Earth's Last Fortress Read online

  Physically, she was still crouching there, her legs twisted under her, vision still blinded; and the hard pain of the metal beneath her was an unchanged pressure against the bone and muscle of her knees. But along every nerve crept that wonderful sense of well-being, of buoyant power. It yielded abruptly to the violence of the thought that flashed into her mind: Where was she? What had happened? What—

  The thought ended as an alienness intruded into it, another thought, not out of her own mind, not even directed at her, not human!

  Tentacle 2731 reporting to the Observer. A warning light has flashed on the…{meaningless)…time machine. Action!

  The answer came instantly, coldly: An intruder—on top of the primary time machine. Warning from, and to, Dr. Lett’s section. Tentacle 2731, go at once—destroy intruder. Action!

  There was stunning significance in those hard wisps of message and answering message, that echoed back along the corridors of her mind. The stupefying fact that she had effortlessly intercepted thought waves momentarily blotted out the immediacy of the danger. The impact of the death threat struck her suddenly.

  Before that menace, even the knowledge of where she was came with a quiet unobtrusiveness, like a minor harmony in a clash of major discord. Her present location was only too obvious. By twisting the key, she had been hurtled through time to the age of the Glorious, to the primary time machine, where fantastic things called tentacles and observers were ceaselessly on guard.

  If only she could see! She must see, or she was lost before she could begin to hope. Frantically, she strained against the blackness that lay so tight against her eyes.

  She saw!

  It was as simple as that. One instant, blindness. The next, the urge to see. And then, complete sight, without preliminary blue, like opening her eyes after a quiet sleep.

  The simplicity of it was crowded out of her mind by a swirling confusion of impression. There were two swift thoughts that clung—a brief wonder at the way sight had come back to her, merely from that wish that it would, and a flashing memory of the face that had floated at her out of the blackness of time: With this great moment you enter upon your power and your purpose!

  The picture, all connecting thoughts, fled. She saw that she was in a vast, domed room, and that she was on top of a gigantic machine. There were transparent walls. Through them, she saw a shimmering roseate fire, like a greater dome that covered the near sky and hid the night universe beyond.

  The effort of staring tired her. Her gaze came down out of the sky; and back in the room, she saw that all the transparent wall that faced her was broken into a senseless pattern of small balconies, each mounting glittering, strangely menacing machinery: weapons! So many weapons, for what?

  With a jar that shocked her brain, the thought disintegrated. She stared in horror at a long, thick, tube-shaped metal thing that floated up from below the rim of the time machine. A score of gleaming, insectlike facets seemed to glare at her.

  Tentacle 2731—destroy the intruder!

  No! It was her own desperate negation, product of pure panic. All the bravery that had made her experiment with the key in the first place collapsed before the hideous alien threat. Her mind spun. She shrank from the terrible fear that this metal would spray her with some incredible flame weapon before she could think, before she could turn to run, or even move!

  Of all her pride and accumulated courage, there remained only enough to bring a spasm of shame at the words that burst senselessly from her lips. “No, no, you can’t! Go away! Go back where you came from! Go—”

  She stopped, blinked, and stared wildly. The thing was gone!

  The reality of that had scarcely touched her before a crash sounded. It came from beyond and below the rim of the machine. Instinctively, Norma ran forward to peer down. The hundred foot, precipicelike slope of metal time-machine that greeted her startled gaze made her draw back with a gasp. But quickly she was creeping forward again, more cautiously, but with utter fascination to see once more what that first brief glimpse had revealed.

  And there it was, on the distant floor, the tube-shaped thing. Even as she watched, hope building up in her, there came a weak impulse of alien thought:

  Tentacle 2731 reporting—difficulty. Female human using Insel mind rays, power 100. No further action possible by this unit, incapacitation 74 mechanical—”

  But I did say that, she thought incredulously. Her wish had brought instant return of sight. Her despairing thought had sent the tentacle crashing to mechanical ruin. Insel mind rays, power 100! Why, it meant—it could mean—

  The leaping thought sagged. One of a series of doors in the wall facing her opened, and a tall man emerged hurriedly. She pressed back flat on the metal, out of sight; but it seemed to her those familiar, sardonic eyes were staring straight up at her. Dr. Lell’s hard, superbly confident thought came then like a succession of battering blows against the crumbling structure of her hope:

  This is a repetition of the X time and space manipulation. Fortunately, the transformation center this seventeenth time is a Miss ‘Norma Matheson, who is incapable, mathematically, of using the power at her disposal. She must be kept confused. The solution to her swift destruction is a concentration of forces of the third order, non-mechanical, according to Plan A-4. Action!

  Action immediate! came the cold, distinctive thought of the Observer.

  That was like death itself. She abandoned hope, and lay flat on that flat metal, her mind blank and no strength in her body.

  A minute passed and that seemed an immense time. So much that the swift form of her thought changed and hardened. Fear faded like a dream, and then she had a returning awareness of that curious, wonderful sense of power. She stood up, and the way her legs trembled with the effort brought the automatic memory of the way she had regained her vision. She thought tensely: No more physical weakness. Every muscle, every nerve, every organ of my body must function perfectly from now on and—

  A queer thrill cut the thought. It seemed to start at her toes, and sweep up, a delicious sense of warmth, like an all-over blush. And the weakness was gone.

  She stood for a moment, fascinated. She hesitated to try the power too far. Yet the enormous threat stiffened her will. She thought: No more mental weakness, no confusion; my brain must function with all the logic of which I am capable!

  What happened then was not altogether satisfactory. Her mind seemed to stop. For an instant the blankness was complete. And then a single, simple idea came into it: Danger! For her there was nothing but danger, and escape from that danger. Find the key. Go back. Get out of this world of Dr. Lell, and gain time to solve the secrets of the mighty power centralized in her.

  She jerked as a lean, yard-long flame struck the metal beside her, and caromed away toward the ceiling. She watched it bounce from the ceiling, out of sight beyond the edge of the machine. It must have struck the floor, but instantly it was in sight again, leaping toward the ceiling with undiminished power. Up, down, up, down, up it went as she watched. Then, abruptly, it lost momentum and collapsed like an empty flaming sack toward the floor, out of her line of vision.

  A second streamer of flame soared up from where Dr. Lell had been heading when last she saw him. It struck the ceiling and, like an elongated billiard ball, darted down—and this time she was ready for it. Her brain reached out: Stop! Whatever the energy that drives you, it is powerless against me. Stop!

  The flame missed her right hand by inches, and soared on up to the ceiling; and from below, strong and clear and satirical, came the voice of Dr. Lell:

  “My dear Miss Matheson, that’s the first of the third order energies, quite beyond your control. And if you’ll notice, your mind isn’t as cool as you ordered it to be. The truth is that, although you have power unlimited, you can only use it when you understand the forces involved, either consciously or unconsciously. Most people have a reasonably clear picture of their bodily processes, which is why your body reacted so favorably, but your brain—its
secrets are largely beyond your understanding. As for the key”—there was laughter in the words—“you seem to have forgotten it is geared to the time machine. The Observer’s first act was to switch it back to the twentieth century. Accordingly, I can promise you death.”

  Her brain remained calm; her body steady, unaffected. No blood surged to her head. There was the barest quickening of her heartbeat. Her hands clenched with the tense knowledge that she must act faster, think faster. She thought: If only Jack Garson were here, with his science, his swift, logical brain…

  Strangely then, she could feel her mind slipping out of her control, like sand between her fingers. Her body remained untroubled, untouched, but her mind was suddenly gliding down into dark depths. Terror came abruptly, as a score of flame streamers leaped into sight toward the ceiling. Jack, Jack, help me! I need you! Oh, Jack, come—”

  The slow seconds brought no answer; and the urgency of her need could brook no waiting. Back home,” she thought. I’ve got to get back home, back to the twentieth century.

  Her body twanged. There was blackness, and a horrible sensation of falling. The blow of the fall was not hard, and that unaffected, almost indestructible body of hers took the shock in a flash of pain-absorbing power. She grew aware of a floor with a rug on it. A dullk light directly in front of her lost its distortion and became a window.

  Her own apartment! She scrambled to her feet, and then poised motionless with dismay as the old, familiar, subtle vibration thrilled its intimate way along her nerves. The machine! The machine in the room below was working! Her will to safety had sent her back to her own time, but her call to Jack Garson had passed unheard. And here she was, alone with only a strange, unwieldy power to help her against the gathering might of the enemy.

  But that was her hope, that it was only gathering! Even Dr. Lell must have time to transport his forces. If she could get out of this building, use her power to carry her to safety, as it had already borne her from the time and space of the future. Carry her where? There was only one other place she could think of: To the hotel room from where she had launched herself with the key.

  It wasn’t death that came then, but a blow so hard that she was sobbing bitterly with the pain even as her mind yielded reluctantly to unconsciousness; even as she realized in stark dismay that she had struck the wall of her apartment and this power she possessed had been betrayed once again by her inability to handle it. And now Dr. Lell would have time to do everything necessary.

  Blackness came.

  10

  There was a memory in Garson of the night, and the rushing machine that had carried him. It was a wonderful little metal thing that darted and twisted far to the left, as close to the red haze of the time-energy barrier as he dared to go. But not a machine had followed him. In seconds he was through the blazing gap, out of Delpa, safe from Dr. Lell.

  Something had struck him then, a crushing blow…He came out of sleep without pain, and with no sense of urgency. Drowsily, he lay, parading before his mind the things that had happened; and the comfortable realization came that he must be safe er he wouldn’t be like this. There were things to do, of course. He must transmit the information to the Planetarians that they must conquer Delpa more swiftly, that final victory waited nowhere but in Delpa. And then, somehow, he must persuade them to let him return to Norma.

  For a while he lay peacefully, his eyes open, gazing thoughtfully at a gray ceiling. From nearby, a man’s voice said:

  “There is no use expecting it.”

  Garson turned his head, his first alert movement. A row of hospital-like cots stretched there, other rows beyond. From the nearest bed, a pair of fine, bright, cheerful eyes stared at him. The man lay with his head crotched in a bunched, badly rumpled pillow. He said:

  “Expecting to feel surprised, I mean. You won’t. You’ve been conditioned into recovering on a gradual scale, no excitement, no hysteria, nothing that will upset you. The doctors, though Planetarian trained, are all men of the past, and up to a day ago, they pronounced you—”

  The man paused. His brown eyes darkened in a frown, then he smiled with an equally amazing grimness. “I nearly said too much there. Actually, you may be strong enough, without getting yourself into a nervous state. Here’s a preliminary warning: Toughen your mind for bad news.”

  Garson had only the dimmest curiosity, and no sense of alarm at all. After what Dr. Lell had said directly and by implication of the Planetarians, no danger here could surpass what he had already been through. The only emotion he could sense within himself had to do with his double purpose of rescuing Norma from the recruiting station. He said aloud, “If I should be asleep the next time a doctor or Planetarian comes in, will you waken me? “I’ve got something to tell them.”

  The man smiled mirthlessly. He was a personable looking young fellow around thirty. His reaction made Garson frown. His voice was sharp as he asked, “What’s the matter?”

  The stranger shook his head half-pityingly. ““I’ve been twenty-seven days in this age,” he said, “and I’ve never seen a Planetarian. As for telling anyone on the Planetarian side anything, I’ve already told you to expect bad news. I know you have a message to deliver. I even know from Dra Derrel what it is, but don’t ask me how he found out. All I can say is, you’ll have to forget about delivering any message to anyone. Incidentally, my name is Mairphy—Edard Mairphy.”

  Garson was not interested in names or the mystery of how they knew his message. He was worried, however. Every word this gentle-faced, gentle-voiced young man had spoken was packed with tremendous implications. He stared at Mairphy, but there was only the frank, open face, the friendly, half-grim smile, the careless wisp of bright brown hair coming down over one temple—nothing at all of danger. Besides, where could any danger be coming from? From the Planetarians?

  That was ridiculous. Regardless of their shortcomings, the Planetarians were the one race of this “time” that must be supported. They might have curious, even difficult habits, but the other side was evil almost beyond imagination. Between them, there was no question of choice.

  His course was simple. As soon as he was allowed to get up—and he felt perfectly well now—he would set out to make contact with a Planetarian. The whole affair was beginning to show unpleasant, puzzling aspects, but nothing serious. He grew aware of Mairphy’s voice:

  “The warning is all I’ll say on that subject for the time being. There’s something else, though. Do you think you’ll be able to get up in an hour? I mean, do you feel all right?”

  Garson nodded, puzzled. “I think so. Why?”

  “Well be passing the moon about then, and I understand it’s a sight worth seeing.”

  “What?”

  Mairphy stared at him contritely. He said slowly, “I forgot. I was so busy not telling you about our main danger, it didn’t occur to me that you were unconscious when we started.” He shrugged. “Well, were on our way to Venus; and even if there was nothing else, the cards would be stacked against you by that fact alone. There are no Planetarians aboard this ship, only human beings out of the past and tentacles of the Observer. There’s not a chance in the world of you talking to any of them because—” He stopped, then, “There, I nearly did it again. I’ll let out the truth yet, before you ought to hear it.”

  Garson paid scant attention. The shock wouldn’t go away. He lay in a daze of wonder, overwhelmed by the incredible fact that he was in space. In space! He felt outmaneuvered. Even the events he knew about would soon be a quarter of a million miles behind him.

  The idea grew shocking. He sat rigidly, awkwardly, in the bed; and finally, in a choked voice, he said, “How long will it take to get to Venus?”

  “Ten days, I believe.”

  Very cautiously, Garson allowed the figures to penetrate. Hope came again. It wasn’t so bad as his first despairing thought had pictured it. Ten days to get there, ten days to persuade someone to let a Planetarian have a glimpse of his mind, ten days to get back to Eart
h. A month! He frowned. That wasn’t so good. Wars had been lost, great empires collapsed in less time than that. Yet, how could he deliver his message on a Venus-bound spaceship? Courses of initial action suggested themselves, but one was clear.

  He said in a troubled tone, “If I were back where I came from, at this point I would try to see the captain of the ship. But you’ve made me doubt that normal procedures apply on a Planetarian spaceliner. Frankly, what are my chances?”

  He saw that the young man was grim. “Exactly none,” Mairphy replied. “This is no joke, Garson. As I said before, Derrel knows and is interested in your message—don’t ask me how or what or when. He was a political leader in his own age, and he’s a marvel at mechanics, but, according to him, he knows only the normal, everyday things of his life. You’ll have to get used to the idea of being in with a bunch of men from past ages, some queer ducks among them, Derrel being the queerest of them all. But forget that. Just remember that you’re on a spaceship in an age so far ahead of your own that there’s not even a record of your time in the history books. Think hard about that!”

  Garson thought, and he lay back, breathlessly still, dazzled once again by his strange environment, straining for impression. But there was no sense of movement, no abnormality at all. The world was quiet. The room seemed like an unusually large dormitory in a hospital. After a moment of tenseness, he allowed his body to relax, and the full,- rich flood of thought to flow in. In that eager tide, the danger of which Mairphy had told him was dike a figment of imagination, a shadow in remoteness. There was only the wonder, only Venus, and this silent, swift-plunging spaceship.

  Venus! He let the word roll around in his mind, and it was exciting, intellectual fare, immensely stimulating to a mind shaped and trained as was his. Venus? For ages the dreams of men had reached into the skies, immeasurably fascinated by the mind-staggering fact of other; worlds as vast as their own; continents, seas, rivers, treasure beyond estimate. And now for him there was to be reality. Before that fact, other urgencies faded. Norma must be rescued, of course; the strange message delivered. But if it was to be his destiny to remain in this world until the end of the war, then he could ask nothing more of those years than this glowing sense of adventure, this shining opportunity to learn and see and know in a scientist’s heaven.