Fantastic Vignettes Read online

  Arlen, Dee

  Death on Betelgeuse, March 1953

  Booth, Omar

  When the Earth was Young, March 1953

  Chase, W.R.

  Sky-Hooks, February 1950

  Drug-Eater Reception, March 1950

  Eternal Wanderer, April 1950

  Cooke, Millen

  Son of the Sun, November 1947

  Corliss, Dan

  The Telepathic Murder, February 1950

  And the Rains Came . . ., May 1950

  Lorelei of Space, July 1950

  Daly, Morton

  The Changeling, September 1952

  Dean, Martin

  Voyage into Danger, February 1953

  Delano, Wayne

  Tycoon of the Future, February 1953

  Dewey, Sam

  Perchance to Dream, March 1953

  Karney, William

  The Dream, March 1950

  The Chilly Visitor, April 1950

  Best-Dressed Man—1980, May 1950

  Space School No. 1, January 1951

  Kedzie, A.T.

  Space School, February 1950

  The Martian Landing, March 1950

  The Sub-Killer, July 1950

  One De-Gaussing Girdle, Please, January 1952

  Lane, John

  As Dumb as a Fox, December 1948

  Lathrop, Walter

  Enemy Sighted . . ., March 1950

  The Man and the Neutrons, May 1950

  Long, Max

  Coast Watcher, April 1951

  Lurie, June

  Unwilling Exile, February 1950

  Hijack Patrol, June 1950

  The Sacrifice, July 1950

  Negligence . . ., October 1950

  Tritonian Terror, November 1950

  Guerilla Traitor!, January 1951

  Marks, J.R.

  Telerapport, February 1950

  Saboteur . . ., May 1950

  Miller, Sandy

  Checkmate . . ., March 1950

  Heli-Taxi, May 1950

  The Arctic Shield, June 1950

  “Tiny Tim” Comes Through, February 1953

  Matthews, Milton

  Building Blocks, February 1950

  The Uranian Emissary, August 1950

  Morris, A.

  Book Worm, February 1950

  Meteor?, June 1950

  Owen, Lee

  Lunar Coffin, February 1950

  Maniacal Mentanical, February 1950

  Callisto Beam, February 1950

  ’Coptor-Police!, February 1950

  Finality . . ., February 1950

  Metal Bouncer, February 1950

  Visit in the Dawn, March 1950

  The Crystalline Beast, March 1950

  The Chill, March 1950

  Android Revolt!, March 1950

  Psycho . . ., March 1950

  Opening Gambit, April 1950

  The Ones Who Came Before, April 1950

  Crash Landing!, April 1950

  Flat-Top Killer, April 1950

  Do Unto Others . . ., April 1950

  [untitled], May 1950

  The Dopesters, May 1950

  The Witch of Adonai, May 1950

  Waterproof!, May 1950

  Solar Pirates, June 1950

  Magnetic Bomb!, July 1950

  Shanghaied, July 1950

  The Cookie-Tosser, July 1950

  The Steam Hammer, August 1950

  Venusian Claim Jumper, December 1950

  Time Warp, December 1950

  Shanghaied into Space!, February 1951

  Arctic Assignment, February 1953

  Phelps, Leslie

  The Monsters, May 1950

  Room Service—Plus, June 1950

  The First Emissary, July 1950

  Recour, Charles

  The Assassin, April 1950

  The Evil Martians Do . . ., January 1951

  Always Kiss an Amazon, April 1951

  Stranger . . ., August 1951

  Terran Treachery Trips Luna, January 1952

  Some Day I’ll Do it Again, March 1952

  The Horror of the Hormone, April 1952

  The Satellite Wrecker, June 1952

  Miners in the Sky, September 1952

  The Madman, March 1953

  Sinclair, Ramsey

  Kobald in the Hearth, April 1950

  Standish, Lynn

  Joyboy—3000, February 1950

  Mr. Merriman’s Mad Mix-Up, May 1950

  Stanton, H.R.

  Growth and Error, March 1950

  Out of the Past . . ., April 1950

  The Grav-Dancers, May 1950

  Lunar Farmer, January 1951

  Wainwright, Carter T.

  In the Deeps . . ., February 1950

  Galactic Bomb!vMarch 1950

  Hope!, April 1950

  Teleported Invasion, May 1950

  Solar Guardian?, November 1950

  Hit, Run—And Error!, January 1951

  Webb, Carl

  Condemned!, February 1950

  Weston, John

  Murder Moon, March 1950

  Grandfather Paradox, April 1950

  Salute to Luna!, June 1951

  Yaches, E. Bruce

  Vengeance, March 1951

  Morpheus in Hades!, January 1952

  The Battle of the Buccaneers, February 1952

  He Lived . . . to Die, April 1952

  Space Problem, January 1953

  Land of the Matriarchs, March 1953

  1947

  Son of the Sun

  Millen Cooke

  WE ARE already here, among you. Some of us have always been here, with you, yet apart from you, watching, and occasionally guiding you whenever the opportunity arose. Now, however, our numbers have been increased in preparation for a further step in the development of your planet: a step of which you are not yet aware, although it has been hinted at frequently enough in the parables of your prophets, who have garbled whatever inspiration they have been able to receive. Sometimes they were ignorant. Sometimes they were unable to translate clearly the concepts implanted in their minds. Sometimes they were cautious, and to insure the preservation of the information they wished to place upon record in the world, they spoke in metaphors and symbols.

  We have been confused with the gods of many world-religions, although we are not gods, but your own fellow creatures; as you will learn directly before many more years have passed. You will find records of our presence in the mysterious symbols of ancient Egypt, where we made ourselves known in, order to accomplish certain ends. Our principal, symbol appears in the religious art of your present civilization and occupies a position of importance upon the great seal of your country. It has been preserved in certain secret societies founded originally to keep alive the knowledge of our existence and our intentions toward mankind.

  We have left you certain landmarks, placed carefully in different parts of the globe, but most prominently in Egypt where we established our headquarters upon the occasion of our last overt, or as you would say, public, appearance. At that time the foundations of your present civilization were “laid in the earth,” and the most ancient of your known landmarks established by means that would appear as miraculous to you now as they did to the pre-Egyptians, so many thousands of years ago. Since that time the whole art of building in stone has become symbolic, to many of you, of the work in hand—the building of the human race toward its perfection.

  Your ancestors knew us. in those days as preceptors and as friends. Now, through your own efforts, you have almost reached, in your majority; a new step on the long ladder of your liberation. You have been constantly aided by our watchful “inspiration,” and hindered only by the difficulties natural to your processes of physical and moral development, for the so-called “forces of evil and darkness” have always been recruited from among the ranks of your own humanity—a circumstance for which you would be exceedingly grateful if you possessed full knowledge of conditions in the universe.

&n
bsp; You have lately achieved the means of destroying yourselves. Do not be hasty in your self-congratulation. Yours is not the first civilization to have achieved—and used—such means. Yours, will hot be the first civilization to be offered the means of preventing that destruction and proceeding, in the full glory of its accumulated knowledge, to establish, an era of enlightenment upon the earth.

  However, if you do accept the means offered you, and if you do establish such a “millennium” upon the basis of your present accomplishments, yours will be the first civilization to do so. Always, before, the knowledge, the techniques, the instructions, have become the possessions of a chosen few: a few who chose themselves by their own open-minded and clear-sighted realization of “the shapes of things to come.” They endeavored to pass on their knowledge in the best possible form, and by the most enduring means at their command. In a sense they succeeded, but in another sense their failure equalled their success. Human acceptance is, to a very large extent, measurable by human experience. Succeeding generations, who never knew our actual presence, translated the teachings of their elders in the terms of their own experience. For instance, a cross-sectional drawing, much simplified and stylized by many copyings, of one of our traveling machines, became the “Eye of Horus,” and then other eyes of other gods. Finally, the ancient symbol that was once an accurate representation of an important mechanical, device, has been given surprising connotations by the modern priesthood of psychology.

  The important fact is, however, that we are here, among you, and that you, as a world-race, will know it before very much longer! The time is almost ripe, but as with all ripening things, the process may not be hurried artificially without danger of damaging the fruit. There is a right time for every action, and the right time for our revelation of ourselves to your era is approaching.

  SOME of you have seen our “advance guard” already. You have met us often in the streets of your cities, and you have not noticed us. But when we flash through your skies in the ancient, traditional vehicles, you are amazed and those oh you who open your mouths and tell of what you have seen are accounted dupes and fools. Actually you are prophets, seers in the true sense of the word. You in Kansas and Oklahoma, you in Oregon and in California, and Idaho, who know what you have seen: do not be dismayed by meteorologists. Their business is the weather. One of you says “I saw a torpedo-shaped object.” Others report “disk-like objects,” some of you say “spherical objects,” or “platter-like objects.” You are all reporting correctly and accurately what you saw, and in most cases you. are describing the same sort of vehicle.

  The “golden disk”—now confused with the solar disk and made a part and parcel of religion—even in your own times. The “discus,” hurled sunward by the Grecian—and your own—athletes. The “eye of Horus,” and the other eyes of symbology, alchemical and otherwise. Our mechanical means of transportation.

  Now that the art of manufacturing plastic materials has reached a certain perfection among you, perhaps you can imagine a material, almost transparent to the rays of ordinary visible light, yet strong enough to endure the stresses of extremely rapid flight. Look again at the great nebulae, and think of the construction of your own galaxy, and behold the universal examples of what we have found to be the perfect shape for an object which is to travel through what you still fondly refer to as “empty” space.

  In the center of the discus, gyroscopically controlled within a central sphere of the same transparent material, our control room revolve freely, accommodating themselves and us to flat or edgewise flight. Both methods are suited to your atmosphere, and when we convert abruptly from one to the other, as we are sometimes obliged to do, and you are watching, our machines seem suddenly to appear—or to disappear. At our possible speeds your eyes, Untrained and unprepared for the maneuver, do make mistakes—but not the mistakes your scientists so often accuse them of making.

  We pass over your hilltops in horizontal flight. You see and report a torpedo-shaped object. We pass over, in formation, flying vertically “edge-on,” and you report a series of disk-shaped, platter-like objects, or perhaps a sphere. Or we go over at night, jet-slits glowing, and you see an orange disk. In any event, you see us, and in any event, we do not care. If we chose to remain invisible, we could do so, easily, and, in fact, we have done so almost without exception for hundreds of years. But you must become accustomed to our shapes in your skies, for one day they will be familiar, friendly, and reassuring sights.

  This time, it is to be hoped that the memory of them, passed on to your children and their children, will be dear and precise. That you will not cause them to forget, as your ancestors forgot, the meaning of the diagrams and the instructions we will leave with you. If you do fail, as other civilizations have failed, we will see your descendants wearing wiring-diagrams for simple machines as amulets, expecting the diagrams to do what their forefathers were taught the completed article would accomplish. Then their children, forgetting even that much—or little—would preserve the amulet as a general protective device—or as an intellectual curiosity—or perhaps as a religious symbol. Such is the cycle of forgetfulness!

  1948

  As Dumb as a Fox

  John Lane

  “ALL right, Corporal, tell your story and make it clear.” The captain glanced at Lieutenant Waterson significantly and then looked back at Corporal Ferson. The orderly room of the little Alaskan post became quiet and the half-dozen officers of the small garrison prepared to listen to Ferson’s story. It was July seventeenth, nineteen forty-four, but to judge from the howling of the wind outside you wouldn’t have known it.

  “Well, sir,” the corporal began, “I was huddling behind the log breastworks where the number three forty millimeter cannon is mounted. It was windier than hell, sir, and I was down as low as I could get. I looked at my watch and it was ten-thirty. In another half-hour I was supposed to go off duty and my mind was on a hot cup of coffee. Boy, that was—”

  “Stick to the story, corporal,” Lt. Waterson interjected.

  “Yes sir. Anyhow, I was sort of drowsy, but I was awake. I know that, sir, because I can clearly remember checking the jacket on the gun breech. And not only that, but the breechblock slid smoothly.”

  “Come to the point,” the captain said somewhat angrily.

  The corporal looked up at him with narrowed eyes. “Yes sir,” he said, “I just wanted to make it clear that I was fully awake. Anyhow, I thought I heard a noise overhead, and for a while when I looked up I was sure it was a Jap plane because there was a peculiar drone to it. Besides, we’ve been having visits from them. But it stopped after a while and I didn’t call the guard to man the gun. If the radar shack didn’t catch it, I figured I must have been wrong.”

  “Commendable,” wryly murmured the captain with an amused glance toward the lieutenant. “Go on.”

  “I happened to look up, sir, over the breastworks, and I saw something moving toward me.

  I swear it, sir. It was making a droning noise and it looked like a bear from the little I could make out in the dark. I was too excited to move for a minute. I woke up at last and yelled for the guard.”

  “Don’t forget what else you did, corporal,” the lieutenant broke in. “You touched the gun, didn’t you?”

  “Yes sir. It was loaded, and as I yelled I ripped the breech cover off, and I aimed at the thing that was only about two hundred feet away. It was a case of point blank. I opened the gun up with two shots, sir, and I’m positive I hit ‘it.’ ”

  “But, nothing was found when the guard came, sir,” the lieutenant said to the captain. “We looked everywhere and there wasn’t a single footprint. All we found was a tree that had been hit by two forty millimeter shells.”

  “All right, Ferson,” said the captain, “I’m not going to make an issue of this. You fired the gun. Maybe it was nervousness and maybe it was maliciousness. I don’t care. You’ve had a good record. I won’t spoil it, but don’t let it happen again.”

>   The corporal, dismissed, left the orderly room. The salute he gave the officers had a slight gesture of defiance in it.

  The incident described above actually occurred. It was never recorded officially, but those men who knew Ferson swore among themselves that he must have seen something. The matter was never pressed to a conclusion and like so many unusual and almost mystic phenomena, it died a natural death. The point is, by all the laws of reason and logic, Ferson fired at something. It was no animal for it left no tracks. Nor was it a man for the same reason. The officers had a gay time laughing at what they termed “Ferson’s poltergeist.” But the fact remains he saw something.

  THE END

  1950

  In the Deeps . . .

  Carter T. Wainwright

  PTAR, PILOT-OFFICER of the Asian rocket submersible crouches in his cylindrical torpedoe of steel and shivers. It is chill in these waters off the Pacific Palisades. He shudders and turns the electric heater a little higher. His yellow skin is a pale lemon color from the cold. But Pilot Officer Ptar endures the discomfort willingly.

  Through his periscope, through his radar and ultra-sonic screens he watches the coast, patiently waiting for the tell tale throb of engines that will tell him that a. big fat American freighter is coming along. Then Ptar will go into action.

  He lights a precious half-cigarette and lets the blowers waft the smoke through the protruding miniature Schnorkel attached to the periscope. He lays Quiescent, thinking and studying. The North Americans will have many surprises in store for them he reasons. Asia will triumph! In his mind’s eye he sees the yelling crowds in C’hungtang, the immobile, passive face of Kree-Than the Dictator of all the Asia’s. Ptar smiles to himself, a malevolent distortion of his lips.

  Suddenly the ultra-sound detector begins to squeal. Ptar stretches his reclining body, reaches for the liquid tube and takes a draft of coffee spiked with a stimulant. He feels keen and alert. The tenseness vanishes. He knows he will be tired but when it is done he can rest before the next hunt.

  The ultra-sound picks up the roar of the sea-going freighter’s gas turbines before the vessel is visible. Then gradually it comes into Ptar’s ken.

  He swings the thirty foot submersible with electric motors, his rocket tubes silent. He knows he cannot be detected. He focuses the nose of the submersible upon the oncoming ship. The nostrils dilate. The kill is near!