and give the correct answer to in hours, sometimes minutes. There was nothing mysterious about it. Given enough time, Bill Nardon could have explained in detail how he could solve 40 PLANET a particular problem ill human equations — if he cared to, which he never did — it was merely a mental ratio of activity in the upper part of his brain, where the most involved and difficult thinking- is done, many times greater than that of the normal human brain. To this was added an in- tensity and scope of awareness surpassing any Neuro-graphic records known. The result was the coordination of details, the synchronizing of factors — nay, nuances so tenuous that they were non-existent to even the philosophical minds. As a result. Bill Nardon had been imme- diately removed from his job as an ex- plorer and transferred to Security I, an- swerable only to the very head of the Supreme Council itself. To him it had been a tragedy. The ecstasy of the vast reaches of space; the illimitable freedom, birthright of explorers, the intimate communion with the stars had l>een transmuted into a guarded existence as if he were one of the most valuable factors in the security of Earth, which unquestionably he was. Every luxury, every whim even, was his to indulge, he could have anything . . . literally anything, but freedom ! And now T he had failed. In his sardonic mood he was glad that he had been unable to find even a tiny clue. In all that glit- tering, heterogenous assemblage Bill had not found even a slight nuance to pounce upon. Involuntarily he shook his head, and the dark red mane that fell to his shoulders in the conventional style of the day, swirled about his shoulders, again he shook his head as if some almost im- perceptible irritant were annoying him. And suddenly he sat upright, his eyes nar- rowed and steel-blue. In his intense ab- sorption in the scene on the Ethero-solido- graph, the elfin probing of his mind had gone unnoticed. A profound surprise min- gled with the instant pointing of all his faculties as he became aware. That any- one could penetrate his mental defenses was unthinkable! E VEN BEFORE his awareness of peril was complete. Bill became a blur of motion that coiled and sprang erect. And the incredible shape that had launched itself with razor-like talons outspread un- erringly for the sprawling Terran’s throat STORIES thudded against iron-hard stomach muscles, over which a thin beryllium mesh tunic afforded protection. Almost at the very instant it struck, the creature launched itself again, with demoniacal fury, taloned hands reaching with super-human strength for the bared throat, its taloned feet trying to disembowel the Ter ran. Bill fought silently, driving a shattering blow to the open mouth with its gleaming fangs, with the other striving to keep it. at arm’s length. But the thing twisted with a sinu- ous motion and flung itself to one side, then leaped in again, driving like a tiger for the Terran legs, as Bill sprang to one side and then dived for the flashing creature. Bill caught one of its legs and instantly it coiled back upon itself and fastened its fanged mouth upon his forearm. Only the invulnerable Beryllium mesh saved it from being fanged through; as it was, the awful pressure of those inhuman teeth was ex- cruciating agony. In desperation Bill aimed another slashing blow at the mania- cal face of the being, and saw it become indistinct with blood; using every ounce of strength at his command, the Earthman slowly forced back the face of the thing and with a convulsive movement shattered its vertebrae. When Bill released it, the creature dropped limp on the bloodied translucence of the Jadite flooring. Reeling from fatigue, his body a mass of bruises, Bill methodically examined his attacker. It was about four feet tall, hu- manoid in shape, even as to features which were delicate — surprisingly beautiful in the repose of death. It had the face of a very beautiful woman in miniature. But there was nothing lovely about the com- petent taloned hands with their cording of steely muscles, or about the oddly shaped flexible feet — almost hands in themselves, like that of the now extinct apes of thou- sands of years back when Terra had been young. The body had evidently been evolved with a great simplicity of purpose — and, strangest of all, it was sexless ! And this was the thing that had been able to penetrate the defenses of his mind, al- most succeeding in probing it without Bill being aware of it. In coordinating his findings, it occurred to Bill Nardon that this unholy creature was the nearest thing to a homunculi he had ever known! But KEEPER OF THE whence had it come? How correlate such a mind of power with such utterly ruthless, coldly calculating ferocity. Bill shivered a little, and it was not alto- gether from his recent exertions in defense of his life. Stretched upon the exquisite whiteness of the plastic Jadite flooring, there was an infinitely appealing beauty to its face in the ultimate sleep, as if it were a welcome repose. The light brown eyes still open mirrored sadness — that was the incredible fact. The mind that had tip- toed the shores of his consciousness with sandals of foam, was still. But Bill Nar- don’s mind recovered from the horror of the unexpected attack, felt even more the icy chill of failure as it sought factors and only found an impenetrable mystery instead. “No planet ... no world known to me,” and Bill had traveled half a galaxy in his time, “has spawned this creature. This,” he paused, his eyes electric with excitement, “is a manufactured, an artificially evolved being! But who? Not the Martians surely; the Venusians? The Neptunians? No, no race in the entire six planets is capable of creating. . . .” In the very midst of his soliloquy he paused startled. “The Panadurs! Only they with their strange powers could achieve such a miracle . . . But would they? In all the annals of Europa there is no clue to the “Will to Conquer.” Besides, to the Pandurs life was sacred . . .” His thoughts swirled feverishly, and, impenetrably, the mystery became more and more involved as the glittering assemblage of delegates from other worlds traveled to the great Uni- versarium. F OR A timeless moment of absolute silence, every being present stood with bowed head in reverence to the Absolute. Then they took their assigned places around the immense Council table grimly. The crisis was at hand. When Bill Nardon entered, he was late, for the preliminaries, the usual diplomatic fencing and jockeying for favorable posi- tions was over. The smouldering resent- ment of six belligerent worlds was frankly in the open. Antaran, Head of the Supreme Council of Terra, presided at the head of the table — there had been no difficulty about that — DEATHLESS SLEEP 41 as was his due as Host; but Venus and Mars had been diplomatically seated at his right and left, respectively, facing each other and with equal honors, where they could glare at each to their hearts’ content. Neptune had been given the other end of the table facing Antaran, and to his right the Amazonian leader from Mercury. The balance of the delegates had been scattered around the council table interspersed cleverly with members of Terra’s Council. Bill saw instantly Antaran’s anxious frown as he entered and caught the half- annoyed, half-anxious query at his late- less, telepathed in their secret code. He merely signalled, “Wait, Antaran !” and proceeded to stand behind the Terran Leader’s chair as unobtrusively as possible. But it had been an entrance! His stately height of six feet five inches, in the close fitting tunic of beryllium, the dark red mane of wavy hair falling to his shoulders, allied to the lateness of his coming, gave him an importance in the eyes of the visit- ing delegates which just, now he would have liked to avoid. But when Antaran arose, all eyes cen- tered coldly upon the Council Leader. A sensuous fragrance of Venusian Jasmines wafted like an invisible presence as the Martian Leader insolently applied a gos- samer handkerchief to his nostrils in de- fense of the odors of the other races, and the tiny, winged Venusian ambassador glared with scorn. The Amazonian being from Mercury clanked her power-rapier uneasily, while the tall Neptunian uncon- sciously touched his belt. Above them, the cathedral-like dome of the tremendous Hall of Planets rose until the graduating hues of its intricately carved Sapphirine plastic walls paled from translucent sap- phire to aquamarine, to beryl to palest mauve, and then only the sheerest rose- gold or diffused sunlight where the intricate interlacing of arches was like a cob-web pattern in the distance. “We are gathered here,” Antaran be- gan without preamble in his terse, icy voice, “to discuss a problem that threatens . . .” He paused as if not willing to voice the ghastly thought, “to plunge our Universe into suicidal strife, and engulf the mag- nificent fruits of inter-planetary civiliza- tion.” Bill Nardon while engaged in appraising 42 PLANET the reactions of those present, couldn’t help being amused with part of his mind at the Terran Leader’s purple periods. “Dearly loves speeches!” He exclaimed mentally in the curious mental short-hand with which he was wont to soliloquize. “Ship after interplanetary ship has dis- appeared without trace somewhere in tran- sit between the inner and outer planets. . . . That is,” he amended, “the known outer planets which include uninhabited Jupiter and its uncolonized Moons, The great centers of civilization — Europa and Neptune. I cannot speak for Uranus which has only been partly explored, and those two unknown quantities, Pluto and especially Saturn, that planet of maddening contradictions on which no space vessel has been able to land. Thousands upon thousands of passengers, colonists of all races, and untold treasure has vanished into thin air, without trace. I submit,” Antaran drew himself to his full skeletal height of over six feet, thin to the point of emaciation and austere in all the dignity of his two hundred years, “I submit that Terra is blameless — that the infamy of this outrage is surpassed only by the mystery of the purpose behind it all!” He stood grim and silent, with folded arms, his translucent gray eyes searching the faces before him. And pandemonium broke loose! The Martian exquisite forgot his affected snobbishness and his perfumed handker- chief, and was shouting: “The floor ! Grant me the floor !” While the blazing eyed virago from Mer- cury unceremoniously shoved the tall Nep- tunian aside and was bellowing in stentorian tones : “I take the floor, Terran! I take the floor!” O DDLY ENOUGH, it was the tiny Panadur from Europa who even- tually got it. He had leaped upon the Council table and stood immobile, send- ing powerful telepathic vibrations in utter silence, for his race was voiceless. Before the incredible power of that involved mind, the Terrans, the surpassingly telepathic Venusians, even the Martians gave way. Only the Mercurian creature bellowed still, until Antaran granted the floor to the Panadur. And the telepathic flood poured STORIES - out. The being from Europa accounted for his world in no uncertain terms. To them life was sacred, and the last thing in the Universe they wanted was strife! Planet after planet laid their cards on the table. Even Mars, for all their super- cilious affectation, made a categorical denial. And as the mystery deepened, mu- tual suspicion flamed higher and higher. It was Venns that finally gave voice to what was in all their minds. “After all, treasure is replaceable, great as the loss may be. But at least a dozen interplanetary spacers built of the invul- nerable metal from Vulcan have disap- peared! A few more of such Venusian ships, and whatever planet is responsible will have a respectable fleet of the most deadly ships of space known to our Uni- verse ! Our interplanetary treaty with Mars and Terra and Mercury gave us un- disputed and undivined sovereignty over Vulcan Base and the invulnerable metal of its mines, because having in our grasp the conquest of Terra and Mars, we kept the peace! Now, after ages of adhering to the treaty, we are faced with virtual attack. We demand a solution!” It was then that Bill decided it was high time to intervene. With a gesture he signalled to the outer arch of the Hall of Planets, while simultaneously he requested the floor. Antaran granted the request while a slight frown of puzzlement crinkled the pale, parchment-like brow crowned with snowy hair. And into the silent Hall came«two ordine-plastic robots bearing between them a plastic box. They laid it on the floor, before the Council table and as silently withdrew. All eyes were centered on the plastic box, and the per- sonal vibrations of the delegates were overpowering, as Bill strode calmly towards the box and wordlessly opened the lid. With one effortless gesture he lifted the inert and stiffening form of the homun- culi that had attacked him, and flung it into the center of the table. Even as they arose in amazement, he swept them with a bright, electric blue glare and with the unsuspected force of his tremendous mind- power he gave them a faithful, telephathic picture of what had occurred. They all saw it. The battle to the death; the crea- ture’s probing of his mind — All! And there was no doubt as to its authen- KEEPER OF THE ticity, the proof was before their eyes, and no mind — not even Bill Nardon’s — could possible fake such a harrowing ex- perience and bring before them the corpus delicti, not even through telekinesis! “That,” Bill Nardon telepathed succinctly, “is a definite clue. I do not know of any race in our inter-planetary League able to create such a creature. I only have a suggestion to make. Once I was an ex- plorer. I can be one again. Ordinary minds cannot cope with this problem. Terra will have to risk me if a solution to this mystery is to be achieved. I suggest a suicide expedition. If Mars, Venus, Nep- tune, Mercury and Europa will join Terra in sending a group of their best, their keen- est minds, and their highest trained inter- planetary explorers, we may have a chance to relay back to the inhabited planets what- ever we discover. “I said suicide expedition — I meant just that. A single cruiser, armed by the com- bined science of all planets. Let Venus provide Vulcanite, because it’s invulner- able ; the atomic engines supplied by Terra — those are details. Every Ethero-Mag- num Station between the inner and outer planets to be constantly on the alert — as far as Neptune!” His narrowed eyes swept them briefly, noting the instant nega- tive reaction from the Venusian at the mention of Vulcanite. Suspicion lingered. Doubts rooted on a million incidents of the past — intrigues so involved as to drive a mind mad. Injustices. The last fra- tricidal war that had set their Universe aflame. T HE STATELY Martian had recov- ered his aplomb ; the wisp of handker- chief he pressed to his nostrils as he eyed the inert creature asprawl on the table dif- fused a breath of fragrance, cool as a mountain breeze. He gestured toward it fastidiously, his violet eyes inscrutable. “That . . . homunculi, or android . . . nothing mysterious about it. Superb byo- syn thesis, I grant you, but Terra could produce it!” The last words were like a stab. “And so could Mars,” the Venusian said wearily in instant contradiction. “The point it, what could anyone of us hope to gain by war?” The word was out at last. The chill atmosphere of horror the appear- DEATHLESS SLEEP 43 ance of the homunculi had inspired, became icy, seemed to seep like the breath of death through the lofty Hall. In the silent pause their faces were like masks as the tiny Venusian eyed them with a sardonic glance. “Power, perhaps?” He continued. “No one planet wears the crown of empire — no one ever will as long as Venus holds Vulcan!” He said it softly, but with a Universe of power in his voice. The sloe-eyed Amazon from Mercury stirred uneasily, and the Neptunian dele- gate seemed uncertain as to the next move. In silence, Bill Nardon waited patiently. A swift glance of intelligence flashed between the rangy Europan Earthman and his inseparable Panadur companion. And then the latter rose. He held up a silver- furred arm perfectly moulded, and ges- tured with his oddly human but thumbless hand. “This being could have easily traveled by spacer from whence it came — as easily as we did!” The Panadur telepathed. A small ship would be practically indetect- able; besides, in view of our coming, even if seen it would have been taken for one of our ships. It occurs to me that this be- ing may not have been created by another race, but is in itself the very danger we have to face !” “No!” Bill Nardon exclaimed with utter conviction. “I caught it exploring my mind. In the instant that I contacted his, I knew it was not independent ... it was directed. Three things only have I been unable to solve: It brought no weapons save its own murderous powers ; it was pur- posely directed at me as if to destroy the only ‘Correlating’ mind in our League. And, most mysterious of all — in death, an ineffable sadness overlays its features, where the expression of bestial lust to kill should have been frozen in death.” As Bill finished, the Martian delegate stood up: “I suppose my Government would be willing to release the Multi-Energon Screen for this expedition — retaining its secret, of course — provided,” he flared, “provided Venus releases the necessary Vulcanite for the hull !” They glared at each other from both sides of the Council Table in omi- nous silence. The Panadur gazed at them with evi- dent scorn. “Europa,” he telepathed with 44 PLANE T a curious sort of sardonic benignity, “would be quite willing to supply radiant energy bombs!” The nearest thing to a smile seemed to flit over his delicate fea- tures, as he noted their reaction to the dreaded reminder. “And we will furnish plastics such as your worlds have never seen!” The man from Neptune spoke at last. The Amazon merely clanked her awful Power-rapier significantly. II t {\|° STRIKES YET!” Bill Nardon IN said softly, his eyes glued to the Electronoscope. “Sense anything, Freml?” “Only an outflow of thought-energy . . . infinitely distant. ... I don’t quite know, Nardon. It’s voiceless . . . patternless, to me at least.” The Panadur leader sounded uncertain. Even to his stupendous mind- power, the voiceless susurration, alive, malignant, was a tenuous thing sensed more than felt, directionless, part of the vast, galactic night that engulfed the bait ship in blackness so velvety it was like smothering charred ash. The gigantic Super-spacer in the building of which six planets had tried to outdo each other, knifed through the impalpable vibrations in its endless flight. Back of it, a tiny smouldering disk, like a glowing ruby- brooch, nearly three-quarters of a billion miles away, was the sun. Ahead, Saturn was slowly coming into position, and the great wings of light that were its rings shone with the glory of an eternal rainbow, paling the immense crys- talline jewel that was Pluto. The tension within the spacer mounted perceptibly. Yet interminably the hours dragged on and on. All screens were * down, save those for meteorite protection, as if deliberately inviting an attack. Every member of the heterogeneous crew knew their assigned tasks so that mechanically they would .spring to their stations at the least warning. Saturn grew immense, glorious beyond belief, until Bill Nardon was forced from the Electronoscope by the intolerable light. It was then that some one laughed. Rather, it was a cachinnation sounding eerily in their midst. Abruptly, Bill Nardon tensed, his pre- STORIES tematural faculties alert. He swung slowly from the eye piece of the ’scope and faced the emissaries — scientists-ex- plorers all, of the six planets. It was the Neptunian who had laughed. He was shaking silently now, as if some hidden mirth convulsed him. “We’re close to the last planetary out- post,” he observed, “and, nothing yet ! This isn’t an expedition, Nardon . . . it’s a farce! What can you expect to find in Saturn? A frozen waste of solid, glassy hydrogen and helium, an infinite wilder- ness of ‘hot-solid’ gases under unimaginable pressure. You know Saturn has an at- mosphere of at least twenty thousand miles in depth!” “I know nothing of the kind,” Bill an- swered evenly, with studied calm. “Saturn has never been properly ‘correlated.’ Liquids and solids don’t compress ; besides, even if Saturn were as you say a frozen waste with a temperature of say 180° C. below zero, that would still be too hot for hydrogen, which cannot exist as a liquid at that temperature. I needn’t mention helium which requires a temperature lower still for liquefaction.” “You’re leading us,” the Neptunian hissed through clenched teeth, “into gales of methane and ammonia roaring around a dead world of frightful cold; into a frozen hell where if the atmosphere doesn’t crush us, we’ll never escape the overwhelm- ing gravitational pull... You... you fiend.” The last words were a shriek just as he launched himself in a tigerish leap straight for the throat of the Terran “Correlator.” And Bill sprang aside, his left hook in- stinctively catapulting to the unprotected chin of the Neptunian. But it failed to stop him. Off balance, slightly stunned by the blow, the maddened delegate from Neptune whirled on the Terran, aiming a staggering blow that whizzed past Bill’s head with savage force. Off balance, the Neptunian staggered forward, his lean features contorted by bestial rage and the lust to kill. He was like a man possessed. Bill Nardon was icy calm now. The harrowing training all members of the Ex- plorer Class had to undergo, had come to the surface, and to the tall Terran every- thing had ceased to exist but the task at hand, He rolled aside slightly, sending a straight left to the Neptunian’s head, KEEPER OF THE driving him off balance again. Bill weaved to and fro, lightly balanced on his toes as the Neptunian came boring back with ter- rible tenacity. Bill’s right arm was a peg on which he hung the blows of the man from Neptune, while lashing like a cobra, his boxer’s left, long and weaving, stabbed in again and again. The “Correlator” didn’t want to kill the man. For here was another mystery. The attack was absurd, from the standpoint of their aims and goals. But he had no time to correlate the facts and arrive at a decision. T HE NEPTUNIAN rushed murder- ously eager, and Bill let his heels touch floor, refused to give way. He took a staggering blow to the midriff, and went pale from pain, but with the swiftness of a striking Calamar, he countered with a vicious left to the face and a slashing right cross. The Neptunian staggered uttering a hoarse cry as his features seemed to run like the quicksilver face of the Amazon from Mercury. He staggered and fell to the blood-spattered ordine plastic floor of the cruiser. Bill stood heaving, only now the answer was apparent to him, but again his thoughts were cut short, for the Nep- tunian was far from through. Into the ghastly face, a new expression of diabolical fury had appeared, and as he lurched to his feet, his right hand clawed at his belt for a weapon. Only power-rapiers had been allowed them individually until a landing was effected, and it was fortunate, for as the clawing fingers closed about the rapier’s hilt, an unholy light came into the Neptunian’s eyes. Bill heard a thunderous battle-cry as a bulky shape sprang between him and the Neptunian, but he swept his rescuer aside. It was the Amazon, her own power-rapier drawn for battle. “No interference!” he exclaimed in a voice as cold as outer space. His own blade was in his hand now, the flexible Columbium-steel activated by the dread- ful electronic fire. The touch of that blade disintegrated flesh and bone and metal even. They were face to face now, con- fronting each other with the wary savagery of Venusian Ocelandians. The smell of death was in the air, and too, the wordless, tremendous, inarticulate vibration from an unknown source that seemed to hint at in- DEATHLESS SLEEP 45 conceivable horror, and ebbed and flowed about them. They could all sense it now, as it increased as if in a crescendo of triumph. And at that instant the Neptunian struck. One moment they were circling for an opening, their ghastly weapons ready, and the next the singing blades met in midair as Bill Nardon parried the slashing blow. And then reason tottered as time stood still. Where the blades had been a flaring vortex of unendurable blue light sprang between them like a hellish fan of electronic fury opening before their eyes. The Neptunian’s blade had disappeared, consumed in the incredible holocaust; only the neutralized hilt of Vulcanite remained in his palsied hand as they reeled aside, blinded and unnerved. Bill’s blade swished through the air as he reversed it and struck the Neptunian on the left temple with the Vulcanite hilt. The man’s knees went rubbery and without a sound he slumped to the floor. “The screen . . . throw on the Multi- Energon screen!” Bill bellowed. “This man was being directed, someone else may be next!” The powerful hum of the inner screen within the cruiser, that rendered everything within impervious to every known power, arose in the brief silence. And none too soon. Suddenly the cruiser lurched, and trembled like a great wounded stallion. Bill had a confused picture of the addled members of several planets clinging to ultra-mullioned gravity seats as the ship began to spin. Every possible aid of science had been lavished on the cruiser, even to the most exacting provisions against physical injury, or the danger from an unexpected crash-landing in some far off world. But even their combined science, great as it was, had not foreseen the un- predictable enough to counteract this blow. As if a cosmic hand had grasped the hurtling, spinning ship, it described an orbital parabola, flashing like a living thing through space, and headed at an unimagin- able acceleration directly into the phan- tasmal light of the great winged world. Bill’s dazzled eyes saw the tiny Panadur fight to strap himself to the acceleration seat on which he perched, while frantically 46 PLANET he strove to retain consciousness. Every- thing seemed ringed with prismatic rain- bows from the awful glare of the electronic flash, as Bill resolutely set his conscious and sub-conscious mind in alignment to fight off oblivion. But nothing human could withstand consciously the orbital fall of the great ship, as it dived into the fathomless abyss of night in a concentric spiral that narrowed tighter and tighter, wheeling in direct ratio with the rotation of the mammoth planet, at which it was aimed like the spear of a cosmic angel. Bill’s last comforting thought was the Multi-Energon screen. Nothing, his su- perb mind conceived, could possibly pene- trate that. A crash was imminent, he knew, but against that they were prepared. He tried to contact whatever it was that had sent the polygot vibrations and had man- aged to grip the Neptunian’s brain, and only a confused disorder, as of many minds abandoning their temporary union came to him, and then . . . the profound illimitable darkness of complete oblivion. N ONE ABOARD saw the fantastic scene as the cruiser neared Saturn and was trapped by the hungry pull of the planet. None witnessed the macabre sight of stupendous mountains rising to impale them as they struck its atmospere. Un- cannily, the cruiser began to decelerate as the robot control went into action, activated by the atmospheric pressure. In a great swinging arc, the super-spacer settled lower and lower, until at last, immense lateral fins shot out of its sides, and secondary rockets belched forth, braking the head- long rush. Beneath them, a world of light and shadows shimmered under the unearthly loveliness of the great rings, as if il- lumined by a sidereal current of glowing jewels. Three of the nine moons were in transit, phantasmal in their silent loveli- ness as they hovered over the parent world. Beneath, the liquid sparkle of an unknown ocean undulated softly, twinkling with myriad star points as if spangled with stardust. At last the interplanetary cruiser came to rest, ploughing up immense furrows in the glittering sands of the shore, in a par- tial crash-landing. The robot controls, magnetically activated to decelerate in STORIES direct ratio with the proximity of land, had held true. The almost incandescent tertiary-outer hull of the ship, began to cool to a dull silvery hue. In the near dis- tance, a glorious city of towering spires and prismatic domes, was like a fairy scene on a colossal scale. But no fingers of light issued from its towers and domes. No living beings issued from its portals to investigate the arrival of these voyagers of space. Only the querulous susurration of the spumeless waves of the great shining sea disturbed the eternal silence of Saturn. The silence of a dead world had enveloped the Terran ship, even as within it, the un- conscious members of its heterogeneous crew were wrapped in the silence of oblivion. The wheeling moons, one blue, one palest amber, and one, the largest like a glowing ruby of the skies, passed on, while time marched on in its endless cavalcade. B ILL GASPED in a spasm of living torture as consciousness returned in a flood. Slowly he opened long blue eyes that were tragic with pain, and surveyed the inert forms all about him in the great control cabin of the ship. To one side, the partly crushed form of the Neptunian delegate sprawled abnormally twisted. Bill knew instantly the man was dead, and a flicker of sorrow touched his eyes. There had been no time to strap him to an ac- celeration chair. It was their first casualty. To his right a slight movement betrayed re- turning life to the Amazonian being from tiny Mercury. The woman, if she could be termed that, moaned unconsciously and then opened her coal black eyes with a stupefied look. They widened as compre- hension came. The great cruiser was at rest, and through the visiports flooded the jewelled illumination of Saturn’s rings. An indistinct croak issued from her throat, and was echoed by the “Alili” of excruciat- ing pain as the fastidious Martian also came to. With an effort, Bill Nardon un- strapped himself and rose unsteadily, flex- ing cramped muscles that shrieked exquisite torture at every movement he made. But he managed to reach the emergency cabinet and extract a priceless Neptunian flask of Jadite, jewelled with Sapphirines. He opened and satisfied himself that it was KEEPER OF THE filled with Sulfalixir, then ministered to their needs. The miraculous stimulant was like a draught of life-essence to them. Not until then, did he ascend to the observation dome. The sight that greeted his eyes was to remain as long as he lived a memorable experience. Behind him trooped the others, to stand in awe at the spectacle before them. “Saturn!” Bill Nardon breathed. “For countless ages unvisited by man . . . and yet, a habitable world !” In the distance, the shimmering city glowed with a thou- sand hues under the illumination of the rings, silent, aloof. “Cut multiple screen briefly and obtain atmospheric samples,” Bill Nardon broke the spell. “I’ll want everyone wearing Energon helmets for the interval while the screen’s off.” He gestured to the assembled scientists, coldly efficient. The breathless moment of matchless thrill was over. The winged Venusian left immediately on his way to the Geology lab, while the Martian fol- lowed to make atmospheric tests. The Neptunian scientist in charge of chemistry was dead, so Bill sent a Terran subordinate in his stead. At last only the Panadur whose task was psycho-synthesis due to his abnormal telepathic sensitiveness re- mained with Bill, who besides being Com- mander, had the arduous task of correlat- ing findings, “We’ve landed alive! That is the in- credible fact,” the Panadur flashed. “And now that we’re here, it seems our enemy — • whatever it is, has changed its plans. At least, I sense no peril.” “Here,” Bill replied mentally, handing the silvery creature a flexible crysto-plast helmet powered by the Energon principle, “Don your helmet. The screen is being cut, and we can’t risk any more seizures.” He paused while he adjusted his own hel- met, then went on: “If we are alive, we have the multiple-energon screen to thank,” he said slowly. “Whatever seized us in space meant to end our journey right then and there. Remember the man from Neptune !” “That city is human ... I sense it!” The Panadur telepathed, as the impenetrable barrier of the screen was cut off. “Odd, the vibration is low, almost imperceptible. DEATHLESS SLEEP 47 where it should be tremendous if it’s in- habited!” “We’re plagued by mysteries!” Bill re- plied exasperated. “Well, next thing’s to vibrate the news to Europa and Neptune via Astro-Magnum. . . . Hope it hasn’t been damaged — no Ethero-Magnum could bridge the distance to the nearest planets !” But Freml, the Panadur, wasn’t listening even with part of his mind ; the great shin- ing city in the near distance seemed to have a hypnotic fascination for him. Slowly he took off the Energon screen helmet, and seemed to concentrate its men- tal power into its highest apex of ultra- sensitivity. At last it turned its glaucous beryl eyes on Bill Nardon, shining with a great excitement, and poured a telepathic stream : “There is life in that city ... an ocean of life ! But it’s not active . . . it's dormant, submerged . . . helpless!” The Panadur seemed to grope for qualifying adjectives; impatiently it went on: “But there is one that is not dormant, and it is a mind of power !” Into their midst the Martian scientist raced with a wild look in his eyes. T HE ATMOSPHERE . . . Commander ... it can’t be! It’s a hydrogen, oxygen compound stabilized by an un- known gas that has properties of living energy . . . there’s nothing like it in our known universe . . . it’s like a sentient thing !” “Is it breathable?” Bill’s laconic query. “Yes, exhilarating even . . . but I have yet to test for secondary metabolic ef- fects ... I ... for once in my existence I was too excited to complete the tests !” The Martian scientist was abashed. “It has one remarkable property, though, its vibra- tory conductivity exceeds that of water many times, not to speak of air.” “That will aid us in sending by Astro- Magnum,” Bill thought instantly, and their attuned minds received the message. “Astro-radio will receive an impetus in its passage through this atmosphere we had not counted on!” And something else they had not counted on was advancing toward them like a vast curtain of scintillating light. It was Bill who saw it first, covering half of the vast horizon, terrible in the unearthly beauty 48 PLANET of its swirling vortices of prismatic stars. In a prodigious leap Bill Nardon was at the conveyor that slid noiselessly into the control room, in those few dreadful sec- onds, it seemed to him he would never have time to reach the control board as he raced with extinction. When his hand closed over the switch that activated the outer Multi-Energon Screen, a wave of nausea swept him from the intensity of the re- action. And without warning the starry swarm struck. Like billions of miniature stars exploding, the ship was enveloped in cor- uscating flame, lurid, unbearable in the dazzling glare of the holocaust, until even Bill Nardon doubted if the mathematically perfect Energon Screen providing an in- finite overlapping series, would hold. Be- neath was the invulnerable hull of Vul- canite, he knew. But would even Vul- canite be impervious to this bombardment once the screen gave way? “All scientists at emergency stations!” He barked as he telepathed at the same time. “Battle crews man all weapons and hold fire pending orders. Everyone wear helmets !” H E, HIMSELF took over the Electro- Flash, Neptune’s gift to the Expedi- tion. In a way, it was the ultimate weapon, disrupting as it did the very electronic balances of organic and inorganic matter. And then, as abruptly as it had come, the terrible grandeur of the living curtain was withdrawn, receding into the far dis- tance like a vast nebula of microscopic stars. Bill shook himself. This must be teleki- nesis, a nightmare instilled into their minds, it couldn’t be real ! But the white-faced Venusian that fluttered in, flashing in- coherent messages as he tried to telepath, dispelled that thought. “Commander ... I have checked the graph of power intake of automatic ab- sorber P-6, set to absorb cosmic rays for auxiliary power . . . I . . .” He passed a tiny, weary hand over his smooth brow, and his azure wings hung limp, “I can’t believe it . . . we have more power, more atomic power than when we began this trip! It is as if we had tapped an in- credible source Of radio-active energy!” Silently, a Terran scientist handed Nar- don a developed electro-photo of a small STORIES segment of the “curtain” of fire. Unmis- takably outlined were myriad tiny insect bodies, unquestionably composed of some living radio-active substance. “The Absolute be praised !” Bill breathed fervently. “No known ship — not even Vulcanite could possibly withstand a radio- active bombardment of such scope!” He turned slowly to where the Martian scien- tists stood silent in a group. “I salute you,” he telepathed gravely. “Your Multi- Energon screen is the greatest defensive weapon in our Universe.” Embarrassedly, the tall, violet-eyed Martians stirred un- comfortably; they had a deep distaste for any emotions and suppressed them ruth- lessly. Other findings began to trickle in. The nameless inter-stellar spacer that had emerged from the combined ingenuity of half a dozen worlds, spurred by the ulti- mate incentive of a brooding and catas- trophic peril, all the more terrible because it was unknown, literally swarmed with specialists in every known science. It re- mained for the special mind of Bill Nardon to correlate all the scientific details and weld them into a final complete knowledge, behind which it was his task to find and solve the primum mobile — the motivating factor that they sought. One thing emerged beyond the shadow of a doubt. Each attack had been char- acterized by a complete absence of a known presence. The individual attempt on Bill’s life on earth had been carried out by a creature acting outside its own volition; the magnetic force that had drawn their ship into Saturn itself, likewise was dis- embodied, and now this radio-active swarm that would have consumed them but for the Energon screen — it too gave no clue as to the final, directing intelligence be- hind. And yet, in their very midst, a great scientific mind had gone mad. The stalemate was clear. Thus far they had weathered the unimaginable behind their Energon Screen. But they were trapped within just as effectively as long as they were unable to emerge. The sum total of their knowledge resolved itself to a series of bizarre incidents — to which it might be added the cryptic thought-pro- jection of Freml, the Panadur. He had mentioned “ an ocean of submerged life . . . helpless” had been his final description. Yet he had also indicated a “Mind of KEEPER OF THE Power” far from helpless or submerged indeed. And great as it might be, one single entity was, foe or not, worthy of challenge. The incomplete puzzle in Bill Nar don’s mind revolved with all the mad- dening quality of a picture almost dis- cerned, yet eluding the final composition that would give it recognizable form. The question was, should they correlate all findings and attempt a return to Earth, and utilize their meager knowledge in preparation of some sort of a defense. Or, take the final risk and visit that silent city whence Freml had drawn vibrations of in- telligent life. Bill Nardon already knew what his decision would be. He would call a conference, of course, but in his mind the determination to confront whatever that ‘Mind of Power’ was — alone , had al- ready crystallized. And in another mind, alien beyond be- lief, in comparison with his, the same idea had taken root. For Freml, the Panadur, had not told Bill Nardon all he had obtained in that last mental projection of his. A deep, inhuman horror had traveled the incredibly-faint thought waves. Some- thing ancient beyond calculation, as if the essence of evil itself had come alive, had bridged the gap. Ill fST SEE NO wisdom in risking your J- life too. For if I perish, my task falls upon your shoulders, Freml. In that emergency, you were selected to command the ship . . . remember?” Voicelessly the Panadur assented, and continued to patter softly beside Bill Nardon. “I’ve brought with me the League’s ulti- mate weapons,” the red-headed Ter ran continued. “Electro-flash, power-rapier . . . if those were to fail, what use would there be in attempting to remain ? Thus, I would make a suggestion — return to the spacer in the Z-auxiliary that brought us to the city; I’ll keep in touch with you through the ethero-radio,” he lifted his left arm exposing the watch-like instru- ment on his wrist. The Panadur lifted his great beryl eyes to the tall Terran and telepathed softly, “You don’t expect me to agree to that!” 4— Planet Stories — Winter DEATHLESS SLEEP 49 “No,” Bill smiled, “it was the expression of a hope. But tell me this, if as I ex- pect, there’s strife, what can you hope to add in my favor that would be as impor- tant as your being safe in the ship, were I to die?” Freml didn’t answer right away. It was not hesitation, Bill knew that, but the Panadur had blanked his mind. There were things they didn’t impart whenever they touched on secrets of his race. Then — “A weapon you. do not have !” He seemed to consider the next thought be- fore he telepathed: “You know my race can store the ac- cumulative power of radiant energy, and direct it at will . . . It’s in the legends . . . that’s how we saved the first Earth- men who trod Europa.” They were in the very heart of the silent city now, and the lofty domes and exag- gerated spires swam in the glaucous dusk that was Saturn’s eternal day. Overhead great stars blazed like flaming roses, and the glory of the rings was a spangled ocean of glowing jewels, shimmering in pattern- less rhythms of color. Their sense of reality drained away as the full impact of its dissolving magic gripped their minds. At last they stood before the portals of the great building whose lofty tower was the city’s dominant note. For here the vibrations had led them, vibrations of life — dormant, helpless — and something else too. Their senses preternaturally alert weapons ready, they exchanged one final look, then Bill Nardon pushed the great portal before him, and it swung silently inwards. And then the great stars, the wheeling moons, the glorious rings that poured down enchantment, were forgotten before the sight that gripped them as they stepped inside. For on an infinite series of tiers that filled the lofty immensity of the room lay inert beings. Row upon endless row of creatures that to all appearances could have been highly evolved Terrans, except for an exagger- ated refinement of features, an evident fragility of bodies, as if evolved almost tQ the very brink of decadence. Their mar-! moreal flesh had the cold whiteness of death, and their hair had grown until it spread in great festoons of yellow and black and silver grey. A fine, glittering 50 PLAJVET film of dust overlay their tunics and flesh, and over all, the impalpable feeling of disaster, of a gigantic tragedy, hung like a pall. “Cataleptic!” Freml flashed the thought, as he examined the nearest beings. “A living death!” “Rather,” Bill Nardon said slowly, “a deathless sleep!” It occurred to him that the entire city was thus peopled with sleepers in oblivion — the ocean of sub- merged life Freml had sensed. U PWARD through the broad ramps of a now motionless conveyor they ascended floor after floor, filled to over- ** • flowing with inert Saturnians, until at last the conveyor ceased and only the polished walls of some unknown substance of what appeared to be an ascensor, re- mained. Nardon examined it carefully before pressing the colored disk on the side of its closed door. Noiselessly the panel slid aside revealing a shining quad- rangle. Unhesitatingly they entered and the door automatically closed. A series of vari-colored disks made a triangular pattern on the left, and Bill pressed the black one at its apex. It shot upwards swiftly without the slightest jar, its in- comparable smoothness gave no hint of the extraordinary speed save for the slight, hollow feeling in the pit of their stomachs its occupants felt. After a brief interval it stopped, decelerating as smoothly as it had begun, and the sliding door swept aside. And before them opened a great, transparent alcove beyond whose translu- cent walls and ceiling, the colossal thea- tricalism of the heavens was visible. But Bill Nardon and the Panadur had no eyes for the sidereal spectacle above, two figures in the foreground held their eyes. A girl and what was evidently a man. Two figures, no more. And just now there was not the faintest hint of a belligerent move. Somehow the sight of that girl seated immobile with her ex- quisite hands folded on her lap, and the startling peacefulness of the man at the towering instrument he was playing, had a curious anticlimatic effect on Bill. He had not known what to expect — but surely, not this! “Beware!” came the Panadur’s warning with unusual force, as they advanced at STORIES the ready into the center of the alcove. The man at the instrument ceased play- ing, and calmly, casually almost, leaned , over to the silent girl and kissed her softly upon the lips, brushing the flower-like mouth with a fleeting caress. And before their uncomprehending eyes, a spectral- blue flash lit the alcove with its ghastly glare, as their lips met! Instantly, the girl’s marvelously tinted flesh, like Venu- sian nacre superimposed on gold, with the highlights gleaming through, paled to the translucent whiteness of Jadite. For she was golden — her eyes, her hair, the extraordinary lashes that gleamed with the age-old patina of ancient gold. Only her cold, remote serenity was as if she were enveloped in an invisible icy sheath. There was no hint of feeling, of emotional force even . . . until Bill gazed into her eyes and saw the infinite depths of tragedy. As they stood transfixed, she stirred a little and said in a low, magnificent voice: “I am Margalida, the Aurean, trans- mitting for my Lord. If you prefer, I shall telepath.” Her deep contralto was glorious in itself, but she spoke as im- personally, as neutral, even, as if she were a mechanical instrument, nothing more. And had they known, it could not be otherwise, for her task was to serve only as an instrument of transmission for the telepathic vibrations of the creature at the instrument. Hers was a conquered race, a race sunk in cataleptic oblivion, and she no longer had a will. Her double useful- ness made her life secure, for the time being. For the Cinnabar ian whom she termed her “Lord” in keeping with the custom of his race, chose, to communicate only through the medium of an enslaved mind. Never, never directly, so that the telepathic vibrations of alien races had to pass through the spectrum of the captive brain and be rendered harmless. The Cinnabarians emitted directly, but received only through the subject being. “The incredible effrontery of it!” Bill Nardon flashed to the Panadur. “Has his mind protected against our thoughts, and will only communicate through this tragic being!” Bill’s lips curled in a grimace of contempt, revealing a row of dazzling, even teeth. “With such a mind of power, this . . . Vampire of Life Force . . elects to communicate with us indirectly only! KEEPER OF THE Maybe he fears he might be contaminated . . . the colossal effrontery!” “ He’s absorbing everything we’re think- ing,” Freml thought coldly. For some minutes now, he had been enaged in “Brooding,” the nearest term Earth had for the Panadur process of concentrating their energy potential, raising it to its ul- timate power. His exquisite, silvery fur was an angry silver-violet now, and the beryl eyes were brilliant like faceted jewels. “I am Kleg,” the telepathic vibration came winging from the man, and even be- fore the girl transmitted, both Bill and Freml had received the message. “The divine overlords of Danae have permitted your invasion. ... If you and your com- panions would live, you must place your- selves and your vessel at our disposal.” He was playing again, the music weaving an unearthly spell in muted minors; it rose and sank in a shower of notes that sped like living, winged things under his caressing touch. Only it was an instru- ment on which no human being could ever hope to play, for Kleg had four flexible arms, and slender, tendril-like fingers on his four narrow hands that flashed with vertiginous rapidity, as he probed delib- erately with the unholy scalpel of his Sa- tanic music the emotional depths of the Ter ran and the Panadur. “Rot! Permitted indeed ! You dragged us here with some magnetic device. Tell your vampiric overlords, we acknowledge only One Divinity — the Absolute.” Bill’s eyes were barely open, mere electric-blue lines above his high cheek bones, while in his right hand he held the deadly Power- rapier, and an electronic-flash in the other. Kleg turned slightly from the piano-like instrument, with its three separate key- boards, with a curiously fastidious motion, and on the strange thin face with its knife- like nose and chill, transparent eyes the barest semblance of a smile parted slightly the cruel curve of the faintly outlined lips. He let his four flexible arms with their slim hands and long, sensitive thumbs fall from the keyboards of the instrument, and rose to his towering height of over seven feet in one sinuous motion of faultless elegance. His exaggerated slenderness made Bill’s superb physique seem primitive — barbaric. DEATHLESS SLEEP 51 S UDDENLY the Cinnabarian’s trans- parent eyes went black and without warning a coruscating lance of living' energy shot from his lips. But in the infinitesimal fraction of time, Freml, the Panadur, had acted. The awful energy potential he’d been generating in the in- volved processes of his being flashed like a thunderbolt of power and met the Cinna- barian’s in mid air. A hellish flare of in- candescence blinded them as the universe seemed to explode before their eyes. Reel- ing apart with dazzled eyes, they sensed the emergence of a new foe, and Bill’s power rapier wove a vortex of electronic dis- integration as he twirled it before himself and the Panadur; after a while, although their sight was ringed with a myriad rain- bows and prismatic rings, they could see several ape-like homunculi at bay, darting before them, seeking an opening whence they might reach the Ter ran and the Panadur. The Cinnabarian stood back, leaning against the immense instrument, limp and deathly white, as if drained of energy, which indeed he was. He eyed the Aurean girl hungrily, but Bill was between him and the helpless slave. In a frenzy of fury, one of the homun- culi made a wild leap, and impaled itself on the flashing blade. The sickening odor of disintegrating flesh and bone was a stench in their nostrils as the creature fell cloven to the floor. Bill Nardon was mercilessly using the electro-flash on the taloned creatures now, as they redoubled their efforts to reach them. As several died, others rushed in, debouching from the ascensor, slithering from under the instrument, until the car- nage was appalling. At last, Bill’s electro- flash went dead. He had no time to recharge, but drew the less efficient and thunderous atomo-pistol from his belt, and aiming it at the foremost homunculi pulled the trigger. A starkly curious thing in- stantly happened even before the last roaring echoes of the discharge had dwindled. The tall Cinnabarian with an involuntary shriek of mortal pain doubled over, much like warriors on Terra had doubled up and died when a dreadful Radite bomb fell too near and the devastating concus- sion snuffed out their lives. The vibra- tions of the atomo-pistol had killed him, 52 PLANET although the tall being from outer-space was untouched. And over the embattled homunculi’s faces a curious change came, as their eyes seemed to go blank, and they stood uncertain, bewildered, making no effort to attack. With one swift motion of his powerful arm, Bill gathered the unconscious form of the Aurean girl and retreated to the ascensor followed by the Panadur. Unheeded, the ethero-radio on his wrist flashed red and blue, as the others back in the spacer tried to communicate with them. They had heard what had happened in an incoherent fashion, but had no way of knowing the story in full. “We’ve got them now !” Bill exulted, as he raced down the ramps once they’d left the ascensor. “We’ve got them, Freml!” “Beware!” the Panadur flashed again. “They never suspected we of Europa possessed their power. I sensed from the moment I saw that kiss, that Kleg would strike in that fashion — only, he drained himself in his eagerness to blast us. The next time they will be more careful!” “The next time I’ll do my communicat- ing with electro-cannon!” Bill exclaimed. “Although just where are the rest of those hellions? What Kleg was doing alone in the tower’s a mystery to me.” They got into the swift Z-Auxiliary and started the return journey to the spacer, under the lambent fires of the titanic rings. And now the Aurean girl trembled and became convulsed on the seat of the auxiliary where Bill had placed her. “They’re trying to reach her, no doubt — from wherever they are . . . damn them!” Bill flamed. He took off his own trans- parent Energon helmet and fastened it on the unconscious girl. He was gratified as the convulsions ceased. A MEASURE of color had returned to her wan features and her heart was beating with greater strength. Bill thought of administering the restorative Sulfalixir, but he dared not risk removing the Energon screen headpiece. Freml, the Panadur, caught his urgent thoughts, drained of life energy to the point of ex- haustion, Margalida might not survive. And she must live, she must! Was Bill’s intense thought. Behind that alabastrine brow lay the knowledge of a thousand mysteries that must be cleared up. STORIES “I will aid her,” Freml telepathed with a tired sigh. He went close to the girl, and his fragile hand stroked her throat, then quietly he placed his face close to the faltering heart and transmitted some of the precious energy that still remained to him. Slowly, imperceptibly . at first, the exquisite bosom beneath the tunic of a material sheer as dim blue fog, began to rise and fall with regularity. Into the exquisite face, the delicate nacre hue with gold highlights crept slowly. Not until then did Freml rise. “Danger’s past,” he telepathed laconically. “Hurry, Bill! I shall need to borrow energy from my people . . . soon!” And indeed there was a need for haste, for at last the hidden enemy had decided to strike in person. All else had failed despite machiavellian plans. This time they meant to stamp out of existence these presumptuous creatures that had blasted one of their kind — an overlord. Besides in the unconscious mind of the Aurean girl, their hellish secrets lay. Out of the foamless waves of the strangely shining sea, immense iridescent globes floated upwards swiftly, gaining altitude and then deploying into a triangu- lar formation like an inverted pyramid. It was an awesome sight. In a frenzy for foreboding, Bill gave the Z-Auxiliary its maximum acceleration. He knew it was a race with time, and time was on the wing. Ahead of them the super-spacer loomed glistening in the fantastic light, and short as the distance was, it seemed as if they would never make it in the face of that swooping formation of menacing globes. Out of the foremost sphere, a lengthening finger of livid fire pointed directly at their tiny, hurtling craft. Bill Nardon maneuvered in a wide zig- zag then aimed for the yawning auxiliary lock of the Spacer, and hurtled within to a jarring, crashing stop in the mesh of synchronized magnetic fields that achieved degravitation, arresting mass and speed synchronously. The huge lock clanged shut instantly, and with what breath re- mained in his battered body. Bill Nardon managed to shout into the communication system : “Inner and outer Energon screens . . .” he gasped. “Man all emergency and battle stations. . . . Prepare to launch, we’re KEEPER OF THE DEATHLESS SLEEP 53 going up!” Blood was seeping a scarlet thread out of his ears and nose. Freml, the Panadur, was a limp heap on the auxiliary’s floor, as energy drained, the sudden acceleration had blanked out even his stupendous mind. Bill pressed the exit lever of the Auxiliary and got up stiff and weary, his body a living ache. And even before he got to the exit, Nydron was there, in- scrutable as usual, product of several races from the wild days of the last interplanetary war, until it was doubtful if he himself knew his antecedents, or his age, for that matter. But Terra counted only on achievement — not racial purity. They had at last learned that much, and Nydron's military genius was . . . well, Nydron’s. He was bowing slightly now, and behind him Bill discerned the Juvenals, who under the direction of a Juvenal Surgeon, repaired bodies through a rejuvenating therapy that involved an extremely delicate sub-glandu- lar technique. Bill waved to them to take charge of Freml and the Aurean girl, and wished he himself could afford the luxury of sinking into the ineffably peaceful, dreamless sleep which was the first step in the process; but no time for that now. He glanced at the light-copper features of Nydron, that might be a modified-Martian, with a dash of Mercury thrown in. “I see our military expert is ready for all contingencies !” He strove to be light, casual almost. “Have your forces been instructed, Nydron? I mean ... to meet this unexpected attack?” “All screens are on, Commander. As per your orders we’re blasting off in sec- onds. I shall modify strategy and tech- nique according to what information you may give me.” The long, lambent green eyes of the man widened briefly illumin- ing the smooth, narrow face which though unlined gave the feeling of incredible age. “As you doubtlessly know, any enemy has a weak link in the chain — an . . . an . . .” “Achilles heel?” Bill’s eyes flicked with humor. Nydron assented with the barest flicker. Everything about him seemed outwardly static, thanks to his amazing economy of movement. “Any luck with the Astro-radio during my absence?” Bill asked as they hurried from the Auxiliary into the control room of the Spacer. If they could only con- tact even one of the inhabited outer planets ! “We’ve been sending steadily. No re- sponse!” Nydron replied laconically. A convulsive tremor shook the titanic spacer, and the shrill ascending whine of the warn- ing signal rose to inaudibility. Overhead the inverted pyramid of scin- tillating globes seemed about to engulf the throbbing ship. SCTJEACE, gentlemen!” Antaran’s voice JL floated cool and sardonic beneath the lofty transepts of the Hall of Planets in the Universarium. “Your charges are . . . well, ancient history — almost . . . “Of course Terra sent part of its fleet following the departure of the Expedition. But would you have had it otherwise? It was not only a measure of protection for our most unique mind — Nardon’s — but you must admit, protection also for the other occupants of the spacer.” It was ex- asperating, maddening, that admirable self- possession with a hint of laughter. “How do we know that was the sole purpose of your fleet?” Flushed, his mag- nificent tunic dishevelled, the Martian Am- bassador asked furiously. “You invite reprisals !” A Neptunian was saying. “War Fleets are banned from space except by unanimous consent — you’ve broken the law ! Or is it that you’re scrap- ping the Treaty already?” He glared at the Head of the Terran Council belliger- ently, and with the complete approval of half a dozen races. “No laws have been broken . . . Gentle- men.” He emphasized the term. “You see, we’re all party to the deed. Really now, don’t tell me you were not aware that Mars, Venus, Neptune . . . Mercury even, in fact, every signatory to the Inter-Plane- tary League made instant preparations the moment the ‘Suicide’ Spacer blasted off. Why, there wasn’t a planet but had its fleet in readiness to follow!” Antaran smiled sweetly into their em- barrassed faces. “Admitted,” the Martian said stiffly, “but those were merely pardonable pre- cautions !” “Precautions that became immediate ac- tion as soon as our fleet segment was dis- 54 PLANET covered in space!” Antaran’s voice went cold. ‘‘Like a comet dragging a lengthen- ing tail, each planet we passed sent out part of its fleet, until all of us were repre- sented. Haven’t your Governments ad- vised you . . . Gentlemen?” Smiling still, although inwardly disgusted at the eternal suspicion of the various worlds, he slowly drew an Astrograph from his tunic, silencing them as their sus- picious curiosity was aroused. “As I already hinted,” he said affably, “I’m afraid all of you are slightly behind the times. Let me read you this message from . . . your planet, Vermil!” Antaran nodded to the Neptunian Diplomat. “It’s a message via Ethero-radio sent us copied from the original Astrograph Neptune re- ceived from outer space: “Combined Fleet reports sighting Spacer enter Saturn’s atmosphere. Mathematics of orbital maneuver computed. Will cor- relate to attempt duplication. Astro-radio messages from Spacer indicate planet in- habited.” Electrified, their faces ludicrous, they stood before the white-haired leader in silence. “Everyone of our Governments is now aware of this.” Antaran said in kindly tones. “We’ve had to maintain the utmost secrecy, for if the billions that people the various worlds had learned what we were up against, there would have been panics, upheavals ... it would have been the signal for inimical minds among the ‘have- nots’ to attempt the age-old cycle. Re- member, Gentlemen . . . excepting the Panadurs,” he gazed with veiled admira- tion at the Ambassador of that mysterious race, “none of the rest of us have lost their Will to Battle . . . which perhaps,” he added as an after-thought, with a sort of brooding amusement, “is just as well!” They were still dazed, as the tremendous implications of Antaran’s words filled their minds. A new planet had been added to their group. A new world had come into be- ing. ‘Inhabited,’ the Astrograph had read! And it was a fabulous world next in size only to Jupiter and the Sun. It would revolutionize their economy, possibly add illimitable riches in raw materials and . . . But their minds were too filled with the staggering prospects to visualize just now STORIES the stupefying reality of what it meant to open up Saturn. All belligerence was forgotten. Each emissary from the various worlds had withdrawn into his individual shell, lest the thundering ideas that swirled in their minds become common property. The eternal game for favored position would begin soon, Antaran knew, yet Saturn was still an unknown quantity. Opening a new world was far from being as easy as that. Perhaps all their fleets might never return, and other expeditions would have to go forth. He sighed a little. And it occurred to him that per- haps he was getting old. IV «TTURRY THEM!” Bill’s thoughts XI. crackled at the Martian expert in charge of ordnance. “I want no refine- ments — give me good, old fashioned atomo- cannon with the greatest possible concus- sion. Power them to emit shattering vol- umes of sound upon discharge!” The Martian’s violet eyes widened. “A complete reversal of all trends, Com- mander!” he exclaimed mentally. “But it shall be done immediately.” He withdrew slightly mystified. An intolerable net of violet fire en- veloped the Spacer, as the maneuvering globes enlarged the pyramid to avoid the upward rush of the great ship. Up, and up the flashing cruiser sped through the screaming air, and the enveloping net of rays from the alien globes. And sud- denly it levelled off and belched its answer. From myriad hidden points, huge dark masses catapulted into space, as the spacer instantly rose above them in a burst of acceleration. With frightful accuracy, the ghastly fingers of livid fire that criss-crossed the violet net, swung from the globes to meet this new menace before it could shower among them, and the dark masses exploded into a holocaust of sound that sped through the riven air at the frightful speeds Saturn’s atmosphere induced. Like leaves in a great wind the fiery globes tossed and whirled, breaking formation. But again they reformed, maintaining the pyramid with mathematical precision, and the ghastly, violet web of intolerable power KEEPER OF THE deepened, intensified until it was a glowing amethyst hue, and the spears of livid fire probed like cosmic lances at the frantically maneuvering spacer. “The Multi-Energon Screen’s a blessing. Commander — how long we shall be able to enjoy it, is the problem,” Nydron ob- served drily. “I’m convinced this is a battle where logistics have no value.” Bill Nardon’s features went taut. The calmer Nydron appeared, the greater the nature of the crisis. He favored his mili- tary expert with a long, searching glance. Into the pause, the Martian Aide’s thoughts intruded anxiously: “Surely, the Energon screen’s not falter- ing!” It was unthinkable. “No, but at the rate it’s consuming energy in warding off that electronic bar- rage, it’s but a question of time until we’re left with a mechanical and mathematically perfect screen dead from lack of power !” “And, you had in mind, Nydron . . .?” Bill was aware the great military expert had something to propose. Only, Nydron’s strategy was never orthodox, and quite often overwhelming. Nydron shrugged his shoulders and in- haled deeply of a pungent Venusian ciga- rette. “We’ve reached a stalemate. Those fiends out there,” he gestured towards the Globes, “can’t penetrate our screen, but they can detonate our strato-bombs at will. The question is, which source of power will last longer, theirs or ours!” He paused, and puffed again. “Every soldier knows death’s to be ex- pected sooner or later — it’s part of our creed. But you’ve brought a shipful of master minds, doubtless of irreplaceable value to the Inter-Planetary League. Now, if these were purely a military expedition . . He left the rest unsaid. “In that event, what would you do?” Bill strove to be as patient as he could, for Nydron was allowing only those thoughts he wanted, to trickle through. “Employ the sub-atomic Dispersal Beam to penetrate their defensive screen, pick off individual Globes and launch radiant energy bombs as close as possible, and see if that doesn’t take care of their . . . what you termed their Achilles Heel. Of course,” he murmured softly, “that might hasten our end, by using up our reserves of power all the sooner.” DEATHLESS SLEEP 55 “Sub-atomic dispersal beam!” the Mar- tian went stiff. “Why, that might be an Energon neutralized . . . you mean to say that Terra . . . !” “Naturally.” Nydron seemed to be en- joying himself. “What else could it be? You didn’t think Terra was going to re- main wholly helpless? Every poison has an antidote. However, it has not been tried as yet.” It was as brilliant and ruthlessly simple a plan, as only Nydron’s mind could con- ceive. F ROM WHAT Bill Nardon had wit- nessed in the silent city’s tower, he had correlated the Cinnabarian’s hyper- sensitivity to vibration. The strange be- ing had died from the concussion of the atomo-pistol. No wonder they even filtered mental vibrations through a docile, captive mind before they permitted the telepathed messages to reach them. Bill had demanded atomo-cannon with intensified detonative power, but this — this plan to strip them of their protective screen and spray them with radiant energy bombs which continued to detonate until the last minute spark was released — if it worked, it was the answer to their problem. The danger was very great, Bill knew. But in seconds he weighed the involved factors, and found only one definitive answer. He gave it. “Nydron,” Bill said formally. “You’re in absolute military charge of strategy, an- swerable to no one — not even to me ! Your plan should make history. Every scientific mind on this ship, is at your disposal if needed. I told you which was their weak- est link. ... I think you’ve found the answer. While you give the necessary or- ders, I’m going to visit the clinic. The Juvenalian treatment should by now per- mit my questioning the Aurean girl safely. There are a few points not quite clear in my mind,” he smiled. “It would be a dreadful thing to die and never know the complete answer to this mystery.” But Nydron was not interested in mys- teries. His lambent eyes glowed with inner fires, as he bowed in the ceremonial manner to the Scientist-in-Chief, who had placed absolute command in his hands. If there were the barest chance of vic- tory, he would seize it. He knew that re- gardless of the outcome, the immortality 56 PLANE T of his name was assured, but if he won, this would be a victory uunparalleled in the annals of their worlds. “It is a great honor, Commander,” he said simply. “The greatest I have known. The Absolute willing, we shall win !” Without wasting a single precious sec- ond, Nydron began issuing orders, sharp, definitive. The Dispersal Beam projectors swung into place, and the new radiant energy missiles, contributed by the Pana- durs, took the place of the Strato-bombs. Battle-crews awaited tense and grim the initial frightful blast, for neither one nor the other had been tried before, and the combination of the Dispersal Beam and Radiant-energy Bombs was awe inspiring. Meanwhile the spacer maneuvered with vertiginous speed close to the eastern wall of Globes that formed a side of the quadri- lateral, inverted pyramid. And then be- gan the weirdest chase witnessed by man. For as the pyramid sought to expand to avoid the hurtling ship, the spacer ac- celerated suddenly and focused twin beams of light that became concentric yellow whorls of disintegrating, radio-active energy. It bathed two globes briefly, and simultaneously, a shower of bombs sped unerringly to their mark. The stupendous concussion rocked even their spacer, as the Radiant-energy Bombs burst in a hellish burst of fire that no human eyes could endure, as if a new sun had been born in the skies. Where the globes had been, nothing remained, and those that had been close nearby, and had been touched by the yellow vortex of the beams, were spinning, lurching out of con- trol in a headlong dive towards the shining sea below. A great cry of joy went up within the Terr an ship, fierce and terrible, as the battle-crews achieved first kill. But instantly the pyramid shifted globes and closed the gap, and the amethyst-hued net of unimaginable force deepened again until it became almost black. And then a lengthening beam of milky-whiteness shot out of the globe at the apex, probing, re- lentless . . . and wherever it touched, gi- gantic tongues of flame licked upwards along its length, as it consumed the screen’s energy. Nydron knew how limitless was the power of that white beam. And too, how STORIES close their margin was. From every pro- jector he had the Dispersal Beam bathe as many globes as possible, and then the radi- ant energy bombs lashed out. Saturn seemed to reel. The pyramid was riven, even as the spacer was tossed like a row-boat on a stormy sea. A deafen- ing crescendo of titanic sound flowed over the planet, and coruscating walls of fire enveloped space, as if the titanic rings of Saturn had spilled over into the stricken world. And relentlessly, the emerald-tinged yel- low vortex of the beams continued to be focused on the Cinnabarian globes, while the unbroken salvos of sound went on endlessly until the last fragment of radiant energy was consumed in its own supernal fire, and globes fell like shooting stars.