Amazing Vignettes Page 9

  An hour later, he heard the bang of metal against metal. The mutineers had uncovered the deception. Just in case, he picked up a blaster. They’d try to force entry though there was little hope of their making it. Sure enough, in minutes, a half-dozen suited men appeared at the port using sledges and blasters against the steel-hard quartzite—without avail.

  The futile effort kept up for an hour, when the mutineers realized that by now they wouldn’t be far enough away from a patrol. Again the little boat vanished.

  An hour and a half later, Magruder let in the patrol officers. In their wake trailed a motley group of beaten men. “These yours?” the officer asked, “seems they thought they were going somewhere . . .”

  End of an Era

  Leslie Phelps

  IT WAS A touching ceremony. Naturally you saw it on the video. But I was there, and you had to be there to catch the flavor of poignancy. It was of course the opening of a whole new era—and yet it was sad.

  In the saying it seems trivial. So they did close down the last of the steam power plants? So what. Ah, but it was more than that. True, now all electric power in the world is broadcast from central power plants—atomic jobs—and all you’ve got to do is dial the frequency, and you’ve got all the juice you need.

  But remember for a century and a half we’ve been getting our electric energy from big complicated steam generating plants which burn coal or oil, They’re impressive and vast. The atomic broadcasting plants are small, silent and efficient.

  But I swear that I could see a tear in the eye of the chief engineer as he threw the switch. We were all standing around—all of the commentators and observers and we watched the huge massive rotors of the generators spin slowly to a dead stop. The fancy output dial they’d rigged showed zero power. Electricity from coal and oil was a dead issue.

  In a way it seems silly making such a fuss over such a revolutionary step that means a better life for all of us. But I imagine the engineers must have felt the same way when rockets displaced aircraft, or the helis displaced autos. Oh well . . . that’s progress . . .

  The Lost Chord

  Lynn Standish

  PETER WINSTON’S long spare frame ambled slowly down the quiet street. His pensive face was set in lines of deep thought. The evening was warm, and late and beautiful, but it held no spell for him.

  Let them laugh, he thought, the fools, “Horrible concatenation of sound,” they’d said. “Who is this young man who thinks he can compose?” Clarence of the Bugle had asked sarcastically in his column, “he’d be better off at ditch-digging.” No musical talent whatsoever.”

  All right, I’ll show them. The damned critics know nothing anyhow. They laugh at me—at me! . . . why I could teach them more in a minute . . . Oh well, what’s the use. They’re the judges. But at least I have the satisfaction of doing a piece—String Quartet In White is just too new for them. They don’t know modern music and dissonance leaves them cold.

  The church loomed up before him, and on impulse he strode up the steps. It was rather an impressive edifice, but even in the vestibule, his tortured ego felt a spiritual calm, soothing his ragged nerves.

  Peter was not religious in the full sense of the word, but he was sensitive enough to detect the peculiar atmosphere of calmness that seems to emanate from churches. He sat in a pew toward the rear and surveyed the impressive outlines of the church’s interior, dimly lit though it was by the feeblest of night lights.

  No one else was around. Peter climbed the steps to the choir and found himself in a large organ loft, holding a huge and modem power-driven organ.

  Why not? he thought. Maybe no one is near. At worst they can only throw roe out.

  He flipped a button which started the blower and deep within the vitals of the instrument he could hear the whine of the motor as it started pumping air into the reservoir. Experimentally he touched a key and was rewarded by the sound of a subdued note.

  He let his fingers ripple over the keys and from the powerful lungs of the organ, the barest suggestion of a melody began. Softly at first, then more loudly, the combinations of chords separated until the essential theme of his composition began to flow from the pipes.

  Peter grimaced. Something was wrong. He was playing the White just as he composed it, but it didn’t sound the same at all. Instead of the affected dissonance which he had so laboriously written into the work, this new modification was a softening and a mellowing of the theme. At first he was displeased. Then something came to him. This was fine! This was musical!

  It was his composition and it wasn’t. Abruptly he stopped playing. His fingers left the keys and he rose from the bench. But the organ didn’t stop! Peter stared for a long minute, then reached over and turned off the power switch. The melody died slowly as the pressure dropped. In fear Peter left the church rapidly.

  He tried to account for the strange event, but he ceased after a short time. All that really filled his mind was the magnificence of the modified composition.

  The famous Peter Winston, lion of the London socialities, was driving through West End, with Patricia Norrison. “There, darling,” he said, “that’s the spot. I went in there that night and got the idea for “Quartet” on the organ. I’ve been afraid to go near the place ever since—afraid and yet attracted. Would you care to go in with me?”

  The girl pressed her hand to her forehead. “I’ve a splitting headache, Peter,” she said. “Let’s not.” She smiled wryly. “Besides it might break your luck.”

  Poor Peter, Patricia thought, I haven’t the heart to tell him. Whatever could have happened? She remembered well how the newspapers had told of the German twenty-kilo bomb landing squarely in the organ loft and destroying the organist and his instrument during the Blitz! He must have been very ill that night . . .

  The Barrier

  Lee Owen

  HE FELT gravity grab at his belly.

  The powerful clutching fingers reached for him and seemed momentarily to wrench his body apart.

  Then the number one charge stopped and the rocket ceased acceleration. Larry felt sick and nauseated and it was only with effort that he prevented himself from vomiting.

  Overhead through the glass port the sky was black. He knew he was in space now. He glanced at the radar altimeter—four hundred miles it read! And he was still rising. He’d go to another hundred before the inexorable hand of gravity would slow his velocity and send him downward. Then number two charge would have to be used.

  Larry grinned wryly. It was a peculiar feeling. He’d gone farther and higher than any man before him. It would only be a matter of months before the rocket to the moon would be a reality. And maybe he’d pilot—it was almost a certainty, for that matter.

  The slim steel shell he was riding was laden with instruments. Even now they were recording everything from temperature and pressure to radiation intensity and spore-condition.

  Larry saw that he’d reached the height of his trajectory. In seconds he’d be in free fall. He switched on the second charge and the pulse of the rocket motor sounded sweet in his ears.

  Skillfully he handled the controls sending the rocket Earthward in a gentle glide. Soon he’d land. The world would know that space flight was practical.

  Larry brought the rocket down without trouble. Crewmen tore the door open even as the hot tube hit the field.

  The pilot stepped out confidently. The flush of victory was on his face. Man had conquered space and altitude.

  “Get him to Medico,” a young surgeon was saying, “We’ve got to give him the once over.”

  Larry Austin felt fine as they carried him to the infirmary for the routine checkup for radiation . . .

  Major Clenton waited in the office. The tall, sad-looking medico, Dr. Captain Wilson walked slowly from the Examining room. He was shaking his head.

  “Well . . .” Major Clenton asked without even using the question.

  Wilson shrugged.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but it’s too bad
. That boy is one mass of radiated tissue. I don’t know what he ran into up there, but he’s been shot through so badly with gamma stuff that I’m afraid to have the technicians work on him. I’m afraid you boys aren’t going to go to any more high altitudes, Major; there’s an impassable barrier up there . . .”

  Atavism!

  L.A. Burt

  THE PHILOSOPHER and the Scientist sat in the control room of the Light, smoking and sipping their drinks, speculating about what they’d find on the seventh planet of Alpha Centauri. No sound annoyed them foe the Hyper-drive threw them in some twisted region of space and nullified all the laws of time and space. Their trip from Tellus would be a matter of hours . . .

  But thirteen hundred years ago The Ark with six thousand human beings and a common atomic drive had set out for Alpha Centauri with the intention of colonizing it. Now they would find out what had happened. The Hyper-drive made that possible.

  “I’m sure, Philo,” raid the Scientist, “that we’ll find a blossomed civilization of such advancement and such beauty that we’ll hardly believe it.”

  “No, Clan,” said the Philosopher, “I’m afraid I must disagree with you.” He inhaled deeply on his cigar. The fragrant aroma wafted itself through the control room. “I will wager that the colonists went through the same cycle of warlike actions as we had on Tellus and that in all likelihood they’ve eliminated themselves.”

  “You haven’t much faith in human beings.”

  “I have a great deal of faith—but I know human behavior.”

  The Light lurched slightly as the Hyper-drive cut out. Alpha Centauri’s system popped onto the videos. The captain immediately cut into a conventional drive for the seventh planet.

  Quickly the Light slid into the atmosphere. Rapidly it headed “earthward.” Both the Philosopher and the Scientist peered eagerly at the video scanners.

  The control room was silent as only forest and jungle came into the screen.

  “Look!” exclaimed the scientist.

  Eyes concentrated on the image. Spread before them was a mass of broken stonework, laced with strange structural shapes. And nothing living moved in the vast ruins. The Scientist turned toward the Philosopher and shook his head. “I’m afraid that human beings here remained all too human.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the Philosopher, “terribly sorry . . .”

  We are Reborn—

  John Weston

  THANK GOD that I can take out these few minutes to review and record our situation. It is now better than any time since the end of the War. And we have every hope of the eventual disappearance of the diseases and the plagues.

  I spoke with Dr. Toomey, our chief biologist, and he says that as far as the tests can show, the air is gradually clearing. He predicts that in another two years, we of the Shelter, will be able to venture outside without safety suits or masks, nor will we have to bathe ourselves in the antiseptics.

  It is now ten years since the War ended, leaving the Earth scarred with blasts of radiation and polluted and poisoned with deadly bacteriologicals. We have lived and supported a rudimentary civilization in this concrete and steel catacomb we call the “Shelter.” We have had births and deaths. We have managed to raise food in hydroponic gardens, we have obtained power from coal and oil—and maybe next year from an atomic pile. We have successfully resisted the invasion of disease and radioactivity.

  With this monumental undertaking succeeding as it is, perhaps it will be possible to reach out and explore. Surely other bands of survivors must have grouped together and fought their way to an existence as we did.

  We filter our air, we don’t venture outside this New Mexico tomb without safety suits, and we have built up a real and visible wall against the thousand and one bacteriological monstrosities the warring nations visited upon one another.

  Surely we can be proud of our success. But we must not relax our vigilance for one moment. Death is ever-present, invisible and subtle—but real.

  While the Cities are still uninhabitable—and will be—for tens of years, eventually we will be able to enter them and remove what we need. Much is not polluted with radio-actives. The cities contain nothing living and are vast tombs, but they cradle in themselves gigantic quantities of tools, books, instrument, imperishable foods, vehicles—everything—that bears witness to Man’s former greatness.

  What a day it will be—even though this may be unjustified optomistic thinking—when we of the Shelter, meet with other survivors of the Third—and Last—World War. We know that there will be no future wars—there are not enough people left to fight. But above all, everyone has suffered from that hideous insanity.

  The prime law of the Shelter is now: “Good will toward all men . . .”

  “Look—New Hands!”

  A.T. Kedzie

  “COME IN, Mr. Smith,” the doctor says. “As soon as I give you a thorough examination, we’ll put the arm in the nutrient bath.”

  “Will it hurt?” comes the patient’s inevitable question.

  The doctor smiles. “Not at all. The process is a bit slow and tedious, and you’ll be confined to the hospital for a while but isn’t it worth it?”

  “And how!” the patient agrees fervently, “Anytime I can get a new hand . . .”

  That fantastic conversation is still just that—fantastic, but the time may come when it will be perfectly sound and serious. It is a known fact that certain lower forms of life—among them the crayfish—can grow limbs to replace those injured or torn off in fighting. This process of rebirth is common to the lower types of animal life. Why shouldn’t it apply to the higher forms? Why isn’t it possible for a mammal to re-grow a severed limb?

  The biological laboratories are probing into these questions trying hard to get some clue. They know a wound will heal. Nature has shown that pretty effectively.

  People are brought into hospitals from industrial and automotive accidents, badly ripped and torn to pieces. Surprisingly enough, a good proportion recover. Tissue has the faculty of knitting itself together. Since it can do that, why can’t it go a step farther? Why can’t it replace itself in the shape of an arm or leg?

  Apparently there is no reason why it can’t other than that a pattern of some kind doesn’t exist for it to follow. Speculatively scientists have suggested that after we learn more about the nature of flesh, and more about the pattern of nerves, we may be able to do something along that line.

  It may become a common thing of the future. A man has had an arm tom off. He goes to the hospital. Electronic mechanisms attached to the nerve-endings of his flesh serve as a guide and stimulus to the growth of new tissue. Bit by bit the arm is reformed. If a crayfish can do it why not a man?

  It may not be just a dream, for dreams have a strange way of coming true . . .

  “Hot-Rod Hellies”

  Sandy Miller

  IT WAS A cool clear night, though pitch-black without the scudding of the moon. The two policemen sat comfortably in the cabin of the ’copter, listening to the quiet sighing of the blades overhead. The machine hung at eight hundred feet—high enough to watch the surrounding countryside, yet low enough to be inconspicuous.

  “Think they’ll try again tonight?” Mike Flanagan asked his partner.

  “Who knows?” Vaughn Glane shrugged. “The damned kids are liable to try it anytime.”

  Suddenly he quickened, stiffened, and nudged Mike. “Over there,” he said, pointing out the window. Barely discernible and at least five miles away, a chain of faint lights was rising into the sky.

  Mike touched the stud of the videophone; “Four seventeen,” he said quietly into the phonepiece, “reporting an assembly of the kids. Shoot patrols out and it looks like we’ll grab them. But hurry and send plenty of speedsters. You know these kids.”

  The voice came back over the speaker: “—if it’s the last thing I’ll do, I’ll throw a scare into this bunch. If there’s another accident—” he left the sentence unfinished.

  Mike eased the �
��copter into a gentle crawl toward the lights. He’d take it easy until reinforcements came, so that they stood a chance of bagging the “hot-rod bellies” as the boys dubbed themselves.

  Ever since one crazy kid had read about the romantic hot-rodders of fifty years ago, dozens of boys of the teen agers had taken ‘copters—conventional jobs—rigged them up with small jets—in a few cases, rockets—and made a practice of racing and terrorizing ordinary citizens.

  Now the cops were out for blood. There had been-a half dozen, fatal accidents involving the “hellies” and the police were determined to stop them. This was the first concerted raid.

  The video finally showed lights and the phone crackled with acknowledgements of positions. The cops were ready to swoop. Opening throttle wide, the police roared in on the two or three dozen ‘coptors poised to start their dangerous activity.

  The surprise was complete. The boys’ ships were as fast as those of the police—but the element of surprise disconcerted them completely. Most surrendered to the police ‘coptors at once but three or four dare-devils opened gunning engines and roaring rockets and made a desperate push.

  The police were prepared. Quickly, pairs of police ‘coptors boxed them, first with the glare of brilliant searchlights, then in pairs, swooping alongside the potential criminals and forcing them to cut their throttles—sometimes at gunpoint.

  It was a subdued bunch of young hellions who faced the judges in the morning and watched their licenses revoked, the while they were forced to attend official ’coptor handling schools.

  “The trouble is,” one veteran judge said with a snort, “that these boys think the Twentieth Century was romantic . . .”

  The Nth Millenium

  Walter Lathrop

  NEW STATIA was extremely conscious of its duty to its citizens and to this end it saw that they were fed, housed, amused, and worked—“from each, according to his means, to each, according to his needs.” And everything worked without friction, smoothly and purposefully, toward whatever destiny such states move.