Part 1

BEYOND LIGHT

By NELSON S. BOND

Venus was civilized ... so the Universe thought! But deep in its midnight caverns ... beyond light, beyond the wildest imaginings of an ordered System ... dwelt Horror.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1940. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

They stood in the _Orestes'_ tiny observation turret, Mallory's defiant arm still tight about the slim and lovely girl, just exactly as bull-voiced Captain Lane had found them. The shimmering reflection of the planet Venus, only a few thousand miles ahead, bathed the trim, hard-jawed man and the softly pretty girl in a gentle glow, but it failed to soothe the grizzled space ship skipper.

"What in hell does this mean?"

Mallory, remembering an old forgotten saying--something about a soft answer turning aside wrath--spoke rapidly. "Sorry if we gave you a shock, sir," he said. "But your daughter and I are engaged."

Few medical men would have guaranteed Space Captain Jonathan Lane a long life at that moment. His usually ruddy face was a violent mauve-scarlet, his eyes hot pin-points of anger, his lean, hard body was atremble with emotion.

"Engaged. _Engaged!_" He made a convulsive motion. "Did you say engaged? To this inane young fool. You're talking nonsense. Go to your cabin, girl."

Dorothy Lane sighed and looked hopefully up at Mallory.

Tim Mallory had forgotten his old and wise quotation.

"Why not engaged," he snapped. "What have you got against me?"

"What," growled Captain Lane. "He asks me _what_!"

He had a reason; one which he shared with all fond parents who have ever seen a beloved child slipping from their arms--jealousy. Jealousy and grief. Now his mind pounced on a substitute for the true reasons that he would not--could not--name.

"Well, for one thing," he said curtly, "you're not a spaceman. You're nothing but a blasted Earthlubber!"

Mallory grinned.

"You can hardly call me an Earthlubber, Captain. I spent two years on Luna, three on Mars; I'll be five or more on Venus--"

"Pah! Luna ... Mars ... Venus ... you're still a groundhog. I'll not see my girl married to a money-grubbing businessman, Mallory."

"Tim's not a businessman," broke in Dorothy Lane. "He's an engineer." And anyone seeing her young fury would have smiled to note how much alike she was to her bucko, space captain father.

"Engineer! Nonsense! Only an astrogation engineer deserves that title. He's a--a--What is it you do? Build ice-boxes?"

"I'm a calorimetrical engineer," Mallory answered stiffly. "My main job is the designing and installation of air-conditioning plants where they are needed. On airless Luna, the cold Martian deserts, here on Venus. The simple truth is--"

"The simple truth is," stated the skipper savagely, "that you're a groundhog and a damned poor son-in-law for a spaceman. You being what you are, and Dorothy being what she is, I say the hell with you, Mr. Mallory! Perhaps I can't prevent your marriage. But there's one thing I can do--and that is wash my hands of the two of you!"

He watched them, searching for signs of indecision in their eyes. He found, instead--and with a sense of sickening dread--only sorrow. Sorrow and pity and regret. And Tim Mallory said quietly, "I'm sorry, sir, that you feel that way about it."

Lane turned to his daughter.

"Dorothy?" he said hoarsely.

"I'm sorry, too." Her voice was gentle but determined. "Tim is right. We--" Then her eyes widened; sudden panic lighted them, and her hand flew to her lips in a gesture of fear. "Something's wrong! Venus! The ship--!"

* * * * *

Captain Lane did not need her warning. His space-trained body had recognized disaster a split-second before. His legs had felt the smooth flooring beneath him lurch and sway. His eyes had glimpsed, through the spaceport, the sudden looming of the silver disc toward which they had been gliding easily but now were plunging at headlong, breakneck speed. His ears howled with the clamor of monstrous winds that clutched with vibrant fingers the falling _Orestes_.

In a flash he spun and fought his way up a sharply tilting deck to the wall audio, thrust at its button, bawled a query. The mate's voice, shrill with terror, answered:

"The Dixie-rod, sir! It's jammed! We're trying to get it free, but it's locked! We're out of control--"

"Up rockets!" roared Lane. "Up rockets and blast!"

"They're cut, sir! The hypo's cold. We'll have to 'bandon ship--."

Abandon ship! Tim Mallory did not need Dorothy's sudden gasp to tell him what that meant to the trio caught in the observation turret. Earthlubber he might be, but he knew enough about the construction of space craft to realize that there were no auxiliary safety-sleds anchored to this section of the _Orestes_.

Venus was no longer a beaming platter of silver in the distance. They had burst through its eternal blanket of cloud, now; The world below was no longer a sphere, it was a huge saucer of green, swelling ominously with each flashing second. Tempests screamed about them, and the screaming was the triumphant cry of hungry death.

No ships. No time to seek escape. Life, which had but recently become a precious thing to Tim Mallory, was but a matter of minutes.

He saw the agony of indecision on Captain Jonathan Lane's face, heard, as in a dream, the skipper delivering the only possible order.

"Very well, Carter! 'Bandon ship!"

And the pilot's hectic query, "But where are you?"

"Never mind that. Cut loose, you fool!"

"No, Captain! You're below. I can't let you die. I'll keep trying--"

"'Bandon ship, Carter! It's an order!"

And the faint, thin answer, "Aye, sir!" Silence.

Tim turned to Dorothy, and from somewhere summoned the ghost of a smile. His arms went out to her, and as one in a dream she moved toward him. There was, at least, this. They could die together.

And then Captain Lane was between them, bellowing, commanding, pushing them apart.

"Avast, you two! This is no time for play-acting. Mallory, jerk down those hammocks. Tumble in and strap yourselves tight! It's a chance in a billion, but--"

Tim swung into motion. The old man was right. It was a slim chance, but--a chance! To strap themselves into the pneumatic hammocks used by passengers at times of acceleration, hope that by some miracle the _Orestes_ would not be crushed into a metal pancake when they crashed, pray that it might land on a slope, or some yielding substance.

It was a breathless moment and a mad one. Frenzied winds and the groan of scorching metal, the thick panting of Captain Lane as he strapped himself into a hammock between Tim and Dorothy, Dorothy's voice, "Tim, dear--" And his own reply, "Hold tight, youngster!"

Then heat increasing, heat like a massive fist upon his breast, hot beads of sweat, salt-tasting on his lips, an ear-splitting tumult of sound from somewhere.... A swift, terrifying glimpse of solid earth rushing up to meet them.... The last, wrenching shudder of the _Orestes_ as it plunged giddily groundward. Heat ... pain ... flame ... suffocation....

Then darkness.

* * * * *

Out of the darkness, light. Out of the sultriness, a thin, cool finger of breeze. Out of the silence of death, life!

Tim Mallory opened his eyes. And a thick, wordless cry of thanksgiving burst from his lips as he stared about him. The impossible had happened!

The ship had crashed. Its control-room was a fused and twisted heap of wreckage smoldering in the giant crater it had plowed. But somehow the observation turret, offset in a streamlined vane of the _Orestes_, had escaped destruction.

Great rents gaped where once girders had welded together sturdy _permalloy_ sheets, purposeless shards lay strewn about, even the hammocks had been wrenched from their strong moorings, but he and his companions still lived!

Even as Tim fought to loose the straps that circled him, Captain Lane groaned, stirred, opened his eyes. Dully, then with wakening recollection. And his first word--

"Dorothy?"

"Safe," said Mallory. "She's safe. We're all safe. I don't know how. We must bear charmed lives." He bent over the girl, loosened her straps, chafed her wrists gently. Her eyes opened, and the image of that last moment of panic was still mirrored in their depths. "Tim!" she cried. "Are we--Where's Daddy?"

"Easy, sugar!" soothed Tim. "He's here. It's all over. We pulled through. It was a miracle."

He said it gratefully. But Captain Lane corrected him. The safety of his daughter assured, the old spacedog's next thought had been for his ship. He had walked forward, studied the crumpled ruin of the control-room. Now he said, "Not a miracle, Mallory. A sacrifice. It was Carter. He didn't bail out with the others. He must have stayed on in the control-room, fighting that jammed Dixie-rod. It must have come clean at the last moment, slowing the ship, or we wouldn't be here. But it was too late, then, for him to get away--"

His voice was sad, but there was a sort of pride in it, too. Dorothy began to cry softly. Captain Lane's hand came to his forehead in brief, farewell salute to a gallant man. Then he rejoined the others. "It was the first time," he said, "he ever disobeyed my orders."

Tim said nothing. There was nothing he could say. But for the first time he realized why Captain Lane, why all spacemen, felt as they did about their calling. Because the men who wore space-blues were of this breed.

For a long moment there was silence. Then the old man stirred brusquely.

"Well, we'd better get going."

"Going?" Tim stared about him. It was a far from reassuring scene that met his eyes. They had landed in the midst of wild and desolate country, on a plateau midway between sprawling marshlands below and craggy, cloud-created hills above. The shock of the crash must have stunned into silence all wild-life temporarily, for upon awakening, Tim had been dimly conscious of a vast, reverberant quietude.

But now the small, secret things were creeping back to gaze on the smoking monster that had died in their midst; small squeals and snarls and chirrupings bespoke an infinitude of watchers. The hour was just before dawn; the eastward horizon was tinged with pearl. "Going?" Tim repeated. "But where are we?"

* * * * *

Captain Jonathan looked at him somberly. "In the Badlands," he said. "And the term is not a loose one; they _are_ bad lands, Mallory." He pointed the hour hand of his wrist-watch at the pale mist of rising sunlight. "I don't know exactly where we are, or how far from civilization, but it's far enough."

Tim said determinedly, "Then we'd better pack up, eh? Hit the trail?"

The skipper laughed scornfully. "What trail? We'd be committing suicide by heading into those marshes, those hills, or those jungles. Our only chance of survival is to stay close to the _Orestes_. Five of the sailors bailed out, you'll remember. In safety-sleds. We've got to hope one or more of them will reach Venus City, start a rescue party out after us."

"But you said 'get going'?"

"To work, I meant. We're going to need protection from the sun." Again Captain Lane glanced at the sky, this time a little anxiously. "I know this country. After that sun gets up, it will be a bake-oven. A seething cauldron of heat. Damp, muggy heat. Steam from the marshes below, the raw, blinding heat blazing down from the rocks above. This is Venus, Mallory--" He laughed shortly; but there was no mirth in his laughter. "This isn't an air-conditioned home on Earth. Come along!"

Silently, Tim followed him. They picked their way through the tangled wreckage of the _Orestes_, stopping from time to time to salvage such bits of equipment as Lane felt might be of use. Flashlights, side-arms, vacuteens of clear, cold water, packets of emergency rations. Through chamber after shattered chamber they moved, Captain Lane leading the way. Tim and Dorothy following mutely behind. Everywhere it was the same. Broken walls, bent and twisted girders, great rents in what had once been a sturdy spacecraft.

And finally Lane gave up.

"It's no use," he said. "There's no protection in this battered hulk. Shading ourselves in one of these open cells would be like taking refuge in a broiler."

"Then what can we do, Daddy?"

"There's only one thing to do. Break out bulgers. They're thermostatically controlled. We'll keep cooler in space-suits than anything else. Mallory, you remember where they were?"

"Yes, sir!" Tim went after the space-suits, grateful for a chance to contribute in some way to their common good. The storeroom in which the bulgers had been locked was no longer burglar-proof; one wall had been sheared away in the crash as if cleft with a gigantic ax. He clambered into the compartment, broke out three bulgers, gathered up spare oxytainers for each of them.

He had just finished lugging the equipment out of the storeroom, sweating from the exertion of lifting three heavy space-suits beneath a sun which was now glowing brazenly in an ochre, misted sky, when a sharp cry startled him.

"Daddy! Behind you!" It was Dorothy who screamed the warning. And then, "Tim! _Tim!_"

"Coming!" roared Mallory. He was scarcely conscious of the weight of the bulgers now. In a flash he was plunging toward the source of the cry, tugging at the needle-gun in his belt. But before he had taken a dozen steps--

"Never mind, Mallory!" roared Captain Lane. "Stay where you are! Back, you filthy--!" There came the sharp, characteristic hiss of a flashing needle-gun, the _plowp!_ of some unguessable, fleshy thing exploding into atoms. "Stay where you are! We'll come to you. Quick, Dorothy!"

* * * * *

Then their footsteps pounding toward him, Dorothy rounding a bend of the ship, white-faced and flying, Captain Lane on her heels, covering their retreat with his gun. As Mallory sprang to join them Lane flashed him a swift glance and tossed curt words of explanation.

"Proto-balls! Giant, filthy amoebae. Pure proteid matter. _Aaah!_ Scorched that one! Damned needle-guns won't stop 'em, though. Just slows 'em down. Only thing'll kill 'em is an acid-spray. We've got to get out of here!"

"But where, Daddy?"

"Got those bulgers, Mallory? Climb into 'em. And hurry. Saw caves in the mountainside up there. They won't enter caves. Need sunlight. _Look out!_"

Again that sharp, explosive hiss. Mallory leaped back, feeling the brief, furtive brush of something foreign across the toe of his boot. The attacking proto-balls were of all sizes; they ranged from huge, oily-glistening, foul-odored spheres to tiny globules the size of a baseball. One of the latter size had rolled swiftly toward him; for a second, before Captain Lane's gun splashed flame upon it, it had come in contact with Mallory's foot. Where it had touched was now a patch of crumbling gray that had been leather!

"Eat anything!" rasped Lane. "Didn't touch you, eh, Mallory? Good. Start backing away. And get into the bulgers. Move!"

Mallory climbed swiftly into his space-suit. Its weight disappeared as he touched the grav control button; the heat which had begun to oppress him fled, too, when he closed the face-port. He touched Lane's shoulder, thrust the remaining bulger at him.

"I'll hold them while you get into it!"

And he did. It was an unequal battle, though. The proto-balls were the next thing to imperishable. The needle-gun could not destroy them, it only slowed them down. An occasional perfect bull's-eye shot, striking a vulnerable spot, would burst a proto-ball into a thousand pieces--but when that happened, each of the pieces, amoeba-like, curled instantly into a tiny daughter proto-ball and surged forward again.

Yet there must have been some elementary nervous-system in these creatures, for while it could not kill them, still they seemed to fear the flaming ray of the needle-gun. And it was to this fear that the trio of Earthlings owed their existence during those next hectic minutes while they stumbled, ever backward and upward, giving ground steadily, toward the cave-mouth Captain Lane had pointed out on the hillside.

Tim did not even know the cave was near. Shoulder to shoulder with the old space-captain, he maintained a rear-guard defense against the proto-balls, gun flaming without cessation, his eyes aching from the strain of constant watchfulness against an unexpected flank attack. And then--

And then, suddenly, incredibly, a shadow fell under his stumbling feet; at that line of division between glowing sun and somber shade the proto-balls stopped, quivering and oozing viscous droplets of slime, hesitated, and turned away.

Lane's roar was gleeful. "Good work, young fellow! We made it!"

They were safe in the black harbor of the cave.

* * * * *

When he turned to stare into the depths beyond him, at first he could see nothing but a great orange ball, which was his photo-image of the dazzling sunlight whence they had fled. Then tortured nerves surrendered to the soothing dark and he could see that they stood at the mouth of not a cave but a great, many-corridored cavern that stretched--for all Mallory could tell--clear down into the murky bowels of Venus.

Jonathan Lane was loudly exuberant.

"This is fine!" he declared. "We owe those grease-balls a vote of thanks. This is an ideal refuge. Shady and cool and safe--and look! We can even see the ship from the heights, here! If anyone--I mean, _when_ they come to rescue us, we can signal them."

Mallory hoped the slip had passed unnoticed by Dorothy. "_If_ anyone--" the skipper had started to say. Which meant that he, too, had misgivings as to the likelihood of rescue. But that was a question Mallory would not press. He hurdled the awkward moment with a swift response.

"We'll have to have something to signal with, sir. Our bulger audios won't operate that far, will they? We'll have to build a fire, or at least have one ready to be kindled when they arrive."

"Right," agreed the skipper. "But we can't gather wood until those protos have gone away. We'll take care of that later. Meanwhile--" He glanced into the jetty depths beyond them. "It will be some hours before we can expect to get relief. Time to waste. Why not amuse ourselves by exploring this cave?"

"Explo--" began Tim. It was a childish idea. One _so_ ridiculous, in fact, that it was on the tip of Mallory's tongue to make caustic rejoinder to Lane's suggestion. But even as the comment trembled on his lips, his eyes met those of the captain--and in Lane's shrewd, pleading glance, Tim found a reason and an answer for this subterfuge.

Lane feared that very thing which he, himself, had dreaded. This cave might be their refuge for a long, long time!

There might be no rescue party. If so, and since a trek across the Badlands was suicidal, their only chance for ultimate salvation was to find a place where they could live. This cave was such a place. If it had water, and if it were undenizened by wild beasts; if in it, or near it, they could find food....

He hoped his voice was not too suspiciously hearty.

"Great idea!" he agreed. "Splendid. It should be a lot of fun. What do you say, Dorothy?"

Dorothy looked from her lover to her father, back to her lover again. And her voice was grave and fearless.

"I say," she said quietly, "you are the two finest men who ever lived. But you're not fooling me for a moment. I know very well why we must explore this cave. And I say, let's start!" There came swift lightness and heart-warming humor to her tone. "After all, if a gal has to keep house in a place like this, she ought to know how many rooms it has!"

Tim looked at her long and gravely. And then,

"You," he said, "are swell. Once I called you wonderful. I didn't really know--then."

"Wonderful?" snorted Captain Lane. "Of course she is! She's my daughter, isn't she? Well, come along!"

Grinning, Tim fell in behind him. And into Stygian darkness, preceded by a yellow circle from the flashlight of the _Orestes'_ skipper, moved the marooned trio.

* * * * *

The main cave opened out as they picked their path forward; the walls pressed back, the ceiling lofted, until they were standing in a huge, arched chamber almost two hundred feet wide and half as high. This amphitheater debouched into a half dozen or more smaller corridors or openings; for a moment Captain Lane stood considering these silently, then he nodded toward that on their extreme left.

"Might as well go at it in orderly fashion. We'll try that one first. No, wait a minute!" He halted Tim, who had pressed obediently toward the corridor-mouth. "Try not to be a groundhog all your life, Mallory! You should know better than to stroll aimlessly around a place like this. A confounded labyrinth, that's what it is! If we got lost down here, we might spend the rest of our natural lives trying to find a way out."

He slipped his needle-gun from his bulger belt, let its scorching ray play for an instant on the rocky floor of the cavern. Hot rock bubbled, and a fresh, new groove shone sharply in the shape of an arrow.

"Every time we make a turn we'll do this. Then we can retrace our steps." Lane smiled sarcastically. "But a hot-and-cold engineer wouldn't think of a thing like that, I suppose?"

Tim made no reply. But he reproached himself secretly for not having considered this necessity; it did not make him feel much better that Dorothy, standing beside him, pressed his arm in mute encouragement.

The corridor was a short one, opening into another cavern like that which they had just quitted. Similar, but not quite the same. For as Lane played his light about the walls of this inner, deeper, chamber, all three adventurers gasped with the impact of sudden, breathtaking beauty. The ebon walls, warmed by the light, flashed into a glittering, scintilliscent miracle of loveliness; a galaxy of twinkling stars seemed to appear from nowhere and hang in dark space burning and gleaming.

"It--it's magnificent!" breathed the girl. "What is it, Daddy? Jewels? It looks like the fabulous caves of Ali Baba."

It was Tim who supplied the answer. "They're not jewels. Just nitre crystals protruding through a coating of black oxide of manganese. I've seen the same thing on Earth--in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky."

And they moved on. Deeper and yet deeper into the Lethean depths, pausing from time to time to char a signpost for their retreat. Miracles without wonder they saw. Domes huge enough to house a spaceship, stalactites lowering like great, rough fangs from ceilings lost in dizzy heights, twin growths springing, oftimes without apparent reason, from the cavern floor--stalactites formed by centuries of slow lime dripping from the roof. And gigantic columns, hoariest monsters of all, columns of strange, iridescent beauty.

Once they passed a pit so deep, so dark, that even the skipper's probing beam could not penetrate its majestic depths. From somewhere far below came the whispering surge of churned water; in the light of the flash there seemed to hover above the rim of this chasm a faint, white, wraithly film. Lane frowned, unscrewed his face-port for an instant, sniffed, and hastily ducked back into the bulger.

"Ammonia," he said. "I thought as much. Keep your bulger-ports closed. Venus caves aren't Earth caves. Queer things here. No telling what we'll bump into."

He didn't mention the all-too-obvious fact that so far they had not "bumped into" that thing which they sought. A fuel supply, a water supply, signs of an underground grotto wherein might be found food. Nor had their winding way at any time moved them toward the surface, toward a possible second exit from the caverns. Their movement was ever down, deeper into the bowels of this weird, faery wonderland.

* * * * *