Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 by Various (most read books of all time txt) ๐
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Gutierrez half turned as I gripped him from behind. My hand on his mouth stifled his outcry. His black knife blade waved blindly. Then my clenched knuckle caught his temple, and dug with the twisting Santus blow. I was expert at it, and I found the vulnerable spot.
He crumpled in my grasp, and I slid his falling body across the narrow corridor into the nearest cubby oval.
Almost soundless; and in the control room Jetta and De Boer were murmuring and gazing at Hanley's ship, which hung ahead and above us at the zero-height.
I had planned all my movements. No motion was lost. Gutierrez was about my height and build. I stripped his black suit from him, donned it, then tied his ankles and wrists, and gagged him against the time when he would recover consciousness. Then I stuffed his body in the sack and tied its top.
This black suit had a mask, rolled up and fastened to the helmet. I loosed it, dropping it over my face. Knife in hand, I stood at the corridor window.
t was all black outside. The clouds were black overhead; the highest Lowland crags, several thousand feet beneath us, were all but blotted out in the murky darkness. Only one thing was to be seen: a quarter of a mile[241] ahead, now, and a thousand feet higher than our level, the shining, bird-like outlines of Hanley's hovering little Wasp. It stood like a painted image of an aero, alone on a dead-black background. Red and green signal-lights dotted it, and on its stern tip a small, spreading searchlight bathed the wings and the body with a revealing silver radiance.
Our forward flight had been checked, and we, too, were hovering. Hans doubtless would remain for a time in the pilot cubby; De Boer and Jetta were in the control room. It was only twenty feet away, but I could barely see its oval entrance.
"Gutierrez!"
One of them was calling. My hollow empty voice echoed back as I softly responded:
"Yes?"
"Be ready. We are arrived."
"Yes, Commander. All is well."
I continued to stand at the window. Hanley's little balloon-car was visible now. Then he cut it away. We had moved forward in the interval. The tiny car floated out almost above us.
My gaze searched the void of darkness outside. Did Hanley have an invisible flyer out there? Perhaps so. But it could accomplish nothing as yet. It would not even dare approach, for fear of collision with us.
he tiny car, with a white pilot light in it, swayed with a slow descent. The basket beneath the supporting balloon oscillated in a wide swing, then steadied. A sudden flash showed up thereโa flashing electronic stream, from Hanley's Wasp to the basket. The shot swept the basket interior. No one could be hidden there and survive.
It was Hanley's proof to us that he was following instructions.
"Hah! He obeys properly, Jetta!"
The voice floated back to me from the control room. Could I creep in there, surprise De Boer now, and kill him? Doubtless. But it would alarm Hans. I must await my chance to get them together.
"Gutierrez! Hans, get us under it! Gutierrez!"
The vague outline of De Boer came toward me in the corridor, burly dark blob. His mask was down now. There were points of light, glowing like faint distant stars, to mark his eyes.
"Gutierrez."
"Yes."
A small black figure followed after him. Jetta.
"Yes, De Boer." I stood over the sack. "I am ready."
De Boer's giant shape towered beside me. Now! My knife thrust now! But Hans was coming toward us. He would take alarm before I could reach him.
"Open the side porte, Gutierrez. Hurry, the car is here. Hans, you should have stayed up there!"
"The drift is calculated; the car is just here."
We were all swift-moving shadows; disembodied voices.
"Get that porte open."
"Yes." I opened it.
e went outside on the runway. I passed close to Jetta, and just for an instant pressed my gloved fingers on the black fabric of her armโand she knew.
"Now, seize it."
"Here, Hans, climb up."
"I have it. Pull it, Gutierrez!"
The car drifted at us from the black void. We caught it.
"Hold it, Gutierrez."
"Hans, clip the balloon. Up with you."
In the blurred haste, I could not get them together. I did not want to kill one and have the other leap upon me.
We fastened the little balloon and dragged the car onto the take-off platform. The shape of Hans leaped into the car.
"It is here! The ransom money!"
"Lift it to me. Heavy?"
"Yes."[242]
"Gutierrez, help me. Hurry! If Hanley tries any trickeryโ"
Our aero was drifting downward and southward in the slight wind. Hanley's Wasp still hovered at the zero-height.
"In, Gutierrez."
ans and I hauled out the heavy casket and placed it on the wing runway. De Boer pried up its lid. The gold was there. I could not tell where Jetta was; I prayed she would keep away from this.
Then the shape of De Boer was missing! But in a moment he appeared, dragging the sack.
"Lift him, Gutierrez. Hans, unclip the balloon and shove off the car!"
We were all standing at the two-foot rail of the runway. The car-basket, floating now, was off side and level with us. My chance!
"In with him, Gutierrez."
I shoved the body, encased in its black sack, with Hans helping me. And suddenly De Boer's knife came down at the sack! A stab. But an instinct to save the poor wretch within swept me. I struck at De Boer's arm and deflected the blow. The sack tumbled into the car.
I had neglected whatever chance had existed. Too late now!
"What in the hell!"
De Boer's shape seized me.
"Whatโ"
It sent me into a sudden confusion. I flung him off. I stumbled against the shape of Hans.
The car was almost loose; drifting away.
Without thoughtโa frantic impulseโI pushed Hans over the brink. He fell into the car. It swayed into an oscillation with the impact. The balloon sank below our wing level and was gone, with only Hans, muffled shouts floating up.
nd De Boer came leaping at me from behind. I whirled around. My danger was too much for the watching Jetta. She screamed.
"Philip, look out for him!"
"Hah! The American. By damn, what is this?"
It gave De Boer pause. He gripped a wing stay-wire for a second.
Then he came with a rush.
The corridor door was open behind me. I flung myself into itโand collided with a shape.
"Philip!"
I shoved at her frantically.
"Jetta, get back! Away from us!"
I pulled at her, half falling. De Boer's shape came through the doorway into the corridor. And was blotted out in the green darkness as he turned the other way, to avoid me if I struck.
A silence. The shadow of Jetta was behind me. I stood with poised knife, listening, straining my eyes through the faint green darkness. De Boer was here, knife in hand, fallen now into craftly, motionless silence. He might have been close here down the corridor. Or in any one of these nearby cubby doorways.
I slid forward along the wall. The corridor was solid black down its length: the green radiance seemed brighter at the control room behind me. Had De Boer gone into this solid blackness, to lure me?
stopped my advance. Stood again, trying to see or hear something.
And then I saw him! Two small glowing points of light. Distant stars. His eyes! Five feet ahead of me? Or ten? Or twenty?
A rustle. A sound.
His dark form materialized as he cameโa huge, black blob overwhelming me, his arm and knife blade striking.
I dropped to the floor-grid, and his blade went over me. And as I dropped, I struck with an upward thrust. My knife met solidity; sank into flesh.
I twisted past him on the floor as he fell. My knife was gone: buried in him.[243]
Words were audible; choking gasps. I could see his form rising, staggering. The open porte was near him; he swayed through it.
Did he know he was mortally wounded? I think so. He swayed on the wing runway, and I slid to the door and stood watching. And was aware of the shadow of Jetta creeping to join me.
"Is heโ?"
"Quiet, Jetta."
He stood under the wing, swaying, gripping a stay. Then his voice sounded, and it seemed like a laugh.
"The craven Americanโwins." He moved a step. "Not to seeโme dieโ"
He toppled at the rail. "Good-by, Jetta."
A great huddled shadow. A blob, toppling, falling....
Far down there now the crags and peaks of the Lowland depths were visible. The darkness swallowed his whirling body. We could not hear the impact.
CHAPTER XIX Episode of the Lowlandshere is but little remaining for me to record. I could not operate the mechanism of invisibility of De Boer's X-flyer. But its pilot controls were simple. With Jetta at my side, trembling now that our gruesome task was over, we groped our way through the green darkness and mounted to the pilot cubby. And within ten minutes I had lowered the ship into the depths, found a landing place upon the dark rocks, and brought us down.
Hanley's Wasp had landed: we saw its lights half a mile from us. And then the lights of another shipโan X-flyer convoying Hanleyโslowly materializing nearby.
And then reunion. Jetta and I left De Boer's invisible vessel and clambered over the rocks. And presently Hanley, staring at our grotesque black forms, came rushing forward and greeted us.
We were an hour locating De Boer's flyer, for all that Jetta and I had just left it and thought we could find our way back. But we stumbled onto it at last. Hanley felt his way aboard and brought it to visibility. It has since been returned to the Anti-War Department, with the compliments of Hanley's Office.
The ransom money was restored to its proper source. Spawn's treasure of radiumized quicksilver we shipped back to Nareda, where it was checked and divided, and Jetta's share legally awarded to her.
De Boer was dead when Hanley found him that night on the rocks. Jetta and I did not go to look at him....
The balloon basket landed safely. Hanley and his men were down there in time to seize it. Hans was caught; and Gutierrez, within the sack, was found to be uninjured. They are incarcerated now in Nareda. They were willing to tell the location of the bandit stronghold. A raid there the following day resulted in the capture of most of De Boer's men.
All this is now public news. You have heard it, of course. Yet in my narrative, setting down the events as I lived them, I have tried to give more vivid details than the bare facts as they were blared through the public audiphones.
An episode of the strange, romantic, fantastic Lowlands. A very unimportant series of incidents mingled with the news of a busy worldโjust a few minutes of the newscasters' time to tell how a band of depth smugglers was caught.
But it was a very important episode to me. It changed, for me, a clanking, thrumming machine-made world into a shining fairyland of dreams come true. It gave me little Jetta.
(The End)
[244]
athered around a long table in a luxuriously furnished director's room, a group of men listened in astonishment to the rapid and forceful speech of one of their number.
"I tell you I'm through, gentlemen," averred the speaker. "I'm fed up with the job, that's all. Since 2317 you've had me sitting at the helm of International Airways and I've worked my fool head off for you. Nowโget someone else!"
"Made plenty of money yourself, didn't you, Carr?" asked one of the directors, a corpulent man with a self-satisfied countenance.
"Sure I did. That's not the point. I've done all the work. There's not another executive[245] in the outfit whose job is more than a title, and you know it. I want a change and a rest. Going
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