The Other Side of Here
- Автор: Лейнстер Мюррей
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Other Side of Here». Краткое содержание книги:
Newark ... Manhattan ... Baltimore—one by one they went out. A succession of thriving communities suddenly put out like a guttered flame—men, women, children sprawled like grotesque mannikins.
Steve Waldron knew it couldn't be plague. There had to be some connection with the disappearance of the nation's top scientists. And then he plunged to the very center of a dead city and gaped at a truth he could not believe. What could he do against so fearsome a force that threatened to engulf the whole nation?
Here's a spine-tingling science-fiction novel by an old master. It will open up a new dimension of suspense and excitement.
The fact that Waldron, Lucy and Nick knew that the trucks did not cease to exist, but that they merely had the direction of their atomic poles changed, did not make the vanishing of the trucks seem less magical. The atoms of their substance changed the direction of their poles, and they became matter of another sort than the matter of the trio's world, and vanished from it. But they also became matter of the same sort as that in the strange world from which the invaders came—and they appeared in it.
There was a warning flash of light. The stream of trucks checked. Men materialized from nowhere upon the platform. They were clad in scaly armor. They were Underones, and they gaped at their surroundings as they shuffled docilely off the platform to the ground. Voices roared harsh orders at them. They formed up over at one side of the open space. The light flashed once more and the movement of trucks began again.
The men from the invaders' world moved toward the entrance in groups of four and five and six. They went out. Obviously, they were going out to find trucks, to load them, and then to bring them back.
"Efficiency!" said Waldron under his breath. "They've been taught to drive in the other world. I'll bet they've studied street maps in preparation for this."
There was a muffled clanking sound immediately behind. Men came out of the doorway through which the trio had just come. The flickering light of the helix lighted up their bodies. Their armor, though scaled, glittered with the prismatic coloring of many jewels. They carried the metal-studded whips which were the symbols of nobility or leadership. There was arrogance in every movement, in every pose.
The three Americans stood in deep shadow. They were heavily armed, as Underones seemed not to be, but otherwise they would pass a quick glance. Waldron searched for a plausible way of leaving this place. With the noise about him and the urgency of his need, he did not hear the just-emerged group. Nick stared open-mouthed at the incredible disappearance of the trucks, ceasing to exist as if they were soap-bubbles. Only Lucy heard, and turned and gasped.
The group swaggered on. One of the lesser Leaders brushed against Lucy. He rasped at her. He raised his whip and lashed at her. Lucy cried out in mingled terror and pain, and Waldron turned into a madman.
He whirled, to see the lash descending on Lucy's face. He became an entirely primitive man. He had a sub-machine gun slung across his back and four revolvers at his waist. But he roared inarticulately and sprang. His hands closed about the throat of the man with the whip just as that man realized that Lucy was a girl and was stunned with amazement. Snarling, Waldron bore him to the ground.
Lucy cried out for Waldron's danger. The balance of the arrogant group gasped in shocked incredulity at the sight of an apparent Underone daring to lay hands on one of their superior mold. Voices raised in thick cries of fury. Whips flashed aloft, their metal lashes glittering, to rake the flesh from the bones of these unspeakably insolent-Nick opened fire from the hip. He, alone, had kept his head. He pulled the continuous-fire stud on his weapon and played it upon the armored men as if it were a water hose. The men collapsed in a kicking and suddenly shrieking heap. One of them howled, choking, and a wave of horror filled the whole courtyard with panic greater than the mere terror felt by Waldron and Nick and Lucy. Nick had killed men who were important among the invaders. He had killed, in fact, seven of the Leaders of the highest rank of all.
Some of the invaders gasped and fled. The Underones, especially, scuttled off into the dark like rabbits. Lesser Leaders, who an instant before had been the very embodiment of authority, ran agitatedly about, bawling orders which an instant later they countermanded.
"Crazy fool!" panted Nick. "You've raised hell! But come on. Let's get out of here before they get back their senses."
He shook Waldron's arm. Waldron wrenched horribly. Then he stood up and said thickly: "Show the way. We'll follow you!"
They ran out, the three of them, and once blundered into a knot of scaly figures who shouted and fled—though not before Waldron had emptied a revolver into their midst. Then they came to the dark street and the passenger car. But they did not take it. Instead, they plunged into the darkness of an alley which Nick, pantingly, indicated. Behind them there was sheer confusion. The killing of highest officers had produced horror which paralyzed all other activity.
Presently—not many blocks away, and yet far enough-three armored figures came out into starlight, and Nick busily hunted among the boats at the dock. Suddenly, he grunted gleefully and dived down below deck of one of the craft and almost immediately created the rushing, droning sound of a high-power marine engine running smoothly.
Waldron anxiously inspected Lucy's cheek by a beam of light coming up from below. Meanwhile, Nick bobbed above the hatchway and roared profanely at him. Waldron cast off the lines. Water thrashed somewhere and the boat backed out into the river. Nick wrestled mightily with gears and sent the boat forward. Waldron swung the wheel. The boat swept downriver, its speed surprising. Nick bobbed below again and the speed increased. They headed for the lower harbor, leaving the dead city behind.
ELEVEN
In a dead world there are no laws. Therefore, the boat Nick had chosen, and the three of them had stolen, ran through the night without riding-lights or any other thing to betray her position to possible pursuers. It was, apparently, a fast cabin speedboat.
Waldron held the wheel and headed for the open sea, while Nick explored and found radio and other adjuncts for navigation. He agreed with Waldron that it would be unwise to use the radio close to New York. Therefore, they cleared the harbor mouth and headed south along the Jersey coast.
For an hour or more Nick tended to putter over the engine, risking the doing of more harm than good. He then poked about among the stores, and at last managed to come to some conclusion about the amount of fuel there was on board. He came to the wheel to report, yawning a little as he did so.
"All right," said Waldron. "We'll keep going until daybreak, and then start the radio. That should be far enough away."
"It should," admitted Nick. "The only question is, will it? I'm going to sleep on the engine-room floor for a while."
He disappeared, to fall instantly asleep. Waldron settled down to a vigil. But he was no less tired than Nick. Lucy smiled maternally at him when he nodded occasionally at the wheel, steadying the boat on the course that had been picked out almost at random.
At dawn, Lucy investigated the galley and they drank coffee in the cold dawnlight. Nick came awake and demanded some coffee too, and then he turned on the broadcast receiver and they listened to news accounts. The only station they could tune in was in Chicago, despairingly broadcasting at what was four A.M. by Central time. The announcer said drearily: Rioting on the lake-front, which began at four this afternoon when mobs tried to storm the wharves of lake steamers, resulted in the death of six policemen who tried to restrain the rioters. The number of civilian deaths has not been ascertained, but at least thirty persons, many of them women, were trampled by the mob which struggles to escape the city before the plague strikes.
Nick blinked at the other two. The announcer went on: Mob violence against the owners of cars has practically ceased, because practically no cars attempt escape from the city. The ways out of the city are now filled with crowds of human beings on foot....
Waldron drank meditatively and put down his cup.
In other cities, rioting continues. St. Louis is under martial law, which means that the authorities have not yet been overwhelmed. Pittsburgh is a city of madmen, according to advices broadcast from there, Three-fourths of the population is trying to leave the seemingly doomed city. The balance, hopeless of escaping the plague which yesterday wiped out the Atlantic Coast from Boston to Baltimore and Washington, has given itself up to looting and revelry....