Doomsday Eve
Robert Moore Williams
15 chapters
4 hour read
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15 chapters
Doomsday Eve
Doomsday Eve
SPLIT-SECOND RACE WITH WORLD'S END! In the midst of the war—that terrible conflict that threatened humanity's total destruction—the "new people" suddenly appeared. Quietly performing incredible deeds, vanishing at will, they were an enigma to both sides. Kurt Zen was an American intelligence officer among the many sent to root them out. He found them. Taken captive in their hidden lair, he waited as the enemy prepared to launch the super missile, the bomb to end all bombs—and all life. If only h
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I
I
The legends clustering around the new people began before the war, while the man who started the group, old Jal Jonnor, was alive, but they received their greatest circulation during the conflict. If the war is long and the fighting is bitter, with neither side able to achieve victory or even a substantial advantage, soldiers eventually begin to tell strange stories of sights seen when death is near, of miraculous deliveries from destruction, of impossible ships seen above the Earth, and even of
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II
II
Kurt Zen heard the lion cough in the sky overhead. He knew that it would hit in about four minutes and that it would seem to open a tunnel upward from hell, that the mountains would shake and tremble, that the air would vibrate and rattle as if a dozen thunderbolts had exploded at the same instant, and that a good number of the troops laboriously circling the incline of the ridge above would die. He knew that more of them would die a horrible lingering death as a result of the radioactivity that
9 minute read
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III
III
The radio transmitter inside Zen's pack was small but very powerful. It did not look like a radio transmitter at all; there was no antenna and no apparent source of power. Only the tiny earphone and the throat microphone revealed its true nature. He slipped the phone into his ear, fitted the microphone against his throat, then picked up the piece of plastic tubing that was red on one end and green on the other. Wires ran from each end of this tube to the small box that housed the transmitter. "R
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IV
IV
The jar of striking the ground seemed to bring the intelligence agent back to consciousness instantly. As Nedra started to kneel beside him, he was already getting to his feet. She tried to help him rise. He shrugged her hand away. "What happened?" she asked. "Nothing," he said. This didn't seem quite right. "I—I—" He tried to think what had happened. "I fainted. That's all. I just fainted." To him, this seemed a reasonable explanation for everything that needed explaining. Nedra seemed to think
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V
V
"She is immune to radiation!" Zen thought after Nedra had left to rejoin her unit. This in itself was of sufficient importance to attract and hold the interest of the top military and scientific minds. Perhaps soldiers could also be immunized. Perhaps, by some impossible freak of chance, a way might be found for workers to return to abandoned factories, to long-closed shops and forges. This might mean a new flow of goods and materials to troops that were desperately short of them and to a civili
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VI
VI
The meal was beef stew, which Jake prepared in a big pot on an old wood-burning range. They all ate around the kitchen table. "There are lots of wild cattle up here," Cal explained. "This used to be good range country, you know. The remnants of the old beef herds are still in existence, the ones that have learned how to dodge or whip the lions, that is." Zen was busy watching Nedra and Ed. The little bantam was following every move she made and was keeping as close to her as possible. He insiste
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VII
VII
Instantly, as the click sounded, he was outside his body, looking down at it. The pain was gone. The conflicting muscle pulls were gone. Or he was no longer aware of them. He understood that the latter was the true explanation. "Stand up," he said, to his body. His body obeyed this order. It rose from its hands and knees and stood upon its feet. This fact did not surprise Kurt Zen. He had known it would happen. This was the way things were. The essence of him, the consciousness that was above th
6 minute read
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VIII
VIII
"Is the center in here?" Zen asked. "Of course," Nedra answered. "But why haven't Cal and his buddies found it?" "They don't even know we exist," Nedra explained. "And if they did, for some reason they wouldn't like to come into the tunnels." "In effect, the tunnel is wired," West said. "Do you mean they would get a jolt of high voltage electricity if they ventured in here?" "Nothing as crude as that," the craggy man replied. "However, at two places, high frequency generators are built into the
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IX
IX
Coming back to conscious awareness, Kurt Zen simultaneously realized that something which he had been experiencing, and which had been very important, faded out of his memory like a gray ghost sliding silently away into a pearl-colored mist. Nedra was shaking him by the shoulder and was smiling down at him. "Wake up, sleepy head. You've been snoozing for eighteen hours. That ought to be enough even for a growing boy like you." Her face was radiant and alive. She looked as if she had just stepped
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X
X
At first, the figures were indistinct and Zen could not see them clearly. He mentioned this to West. "They will get sharper in a minute," the craggy man answered. His voice had sunk to a whisper heard from afar. Zen glanced at him to make certain he was still there. The colonel had the flickering impression that the chair was vacant but before the impression could firm itself, West, faster than the eyes could follow, seemed to be back in the chair. "Note the screen now, Kurt," West said. The fig
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XI
XI
Jake, Ed, and Cal were part of that hell. Each carried a smoking weapon in his hands. A body lay on the floor. Somewhere in one of the small rooms a woman was screaming. In the middle of the room stood the man who was obviously in charge of the situation. At the sight of this man, Kurt Zen felt his breath draw into his body so heavily that it whistled through his nostrils. Cuso's lieutenant! The others in the room were the Asians who had been with the lieutenant the night before. "I should have
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XII
XII
Neither the lieutenant nor any of the Asians noticed that a man had vanished. Cal and Jake, with the memory of Ed's death still very fresh in their minds, were engaged in making themselves inconspicuous. As far as Zen could tell, none of these clean, tall kids knew anything out of the ordinary had happened. Beside the colonel, Nedra seemed slightly more composed. Her eyes were blank as if she were not seeing. The thin film of moisture was still visible on her forehead. Zen started to whisper to
14 minute read
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XIII
XIII
At first, the lighted matches under his toe nails hurt like the very devil. He had never known such pain. Then he forgot about the matches under his toe nails. They started lighting them under his fingers. "Where did they go?" Cuso screamed. "How did they do it?" Zen had long since ceased trying to say that he didn't know. Instead of speaking, he shook his head. This was all he could do. Cuso interpreted the head shake as a stubborn refusal to answer. He kicked the colonel in the face. At the ki
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XIV
XIV
"Zero minus one hour," the loudspeaker droned, in a Chinese dialect. In a deep cavern in the hinterlands of Asia, men responded to the command coming over the speaker system. Already driven to the point of exhaustion, they were working harder than they had ever worked before. The moment of victory, for which all true Asians had lived, was near at hand. The launching of this bomb would make the Asian Union master of the world. Orders had come through to launch this bomb immediately. "Zero minus f
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