Hammill’s mind made contact with that of one Dovrak Lemorn, a jetman aboard the cruiser. Hammill transmitted an image to him—that of Lord Kleyne, ordering the jetman to open the secondary airlock.
Hammill smiled as he heard the jetman say, “At once, lord,” to the empty jetroom, and move toward the lever that operated the airlock.
Hurry, Dovrak! Hammill ordered.
The airlock slid open and Hammill leaped in.
“Who are you?” the jetman asked, just before Hammill struck him down with a bolt of mental energy. He turned and ran down the corridor. Now that he was within the thought-shield, he could detect the pulsing vibrance of the hsrorn, focussing the hatred of the Starlords against the Terran fleet.
It was Hammill and Nita against Kleyne plus the hsrorn. Hammill had no time to see if the odds were with him. He burst into the control-room—and reeled back as a bolt from the hsrorn sent him staggering.
“Hammill! Inside the thought screen!”
It was Kleyne—only Kleyne had not dared to use the hsrorn alone after all. He stood in the control-room with six other men in the ornamented robes of Starlords; their hands were joined in a ring. The seven of them, together, could handle the mighty voltage of the hsrorn, where one man—as Brannis—would be burned out instantly.
Hammill recovered and thrust up mental defenses. Sweat poured down his body. He wasn’t sure if he could handle only Kleyne—and now there were seven Starlords!
They turned their attention away from the battle and on Hammill. He felt the blazing power of the hsrorn driving him back, back, relentlessly.
Seven against one—and they had the hsrorn. Feebly he repulsed their assault, batted away the impulses radiating from them, but slowly they forced him to his knees.
Hammill reeled dizzily. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard Nita urging him on, urging him to rally and drive the Starlords back—but he could not. Another few steps and they would reach him, and then he would be vulnerable to orthodox weapons—such as the blaster in Kleyne’s hands.
There was one defense.
He would have to create a hsrorn of his own.
With part of his mind, Hammill unleashed a blast of mental power that rocked the Starlords momentarily and gave him the instant of freedom he needed.
His mind reached out, questing toward the nearest star. He plunged into its heart, dove deep into the blazing fire—and plucked out a flaming mass of light!
The Starlords pressed him relentlessly as he drew the light from the heart of the star, drew it toward him, compressed it, crystallized it, infused it with life and purpose and power.
“We’ve got him now!” he heard Kleyne cry jubilantly. The Starlords rushed forward, bursting through Hammill’s temporarily-weakened defenses, drove in for the kill—
Hammill looked up and saw Kleyne’s hate-contorted face hovering over him.
“Sorry, Kleyne,” he said almost regretfully. With a final gigantic wrench, he pulled the newly-created hsrorn to him. It hovered in the air just above his eyes, glowing and filling the cabin with its light.
Hammill focussed his mind through it—and hurled Kleyne and his six cohorts back against the far wall of the cabin!
The other six Starlords remained where they had fallen, knocked unconscious by the tremendous power of Hammill’s mental thrust. But Lord Kleyne was on his feet in an instant with the hsrorn grasped tightly in his hand! The practice in using it with the other Starlords had enabled Kleyne to use it by himself! Kleyne, by himself, could now control the mental energies of the hsrorn!
With a look of hate on his thin, handsome face, the Starlord of Starlords hurled a bolt of mental force calculated to slay any living thing. Instantly, Hammill erected a mental barrier against it, and the spear of hate splashed harmlessly aside. At the same time, Hammill blasted back at Kleyne.
But Kleyne, too, warded off the blow. Mind to mind, both powered by the tremendous forces of the hsrorn, the two men faced each other.
The battle between them was silent. Neither man moved. But the titanic energies unleashed between them became a roaring holocaust in the infraspace of the mind.
No unprotected mind could withstand even a small percentage of that gigantic torrent of power. Within a few milliseconds, every crewman on the ship and the six unconscious Starlords had died, their minds burned out by the flare of silent energy from the battle in the control room.
It was a stalemate. Powered as they both were by the forces of the hsrorn, neither could gain an advantage over the other.
Meanwhile, the Earth Fleet, disastrously weakened by the directed mental blasts of the Starlords, was fighting a losing battle. And the reinforcements were still over two days away!
Slowly, Lord Kleyne moved his right hand. It was difficult for him to concentrate on moving his hand and to concentrate on the Earthman at the same time, but the hand moved, nonetheless.
Hammill saw what Kleyne was doing; he was reaching for the blaster at his hip. And Hammill was unarmed!
Carefully, slowly, Hammill took a step toward the Starlord. It was difficult; in order to move his foot, he had to think about it. And if he took any attention whatever from the screen that was holding off the mental bolts of Lord Kleyne, if that screen were to weaken in the slightest—Hammill would die. And with him would die Earth’s fleet and Earth itself.
But he had to move forward. If Kleyne managed to draw the ray pistol at his side, he could kill Hammill where he stood.
And then a thought came into Hammill’s mind.
Hold on, Earthman! We are coming! Hold on!
It was the voice of the Council of Rhodanas! Had they, then, changed their minds? Hammill didn’t know. He took another step forward.
Lord Kleyne’s hand was only inches from the butt of his pistol now.
There was only one chance for Hammill. Gathering every ounce of mental and physical strength he could muster, he hurled one tremendous bolt of mind-shattering force against the Starlord, and simultaneously launched his body across the control room in a great leap.
His shoulder slammed into the Starlord’s solar plexus, and the pain of the blow momentarily distracted Lord Kleyne’s mind. Just for an instant, he dropped his screen. And in that instant, he died, his mind seared into death by the vastly greater power of Hammill’s mind.
With the mental pressure so suddenly removed, Hammill felt his senses reel for a moment. He shook his head dizzily, trying to get the fog out of his brain. When his head cleared, he looked up at the astroplate. The Battle of the Eighth Decant was still going on.
But there was one difference. The Earth fleet was winning! Somehow, the reinforcements had arrived. Then Hammill realized what had happened. The Council must have brought them. The full power of the people of Rhodanas, backed by the unthinkable energies of the hsrorn, had pulled Earth’s reinforcement fleet to the battle in a matter of seconds.
That is correct, Hammill, said the resonant mental voice of the Council.
“Why did you change your minds?” Hammill asked telepathically.
We did not, the Council said. We had intended to aid you from the start. But we couldn’t tell you so openly. You would never have developed your present mental power if you had depended on us. You had to learn by fighting your own battles.
“I see,” Hammill said. “But why? Why did you want me to develop such powers?”
The Starlords are dead. The peoples of this galaxy have been enslaved by them for so long that they are no longer capable of governing themselves. A strong mind was needed for the job. We chose you—and Nita. This galaxy is yours, now, Hammill; yours and Nita’s. Rule it well.
And then came Nita’s voice. I’m coming, Laird Hammill!
And, again projected by the might of the Council’s mind, Nita appeared suddenly in the control room beside him.
“We’ve won, darling,” she said as he took her in his arms.
HARWOOD’S VORTEX
(1956)
“Harwood’s Vortex” is
a formula story too—Bill Hamling hadn’t hired Garrett and me to surprise his readers with dazzling avant-garde fiction—but the formula it follows had its antecedents not in the action-oriented pulp magazines of the 1930s but in the science-oriented magazines that the pioneering s-f publisher Hugo Gernsback had issued beginning in 1926. Gernsback believed that the science in science fiction came first, the fiction being only an incidental, and instead of recruiting the experienced pulp-magazine storytellers of his day to fill his pages, he brought in a crew of largely amateur new writers who had little skill at plotting or characterization but could build their tales around some ingenious facet of science. A standard cast of characters for such Gernsbackian fiction evolved: the dedicated scientist (usually devoted to his experiments to the point of madness), his beautiful daughter, and the valiant young laboratory assistant or, perhaps, newspaperman, who finds a way of coping with the catastrophe that the mad scientist has unleashed, rescues the beautiful daughter from the predicament that her father’s reckless work has entangled her in, and lives happily ever after.
Hardly anyone was still writing stories like that in August, 1956, when, newly graduated from Columbia, fresh from the glory of having sold a three-part serial to Campbell’s Astounding, and about to win my first Hugo award at the New York science-fiction convention, I turned out “Harwood’s Vortex” for Hamling, complete with mad scientist (“‘It’s an experiment, young man,’ Harwood said. ‘Would you mind leaving my house right now?’”) and beautiful daughter (“‘Daddy’s experiment,’ Laura half-sobbed. ‘It—it worked!’”) and, of course, Daddy’s experiment has worked only too well (“globes of light…like so many loathsome jellyfish…bodies lay everywhere, charred and lifeless…”), but also there is the fearless hero who demonstrates superior coping abilities (“There would be a lot of work to do. I would have to find the authorities, if any were left, and show them how to build my generator…”)
What I admire about the story is the sheer unabashedness of it. Writing with a straight face, I pushed every button, plugged in every module that a mad-scientist story required, and yet managed to tell the story with some semblance of smooth 1950s narrative technique rather than doing it in the creaky, stilted Gernsback manner. Hamling ran it in the April, 1957 issue of Imagination, along with another story of mine and two of Garrett’s, for by now we had sent him three of our monthly packages of stories and were starting to fill most of the magazine with our work.
——————
The vortex bubbled up out of nowhere, hung shimmering in the air in front of me, glistened and gleamed brightly. There was a whirlpool of twisting currents in the air, and I wavered dizzily for a second or two while the Invaders poured through the newly-created gulf.
Then someone had me by the hand, someone was pulling me away. Leading me inside the house, behind a screen, safe from danger.
I didn’t understand what had happened. I was numb with shock, half-blinded by the brightness. I felt Laura near me, and that was all I cared to think about.
After a couple of minutes, I opened my eyes. “What was that?” I asked weakly. “What happened?”
Two minutes before, I had been approaching the Harwood house, impatient to see Laura, untroubled by the world around me. And suddenly—
“It was Daddy’s experiment,” Laura half-sobbed. “It—it worked!”
“The old crackpot,” I said. “The dimensional gulf—at last? I wouldn’t believe it, if I hadn’t nearly fallen into it!”
She nodded. “I saw you staggering around out there. I got out front just in time to—to—”
I held her tight against me, while she unloaded some of her anxiety. She sobbed for a minute or two, not trying to say anything. I looked uneasily out the window. Yes, it was still going on.
Right in front of Abel Harwood’s house, the vortex was open—and coming up through it were what we later knew as the Invaders. Globes of light, radiant and intangible, floating up out of nowhere and ringing themselves in the air like so many loathsome jellyfish.
“Why doesn’t he close it?” I asked. “Those things are still coming through! Laura, where’s your father?”
“I’m right here,” said a cold, business-like voice from behind me. I turned and saw Abel Harwood’s husky frame in the door. “What do you want of me?” Harwood asked.
“Do you see what’s going on out there?”
He nodded. “So?”
“Those things out there—what are they? What are you letting into the world, Harwood?”
“It’s an experiment, young man.” He crossed his arms over his dressing-gown. “Would you mind leaving my house, now?”
“Daddy!”
“You keep out of this, Laura.” He turned to me. “I’ve asked you to leave my house. I don’t want you meddling in my experiments any more.”
I repressed an urge to aim a kick at his well-stuffed belly. Abel Harwood was a crackpot, a crazy amateur scientist who had been riding this other-dimension kick for years. Now, he’d let loose Lord knew what upon the world—the things were still funneling through the gateway—and he was determined to see it continue.
“Harwood, you’re playing with something too big for you! You’re foolish and blind, and you—”
“You’re a trespasser,” he interrupted. “I’ve ordered you out of my home twice, already. Will you go now—or do I have to get my gun?”
“I’ll go,” I said. I broke loose from Laura and, with an uneasy look at the gateway outside, headed for the door.
“Wait. Dad—you can’t make him go outside in that!”
“Quiet, Laura.”
She started to say something else, but I put my hand on her arm. “Never mind, Laura.”
I opened the front door and stepped outside.
It was hellish out there. The things had formed a circle around the vortex in the air and hung there, humming and crackling. The air was dry and strange-smelling.
I paused on the porch of the Harwood house for just a moment, tucked my head under my arm and ran—ran as fast as my legs would go. I charged through the garden, carefully averting the vortex that had opened right in front of me, circled the nest of things buzzing in the air, and dashed down the street.
One of the creatures followed me a short distance, hovering a foot or two above my head. I watched it uneasily, dodged and ducked as it took swipes at me. It caught me once, a grazing blow on the side of my scalp. I smelled burned hair, and felt as if I’d stuck my head up an electric socket. It drove low for another swipe.
And just then it began to rain. The heavens opened and the water came pouring down and the sky was bright with lightning. And the globes went up to meet it. The one that had been tormenting me forgot me in an instant and went to join its fellows.
I stood there and watched them. They rose in a straight line—there must have been a hundred of them by now—climbing upwards, toward the black clouds overhead. The sky was split by a giant bolt of lightning, and I saw all hundred of them limned grotesquely against it, enlarged and given color by the lightning, drinking it. Then I started running again.
I kept on running until I was home, in my two-room flat near the University. I dove in, locked and bolted the door, threw off my soaking clothing. I grabbed for the phone and dialed the Harwood number.
“Hello?”
It was Laura’s voice. I sighed in relief. It could have been old Abel, after all.
“Laura? This is Chuck.”
Her voice dropped. “Daddy’s right here. I can’t talk very much.”
“Tell me—what the devil has he done? You should have seen those things drinking up the lightning!”
“I did,” she said. “I know what you mean.”
“Is the gateway still open?”
“Yes. They’re still coming through. Chuck, I—I don’t know what’s going to happen. I—no, Daddy!”
There was a sound of a little scuffle, and then the phone went dead. I stared at the silent receiver for a second, then let
it thunk back on the cradle. I sat down on the edge of my bed and stared at my soggy socks for a long while.
Abel Harwood fit the classic description of a crackpot perfectly. My status as an authentic scientist—if only an underpaid engineer—gave me every right to make that statement.
I had been doing some experimental force-field work, and when I met Laura she told me her father would be interested in talking to me about my work. So I had dinner at their home one night, and started talking about my project—and then old Harwood started talking about his.
It was some hodge-podge. Dimensional tubes, and force vortices, and subspace converters. A network of gadgetry in the basement that had taken twenty years and as many thousand dollars to build. A fantastic theory of bordering dimensions and alien races. I listened as long as I could, then made the mistake of expressing my honest opinion.
Harwood looked at me a long time after I finished. Then he said, “Just like all the others. Very well, Mr. Matthews. Kindly don’t pay us a second visit.”
“If that’s the way you want it,” I told him. “But I still think it’s cockeyed!”
And a month later, I still did. Only now there was this vortex in the street, spewing forth alien entities that drank radiation. Crackpot or not, Harwood had turned something on that might take some doing to turn off.
Outside, the storm was continuing. I snapped on my radio, listened to the crackling of static that was the only sound it produced. Were Harwood’s pets blanketing the radio frequencies, I wondered, as I twiddled the dials? Were they drinking them too?
I’d know soon enough, I thought.
That was just the beginning, that night when the Invaders came storming out of Harwood’s vortex. The next few days told of terror and panic, of retreat and the swift crumbling of civilization.
The Invaders, they were called. Thousands of them, wandering around New York and the metropolitan area, devouring electricity, attacking people, bringing a reign of terror to the city.