Part 1 (1/2)
Devil Crystals of Arret.
by Hal K. Wells.
Facing a six-hour deadline of death, young Larry raids a hostile world of rat-men and tinkling Devil Crystals.
Benjamin Marlowe and his young a.s.sistant, Larry Powell, opened the door of the Marlowe laboratory, then stopped aghast at the sight which greeted their startled eyes.
There on the central floor-plate directly in the focus of the big atomic projector stood the slender figure of Joan Marlowe, old Benjamin Marlowe's niece and Larry Powell's fiancee.
The girl had apparently only been awaiting their return to the laboratory for around her gray laboratory smock was already fastened one of their Silver Belts, and a cord was already in place running from her wrist to the main switch of the projection mechanism.
Joan's clear blue eyes sparkled with the thrill of high adventure as she swiftly raised a slender hand in a gesture of warning to the two men.
”Don't try to stop me,” she warned quietly. ”I can jerk the switch and be in Arret, before you've taken two steps. I'm going to Arret, anyway. I was only waiting for you to return to the laboratory so I'd be sure of having you here to bring me back to Earth again before I have time to get into any serious trouble over there.”
”But, Joan,” Benjamin Marlowe protested, ”this is sheer madness! No one can possibly guess what terrible conditions you may confront in Arret. We've never dared to send a human being across the atomic barrier yet!”
”We've sent all kinds of animals across, though,” Joan retorted calmly, ”and as long as we recalled them within the twelve-hour limit they always came back alive and unhurt. There's no reason why a human being should not be able to make the round trip just as safely. Ever since our Silver Belts first came back with the weird plant and mineral fragments which proved that there really is such a place as Arret, I've been wild to see with my own eyes the incredible things that must exist there.”
Joan waved her hand in gay farewell. ”Good-by, Uncle Ben and Larry!
I know that you'll drag me back just as quickly as you can possibly dash over to the recall switch, but I'll at least have had a few precious seconds of sightseeing as Earth's first human visitor to Arret!”
Larry Powell was already sprinting for the mechanism as Joan jerked the cord that ran to the switch, but he was barely half-way across the intervening s.p.a.ce when the big atomic projector flared forth in a brilliant gush of roseate flame.
For a fraction of a second Joan's slender figure was outlined in the very heart of the ruddy glow, then vanished completely. There was left only a short length of the switch cord to indicate that the girl had ever stood there.
Powell reached the mechanism and shut off the projector's flame, then turned swiftly to the control-panel of the recall mechanism. As he closed the switch on this panel, three banks of tubes set in triangular form around the floor-plate upon which Joan had stood glowed a brilliant and blinding green.
s.h.i.+elding his eyes from the glare with an upraised forearm, Powell began stepping a rheostat up to more and more power. In his anxiety, he increased the power far too quickly. There was a sudden gush of blue-white flame from the heart of the mechanism, together with the hissing crackle of fusing metal. The green light in the tubes promptly died.
Benjamin Marlowe was bending over the apparatus almost instantly. A moment later he raised a face that had suddenly gone white. There was terror in his eyes as he turned to his a.s.sistant.
”The entire second series of coils is burned out, Larry!” he gasped in consternation. ”Joan is marooned over there in Arret--marooned in that grim unknown land as completely beyond our reach as though she were upon one of the moons of Mars!”
For a long moment the two men gazed at each other with horror-stricken faces, dazed and shaken. Then they quickly drew themselves together again and set about the herculean task of making the necessary repairs to the damaged mechanism in time to rescue Joan before the twelve-hour limit should doom the girl to forever remain an exile in that land of alien mystery beyond the atomic barrier.
Their previous experiments with animals had proved that no living creature from Earth could be brought back after it had been in Arret over twelve hours. After that time the change in the atoms const.i.tuting living tissues apparently became permanently Arretian, for the Silver Belts returned without any trace of their original wearers.
The necessary repairs to the damaged coils were of such an exacting and intricate nature that any great speed was impossible. Hours pa.s.sed while the two men bent to their work with grim concentration.
Neither of them dared think too much of what nameless dangers might be confronting Joan during those weary hours. Their actual knowledge of Arret was so pitiably slight.
Some months ago, while they were experimenting upon apparatus for reversing the electrical charges of an atom's electrons and protons, they had first stumbled upon the incredible fact that such a place as Arret really existed. They found that it was another world occupying the same position in s.p.a.ce as Earth, with the fundamental difference in the two interwoven planes of existence lying in the electrical make-up of the atoms that const.i.tuted matter in each plane.
On Earth all atoms are composed of small heavy protons that are always positive in charge, and larger lighter electrons that are always negative. In Arret the protons were negative, and the electrons positive. The result was two worlds occupying the same s.p.a.ce at the same time, yet with matter so essentially and completely different that each world was intangible to the other.