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The Giants From Outer Space
By Geoff St. Reynard
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Imagination May 1954.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyrighton this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: Grim terror lurked in the void many light years from Earth.But Pinkham and his men were unaware of it--until suddenly theydiscovered--The Giants From Outer Space]
CHAPTER I
"Okay, make another check on the reading."
"I've made four checks already--"
"Damn it, make another!"
"It's no use, Pink. The life-scanner's never wrong."
"No possibility of a monkey wrench dropped into its innards? It couldn'tbe seeing things that aren't there?"
"Not in a million years."
"Then there's no water, no air, no gravity worth mentioning, andstill--"
"That's right. There's life on that silly-looking little apple. _There'ssomebody sitting on it!_"
In the ninetieth star system to be explored by the insatiably curiousmen of Earth, there were seven planets. Between the fourth and fifthfrom the star there was a belt of asteroids: some three or four thousandtiny planetary bodies traveling in vast ellipses around the star. At onetime they had probably constituted a single planet, but someunimaginable explosion far back in time had scattered the great ballbroadcast, and the largest of the resulting planetoids was now no morethan 440 miles across. In the gargantuan belt of them, many were nobigger in diameter than the spaceship _Elephant's Child_ herself.
When the instruments of the ship detected this belt of asteroids,Captain Pinkham turned aside as a matter of course, to cruise through itand let his cartographer map it, his organicus officer check it forsigns of life, and all his other crewmen turn their inquisitive eyes andmachines upon it. It was the seventh asteroid belt to be discovered byman, if you included the one between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars,back home, incredible light-years behind....
No life had ever been discovered on an asteroid, except for thevegetable-animal space-eating bacteria on Pallas. No life--
Until now.
* * * * *
Captain Pinkham headed for the tiny bit of planet, let his ship'sscreens pick it up and relay its presence to the automatic recoilengines, which slammed the _Elephant's Child_ to a stop about twelvefeet away from the knobbly slate-gray surface. The energy testers,having come into play simultaneously with the screens, at once flashedthe green "Not Radioactive" sign; a fairly useless gesture, since apositive reaction would have turned the ship away at an angle before itentered the danger zone.
The senior officer; said, "Jerry, let's take a look at that critter youthink is perched on this thing."
The organicus officer grinned with one corner of his mouth. He pulleddown a platinum lever, and a thirty-inch screen above his control boardsprang to life. The black of space showed the bumpy planetoid like aball of cold lava, and seated in the center of the screen, a man in aspacesuit.
Captain Pinkham licked his lips. "Okay," he said, "I owe you a shot ofrye. You were right." Then he blinked his gray eyes. "My God!" heroared. "What's a human being doing out here in System Ninety?"
The outburst, he felt, was quite justified; in fact, he might have gonestark raving crazy with justification. There seemed no possibility thathis space armada could have been preceded to this star system by anotherfrom Earth. The ancient Martians might have made it this far, but theirspacesuits were nothing like those of Terra. So he and Jerry were nowstaring at a hopeless absurdity. It couldn't be there.
Pinkham leaned sideways and bellowed into the intercom. "Get in here!Everybody! On the double!"
The crew came running, from the engine rooms, the astrogatium andastrolab, from the sleeping quarters and the mess hall. The ship wasgigantic; it took twenty minutes, for the ship's complement to assemblein the captain's control hall. There were fifty-seven men, eighteenofficers. They stood in casual formation and gaped at the life-scanner'sscreen.
The spacesuited figure had not moved.
Captain Pinkham said, "One question. Which of you gadget-happy jokersgimmicked up the scanner on us? Who did this?"
Nobody said anything. Only one man smiled: Lieutenant Joe Silver, a verybright, very ambitious big cub who was on his second extragalacticexpedition and obviously had visions of earning his captain's bronzecomets within the year. Joe was a rather unpleasant young piece of beef,thought Pink; but he wouldn't pull practical jokes. He was too bloodyserious. If he smiled, it was probably because he was enjoying theCaptain's evident bewilderment.
"Then it isn't a joke," said Pinkham. "Three of you outside repairmenget into your suits and bring _that_ in." He gestured at the silentfigure on the motionless little world of the scanner. "Jerry says it'salive. Handle with care." He waved them his dismissal.
Some twenty minutes later he watched the screen as the three crewmendescended to the surface of the planetoid, pried loose the double anchorwhich the unknown Earthman had sunk into the ball's crust to hold himsteady on the almost-gravityless world, lifted the bulky figure andleaped upward, like thick but weightless panthers carrying their prey,into the open air-lock.
The spacesuited stranger had not moved in the slightest.
Yet the scanner, which was never wrong, said that within the armor ofthe suit was life.
Pinkham sat staring at the blanked-out screen, and a queer chill beganto crawl up his neck. An old slang phrase came to his mind, and wouldn'tleave.
How come? How come? _How come?_
CHAPTER II
Pink and Jerry and Joe Silver walked around and around the spacesuit.Bill Calico, the astrogator, and Washington Daley, the seniorlieutenant, sat in front of it on stools covered with Venusianjoerg-hide, going through a routine of flippant gags that thinlydisguised their bafflement. Finally Pinkham said, "When were these suitsinvented?"
"2144," said Joe Silver.
Bright kid, thought Pink with irritation. "Thirty-odd years ago. That'smy guess, too."
"October 1st, 2144, is the patent date," said Joe Silver smugly.
"Click, click, click," said Daley. "Your mind is a damn file room,Silver. It gives me the jitters."
Joe Silver looked at him expressionlessly.
"I just read the date on the instruction plate," he said.
Captain Pinkham bent down and read aloud from the nayrust plate setinto the back of the spacesuit.
"'Bernard Patent Slugjet Suit, size 24-B patented' ... here it is.'Instructions for reviving occupant. The man in this suit is alive ifthe translucent face plate is tinted orange.'"
"It is," said Bill Calico with eagerness.
"'Unscrew the seven small x-screws around face plate. Depress lever Z onright side of chest plate. Loosen gorget, shoulder pieces, pallettes,brassarts, cuisses....'" They were following the instructions as heread. He thought, these suits were terrific, they were the best. But youhad to have a billion dollars behind your expedition or you couldn'tafford 'em. Each one cost half as much as a regular-size moon rocket!They shouldn't have stopped making them, though. They ought to havetried bringing down the cost. One of these could save a man's life whennothing else in God's universe could; and a man's life is surely worthas much as half a moon rocket?
The Bernard Slugjet Suit. Guaranteed to keep a guy alive for a minimumof 250 years in free space. Guaranteed to let him emerge healthyand--miraculously--sane, provided he was picked up within the timelimit.
You were jetting toward the edge of the galaxy, say. Your ship ran intotrouble. A
big meteor tore out your belly, or your fuel gave out, or anyof a million things happened to crack up the beautiful great spaceshipthat was your vehicle and your pride and almost _you_, an extension ofyourself, an expression of your yearning to conquer the stars. So yougot into your slugjet suit and walked out an air-lock, if you had enoughwarning, that is. And there you were in space.
Your suit was actually a miniature spaceship itself; if there was landanywhere near, you aimed for it, loosed your powerful shoulder jets, andshot toward it. The suit had a range of about five hundred thousandmiles, which was often enough.
But suppose it wasn't. Then you just stayed there in black space, andyou started to touch buttons in the big gloves, to pull levers on thechest, and to activate other circuits by the sound of your voice. Andthe suit became a world for you, a world that kept you healthy and sanefor a quarter of a millennium.
Your life processes were slowed down to a pace of only a crawl and amumble, next door to death. Your breathing couldn't be detected. Yourheart beat six times to the hour. Drugs did it, and vapors, thedepressants of a hundred planets gathered and refined by Bernard forhis suits.
You didn't sleep; you didn't need to. You were a slug, a worm in acocoon, awake in an ultra-slow-motion way. In 250 years, you aged aboutfifteen. The suits were supposed to have a maximum efficiency of athousand years; you came out an old man at the end of that time, maybe,but it was an even bet that you _did_ come out.
And to keep your mind whole and unwarped, there in the immensity ofbrain-shattering space, you were entertained--well and constantly.
Three-dimensional movies were shown on your translucent face plate, soslow that to a person with unhampered reflexes they would look likestills. Music played to you, a low drone and buzz that to you was jazz,classical, anything you selected. The Minute Waltz took several hours toplay in your ear.
Body wastes and carbon dioxide were eliminated, and breathable airreleased, by the same principles in use in spaceships. You were fedintravenously, vitamins, concentrates of everything you needed werestuck into you without your knowing it, for you lived too slowly to becapable of pain. The temperature of your suit was even. Audiotherapy wasgiven you at suitable intervals. You were rescued, and came out of yoursuit as well-adjusted, as balanced as you'd gone in. Maybe more so.
Rescued? It wasn't all left to luck. The radio in your high bulbouscrest broadcast a constant S.O.S. Your suit glowed so that it could bespotted easily, a crimson star against the blackness. Your own lifewithin it called to every life-scanner within 500,000 miles.
Meanwhile, you were in a damn fine world of your own....
Pinkham finished reading the instructions, and walked around to thefront of the bulky suit. Bill Calico lifted off the crest, Daley removedthe helmet, Jerry and Joe Silver caught the suit as it fell away in twosections.
And Captain Pinkham caught the girl.
* * * * *
She was slim and full in the places where a woman ought to be so, andher hair, close-cropped, was black-brown and shining. Her face was good,damn good, bloody damn fine to a spaceman who'd been out on the ways fora couple of years; but Pink had the happy thought--it was the first onehe had, before the shock really hit him that that this was a_girl_--that she would have looked just as good to him on Earth.
She wore the uniform of an organicus officer: just a bit dated, thelapels too wide by an inch, the synthetic fabric of the jacket just alittle more clinging and revealing than the current fashion, the pantsnarrow at the cuff where today's were bell-bottomed. She must have beenout here a while; not more than thirty years, though. She did not lookmore than twenty-five now, and the normal life span was a hundredand ten.... Pink snapped his queer thoughts sharply into line. What didher age matter to him?
She was limp in his arms, as relaxed as a sleeping kitten. Her eyes,deep brown, were open but heavy-lidded. He half-knelt, cradling hercomfortably, as Jerry anticipated his question and said, "She's okay.She'll be out of it in a few minutes. She's still living slower than weare."
Joe Silver, unaccountably across the room by the life-scanner, said,"Hey! There's another one!"
"Another what?" asked his senior lieutenant, Daley.
"Another fellow--or girl--in a Slugjet. Down that direction a fewthousand miles."
As all of them but Pink raced to the screen, the girl began to sing,softly, musically, and very slowly.
"_I am sick of this bucketing Lunar run In this dirty old steel cocoon; I'm sick of the Earth and I'm sick of the Sun And I'm sick to death of the Moon...._"
That was--what was the name?--the Lament of the Veteran Rocketeer, aballad that Pink had been singing in his grade school days. He hadn'theard it for more than a dozen years. Probably popular when this galblasted off Terra.
She stopped singing. "'Bout time you got here," she said drowsily. "I'vebeen waiting for months. Didn't Fawcett's crest radio reach you?"
"Take it easy," said Pink, and told himself that was a stupid thing tosay. "Who are you? What was your expedition?"
She blinked. "You aren't Commander Dyevis, are you? Who are you?"
"I'm Joe Silver," said that young upstart over Pinkham's shoulder.
"Nobody asked you," said Daley. They had left the screen, all but Jerry,who was making course for the second speck of life in the asteroid belt.
"This is the _Elephant's Child_, flagship of Armada Seven, 843 days outof Terra to explore star systems 87 through 93," said Pink quietly. "Wejust plucked you off an asteroid in System Ninety. This is--" _take iteasy_, he said to himself this time, "this is October 18th, 2176."
"Holy Holmendis," said the girl, turning a little pale. "Our ship splitup her seams in November of 2158."
Daley, the oldest of the lot at thirty-six, and the coolest spacehead ofthem all, said, "May I introduce Captain John Pinkham, our leader?"Formalities eased a shock, he knew, and helped you over the rough spots."I'm Lt. Washington Daley and you are--"
"Organicus Officer Circe Smith, of Colonel Fawcett's exploratoryarmada," she said automatically.
"Fawcett!" said everyone, loudly and with amazement.
"So he got to System Ninety," said Pink. "Every spaceman on the ways haswondered about Fawcett for eighteen years. He vanished with two ships--"
"She knows that, Captain," said Daley.
"Oh. Of course."
"Our other ship was still okay when we broke up," said O. O. Smith,brushing her short hair back from a forehead that was wide andintelligent. "My crest radio was on the fritz, but Fawcett's was allright and he was supposed to call Commander Dyevis, who was cruisingdown by Planet Four. At least half a dozen of us got off in SlugjetSuits before the ship died. I guess his message never got to Dyevis."
"Lord knows," said Pinkham. The _Elephant's Child_ shivered slightly asher recoil engines stopped her. Jerry came over from the controls.
"There's another one sitting outside," he said casually.
"Maybe it's Colonel Fawcett," the girl cried eagerly.
Jerry shook his head. "I'm afraid not." He looked at her a moment, thenturned to Pinkham. "This one has four arms," he said.
CHAPTER III
They sat at dinner, the eighteen officers of the _Elephant's Child_,eating fresh vegetables and curried lamb from the hydroponics farm andthe frozen food lockers. On either side of Captain Pinkman sat O. O.Circe Smith, of the lamented Fawcett expedition, and First Officer Ynohpof the extinct Martian Space Navy.
"If you Terrestrians came to Mars over one hundred years ago," Ynohp wassaying, in a clear and metallic voice that came from the lingoalter onhis chest--a tiny box which could be set to change any of nine thousandspoken languages into any one of the others--"and at that time my peoplehad lost the secrets of space travel for approximately four thousandyears, this means that I have been reclining on a planetoid here for atleast 4,100 years. The probability is that it has been much longer.Unfortunately my time recorder has long since become inoperative."
He ext
ended one of his four rib appendages and picked up a piece ofcarrot. "Naturally I was in a cataleptic state," he went on. "As you mayknow, in my race that means that all body processes are suspended _intoto_. There is no growth and no decay. Moth and rust do not corrupt,you might put it."
Pink frowned momentarily. There was a false note somewhere, but hecouldn't put his finger on it. He tried to remember all he could aboutthe dying race of Martians. What Ynohp was saying was correct, as nearlyas he could recall, but ... he shrugged. My God! he thought, thiscritter's over four thousand years old!
Well, Circe's about forty-five.
The hell she is. She's twenty-seven, which was her age when her ship waswrecked, plus about one actual year of life which equals the eighteenshe was lost in the Slugjet. Twenty-eight, then, really. I'm thirty-one.Not a bad combination.
Hey, boy, you're a confirmed bachelor, remember?
He chuckled. Who says so? He took a look at Circe. The prettiestspaceman who ever came my way, he said to himself happily.
The dinner broke up. Space etiquette demanded that he escort the Martianto his stateroom first, for the four-armed little gray man was senior toa mere organicus officer; when he returned to the mess hall, he foundthat Joe Silver had whisked Circe away to show her the new improvementsin space drives and other technical details.
"At least," said Bill Calico, "he said he was going to."
Pink went off to talk to Jerry, who was a lousy substitute for abeautiful girl.
He found his O. O. tinkering with the life-scanner.