Part 1

Vandals of the Void

By ROBERT WILSON

The Void had spawned these hell-creatures of destruction, had sown them deep within Earth's soil. And now Earth was reaping a whirlwind of death--weapons futile against the immortal conquerors from another space.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Art Douglas saw one of the very first of them, found and brought in by two drivers from the huge steel burrowing worm which was at that time conducting the sub-crust explorations many miles below the rolling Kansas prairies. Why the men should have brought the discovery to an organization such as the Interplanetary Research Institute, was something not quite clear to Art. They must have known, he reflected bitterly, how utterly bogged down the Institute was, how close to absolute disintegration, from inability to work or progress, and the resultant effect on the morale of the highly trained scientists who made up its staff.

But the weird organism which lay before him on the laboratory bench dispelled all such thoughts immediately. His imaginative, yet scientific brain leaped to meet the challenge and the Interplanetary Research Institute became only a workshop full of tools, ready for his use.

It was only natural that he should first assume that the creature-plants were probably native to the level at which they had been found, and that this was their natural environment. How terribly wrong this was to prove! Of the terrible menace in the thing before him, Douglas could not dream; although he could plainly see its potentialities. For it had been found boring through solid rock.

It seemed to have been designed for just that. Its form was that of spiral screw, about a foot long, tapering from a diameter of about an inch at one end, to four inches at the other. In color it was a dull blue-black, the surface fine textured and smooth, and steely hard. Its strength was of steel also, for it was constantly whipping about, trying to fasten its three needle sharp jaws, which were located at the smaller end, in anything it might find. One of the men who brought it had suffered a frightful gash in the forearm before they had learned that this could be avoided by picking it up at the larger end. The creature could not quite achieve the feat of bending itself double.

Art found that once it had hooked those fierce jaws into anything, it started boring and could not be torn loose. However, it would bore _only upward_! When laid on a flat table, it merely writhed about, looking for some object above it. He held a thick piece of board over it. The head had bored through in a few seconds, but when he turned the board over, it backed out hastily, and flopped to the table again, where it resumed its endless searching, searching for something, anything overhead, in which it could fasten its tenuous grip.

Art called and had a huge two ton block of granite brought in by the overhead crane. In its lower side he ordered some workmen to chip a cavity, a little larger than the creature on the table. The thing was dropped on the floor, and the block carefully lowered over it, so that it was imprisoned in the cavity. Art had a hunch that it would have made little difference to the creature whether it was allowed the cavity, or merely had the block dropped on it. A little shudder ran through him at the thought of such unearthly strength. He decided to go to lunch, before he got too deeply involved.

* * * * *

Passing through the outer office, he met Elene Moor, lovely secretary to Doctor Theller, Chief Director of the Institute and his immediate superior. He had known Elene in college before securing this position, and he remembered the sudden elation he had felt when he discovered that he would be working near the girl for whom he had felt such a hopeless yearning in school. She had been so popular, so surrounded by young men whose zest for life, talent for fun, and supply of ready cash had utterly overwhelmed him. Now, after five years of Interplanetary, such a dull apathy had settled over him that even Elene's golden loveliness failed to stir him.

"Might as well lunch with me, Elene," he said, seeing that she was about to leave. "I have an interesting topic of conversation for the first time in ages, it seems. In fact, I'm very anxious to tell you about it."

She looked at him closely. Something certainly had aroused his interest. His keen blue eyes were alight, and his rugged frame seemed to be invested with a nervous energy which had long been dormant. Elene was glad; he almost looked like the Art she had loved, and had such hopes for, when he had first come to the Institute. But his fine intellect had seemingly withered, stultified by the impossible situation which existed at Interplanetary in the year 2186. Several centuries of scientific struggling had finally produced a mode of interplanetary travel. In 2135, successful landings and safe returns had been made to and from Mars. A year later, Venus was also reached. But fifty-one years had produced little knowledge of any value; progress was at a standstill. Certainly the Martians had been found to be a highly developed and scientific race. They were peaceful and friendly. But they were also very wise. They were acquainted with the history of man on Earth as far back as the time of Christ. Their astronomical instruments made it possible to see plainly events there, under the proper conditions. With the coming of wireless, they had been able to intercept any and all signals they chose. They knew about all they needed or wanted to know about Earth. That was what made them so wary. For they had seen the torture of the early Christians, and the cruel subjugation of the known world by the Romans. They had seen in turn, the overrunning of Rome by the barbarian hordes. They had known Attila the Hun. They had witnessed the Spanish Inquisition. They had seen the slaughter of the aborigines in the new world, their gradual extinction by the white colonists. They had known Napoleon, and most monstrous and horrible of all, Hitler. They had finally seen the Great Gas War, which had so decimated the ranks of mankind, that it had been necessary to set up the International Peace Council, which established peace by the only method which mankind seemed to be able to understand--force.

* * * * *

It was rather simple. The laws were very strict: briefly, the manufacture, transporting, or even possession of any kind of murder weapon, other than what might be carried by a man for his personal defense, was considered sufficient evidence of intent to kill, and carried a death penalty. The agents and inspectors of the Council were everywhere, entering any machine shop or factory at will, constantly checking all sources of raw material, making almost impossible any secret manufacture of any type of armament.

But even this could not convince the canny Martians--for they knew that thousands of years of barbarism were covered only by a thin veneer. At any time, man's innate desire to conquer, pillage, and exterminate another race might break through. The Martians well knew the age-old tactics of infiltration used by colonists of Earth. Consequently, only a few scheduled rocket trips per year were permitted. The personnel of each expedition was restricted to a few scientists, who were carefully investigated. They were allowed to study the language, customs, and art of Mars. But scientific achievements and secrets were taboo. No Earthman was permitted to roam at will on Mars--the knowledge they acquired there was given them by an interviewing committee of high ranking Martians, whose ability to sidestep a direct question was uncanny.

Of course, there were a few political hotheads on Earth who advocated building a huge fleet of rocket ships, powered with disintegrators, and sending an expedition to subdue the red planet. Naturally, this merely served to corroborate the bad opinion of Earth held by the superscientists of Mars. A few men, such as Doctor Theller and Art, knew what awful disasters such a move would bring. Not only did the Martians have weapons which made the terribly effective, but uncontrollable, atomic disintegrator look like a clumsy toy, but they could also throw up a force field around their entire planet, at an unknown height, against which any invading ship would smash into blazing fragments.

True, there was Venus. Venus, the Jungle Planet. There were two environments of Venus--water and jungle. Both were filled with a teeming growth of nightmarish monsters, among which had been found no intelligent beings. The creatures of Venus were born, fought and ate one another, bred and died. That was all. The whole thing was one vast aquarium. Most of the species had been classified during the ten years following the first landing. There had been many expeditions at first. But gradually they tapered off. Attempts at colonization were given up as hopeless. The climate was sultry and oppressive, but worst of all was the fact that practically all of the vegetation of Venus was poisonous to humans. Any food crops introduced from Earth were strangled by the lush native vegetation, which grew at an incredible rate. Venus had no economic value. Minerals there were, but the expense of freighting them back to Earth by rocket ship made mining impractical.

As Elene mulled over these gloomy thoughts, she and Art had covered the short distance from the office to the tube that led to Food Center. As they entered, she saw that he also was preoccupied. In good time, he would tell her what had aroused his sudden enthusiasm. An empty car came by. A photoelectric cell registered their presence in the tube. It stopped, Art dropped a token in a slot in its side, and the door slid silently open. As they entered, Art grinned and said:

"They're junking these cars next year. Seems they have developed a new model. They were losing money on these--they waste a lot of time. They always stop for you whether you want a car or not; perhaps you're just waiting to meet someone, or just got off a car."

"I hardly see what they can do about that," laughed Elene. "Telepathic communication between man and a machine is something considered pretty far in the future."

"They still use the photo cell," answered Art, "but now it registers a complete picture of you. By a system of hand signals the prospective passenger will be able to indicate whether he wants a car, where he is going, et cetera. Even the control panel, which we now set for our destination, will be eliminated."

* * * * *

Soon they were seated in the one huge cafeteria which served the entire city of Washington. Various levels were frequented by different classes of citizens, and Art and Elene chose a quiet one, usually patronized by scientific and medical students. Their meal was ordered by dialing from a numbered menu and arrived automatically in a few seconds, piping hot.

Once they were settled, Art began to tell the girl of the weird thing that had been brought him.

"I've had no time at all to work on it, of course," he began, "but this much I can almost say for sure--this thing is not an organism like anything else on Earth's crust. Its life processes do not depend on oxidation. It's not composed, as we are, principally of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon. Carbon, perhaps, yes; that might give it some of its hardness--but it's inert, not involved in any chemical action. The thing neither breathes nor eats!"

"Please, Art, start at the beginning--you haven't told me what it looks like, or anything!"

"O.K., O.K.," he grinned, and obligingly did so, concluding with, "It's not much, maybe--hasn't anything to do with planetary research, but it's a job--something to keep me busy. That's hard enough to find, these days."

"Art," she said quickly, "it seems to me that there's plenty to do now, as never before; so much untapped knowledge right at our fingertips--"

"I don't see how you can say that," he interrupted bitterly. "I wouldn't exactly call Mars at our fingertips."

"Why Mars? It's always Mars, Mars. You don't have to go there. Find out the secrets they know for yourself. Just because you're stymied that doesn't mean you can't go ahead yourself. A young man with initiative could--"

"So I haven't any initiative!" he flared. "Well, how about yourself? After all, a woman now is as good as a man, you know--with modern advantages, physical strength and endurance aren't so important. A woman with enough courage and will power can do as much as any man."

"Yes, Art, but a woman is still a woman. All the scientific progress in the world can't change that--she still plays the passive role. Woman would cease to be feminine otherwise. That was proved way back in the twentieth century."

"I suppose you're right," he muttered. It had set him thinking. Was he losing his manhood? The human race didn't have so much need for expansion any more. Only greed and craving for adventure would set a man exploring now. And he had neither. Or had he? He thought of the daydreams he sometimes had--of roaming through the primitive jungles of Venus, searching perhaps for a trace of a near human, intelligent civilization, blasting his way through hordes of threatening monsters. But all that was silly; he was a trained man, and it would be very foolish to risk such a brain as his in that hotbed of violence.

Still, what good was that precious brain doing anyone at Interplanetary? The shortage of radium prevented their going ahead with the program of experiments which Dr. Theller had mapped out. The idea of wasting their dwindling supply in a roundabout process of learning what the Martians could so easily tell them, had turned the staff of the Institute into a pack of frustrated malcontents.

* * * * *

The Earth easily supported its population of ten billion. Masterpieces of engineering had irrigated and made fertile practically all of the Earth's surface, except around the poles. There was no need to grow crops, anyway, other than that fresh natural foods were more palatable. Enough food for a hundred billion people could be manufactured synthetically from the sun's rays. There was no need, say, for colonizing Venus, but such a project would certainly provide an outlet for the energies of a bored young scientist.

Art still sulked as they returned to the laboratory, but the idea had been planted in his mind, and the more he thought, the nearer he came to admitting that Elene was right. Little did he dream that he would soon be so busy that looking for thrills would be the least of his worries.

A white faced attendant met them at the front door of the laboratory.

"Dr. Douglas! That thing--we can't control it--it's--" Art ran to the room where he had left the creature. The granite block was where he had left it, but had a neat round hole in its top. Then he looked at the opposite wall of the room. It was a crumbling ruin. The wormlike animal had evidently wriggled its way to the plastocrete wall where it had started boring. As the wall was only five or six inches thick, it had kept emerging from one side or another, dropping to the floor, and starting all over again. The attendants, not knowing how to pick it up, had left it alone after suffering several gashes. They were afraid to handle it too roughly, for fear of damaging it. Art smiled grimly at this. He picked the thing up, threw it on the table. He decided that he would dissect the specimen here and now, find the secret of its mighty strength. But at that moment Dr. Theller came in.

"Well, Art, I hope you've thoroughly familiarized yourself with that creature because--"

"To tell you the truth, Dr. Theller, I don't know a darn thing about it!" retorted Art cheerfully.

"You're going to learn, Art--and mighty soon! I'm going to send you out to Los Angeles. Something catastrophic is happening out there. I can't get anything very clear over the televisor--I see confused pictures of buildings crashing, utter panic everywhere. All the accounts I've heard are garbled--but creatures like this seem to have something to do with it!

"Find out what you can, do what you can, then report back. Of course, the city has no defenses, other than the police force, and they are armed only with shock guns." It was true--war was non-existent; defensive armament was unnecessary. Everything was fireproof, making a fire department likewise unnecessary.

Art took off in his strato flier from the roof of the laboratory, climbing rapidly until he reached the thin isothermal layer, ten miles up. Then he leveled off, and accelerated slowly to a speed of over one thousand mph. At this rate, he would be able to reach Los Angeles in not over two and a half hours. The time dragged as Art tried to picture the disaster that had overtaken the West Coast city, and just how it could have been caused by animals like the one he had seen.

Art always disliked riding the strato layer. Too far below him were the rich, rolling prairies, the mountains covered with mighty timber trees and lush greenery. There was no desert, no wasteland. Any land not level enough to grow crops, or occupied by cities, was covered by thick forest. The only exceptions were the higher peaks of the Rockies, brilliant white patches against the green carpet. It was a beautiful old planet, this Mother Earth.

Far ahead and to his right, Art finally glimpsed the sparkle of sunlight of the Inland Sea. Once there had been a ghastly blazing hot desert there, called Death Valley, Art remembered from his school geography. Two centuries ago, engineers had dug a tunnel and let the water of the Pacific in, thereby giving the surrounding desert land a much moister climate. Such a primitive measure would not have been necessary in modern times. Distilled sea water could be piped anywhere, in any desired amount, for irrigation.

II

The sighting of the Inland Sea was a signal to start decelerating. The Los Angeles zone signal appeared, a red light on his control panel. The L.A. beam picked him up, swung him gently to the left, and brought him in automatically.

Below him he saw swarms of family fliers, all coming from the city. As he dropped down he found the traffic system entirely disorganized. Outgoing fliers were filling the incoming lanes. After narrowly missing sudden death several times, Art savagely dialed traffic center. The televisor screen lit up--but instead of a picture of the control officer seated at his switchboard, Art saw only an empty chair. It was only then that he realized the extent of the panic that gripped Los Angeles--for the control officer was sworn to remain at his post through the direst emergencies.

Now he was over the city--the vast terraced, pyramidical structures of the metropolitan area, each a mile square at the base, with a narrow rim of landing strip around each level. But as he descended lower he saw that they were no longer structures, but ruins. Even as he watched, they were crumbling and caving in on themselves. Some of them were already mere vast heaps of rubble. Projecting his helicopter propellers, he dropped down and hovered over one of them. Everywhere the broken plastoglass was covered with writhing, squirming duplicates of the creature back in his laboratory.

Art fished out his code book, found the wave length of Los Angeles Police Commissioner Horne, and rapidly dialled it. The strained and perspiring face of the Commissioner appeared, sitting at the controls of his ship as he vainly tried to straighten out the evacuating traffic.

"Douglas of the Institute reporting, Commissioner."

"Hope you brought some disintegrators!" barked the chief. "They're the only thing that will touch these beasts. The shock ray has no effect whatsoever on them. An electron torch will burn them, but that's no good--you can't go about killing them one by one. There are billions of them--they're everywhere!"

"Possibly you'd better describe the situation from the beginning for my benefit, Commissioner," Art interposed.

"What!" roared Horne. "Theller gave me to understand that you had had experience with these things, and understood them. Now you tell me--"

"Easy, Commissioner. I've seen one of these things before for a few minutes, and that's all. You asked for help and Dr. Theller sent me out here in good faith to do what I can." This served to quiet the policeman somewhat, for he merely grunted, "O.K., meet me at the top level of the Administration group; that's the silver one, the only one that still has a top level. You'll have to find it. We had to move out the traffic control--that section of the building's ready to go any minute now."

A dull grinding roar rose from everywhere below Art as he crossed the city. Clouds of dust billowed up as the huge pyramids fell in upon themselves piece by piece. He saw now the grimly effective way in which the creatures did their job. As long as there was one piece left standing on another, they would bore and chew until it was reduced to fragments. Blind instinct, rather than malice, seemed to impel them. But the effect was equally devastating. Art saw scores of people wiped out by falling wreckage when the rapidly shuttling overloaded fliers failed to remove them in time. He saw one man, trapped amidst a mass of the writhing horrors, make a sudden dash for freedom, and go down screaming in agony as dozens of savage jaws instantly fastened themselves in his flesh. Art shuddered. Something had to be done to stop this carnage.

* * * * *

By the time he sighted the commissioner's flier atop the silver pyramid of the Civic Center, he had evolved the rudiments of a plan.

He wasted no time on amenities as he met the police chief, but came to the point immediately. "Here's my idea of it, Horne. Los Angeles as a city is doomed. But I think we can save most of the people who are still here."

"How about those disintegrators?" cut in Horne. The disintegrator, being still in the experimental stage, was dynamite in the hands of the untrained. The terrific atomic explosions it set up were uncontrollable and unpredictable. Only the most highly respected and trusted scientists were even allowed to handle one. Horne nursed an idea that all his patrolmen should have been issued one to pack on their hips, and that if they had, this would never have happened.

"I have a couple with me. We can use them, but we'll have to be extremely careful. My main proposal is to get to San Francisco, Los Vegas, and all the other principal cities around here organized. Have them send millions of civilian fliers. Did you ever hear of the battle of Dunkirk in World War II? The British saved their army to fight again another day, just in that manner."

"Do you suppose I haven't thought of that?" snapped the chief. "I've already asked them. They're afraid to come. Only a few ships have trickled in."

"We've got to convince them that it's safe for a flier," insisted Art. "Show them on the televisor--send your patrolmen out to explain--anything!"

"All right," agreed Horne. "We'll try it. But I don't believe we can get them all out in time even so. Do you know that there are ten million people out in the poorer residential section, very few of whom own a flier, who depend on the public surface cars for their transportation? Central Power is dead--not a car moves in the city. My patrolmen have been out in La Brea six hours, trying to find an avenue of escape, through which they can lead those people out on foot. Every time they run into a new growth of these--these damnable monsters, and have to start all over again."