CHAPTER III

_The Space Terror_

The control room was glassed in on all sides. The thick triple lenses
were free from clouding, and the glasses between them kept out the
biting cold of the heights. The glass was strong, to hold the pressure
of one atmosphere that was maintained within the ship. The lookouts
gave free vision in all directions except directly below the hull,
and a series of mirrors corrected this defect.

But Walt Harkness had eyes solely for the black void ahead. Only the
brilliant stars shone now in the mantle of velvety night. No flashing
lights denoted the passing of liners, for they were safe in the harbor
of the lower levels. He moved the controls once to avoid the green
glare of an ascending area, then he knew that there were no ships to
fear, and let the automatic control put him back on his course.

Before him, under a hooded light, was a heavy lens. It showed in
magnification a portion of the globe. There were countries and seas on
a vari-colored map, and one pin-point of brilliance that marked his
ever-changing position.

He watched the slow movement of the glowing point. The Central
Federated States of Europe were behind him; the point was tracing a
course over the vast reaches of the patchwork map that meant the many
democracies of Russia. This cruiser of Schwartzmann’s was doing five
hundred miles an hour–and the watching man cursed under his breath at
the slow progress of the tiny light.

But the light moved, and the slow hours passed, while Harkness tried
to find consolation in surmises he told himself must be true.

Chet had been delayed, he insisted to himself; Chet could never have
finished the work in two days; he had been bluffing good-naturedly
when he threatened to fly the ship alone….

* * * * *

The Arctic Ocean was beneath. The tiny light had passed clear of the
land on the moving chart.

He would be there soon…. Of course Chet had been fooling; he was
always ready for a joke…. Great fellow, Chet! They had taken their
training together, and Chet had gone on to win a master-pilot’s
rating, the highest to be had….

Another hour, and a rising hum from a buzzer beside him gave warning
of approach to the destination he had fixed. The automatic control was
warning him to decelerate. Harkness well knew what was expected of the
pilot when that humming sounded; yet, with total disregard for the
safety of his helicopters, he dived at full speed for the denser air
beneath.

He felt the weight that came suddenly upon him as he drove through and
beneath the repelling area, and he flattened out and checked his
terrific speed when the gauges quivered at forty thousand.

Then down and still down in a long, slanting dive, till a landmark was
found. He was off his course a bit, but it was a matter of minutes
until he circled, checked his wild flight, and sank slowly beneath the
lift of the dual fans to set the ship down as softly as a snowflake
beside a building that was dark and forbiddingly silent–a lonely
outpost in a lonely waste.

No answer came to his hail. The building was empty; the ship was gone.
And Chet! Chet Bullard!… Harkness’ head was heavy on his shoulders;
his feet took him with hopeless, lagging steps to his waiting ship. He
was tired–and the long strain of the flight had been in vain. He was
suddenly certain of disaster. And Chet–Chet was up there at some
hitherto untouched height, battling with–what?

* * * * *

He broke into a stumbling run and drew himself within the little ship.
He was helpless; the ship was unarmed, even if the weapons of his
world were of use against this unknown terror; but he knew that he was
going up. He would find Chet if he could get within reach of his ship;
he would warn him…. He tried to tell himself that he might yet be in
time.

The little cruiser rose slowly under the lift of the fans; then he
opened the throttle and swept out in a parabolic curve that ended in a
vertical line. Straight up, the ship roared. It shot through a stratum
of clouds. The sun that was under the horizon shone redly now; it grew
to a fiery ball; the earth contracted; the markings that were
coastlines and mountains drew in upon themselves.

He passed the repelling area and felt the lift of its mysterious
force–the “R. A. Effect” that permitted the high-level flying of the
world. His speed increased. It would diminish again as the R. A.
Effect grew less. Record flights had been made to another ten
thousand…. He wondered what the ceiling would be for the ship
beneath him. He would soon learn….

He set his broadcast call for the number of Chet’s ship. They had been
given an experimental license, and “E–L–29-X” the instrument was
flashing, “E–L–29-X.” Above the heaviside layer that had throttled
the radio of earlier years, he knew that his call from so small an
instrument as this would be carried for hundreds of miles.

He reached the limit of his climb and was suddenly weightless,
floating aimlessly within the little room; the ship was falling, and
he was falling with it. His speed of descent built up to appalling
figures until his helicopters found air to take their thrust.

And still no answering word from Chet. The cruiser was climbing again
to the heights. The hands of Harkness, trembling slightly now, held
her to a vertical climb, while his eyes crept back to the unlit plate
where Chet’s answering call should flash. But his own call would be a
guide to Chet; the directional finders on the new ship would trace the
position of his own craft if the new ship were afloat–if it were not
lying crushed on the ice below, empty, like the liners, of any sign
of life.

* * * * *

His despairing mind snapped sharply to attention. His startled jerk
threw the ship widely from her course. A voice was speaking–Chet’s
voice! It was shouting in the little room!

“Go down, Walt,” it told him. “For God’s sake, go down! I’m right
above you; I’ve been fighting them for an hour; but I’ll make it!”

He heard the clash of levers thrown sharply over in that distant ship;
his own hands were frozen to the controls. His ship roared on in its
upward course, the futile “E–L–29-X” of his broadcast call still
going out to a man who could not remove his hands to send an answer,
but who had managed to switch on his sending set into which he could
shout.

Harkness was staring into the black void whence the wireless voice had
come–staring into the empty night. And then he saw them.

The thin air was crystal clear; his gaze penetrated for miles. And far
up in the heights, where his own ship could never reach and where no
clouds could be, were diaphanous wraiths. Like streamers of cloud in
long serpentine forms, they writhed and shot through space with
lightning speed. They grew luminous as they moved living streamers of
moonlit clouds…. A whirling cluster was gathered into a falling
mass. Out of it in a sharp right turn shot a projectile, tiny and
glistening against the velvet black. The swarm closed in again….
There were other lashing shapes that came diving down. They were
coming toward him.

And, in his ears, a voice was imploring: “Down! down! The R. A.
tension may stop them!… Go down! I am coming–you can’t help–I’ll
make it–they’ll rip you to pieces–“

The wraith-like coils that had left the mass above had straightened to
sharp spear-heads of speed. They were darting upon him, swelling to
monstrous size in their descent. And Walt Harkness saw in an instant
the folly of delay: he was not helping Chet, but only hindering….
His ship swung end for end under his clutching hands, and the thrust
of his stern exhaust was added to the pull of Earth to throw him into
a downward flight that tore even the thin air into screaming
fragments.

* * * * *

One glance through the lookouts behind him showed lashing serpent
forms, translucent as pale fire; impossible beasts from space. His
reason rejected them while his eyes told him the terrible truth.
Despite the speed of his dive, they were gaining on him, coming up
fast; one snout that ended in a cupped depression was plain. A mouth
gaped beneath it; above was a row of discs that were eyes–eyes that
shone more brightly than the luminous body behind–eyes that froze the
mind and muscles of the watching man in utter terror.

He forced himself to look ahead, away from the spectral shapes that
pursued. They were close, yet he thrilled with the realization that he
had helped Chet in some small degree: he had drawn off this group of
attackers.

He felt the upthrust of the R. A. Effect; he felt, too, the pull of a
body that had coiled about his ship. No intangible, vaporous thing,
this. The glass of his control room was obscured by a clinging,
glowing mass while still the little cruiser tore on.

Before his eyes the glowing windows went dark, and he felt the
clutching thing stripped from the hull as the ship shot through the
invisible area of repulsion. A scant hundred yards away a huge
cylinder drove crashingly past. Its metal shone and glittered in the
sun; he knew it for his own ship–his and Chet’s. And what was within
it? What of Chet? The loudspeaker was silent.

He eased the thundering craft that bore him into a slow-forming curve
that did not end for fourscore miles before the wild flight was
checked. He swung it back, to guide the ship with shaking hands where
a range of mountains rose in icy blackness, and where a gleaming
cylinder rested upon a bank of snow whose white expanse showed a
figure that came staggering to meet him.

* * * * *

Some experiences and dangers that come to men must be talked over at
once; thrills and excitement and narrow escapes must be told and
compared. And then, at rare times, there are other happenings that
strike too deeply for speech–terrors that rouse emotions beyond mere
words.

It was so with Harkness and Chet. A gripping of hands; a perfunctory,
“Good work, old man!”–and that was all. They housed the two ships,
closing the great doors to keep out the arctic cold; and then Chet
Bullard threw himself exhausted upon a cot, while he stared, still
wordless, at the high roof overhead. But his hands that gripped and
strained at whatever they touched told of the reaction to his wild
flight.

Harkness was examining their ship, where shreds of filmy, fibrous
material still clung, when Chet spoke.

“You knew they were there?” he asked, “–and you came up to warn me?”

“Sure,” Harkness answered simply.

“Thanks,” Chet told him with equal brevity.

Another silence. Then: “All right, tell me! What’s the story?”

And Walt Harkness told him in brief sentences of the world-wide
warning that had flashed, of the liners crashing to earth and their
cabins empty of human life.

“They could do it,” said Chet. “They could open the ports and ram
those snaky heads inside to feed.” He seemed to muse for a moment upon
what might have come to him.

“My speed saved me,” he told Harkness. “Man, how that ship can travel!
I shook them off a hundred times–outmaneuvered them when I could–but
they came right back for more.

“How do they propel themselves?” he demanded.

“No one knows,” Harkness told him. “That luminosity in action means
something–some conversion of energy, electrical, perhaps, to carry
them on lines of force of which we know nothing as yet. That’s a
guess–but they do it. You and I can swear to that.”

Chet was pondering deeply. “High-level lanes are closed,” he said,
“and we are blockaded like the rest of the world. It looks as if our
space flights were off. And the Dark Moon trip! We could have made it,
too.”

* * * * *

If there was a questioning note in those last remarks it was answered
promptly.

“No!” said Harkness with explosive emphasis. “They won’t stop me.” He
struck one clenched fist upon the gleaming hull beside him.

“This is all I’ve got. And I won’t have this if that gang of
Schwartzmann’s gets its hands upon it. The best I could expect would
be a long-drawn fight in the courts, and I can’t afford it. I am going
up. We’ve got something good here; we know it’s good. And we’ll prove
it to the world by reaching the Dark Moon.”

Another filmy, fibrous mass that had been torn from one of the
monsters of the heights slid from above to make a splotch of colorless
matter upon the floor.

Harkness stared at it. The firm line of his lips set more firmly
still, but his eyes had another expression as he glanced at Chet. He
would go alone if he must; no barricade of unearthly beasts could hold
him from the great adventure. But Chet?–he must not lead Chet to his
death.

“Of course,” he said slowly, “you’ve had one run-in with the brutes.”
Again he paused. “We don’t know where they come from, but my guess is
from the Dark Moon. They may be too much for us…. If you don’t feel
like tackling them again–“

The figure of Chet Bullard sprang upright from the cot. His harsh
voice told of the strain he had endured and his reaction from it.

“What are you trying to tell me?” he demanded. “Are you trying to
leave me out?” Then at the look in the other’s eyes he grinned
sheepishly at his own outburst.

And Walter Harkness threw one arm across Chet’s shoulder as he said;
“I hoped you would feel that way about it. Now let’s make some plans.”

Provisions for one year! Even in concentrated form this made a
prodigious supply. And, arms–pistols and rifles, with cases of
cartridges whose every bullet was tipped with the deadly detonite–all
this was brought from the nearest accessible points. They landed,
though, in various cities, keeping Schwartzmann’s ship as
inconspicuous as possible, and made their purchases at different
supply houses to avoid too-pointed questioning. For Harkness found
that he and Bullard were marked men.

The newscaster in the Schwartzmann cabin brought the information. It
brought, too, continued reports of the menace in the upper air. It
told of patrol-ships sent down to destruction with no trace of
commander or crew; and a cruiser of the International Peace
Enforcement Service came back with a story of horror and helplessness.

Their armament was useless. No shells could be timed to match the
swift flight of the incredible monsters, and impact charges failed to
explode on contact; the filmy, fibrous masses offered little
resistance to the shells that pierced them. Yet a wrecked after
compartment and smashed port-lights and doors gave evidence of the
strength of the brutes when their great sinuous bodies, lined with
rows of suction discs, secured a hold.

“Speed!” was Chet Bullard’s answer to this, when the newscaster
ceased. “Speed!–until we find something better. I got clear of them
when they caught me unprepared, but we can rip right through them now
that we know what we’re up against.”

* * * * *

He had turned again to the packing of supplies, but Harkness was held
by the sound of his own name.

Mr. Walter Harkness, late of New York, was very much in the day’s
news. When a young millionaire loses all his wealth beneath a tidal
wave; when, further, he flies to Vienna and transfers all rights in
the great firm of Harkness, Incorporated, to the Schwartzmann
interests in part settlement of his obligations; and, still further,
when he is driven to fury by his losses and attacks the great Herr
Schwartzmann in a murderous frenzy, wounds him and escapes in
Schwartzmann’s own ship–that is an item that is worth broadcasting
between announcements of greater importance.

It interested Harkness, beyond a doubt. He remembered the shot outside
the cabin as he took off in his wild flight. Schwartzmann had been
wounded, it seemed, and he was to be blamed for the assault. He
smiled grimly as he heard the warrant for his arrest broadcast. Every
patrol-ship would be on the watch. And there would be a dozen
witnesses to swear to the truth of Schwartzmann’s lie.

The plan seemed plain to him. He saw himself in custody; taken to
Vienna. And then, at the best, months of waiting in the psychopathic
ward of a great institution where the influence of Herr Schwartzmann
would not be slight. And, meanwhile, Schwartzmann would have his ship.
Clever! But not clever enough. He would fool them, he and Chet.

And then he recalled the girl, Mademoiselle Diane, a slim figure
outlined in a lighted window of the old chateau. Was there hope there?
he wondered. Had her clear, smiling eyes seen what occurred?

“Nonsense,” he told himself. “She saw nothing in that storm. And,
besides, she is one of their crowd–tarred with the same stick. Forget
her.”

But he knew, as he framed the unspoken words, that the advice was
vain. He would never forget her. There was a picture in his mind that
could not be blotted out–a picture of a tall, slender girl, trim and
straight in her mannish attire, who came toward him from her little
red speedster. She held out her hand impulsively, and her eyes were
smiling as she said; “We will be generous, Monsieur Harkness–“

“Generous!” His smile was bitter as he turned to help Chet in their
final work.