The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 04 Read online

  And the space ship was driving toward it at top acceleration.

  Quade took a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he touched three buttons in rapid succession. Immediately he was flung sideward, as though by a giant's hand. Glass shattered throughout the ship. Light metal bent like putty. Men screamed in agony as ribs and small bones cracked. Everyone was strapped into safety compartments, well padded, but those puny devices were far from enough.

  The ship curved. At top speed it swerved away from the Sun. Quade had not dared decelerate, for the mighty mass of the Sun could overcome any number of gravity-screens at this small distance. The outer hull glowed flaming red. The straining motors hummed, rattled, hissed under the overload.

  A pointer on a gauge before Quade hovered on a red line, went past it, hesitated, and crept slowly back. He breathed again. Gasping, he began to decelerate.

  It was over. They were safe. They had fought against comet and Sun.

  And they had won the fight!

  Chapter XXVI.

  Double Double-Cross

  Exactly one month later, Gerry Carlyle and Tommy Strike were sitting in the woman's private office in the London Zoo, sipping cocktails and reading rave press notices.

  "What a draw," Strike chortled. "Our blue Protean is drawing customers like flypaper."

  "Uh-huh," the woman said happily. "And that isn't the best of it, either, I'm just waiting for a televisor call."

  Strike put down a clipping.

  "You've been gloating over this secret of yours for a month. What the devil is it?"

  Gerry's answer was cut short as the televisor buzzed. She sprang up and answered it. On the screen appeared the simian, contorted face of Von Zorn.

  "You chiseler," he yelped. "You double-crossing so-and-so. I'll sue you from here to Pluto."

  Tommy Strike got in front of the screen.

  "Listen, drizzlepuss, you're talking to a lady."

  Von Zorn turned a brilliant green. "Ha, a lady! Would a lady palm off a dream on me? A Protean? What a laugh. For a month it acted all right. And now, right when I was making a speech at the Rotary Club with the thing on the table beside me — it vanishes. Just like that!"

  Strike turned to see that Gerry was helpless with laughter. Feebly she reached up and turned off the televisor.

  "You palmed off one of the fake Proteans on Von Zorn," Tommy accused.

  "I told you they couldn't play me for a sucker," Gerry gasped, and exploded into a fresh outburst of merriment. "It's turn and turn about. They tricked me into giving 'em publicity. So I just turned the tables."

  The televisor buzzed again. This time Strike turned it on. But it wasn't Von Zorn. It was, instead, Tony Quade, and he was looking surprisingly happy.

  "Hello," he greeted cordially, removing a battered pipe from his firm mouth. "Everybody cheerful, I see. That's nice."

  Gerry sobered suddenly. "Well?"

  "Oh, nothing much. Von Zorn told you our little pet vanished, didn't he?"

  "Yes."

  "I just wanted to get it straight. You arranged with one of the Proteans to create a dream-duplicate, and for me to get the duplicate. And you fixed it up so my Proteans would disappear after a time. That right?"

  "That," said Gerry, "is right. And I'm not apologizing."

  "Oh, don't apologize," Quade said urbanely. "Everything's just fine. I wanted to show you this."

  He lifted a three-sheet placard which read:

  NINE PLANETS PRESENTS

  CALL OF THE COMET

  Produced and Directed by

  Anthony Quade

  Starring

  The Proteans

  and

  Gerry Carlyle

  The woman gasped inarticulately. "It's a fake," she cried at last. "You only shot a few backgrounds on the comet."

  "Yeah," Quade acknowledged. "But I managed to get acquainted with my dream Protean. He was as intelligent as his original, you know. He told me he was a fake, that he'd vanish after awhile. So I knew what to expect, and I took precautions."

  "It's still a fake," Gerry said stubbornly.

  "Think so? Remember how the Proteans communicate? By projecting colored, three-dimensional images on their skins. Those pictures can be photographed, Miss Carlyle.

  "I got my Protean to think and project a complete photoplay — starring you — and we shot and transcribed it directly from Protean's membranous skin. I photographed a photoplay. I told you the creatures were intelligent.

  "It's a perfect reproduction," Quade went on. "Nobody could tell it from the real thing. I've got the history of the Proteans, our arrival, your capture — everything that happened."

  "It's illegal to pretend I'm in the picture," Gerry snapped furiously. "I know that, at any rate."

  "You signed a contract in Von Zorn's office," Quade pointed out. "We've a perfect right to bill you as star of this picture." He grinned. "It'll be swell publicity for you, lady. And you don't deserve it."

  Gerry breathed deeply. But the training of years stood her in good stead.

  "At least, I've got the only Protean in existence in this System," she merely remarked. "That's something you can't swipe."

  Quade chuckled maliciously.

  "Yeah? How do you tell a real Protean from a dream one? The dream one vanishes. Yours hasn't vanished yet, has he?"

  Gerry struck angrily at the televisor, shutting it off. She barked into an audiophone: "Peters! Peters! Is my Protean still there?"

  "Sure," came an unseen voice. "Why shouldn't he be? He's rolling around in his tank of cyanogen, happy as a lark."

  Don't worry," Strike said, putting a capable arm around Gerry. "He's real enough."

  The woman emitted a small groan.

  "But is he? There's only one way of telling. If he vanishes, he's a fake."

  "Well," said Tommy Strike, after thoroughly kissing his fiancée, "at least there's no danger of my vanishing. After all, what's a Protean or two?"

  The words were unfortunate. Gerry seemed to regain her usual spirits. Her voice crackled like an electronic bombardment.

  "Yes, indeed," she remarked coldly. "Just who were you dreaming about on that comet?"

  Strike released the woman and headed for the door.

  "See you later, honey," he said over his shoulder. "I'm off to Mars. I hear the mariloca are running . . ."

  For some reason, "Catch-'em-Alive" Gerry Carlyle scampered frantically after him.

  * * *

  Contents

  ATLANTIDA

  By Pierre Benoit

  Translated by Mary C. Tongue and Mary Ross

  HASSI-INIFEL, NOVEMBER 8, 1903.

  If the following pages are ever to see the light of day it will be because they have been stolen from me. The delay that I exact before they shall be disclosed assures me of that.[1]

  [Footnote 1: This letter, together with the manuscript which accompanies it, the latter in a separate sealed envelope, was entrusted by Lieutenant Ferrières, of the 3rd Spahis, the day of the departure of that officer for the Tassili of the Tuareg (Central Sahara), to Sergeant Chatelain. The sergeant was instructed to deliver it, on his next leave, to M. Leroux, Honorary Counsel at the Court of Appeals at Riom, and Lieutenant Ferrières' nearest relative. As this magistrate died suddenly before the expiration of the term of ten years set for the publication of the manuscript here presented, difficulties arose which have delayed its publication up to the present date.]

  As to this disclosure, let no one distrust my aim when I prepare for it, when I insist upon it. You may believe me when I maintain that no pride of authorship binds me to these pages. Already I am too far removed from all such things. Only it is useless that others should enter upon the path from which I shall not return.

  Four o'clock in the morning. Soon the sun will kindle the hamada with its pink fire. All about me the bordj is asleep. Through the half-open door of his room I hear André de Saint-Avit breathing quietly, very quietly.

  In two days we shall start, he and I. We
shall leave the bordj. We shall penetrate far down there to the South. The official orders came this morning.

  Now, even if I wished to withdraw, it is too late. André and I asked for this mission. The authorization that I sought, together with him, has at this moment become an order. The hierarchic channels cleared, the pressure brought to bear at the Ministry;—and then to be afraid, to recoil before this adventure!…

  To be afraid, I said. I know that I am not afraid! One night in the Gurara, when I found two of my sentinels slaughtered, with the shameful cross cut of the Berbers slashed across their stomachs—then I was afraid. I know what fear is. Just so now, when I gazed into the black depths, whence suddenly all at once the great red sun will rise, I know that it is not with fear that I tremble. I feel surging within me the sacred horror of this mystery, and its irresistible attraction.

  Delirious dreams, perhaps. The mad imaginings of a brain surcharged, and an eye distraught by mirages. The day will come, doubtless, when I shall reread these pages with an indulgent smile, as a man of fifty is accustomed to smile when he rereads old letters.

  Delirious dreams. Mad imaginings. But these dreams, these imaginings, are dear to me. "Captain de Saint-Avit and Lieutenant Ferrières," reads the official dispatch, "will proceed to Tassili to determine the statigraphic relation of Albien sandstone and carboniferous limestone. They will, in addition, profit by any opportunities of determining the possible change of attitude of the Axdjers towards our penetration, etc." If the journey should indeed have to do only with such poor things I think that I should never undertake it.

  So I am longing for what I dread. I shall be dejected if I do not find myself in the presence of what makes me strangely fearful.

  In the depths of the valley of Wadi Mia a jackal is barking. Now and again, when a beam of moonlight breaks in a silver patch through the hollows of the heat-swollen clouds, making him think he sees the young sun, a turtle dove moans among the palm trees.

  I hear a step outside. I lean out of the window. A shade clad in luminous black stuff glides over the hard-packed earth of the terrace of the fortification. A light shines in the electric blackness. A man has just lighted a cigarette. He crouches, facing southwards. He is smoking.

  It is Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, our Targa guide, the man who in three days is to lead us across the unknown plateaus of the mysterious Imoschaoch, across the hamadas of black stones, the great dried oases, the stretches of silver salt, the tawny hillocks, the flat gold dunes that are crested over, when the "alizé" blows, with a shimmering haze of pale sand.

  Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh! He is the man. There recurs to my mind Duveyrier's tragic phrase, "At the very moment the Colonel was putting his foot in the stirrup he was felled by a sabre blow."[2] Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh! There he is, peacefully smoking his cigarette, a cigarette from the package that I gave him…. May the Lord forgive me for it.

  [Footnote 2: H. Duveyrier, "The Disaster of the Flatters Mission." Bull. Geol. Soc., 1881.]

  The lamp casts a yellow light on the paper. Strange fate, which, I never knew exactly why, decided one day when I was a lad of sixteen that I should prepare myself for Saint Cyr, and gave me there André de Saint-Avit as classmate. I might have studied law or medicine. Then I should be today a respectable inhabitant of a town with a church and running water, instead of this cotton-clad phantom, brooding with an unspeakable anxiety over this desert which is about to swallow me.

  A great insect has flown in through the window. It buzzes, strikes against the rough cast, rebounds against the globe of the lamp, and then, helpless, its wings singed by the still burning candle, drops on the white paper.

  It is an African May bug, big, black, with spots of livid gray.

  I think of others, its brothers in France, the golden-brown May bugs, which I have seen on stormy summer evenings projecting themselves like little particles of the soil of my native countryside. It was there that as a child I spent my vacations, and later on, my leaves. On my last leave, through those same meadows, there wandered beside me a slight form, wearing a thin scarf, because of the evening air, so cool back there. But now this memory stirs me so slightly that I scarcely raise my eyes to that dark corner of my room where the light is dimly reflected by the glass of an indistinct portrait. I realize of how little consequence has become what had seemed at one time capable of filling all my life. This plaintive mystery is of no more interest to me. If the strolling singers of Rolla came to murmur their famous nostalgic airs under the window of this bordj I know that I should not listen to them, and if they became insistent I should send them on their way.

  What has been capable of causing this metamorphosis in me? A story, a legend, perhaps, told, at any rate by one on whom rests the direst of suspicions.

  Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh has finished his cigarette. I hear him returning with slow steps to his mat, in barrack B, to the left of the guard post.

  Our departure being scheduled for the tenth of November, the manuscript attached to this letter was begun on Sunday, the first, and finished on Thursday, the fifth of November, 1903.

  OLIVIER FERRIÈRES, Lt. 3rd Spahis.

  I

  A SOUTHERN ASSIGNMENT

  Sunday, the sixth of June, 1903, broke the monotony of the life that we were leading at the Post of Hassi-Inifel by two events of unequal importance, the arrival of a letter from Mlle. de C——, and the latest numbers of the Official Journal of the French Republic.

  "I have the Lieutenant's permission?" said Sergeant Chatelain, beginning to glance through the magazines he had just removed from their wrappings.

  I acquiesced with a nod, already completely absorbed in reading Mlle. de C——'s letter.

  "When this reaches you," was the gist of this charming being's letter, "mama and I will doubtless have left Paris for the country. If, in your distant parts, it might be a consolation to imagine me as bored here as you possibly can be, make the most of it. The Grand Prix is over. I played the horse you pointed out to me, and naturally, I lost. Last night we dined with the Martials de la Touche. Elias Chatrian was there, always amazingly young. I am sending you his last book, which has made quite a sensation. It seems that the Martials de la Touche are depicted there without disguise. I will add to it Bourget's last, and Loti's, and France's, and two or three of the latest music hall hits. In the political word, they say the law about congregations will meet with strenuous opposition. Nothing much in the theatres. I have taken out a summer subscription for l'Illustration. Would you care for it? In the country no one knows what to do. Always the same lot of idiots ready for tennis. I shall deserve no credit for writing to you often. Spare me your reflections concerning young Combemale. I am less than nothing of a feminist, having too much faith in those who tell me that I am pretty, in yourself in particular. But indeed, I grow wild at the idea that if I permitted myself half the familiarities with one of our lads that you have surely with your Ouled-Nails…. Enough of that, it is too unpleasant an idea."

  I had reached this point in the prose of this advanced young woman when a scandalized exclamation of the Sergeant made me look up.

  "Lieutenant!"

  "Yes?"

  "They are up to something at the Ministry. See for yourself."

  He handed me the Official. I read:

  "By a decision of the first of May, 1903, Captain de Saint-Avit (André), unattached, is assigned to the Third Spahis, and appointed Commandant of the Post of Hassi-Inifel."

  Chatelain's displeasure became fairly exuberant.

  "Captain de Saint-Avit, Commandant of the Post. A post which has never had a slur upon it. They must take us for a dumping ground."

  My surprise was as great as the Sergeant's. But just then I saw the evil, weasel-like face of Gourrut, the convict we used as clerk. He had stopped his scrawling and was listening with a sly interest.

  "Sergeant, Captain de Saint-Avit is my ranking classmate," I answered dryly.

  Chatelain saluted, and left the room. I followed.

  "There, th
ere," I said, clapping him on the back, "no hard feelings. Remember that in an hour we are starting for the oasis. Have the cartridges ready. It is of the utmost importance to restock the larder."

  I went back to the office and motioned Gourrut to go. Left alone, I finished Mlle. de C——'s letter very quickly, and then reread the decision of the Ministry giving the post a new chief.

  It was now five months that I had enjoyed that distinction, and on my word, I had accepted the responsibility well enough, and been very well pleased with the independence. I can even affirm, without taking too much credit for myself, that under my command discipline had been better maintained than under Captain Dieulivol, Saint-Avit's predecessor. A brave man, this Captain Dieulivol, a non-commissioned officer under Dodds and Duchesne, but subject to a terrible propensity for strong liquors, and too much inclined, when he had drunk, to confuse his dialects, and to talk to a Houassa in Sakalave. No one was ever more sparing of the post water supply. One morning when he was preparing his absinthe in the presence of the Sergeant, Chatelain, noticing the Captain's glass, saw with amazement that the green liquor was blanched by a far stronger admixture of water than usual. He looked up, aware that something abnormal had just occurred. Rigid, the carafe inverted in his hand, Captain Dieulivol was spilling the water which was running over on the sugar. He was dead.

  For six months, since the disappearance of this sympathetic old tippler, the Powers had not seemed to interest themselves in finding his successor. I had even hoped at times that a decision might be reached investing me with the rights that I was in fact exercising…. And today this surprising appointment.

  Captain de Saint-Avit. He was of my class at St. Cyr. I had lost track of him. Then my attention had been attracted to him by his rapid advancement, his decoration, the well-deserved recognition of three particularly daring expeditions of exploration to Tebesti and the Air; and suddenly, the mysterious drama of his fourth expedition, that famous mission undertaken with Captain Morhange, from which only one of the explorers came back. Everything is forgotten quickly in France. That was at least six years ago. I had not heard Saint-Avit mentioned since. I had even supposed that he had left the army. And now, I was to have him as my chief.