The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 04 Read online

  Silently a gap widened in the space ship's hull. Rainbow sparklings brightened as the Prometheans surged forward. Quade suddenly noticed that Gerry wore high rubber boots, and that the woman was eyeing him with a certain malicious amusement. With grimly set lips he took the pail she handed him and waited.

  The Mercurians poured in through the gap. But only a few at a time could enter, and they sped in an unerring, narrow stream toward the power plant. And, like the first Promethean, they reached up toward the dangling wire, and — Puff!

  "Scoop 'em up," Gerry commanded tartly. "We need elbow room here."

  Quade obeyed. Along the sloping corridor men stood at intervals, a bucket brigade that passed along empty pails as Quade sent up Promethean-filled ones. There were more of them than he had thought. Presently his arms began to ache, and the glances he sent toward Gerry, who was lounging negligently against the wall, were expressive.

  "Keep your temper," she advised. "You're not out of the soup yet."

  Since this was true, Quade didn't answer but bent to his task with renewed vigor. There must have been five or six hundred of the creatures from Mercury. But at last they were killed — all but a few too large to enter narrow opening.

  At Gerry's command, Michaels enlarged the gap so the rest of the Promes could surge in. Quade made a bound for safety, but the woman ahead of him and blocked the passage. "Don't just stand there," he said. "One of those things is heading for me."

  "Sorry," Gerry said, and with a dexterous movement managed to propel Quade back, where he collided with a fat Promethean and was hurled to the ground by an electric shock. Muttering, he rose and watched the last of the creatures die. Gerry's cool voice came from the passage. "That's all. There isn't any more."

  Simultaneously lights flared up all over Hollywood on the Moon. Michaels had sent out a reassuring message, and the power once more went racing through a maze of cables and wires. The jet starry sky faded and paled as the lighting system went into action. The air rectifiers lunged into frantic operation; the force beams flared out; the heating plates and coils glowed red and then white.

  Quade followed Gerry into the control room. The woman sank down into a chair and lit a cigarette. "Well?" she inquired. "What's keeping you?"

  Quade bushed. "Not a thing," he said. "Except — I want to say thanks."

  "Don't thank me. I've got my fee," Gerry's sly sideward glance took in Quade's somewhat flushed face. "'There's one Promethean left, and he's tucked away safely in my lab."

  "You're welcome to him. Only&" Quade's voice became suddenly earnest. "Miss Carlyle, do you realize what a picture this would make? Gerry Carlyle in The Energy-Eaters! Can't you see that billing placarded all over the system. We could make it easily. One word from you and I'll have our best scriptwriters grinding out a story. Have a special premier at Froman's Mercurian Theater — it'd clean up. You'd have enough dough to build a dozen Arks. And we could shoot the pic in three weeks with double exposures and robots…"

  "Robots!" Gerry bounced up, crushed out the cigarette viciously. But Quade failed to heed the warning signals.

  "Sure. We can fake 'em easily —"

  "Mr. Quade," Gerry interrupted sternly, "first of all, I should like you to understand that I am not a fake. The name Gerry Carlyle means the real thing. I have never let down the public, and I do not intend to begin now. And, once and for all, I will not make a fool of myself by appearing in one of your corny pictures"

  Quade stared, his mouth open.

  "Did you say — corny?" he asked unbelievingly.

  "Yes."

  "My pictures?"

  "Yes," Gerry said, pouring acid on the wound. "They smell."

  "That ends it," Quade snapped. "Nine Planets will keep its agreement with you. Take your Promethean. Though I doubt if it will survive your company for long." With that he turned and marched out of the Ark, leaving Gerry chuckling happily to herself.

  However, if she, had seen the object Quade took out of his pocket with such care a few moments later, she might not have been so pleased.

  * * *

  Twenty hours later Gerry Carlyle and Tommy Strike strolled along Broadway. Strike had just treated to hot-dogs, and with the corner of his handkerchief wiped mustard, from Gerry's nose. "Thanks," she said. "But don't interrupt. Tommy, do you know what this means to us?"

  "What?"

  "A fortune. Customers will come like flies — that Promethean will draw millions of 'em to the Zoo, and, they'll pay, too."

  "Well," Strike said slowly, "I suppose so. Only I'm not sure you were right in turning down that guy Quade's, offer. You'd be a knockout in pictures."

  Gerry snapped, "I don't wish to hear any more about that. You know very well that when I make up my mind to something, it's settled." She paused. "Tommy! You're not listening."

  Strike was staring, eyes and mouth wide open, at a blazing neon-and-mercury marquee above the entrance to a Broadway theatre.

  "Gerri — look at that!" he gasped.

  "What?" Gerry demanded. "I don't — oh."

  Strike read the sign aloud. "Scoop. Lunar disaster! See Gerry Carlyle capture the Energy-Eaters."

  "Get tickets," the woman said weakly.

  Inside the theater they had not long to wait. Presently the feature ended and the special newsreel came on. And it was all there — Gerry's arrival in the Ark, the exciting scenes at the Plaza filmed in eerie ultraviolet, even the final destruction of the Prometheans inside the space ship.

  "Just look at me," Gerry whispered fiercely to Strike. "My hair's a mess."

  "You look all right to me," Strike chuckled. "Wonder how he got those shots without your seeing the camera?"

  "He had one inside his shirt — one of the tiny automatic cameras, with sensitized wire film. He was double-crossing me all along. The worst of it is, I can't sue Nine Planets — Newsreel stuff is common property. Come on — let's get out of here."

  They had to fight their way through the crowded lobby. As they emerged Gerry paused to eye two long queues that stretched far along Broadway. The rush, was beginning. Already radios and advertising gyroplanes were blaring: "See Gerry Carlyle capture the Energy Eaters! A Nine Planets Film."

  Strike couldn't resist rubbing it in.

  "So when you make up your mind to something, it's settled, eh?" he said.

  Gerry looked at him a long moment. Then a half-smile hovered on her lips as she looked around at the increasing crowd. "Well," she said, "anyhow, I'm packing them in!"

  THE SEVEN SLEEPERS

  Chapter XIX.

  Call of the Comet

  THE GREAT lens in the Mount Everest Observatory had withstood the stresses of the coldest climate and the highest altitude on Earth. Nobody had foreseen that Gerry Carlyle would ever use it. But when she did, the baleful gleam in her eye was enough to chip the telescopes beryllium steel.

  Gerry was mad. She had flown into a fury to keep from crying. As Catch-'em-Alive Carlyle, the Solar System's greatest explorer, she dared never in her own estimation, be considered guilty of feminine weaknesses. What she wanted, she got, by virtue of a keen, alert, indomitable courage, and experience that covered practically every one of the Sun's planets.

  Now, watching on the huge telescope visiplate the glowing fires of Almussen's Comet, she realized that she was losing the biggest scoop of her wild career.

  The worst of it was that Gerry needed that scoop. The London Zoo paid her chiefly on commission. But she had to provide good, regular salaries for her staff. And she had never saved much, for there was always new equipment to buy, expensive research to pay for. The upkeep of The Ark alone was staggering. For months now Gerry hadn't found a new monster. The Ark was being completely overhauled and modernized, and money was getting low.

  The last factor didn't bother her too much. She had to provide for her men, of course, but the real danger was losing her commission. She hated the idea of being idle in her beloved job when all the monsters in the System had not yet been captured and
caged. The thrill of pitting her brain against the resources of alien worlds and incredible beings to bring them back to the Zoo alive, the excitement of skirting the brink of death and coming back unscathed, meant everything to her.

  Now one of the greatest enigmas of interplanetary deep space was coming within reach. But Gerry couldn't move. She was earthbound as the most amazing scientific adventure of her lifetime was thundering into the void as Almussen's Comet swept Sunward.

  Right now Gerry stood motionless in the middle of the room, which didn't much resemble an observatory. It was a small, well-furnished cubicle, the duplicate of a dozen others, each equipped with a visiplate connected with the gigantic telescope. She looked bitterly at the pallid fires of the comet, and could have stamped in frustrated annoyance.

  A small televisor in the corner buzzed. "Calling Miss Carlyle… Call from London…"

  The woman swung toward the device and touched a switch. On the screen, a man's worried face appeared.

  "Well?" Gerry snapped.

  "I'm terribly sorry," the face said apprehensively. "But the Jan Hallek Mercury expedition can't possibly be back for at least a month. And even then his ship would have to be overhauled thoroughly and specially adapted for your purposes and —"

  Furiously, Gerry switched off the communicator. She resumed her pacing, cursing a fate that seemed to chain her to the Earth, at the same time the greatest opportunity of her lifetime sailed nonchalantly past through the skies, never to return.

  Occasionally the televisor buzzed, and apologetic faces reported more sad news. Then the door opened and a tall, dark young man entered. He looked hot and harassed as he slung his dress cap halfway across the room and dropped into an easy chair.

  "Well, Captain Strike?" Gerry's razor tongue sliced out. "Before you fall asleep, you might inform me of your progress."

  Tommy Strike grinned wryly. "You know the answer, kitten —"

  "Don't call me kitten."

  "Cat," Tommy amended. "The Ark is absolutely out of the picture. Every motor in her hull's been torn completely apart, for checking over. She won't be going anywhere for a long, long time… And, by the way, I can see you're in an evil temper."

  "I'm not!"

  "So let me warn you not to take it out on me, because I'm not feeling very gay myself. On the slightest provocation, I'm going to turn you over my knee and give you a whaling."

  Gerry glanced keenly at the usually easy-going Tommy, and decided that he meant what he said. She smiled ruefully, and turned as the door opened once more.

  A small man, with a face like a pallid prune, came in. Spectacles glinted from amid the wrinkles. A badly fitting toupee was askew on the head of Professor Langley of the Mount Everest Observatory.

  "Um, Miss Carlyle," said Langley, in a squeaky voice. "I have collected the data you desired." He referred to a scrap of paper clutched in one hand, and began to read in a swift, monotonous voice. "Almussen's Comet is one of the largest ever to enter the Solar System. Its nucleus is eight thousand miles, almost as large as that of Donati's Comet of Eighteen Fifty-eight. And it seems to be much denser, probably dense enough to support the weight of a human being."

  "Tommy!" Gerry's eyes were alight with excitement. "Do you hear?"

  Strike nodded slowly, frowning. He realized that this information only made it harder for Gerry, because she couldn't take advantage of it.

  "Um. The nucleus is not quite as large as our own Moon. The comet seems to be one of the long period comets, or perhaps a wanderer of space, not a part of our System at all. In other words" — even Langley's cold voice was pained — "we shall never see its return in our lifetimes."

  Gerry chewed her lip. Strike glanced at her and then quickly looked away.

  "Cyanogen is present in great quantities, also sodium, common metals, such as iron and bauxite, and the hydrocarbons."

  "Hydrocarbons," Gerry said. "That may mean — life."

  Langley knitted his brows. "On a comet? Rather fantastic, Miss Carlyle."

  "I've run across life-forms existing in much less probable conditions," the woman said stubbornly.

  "And how would you reach the comet?" Langley asked.

  "How do you suppose?" Gerry asked defiantly. "Crawl on my hands and knees?" But her voice was bitter — hurt and bewildered by her helplessness.

  Chapter XX.

  A Challenge for Gerry

  Langley permitted himself the luxury of a faint smile.

  "It would take a specially equipped ship. Comets don't only shine by reflected light. The Sun's light and electron streams also excite their tenuous gases. But more important, they are electrically charged. You must have protection against the electronic bombardment of the coma — which is much larger than the nucleus. A head may be from eighteen thousand to a million, nine hundred thousand miles in diameter, while the nucleus is from four hundred forty yards to eight thousand miles. It would be like entering the Sun's chromosphere."

  "Not quite," Gerry said thoughtfully. "It could be done. Am I right?"

  The professor pondered. "Yes," he admitted at last. "It might be done. And there might be life on the comet. But if so, it would be so utterly alien, that it would be incomprehensible to a human being."

  "What a scoop," Gerry murmured ecstatically.

  Repelled by this unscientific attitude Langley withdrew, ostentatiously shutting the door behind him. The woman turned to Strike.

  "I know," he said. "It's tough. Not a ship in the System — " He stopped suddenly.

  "No," Gerry sighed defeatedly. "Nothing. And no time to prepare one. Not a crate that would take us to the comet."

  "Mm-m." Strike unpocketed a battered pipe and sucked at it, an enigmatic expression on his space-tanned face.

  For a moment there was silence, while Gerry leaned back to scrutinize her man.

  "Why the reticence?" she asked.

  "Well, as a matter of fact there is a big ship being prepared to tackle the comet. I heard of it in a roundabout way. Supposed to be kept secret till the takeoff. Then there'll be a great fanfare of publicity."

  Gerry clutched Strike's shoulders.

  "Why, you… Why didn't you say so before? Who's handling it? I'll get in touch with 'em right away…"

  She paused. Tommy had mentioned a fanfare of publicity. He had been reluctant to broach the matter at all. A horrible suspicion seeped into her mind.

  "Good Lord!" she cried. "Don't tell me Nine Planets Pictures is disrupting my life again."

  Tommy Strike stood up.

  "Now look, kitten. There's no use losing your temper."

  "Well, blast me," was all Gerry said. But she made it sound like a searing oath.

  "In fact, it might be a good idea to swallow your pride and make a deal with 'em. It's your only chance."

  "Oh, is that so?" Gerry snapped. "Hollywood on the Moon. Nine Planets Films, Incorporated. The biggest bunch of crooked fakers in the System. They duplicate the life-forms I've captured at the risk of my life — Venusian whips, Jovian thunderdragons. And how do they do it? They make cheap robots. Radio-controlled robots at that. That's what gets in my hair, Tommy. I take all the risks, and they grab the credit and the cash."

  "They make good pictures," Strike said. That was a tactical mistake.

  "Good?" Gerry almost sputtered. "Corny, you mean. You can't duplicate life-forms even with biologically created robots. But the public goes to Nine Planets' pictures and stays away from the London Zoo. Do you think that's fair?"

  "Oh, well," Strike soothed, "this Quade, the guy who's in charge isn't such a bad egg, from all I hear. He ought to be willing to give us a lift."

  "Quade? Their ace trouble-shooter? The man who doublecrossed me by taking newsreel shots when I wasn't looking?" Gerry looked ready to explode. But, suddenly and inexplicably, she quieted. A gleam came into her eye.

  "I see," she went on, after a pause. "Maybe you're right. Quade ought to be willing to give us a lift. And if he does — if I once get on that comet — " Ge
rry's smile became sweetly ferocious. "Mr. Quade will find out just what it means to be double-crossed."

  Strike's jaw dropped. "Lord help Quade," he whispered under his breath. "Lord help him."

  One day later, Gerry reached the Moon. She came unheralded, bursting upon the horizon of Nine Planets like a nova. Nobody was expecting her, and Tony Quade with his boss, Von Zorn, lolled unsuspectingly in a Turkish bath on Lunar Boulevard.

  Everybody in the System wanted to visit Hollywood on the Moon, the most glamorous, fascinating, incredible city ever built. It lay on the other side of the Moon, away from Earth, in a vast hollow that volcanic activity had blasted out eons before. There, nestled under the Great Rim, glowed and sparkled Hollywood on the Moon, Mecca of the Movie Makers. It had the advantages of a perfect artificial atmosphere and climate, which therefore made it vacation-land for the elite and the socialite. For the studio men, it was a place of arduous, grueling, but utterly interesting work.

  Here Nine Planets Films, Inc. had its headquarters. Here the interplanetary sagas were plotted and planned by ingenious script writers. Here the technical experts consulted, the experimental labs created robot-life-forms and artificial other-worldly conditions. And here Von Zorn ruled like a czar. He was the President of Nine Planets and Tony Quade was his ace man. When Von Zorn was in a spot, when experts said a picture couldn't be canned, he sent for Quade. And Quade had always proved the experts wrong.

  Quade was the one who got the first four-dimensional films ever made. He was the daredevil maniac who captured the spectacularly deadly Plutonian life-forms on celluloid. He even shot the great Martian Inferno, the hottest SRO grosser in years. Against her will and without her knowledge, he had once filmed Gerry Carlyle. After Gerry Carlyle it was only a step to a comet.

  Though Quade was worried, he didn't show it.

  There was no point in explaining to Von Zorn that the chances of returning from the comet alive were practically zero.

  Quade listened hard, peering through clouds of steam. The acrid stimulation of Martian sour-grass tickled his nostrils. Weirdly swathed figures loomed momentarily through thin spots in the mist, then disappeared. There were strangely muffled voices, heavy breathing, the sound of wet feet slapping on glass-tile.