Selwyn Amazing Stories Volume 82

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-96865-935-0
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 154 Seiten

Amazing Stories Volume 82 is a great collection of action short stories from 'The Golden Age of Science Fiction'. Featured here: one story by Carl Selwyn, 'Ice Planet', and one story by Millard V. Gordon, 'The Planet of Illusion', one story by Thomas S. Gardiner, 'Cosmic Tragedy', two stories by John L. Chapman, 'In the Earth's Shadow', and 'Into the Sun', one story by Roy Paetzke, 'Earth's Maginot Line', two stories by Sam Carson, 'Sphere of the Never-Dead' and 'Space Blackout', and one story by Ed Earl Repp, 'When Time Rolled Back'.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Selwyn, Carl

Leseproben

ICE PLANET
CARL SELWYN
He saw the huge ball that
was Neptune circle below,
like a weak green light bulb. "If it's going to happen," thought Bill Ricker, "it's got to be quick." Lounging deep in his red-leather chair, he peered out of the port as the sleek space ship streamed through the darkness. He could see nothing outside but a big, humorous-eyed young man who was his own reflection and the pale green globe that was Neptune. The great planet hung like a ghostly emerald in the void, sinister in its loneliness. But bleak, desolate, a snowball of frozen gases, it was hardly the place for an ambush.... "Pretty, ain't she?" said the whiskery old fellow across the aisle. "Neptune?" Ricker glanced at the sourdough, then followed his gaze down the narrow aisle. "Oh—her!" There were twelve seats but only five passengers. Further down was a tubercular-looking Martian and near the pilot room sat a fat man with a woman. The fat man chewed sleepily on a dead cigar and the woman stared out of the window. They were handcuffed together. "Ever seen the orchids on Amor?" said Ricker. "Well, she's just as beautiful—and just as dangerous...." She was obviously Venusian but her skin wasn't exactly yellow, he decided. It was golden brown, little different from a deeply-tanned Earth girl. "They say she shot his head plumb off," said the old codger. "Yep, she certainly mowed him down." The sourdough lifted a bony finger toward Ricker's brief case. "I noticed th' tag on yer kit there," he ventured. "Says th' Planetary Times. Be you one o' them telenews fellows?" Ricker grinned. "Shore am, podner," he said. "Gonna write about this here murderess arriving on Pluto?" Ricker nodded good-humoredly. "That's my job." Slowly a faint siren hum penetrated the cabin, not unlike the sound of a power plant. A power plant it was too, the ship digging in full blast as it skirted the pull of Neptune. Ricker turned away from his garrulous neighbor, saw the sea-tinted planet had doubled in size. It was a perfect sphere, without a mark on its surface, a ring of solid hydrogen and helium. A worthless world, thought Ricker; worthless as was half the universe—because the woman in the seat up front had killed a man! "Molly Borden—Benjamin Adison ..." the sourdough mused, apparently still awed by such infamous company. "Yep," said Ricker, remembering a line from his last story: "In the flash of a pistol those names became linked forever...." It was odd, he reflected. One was a woman nobody at the trial had ever seen before, the other was a man whose name echoed throughout the spaceways. Benjamin Adison was to stellar travel what Wright had been to terrestrial aviation and in his sixtieth year when, at the completion of his work on planet-warming, he had suddenly become corpus delicti in the perfect telenews story. A stolen secret, a mysterious woman, a person high in the government—it had all the angles. Then Senator Trexel was acquitted, Molly Borden confessed. Now she was journeying to a life sentence on the penal planet. "Too bad she burned Adison's plans when they trapped her." It was Ricker's self-appointed traveling companion again. "We lost the resources of four worlds by that little trick," Bill agreed. "The police found enough in the ashes to convince them it was the plans." He smiled to himself slightly, like someone who expected something but wasn't quite sure he could count on it. He was probably the only one in the universe who wondered if those ashes really were the plans. What if they still existed—what if Molly Borden hadn't been working alone after all—what if those plans for an apparatus that could heat a whole planet were in the wrong hands—? Well, it would be a great telenews story at least, worth following this woman all the way from Earth on a hunch.... The Martian began coughing again and Ricker watched him get up, very tall, thin, emaciated. He was typically Martian with his dusty brown face, beaked nose and heavy handsomeness. He walked slowly down the aisle toward the water fountain. "Funny how Adison's daughter swore she'd seen Senator Trexel leaving her pa's laboratory," continued the sourdough. "Trexel proved he was somewhere else at the time," said Ricker. "He's got a bad reputation but it's graft—not murder. Dorothy Adison's just a dizzy debutante. She left for a hunting trip immediately after the inquest, couldn't be located for the trial. But with Molly Borden's confession there wasn't—" It was a sound like a handclap. Ricker glanced up, then stiffened erect. The Martian stood in the aisle beside the detective and the woman. He stared calmly over his shoulder at Ricker and the sourdough and in his right hand was a pistol leveled generally at them both. "Please be very quiet," his lips moved in soft, even tones. Then without taking his snaky eyes from them, he spoke to the woman. "The key is in his left vest pocket," he said. "We'll take a small boat and drop out of this before the pilots can be warned." Ricker stared like he was watching a tele-movie. Molly Borden's face was expressionless as a doll as she fumbled at the detective. Ricker heard a click and the fat man toppled out of his seat into the aisle. His limp body settled awkwardly on the floor, legs under the seat, and from the back of his head welled a dark stain that seeped into the carpet. "He slugged 'im," breathed the sourdough. "Shut up!" threatened the beady-eyed Martian. "The first sound of alarm will be your last!" Coughing quietly, he stepped aside to let the woman pass and she moved up the aisle like a robot. Green eyes straight ahead, she did not even glance at Ricker as she passed him. Ricker realized in open space their scheme would be absurd but here, with the pull of Neptune on their side, they'd fall away in the darkness before the pilots knew what had happened. The Martian turned quickly as he passed, kept the gun on them. "Open the lock and get ready," he told the woman. She threw the lever on a safety door, entered the boat and reached for the switch to slide the boat's door shut after the Martian was in. Both doors close simultaneously, thought Ricker; the boat drops when the doors close. The Martian backed slowly through the door like a great dark crawfish. For an instant his pistol was out of sight. Ricker sprang from his seat like a panther, dived head first as the doors slid home. The pistol roared. But the flash of the gun was an instant behind the hand that knocked it aside. It clattered to the hull of the boat as Ricker bowled the man to the floor. Both were on their feet like cats. The Martian leaped for the pistol. The woman flattened against the wall. Clang! The door clamped shut and Ricker's stomach rushed into his chest. Blood suddenly throbbed in his ears. His feet seemed nailed to the floor. The Martian and the woman swirled dizzily before his darkening eyes. It was like being in an elevator when the cable broke. They were hurtling down, down through the darkness toward Neptune.... Weak and sick, when his head quit spinning, Ricker struggled to his knees. The first thing he saw was a small instrument panel in front of him. He stared at it a moment, collecting his senses. One register read "ninety-three" but it didn't sink in at first. Then he gasped. "Ninety-three miles!" They'd fallen that far—straight down! No wonder he'd gone out. The normal jump of these boats was only twenty miles before the autobrake took over. The gravity of Neptune—! He remembered then. His gaze leaped to the Martian lying in a corner of the cabin. The thin fellow moaned slightly and his eyes were closed. His pistol lay beside him and Ricker stepped over, snatched it up as his eyes flickered. When they opened, the gun barrel was pointed at them. "Tables're inclined to turn when you take a dive like that." He grinned at the bewildered man. The woman, crumpled near the door, stirred and sat up. She stared at them a moment as her ivory face changed from puzzlement to rage. She glared and finally asked, "What are you going to do?" "Make the scoop of the century," Ricker's blue eyes twinkled. "I'm Bill Ricker of the Planetary Times. I'm going to contact my boss and give him a chat with Benjamin Adison's murderess after her most sensational but unsuccessful escape." The idea was positively brilliant. "I don't think the law'll mind—the Patrol can have you when I'm through." "You won't get me before a radio," snarled the Martian, his eyes like black marbles. "Well!" said Ricker, feigning surprise. "The dear boy's publicity shy! Afraid your boss'll be annoyed if you make a fool of yourself?" The question went in the man like a barb. He said nothing, but his swarthy cheeks paled a shade. Ricker's elation soared. "I followed Molly Borden all the way from Earth thinking something would happen." He grinned. "I thought another plane'd attack and try to rescue her but you, my weak-lunged friend, were melodramatic enough. Also, when the Patrol gets through with you maybe we'll know where those plans are." The woman started, perceptibly. "I burned the plans!" she flared. "That's what the police thought," said Ricker. "But they thought you were working alone, too, and your Martian chum here has rather disproved that. No, Molly Borden. There's more to the Adison case than came out in the trial. There're others involved. I'm going to find out who if it's my last story." "You blundering imbecile—!" the woman broke suddenly. But quickly she stopped, clinched her teeth and lowered her eyes. Since Ricker had known...