Wandl the Invader

R >> Raymond King Cummings >> Wandl the Invader

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I gazed up amazed to where, a hundred and fifty feet above me, head
downward, the crowd of figures were calmly seated. These were
clinging, of course; the pound-weight of each of them would drop them
down if they let loose. But it required only a slight effort.

Between the tiers, there were narrow open aisles bearing glowlights at
intervals. With Molo leading us, we stared up the curving incline of
one of these aisles.

"Gregg! Good Lord, it's weird!" Snap said. "Where are we going to sit?
Don't speak to the girls yet."

"Have you spoken to them?"

"Yes. A little, on the ship. They're watching for an opportunity but
we have to be cautious. Gregg, I've got so much to tell you, but no
chance. The brains can just about hear your thoughts."

We went only a short distance up the incline. There were vacant seats
seemingly held ready for us. Our passage created a commotion among the
figures. Some leaped up and over us to get a better look. I found that
we were clinging to the mound-like convex surface of a small
half-globe. It raised us some ten feet above the floor. There were low
seats with arms against the side-pull of gravity. I found Anita close
beside me. Her hand touched me, but she did not turn her head or
speak.

Molo was on my other side. I chanced to see his feet. They were
planted firmly on the floor. He wore wide-soled shoes equipped with
suction pads, no doubt, which would enable him, like the Wandlites,
to walk and stand upon the upper inner surfaces of buildings.

As during the moments when Snap and I stood on the landing esplanade,
there was so much here that at first I could not encompass it. But now
I began to grasp other details of the strange scene.

Poised in mid-air, almost exactly in the center of the huge globular
room, was a metal globe of some thirty feet in diameter. It was held,
not by any solid girders, but by four narrow beams of light which
mounted to it from widespread points of the convex room.

Upon the entire surface of this thirty-foot globe, a group of masters
were seated, in little, cup-like seats upon resilient stems. They
swayed and nodded with movement. There seemed to be glowing wires and
grids and thread-like beams of light carrying current. Light-threads
shot from the mechanisms to the heads of the seated brains. All the
devices were evidently in operation; and upon this poised central
globe the attention of the audience was directed.

Molo bent over me. "The Great Intelligence soon will see you."

Snap, from the other side of Molo, whispered: "What are they doing up
there?"

The faint hiss and throb of the devices were audible. I stared, trying
to understand. Images, and sounds, invisible and inaudible were being
received from across the millions of miles of space, and they were
being transmuted within the brains themselves. I saw that discs were
fastened upon the bulging foreheads of the brains, upon which the tiny
light-beams carrying the vibrations impinged.

These brains, receiving "waves" of some unknown variety were, within
the mechanism of the brain-cell, transmuting, translating the
vibrations into things knowable. They were not seeing, not hearing,
but _knowing_ what went on millions of miles across space!

Again Molo bent over me. "They are about to show this audience what is
happening on the three worlds."

Upon the thirty-foot globe I saw now a dozen or so balls of about
three-foot diameter. These had been dark and I had not noticed them.
Now they began glowing, not from wires carrying the current, but from
the little hands of the brains touching them.

I stared at the brain nearest me. His flabby little arm was extended;
his hand touched the image-ball; gave it light and color, like a
fortune-teller of Earth with a crystal before her.

Even though I was some sixty feet from it, I could see the moving
images clearly, and recognized the scene. The Tappan Interplanetary
Stage. Ships were rising; two of our spaceships mounting.

And all in an instant the scene blurred, took form again. The
red-green spires and minarets of Ferrok-Shahn. The Central Canal
extended like a gash across the foreground; the "Mushroom Mountains"
were in a line upon the horizon. Three Martian space-flyers slid up
while we watched.

And now Grebhar. The silver forest in all its shining beauty, where
Venza was born. The sunlight sparkled on the river. A spaceship was
rising in the distant sky over the shining forest.

Beyond Anita, I heard Venza murmuring, "Home! If only we were there."

I could feel Anita move to silence her.

Molo was whispering: "They come. But we will be ready for them."

Another image: mid-space. The allied ships gathering, waiting for
others to arrive. A group here of about ten of our ships from the
three worlds: poised, waiting.

I was aware that upon the mound-like protuberance of the room-floor
where we were sitting, a door was opening. It slid, or melted away. At
our feet was an opening downward into the small interior of the mound.

Molo whispered, "The great Master. Sit quiet! He will talk to us."

Over us now a barrage came with a hiss, a circular curtain of
insulation. The huge globular room faded. We were alone on the mound,
Snap, Molo, myself, Anita, Venza and Meka upon the end of our bench.
Behind us stood our single Wandlite guard, with a weapon in his
shoulder hand.

At our feet an opening yawned into the mound-interior. It was a tiny,
lighted room. In a cup-like seat a brain was perched, just below the
level of our feet: the great Master Brain of Wandl. He was alone here.
Not attended by retinue; no pomp and ceremony to usher us into his
presence; no underlings obsequiously bowing to mark him for a great
ruler.

We stared down, and the great brain stared up at us, seemingly equally
curious. His head was a full four feet in diameter; the little body
sat in the cup, with dangling legs. The clothes were ornamented: there
was a glowing device on the chest.

He spoke with a measured rumble, in Martian. "You are Molo, of
Ferrok-Shahn."

"Yes," said Molo.

"You must say, 'Yes, Great Master.'"

"Yes, Great Master."

"I know about you. I know that we trust you."

The huge round eyes next fastened upon me. Then to Snap, and back to
me. The words were English this time. "Men of Earth, are you decided,
like the Martian, to join with us?"

I tried with sudden vehemence to still my thoughts, or to change them
so that they lied. Fear surged upon me. Could this vast mechanism of
human mind here at my feet interpret the vibrations of my thoughts?
Could this Great Master of Wandl see into my mind?

The brain said, "You are uncertain. You do not want to die?"

"No Great Master," we both answered.

"You shall not, unless you attempt to cause us trouble. Your thoughts
are black." He addressed Molo. "Have they ever been read?"

"No, Great Master."

"When opportunity comes, have them read." He added to Snap and me: "I
plan to take prisoners. My Supreme Rulers, rulers of a neighboring
more powerful planet, which sent Wandl upon her mission of conquest,
ordered it. When your worlds are vacant of life, those who command me
will want some of you left alive to be studied. Your thoughts are very
black, Earthman. I think when they are carefully read you will prove
no great advantage to us."

There was irony in the voice, and upon the monstrous bulging face came
the horrible travesty of a grin.

The grin on the brain's face faded. His interest went again to Molo.
"That is your sister." The eyes swung to Meka and back.

"Yes, Great Master."

"She is caring for this Earth-girl and this girl from Venus?"

"Yes, Great Master. I am fond of them. I have plans."

"They are in your charge, Martian; I will not interfere with you. But
guard them well. I trust you and your sister. These others...."

"The Earth and the Venus girl can be of help to me, Great Master."

"How?"

"They knew young men who were in the Spaceship Service. They can tell
me the armament of men and weapons on most of the spaceships which
Earth will send against us."

Did Molo really believe that? Probably not, but he wanted the girls
with him. Again came that grotesque smile. "Let them not bother you,
Martian. You have work to do. Listen carefully. There will be a
battle. Earth, Mars, and Venus may perhaps have a hundred ships. I
cannot bring destruction upon those three worlds in a day. We soon
will make contact with the light-beam you placed on Earth. That I will
show you. But the rotation cannot be stopped at once. It will take
time.

"The enemy ships might dare to come to Wandl, but I shall not wait for
that. All my spaceships are very nearly ready. If there is to be a
battle, it shall be far from here, in the neighborhood of the enemy
worlds. We are at this time about sixty-two million of your miles from
the Earth, a third less than that from Mars, and about a third more
from Venus. I understand, Martian, that you are skilled in space
warfare."

The brain went on, "I have given you a vessel to command. You will be
surprised to know its name: the _Star-Streak_."

Meka gasped, "But you destroyed it, Great Master!"

"Only wrecked it, Martian girl. It is repaired now. You, Molo--and
your sister to help you--who could command it to more advantage? All
your own weapons, and ours of Wandl have been added. You may select
your crew. Is it to your liking?"

"Yes, Great Master."

"You will be housed in this city, Wor, in the dwelling-globe you
occupied before. Keep your prisoners with you, if you like."

"These two Earthmen...." began Molo, but he was interrupted.

"Settle that later. I do not want the annoyance."

I was dimly conscious of a great clanging, coming through the curtain
of barrage which was over us.

The brain added, "Keep Wyk with you, to guard the prisoners; he will
also attend your needs. In the battle, Martian, I expect great things
of you and your _Star-Streak_."

"Great Master, you will not be disappointed."

"And prisoners, but not too many. Bring me a few young specimens like
these, representative of Venus, Mars and the Earth. I want both of the
sexes, an equal number of each."

"Yes, Great Master."

"The warning signal is coming. You will now see our first contact."

The light at our feet was fading. It clung last by the gruesome face
of the huge brain; the goggling eyes shone green, and as the light in
the little mound-room dimmed there was in a moment nothing left but
those lurid green pools of the brain's eyes.

Then I was aware that the aperture at our feet had closed. Over us,
the barrage curtain was dissipating, sight and sound coming in to us.
The huge ball-shaped conclave room again became visible, the audience
crowding its entire inner surface.

I suddenly felt Anita's fingers twitching at my sleeve.

"Gregg, darling, can you hear me?"

"Yes. Be careful."

But Molo was gazing up over our heads. The crowd was shifting, bending
so that they all seemed gazing at their feet. A dim white radiance,
seeming to come from down here somewhere near us, lay in a splotch on
a segment of the throng overhead. Molo was watching.

I whispered, "All right, Anita. Quick, what is it?"

"The great control station is not far from here. Venza and I have been
trying to find out where it is exactly."

She stopped, evidently fearful of Meka. Then she added:

"Gregg, we haven't been guarded very closely; they're not suspicious
of us."

"Later, Anita. Can't talk now."

"No. Watch our chance. Later."

I turned toward Molo. "What's that up there?"

"The transparent ray is opening the top of the globe."

The clanging signal gong had stilled. The audience was hushed and
expectant. The white patch of light overhead spread until it
encompassed all the top of the globe. The whole area was glowing. The
people were white, spectral shapes, transparent! And the top of the
globe was transparent; I saw the night sky, with the gleaming reddish
stars.

It was, in a moment, as though we were staring up at a huge square
window orifice cut in the top of the room. A broad vista of cloudless
sky and stars was visible. Across it, like a shining sword, was a
narrow, opalescent beam.

"The Earth-beam which I planted," Molo whispered triumphantly. "Our
control station will contact with it now. The first contact!"

Earth was below our angle of vision, but the beam from Greater New
York, sweeping the sky with the Earth's rotation, was passing now
comparatively close to Wandl.

There was an expectant moment. Then into the sky leaped another ray,
narrow, luridly green. It swung up from Wandl and darted into space.
The hissing, agonized electrical scream from it as it burst through
the Wandl atmosphere was deafening. I saw it strike the Earth-beam,
grip it with a blinding burst of radiance up there in the sky,
clinging, pulling against the rotation of the Earth with a lever sixty
million miles long.

A moment of screaming sound in the atmosphere around us, and that
conflict of light in the sky. Then the screaming suddenly stilled. The
Wandl beam vanished.

The Earth-beam still swept the heavens like a stiff, upstanding sword.
But in that moment when Wandl gripped it, the axis of the Earth had
been changed a little. The rotation was slowed. By a few minutes, the
day and the night on Earth were lengthened.

It was the beginning of Earth's desolation.

11

"But when do we eat?" Snap demanded.

"Soon," said Molo.

"I hope so."

We were leaving the great room as we had come. Walking? I can only
call it that, though the word is futile to describe our progress as we
made our way to the lighted esplanade, across its side and into what
might have been called a street. Globular houses, single, or one set
upon another, or half a dozen swaying on a stick, gardens of
vegetables and flowers. I saw what seemed to be a round patch of
hundred-foot tree-stalks, like a thick batch of bamboo. It was laced
and latticed thick with vines.

"A house," Snap murmured. "That's a house."

Another type of dwelling. This patch of vegetable growth, so flimsy it
was all stirring with the movement of the night breeze, was woven into
circular thatched rooms, birds' nests of little dwellings. Staring up,
I seemed to see a hundred of them. Rope-vine ladders; flimsy vine
platforms; tiny lights winking up there in the trees.

On a platform twenty feet above us a group of tiny infant brains sat
in a gruesome row, goggling down on us.

We passed the tree patch; again the city seemed all a thin, flexible
metal. The ground was like a smooth rock surface, alternating with
small patches of soil where things were growing.

We walked in a slow, unsteady line. Molo led. Behind Snap and me came
the girls, ignoring us; and at the rear, the brown-shelled giant guard
stalked after us.

Molo stopped at a large globe-dwelling. "We rest here. I will go see
that our rooms are ready." He gestured to his sister. "Meka, you come
with me. Wyk will guard them."

We stood at an oval doorway. A worker came out, stared at us, then
went back. On an upper balcony, a brain was gazing down at us.

I caught Molo's brawny arm. "Won't you tell us what's going on?"

"Rest here with Wyk."

"What are you going to do?" asked Snap.

"I am going to select my men for battle."

"When do you go?"

"In a few hours, Earth-time."

"And you're taking us on the ship, Molo? Where is your _Star-Streak_?"

"That I must find out." He, gazed at us with a slow, faint smile. "Not
far. Nothing is far on Wandl. I do not know if I will take you on my
ship. You might be of help, or you might be troublesome. The Great
Master wants prisoners, or I would have killed you long ago."

He took his sister and left us. There was a brief moment when Wyk,
standing aside incuriously, gave us opportunity for swift whispers.

Again Anita clutched me. "Gregg, we'll be separated now. But with Molo
gone, Venza and I can get away from Meka."

Venza whirled on us. "Gregg, listen! Snap, be quiet! If we're ever
going to escape, now is the time. You get away from Wyk. We'll handle
Meka."

"And do what?" Snap demanded.

"The control station! We'll find it!"

Anita whispered, "We've got to wreck it, Gregg. Stop those contacts.
It'll mean the end of Earth if we don't."

I protested. "Better try for Molo's vessel. We might be able to
navigate it, escape from this world."

"The control station first," Anita insisted. "Gregg, we know something
about it. You and Snap, with your strength, can demolish it. And then,
if we can locate the _Star-Streak_...."

It was a desperate, mad plan, but there seemed nothing better. The
girls insisted now that though they did not know where the control
station was located, they knew the details of its interior; its
physical layout; its human operators.

"In an hour," whispered Snap. "Have you got a timer? Is it going?"

The little timers we still had with us were undoubtedly operating
differently from on Earth; but they were in agreement.

"An hour by our timers," I whispered. "We'll make the break then, try
to find you inside. Anita, if you get free of Meka, don't come out."

"All right."

We had only a moment to try and plan it. "Anita, in an hour, with Molo
gone...."

He came suddenly with a driving leap from the doorway and dropped
among us. "All is ready. Come."

We ignored the girls. Snap again protested that he was hungry, which
indeed, for me at least, was certainly the truth. And I was parched
with thirst. I felt that this vaunted strength of my Earth body would
not last long without food and drink.

We entered the globular interior. There were narrow corridors;
triangular rooms; a slatted, ladder-like incline leading upward to a
higher level.

The girls followed Meka up the incline. Molo and Wyk herded us into a
nearby room. "You will have your food and drink here. Cause Wyk no
trouble and you will be quite safe."

He turned, but Snap plucked at him. "When are you coming back?"

"Not too long."

I said, "We will cause you no trouble. Take us on the ship."

"I will see."

He murmured to Wyk in Martian, then left us.

* * * * *

The small triangular room had no windows and only the single door. Wyk
touched a mechanism and it slid closed. The place was a queer
apartment indeed. The floor was convex, curving upward to the walls.
The light radiance dimly glowed, as though inherent to the metal
ceiling. There was strange metal furniture: a table and chairs, high
and large; bunks of a size evidently for the ten-foot workers.

The door opened, and a worker brought us food and drink. Wyk sat apart
and watched us while we consumed the meal. I noticed that he seldom
let himself get close to us. He sat stiffly upright, with his jointed
legs bent double under him, his many arms and pincers hanging inert,
save the one short shoulder-arm with flexible fingers gripping his
weapon. At his waist, and upon several hook-like protuberances of his
chest, other weapons and devices were hanging.

Snap gazed up from where, on the floor, we were ravenously eating and
drinking. "Aren't you hungry?" he asked Wyk.

"No."

"You eat often?"

"No."

An incurious, taciturn creature, this insect-like being. Snap
whispered, "Got to talk to him; make him let us get close. That
weapon...."

How the weapon operated, we did not know; but that a flash from it
would bring instant death we well imagined.

Half of that hour of waiting was past.

I said to Wyk, "You would call this night on your world; the sun
obviously is on the other hemisphere. When will it be day?"

His gaze swung on me. His hollow voice, deep from the capacious shell
of chest, echoed and blurred in the room.

"I think Wandl has no rotation now. Or almost none."

He was not as taciturn, as he had seemed, and presently we had him
talking. We learned several things regarding the gravity-controls of
Wandl, by which at will the planet could be rotated on its axis; and
by which also it could navigate space. We learned that the great
control station contained these gravitational mechanisms, as well as
the mechanism by which the Earth had been attacked. But we could not
discover where on Wandl that station was located.

Then, with our meal finished, Snap rose to his feet. "Those arms of
yours, seem very strange to us. But they must be mighty useful."

Snap had taken a cautious, shoving step. It wafted him directly toward
the guard.

The weird, brown-scaled face of Wyk, with its popping eyes upon stems
and its upended mouth, contorted with surprise.

"Back! Don't come near me!"

He flung himself back, but struck the wall of the room. All his arms
were writhing. Alarm was in his voice. It was the first time either
Snap or I had made an unexpected move, and it startled Wyk.

"Wait! Let me go!" Snap cried.

Wyk's longest arms were around Snap, like the tentacles of an octopus,
and Snap was struggling, fighting. We had not intended this at this
time, but the opportunity was here.

I scrambled from the floor. Now, with the need for powerful action,
the lack of gravity was a tremendous handicap. I went up with
flailing arms into the air. Wyk fired his weapon, but it missed me, a
soundless, dimly-white bolt. It hissed along the curving wall of the
room. The smell of it was a stench in my nostrils.

I hit the concave ceiling, shoved down, and like a swimmer in water
struck against the struggling bodies of Snap and the guard. The waving
little shoulder arm with the weapon came at me.

Snap shouted, "Gregg, look out!"

I seized the little arm; it felt like the shell of a huge crab. For a
moment we were all three entangled, floundering, unable to find a
foothold. Then suddenly I felt Snap pulling me loose.

"We've got him!"

The brown-shelled body of Wyk sank away from us, hit the floor and lay
still. I felt the floor under me, and Snap clutching at me.

In my hand I was clutching Wyk's little shoulder arm, with fingers
still gripping the weapon. I had jerked it out of his shoulder socket.
With a shudder I cast the noisome thing away. Whether Wyk was dead or
not we did not know. He lay on his back; the hideous face stared
upward.

"I cracked the shell," Snap gasped. "We've got to get out of here.
Better try and get the girls loose now."

We wasted no further time on Wyk. Snap snatched several of his weapons
and mechanical devices. We stowed them hastily in our pockets. One was
like another to us; we could only guess at their uses.

"His shoes, Gregg. I can't get the damn things off him."

"Here are shoes."

A small pile of shoes was in a corner of the room; wide, resilient
suction soles, built like sandals. They were very large, but the
things were so placed that it seemed we could fasten them to our
boots.

"But not now, Snap."

We snatched up four pairs of the shoes.

There seemed nothing else to do. Could we get the door open? Snap was
already fumbling at it. "Accursed thing! It won't give."

Then it slid open. The dim corridor was visible. No one, nothing, out
there. "Come on, Gregg! In a rush!"

We went like bouncing rubber figures up the incline ladder.

"Snap, watch out!" He all but cracked his head with an upward leap.
Every instant we expected to be set upon. There was a terraced upper
hall, black with shadow; dark ovals of doorways led into rooms.

No one here. As yet we were not discovered.

We stood at the intersection of two corridors. One went almost
vertically up, like a chimney extending into the dome peak of the
globe. Its sides were latticed; we could go up it hand over hand, like
monkeys. The other sloped at an angle downward.

"Which way?" Snap whispered. "What do you think? Got to find them."

It still lacked about five minutes of our designated time, but it
would not do to burst in upon the girls, perhaps to find Molo and
guards there.

"Let's wait a minute, listen, see if we can't get some idea."

We were backed against the corridor wall, almost in darkness. From the
dark length of the descending corridor came a thump, the sound of a
struggle, and then a muffled scream. Venza! And we heard her words:
"Anita! Look out for her! She's got a knife!"

As though diving into water, Snap and I plunged head first into the
blackness of the corridor.

12

Later, we learned that Anita and Venza had tried much the same tactics
on Meka that we had used on Wyk, but their task was more difficult.
She was suspicious of them. Venza asked her where the control station
was, but she wouldn't answer.

"Your brother said it was just beyond the dark forest," Anita said.
"What is the dark forest?"

"A place with trees where no one lives."

"Off that way." Venza gestured. "That's what Molo said. Will it be day
soon, or will the night keep on?"

"If they cause Wandl to rotate, it will soon be day." An ironic look
crossed Meka's face. "I am in no mood for answering more of your silly
questions. Save the breath."

"Well, if that's they way you feel about it," replied Venza laughing,
"we will. There's not much air in here." She shoved herself across the
floor toward the closed window.

"Get back!"

"Oh, all right--all right!"

Perhaps Meka herself felt there was not enough air. She stood
waveringly upright, and pushed herself with a slow leap for the
window. Her back for that moment was to Anita and Venza. They shoved
from the floor, whirled through the air and were upon her.

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