Part 1

Meteor-Men of Mars

By Harry Cord and Otis Adelbert Kline

Like tiny meteors, the space-ships plunged into Earth's atmosphere, carrying death for all who opposed their flight. The fate of a world rested in Hammond's hands--and his wrists were fettered at his sides.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

It came out of the dawn sky, slanting like a fiery meteor out of the east. The two men in the skiff saw the glowing streak in the sky and heard the sound of its passage, like the loosing of a nest of angry snakes overhead, a scant second before it plummeted into the calm waters of the Sound.

A geyser of water and steam shot up not a hundred yards from the maroon and gold skiff. The boat rocked and pitched to the disturbance.

Frank Hammond, seated at the bow, clamped a taped hand over the side to hold himself, surprise quickening the intentness of his dark, handsome face. He was a lithe, bronzed figure, clad only in blue trunks and rope sandals. Stroking for his college crew in years that were warm memories had padded naturally wide shoulders.

"What the devil?" he ejaculated. "Did you see that, Pete?"

Peter Storm grinned. Two inches under his companion's six foot length, he weighed ten pounds more--a heavily muscled figure who could move with deceptive speed as many an opposing eleven had found out in his college football days. Blond, phlegmatic of nature, he took things easier than his more restless friend.

"Meteor, you dummox!" he jibed, good-naturedly. "Ever hear of one before?"

Hammond stared at the spot where the agitation was quieting. "I heard of them," he said shortly. "But this is the first time one ever fell this close to me."

Storm shrugged. "Forget it. This is our last day before going back to the grind. Let's make the most of it. Remember that bet we--Boy!" He broke off, standing up to haul in.

His catch proved to be a bluefish, a three pounder. He unhooked it, disgustedly, while Frank, measuring it with a quick glance, gave him a Bronx cheer. "If you can't do better than that that new hat's in the bag," he jeered.

They went back to their heaving and hauling, bantering good naturedly over every catch, completely forgetting the strange visitor from the skies.

Both were research chemists for the New York Analytical Laboratories; both were unmarried. They had been inseparable comrades since their college days, when both wore identical crew cuts, dressed alike, and always either double-dated or stagged it. In memory of those days their skiff, the _Crawfish_, had been painted maroon inside and a golden yellow outside, maroon and gold having been their school colors.

Their vacation camp was on Ramson's Island, just off Ramson's point on the Connecticut shore. The rocky island was uninhabited. They had left camp early, intent on making the most of their last day. Reaching the fishing "hole" they had anchored. Both men taped their hands, and each prepared his jig, a long bar of lead to which a hook was attached, and began the process of "heaving and hauling" used in the vicinity for luring bluefish.

They had been at it for about an hour when the "meteor" landed.

Fifteen minutes later they had forgotten it.

* * * * *

The sun was a huge red ball balanced on the rim of the sea when Frank suddenly felt a jerk on his line that nearly wrenched his arm from its socket. He said nothing. His lips merely tightened, eagerly, as he wished to surprise his companion by hauling in the big one unexpectedly.

But this proved harder than he thought.

His potential catch darted off with such a burst of speed and strength that it dragged boat, anchor and all!

"Hey!" yelled Storm, clutching the boat sides to hold himself. "What's on that jig? A shark? Better cut that line before it swamps us!"

"Like heck I will!" Hammond grunted, hanging on to the line with both taped hands. "This must be the grandfather of all big blues. That new hat's in the bag!"

With both feet braced against the thwarts, he leaned back and pulled with all his strength. Bit by bit he hauled the "big one" in close, till finally he was able to lift it out of the water and into the boat.

Both men exclaimed in amazement at the thing which came over the side and clanked to the bottom of the boat. It was neither a giant bluefish nor a shark. It was a shiny, iridescent object, slightly shaped like a shark, but quiescent now, and seemingly lifeless.

"What kind of a fish do you call that?" asked Storm disgustedly, leaning forward for better view of the catch. "It looks like a cross between a shark and a toy submarine."

"Damned if it don't!" Hammond replied, staring bewilderedly at his catch.

The thing was about thirty inches in length, with both vertical and dorsal fins. But instead of one dorsal fin it was equipped with four fins placed equidistantly around the body. These fins contained numerous tubular quills or spines with round openings at the ends, and Hammond's hook had caught between two of these spines. It was as heavy as if made of steel, but despite its weight and metallic sound when struck, it appeared to be constructed entirely of a bluish, iridescent mother-of-pearl.

Hammond removed his hook from between the spines, and lifted his catch onto the empty boat seat between them.

"Better heave it overboard," advised Storm, seriously. "It might be a new-fangled type of mine or bomb. I don't like the looks--"

He stood, open-mouthed, as the "thing" suddenly shot off the boat seat with a hissing roar like that of a small rocket. It scorched the paint as it took off with small, orange-green flares emanating from the tubular quills. It shot upward with incredible speed and was almost immediately lost to view.

Storm's mouth closed slowly. "Hell!" he said, a little dazedly. "I'm afraid to start fishing again, Frank. Might catch a cross between a battleship and a whale."

"I'm hauling up anchor," Hammond countered, grimly. "I don't like the looks of this at all. The coast guard ought to hear of this."

He got one hand on the anchor rope and was starting to hoist in when the strange "catch" suddenly reappeared. It came down in a long slant, circled over the skiff a few times, and finally settled on the scorched seat from which it had taken off.

Hammond stared at the thing and swore. Peter Storm took a firm hold of his oar.

Holes suddenly appeared in the strange craft. Hammond noticed that there were no doors in evidence. The holes seemed to dilate open, like camera shutters, in the gleaming body.

From these openings a host of small creatures crawled. They swarmed out toward both ends of the boat seat.

Storm straightened, oar in hand. "Ants!" he snapped, disgustedly. He began to swing the ash blade down on the scurrying creatures.

The things continued to move about, apparently unharmed. Dents appeared in the oar and in the seat.

Hammond bent over the scurrying creatures and studied them. "No use, Pete," he muttered. "They're not ants. There's no division of head, thorax and abdomen. They're eight-legged and cephalothoracic--more like the arachnids." His startled surprise was fading under the prod of scientific curiosity. "Funny thing, Pete--the legs and shells seem to be composed of the same substance as the 'thing' they come from. Look!"

Storm dropped his oar and came forward. The boat rocked a little to his shift of weight. A faint humming came from the "thing" on the seat, catching his attention.

But Hammond, intent on one of the small creatures he was about to pick up, did not notice. Not until Pete's hoarse shout jerked him away.

"Look out, Frank! That tube--"

Hammond straightened up to face his friend. But Peter Storm had vanished, as if he had never been!

Between Hammond and where Storm had been was the "thing" on the seat. The humming emanating from it now was distinctly audible, and ominous!

A shining tube, mounted in a turret, had appeared in one of the openings. The tube was swinging around, lining itself on Hammond.

The dazed chemist did not think. He reacted instinctively, knowing, somehow, that that tube was related to Storm's disappearance. He twisted, violently, and tried to dive over the boat side.

Something halted him in the act. He felt a strange numbness wrap itself about him, and a cold like nothing he had ever experienced penetrated to his very vitals. Then he felt himself falling, as if through an endless blackness....

* * * * *

The darkness faded, slowly. He felt his feet jar on solid ground, and the terrible cold left him. But for long moments Frank Hammond stood rigid, his dazed mind trying to accept the strange world he had fallen into.

The landscape about him was maroon in color. Irregular ridges and gullies of apparently molten stone hemmed him in. Off to his left he could see a huge, bubbly pit that reminded him of fumaroles he had seen in the National Yellowstone Park. Far in the distance, to his right and left, maroon cliffs towered into blue mists.

Hammond stared at the weird scene. Under him he could feel the slow rise and sway of the entire land, as if it were unstable, rocking in space!

For the first few moments Hammond thought he was dreaming. He must have been rendered unconscious by the strange "thing" on the boat. Soon he would awaken--

But the slightly swaying maroon landscape persisted. Hammond looked down at his nearly naked, bronzed body. He hadn't changed. He took a few tentative steps toward the bubbly pit, and the sudden realization that all this _was_ real sickened him.

Where was he? What had happened to him and Storm?

A harsh, metallic rattle answered him. Hammond whirled. Topping one of the far ridges appeared an eight-legged monster of gigantic size. It was without head or tail. Its unsegmented body was an iridescent blue, and shaped like a giant pumpkin seed.

The thing flashed menacingly in the bright light of a sun that was but a huge blur in the misty sky. It headed for Hammond with incredible speed, a huge foreleg stretching out in readiness.

Hammond wasted no time in speculation. His dazed mind reacted to but one impulse. Flight!

Turning, he ran for the nearest gully. He went down in a half scramble, and ran along it, the walls looming over his head.

But his huge pursuer gained on him. He could hear the metallic rattle of those flashing legs close behind him. Despair gripped the young chemist as he scrambled out of the gully and ran up the nearest ridge.

The landscape ahead of him was dipping down as he ran, seemingly being tilted by his weight. The thought came back to Hammond that this must be a nightmare. The eight-legged, colossal thing pursuing him was exactly like the tiny antlike creatures that had swarmed out of the strange "catch" he pulled into the _Crawfish_ but a few hours ago. Or was it a few hours?

He didn't know. He no longer knew anything. Grim-faced, his breath beginning to come in gasps, he slid down a steep maroon bank, and raced along the shadowed cut that gradually deepened.

It was a hopeless flight. Behind him the clattering monster came, running along the top of the ravine which was too narrow to allow it to enter.

The steep-walled cut suddenly ended. The sides here were steep and smooth--a perfect cul-de-sac. Hammond turned, his brown fists clenched.

The walls hemming him in were perhaps fifteen feet above his head. The metal monster halted on the rim. A strange light blinked on in the nose of that creature, or mechanism. It probed down at him, spotlighting him. A giant foreleg, ending in a formidable pair of forceps, reached down along the light beam for him.

The focussing light, swinging along the opposite wall before steadying on Hammond, had revealed to the desperate research chemist a transverse fissure, barely wide enough to admit him. Hammond took the chance. The giant claw was but a foot above his head when he twisted, sprang away from the wall. The forcep jerked, swung after him. Hammond beat it to the fissure by a foot.

He didn't stop. He kept running, looking back over his shoulder to see if the monster was following. He didn't notice the fissure ended abruptly in space. Not until he suddenly felt himself treading empty air. Then he began to fall, turning slowly, like a slow motion diver in the newsreels.

* * * * *

He fell a long way. In terms of feet, as he judged it, the drop was incredible. Below him a huge mass loomed out of a brown, heaving sea. Above him--he saw it, once, as he faced upward in his turning fall--he glimpsed what was a gigantic span of maroon earth, hundreds of feet thick, that was supported by the huge, maroon cliffs at either side.

It was from that span he had fallen!

A strange, numbing thought came to him, then, so incredible in its implication he discarded it. But it persisted, kept tapping at the back of his mind--

He was still in the _Crawfish_!

The thought was fantastic. Yet it was less incredible than if it were not true. The turreted tube, evidently, had sprayed an invisible ray that had so changed him in size that the antlike things he had been about to examine now loomed like colossi over him. The ridges and gullies and fumaroles were brush marks and paint bubbles in the maroon paint of the seat, and the towering cliffs were the boat sides. The high span from which he was falling must be nothing less than the boat seat!

And the huge, elliptical land mass toward which he was falling must be--

He landed then. The substance beneath his feet was soft, spongy. It broke his fall. Around him was a momentary red glow, as of the sun shining through a filter that blocked out all waves above the red band. He passed through slimy pools within the huge mass, and momentary revulsion gripped him. Then he emerged out into brief daylight, riding a huge disc to the brown, heaving sea.

He hit with a splash. Fathoms deep to him, he went directly to the bottom, as if he were composed of a substance many times heavier than lead. And he remained on the bottom. Not even his instinctive attempt to swim upward could lift him to the surface.

The ironic thought hit him then, as death stared at him with grinning face. The huge mass through which he had plunged must have been the body of one of the bluefish they had caught. Evidently, though incredibly reduced in size, his weight in relation to the earth's pull, was still one hundred and eighty pounds. And the brown, heaving sea at the bottom of which he now rested, was merely the bilge water of the _Crawfish_. And in the next minute or two he, Frank Hammond, was going to drown in it!

He turned, instinctively, and ran for the boat side. Again he felt the boat tip to his unbalancing weight. Overhead the bilge water rushed to lap high against his side.

There was danger that his weight would so tip the skiff that it would ship water from the Sound. But he had to chance it, or drown where he stood.

His lungs were nearly bursting when he came upon the dark, gigantic loom of the boat side. And strangely, at this moment, the steep slant of the floor began to level--the bilge water washed back from the side.

The thought came to Hammond, then, that Peter Storm must be running for the opposite side of the boat, instinctively realizing the need of keeping this strange world on an even keel.

Lungs bursting, Hammond started the climb up the dark wall. Like some tiny mite, almost invisible to the naked eye, Hammond finally emerged from the bilge water. Aching lungs drew in great draughts of clean air.

Spent, still somewhat dazed by the incredible truth, he did not notice the eight-legged colossus that came down along the cliff toward him. Not until it loomed over him, and a giant claw reached down for him, did he become aware of it. And then it was too late.

He gasped, tried to dodge.

A giant forcep grasped him about the middle, and with a quick, deft motion another claw-like appendage clipped a small, parachute-like metal harness over his shoulders. Then the first forcep lifted him, easily, and drew him up to the metal monster where a round port dilated open and he was thrust inside.

* * * * *

The huge claw withdrew, and the port closed. Hammond blinked his eyes. He was in a big room, the ceiling of which was transparent, letting in a subdued light. Ringing him, in a circle two deep, were warriors of an ancient era. Amazons, complete to breast plates and oval shields, cinctures and sandals. Lithe, beautiful, yet erect and disciplined, they watched him as a trainer watches a jungle cat on its first day in the arena.

Hammond waited. The thought came to him, now, that these were very modern Amazons. For beside the shield they carried a weapon that closely resembled a modern rifle. And on their shoulders each carried an identical parachute-like contrivance similar to the one fastened on Hammond.

The young chemist took a deep breath. He said: "What's the idea, girls? This some kind of a new game?"

The sound of his voice seemed to startle them. A golden haired warrior, perhaps a minor officer, for she wore a green armlet, made a short, quick gesture.

The ringing warriors closed in on Hammond. Instinct moved the young chemist's arms--the instinct to fight, to win free of this strange experience he could not understand. But crippling that instinct were the habits of civilization.

He couldn't bring himself to hit these girls, warriors or no.

Yet he tried to win free. He pushed the first two off their feet, whirled, and bucked the rest of the line with his shoulders. They parted under his assault. But with disciplined movement the others closed in and fairly smothered him under them.

He felt metal clasped about his arms and legs, and suddenly he was unable to struggle, to heave free of that pinning mass. Panting, his face grim, he subsided.

* * * * *

The Amazons reformed ranks. He was left with arms and legs chained in a manner that allowed him, when on his feet, to take short steps forward.

The officer with the green armband gestured again, and gave with it a verbal order. Her voice was musical, in a tongue entirely alien to Hammond.

Two warriors marched forward, bent, helped Hammond to his feet. The officer took hold of the free length of blue chain, and started to walk Hammond toward the far end of the big room.

Hammond followed. Behind him the two warriors kept pace, rifle-like weapons held ready.

A door dilated open in the wall, and Hammond found himself in a long, softly lighted runway. He was marched along this to another door, and motioned within.

The door closed behind him.

It was a small room, bare and blank on three sides save for a number of iron handgrips on the walls. The fourth wall was transparent. Hammond shuffled to it. At the same moment the floor under him pitched and rolled, and the clank of machinery rumbled through the iron monster.

He grasped the nearest handgrip, and clung. Looking out through the transparent wall, he could see that the monster tank (for now he guessed the eight-legged antlike thing to be) was climbing up the boat side to the seat.

The tank leveled off. Above him towered the outlines of the "big one." Scores of the monster tanks were climbing back up the parent side, to disappear in as many openings.

The tank which held Hammond moved steadily, nosed into its compartment. The door closed after them. The tank rumbled on across a large, dimly lighted room, more like some enormous storage garage, for Hammond could glimpse the bulks of dozens of the huge tanks along the far walls, and in one corner he saw several of what resembled fast, ultra streamlined, all metal planes.

The tank came to a halt. The door of Hammond's cell opened, and the officer with the two guards came in. Hammond was motioned to follow her out.

He was led out of the tank which was immediately maneuvered to its niche among the vague bulks along the wall. A door dilated open at the officer's approach, and they passed through it into another long, green lighted runway. They went along this for some distance, then turned into another room, as huge as the colossal garage into which the tank had entered.

Thousands of the wiry Amazons were swarming in through a hundred doorways to this room. Evidently they were members of the expedition which had been sent to locate and capture him, and which must have consisted of nearly a hundred of the strange, ambulatory war tanks.

The Amazon officer led him across this huge room which reminded Hammond of a railway or bus terminal, and into another corridor. It was then that the hugeness of the "big one" became evident to Hammond.

They marched through a number of huge rooms, climbed three spiral ramps, and popped into a half dozen tranverse corridors. And only on these upper levels, in rooms that held banks of whirring machinery, did Hammond see the males.

They carried no weapons. They all wore white, collarless crew neck garments that resembled smocks which came down to their knees. They sported bearded chins and jowls, but smooth shaven upper lips. The beards were all trimmed to sharp points, and they looked alike as stenciled copies.

But here and there among them were some with remarkable physical characteristics. Each of these occasional individuals had a tremendously large left arm, fully as big as one of his legs. It was carried crooked at the elbow, with the forearm held horizontally in front of him. The right arm, on the contrary, was spindly and underdeveloped. These males had thin, scraggy beards, and strange dull eyes that followed Hammond as he was marched past.

If the other males noticed him they gave no sign. They seemed completely subordinated in this huge craft.

The spiral ramps kept leading upward. Finally they reached a corridor with a transparent ceiling, and Hammond realized that he was now at the top of the strange craft. A moment later he was led before a door at either side of which stood a stiff Amazon guard.

The guards saluted the officer by raising the right hand to the heart. Then they stepped aside. The officer stared at the closed door. Her forehead furrowed slightly. Then she nodded. Turning, she removed the shackles from Hammond, stepped back.

The door dilated open. The officer made a sharp, unmistakable gesture with her right hand, and the armed guard took a stolid step forward.

Hammond shrugged. Ducking a little to clear the top of the doorway, he stepped inside.

* * * * *

Across the well lighted room, close to the transparent prow of the ship, was a huge, metal desk. Papers and small charts lay scattered upon it. But Hammond's eyes scarcely noticed.

He stopped, just within the room, the door closing silently behind him. Then he took a deep breath, and grinned: "Now I know I must be dreaming!"

The girl behind the desk did not smile. She looked at him, solemnly, then a strange, quick fire leaped across her startlingly beautiful face. She lowered her gaze abruptly, and her hands stiffened on the desk. She rose, and when she looked again at Hammond there was a hardness, a piercing penetration to her sea-green eyes that seemed to probe like a surgeon's scalpel into Hammond's very brain. A fire seemed to spread, quickly, through his mind, as though long dormant cells were stirring, growing to awareness.

And with it, impacting strangely on his ears, the girl spoke, her voice low and musical. "Earthman, your thoughts are unpleasant to me. I, Gena, commander of the spacecraft, _Vandar III_, with a million warriors at my disposal, am not for you."