If we were told to list a dozen writers whom we considered great science-fiction authors, we should certainly place the name of Stanton A. Coblentz high up in the list. When Coblentz writes a short story, it is excellent, but when he composes a novel, such as the present one, you will have to go far and wide to find a better story. We sincerely believe that "In Caverns Below" will go down in science-fiction history with the other novels of Stanton A. Coblentz and will be re-read by the ever-growing multitude of science-fiction fans during future decades. Here we find everything that distinguishes our author's work from all others—what more can we say? It is now five years since Philip Clay and I were given up by the world as lost, five years since we plunged into that appalling adventure from which, even today, we have barely begun to...
If this story has a moral, it is: "Leave well enough alone." Just look what happened to Kenzie "mad-about-ants" MacKenzie, who didn't.... hat Kenzie MacKenzie was a mad scientist hardly showed at all. To see him ambling down the street in loose jointed manner, with sandy hair uncombed, blue eyes looking vaguely beyond normal focus, you might think here was a young fellow dreaming over how his gal looked last night. It might never occur to you that he was thinking of—ants. Of course, we fellows in the experimental lab all knew it, but Kenzie wasn't too hard to get along with. In fact, he could usually be counted on to pull us out of a technical hole. We put up with him through a certain fondness, maybe even a little pride. It gave us a harmless subject to talk about when security was too rigid on other things. Our...
They were a charming family and everybody loved them to death—especially Amanda! There he stood, Bass McDowall, life-size on the Wall. She made herself look at the hateful broad-shouldered image with the deliberately penetrating black eyes. She made herself watch his boy-image bend over Kippie's slender girl-image, made herself listen to his mellow voice gasp, "Kippie, sweetie-bug." Savagely she thrust upward on the ebony lever. Bass McDowall, Wall idol, and Kippie lurched and disappeared. Lights glowed from fixtures recessed into the ceiling, illuminating the long, windowless Wall room. Kathryn, whose hair was a snug, dark Kippie-cap, leaped from the Wall seat. "Don't turn it off now! Couldn't you even tell, Mother? He's going to kiss her! Turn it back on this minute!" Amanda stationed herself before the lever, shaking her head. "Not until I've spoken to you," she said. "Kathryn, I don't think you realize yet what it means, but...
There's a fortune in a boxer who feels no pain. This one didn't, except in odd ways.... How come I live here on Gorlin permanent? Well, it's something like this. There is nobody real surprised when some scientist writes an article in the Sunday supplement about the primitive tribes of Anestha dying out probably. The Anesthon natives is freaks, anyway, and folks just naturally figure they can't last long in stiff competition. If you are like them and your body don't feel any pain any time, you need a nursemaid around to keep you from doing dumb things, like walking in front of a truck or starving to death. I am here on Gorlin a couple times and know about 'em. Some folks think it's comical to watch the space crews think up ways to give an Anesthon a workout. I see one Anesthon girl—a real looker she is, too—dance...
Rick Mason's ship was still high over Mordarga, coming in for a landing, when the cry for help sounded in his audio phones. Rick frowned, reached to the control panel to turn up the amplification—then realized that the voice had not come over the audio after all. It had spoken in his mind. Help! Rick, they've caught me! There was urgency in the mental cry. Instantly, Mason sized up the situation. It was his partner, Klon Darra, the Venusian—the other half of this mentally-attuned Solar System intelligence team. Klon Darra was in trouble! He focussed his mental energies and replied: I read you, Klon Darra. What's the problem? The response was blurred and indistinct, as if the Venusian were laboring under great mental strain. I ... landed on schedule. Fell into hands of ... ruler. In prison. Going to be tortured. I.... Mason struggled to keep his attention on his...
1919 James Crawshay, Englishman of the type usually described in transatlantic circles as "some Britisher," lolled apparently at his ease upon the couch of the too-resplendent sitting room in the Hotel Magnificent, Chicago. Hobson, his American fellow traveler, on the other hand, betrayed his anxiety by his nervous pacing up and down the apartment. Both men bore traces in their appearance of the long journey which they had only just completed. "I think," Crawshay decided, yawning, "that I shall have a bath. I feel gritty, and my collar—heavens, what a sight! Your trains, Hobson, may be magnificent, but your coal is filthy. I will have a bath while your friend, the policeman, makes up his mind whether to come and see us or not." His companion treated the suggestion with scant courtesy. "You will do nothing of the sort," was his almost fierce objection. "We've got to wait right here...
Lord Loudwater was paying attention neither to his breakfast nor to the cat Melchisidec. Absorbed in a leader in The Times newspaper, now and again he tugged at his red-brown beard in order to quicken his comprehension of the weighty phrases of the leader-writer; now and again he made noises, chiefly with his nose, expressive of disgust. Lady Loudwater paid no attention to these noises. She did not even raise her eyes to her husband's face. She ate her breakfast with a thoughtful air, her brow puckered by a faint frown. She also paid no attention to her favourite, Melchisidec. Melchisidec, unduly excited by the smell of grilled sole, came to Lord Loudwater, rose on his hind legs, laid his paws on his trousers, and stuck some claws into his thigh. It was no more than gentle, arresting pricks; but the tender nobleman sprang from his chair with a short...
The sun had not yet taken the chill out of the early April morning that broke on the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, when the ship settled to the ground. It was surprisingly large compared to the aircraft native to this planet, and yet ridiculously small to have brought enough men and material to launch an invasion across light years of space. The landing went unobserved in this fearful year of 1955. The world faced too many crucial crises of their own making to consider the necessity to be watchful for an extra-terrestrial invasion. Hardly had the craft come to rest, when the outer lock slid noiselessly open and a small ladder-like stairway came down until it too had touched earth. A man appeared in the doorway, pausing to study the landscape which lay before him. His features, his body, were human. Despite his being too well muscled, and his...
Why me? Why, out of 300 billion people on earth, why did they have to pick on me ? And if it had to happen, why couldn't it have happened before I met Betty and fell in love with her? You see, Betty and I were to be married tomorrow. We were to have been married. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, indeed! What a ghastly thought that is! How can I explain to Betty—to anyone! I can't face her, and what could I say on the telephone? "Sorry, Betty, I can't marry you. I'm no longer—quite human." Quit joking, Kelley! This is for real. You're sober and awake and it did happen. Marrying Betty is out of the question even if she'd have you the way you are. You're not that two-faced! Quit standing in front of the mirror, naked and shaking, looking for scars, counting your fingers and toes. You've taken a...
In this story, the joint product of two imaginative minds, we get a very unusual picture of some of the possibilities of interplanetary exploration. We know that as soon as interplanetary travel is possible, expeditions from the earth will be ranging the length and breadth of the solar system searching out the thousands of wonders that are to be discovered. It is quite possible that some of the explorers, whether through accident or desire, may colonize the other planets and develop under new and unusual conditions a new branch of the human race. It is doubtlessly true that if each of the solar planets were to be colonized, at the end of several hundred centuries there would be nine races of human beings who might differ radically from each other and in fact might not recognize each other as members of the same human stock. In this story we do...
The martian servant stopped at my desk, coughed faintly to attract my attention. I looked up and he handed me a calling card on which was printed "Slane O'Graeme." It was a limp, thumb-marked and discouraged-looking emissary. "'E wishes to see Mr. Ames," the wedge-faced servant told me. The high disdain in his tone of voice revealed more clearly than words his opinion of the visitor. I shrugged and dropped the card on my desk. "Oh, well, send him in. I'll give him the brush-off." The Martian faded away and I turned back to the 1999 capitulation figures Mr. Ames wanted. I forgot about Slane O'Graeme, whoever he was, until a timid "hello" made me look up from the reports. "You're Mr. Fleming Ames?" he asked diffidently. He was an odd-looking little guy with a head like an oversize cue-ball and a narrow fringe of fuzzy graying hair that looked...
I T would not be a hopeful sign of the further triumph of the good principle over the evil if the devil’s agents could shew us many examples where they have beaten us, and been enabled to slide clean off the scale. Since my first volume was published, I have been twitted with cases where we have been at fault. I don’t deny that there are some, and I will give one or two, of which I have something to say. In the meantime, I have consolation, not that I have contributed much to the gratifying result in being able to point to the fact, that, since the year 1849, the Reports of the General Board of Prisons have shewn a gradual and steady decrease of the population of our jails. I am free to confess that this result is only, to a small extent, due to us, and the...
Dane Thorson, Cargo-master-apprentice of the Solar Queen, Galactic Free Trader spacer, Terra registry, stood in the middle of the ship's cramped bather while Rip Shannon, assistant Astrogator and his senior in the Service of Trade by some four years, applied gobs of highly scented paste to the skin between Dane's rather prominent shoulder blades. The small cabin was thickly redolent with spicy odors and Rip sniffed appreciatively. "You're sure going to be about the best smelling Terran who ever set boot on Sargol's soil," his soft slur of speech ended in a rich chuckle. Dane snorted and tried to estimate progress over one shoulder. "The things we have to do for Trade!" his comment carried a hint of present embarrassment. "Get it well in—this stuff's supposed to hold for hours. It'd better. According to Van those Salariki can talk your ears right off your head and say nothing worth hearing....
T he career of Hawk Carse, taken broadly, divides itself into three main phases, and it is with the Ku Sui adventures of the second phase that we have been concerned in this intimate narrative. John Sewell, the historian, baldly condenses those adventures of a century ago together, but on research and closer scrutiny they take on an individuality and significance deserving of separate treatment, and this they have been given here. For fictionized presentation, we have spaced the adventures into four connected episodes, four acts of a vibrant drama which ranged clear from Saturn to Earth, the core of which was the feud between Captain Carse and the power-lusting Eurasian scientist, Dr. Ku Sui—that feud the reverberations of whose terrible settling still echo over the solar system—and in this last act of the drama, set out below, we come to its spectacular climax. The words of John Sewell's...
Donnie clenched his small fists and tried not to cry, but two elliptical tears ran slowly down his cheeks. The sight of them made Mr. Ames even madder. "Look at him," he stormed, turning to Martha. "Just look at him. Every damn time I try to reason with him, he starts to snivel like an animal, instead of acting like a normal human being." Mr. Ames flicked his cigar ashes toward a vacuum cup on the wall and looked down at the boy. "Now stop that stupid crying and tell me what this is all about." Donnie sniffled a couple of times and wiped his nose on the back of one of his blue uniform sleeves. "Well," Mr. Ames said, coldly. The boy took a deep breath and raised his head. "I want you to spend some time with me," he said. "I want you to—" he searched the elusive...
The planet's natives were so similar to their conquerors that no one could tell them apart—except for their difference in thinking. This was Graduation Day. The senior class from the Star Institute of Advanced Science was scheduled to go through the Museum of the Conquered and observe the remnants of the race that had once ruled this planet. There were many such museums maintained for the purpose of allowing the people to see the greatness their ancestors had displayed in conquering this world and also to demonstrate how thorough and how complete that conquest had been. Perhaps the museums had other reasons for existing, but the authorities did not reveal these reasons. Visiting such a museum was part of the exercises of every graduating class. Billy Kasker arrived early, to take care of all last minute problems for Mr. Phipper, the instructor who would take the group through the museum,...
The Laughing Mary was a light ship, as sailors term a vessel that stands high upon the water, having discharged her cargo at Callao, from which port we were proceeding in ballast to Cape Town, South Africa, there to call for orders. Our run to within a few parallels of the latitude of the Horn had been extremely pleasant; the proverbial mildness of the Pacific Ocean was in the mellow sweetness of the wind and in the gentle undulations of the silver-laced swell; but scarce had we passed the height of forty-nine degrees when the weather grew sullen and dark, a heavy bank of clouds of a livid hue rose in the north-east, and the wind came and went in small guns, the gusts venting themselves in dreary moans, insomuch that our oldest hands confessed they had never heard blasts more portentous. The gale came on with some lightning and...
She sought in vain! The young woman, who was finishing her toilette, lost patience. With a look of annoyance she half turned round, crying, "Well, Captain, it is easy to see that you are not accustomed to women's ways!" This pretty girl's lover, a man about forty, with an energetic countenance, and a broad forehead adorned with sparse locks, was smoking a Turkish cigarette, taking his ease on a divan at the far end of the room. He jumped up as if moved by a spring. For some time the captain had followed with his eyes the gestures of his graceful mistress; like a good and attentive lover he guessed what she required. He rushed into the adjoining dressing-room and returned with a little onyx cup in which was a complete assortment of pins. "There, my pretty Bobinette!" he cried, coming up to the young woman. "This will put me...
Illustrated by Philip Parsons You might say the trouble started at the Ivy, which is a moving picture house in Cave Junction built like a big quonset. It's the only show in these parts, and most of us old-timers up here in the timber country of southwest Oregon have got into the habit of going to see a picture on Saturday nights before we head for a tavern. But I don't think old Doc Yoris, who was there with Lew and Rusty and me, had been to more than two or three shows in his life. Doc is kind of sensitive about his appearance on account of his small eyes and big nose and ears; and since gold mining gave way to logging and lumber mills, with Outsiders drifting into the country, Doc has taken to staying on his homestead away back up along Deer Creek, near the boundary of...
Don't be ashamed if you can't blikkel any more. It's because you couldn't help framishing. hurgub," said the tape recorder. "Just like I told you before, Dr. Blair, it's krandoor, so don't expect to vrillipax, because they just won't stand for any. They'd sooner framish." "Framish?" Jonathan heard his own voice played back by the recorder, tinny and slightly nasal. "What is that, Mr. Easton?" " You know. Like when you guttip. Carooms get awfully bevvergrit. Why, I saw one actually—" "Let's go back a little, shall we?" Jonathan suggested. "What does shurgub mean?" There was a pause while the machine hummed and the recorder tape whirred. Jonathan remembered the look on Easton's face when he had asked him that. Easton had pulled away slightly, mouth open, eyes hurt. "Why—why, I told you!" he had shouted. "Weeks ago! What's the matter? Don't you blikkel English?" Jonathan Blair reached out and...
By going through channels, George worked up from the woodwork to the top brass! eorge," Clara said with restrained fury, "the least you could do is ask him. Are you a mouse or a worm?" "Well, I have gone out there and moved it every night," George protested, trying to reason with her without success. "Yes, and every morning he puts it back. George, so long as that trap is outside of our front door, I can never have a moment's peace, worrying about the children. I won't go on like this! You must go out and talk some sense into him about removing it at once." "I don't know," George said weakly. "They might not be happy to find out about us." "Well, our being here is their own fault, remember that," Clara snorted. "They deliverately exposed your great-great grandfather Michael to hard radiations. George," she continued fervidly, "all...
What made the mass of this tiny asteroid fluctuate in defiance of all known physical laws? It was an impossible fact—but then, so was the girl who they knew couldn't exist! Red Brewer had plugged his electric razor into the lab circuit and he was running it over his pink jowls while I tried to discover what was haywire about the balance scales. "Have you noticed," Red said above the clatter of his shaver, "how much less you have to shave on an asteroid?" "I still shave every day," I said. There was something definitely wrong with the scales. The ten-gram weight didn't balance two five-gram weights. Instead it weighed 7.5 grams. And then, suddenly, the cockeyed scales would get ornery and the two five-gram weights would weigh 7.5 grams and the ten-gram slug would weigh what it should. "I don't," said Red. "I shave once a week. Back on...
Half an hour before, while she had been engrossed in the current soap opera and Harry Junior was screaming in his crib, Melinda would naturally have slammed the front door in the little man's face. However, when the bell rang, she was wearing her new Chinese red housecoat, had just lustered her nails to a blinding scarlet, and Harry Junior was sleeping like an angel. Yawning, Melinda answered the door and the little man said, beaming, "Excellent day. I have geegaws for information." Melinda did not quite recoil. He was perhaps five feet tall, with a gleaming hairless scalp and a young-old face. He wore a plain gray tunic, and a peddler's tray hung from his thin shoulders. "Don't want any," Melinda stated flatly. " Please. " He had great, beseeching amber eyes. "They all say that. I haven't much time. I must be back at the University by noon."...
There are some who tell me it is a foolish war we fight. My brother told me that, for one, back in the Sunset Country. But then, my brother is lame and good for nothing but drawing pictures of the stars. He connects them with lines, like a child's puzzle, and so makes star-pictures. He has fish stars, archer stars, hunter stars. That, I would say, is what is foolish. Perhaps that is what started it all. I was looking at the stars, trying to see the pictures, when I should have been minding my sentry post. They took me like a baby, like a tot not yet given to the wearing of clothing. The hand came out of the darkness and clamped over my mouth, and I ceased my struggling when I felt a sharp blade pricking at the small of my back. At first I feared that they...
So long as there are men and women alive, in a livable environment, then a new beginning is possible. by Charles Dye It was bound to happen sooner or later. Not because man failed to understand his fellow man, but because he failed to understand himself. There wasn't much left afterwards--after the golden showers of deadly dust and the blinding flashes that blotted out the light from the sun. And all because man continued to confuse emotion with reason. But somehow, as before, man survived.... " Don't touch! " Sinzor's command shot through the chill morning air like an arrow. The ragged little group of men stopped dead in their tracks and looked questioningly at their leader. He was pointing down to an object lying half-buried in the soil at his feet. "Another death-thing , maybe," Sinzor said. "Another 'thing our ancestors made with which to destroy themselves." He peered...
Bridget Kelly stood at the foot of the rocket lift and watched the loading operation. The freight had long since been inspected and stowed, and now it was the passengers' turn. Bridget was glad that for once she was not responsible. Let others worry and snoop. This time she was a passenger herself, starward bound. Inspected, passed and okayed, she could have the pleasure of watching others squirm. Like that beauty coming aboard with the furs and the orchid. She wouldn't be allowed to keep the orchid, of course. Bridget grinned as she saw the flower tossed into a trash can and imagined the words the beauty was mouthing. The man beside her sported a boutonniere. Yes, there it went into the can. He was still smiling, probably cracking wise. Bridget had separated so many travelers from so many items that she could tell what the passenger was going to...
"That's damned expensive," Gunnison said. The pilot grinned. "A man wanting to be set down by the Ghanati should expect to pay high." The pilot had a battered old ship, a forged license, a questionable bill of sale. He trafficked only in desperate trips for desperate people and he knew Gunnison would pay the price. Scowling, Gunnison counted out the highbinding tribute from a leather sack containing the coins of all the planets. Terran gold eagles, Venusian phalada, Mercurian scoz. The pilot inspected each coin, bagged the total, "When can you have your gear aboard?" "In twenty minutes." "We'll leave at sunfall," the pilot said. "Before the moons lift." Gunnison stowed his equipment. He checked his dehydrates and chemical nutrients carefully. They would constitute his sole food supply for six months. He also inspected the other vital units of his equipment. Then he went to the port restaurant and stowed...
He was excited, the little man with the big find. He drove his battered old space tub down at the world which lay frozen over and lifeless since long ago. But not completely abandoned. Far from it. He joined the long line of ships making the pilgrimage to the ancient, original home of the human race. Below lay a transparent dome, the largest Z-model of 100,000 capacity, into whose ample entry locks the ships filed down, one by one. Some had to circle, waiting their turn. He licked his lips impatiently. At times he grinned and savored the delay, in view of what lay ahead. At last he chugged in and parked his grimy little tub beside shiny yachts and towering spaceliners and spacebuses. The canned air of the dome was fresh to his lungs, compared to the reek of his cabin. He dug a tip out of his frayed...
That evening the down train from London deposited at the little country station of Ramsdon but a single passenger, a man of middle height, shabbily dressed, with broad shoulders and long arms and a most unusual breadth and depth of chest. Of his face one could see little, for it was covered by a thick growth of dark curly hair, beard, moustache and whiskers, all overgrown and ill-tended, and as he came with a somewhat slow and ungainly walk along the platform, the lad stationed at the gate to collect tickets grinned amusedly and called to one of the porters near: “Look at this, Bill; here's the monkey-man escaped and come back along of us.” It was a reference to a travelling circus that had lately visited the place and exhibited a young chimpanzee advertised as “the monkey-man,” and Bill guffawed appreciatively. The stranger was quite close and heard plainly,...