Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930, Various [spanish books to read .TXT] 📗
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"It's that Phaestra woman," Tommy accused him.
"Well, perhaps. But I'll get over it, I suppose. Tommy, I love her. But there's no chance for me. Haven't seen her since the row in the palace. Her council surrounds her continually and I have been advised to-day that we are to be returned as quickly as you are up and around. That means immediately now."
"Good. The sooner the better. And you just forget about this queen as soon as you are able. She's a peach, of course, but not for you. There's lots more back in little old New York." But Frank had no reply to this sally.
here came a knock at the door and Tommy called, "Come in."
"I see you have fully recovered," said the smiling Theronian who entered at the bidding, "and we are overjoyed to know this. You have the gratitude of the entire realm for your part in the saving of our empress from the bullets of the madman."
"I?"
"Yes. You and your friend. And now, may I ask, are you ready to return to your own land?"
Tommy stared. "Sure thing," he said, "or rather, I will be in a few minutes."
"Thank you. We shall await you in the transmitting room." The Theronian bowed and was gone.
"Well, I like that," said Tommy. "He hands me an undeserved compliment and then asks how soon we can beat it. A 'here's your hat, what's your hurry' sort of thing."
"It's me they're anxious to be rid of," remarked Frank, shrugging his broad shoulders, "and perhaps it is just as well."
"You bet it is!" agreed Tommy enthusiastically, "and I'm in favor of making it good and snappy." He completed his toilet as rapidly as possible and then turned to face the down-hearted Frank.[208]
"How do we go? The way we came?" he asked.
o, Tommy. They have closed off the shaft that led from the cavern of the silver dome. They are taking no more chances. It seems that the shaft down which we floated was constructed by the Theronians; not by Leland. They had used it and the gravity disc to transport casual visitors to the surface, who occasionally mixed with our people in order to learn the languages of the upper world and to actually touch and handle the things they were otherwise able to see only through the medium of Silver Dome and the crystal spheres. Further visits to the surface are now forbidden, and we are to be returned by a remarkable process of beam transmission of our disintegrated bodies."
"Disintegrated?"
"Yes. It seems they have learned to dissociate the atoms of which the human body is composed and to transmit them to any desired point over a beam of etheric vibrations, then to reassemble them in the original living condition."
"What? You mean to say we are to be shot to the surface through the intervening rock and earth? Disintegrated and reintegrated? And we'll not even be bent, let alone busted?"
his time he was rewarded by a laugh. "That's right. And I have gone through the calculations with one of the Theronian engineers and can find no flaw in the scheme. We're safe in their hands."
"If you say so, Frank, it's okay with me. Let's go!"
Reluctantly his friend lifted his athletic bulk from the chair. In silence he led the way to the transmitting room of the Theronian scientists.
Here they were greeted by two savants with whom Frank was already acquainted, Clarux and Rhonus by name. A bewildering array of complex mechanisms was crowded into the high-ceilinged chamber and, prominent among them, was one of the crystal spheres, this one of somewhat smaller size than the one in the palace of Phaestra.
"Where do you wish to arrive?" asked Clarux.
"As near to my automobile as possible," replied Frank, taking sudden interest in the proceedings. "It is parked in the lane between Leland's house and the road."
Tommy looked quickly in his direction, encouraged by the apparent change in his attitude. The scientists proceeded to energize the crystal sphere. They were bent upon speeding the parting guests. Their beloved empress was to be saved from her own emotions.
Quick adjustments of the controls resulted in the locating of Frank's car, which was still buried to its axles in snow. The scene included Leland's house, or rather its site, for it appeared to have been utterly demolished by some explosion within.
ommy raised questioning eyebrows.
"It was necessary," explained Rhonus, "to destroy the house in obliterating all traces of our former means of egress. It has been commanded that you two be returned safely, and we are authorized to trust implicitly in your future silence regarding the existence of Theros. This is satisfactory, I presume?"
Both Tommy and Frank nodded agreement.
"Are you ready, gentlemen?" asked Clarux, who was adjusting a mechanism that resembled a huge radio transmitter. Its twelve giant vacuum tubes glowed into life as he spoke.
"We are," chimed the two visitors.
They were requested to step to a small circular platform that was raised about a foot from the floor by means of insulating legs. Above the table there was an inverted bowl of silver in the shape of a large parabolic reflector.[209]
"There will be no alarming sensations," averred Clarux. "When I close the switch the disintegrating energy from the reflector above will bathe your bodies for a moment in visible rays of a deep purple hue. You may possibly experience a slight momentary feeling of nausea. Then—presto!—you have arrived."
"Shoot!" growled Frank from his position on the stand.
Clarux pulled the switch and there was a murmur as of distant thunder. Tommy blinked involuntarily in the brilliant purple glow that surrounded him. Then all was confusion in the transmitting room. Somebody had rushed through the open door shouting, "Frank! Frank!" It was the empress Phaestra.
n a growing daze Tommy saw her dash to the platform, seize Frank in a clutch of desperation. There was a violent wrench as if some monster were twisting at his vitals. He closed his eyes against the blinding light, then realized that utter silence had followed the erstwhile confusion. He sat in Frank's car—alone.
The journey was over, and Frank was left behind. With awful finality it came to him that there was nothing he could do. It was clear that Phaestra had wanted his pal, needed him—come for him. From the fact that Frank remained behind it was evident that she had succeeded in retaining him. A sickening fear came to Tommy that she had been too late; that Frank's body was already partly disintegrated and that he might have paid the price of her love with his life. But a little reflection convinced him that if this were the case a portion of his friend's body would have reached the intended destination. Then, unexplainably, he received a mental message that all was well.
onsiderably heartened, he pressed the starter button and the cold motor of Frank's coupe turned over slowly, protestingly. Finally it coughed a few times, and, after considerable coaxing by use of the choke, ran smoothly. He proceeded to back carefully through the drifts toward the road, casting an occasional regretful glance in the direction of the demolished mansion.
He would have some explaining to do when he returned to New York. Perhaps—yes, almost certainly, he would be questioned by the police regarding Frank's disappearance. But he would never betray the trust of Phaestra. Who indeed would believe him if he told the story? Instead, he would concoct a weird fabrication regarding an explosion in Leland's laboratory, of his own miraculous escape. They could not hold him, could not accuse him of murder without producing a body—the corpus delicti, or whatever they called it.
Anyway, Frank was content. So was Phaestra.
Tommy swung the heavy car into the road and turned toward New York, alone and lonely—but somehow happy; happy for his friend.
[210]
Closer and closer they came.
Earth, the Marauder
PART TWO OF A THREE-PART NOVEL
By Arthur J. Burks
WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE
he Earth was dying. Ever since Sarka the First, king of scientists, had given mankind the Secret of Life, which prolonged life indefinitely, the Earthlings had multiplied beyond all count, and been forced to burrow deep into the ground and high into the air in the desperate search for the mere room in which to live. There was much civil war. The plight of the children of men was desperate. Something had to be done.
Then Sarka the Third called the Spokesmen of the Gens of Earth around him, and proposed to them[211] a new scheme which had come to him in his laboratory atop the Himalayas. He would swing the Earth from its orbit!—send it careening through space toward the Moon!—there to destroy its inhabitants and supplant them with a colony of Earthlings! And then they would surge on to Mars!
One by one the twelve Spokesmen, each the head and representative of the teeming trillions comprising his Gens, acceded. Even Dalis, the jealous rival of Sarka, finally gave his sulky consent.
So, under Sarka's commands, the Earth's hordes were mobilized; and in tune with the Master Beryl in Sarka's laboratory all the Beryls of the Earth vibrated, freeing the Earth from her age-old orbit and swinging her out towards the Moon.
The Gens of Dalis—the trillions of people who swore allegiance to him—would lead the attack on the Moon. When within fifty thousand miles, they darted out, clad only in their tight green clothing and the helmets that held the anti-gravitational ovoids,[212] which neutralized gravity for them and enabled them to instantly fly where they willed. Their only weapons were hand atom-disintegrators. And out from the Moon came mysterious aircars, with long clutching tentacles—the weapons of the Moon's minions! The war of the worlds was begun!
Yet Dalis, leader of the Gens that now engaged the Moon's aircars, was still in the laboratory with Sarka. For Dalis' treacherous mind coveted control of the Earth, and though the urge to lead his Gens into battle was tremendous, still he stayed, watching Sarka closely, waiting for the moment when he could trick Sarka and assume control.
And at the head of the Gens of Dalis was a woman, Jaska, whom Sarka loved. The Moon's aircars swept away the Gens of Dalis, and out from Earth poured the Gens of Cleric, who was Jaska's father. The newcomers fought desperately to save Jaska from the deadly clutches of the aircars.
Dalis could stand it no longer. He sped forth from the laboratory, to reorganize his beaten Gens. Jaska flew for home; but behind her a single aircar, splashed with crimson, reached forth its tentacles to clutch her—and Sarka groaned with the agony of his impotence to help the woman he loved.
CHAPTER XI Escape—and Dalis' Laughter
ut Sarka was not to be so easily beaten. There still remained an infinite number of possible changes of speed by manipulation of ovidum by vibration set up by the Beryls, without which this flight from the beginning would have been impossible. But for two hours, while the white robed men of Cleric fought against the car of the crimson splashes to prevent the capture of the daughter of their Spokesman—and died by hundreds in the grip of those grim tentacles—Sarka was forced to labor with the Beryls until perspiration bathed his whole body and his heart was heavy as he foresaw failure. And failure meant death or worse for Jaska.
But at the end of two hours, while the men of Cleric fought like men inspired against the aircar of the crimson slashes, a cessation in the outward speed of the earth could be noted. At the end of three hours the body of Jaska, all this time fighting manfully to attain to landing place on the Earth, was at last bulking larger; but the tentacles of the aircar were groping after her, reaching for her, striving to catch and clasp her to her death.
The two Sarkas watched and prayed while the might of the Beryls, traveling at top speed, fought
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