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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Amazing Stories, July 1932, with "The Resistant Ray"
IT would almost seem as though we might be amply protected—if knowledge of possible dangers is a protection—against any kind of inimical overture or impending invasion from another planet, by the time we have attained the reality of interplanetary travel—assuming, of course, that all the obstacles to such travel will be overcome and conquered in time. Our well-known author gives us yet another idea and asks us, in most vivid manner, to hearken to his warning.
RAGNAR was sitting on a boulder outside his adobe lodge, when he saw Doctor Bush. Several mornings he had observed him lumbering by, his thin figure stooped, his lips moving as if he conversed with himself. But this was the first morning he stopped and spoke.
"They tell me, young man, you own the place here?"
Ragnar nodded pleasantly.
"All this hillside belongs to me."
"Then I suppose I'm trespassing. It doesn't, I trust, incommode you?"
Ragnar suppressed an inclination to smile at the stilted phrasing.
"Not at all. So long as you don't yodel, stand under my window and recite, or heave rocks through it, you're welcome to trespass all you want to."
"Thanks," said the Doctor stiffly, walking on.
But the next morning he paused to exchange a few remarks, and within a week was even tempted to occupy the boulder next to that of Ragnar. Ragnar thought him a queer but likable character. He never suspected that Doctor Bush was a world-famous, if somewhat eccentric, physicist; nor did the Doctor have the least suspicion as to the identity of the man with whom he talked. Ragnar found it convenient to be able to retire to this secluded neighborhood in the Catalinas (he had purchased his property through an agent five years before) for the season's shooting of quail and white-wing doves. The local people knew him under an assumed name; and while lithely built, possessed of good looks and really abnormal strength, there was nothing, to the casual eye, to distinguish him from a hundred other men. In his profession this was an asset. He sedulously cultivated the art of being inconspicuous.
"Him?" said the local postmaster and storekeeper, speaking of Ragnar. "Oh, he's an eastern chap, comes here every fall for the huntin'. Name of Brown. Writes for magazines. Yeah, I know all about him; lives in New York."
As a matter of fact, Ragnar did write occasional articles and stories for the magazines, and under the name of Brown. He was nothing, if not thorough, in creating a part. It was his private conviction that if he took the leisure to perfect his crudities, he would make a great writer—a conviction the editors did not quite share.
"So you write stories," said the Doctor with a sniff one morning. "What kind of stories?"
"Adventure stories," said Ragnar modestly. "Here's a magazine with one of my latest in it."
He showed a periodical.
"Bah!" said the Doctor. "Bunk! Not your writing," he finished hastily, since Ragnar flushed; "that may be all right. I mean the idea of your writing about adventure, while I live it."
The idea of the short-sighted, stooped Doctor living adventure made Ragnar smile.
"Laugh, my boy," said the Doctor tolerantly, "but there are adventures within the laboratory of which you shooters of deer and quail never dream." Behind the heavy lenses his eyes shone. "Imagine if you can the thrill of traveling into the atom!"
"Am I to understand that you have?"
"Oh, no! Not yet," The Doctor hesitated. A queer little man, mused Ragnar indulgently. Slightly touched, of course, like all impractical dreamers.
"But I plan to do so some day. Just now I lack the money to carry on my experiments. That is why," he said slowly, "I've undertaken this other job. Not that I believe in war, but they pay all expenses; and if I'm successful, I'm to get five million—five million."
"Eh!" said Ragnar.
"I shouldn't have said a word about it," muttered the Doctor, anxiously. "It's all a secret, you know—government secret."
Government secret! Ragnar started.
"Did you say government secret?"
"Yes; it's for the government I'm working; but you mustn't repeat a thing I've said. Promise you won't."
"I promise," said Ragnar, but he looked after the Doctor's retreating back rather thoughtfully. Of course the old man was probably laboring under a delusion, still....
Late that afternoon, after shooting a few quail, he approached the roomy house the Doctor occupied at the end of the deserted Linda Vista road. It was the first time he had gone near it this season. A newly-erected heavy mesh wire fence surrounded the ten acres of flat and reasonably clear land comprising the estate. He whistled softly to himself, for under a thatched roof of yucca and bear grass stood a try-sky speeder of most modern make and design. Of course, it might belong to the Doctor, though that seemed improbable. Still whistling softly he skirted the fence to the front of the house and rang the doorbell. The girl who answered his ring was breath-takingly lovely. Her hair was tawny, not blond, not red, an indescribable shade, waving naturally, and she had blue eyes, with freckles on her nose. To the rear of the girl stood a surly man clad in a rumpled blue suit, gross, puffy of jowls, yet powerful looking for all that. His greenish eyes, surprisingly large and heavy-lidded, probed Ragnar's face.
"Sorry," he said in a husky voice, "but the Doctor's busy, can't see any visitors today."
The girl had been crying; her eyes were red.
"Who shall I tell my father called to see him?" she asked.
"Brown," said Ragnar carelessly. "My land lies over the ridge there. I'm your father's nearest neighbor."
"Now who in the devil," he muttered to himself as he trudged away, "could that fellow be?"
In the hallway of the house Ragnar had quitted, the puffy-jowled man with the green eyes faced the girl.
"I hope," he said in a husky whisper, "that your good father has not been indiscreet. That would be too bad, too bad indeed."
"My father," said the girl quietly, "talks to no one. He mentioned meeting this man on his morning walks."
"So." His heavy-lidded eyes swept her lingeringly, the look was amorous, almost a caress. She shrank under it. The man smiled, a smile not good to see, and turned away. In the laboratory, the Doctor looked up with a start.
"Is that you, Mr. Miller?"
"Yes," said the other with a perfunctory handshake. "I arrived only a few minutes ago. How are things coming along?"
"Splendidly," glowed the Doctor. "There is progress, yes. In fact I might say...." He broke off, laughed exultantly. "Look; do you see that instrument there?" The base of it was a square box of blued steel, one side of which rose some five feet in the air. This side was studded with what appeared to be round disks of brass. The top of the box, jutting at right angles to the brass-studded side and giving the whole machine the appearance of a large chair or desk, was smooth, and bare of anything save two graduated dials. Stepping to this control board, the Doctor busied himself turning them. Somewhere in the depths of the box, a motor began to purr, the brass studs turned red-hot, then white. Apparently nothing else happened, but he called out to the heavy-lidded man, "Will you please walk towards me."
The latter obeyed. Midway in his stride he came to an abrupt stop. "God!" he exclaimed in his husky whisper, "I can't go any further."
"No," cried the Doctor, "nor could a cannon-ball. You see I did not exaggerate. I told the Department then that I could build a wonderful war weapon from my initial discovery if time and expenses—and a sum for the invention—were allowed me. At first I was ignored; but later, through you...."
"Yes, yes," said the heavy-lidded man, his green eyes sparkling, "this is marvelous; all we expected." Then abruptly: "Who is this neighbor of yours?"
"Neighbor?"
"The one you've been meeting on your walks?"
The Doctor flushed.
"Oh, you mean Brown. Owns the property the other side of the hill. New York man. Writes adventure stories. Comes here every season for the hunting."
"Haven't been telling him what you're working on?"
"No, I don't believe so."
"You don't believe!"
"Maybe I did say I was working on a process for the government."
"My God! Of all the damn dumb——"
"Nothing else though," interrupted the Doctor.
The puffy-jowled Mr. Miller's face turned turkey-red.
"Fool! When you were warned never to say a word." The Doctor's stooped figure straightened with a jerk. "Really, Mr. Miller, I resent your language."
The other growled an apology.
"I guess this Brown's all right. He'll probably never think twice of what you said. If you'll explain at length how this machine works, Doctor..."
The Doctor obliged.
"As you see, everything is encased within metal; the machine is simple to operate. As for the plans, the data on which the invention is based, they are there," he gestured to a pile of blue-prints and note books. "You can turn them over to the Department engineers any time you wish now. Then," he said with a sigh of relief, "I'll get my check."
"Yes," said Mr. Miller with a peculiar smile, "you'll get your check."
THINKING of the beautiful girl, of the try-sky speeder
under the thatched roof, of the puffy-jowled man and what
the little Doctor had told him about working for the
Government, Ragnar cooked his supper thoughtfully, ate with
appetite, and washed the dishes. He never employed help.
Usually, unless too tired or too late, he walked the mile
and a half to the Mountain View Hotel and dined there.
As he smoked a cigarette before turning in, he pondered
the situation. The Government had its own laboratories,
well equipped, guarded. It wouldn't be apt to commission
a scientist to conduct physical experiments away off in
the wilderness. He would have to inquire about that. The
Doctor, of course, might be a bit off his base, but there
was the try-sky speeder and the puffy-jowled man. Where had
he seen his face before? Somewhere, he was sure of that.
THE next morning Ragnar was abroad early in the hills with
his gun. Approaching the Doctor's house he noticed that the
speeder was gone. Acting on impulse—he had intended
going to the hotel instead and making some long-distance
inquiries—he walked to the front entrance and rang
the bell. The girl came to the door, looking lovelier than
ever.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but father's still sleeping. He was up most of the night and..."
Again acting on impulse, Ragnar said: "Pardon me, Miss Bush, but I didn't call to see your father; I called to see you."
"Me?"
"Please don't be offended. Yesterday you looked as if you'd been crying, and frankly, I didn't like that fellow who practically ordered me off. Get me straight, Miss Bush; I'm not trying to butt into your affairs out of idle curiosity, but this is a lonely place and if you're in any trouble...."
Her lips quivered.
"It's father, Mr. Brown." She hesitated, and then went on with a rush. "He's so naive and childish, and Mr. Miller....
"Miller?"
"The man you saw yesterday. He, he..." her face flushed scarlet, "he bothers me with his attentions. I detest him. He claims to be a Government agent...
"Ah!"
"But I don't believe it. There's something queer about him. Once he came here with another fellow and I overheard them talking in a strange language—Martian it sounded like. Why should Government agents be talking in Martian, Mr. Brown?"
"I'm sure I don't know."
"I told father, but he only pooh-poohed the whole thing, warned me not to say anything to outsiders. Father is a dear, Mr. Brown, and a great man, but was it necessary for him to come here under an assumed name?"
Ragnar was surprised.
"Isn't Bush his name?" he asked, quickly.
"No, our name is Lasser. Father is Doctor John Lasser."
The famous Doctor John Lasser! Ragnar whistled softly. Why of course he had heard of him. Who hadn't? His name was internationally known. And anything Doctor John Lasser might be engaged in doing....
"What is your father working at, Miss Lasser?" he questioned her again, eagerly.
"I do not know. He is secretive about it. But it's a weapon for warfare."
A weapon for warfare! The Martian language! Things clicked into place in Ragnar's mind. The great space cruiser Taurog was making a tour of the solar system at this time, was now on earth. And Miller—the puffy-jowled Miller—he knew now of whom his face reminded him: it reminded him of.... With a low cry of excitement he surged to his feet, and in that moment stood transfixed by the drone of an airplane's engine. A glance through the open door showed him a long, rakish craft circling the grounds, diving for a landing.
"It is they," cried the girl. "Mr. Miller said he'd be back right away."
Ragnar grasped her arm tensely.
"I've no time to explain, Miss Lasser, but you must trust me. Where can I hide?"
"My bedroom," faltered the girl. "At the head of the stairs."
Ragnar took the steps two at a time. If Miller were what he suspected, he would never let him walk away unmolested. The thing to do was to remain concealed and be guided by circumstances. From behind lace curtains he watched the plane make a perfect landing. Four men clambered out. One of them stood beside the aircraft and the other three strode rapidly towards the house. The bulk of Miller was easily identifiable. In a few minutes his husky voice floated up the stairs.
"Damnation!" he stormed in Martian, which Ragnar, having made several trips between the planets, and studied for a time in South Taurog, understood perfectly, "Carry those things carefully."
Ragnar cursed under his breath. The Doctor's invention... and it must be one well worth while or these people would not be interested in it... was being spirited away and himself powerless to intervene.
He saw the Doctor come from his room in a trailing dressing-gown and disappear down the stairs. His high-pitched tones came to Ragnar's ears.
"Why, Mr. Miller," he expostulated, "you didn't say... that is, I didn't realize...."
"Time to be moving," cried the other unceremoniously. "You're wanted at Washington, Doctor, where everything will be fixed up with you. If your daughter will get ready...
"I'm not going," said the girl flatly.
The puffy jowls shook with husky laughter.
"Oh, yes you are, my dear, if I have to carry you."
"Father," stormed the girl, "are you going to let this man speak to me like that?"
"No, Helen, of course not. You forget yourself Miller. If my daughter doesn't wish to accompany us..."
No one heard Ragnar run softly down the steps. He cursed himself for not having understood the situation in time and arranged for assistance. Now he was one man against four armed and remorseless men. But he couldn't stand by and see harm come to the girl. Already he was thinking of her as something dear and precious. Besides, he would merely be Brown, a harmless neighbor, making a friendly call. That assumption on their part might carry him through, might deter Miller from bothering with the girl.
"Hello," he said, looking as if he had just entered by the front door, "I rapped, but nobody came. Hope I'm not intruding?"
His fowling-piece pointed forward, negligently covering the man called Miller, whose heavy-lidded green eyes literally shot sparks of fire. A charge of birdshot at such short range, thought Ragnar coldly, would blow a hole through his chest. Even as the thought occurred to him a roar filled the room, not of the fowling-piece but of a heavy automatic pistol. Struck by a thunderbolt he had never a chance to see, Ragnar swayed, buckled at the knees, and pitched forward on his face.
"Got him, Commander," said a gutteral voice in Martian, as a man stepped from the laboratory doorway with smoking weapon.
There was a moment of stunned silence; then the girl screamed hysterically, "Murderers! murderers! You've killed him, you murderers!" and sought to throw herself upon the prone body. But Miller swept her to him with one powerful arm and clapped a hand over her mouth.
"It's his own fault, the fool! To point at me with a gun like that. My men have their orders." He kicked the body brutally. "Is he dead, Kira?"
"Shot through the heart, sir. See," turning Ragnar over and indicating a dark spot on the left breast of his shirt. "I couldn't miss at that distance, sir."
"Serves him right," muttered Miller, "poking his nose where it wasn't wanted." And then as the clamor of the horrified Doctor broke on his ear, he shouted, "Silence that fool, someone! Yes, tie him up, gag him! And this wildcat, too! No, leave the body where it is. This is a lonely place. No one will find it for days. And it doesn't matter if it's discovered sooner." He laughed harshly. "Who will ever suspect us? The front door's locked? Good! Let us go."
RAGNAR came out of a void of blackness as a man comes
out of ether. His head ached dully. There was a sore spot
over his heart and when he moved a sharp pain darted
through his chest and down his side. It was several moments
before he realized what had happened. Shot, by God! he
had been shot! He sat up with a groan, feverishly tearing
open the bosom of his shirt; then at what he saw, laughed
weakly. The metal plaque bearing his number, department
symbol and credentials which he wore suspended from a fine
chain round the neck and which had worked to one side, was
heavily dented, cupped, and wedged in the rough cup was a
chunk of lead. But for that metal plaque, it would have
lodged in his heart. As it was, an area of chest was black
and blue, a rib felt as if it might be broken, and there
was the salt taste of blood in his mouth. But luck had
saved him from death—the Ragnar luck. He staggered to
his feet. The place was, as he had expected, empty. In the
kitchen he soaked his aching head with water, found iodine
in a cabinet over the sink and painted his bruises, drank
a half-pot of cold coffee discovered on the oil-stove,
and felt more able to think clearly. There was no time to
lose. A glance at his watch showed he had been unconscious
nearly an hour. Eleven o'clock. And the Taurog had been
scheduled to pass over Tucson at ten. That meant that she
had an hour's start now on her way to Los Angeles, and
going like hell, if he knew anything of her commander, with
Doctor Lasser and his daughter prisoners on board—and
the Doctor's invention, the real stake for which the dash
was being made.
Everything was so plain. Doctor Lasser had offered to perfect his invention for the International War Department of Earth; but the stupid bureaucrats of the Department had ignored his offer and a planted spy had informed the Martian government, which, afraid that the scientist's patriotism might cause him to reject an offer from an alien planet, had cozened him into believing his own Government had changed its mind and set him to work. The trip of the Taurog was scheduled to coincide with the completion of the Doctor's labors. No wonder Franz Josef—that head of an expatriate band, that disgruntled ruler had foresworn allegiance to Earth and taken service with the autocratic government of Mars—had refused to be interviewed or seen on the trip of the giant space-cruiser which was bearing him and his men as an embassy of good-will to the various capitals of Earth on behalf of Mars. For months he had been secretly in America, watching the Doctor's progress, awaiting the moment for the Taurog to come.
And the Taurog had picked him up! Ragnar's brain simmered. He must do something at once—but what?
Call Washington? But Washington would naturally be incredulous. He himself was supposed to be in Europe. Valuable time would be frittered away proving his identity, checking up on his story. Damn all red-tape! By that time the Taurog would be at sea, five hundred miles off the coast, her prisoners and the invention transferred to another space-ship lurking somewhere on the blue waters of the Pacific.
Wire direct to Los Angeles?
But who would believe such a bizarre tale by wire? Besides the authorities would hesitate to interfere with an air vessel which enjoyed diplomatic immunity and bore the goodwill of Mars to the world. A mistake could well prove costly and embarrassing. No, the naval authorities would never make a move unless the highest power commanded.
Ragnar groaned. The whole thing was up to him, one man. He, and he alone must stop the Taurog. A wild plan came to him in a flash. He was acting as he thought. Fortunately, the old Ford in the garage was in good running shape. Down the road he shot at a precarious speed. Twelve miles away was a flying field where the fast western mail express stopped for fifteen minutes at noon. Praying fervently that there would be no blow-outs, Ragnar drove like a demon. A tire popped with a report like a pistol. The car skidded dangerously. Five precious minutes to put on the spare. He ground his teeth. Helen Lasser was in the hands of the puffy-jowled beast. A deadly weapon of warfare was being filched from America. Faster, he drove, faster. Bang! The car lurched, slowed, went into the ditch. Damn the luck! No spare to take the place of the flat, nothing to mend it with, even if he had the time. Despairingly he drove the Ford on, but at reduced speed, cursing the lonely road, the lack of houses. At this rate he would never make the field in time, would never.... But what was that? A Reo truck standing beside the road with engine running, loaded down with farm produce; a small adobe house back from the road a hundred yards, two men lolling in its shade. No time to talk, to barter for its use. Later he could pay them what they asked. To jump from the Ford into the cab of the Reo was a matter of seconds. As the heavy truck leaped ahead he heard the two men shouting. Then there was the throb of the engine and the whistle of the wind in his ears. Mile after mile vanished behind him. Now he could see the flying field and the big mail-plane like a white-winged bird. The pilot was in the cockpit, leaning out, ready for the take-off, a mechanic swinging the propeller. Through the open gate Ragnar swung, across the smooth expanse of field, the heavy truck-wheels plowing up the earth and clouds of dust.
"Wait!" he shouted, "wait!" though no one could possibly hear his words. But the mechanic paused in his task to watch the careening truck, and people drew back in alarm as it swept recklessly alongside the mail-plane and came to an abrupt stop. Fifteen minutes past twelve, and a disheveled man jumped from the cab of the Reo and into the cockpit alongside the pilot.
"Hey! what the devil!" cried that worthy.
"Government business!" shouted Ragnar crisply. He showed his dented plaque.
"What's that?"
"Can't you see? Secret Service badge."
"Yeah! Looks phoney to me."
A man was pushing forward from the airdrome office, a square-jawed individual with a rifle in his hands. Ragnar gave over trying to explain. The small automatic carried in a holster under his arm-pit came out with a jerk and bored into the side of the pilot.
"Listen! I'm O.K., see; but if you don't give the signal for the take-off, it will be just too bad for you, too bad!"
The pilot's face was a fighting one, but he decided not to take a chance.
"All right," he cried to the mechanic, "turn her over!" and to the approaching guard, "this gentleman's all right—Department man."
Down the field they roared, the powerful machine zooming, lifting. Now they were up.
"Give 'er the gun!" yelled Ragnar.
He tried to explain to the pilot that he wasn't a madman or a mail-robber, but he had little success. That icy-eyed young man merely itched for an opportunity to get the drop on his unwanted passenger. Ragnar's face was grim.
"No funny tricks," he warned.
The motor roared, the wind whistled by. Their speed was twice that of the Taurog, down here where there was atmospheric friction. At the worst he should come up with her twenty miles off the coast. Before reaching Los Angeles he nudged the pilot with his gun. He couldn't go into action with him to hamper his movements.
"I see you're wearing your emergency parachute. Well, here's where we part company. Overboard you go!"
The glint in his gray eyes was compelling.
"You'll get life for this," warned the pilot.
Ragnar watched him falling through space, saw the great circle of silk snap open above him. Rough on the kid to ditch him like that.
From its place he took a second parachute, small, compact, and bound it on. It was just as well to be prepared. Flying this type of plane was no novelty to him. The air-cooled machine-gun and disintegrator ray with which all mail planes were equipped were also familiar.
Over Los Angeles he roared at an altitude of five thousand feet. With the pilot's powerful binoculars he swept the horizon. No sign of the Taurog. The sea raced in to meet him. Smoke of tramps and tugs were rising smudges against a cobalt blue. Far off over the Catalina Islands a bank of gray clouds hung low. The space-cruiser must be hidden by that bank. Recklessly he gave his craft the gun. Through the clouds she tore, over them. Yes, there was the Taurog, a vast, cigar-shaped monster, floating easily between a purple sea and a sapphire sky, sun glinting on burnished metal.
His plan was simple. Possessing greater speed, he would circle the cruiser, give her a taste of the disintegrator ray, with which all mail planes were equipped for use in an emergency, force her down. There was no danger, for on such a calm sea the Taurog could float for hours. Anyway, help would speedily come, the Doctor and his daughter would be rescued, he would be vindicated and the enemy foiled.
A wild plan, yes, but the only one Ragnar could devise.
Perhaps it might have succeeded if the wild speed of the pursuing plane hadn't aroused the suspicions of one of the Taurog's officers. He levelled his glasses at the approaching craft, caught the set face of her pilot in the circle of his lenses, glimpsed the disintegrator ray gun swung outward for action.
"My God!" he exclaimed.
Ragnar fired, lifted, went over the Taurog at tremendous speed, banked, came back, but the cruiser too had her skill at maneuvering. She turned, as if on a pivot, darted off at an angle, and the thin beam of dazzling light missed her by yards. Again he banked, turned, his face a grim-set mask. Not again would he miss. Now, now.... But even as his hand manipulated the control, it happened. With a thunderous crash, a sickening shock, the plane catapulted against an invisible wall, catapulted and bounded back with splintered propeller, shattered engine. There was a kaleidoscopic moment when the world turned over, when Ragnar felt himself plunging, falling; then came a dislocating jerk, and miraculously enough the wrecked plane was suspended between the sea and sky, one wing snapped off, half-turned over, seemingly upheld by nothing but thin air. Ragnar stared, astounded Thirty yards away the Taurog floated, a section of open deck and cat-walks lined with angry faces. A puffy-jowled man with heavy-lidded green eyes was glaring at him. Rifles, pistol covered him menacingly.
"Damn you!" roared a husky voice, "come over here, quick, before we riddle your carcass with lead!"
They were commanding him to cross empty space. But that was impossible!
"Get a move on!" roared the voice.
Ragnar swung a leg out of the cockpit. Anyway the flat, inconspicuous parachute was on his back. If they meant him to plunge to his death, they would be disappointed. But incredibly enough his feet found firm footing underneath them. Though he could look down through thousands of feet of dizzy space, he did not fall. Instead, he was walking towards the Taurog and those menacing weapons walking apparently on nothing.
The thing was impossible! He wondered if all this weren't a dream. But the hands dragging him aboard the Taurog were real, the hard-faced men in dark uniforms who confronted him were no figments of the imagination. A wave of despair swept over him as he realized he had failed in his desperate attempt to force the cruiser down.
"God!" exclaimed a voice, "it's the swine we left dead in the Doctor's house!"
The green eyes of the puffy-jowled man narrowed.
"So it is. But why should he follow us, this Brown, this sportsman?"
An under-officer stepped forward and saluted smartly. "If it please the Commander, I recognize the prisoner. His name is not Brown."
"Not Brown?"
"No. You will recollect that I am a member of the intelligence corps; that I have seen pictures, photographs, been given descriptions. This man's name is Ragnar."
"What!" roared the puffy-jowled man. "Not Ragnar of the American section of the Interplanetary Secret Service: Ragnar who upset our plans in 1945, caused their defeat, the death of our agents?"
"Yes," said Ragnar coolly, perceiving further disguise impossible. "The same, Mr. Miller—pardon me, Prince Franz Josef! It seems," he said conversationally, "that we both have a penchant for names other than our own."
Franz Josef's lips curled back from his teeth.
"And you were spying on me all the time?"
Ragnar shook his head regretfully.
"Unfortunately, no; otherwise the situation would no? be what it is now. Only this morning I recognized you, understood what you planned."
An evil smile broke over the puffy-jowled face.
"To have you in my power—the nemesis of my planet—God, that is good! But first let me tell you—let the knowledge embitter your last moments—Mars will yet put a conqueror's hell on the face of your own insignificant Earth."
Ragnar laughed scornfully, though his throat was dry, his heart like lead.
"Laugh," cried the husky voice, "but you saw the weapon we shall use in action—the invention of your Doctor Lasser, who thought he was perfecting it for your own war department. That was a joke! You wrecked your plane against the resistant rays he discovered. The same rays directed beneath your plane held it up. You walked across an invisible floor of resistant rays from your craft to the Taurog. Ha, you begin to understand. Our soldiers can shoot from behind such rays in perfect safety, for they are not impervious save to bodies traveling against their line of projection. From the air we shall wipe out armies, cities, protected ourselves from gun-fire, poison gas, explosive shells, stamping them flat. First France, England, and then...." He waved a fateful hand.
Ragnar schooled his features to express nothing but disdain, but within he felt cornered, lost. To think of such a weapon in the hands of this madman, in the hands of a ruthless enemy eager for revenge, for conquest of the solar system! To think that he, whose boast it was he had always succeeded, had blundered at last, had failed his country in its most crucial moment of need! He upbraided himself for his folly. Of course he should have called Washington, have wired the coast. But he had followed his own intuition instead, had trusted everything to his proverbial luck—and that intuition, that luck had betrayed, had deserted him at last.
And there was Helen—Helen Lasser—in the power of this brute. The thought was maddening. He knew Franz Josef's reputation where women were concerned. There must be some way out, there must be! The malignant green eyes caught the swift glance with which he circled the deck. "Ha, you are thinking of escape. But there is no escape for you. None. You are about to die. And in a way that will again demonstrate your countryman's invention. Seize him," he commanded the guards.
It was useless to resist. Ragnar was dragged along the deck into the interior of the cruiser. There was a narrow passageway, a large cabin, a smaller one. Franz Josef gave commands in low husky tones. Soon a strange machine over five feet high was wheeled into the smaller cabin. There was a low square box, a tall metal shield studded with brass disks. The surface of the box was a control board bearing graduated dials and cogs. An operator seated himself at this control board. The low hum of a motor filled the cabin. A minute passed. Then Franz Josef straightened and with a wave of the hand dismissed all but the operator from the room. He looked at Ragnar with an evil grin.
"This machine generates Doctor Lasser's resistant rays—with a few of our own additions. I now beg to inform you that the rays are being directed towards yourself. They form an invisible wall exactly the width of this cabin. Slowly but surely the length of the rays is increasing. I have told the operator to take his time; but inevitably the moment will come when the wall of rays will meet the wall of metal behind you, and then..."
"Good God!" breathed Ragnar, looking the horror he could not suppress.
"You fiend!" he cried, and whipping out the small automatic still in the holster under his arm, fired point blank at the gloating, puffy-jowled face. But three feet in front of it the bullet mushroomed and fell to the floor. Ragnar's own impulsive leap was brought to an abrupt stop against an icy-cold surface of unyielding hardness. Franz Josef laughed raspingly.
"So that unnerves you, eh? I wish I could stay and see you squirming—like a rat in a trap. But some sights are too unpleasant. Imagine it, smeared to a jelly between two walls!"
He went away, then, closing the door after him, leaving Ragnar alone in the room with the silent operator who, hidden from sight behind the metal shield, uttered never a word.
RAGNAR fought desperately for coolness. It was
impossible that he should perish so hideously. Hadn't
he escaped from a fortress on Jupiter—outwitted
the torture-chamber of Betula, the far-famed monstrosity
of Venus? There must be a way out of this present
predicament—there must be. But as inexorable as fate,
the invisible wall of rays advanced, driving him back
step by step. Against its smooth surface he pressed with
hands that ran this way and that. Unconsciously panting
for breath—as if already the wind were being crushed
from his lungs—he darted the breadth of his narrowing
prison, seeking an avenue of escape, but seemingly there
was none.
With an effort of will he compelled himself to stand still, to think calmly. It was a theory of his that there was a way out of any difficulty, if only one could see it. He mustn't break—that would be his finish—he wouldn't beg; and he'd be damned if he'd give them the satisfaction of hearing him squeal.
But still, to be crushed to death!
He raised a hand to wipe the perspiration from his brow and for a moment stared stupidly at the automatic clutched in it.
There was a way out!
At any moment he could shoot himself!
But with all his healthy nature he recoiled from the thought of self-destruction. Not until the very last second only would he entertain the idea. But the last second was almost upon him. Three feet of space left; two. He raised the automatic to his head. God! was this to be his inglorious end? He cast his eyes upward as if imploring divine intervention and in the act of doing so was smitten by an idea, like a bolt from the blue. The ceiling! The rays! The latter filled the width of the room from wall to wall, but did they reach as exactly from floor to roof? To think was to act. The roof was five feet above his head. Up, he climbed, up, his legs, his arms, his body braced for leverage against opposing walls steadily closing. God! What if there was no space between the rays and the ceiling? What if...?
But there was such a space! His fingers slid over the top of the advancing wall and his body followed. But just in time! The reaction from what had seemed certain death left him for a moment unstrung and trembling. Yet he wasn't dead. His heart sang. It was with an effort he restrained an exultant shout. Luck was with him again, the Ragnar luck. The top of the rays declined smoothly towards the metal shield. Noiselessly he squirmed forward until poised over the unsuspecting operator's head. On the upper thickness of the metal shield was a short rod of steel loose under a tentative hand. He drew it from the casting into which it sank, unaware of the fact that his doing so rendered the control board useless.
A deadly weapon. Up he swung it, up, and down upon the bowed head below. He hated to do it but his life was at stake, the safety of the woman he loved, of America, of the world—possibly the whole solar system, and it was no time to be squeamish. Without a groan, the operator collapsed. Ragnar leaped to the floor and shook himself together. He was the old Ragnar again, optimistic, dynamic. There was no weapon on the operator, but his own automatic was minus only a single bullet. For a moment he had a wild idea of using the resistant ray machine to conquer his enemies, but found it immovably anchored to the spot by the power of the rays it was shooting forth. Nor could he shut them off by a manipulation of the dials and cogs. None would turn for him, for some reason. So, every sense on the alert, he stole to the door, pushed it open a crack, and peered into the passageway beyond. It was dimly lighted, deserted.
His situation was still desperate. He was one man against many aboard the Taurog. Nor did he have any plan of action save the vague one of finding the whereabouts of the Doctor and his daughter and of foiling Franz Josef. In whatever he did he must be guided by circumstances.
Bar in hand he crept along the passageway. Behind him, from the room he had quitted, came an ominous creaking and straining, but he was too intent on what lay ahead to give it much attention. To the left was the large cabin he had been dragged through. He heard voices shouting, the sound of approaching feet, and darted to the right. A man, an ordinary mechanic by his looks, started back at sight of him, with lips parted to shout. Ragnar batted him down with the bar of steel. Someone was coming. Through a half-open door he hauled the body of his victim and hastily swung shut the door, throwing into place a steel bolt. Whoever it was went unsuspectingly by.
The cabin in which he found himself was large, and comfortably, even luxuriously furnished. A heavy rug was on the floor. A shelf of books stood against one wall. There were upholstered seats in rich brown leather, pictures, mirrors, a table covered with magazines, a sideboard on which stood glasses, decanters, a box of cigars. Undoubtedly this was the Commander's lounging room, a part of his suite. Within a curtained recess was a wide bunk. Another door gave entrance to a dressing-room and bath. Beyond a narrow passage was a cabin from which came voices. Regretting the fact that he had dropped the steel bar when dragging the mechanic's body into the first cabin, yet not caring to risk the retrieving of it, Ragnar drew his automatic and silently advanced. The door, from beyond which came the sound of voices, was ajar, and he could see as well as hear. His heart leaped into his throat. Standing back of a chair was Helen Lasser, while in the foreground Franz Josef glowered, his back to the door. The girl's tawny hair was rumpled, her lovely face pale, but hatred and defiance gleamed from her blue eyes.
"You villain," she was saying, "I hate you, hate you!"
Franz Joseph laughed, his husky laugh.
"Hate away, my beauty," he said in perfect English. "It will be a pleasure to tame your pride, chasten your spirit—a pleasure I promise myself when this voyage is finished, when I have turned your father over to the proper authorities and have you to myself. I like," he said coolly, "my women mettlesome. It adds piquancy," he informed her, "to the situation."
The girl gripped the chair for support, her face paled.
"Come," cried the Commander, "give me a kiss. Just a foretaste of the sweets I shall garner later."
Ragnar waited for no more. The blood seethed in his veins, murder beat at his heart. Through the door he sprang, sending it open with a crash. The girl gave a little cry and stared incredulously. Franz Josef turned with a roar.
"You!" he gasped, his green eyes bulging.
"Yes, me!" cried Ragnar. "You thought you had me trapped, doomed, but I've escaped your trap. Damn you..." he levelled the automatic. "Put your hands up! Put them up—quick!"
But Franz Josef, villain though he might be, was no coward. Quick as lightning he dropped to his knees and from that position hurled himself forward with inconceivable quickness. His legs swept from under him, Ragnar went to the floor with a crash, dropping the weapon. Then commenced an Homeric battle. Over and over the two men rolled, punching, gouging. Franz Josef made no attempt to call for help. Perhaps he thought to overpower Ragnar himself. Perhaps he knew help to be beyond the sound of his voice. Whatever the reason he fought with only a growl in his throat, the growl of a bulldog that has come to grips.
Abnormally strong though he was, Ragnar sensed that the Commander of the Taurog was stronger still. Once Franz Josef had been an amateur wrestler of note and had downed a professional champion in a private match. No wonder he was willing to accept battle with Ragnar. His seeming fat was so much hard brawn, muscle, rigid, like iron; and he was bigger, heavier... heavier by some thirty pounds than the American. Only Ragnar's knowledge of a certain jiu-jitsu trick enabled him to fight his way clear of a deadly tangle and regain his feet. Boxing was his forte. He must keep clear of the other's bear-like hugs or speedily be crushed into submission. He dazed the Commander with a left to the chin, staggered him with a right to the solar plexus, but a wild swing of the latter's caught him over the heart and drove him back—over the heart where once before that day he had been hit by the terrible impact of a bullet. Sick with pain, Ragnar's senses reeled, his body sagged, and with a grunt of triumph, Franz Josef rushed in for a body hold. If that hold were obtained, Ragnar was done for. He knew it, and calling on every ounce of his failing strength, he side-stepped, brought across his right to the jaw, his left to the short-ribs. Franz Josef gasped. Back Ragnar drove him, back, with a series of blows to the head, fighting purely on his nerve, the instinct of the great fighter. But again a flailing blow caught him on the chest, another smashed to the face. He was in agony, his head swimming, going down, sinking, and the Commander, with beast-like face, was diving in to finish him off.
And finished off Ragnar would have been but for the girl.
Horrified, she had crouched in a corner, watching the terrific battle. But hers was no puny terror, though terror she felt. Her heart sang when Ragnar staggered his enemy, and contracted with fear when she saw him beaten back, going down.
"Oh!" she moaned, "oh!" and flung out her hands. They struck the over-turned chair Franz Josef had jerked aside. The contact galvanized her into action. Suddenly she was an Amazonian, a woman of the Vikings. With a strangled cry she surged to her feet, caught up the chair, and as the snarling Commander dove in to end the fight, brought it down with sickening force upon his unprotected head. As if pole-axed, Franz Josef went down. Only the leather housing of the chair had saved his skull from being caved in. Ragnar staggered to his feet and turned to where the girl stood staring, with wide-stricken eyes, wringing her hands in an agony of apprehension.
"God," she prayed, "don't let him be dead!" And in a whisper: "I—I didn't kill him. Don't tell me I killed him?"
"No," said Ragnar weakly—though he wasn't sure of it—"he's only knocked out."
And then wonderfully enough she was in his arms, clinging to him, sobbing hysterically, and he was smoothing back her tawny hair, kissing her brow.
"There, little girl, there," he said softly; "don't let it worry you. Your hitting him over the head saved my life."
"I thought you were murdered," she said breathlessly, "back there at the house, shot...."
"No," he said, "No. The bullet missed me. But I've no time for explanations now. Where's your father?"
"Locked in the cabin next to this. He has the keys." She pointed to the man on the floor.
Ragnar secured them, and the automatic lying to one side.
He lurched and almost fell, but it was not himself swaying, it was the ship. Suddenly she was pitching, groaning. Outside he heard a noisy clamor, the sound of men shouting. All wonder as to why none of the crew had been attracted to the cabin by the noise of the fight left him. Something more drastic was claiming the men's attention. There came a thundering rat-tat at the door of the lounging cabin where the mechanic's body still lay, dead to the world.
"Commander," cried a voice, "Commander!"
Franz Josef twitched, groaned.
"Quick!" hissed Ragnar, "we must be moving." Along the passage he ran, at the girl's heels.
"Come!" he cried, flinging open the door of the Doctor's prison. "No time to answer questions, sir; follow us."
Bewildered, the Doctor obeyed.
A man, evidently a steward, came into the passage, and Ragnar shoved the automatic between his startled eyes.
"Silence," he warned in Martian, "or I'll blow out your brains." And then: "What's happening forward?"
"I don't know, sir," stuttered the steward. "Not exactly. But they say a new machine's beyond control—can't be shut off...." Abject terror showed in the man's cat-like eyes.
The resistant rays! Ragnar started. They were pushing everything before them, crushing, rending, and if they couldn't be stopped....
A low screech, like that of a live thing in agony, ran through the hull of the Taurog. The floor was slanting beneath their feet. Never had Ragnar's brain functioned more smoothly. It was like that with him; he always thought more clearly in the face of danger, when quick action was needed.
"Where are the emergency parachutes?" He prodded the steward.
"Forward, sir; there are none in this section at all."
"The life-jackets, then?"
"In that locker, sir."
With an oath he hurled the steward into the cabin and locked the door. He tore open the locker and hauled out its contents.
"Cork-metal life-jackets," he panted. "Here, put them on."
Hastily he fastened one on the girl and helped the Doctor strap his own. Silencing the latter's attempt to utter a word, he led the way along a narrow connecting passage aft, away from the clamor forward. The passage turned, gave access to the open deck, hardly more than a cat-walk. Even as they reached it, an ominous groaning and tearing shook the length of the cruiser. Glancing forward, Ragnar saw slender supports buckling, crumpling. Above him the vast expanse of gleaming metal twisted, sagged; below lay four thousand feet of empty space and a steel-blue sea. Someone was shouting, and from further aft rushed menacing figures. From the entrance of the passage they had just quitted, staggered a huge man whose gross, puffy-jowled face was black and blue and smeared with blood. The girl screamed. A bullet sang past Ragnar's ear. He thanked God for the forethought that had made him fasten the mail-plane's flat parachute to his back. It was now or never.
"All right," he cried, grabbing the girl under one arm and the Doctor under the other, "over we go!"
The air was a whistling hurricane through which they shot at express speed. Would the parachute open? It was designed to be fool-proof—a recent invention—but perhaps its automatic releasing device had been injured in the fight with Franz Josef, perhaps it was jammed.... All these thoughts ran through Ragnar's mind in the seconds he was falling; and then, just as he had given up hope, there was a sudden jolt, a sensation of going deaf, and dangling at the end of a vast umbrella of silk, the three of them were floating easily to the water below!
Looking up, Ragnar located the Taurog, and even as he did so, he was stunned by a dull explosion. There was a blinding flash of light, a searing blast of heat that scorched them even where they swung; then, wrapped in sheets of flame, the giant cruiser of the air came hurtling oceanwards to strike the water and disappear in a cloud of steam!
Horrified, sick at heart, Ragnar understood only too well what had happened, what he had leaped to avoid. Reaching the fuel-oil tanks used when the cruiser was inside the stratosphere, the resistant rays had somehow ignited the oil with their pressure—had blown it up!
Prince Franz Josef was gone, the crew of the Taurog, save for several that had leaped in parachutes, wiped out, slain by the invention they had tried to steal.
Ragnar shuddered. And yet it was better so. The tragedy would be listed as another regrettable accident of the air—as indeed it was. Only a few high government officials need ever be told the truth.
As for the rest, the enemy was foiled, the resistant rays invention would become the property of his own Government's War Department, and he himself....
Already he could discern the smoke of tugs and steamers speeding to the scene of the disaster. Soon they would be picked up. Meantime he was floating on the water between the Doctor and the woman he loved, her tawny hair like seaweed drifting against his mouth.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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