Astounding Stories of Super-Science 8

Astounding Stories of Super-Science 8

The three adjusted gas masks and thrust the mouths of two gas cylinders

which were on the light truck into the crack, and opened the valves. The

hissing of the gas was accompanied by a thrashing, writhing sound from

the bowels of the earth for a few minutes, but the sound retreated and

finally died away into an utter silence.

 

"And that's that!" cried the doctor half an hour later as they took off

their gas masks outside the cave. "It got away from us. Carnes, how soon

can we get a train back to Washington?"

 

"What kind of a report are you going to make to the Bureau, Doctor?"

asked Carnes as they sat in the smoker of a southern train, headed for

the capital.

 

"I'm not going to put in any report, Carnes," replied the doctor. "I

haven't got the creature or any part of it to show, and no one would

believe me. I am going to maintain a discreet silence about the whole

matter."

 

"But you have your photograph to show, Doctor, and you have my evidence

and Lieutenant Leffingwell's."

 

"The photograph might have been faked and I might have doped both of

you. In any case, your words are no better than mine. No, indeed,

Carnes, when I failed to make the current strong enough to kill it

outright I made the first of the moves which bind me to silence,

although I thought that two hundred thousand volts would be enough.

 

"The second failure I made was when I missed him with my second grenade,

although I doubt if all six would have stopped him. My third failure was

when we failed to get a sufficient concentration of cyanide gas into

that hole in a hurry. The thing is so badly crippled that it will die,

but it may take hours, or even days, for it to do so. It has already

made its way so far into the earth that we couldn't reach it by blasting

without danger of bringing the whole place down on our heads. Even if we

could blast our way into the place it came from I wouldn't dare open a

path which would allow Lord only knows what terrible monsters to invade

the earth. When the soldiers have finished stopping that crack with ten

feet of solid masonry, I think the barrier will hold, even against that

critter's papa and mamma and all its relatives. Then Mammoth Cave will

be safe for visitors again. That latter fact is the only report which I

will make."

 

"It is a dandy story to go to waste," said Carnes soberly.

 

"Tell it then, if you wish, and get laughed at for your pains. No,

Carnes, you must learn one thing. A man like Bolton, for instance, will

implicitly believe that a four leaf clover in his watch-charm will bring

him good luck, and that carrying a buckeye keeps rheumatism away from

him; but tell him a bit of sober fact like this, attested by three

reliable witnesses and a good photograph, and you'll just get laughed at

for your pains. I'm going to keep my mouth shut."

 

"So be it, then!" replied Carnes with a sigh.

 

 

 

 

Phantoms of Reality

 

A COMPLETE NOVEL

 

_By Ray Cummings_

 

[Illustration: _The office room faded.... I was lying on another

floor.... New walls sprang around me._]

 

[Sidenote: Red Sensua's knife came up dripping--and the two adventurers

knew that chaos and bloody revolution had been unleashed in that shadowy

kingdom of the fourth dimension.]

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

_Wall Street--or the Open Road?_

 

 

When I was some fifteen years old, I once made the remark, "Why, that's

impossible."

 

The man to whom I spoke was a scientist. He replied gently, "My boy,

when you are grown older and wiser you will realize that nothing is

impossible."

 

Somehow, that statement stayed with me. In our swift-moving wonderful

world I have seen it proven many times. They once thought it impossible

to tell what lay across the broad, unknown Atlantic Ocean. They thought

the vault of the heavens revolved around the earth. It was impossible

for it to do anything else, because they could see it revolve. It was

impossible, too, for anything to be alive and yet be so small that one

might not see it. But the microscope proved the contrary. Or again, to

talk beyond the normal range of the human voice was impossible, until

the telephone came to show how simply and easily it might be done.

 

I never forgot that physician's remark. And it was repeated to me some

ten years later by my friend, Captain Derek Mason, on that memorable

June night of 1929.

 

My name is Charles Wilson. I was twenty-five that June of 1929. Although

I had lived all of my adult life in New York City, I had no relatives

there and few friends.

 

* * * * *

 

I had known Captain Mason for several years. Like myself, he seemed one

who walked alone in life. He was an English gentleman, perhaps thirty

years old. He had been stationed in the Bermudas, I understood, though

he seldom spoke of it.

 

I always felt that I had never seen so attractive a figure of a man as

this Derek Mason. An English aristocrat, he was, straight and tall and

dark, and rather rakish, with a military swagger. He affected a small,

black mustache. A handsome, debonair fellow, with an easy grace of

manner: a modern d'Artagnan. In an earlier, less civilized age, he would

have been expert with sword and stick, I could not doubt. A man who

could capture the hearts of women with a look. He had always been to me

a romantic figure, and a mystery that seemed to shroud him made him no

less so.

 

A friendship had sprung up between Derek Mason and me, perhaps because

we were such opposite types! I am an American, of medium height, and

medium build. Ruddy, with sandy hair. Derek Mason was as meticulous of

his clothes, his swagger uniforms, as the most perfect Beau Brummel. Not

so myself. I am careless of dress and speech.

 

I had not seen Derek Mason for at least a month when, one June

afternoon, a note came from him. I went to his apartment at eight

o'clock the same evening. Even about his home there seemed a mystery. He

lived alone with one man servant. He had taken quarters in a high-class

bachelor apartment building near lower Fifth Avenue, at the edge of

Greenwich Village.

 

All of which no doubt was rational enough, but in this building he had

chosen the lower apartment at the ground-floor level. It adjoined the

cellar. It was built for the janitor, but Derek had taken it and fixed

it up in luxurious fashion. Near it, in a corner of the cellar, he had

boarded off a square space into a room. I understood vaguely that it was

a chemical laboratory. He had never discussed it, nor had I ever been

shown inside it. Unusual, mysterious enough, and that a captain of the

British military should be an experimental scientist was even more

unusual. Yet I had always believed that for a year or two Derek had been

engaged in some sort of chemical or physical experiment. With all his

military swagger he had the precise, careful mode of thought

characteristic of the man of scientific mind.

 

* * * * *

 

I recall that when I got his note with its few sentences bidding me come

to see him, I had a premonition that it marked the beginning of

something strange. As though the portals of a mystery were opening to

me!

 

Nothing is impossible! Nevertheless I record these events into which I

was plunged that June evening with a very natural reluctance. I expect

no credibility. If this were the year 2000, my narrative doubtless would

be tame enough. Yet in 1929 it can only be called a fantasy. Let it go

at that. The fantasy of to-day is the sober truth of to-morrow. And by

the day after, it is a mere platitude. Our world moves swiftly.

 

Derek received me in his living-room. He admitted me himself. He told me

that his man servant was out. It was a small room, with leather-covered

easy chairs, rugs on its hardwood floor, and sober brown portieres at

its door and windows. A brown parchment shade shrouded the electrolier

on the table. It was the only light in the room. It cast its mellow

sheen upon Derek's lean graceful figure as he flung himself down and

produced cigarettes.

 

He said, "Charlie, I want a little talk with you. I've something to tell

you--something to offer you."

 

He held his lighter out to me, with its tiny blue alcohol flame under my

cigarette. And I saw that his hand was trembling.

 

* * * * *

 

"But I don't understand what you mean," I protested.

 

He retorted, "I'm suggesting that you might be tired of being a clerk in

a brokerage office. Tired of this humdrum world that we call

civilization. Tired of Wall Street."

 

"I am, Derek. Heavens, that's true enough."

 

His eyes held me. He was smiling half whimsically: his voice was only

half serious. Yet I could see, in the smoldering depths of those

luminous dark eyes, a deadly seriousness that belied his smiling lips

and his gay tone.

 

He interrupted me with, "And I offer you a chance for deeds of high

adventuring. The romance of danger, of pitting your wits against

villainy to make right triumph over wrong, and to win for yourself power

and riches--and perhaps a fair lady...."

 

"Derek, you talk like a swashbuckler of the middle ages."

 

I thought he would grin, but he turned suddenly solemn.

 

"I'm offering to make you henchman to a king, Charlie."

 

"King of what? Where?"

 

He spread his lean brown hands with a gesture. He shrugged. "What

matter? If you seek adventure, you can find it--somewhere. If you feel

the lure of romance--it will come to you."

 

I said, "Henchman to a king?"

 

But still he would not smile. "Yes. If I were king. I'm serious.

Absolutely. In all this world there is no one who cares a damn about me.

Not in this world, but...."

 

He checked himself. He went on, "You are the same. You have no

relatives?"

 

"No. None that ever think of me."

 

"Nor a sweetheart. Or have you?"

 

"No," I smiled. "Not yet. Maybe never."

 

"But you are too interested in Wall Street to leave it for the open

road?" He was sarcastic now. "Or do you fear deeds of daring? Do you

want to right a great wrong? Rescue an oppressed people, overturn the

tyranny of an evil monarch, and put your friend and the girl he loves

upon the throne? Or do you want to go down to work as usual in the

subway to-morrow morning? Are you afraid that in this process of

becoming henchman to a king you may perchance get killed?"

 

I matched his caustic tone. "Let's hear it, Derek."

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

_The Challenge of the Unknown_

 

 

Incredible! Impossible! I did not say it, though my thoughts were

written on my face, no doubt.

 

Derek said quietly, "Difficult to believe, Charlie? Yes! But it happens

to be true. The girl I love is not of this world, but she lives

nevertheless. I have seen her, talked with her. A slim little

thing--beautiful...."

 

He sat staring. "This is nothing supernatural, Charlie. Only

the ignorant savages of our past called the unknown--the

unusual--supernatural. We know better now."

 

I said, "This girl--"

 

He gestured. "As I told you, I have for years been working on the theory

that there is another world, existing here in this same space with us.

The Fourth Dimension! Call it that it you like. I have found it, proved

its existence! And this girl--her name is Hope--lives in it. Let me tell

you about her and her people. Shall I?"

 

My heart was pounding so that it almost smothered me. "Yes, Derek."

 

"She lives here, in this Space we call New York City. She and her people

use this same Space at the same time that we use it. A different world

from ours, existing here now with us! Unseen by us. And we are unseen by

them!

 

"A different form of matter, Charlie. As tangible to the people of the

other realm as we are to our own world. Humans like ourselves."

 

He paused, but I could find no words to fill the gap. And presently he

went on:

 

"Hope's world, co-existing here with us, is dependent upon us. They

speak what we call English. They shadow us."

 

I murmured, "Phantoms of reality."

 

"Yes. A world very like ours. But primitive, where ours is civilized."

 

* * * * *

 

He paused again. His eyes were staring past me as though he could see

through the walls of the cellar room into great reaches of the unknown.

What a strange mixture was this Derek Mason! What a strange compound of

the cold reality of the scientist and the fancy of the romantic dreamer!

Yet I wonder if that is not what science is. There is no romantic lover

gawping at the moon who could have more romance in his soul, or see in

the moonlit eyes of his loved one more romance than the scientist finds

in the wonders of his laboratory.

 

Derek went on slowly:

 

"A primitive world, primitive nation, primitive passions! As I see it

now, Charlie--as I know it to be--it seems as though perhaps Hope's

world is merely a replica of ours, stripped to the primitive. As though

it might be the naked soul of our modern New York, ourselves as we

really are, not as we pretend to be."

 

He roused himself from his reverie.

 

"Hope's nation is ruled by a king. An emperor, if you like. A monarch,

beset with the evils of luxury and ease, and wine and women. He is

surrounded by his nobles, the idle aristocracy, by virtue of their birth

proclaiming themselves of too fine a clay to work. The crimson nobles,

they are called. Because they affect crimson cloaks, and their beautiful

women, voluptuous, sex-mad, are wont to bedeck themselves in veils and

robes of crimson.

 

"And there are workers, toilers they call them. Oppressed, down-trodden

toilers, with hate for the nobles and the king smoldering within them.

In France there was such a condition, and the bloody revolution came of

it. It exists here now. Hope was born in the ranks of these toilers, but

has risen by her grace and beauty to a position in the court of this

graceless monarch."

 

* * * * *

 

He leaped from his chair and began pacing the room. I sat silent,

staring at him. So strange a thing! Impossible? I could not say that. I

could only say, incredible to me. And as I framed the thought I knew its

incredibility was the very measure of my limited intelligence, my lack

of knowledge. The vast unknown of nature, so vast that everything which

was real to me, understandable to me, was a mere drop in the ocean of

the existing unknown.

 

"Don't you understand me now?" Derek added vehemently. "I'm not talking

fantasy. Cold reality! I've found a way to transport myself--and

you--into this different state of matter, into this other world! I've

already made a test. I went there and stayed just for a few moments, a

night or so ago."

 

It made my heart leap wildly. He went on:--

 

"There is chaos there. Smoldering revolution which at any time--to-night

perhaps--may burst into conflagration and destroy this wanton ruling

class." He laughed harshly. "In Hope's world the workers are a primitive,

ignorant people. Superstitious. Like the peons of Mexico, they're all

primed and ready to shout for any leader who sets himself up. My

chance--our chance--"

 

He suddenly stopped his pacing and stood before me. "Don't you feel the

lure of it? The open road? 'The road is straight before me and the Red

Gods call for me!' I'm going, Charlie. Going to-night--and I want you to

go with me! Will you?"

 

Would I go? The thing leaped like a menacing shadow risen solidly to

confront me. Would I go?

 

Suddenly there was before me the face of a girl. White. Apprehensive. It

seemed almost pleading. A face beautiful, with a mouth of parted red

lips. A face framed in long, pale-golden hair with big staring blue

eyes. Wistful eyes, wan with starlight--eyes that seemed to plead.

 

I thought, "Why, this is madness!" I was not seeing this face with my

eyes. There was nothing, no one here in the room with me but Derek. I

knew it. The shadows about us were empty. I was conjuring the face only

from Derek's words, making real that which existed only in my

imagination.

 

Yet I knew that in another realm, with my thoughts now bridging the gap,

the girl was real. Would I go into the unknown?

 

The quest of the unknown. The gauntlet of the unknown flung down now

before me, as it was flung down before the ancient explorers who picked

up its challenge and mounted the swaying decks of their little galleons

and said, "We'll go and see what lies off there in the unknown."

 

That same lure was on me now. I heard my voice saying, "Why yes, I guess

I'll go, Derek."

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III

 

_Into the Unknown_

 

 

We stood in the boarded room which was Derek's laboratory. Our

preparations had been simple: Derek had made them all in advance. There

was little left to do. The laboratory was a small room of board walls,

board ceiling and floor. Windowless, with a single door opening into the

cellar of the apartment house.

 

Derek had locked the door after us as we entered. He said, "I have sent

my man servant away for a week. The people in the house here think I

have gone away on a vacation. No one will miss us, Charlie--not for a time, anyway."