Golden Age Science Fiction Classics (2011) Read online

  * * * *

  Zintor’s world, Mars, was next. The fiery Martian chafed impatiently until it was time to start, and then his red world and its two tiny moons shot outward with tremendous speed as he opened his back-blasts with all their power. The little red ball of Mars sped out into space after Jupiter's mighty white globe, looking like a belated satellite trying to catch up with its parent-planet, a comparison that would have aroused Zintnor's wrath.

  Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars under way—and Earth next. Already Runnal of Earth was starting his planet after the others. And now, as his world and its single moon started out after Mars and the others, something tightened in the throats of all of us who watched; something strange that we felt at seeing Earth leaving the sun.

  Earth, the parent-world of our human race, had always had a special place in our hearts. Even those of us whose ancestors for a thousand generations back have been born on Pluto or Saturn or one of the other worlds, feel somehow when we visit Earth for the first time that we are getting home. The gray planet with its beautiful moon is more than just one of the nine worlds, and so it was with more than ordinary emotion that we now watched it go.

  Now only Venus and my own world of Mercury were left, and the time was at hand for Venus to start.

  "Good-bye, Lonnat," said Hurg from the televisor-screen. "Here goes my world too!"

  "And then mine the last," I said smilingly. "The tail end of the procession, so to speak."

  "Well, that's the proper place for the littlest world, isn't it?" Hurg grinned.

  In the telescope then I saw the great back-blasts of fire from Hurg's cloudy planet. Venus too was starting. I watched as it sped on after the others, out away from the sun after the great chain of worlds that was now marching steadily into the void, with Pluto in the lead. Venus took its place at the end of that chain, and moved on with it.

  And now Mercury alone was left of all the sun's worlds. Little Mercury, held close to the dying sun as though it were loth to let this, the last of its children, leave it. As I walked to the great bank of control-levers, ready to send my planet out after the others, I felt strangely lonely, oppressed.

  I held the levers in my hand as the time-dial's hands crept onward. About me my assistants were ready at other levers and instruments. The awful responsibility of my position, the power that was mine to guide a whole world through space at will, weighed upon me. With an effort I remained calm. Then as the time-dial indicated the moment, I threw down the levers.

  Instantly the control-tower, the whole planet, was shaken by a shuddering convulsion and there came to our ears the tremendous roar of the atom-blasts firing back from our world. The starry heavens seemed to jerk and quiver as Mercury lurched forward under the impetus of the back-blasts. And as it moved faster I threw down other levers, fired the side-blasts that drove us outward from our orbit. Tensely I watched, firing blast after blast as I guided Mercury out after the chain of other worlds.

  Mercury lurched and swayed as I steered the planet outward. Ahead moved the column of the eight other planets, eight mighty worlds thundering through the void toward the distant yellow star, with Pluto leading and the other worlds with their families of moons solemnly following. And as Mercury moved after them with increasing speed, the light faded on its surface and its atmosphere began to freeze and fall in great flakes. I looked back at the sun we were leaving.

  There it spun, the crimson sun, old, waning, dying. Planetless now, the nine worlds that long ago had been born from it leaving it. And as Mercury left it last of all, the significance of it struck home to my heart. We were leaving the sun where mankind and its world had come into existence, the sun that for millions of generations had been the sun, the sun beneath which man had grown great.

  I flung back my hand wordlessly toward that diminishing, dying star. I wanted to speak to it as though to a dying, conscious parent whom we were leaving, but I could only make that gesture. And in that gesture, as my world sped out after the other worlds into the great void with its atmosphere freezing and falling, man bade farewell to his sun forever.

  3

  Julud of Saturn spoke to me from my televisor-screen. "Tolarg reports that Pluto is within ten billion miles of the sun Nugat, Lonnat!" he told me.

  "That's good!" I exclaimed. "We won't be much longer reaching it, then."

  Hurg of Venus spoke from another section of the televisor. "As for me, I don't care how soon we reach it. I'm getting pretty tired of this journey and I don't care who knows it."

  Julud smiled. "We'll all be glad when it ends, I think. And if Nugat proves a satisfactory sun, as we think it will, the journey will end here. Our scientists report that this sun is a young and hot one, which promises well. They also say it has two planets and some strange radiation-lines in its spectrum."

  "You're going to send ships ahead to investigate the sun before our worlds reach it, aren't you?" I asked, and Julud nodded.

  "Yes, when we get a little closer a scouting force of ships will go ahead and see what the sun and its worlds are like."

  He and Hurg disappeared from the televisor, and I turned from it to stare out the control-tower's window. About me in the tower were some of my scientist-assistants, who never ceased their watch over our instruments as we guided Mercury through the void after the other planets. Outside the tower stretched Mercury's surface, its countless dome-buildings now covered by a blanket of frozen air and lying in unchanging darkness relieved only by the light of the stars.

  Ahead of our speeding world, against those stars, I could make out the vague light-points of the other eight worlds whose columns we were following through space. Their formation was the same as when we had started months before, with great Pluto thundering in the van under the guidance of Tolarg. I wondered how the self-confident Plutonian liked the task of leading the nine worlds on their march through the void. Far behind us burned the red star that was the sun we had left months before.

  And ahead there shone the sun toward which we were moving, the yellow star Nugat. It had grown steadily in brightness as we approached it, and now we were so near that it presented a visible disk, a small yellow sun in seeming. It gleamed now like a great yellow star of hope, for we all hoped that we could halt our journey here.

  Our hopes grew in the next days as we drew even closer to Nugat. It was growing in visible size and seemed in every way suitable as a sun for our nine worlds. It had two planets of its own, but we could easily allow for them in guiding our world into orbits around it. Also the strange radiation from it mentioned by Julud continued to puzzle our scientists, but we gave little attention to it.

  When we were within six billion miles of Nugat, Julud called me again on the televisor.

  "You will command a scouting expedition to go ahead and explore the sun, Lonnat," he told me. "Take a hundred ships."

  "Why not give me the task?" asked Tolarg from Pluto on the televisor. "I'm nearer to Nugat than Lonnat is, and it would save time."

  "It is my order," Julud said calmly. "You will start at once, Lonnat."

  As I turned to go I caught sight of Hurg's rueful face in another section of the televisor. "Cheer up, Hurg," I told him. "When I get back I'll tell you all about it."

  "The only reason they send you is because it doesn't matter what happens to your puny little planet," Hurg retorted, and then we both laughed.

  I gave my scientist-assistants instructions on maintaining Mercury on its course during my absence. Then our hundred ships tore up from Mercury and started forward.

  * * * *

  Our ships could, of course, move much faster in space than our worlds were moving. So, flying ahead at top speed, we soon passed Venus, then Earth, Mars, Jupiter and all the others one by one. To save time we went close past the column of worlds, cutting in between them and their circling moons and speeding ahead until we were past Pluto and shooting ahead toward the yellow sun Nugat.

  Our speed was so great that we were soon far ahead of
our nine moving worlds. On we shot, until the blazing yellow disk of Nugat had become a huge sphere of golden fire in the heavens before us. We headed toward its two planets, that spun close together off to one side of the sun, and as I felt the flood of blistering heat and dazzling light that poured upon us I saw in it a wonderful sun for our worlds.

  I felt also at the same time a strange tingling through all my body, one that became steadily stronger and more disconcerting, but did not pay much attention to the phenomenon at the time, so engrossed was I with our task. We were close to one of the two planets now, and were descending rapidly toward its surface, when from one of the scientists in my ship who were training their astronomical instruments upon Nugat came a cry.

  "This sun is giving off radiations unlike anything our own sun ever produced!" he cried. "Do you feel anything strange?"

  "A sort of tingling," I said. "What is it?"

  "It's radio-active radiation—rays that crumble and disintegrate matter!" he cried. "This sun must have a great mass of gaseous radio-active matter in it and is pouring out waves that are deadly to all life!"

  "But there's life on the world below us!" cried someone else. "Look—those things!"

  We were still dropping low toward the planet we had been approaching and could now see its surface. It was a world of nightmare, a radio-active planet! Its whole mass shone dimly with white light, and it was evident that this radio-active world, child of a radium sun, was itself constantly giving off deadly radiation. A planet upon which no conceivable living thing could exist!

  Yet there was life upon it! It was such life as we would never have deemed possible had we not seen it. The living things we saw below were things of shining matter whose bodies were glowing and disintegrating and changing even as they moved about! They were radio-active creatures of this deadly world!

  We glimpsed swarms of them, moving to and fro amid buildings and streets that were themselves built of glowing, disintegrating matter. We even saw, some distance off from their weird city, the glowing waves of a great radium sea or ocean whose whole liquid mass must have been composed of radio-active elements.

  Then one of my pilots cried, "Look, our ship is beginning to glow and disintegrate too! And the others!"

  I stared, amazed. Our ship was glowing dimly with a waxing white light, and small fragments were breaking from it here and there. And the other ships too were shining.

  "Quick, out of here!" I shouted. "It's death for us to stay near this sun longer."

  "And death for our nine worlds too if they come closer to this sun!" another cried. "We must get back to them, they must be turned aside!"

  Our ships whirled upward. The tingling in our bodies had now become a wrenching that seemed tearing the atoms of our tissues apart. As we shot outward from the radio-active sun and its shining pair of worlds I thought that we were about to perish. But as we drew away from Nugat and out of the stronger zone of its deadly radiation, our ships ceased to glow and the worst of the sickness left us. We headed back at top speed toward our oncoming nine worlds.

  In brief words there I reported to Julud the danger of approaching closer to the radium sun. Promptly Julud gave orders for all our worlds to turn aside from it at once so that we would pass it at a safe distance. By the time I got back to the control-tower on Mercury, Pluto was already turning aside at the head of our column and the other worlds following its lead. I shifted Mercury's course to follow them.

  We headed past Nugat and toward the next nearest sun, the yellow star Antol. As we passed Nugat we all watched anxiously, but we were at a distance that kept us out of the stronger of its deadly radiations. Even so, passing it was a risky business, for its pull upon us was great. Julud and Wald in particular had an anxious time with Saturn and Jupiter and had to fire continual side-blasts toward Nugat to keep the great sun from pulling their worlds out of their course.

  But at last we were all past and the devil-sun that would have destroyed all life on our worlds was dropping behind. Antol now was our goal, and this meant that our months of voyaging through space must be repeated before we could reach that sun. And if Antol, like Nugat, proved unsatisfactory as a sun for us, we must go on from it to some of the other nearer stars, to Mithak or Walaz or Vira or other suns beyond. It was a discouraging prospect, for we had hoped that our voyage of worlds would end at Nugat.

  * * * *

  On and on in the next months, steadily forward through the starry spaces forged our travelling worlds. Nugat contracted again to a yellow star behind us, and again the sunless void was about us, again we kept ceaseless watch as we drove our worlds through the great emptiness. Still in the van led dark Pluto; still after it came the other planets one by one; still my own little world of Mercury followed last of all in this mighty voyage.

  Our hopes rose once more, as after months of this tremendous journeying the yellow sun Antol grew in size and brightness ahead. Julud announced that according to our astronomers Antol was in its late youth and that it had four planets. It had in its spectrum none of the mysterious radiations we had found so deadly at Nugat, and though our astronomers said that there were some peculiarities in its physical makeup, they saw no reason why it should not be the sun we sought.

  So our hopes again grew as we drew near to Antol. When within twelve billion miles of it, our scientists found that its four worlds were apparently habitable. They had found also that Antol's physical makeup was of an odd type apparently rare among suns, but repeated that the yellow sun should prove a sufficient source of heat and light for our worlds. When within eight billion miles of it, Julud announced that on the next day he would send another scouting force ahead to investigate Antol and its worlds, as we had done at Nugat.

  But that night, though night and day were the same unchanging dusk as respects light, there came a sudden alarm from Tolarg of Pluto.

  "Pluto is being attacked by strange spherical ships in immense numbers!" Tolarg cried. "They outnumber us and are trying to destroy us!"

  "Saturn has just been attacked also!" Julud exclaimed. "Are any other planets assailed?"

  "Yes, Neptune has been descended upon by floods of spheres!" Noll cried. "They are fighting over this control-tower with our ships!"

  "And Uranus too!" came Murdat's shout. "They seem to be coming from ahead."

  "They must be creatures of Antol's worlds!" Julud cried. "Creatures who have come to meet us and are attacking our first four worlds!"

  4

  "Eevery ship in the last five worlds come to our aid at once!" Julud commanded. "These creatures must be repelled before they over-power us!"

  "Keep Mercury in its course after the other worlds," I cried to my scientist-assistants. "I'm going ahead with our ships."

  In minutes every space-ship that we of Mercury possessed was darting up from our world and tearing ahead through space. I was in the foremost ship, and as we flew on our crews made ready the ship's weapons, atom-blasts that shot forth highly concentrated streams of atomic force that had great range and enormous destructive power.

  As our ships shot past Venus we were joined by the ships of that world, with Hurg at their head. Already the ships of Earth and Mars and Jupiter were on their way forward with Runnal and Zintnor and Wald leading them. We were all heading for the four first worlds of our moving column, Pluto and Neptune and Uranus and Saturn, since it was these that had been so suddenly and terribly attacked.

  The ships of Jupiter and Mars and Earth went on to aid the first three planets, leaving the forces of Hurg and myself to succor Saturn.

  We tore in toward the ringed planet, over twenty thousand ships strong, and darted down to take part in the wild and awful battle that was raging all around Saturn.

  The scene over Saturn's surface was appalling. Space seemed filled with darting spheres, black metal balls of greater size than any of our ships. They were raining disks of white flame upon the dome-city that covered Saturn, and as the flame-disks fell they annihilated whatever they touched. Saturn
ian ships were battling the black spheres above the planet, using their atomic fire-blasts against the flame-disks of the spheres.

  The Saturnians were badly outnumbered and were being over-whelmed as we appeared. Without hesitation our ships dived down into the wild struggle. Hurg and his Venerian craft were a little below my own, and I saw them crash into the battle and flash their fire-blasts right and left upon the swarming spheres. Then we too were in the thick of the fight, and space about us seemed choked with hurtling spheres and ships, with atomic fire-flashes and destroying flame-disks.

  As calmly as I was able, I gave orders to our craft as Mercurian, Venerian and Satumian ships struggled with the spheres. I had a thousand kaleidoscopic glimpses of death dealt and averted. Two spheres loosed flame-disks at us, and our ship darted between them and drove fire-blasts to either side to destroy the spheres. A Venerian ship rammed a sphere and both exploded in flame. A Saturnian recklessly attacked three spheres and was annihilated by a half-dozen flame-disks.

  The battle went on. Through the windows of the darting spheres I had momentary sight now and then of the creatures attacking us, black, formless things whose bodies seemed liquid! The fight now was raging out from the surface of Saturn. We were close to Saturn's rings, those mighty belts of whirling meteors that girdled the planet. Around and between the spinning rings and the planet's ten thronging moons our mad battle with the invaders went on. Ships and spheres blundered into death in the rings or crashed against the moons.

  The scene was stupendous: the nine great worlds still thundering on in a column toward the glaring sun of Antol ahead; the creatures that had come from that sun's worlds attacking us in their spheres with the flame-disks; and we of three worlds struggling with them there amid the whirling rings and moons of Saturn, with death above and death below and the cold stars watching our mad fight.