N T A S T I C
CT.-NOV.
mpkte Novels by
ANDLER and
rt Stories by WILLIAM F. TEMPLE • WALLACE WEST • C. M. KORNBLUTH
WILLIAM MORRISON • PHILIP K. DICK • EVELYN E. SMITH and many of Iters
|*
WA I W*i *•! 'I I =m I J » rf M L«S L1H 1 1 -« -1 -F.l 1 1 » V fTTTT
1
FANTASTI
V
OCT.-NOV. 1953
Vel. 1, No. 3
H. L. Herbert
President
Leo Margulies
Publisher
Sam Merwin, Jr.
Editor
Alex Schomburg
Cover Design
The Sane Men of Satan ...... 2
&y Jacques Jean Ferrat
Nightmare on the Nose .... # ♦ 53
by Evelyn E. Smith
Planet for Transients . 62
by Philip K. Dick
Moonflowers and Mary . . . . f . 74
by George Whitley
Listen, Children, Listen .83
by Wallace West
The Vertigo Hook 93
by Richard Ashby
Date of Publication, 2083 A.D. ... 99
by William Morrison
The Undoing of Carney Jimmy . . . .110
by Dal Stivens
The French Way 113
by Curtis W. Casewit
Some Kinds of Life . . . . . . .119
by Richard Phillipps
The Whispering Gallery . . . . . .128
by William F. Temple
Everybody Knows Joe ...... 143
' by C. M. Kombluth
The Forest of Knives 146
by A. Bertram Chandler
Universe in Books 189
by the Editor
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE, Vol. 1, No. 3, published bi-monthly by KING-SIZE PUBLICATIONS,
INC., H. L. HERBERT, President, at Chicago, 111. Editorial and executive offices 471 Park Ave., N.Y.
22, N.Y. Oct.-Nov., 1953. Subscription 6 issues $2.50, single copies 50c, Canadian and foreign
postage extra. The characters in this magazine are entirely fictitious and have no relation to any
persons Jiving or dead. Copyright, 1953, by KING-SIZE PUBLICATIONS, INC. PRINTED IN USA.
Ion
es
of
kni
Even my being a stretcher case
■
did not save me from the Customs
and Immigration routine at Port
Gregory. The Old Man was furious
and tried to swing the weight ot
his rank to get me priority — but it
anything it made things worse.
With anybody obliging the name ot
Basset-Wills — with a hyphen —
would have secured me a place
among the B's. As it was I had to
take my place at the tail end of
the queue with the W's.
"And that's what you get for air-
a double-barreled moniker! "
log
ives
by ... A. Bertram Chandler
growled Captain Brown. "If you
had a sensible name like mine you'd
be in the hospital by now."
I pointed out that as plain Peter
Wills I should be just where I was
now — and that with the preceding
Basset I had stood a sporting chance
of a quick release. I would have
liked to add that if he hadn't rubbed
the Immigration officials the wrong
way it would have been better for
everybody concerned — but one likes
to leave a ship on friendly terms
with all and sundry.
Jane, in those days, ranked as an
M, Jane Meredith — and if the
name isn't familiar you've never
looked at a television screen. But
she got permission to stick by me
What is Christmas without a goose — and what is Mars without canals? Though
astronomers are still arguing, after three centuries, not only what the odd markings are
but whether they actually exist, the public has accepted them as canals and would
scarcely enjoy a Martian story without them. Well, Mr. Chandler has come up with a
veritable humdinger of a Martian story and don't worry — the canals are in it too.
146 ,
A blonde, a hunch, a madman's
song spell danger on Mars — and
uncover an alien cabal that may
banish Man from the red planet.
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
M7
and hold my hand and smooth my
fevered brow. She didn't do k by
shouting that she was the great
Jane Meredith, the Princess of the
Press.
She got it by working on the
assumption that gold hair piles on
more G's than gold braid. As for
her identity — she did her best to
keep it quiet by wearing faintly
tinted spectacles, a severe hair-do
and a very plain costume. The
ladies and gentlemen of the news
dissemination services have never
been over-popular on Mars.
I suppose she stuck by me be-
cause she felt a certain sense of re-
sponsibility for my condition. She
says to this day that it was all her
fault. I think that it was mine —
after all, one expects passengers to
do asinine things and one of the
items we're paid for Is to see that
they don't.
It was when we had reached the
*
Corner, thatj>oint in Space where
the Navigator tells the Old Man it's
time to turn around and start de-
celeration. My job while this was
going on was to make the rounds
of the decks and to see that no-
body was taking advantage of the
brief period of free fall to play
pixies.
The routine is the same for all
ships. You start right for'ard and
work your way aft. When you be-
gin you have about half a dozen
cadets with you. In each space you
press a button that indicates to
Control that all hands are strapped
into chairs or bunks, then you leave
a cadet on guard to see that nobody
lounge
slips his safety belt and starts float-
ing around.
By the time you get to the last
compartment — which in Martian
Queen was the main
there's only yourself and you act
as your own policeman after you've
given the all clear.
Well, I finally finished up in the
main lounge. Everything had gone
remarkably smoothly on this occa-
sion — usually there are at least a
dozen people to whom you have to
explain in words of one syllable
why they should be strapped down.
This, perhaps, had made me care-
less.
I took a hasty glance around, un-
locked the cover of the signal but-
ton and gave the all clear, then
pulled myself to the nearest vacant
chair and started to strap myself in.
The red warning light on the bulk-
head had begun to flash and we
could hear the noise of the gyro-
scopes starting up as Control be-
gan to swing the ship.
Then some old hen sitting next
to me gave me a prod in the ribs
with a knitting needle.
"Officer! " she cackled. "Why
should she be allowed to run around
loose?"
I dislike being called "officer/'
especially in that tone of voice, but
my neighbor was now using her
weapon as a pointer. I looked in
the direction she indicated — and at
once decided that if I didn't act
quick this was where I got emptied
out.
There, hanging against the deck-
head, was Jane Meredith. I didn't
148
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
know her then — but I found time
to think that she looked like a
leggy blond angel, floating there
above our heads. Perhaps a record-
ing angel — assuming that such
beings have gone all modern and
use cine-cameras.
"Come down!" I shouted, un-
snappi ng the last buckle.
"Not until I've got this shot!"
she replied.
By then the warning bell had
started — and I had to make my
choice between giving Control a
Stop Signal and pulling Jane to a
place of safety. To reach the push-
button meant negotiating one or
two corners. To pull Jane to a po-
sition of safety meant straight up
and then straight down to my chair.
I still think that it was the wiser
choice.
My kick carried me up at such
speed that I had to put out my
hands to fend myself off from the
deckhead. Then I grabbed the girl
around the waist and tried to ma-
neuver into a position suitable for
shoving off back to the deck.
If she hadn't put up a, struggle
I might have done it in time. When
the warning bell stopped I was
sttll trying but with a scant split
second to go it v/as hopeless. And
when the main drive opened up I
knew it was useless to try any more
•although I did manage to get in
one last kick at the deckhead that
would bring us down on the dance
floor instead of among the chairs
around the perimeter of the lounge.
Fortuitously I was underneath.
Apart from a few bruises Jane was
unhurt. But when I tried to get
up I found that I had a fractured
femur. And that was the last thing
I knew until 1 came around in the
ship's hospital a few hours later.
So here I was in the main lounge
once more — this compartment hav-
ing been taken over by the port
officials as their office. Many was
the time that I had watched the
formalities of landing being gone
through on other worlds but this
was my first trip to Mars. And I
had never seen anything as thor-
ough as these Martians.
"You haven't anything in your
baggage that you shouldn't?" whis-
pered Jane, pitching her voice low
so that it would not be overheard
by the two shore stretcher-bearers.
"No," I began and then it was
my turn.
They carried me up to the lie de-
tector and while grasping its
handles I had to state that I had
neither livestock nor radioactives.
But a mere statement wasn't good
enough — even when backed up by
the machine. One of the Customs
officers went over every piece of
baggage with an electroscope and
when he had finished another one,
armed with a stopwatch, put the
articles into what looked like a
domestic refrigerator.
"We give em all a cooking with
HF," the senior man condescended
to explain to Jane. "You might
have something in your cases and
not know about it — the eggs of
some insect, for example.
"Had a case not so long ago —
dame had half a dozen parrot's eggs,
>>
THE
suspended development jobs, tucked
away in her undies. As far as the
He detector went she'd been able
to kid herself that they weren't
livestock — but she nearly threw a
fit when she twigged what we were
doing to em in the oven;
The Immigration wasn't such a
tough hurdle. They sent for the
surgeon to make him swear every-
thing he had put on my certificate
of discharge was correct, and that
was all. They gave each of us a
respirator — this they said was for
use either outside the dome or in-
side ii the power supply to the
compressors should fail. We had to
sign a receipt for these.
Jane came with me as far as the
hospital. There was ample room in
the mono wheeled ambulance that
bore us swiftly and silently through
the gleaming corridors of Port
Gregory and her charm worked on
the driver and the two attendants
as it had done on the port officials.
It was at the hospital door, how-
ever, that she met her first setback.
She had a woman to deal with
there. It was not visiting hours.
And it was no use her coming out-
side visiting hours. No, not even
if she had a dozen press cards to
flash, not even if a Second Pilot
with a broken leg was the world's
hottest news. Which he wasn't.
And he didn't feel like it, either.
I was not sorry when they put
me in my bed and I was able to
fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.
II
While waiting for Jane the next
OF KNIVES
149
morning it occurred to me that I
had never asked her what she was
doing on Mars. I knew her repu-
tation and it occurred to me that
Port Gregory might not be too
healthy a city in which to spend a
convalescence.
Where Jane Meredith was things
happened. The riot and bloodshed
were due to begin at any moment.
She had, and still has, a keen nose
for news. Some even go so far as
to say that she herself is a sort of
catalyst, that things just naturally
happen around her.
I mentioned this to Captain
Brown, who was my first visitor.
"H'm!" he grunted. "Never
thought of that. Suppose you'll be
wanting to come home in the old
wagon now, broken leg and all.
Had enough red tape to cut through
to get you ashore — but that old
woman Parks swore that with the
continual vibration of the drive the
bone was not knitting properly.
If you want to take the risk I'll con-
tact whoever is in charge of this
hospital and see if I can get you out
by sailing day."
"Oh, I didn't mean it that way,
sir. Just mentioned it as a point
of interest. I suppose that at bot-
tom it's no more than a pressman's
yarn. We all know that they can
spin some tall ones."
"Perhaps you're right, Basset.
But ii you do feel that you'd rather
be homeward bound with us, just
let me know. I don't like leaving
one of my officers in this dump-
never have had any time for Mar-
tians and never wilL And . . ."
i 5 o
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
And then Jane came breezing in.
I liked the way everybody in the
ward followed her with his eyes as
she swung down the aisle between
the rows of beds. I liked the way
that the Sister on duty and the few
women who were there visiting
their menfolk looked at her. There
was envy, cattish dislike and re-
luctant admiration. And she was
coming to see me.
Gone was the intentional severe
plainness of arrival day. I'm no
hand at describing women's clothes
and such — but this Jane Meredith
was the Jane who had charmed the
worlds over the television networks.
Everything was just right from the
top of her hatless head to the toes
of her little shoes.
I was dimly aware that the Old
Man had eased his bulky form out
of the chair beside the bed. I have
a vague memory of his saying,
"Well, Basset, I must be running
along now. Have to see the agent
and the consul. And I think it
might be as well if I did try to get
you out and back aboard the ship/'
I hoped that last sentence was in
jest.
"Hiya, Peter," said Jane. "How's
the corpse?**
"Could be worse. They tell me
they're going to start some kind of
ray therapy and they're feeding me
some goo that they get from one
of the local plants. Supposed to be
an absolute cure-all."
"And when do they plan to throw
you out?"
"In about two weeks."
"And Martian Quben is here for
about six days more. H'm."
I didn't like that h'm. It seemed
to bode ill for somebody — prob-
ably me. I vaguely remembered that
this same Jane Meredith was per-
sona non grata on more than one
inhabited world of the system and
didn't see that it would help my
career as an astronaut any if I be-
came involved in any of her esca-
pades.
As it was she had already done
my prospects of promotion a bit of
no good. But it was unfair to blame
her for that — I had slipped up badly
and if it had been her leg that was
broken and not mine it would have
spelled OUT.
"Tell me," I said to switch my
train of thought to more pleasant
tracks, "what are you doing here?
What's due to happen?"
"Wish I knew. But something's
cooking, Peter, something big. The
home office got a tip that the rab-
bits are mixed up in it, and the
crabs. And I have a feeling that
Collin sia Utilensis mav be in-
may
■Alice in Wonder*
volved."
"What is this
land?"
"Damn nearly. How's your Mar-
tian history?"
"Lousy. If I'd been on this run
before I might know something-
but up to now I've been ferrying
passengers and freight to and from
Venus. Liked the run too — but the
Big White Chiefs decided it was
time I had a transfer."
"Oh, well. I'll give you a brief
tun-through — it'll help me to get
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
U
my own theories straightened out.
Mars, of course, has run through
the same pattern of social evolu-
tion as the other colonized planets.
First of all a collection of settle-
ments—American, British, Russian,
Dutch and so on — each little col-
ony owing allegiance to the mother
country on Earth.
"Then at last the day when they
all began to regard themselves as
Martians rather than American,
British or what have you. And the
inevitable inferiority complex that
seems unavoidable with young na-
tions — taking its usual form, the
conviction that the* Terran Central
Government was out to do them
dirt, was just waiting for an ex-
cuse to send a fleet and invade.
"Now — exports and imports.
"Collins was the biologist with
Gregory on the first expedition to
Mars. He found the plant that bears
his name, the plant that is the only
native living thing on Mars. There
were animals once — but judging by
their remains they weren't intelli-
gent.
"It must have taken considerable
skill and knowledge on somebody's
part to cut the canals — but whoever
it was didn't leave so much as a
mud hut with four walls and a
roof. Not a trace has ever been
found of either architecture or arti-
fact of any kind.
"But — to get back to old Collins'
super-vegetable — it was early rec-
ognized that, in its various forms,
it would supply every need of man.
Food, clothing, medicines all
glowing from the one root. They
get industrial alcohol from k — and
the muck that they sell in bottles
with an Imported Scotch label
And there are certain scents and
drugs which, until they could be
synthesized, fetched high prices in
the Terran market.
"But man doesn't thrive on a
vegetarian diet. Some fool repeated
the early Australian experiment and
had a few pairs of rabbits shipped
•out. In spite of the climate and the
impossibly thin atmosphere, one or
two survived of those that were
turned loose in the open. And they
bred — and bred — and began to
make serious inroads into the sup-
plies of Collinsia Utilensis.
"But there were mental giants in
those days as always. It finally
dawned on the other colonies that
a nice little war with tTiose re-
sponsible for the introduction of
the innocent bunnies wasn't getting
anybody anywhere. So hostilities
were concluded and everybody went
into a huddle about ways and means
of controlling the pest. Biological
control was all the rage in those
days — but people were chary about
introducing any very small life form
to prey on our furry friends lest it
get completely out of hand.
"It was a laddie called Carruthers
•who now has the best-hated
memory on this cock-eyed world-
upon whom the great light finally
dawned. He remembered reading
somewhere that, way back in Pre-
Atomic days rabbits had been in-
troduced to certain islands of
Earth's Pacific Ocean.
"These islands carried visual bea-
1 5 2
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
cons of some kind that were used
by the surface ships of that time
and people had to live on the is-
lands and look after these lights.
The idea was the rabbits would
provide both a welcome dietary
change and sport. They did — for
the land crabs. The same little
beasts that had overrun Australia
couldn't stand up to an armor-
plated enemy that followed them
down into their burrows.
"Surprisingly enough the crabs
did well on Mars and Carruthers
was the hero of the hour. It is only
a year ago that they demolished
his statue/'
"Yes, I remember seeing a re-
cording of it. Carmichael of Extra-
Terran News covered it."
"He would. He's a Martian citi-
zen, you know, and has consider-
able pull with the censor. Very
little leaks out before he's scooped
it. But if he'd bad any sense he
wouldn't have made that newscast
of the crabs surrounding a mob of
rabbits. Do you know what it re-
minded me of? Sheepdogs and a
herd of sheep.
"There were at least three hun-
dred bunnies — and all the time
Carmichael had the scene in the
lens of his camera only two were
pulled down and eaten. It looked
for all the world as though some-
body — or something — was having
the rest herded North along Casar-
telJ i's Canal.
"But the crabs — and the rabbits.
It finally dawned on somebody that
the rabbits were doing Collinsia
more good than harm. They went
mainly for the fruit — and they
dropped the seeds all along the
canals. Dropped them and fertil-
ized them. And remember that
these same seeds had resisted all
attempts made by the colonists to
plant them.
"The rabbits too had changed.
Man, when he colonizes an alien
world, brings his own conditions
with him. The rabbits outside the
domes had to adapt themselves to
alien conditions. They did. They're
big now and have a lung capacity
large enough to handle the thin
atmosphere. There may quite prob-
ably be not a few mutants in their
Martian genealogy — but that I
wouldn't know. I do know that
every woman on
her soul for a
Bunny.'*
"Snob appeal!"
"It's not! It's
Earth would sell
coat of Martian
I said.
the loveliest fur
you ever saw, ever felt. It makes
mink look like alley cat. But where
was I?
»«
Oh,
yes. The rabbits are valu-
able now. And the land crabs,
which have developed into some-
thing like boilers on stilts, are play-
ing hell with the Martian economy.
Of course when they kill a rabbit
they don't eat the fur — but the pelt
looks as though it had been put
through a mincing machine. And
they seem to herd the rabbits away
from the traps as though they were
doing it on purpose. They have
even been known to attack hunters.
They-
"Miss Meredith! Miss Meredith!
Your time was up ten minutes ago."
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
*53
"Sony, Sister. I had no idea how
the time was flying."
"Will you be in this evening,
Jane?" I asked.
"No, Peter. I'd better not.
There's bound to be a crowd from
the ship. I really must start mak-
ing some contacts. After all, it's
what I.P.N.S. pays me for."
Ill
The crowd from the ship was
along that night and every night
until she shoved off. They looked
after me well, smuggling ashore all
kinds of little luxuries on which
a very stiff duty should have been
paid. The Old Man came in every
morning, as part of his ship's busi-
ness routine, and Jane came too.
I heard him talking to her the
day before Martian Queen was to
blast off. "Look after him, Miss
Meredith," I heard him say. "Don't
let him get into mischief."
"Of course, Captain Brown," said
Jane, doing her best to look like
a blond Sunday schoolbook angel.
"I'll see that he keeps away from
the more sordid dives. After all, I
feel responsible for him as it was
really my fault."
"We all make mistakes, Miss
Meredith. I'm glad that you're here
to keep him out of trouble."
Of that I had my doubts — but I
kept my big mouth shut.
Actually there was no reason why
I should not have rejoined before
sailing. No reason at all — except
that the surgeon who was handling
my case insisted on finishing the
job. There was a little professional
jealousy there. He hated the idea
that poor old Parks — who, in any
case, was an Earthman — should get
the credit.
Jane Meredith was with me when
Martian Queen blasted off. We
heard the muffled thunder of her
jets as she warmed them up and
then came the peculiar screaming
roar of a big rocket in flight. I
followed her in my imagination-
up through the thin air, up past the
orbits of Phobos and Deimos, out
and away toward the Sun and
Earth.
I felt very lost and lonely here
on this arid world, where one's
Earth citizenship counts for less
than nothing. On the other runs
you don't get that kind of thing.
The mere fact that you're from
Home makes you a little tin god.
"You'll be out in a week," said
Jane.
"So they tell me."
"And there's nothing homeward
bound for another five weeks."
"No."
"Would ycu like a job?"
"That depends."
"Quite a nice job. It's like this,
Peter. I.P.N.S. allows me practically
unlimited funds — more than enough
to buy a nice little rocket plane.
It's essential, really, for getting
around on this world — the public
transport services are vile.
"But here's the snag — I have no
pilot's license. Had one once, but
. . . Anyhow, skip it. Your license,
they tell me, covers handling any
kind of rocket-propelled craft in-
side atmospheric limits as well as
i 5 4
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
99
«
in deep space. As your qualifica-
tions are international and inter-
planetary they'll hold good on Mars.
Right?
"Yes, but ..." I knew what was
coming.
'And I can't hire me a pilot for
love or money. I can get the ship
— but someone has tipped off the
Aviators' Guild that I'm not, re-
peat, net to hire any help. That
Carmichael knows I'm here — and
knows I'm onto something. But
he can't stop me from hiring you."
"Provided I want to be hired.
But if I were you I'd keep it quiet
— Carmichael might have enough
pull to have me kept in my virtu-
ous couch until the next homeward
bound ship." ' ' %
On the whole I wasn't sorry when
they threw me out of the hospital
Not that they were a bad crowd —
they certainly looked after me well.
And their continual harping on the
theme of how vastly superior Mar-
tian medical science was to that of
Earth failed to bother me — all that
I knew was that they had done a
remarkably good job on my leg.
I didn't even mind when they
told me all about their marvellous
Collinsia — and was amused rather
than otherwise at the impression
they gave that they personally had
created the beastly thing out of
nothing.
It was quite a plant — from the
same root could grow a dozen dif-
ferent specialized forms, so unlike
as to seem different species. The
difference went far deeper than ex-
ternals — the actual chemistry of
leaves and stem were of an extreme
diversity.
Nor was that all — it seemed that
the chemistry was liable to change.
Certain leaves of Collmsia had long
been used as a sort of smoking to-
bacco- — and very palatable it was
too. But lately a subtle difference
had crept in — very hard to detect
unless one knew it was there. What
had been a harmless pleasant nar-
cotic was now a dangerous habit-
forming drug.
The seeds of the apple-like fruit
— which alone was standard — were
largely used for spices. And those
spices had of late developed poison-
ous characteristics. But the chem-
ists in the various processing plants
were on the alert and there was no
longer any real danger.
To get back to the hospital — it
was amusing to listen to the nurses
at one moment running down Earth
and all things Earthly, the next
avid for information about the
planet they affected so to despise.
It was the consul who took care
of me the day that I left. Jane was
out of the city, I learned later, tak-
ing a run in a hired launch along
the main canal running north and
south from Port Gregory. But she
had hinted at her intentions the
previous day so I was not unduly
disappointed.
The consul wasn't a bad old boy,
although a trifle pompous, and in-
sisted on supporting me to the
monotaxi waiting outside the hos-
pital doors. And he had certainly
done me well in the matter of ac-
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
*55
commodation — although it would
be I.C.C. that was paying.
He had found me a three-room
service apartment on the very pe-
riphery of the city, an apartment
whose transparent side walls over-
looked the desert landing fields of
the spaceport. Not that there were
any deep space-ships in just then
to make me homesick — although
there was an abundance of little
rockets — both planes for use inside
atmospheric limits and larger ves-
sels capable of making the run to
Phobos or Deimos.
But it was a mistaken kindness.
The average spaceman always re-
members what happened when
King Charles' Wain sat down hard
in the middle of Manchester and
prefers the Terran practice, subse-
quent to that spectacularly unpleas-
ant incident, of keeping the ports
as far as possible from large centers
of population.
There were flowers on the table
of the living room — a large vase of
tastefully arranged gorgeous blos-
soms. I guessed that this would be
my first visual introduction to the
fabulous Collinsia. There" was a
note too, propped against the side
of the vase. The writing was un-
familiar — but I guessed whom it
was from.
"Miss Meredith sent the blos-
soms," said the Consul needlessly.
He made an harumphing sound and
caressed the ends of his long
moustache. "A very charming young
lady."
I agreed absently while opening
the envelope. Apologizing, I read
the note. It was short and to the
point.
Sorry I wasn't on hand to meet
you out but 1 heard reports that a
large covey(PP) of crabs had been
sighted advancing upon the city
along the bank of Casartelli's Canal.
Everything I take will have to go
through the censor — but it may be
worthwhile. Have told the Walrus
to look after you. Give him my
love and a couple or so drinks.
You'll find the bottles in the cabinet
by the tele audio. Will call for you,
if back, at nineteen thirty..
So I found the bottles and gave
the Walrus his drinks.
We chatted awhile of this and
that — and having learned what
Jane's very apt name for him was
I found it hard to keep a straight
face. It was all getting to be too
too Lewis Carroll. Crabs and rab-
bits and now the Walrus. It was
a pity that my name wasn't Car-
penter. But after the third drink
I began to feel like the Dormouse.
"You'll have to excuse me," I
said, yawning, "but I find this local
brew a trifle strong."
The Walrus looked at his watch.
"And I must be running along,
Mr. Basset- Wills. Remember me
to Miss Meredith when you see her
again. You must both of you come
to the Consulate some night for
dinner. And don't iorgct — I'm here
to be of service."
He left and I decided to see if
the settee along one wall was as
i;6
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
soft as it looked. The next thing I
knew was Jane Meredith shaking
me and telling me to look lively
and get my boozing suit on.
My number ones would certainly
have been out of place in the dives
to which I was taken that night.
Jane must have explored the city
very thoroughly during my spell in
the hospital — explored it with an
eye to local color of the more mere-
tricious variety. It wasn't to the
East Gate she took me — that was
the doorway through which traffic
from the air and spaceport entered.
Nor was it the North or the
South Gate — the taverns in their
vicinity were patronized by the
crews of the powered lighters that
plied their trade along the canals.
The West Gate was the obvious
place to look for information of the
kind she was seeking. Through it
came the land traffic — the big trac-
tors called "sand-cats" or "desert
schooners,** the prospectors, the
trappers and hunters.
It wasn't too savory a locality.
It was clean and well lit — but over
all hung an indefinable air of raf-
fishness. Jane managed to blend
well with the background. It oc-
curred to me later that she must
have had long and educational ex-
perience of this kind of thing —
but at the time I felt more than
a little hurt that she should cheapen
her appearance as she had done.
It was done cleverly enough. Just
a little too much make-up, a very
slight discord in the color scheme
of blouse and skirt. The rest was
As for me
a matter of bearing, of speech and
accent. It was enough. Even her
hair seemed to take on a brassy tint.
The handbag too — it was larger
and more ornate than sanctioned by
good taste. But it had to be — even
a miniature camera when packed
with a few spare spools is quite
bulky. And the glittering decora-
tions helped to conceal the lens.
■Jane gave me up as
hopeless.
"You're like just like what you
are," she said, "a mug of a spaceman
taken in tow by a designing blonde.
But it doesn't really matter/'
From my apartment we walked
to the nearest corridor through
which the westbound moving way
ran. Jane seemed to know the city
like a native, transfered from level
way to ramp and again to level
way until we reached what she
called the ground floor.
In a short space of time we came
to the end of the run, stepped out
into a vast domed hall. At one
side of it were the doors of the air-
locks — big for vehicular
traffic,
It
small for the rare pedestrians,
was noisy too on this level — the air
compressors can't have been too far
distant.
Three big tractors had just come
in and were discharging bales of
furs onto an endless belt running
into the heart of the city. The pol-
ished deck was gritty underfoot-
in' spite of all measures taken to
prevent it some of the fine Martian
sand was certain to seep in.
Not far from where we were
standing was a flickering sign.
THE FOREST OF KN1VBS
*57
EDDY'S BAR & GRILL, it pro-
claimed, FINEST IMPORTED
EATS & DRINX. Somebody came
out as we watched, staggering
slightly, and through the open door
poured a wave of sound and scent
— the latter composed of cheap
liquor, hot cooked meats and to-
bacco smoke.
"This'll do for a start," said Jane.
She put up her hand, ruffled her
hair a little more and dragged me
towards the entrance.
Inside it was typical of such
places on all the worlds. I knew,
without sampling its wares, that the
imported drinks would be merely
the local brew with synthetic flavor-
ing and a fancy bottle label added.
The imported food would be the
ubiquitous crab and rabbit and
Collinsia camouflaged by a cook
whose ambition must inevitably be
far in excess of his ability. Music
and entertainment were provided
by juke boxes, on the screens of
which the same old scantily clad
lovelies went through the same
old gyrations to the same old
strains of last year's swing.
Not that I minded particularly —
I rather like such places. But I
was ashamed to bring Jane there.
Of course — she was bringing me
but I had forgotten that.
We chose a table near the bar
and when the slatternly waitress
came, to clear the deck of the debris
left by the last diners and to take
our orders, Jane put on her act. It
was wasted, I thought, since there
were only the girl and a couple of
barflies to hear her impersonation
««
»
of a spaceport blonde fleecing a
poor innocent spaceman.
But in a voice that she deliber-
ately coarsened just the right
amount she ordered everything that
was most expensive. Oysters she
wanted — they were imported — and
champagne at an imported wine
price.
I must have winced. After all,
the only cash I had was such money
as had been due when I paid off
from the Queen. It would have to
last me until the next homeward
bound ship.
Cheer up, duckie," whispered
Jane. "The I.P.N.S. is paying for
this. You're on our payroll now
anyhow.
Some of the loungers must have
heard the lavish order being given
— as they were intended to. There
was one gentleman who apparently
figured he had as much right to a
share of my wad as Jane. He left
the bar to stand up by itself and
sauntered across to our table. He
pulled a chair up, sat down facing
us both.
"Thought you was a stranger here,
Jack," he said. "Just out from
Home? "
"Yes."
"Hope I'm not talkin' out o' turn
— but I don't like ter see a nice
young fella like yerself gettin' with
the wrong sort o' people from the
»»
very start
"Meanin' me?** demanded Jane.
"Since you're askin', sister, yes.
Come ter think of it — haven't seen
yer around here before. Who's yer
patron? If yer got one."
'
15*1
Jane's voice was sullen as she re-
plied, "Haven't got one yet. Just
come in from Tamaragrad — couldn't
stand them Russians at any price.
But what's it to you?"
"Oh, nothin, nothin*. Just that
I don't want ter see the young fella
skinned. An' what's it worth for
me not ter pass the word around
ter the girls that there's a freelance
operatin' in their territory? If I do
it won't be pleasant."
IV
The situation looked ugly. I shot
Jane Meredith a worried glance —
but she was enjoying herself. I be-
gan considering ways and means of
getting her out of EDDY'S BAR
& GRILL and at the same time
shaking off this gentleman who had
taken my moral welfare so much
to heart.
By this time the champagne and
the oysters had arrived. The bottle
was in a regulation ice bucket and,
if the label was to be believed, was
good. When I saw the bill — the
girl insisted on payment on delivery
•I thought they must have brought
us bottled radium by mistake.
The oysters were real imported
oysters — fresh from the can. And
the price started me doing sums in
my head involving the number of
cans and the amount of freight pay-
able per case. Unasked the wait-
ress set out three glasses. I was go-
ing to protest but Jane kicked me
hard under the table.
Then she started treading on my
foot. It was some little time before
I had a rush of brains to the head
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
and decoded, Go and powder your
nose.
Well, orders were orders. I got
up and asked my guide, philosopher
and friend where to go. He in-
sisted on coming with me and kept
up a running fire of admonition and
advice. His greatest ambition in
life was to take me to a place kept
by a friend of his where the drinks
were so much better and so much
cheaper, where one could have a
friendly game of cards and where
one could meet some really respect-
able girls.
I was half listening and wonder-
ing whether Jane had intended that
I should knock him out when I got
him alone. It didn't seem a very
good idea — apart from the fact that
he probably carried arms of some
kind he was bigger than me. And
I was ready to be convinced he
knew far more about rough-and-
tumble fighting than I ever dreamed
of on the darkest night.
So we wandered back to our
table — and from the way he looked
at Jane I was sorry that I hadn't
taken a poke at him. But that crazy
girl actually gave him a smile of
welcome and began pouring out his
glass of wine before he sat down.
Having an innocent mind I should
not have expected any deception.
But our friend did not have an in-
nocent mind.
Jane, having murmured the con-
ventional, "Happy days," had her
own glass to her lips when he
reached across and took it.
"Pardon me," he said, "but your
mug is chipped, sister. Take mine!"
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
»59
>3
If he had been a man of normal
sensibilities the glare from Jane's
blue eyes would have withered him.
But he just leered and passed his
own glass to the girl.
"Happy days!" he said, drained
the wine and went out like a light.
"It always works," said Jane hap-
pily. "At least, with that type.
Here's to Mickey. All right, you
can drink yours. It's quite safe.
Then, "What's that?"
The door to the outside was
open, a group of men were stand-
ing just inside it on the verge of
departure, talking. The two juke
boxes were momentarily silent and
over the loud coarse voices the
noises of the city drifted in.
Mainly mechanical they
the murmur of wheeled transport,
the whine of compressor fans and
the faint rhythmic clatter of the
nearest moving way. There was
someone outside singing, singing
singing and slowly approaching,
and slowly approaching, singing an
old old song in a cracked voice.
. . . come a-waltzing Matilda
with me!"
"Up came the squatter, mounted
on his thoroughbred,
Down came the troopers — one,
two, three;
*Where's that jolly jumbuk
you've got in your tucker
bag?
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda
with me! "
"Waltzing Matilda, waltzing
Matilda,
"You'll . . r
Hie singer drew abreast of the
doorway — and passed on.
". . . come a-waltzing Matilda
with me!"
"Come on!" cried Jane. "I smell
news, news!*
As she jumped to her feet the re-
mains of the bottle of synthetic
champagne were upset, running
over the table, cascading into the
lap of the receiver of knockout
drops. But nobody worried — except
the slatternly waitress.
"Here!" she demanded. What
have yer done to Whitey Snow?"
"He'll be all right," I said hope-
fully. "Just let him sleep it off!"
"Give the wench a ten spot to
keep quiet!" An intense whisper
from the pride of the I.P.N.S. "And
ask her . . ."
The note changed hands.
"Who was that singing outside?"
I said casually.
"Singing? Oh, him. That was
Mad Mullins, the Australian. Last
of the Swagmen he calls himself.
But what do you want with the
likes of him?"
"Nothing, nothing — just curious."
I elbowed my way through the
crowd with a certain haste. Jane
was already streaking out of the
door.
It wasn't hard to track the self-
styled Last of the Swagmen. He
knew only one song, and he liked
it. We followed him out of the
main corridor along a smaller one,
that ran off from it at an angle. It
was little more than a tunnel.
i6o
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
We couldn't see far ahead — the
lighting was sparse and the reflec-
tions from the curved polished
walls were confusing. But there
floated back to us snatches of the
of the immortal
misadventures
swagman — and
to the ballad
whirring noise
in accompaniment
came the subdued
of the camera in
Jane's handbag. Evidently this hard —
seemed to her worth recording.
We were gaining on him. We
could see his tall thin figure, fan-
tastic in the confused lighting, with
the bag swinging on his back. The
bag — the "swag" — Waltzing Ma-
tilda herself. I was still wondering
what it was all about as Mad Mul-
lins led us down, down and down.
Then the noise of machinery —
faint at first but rapidly becoming
louder — added its repetitious throb-
bing to the monotony of the song
from ahead. We lost sight of Mul-
lins as he turned a bend of the
tunnel — then, as we rounded the
angle, we saw before us a platform
past which was running a moving
way.
The gaunt old man stood poised
for a moment on the brink of this
fast-flowing mechanical river, then
jumped. We saw him stagger as he
fought to retain his balance and
then he was gone, carried into ob-
scurity through the tunnel mouth
into which the moving way ran.
We hurried down to the plat-
form. Jane, clutching her precious
handbag, was the first to jump. She
misjudged the speed of the way and
fell heavily, holding the bag up and
away from her so that whatever else
befell it would not be damaged. I
was luckier when I followed — and
hurried along the rocking vibrating
surface to Jane's side.
'Are you hurt?"
'Not permanently. There's a por-
tion of the human anatomy designed
to be sat on hard — and I sat on it
very! But now I'm down I'm
down until
t«
t<
staying down until we get to
wherever we're going. This tunnel
is high enough here — but what it
will be like later on I don't know."
I sat down too. We knew that
Muliins was still with us — from
somewhere ahead came a mournful
voice informing us that somebody's
ghost can be heard as you pass by
that billabong and that Matilda was
still in the dance marathon.
We looked around. There was
nothing to see. Just bare rough
walls that flashed by at high speed,
just an occasional dim light that
did little beyond making the dark-
ness tangible. More than once we
were tempted to crawl forward
along the moving way, to see the
old madman at close quarters, to
find out on what errand he was
bound.
Had it been up to me I think we
would have done so. But Jane, after
careful consideration, refused to
budge. If we made the acquaintance
of Mad Muliins now we might find
out where he was going and what
he intended to do — and we might
feel impelled to stop him. It might
be public spirited — but would it be
news? Jane didn't think so.
«c
Why
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
161
>»
old coot anyway? " I wanted to know.
"Because I've discovered some-
thing while you were laid up," she
told me. "Mull ins has been coming
down from the Pole — and trouble
has been coming down with him.
I want to find out why.
Two hours after the start of our
dark journey we saw the glimmer
of brighter light ahead. Then we
were abruptly swept out of the
tunnel into a large artificial cavern.
The moving track curved back upon
itself gently, ran back in the direc-
tion of Port Gregory through
another tunnel which must have
been roughly parallel with that
through which we had come.
But the actual recurvature was
hidden under a platform — a plat-
form designed so scoop any object
off the incoming moving way and
send it sliding down a chute. We
had no desire to be scooped and
chuted, especially since the mad
Australian had already left the mov-
ing way and was walking, slowly
yet purposefully, towards a doorway
in the rock opening upon the out-
going track.
There were men working about
the doorway, loading crates and
boxes upon the conveyor that would
bear them to the citv. We saw
well
city.
and the gleaming
on their automatic
guards as
of the light
weapons.
Mullins approached the door in
the rock, slouching forward with
the peculiar gait of the hobo, his
swag wobbling on his shoulders like
a thing alive. Jane had her camera-
handbag uniimbered, and I could
hear the faint whirr of its mechanism
over the clatter of the moving way.
She v/as peering into the viewfindcr.
"Damn!" she ejaculated, "What
is the matter with the man's head?
It's coming in fuzzy." Then, "He's
wearing his respirator!"
Luckily we had not been long
enough on Mars to become careless
about carrying the little haversacks
with us. The idea that our lives de-
pended upon a series of pumps and
fans was still sufficiently novel even
to me — after all, in a ship only a
breach of the hull can reduce the
pressure — to breed caution. It was
the work of seconds to pull out the
transparent headpieces, to connect
them with the oxygen cylinders
carried in the same haversacks.
The men loading crates and pack-
ages on the moving way stopped
working. The guards challenged
Mullins. He was advancing more
slowly now, his hands raised above
his head. We approached within
twenty yards or so, then edged be-
hind a stout pillar running from
roof to floor to watch developments.
We saw Mullins stop, saw him
back against the rock wall with the
muzzle of a gun in his belly. What-
ever was in his swag, I remember
thinking, would be crushed against
the stone. And whatever was in his
bag must have been remarkably
quick acting.
There was a clatter as the guards
dropped their weapons, a concert of
thuds as guards and workers fell like
ninepins. Mullins stepped over the
body of the man who had prodded
him in the belly, vanished through
«
162
FA>7TASTIC UNIVERSE
in following
the doorway with the air of one
hurrying to keep an appointment.
V
They weren't dead. Whatever
had hit the guards and the workers
was not lethal — at least not im-
mediately. But we couldn't revive
them — and not knowing what gas
had been used there was not much
we could do about it. Our best
chance of finding help for the un-
conscious men lay
Mullins into what was obviously an
industrial establishment of some
kind.
We saw what it was when we
passed through the doorway. The
leaves of the door were thick and so
made that when the door was closed
they would form an airtight seal.
In structure they were like a
sandwich. The ten feet between
outer and inner surfaces was com-
posed of layers of steel and concrete
and lead.
Hurrying after Mullins we passed
rooms in which machinery of all
kinds was operating, rooms whose
occupants lay in attitudes of careless
sleep. The bag was still giving out
its gas, stiir securing a free passage
for the man who carried it. The
fact that a draught was setting in
from the outer door meant that the
cloud of sleep would precede' him.
To hell with this!" I said at last.
"This is an atomic power station.
■
News or no news I'm going to stop
that cra2y old coot from doing
whatever he wants to do!"
I broke into a run. And then
Mullins turned round, saw that he
\<>
was being followed. And he too
started running. He was an old man
but he was used to moving in the
feeble gravitational field of Mars.
We were hopelessly outdistanced.
There was little time to lose when
we burst into the generator room.
The power station was of the old
outdated uranium-pile type, long
since superseded by the Flackmann
Converter, to which all matter is an
energy source. But those old
uranium-pile stations hang on and
hang on. Enormous amounts of
capital went into their construction
•and they are still paying hand-
some dividends.
Mullins was already at work when
we burst into the generator room.
Before the control board lay the
engineers of the watch-
-and Mul-
lins, working with skillful delibera-
tion, was striving to demolish the
plant.
We could not see what was hap-
pening in the pile itself — that was
behind feet of lead and concrete.
But we could read the labels on
the remote control switches — al-
though we Jiadn't time for that just
then. We knew, without reading
any labels, that Mullins was with-
drawing screens, inserting additional
slugs of uranium, draining the heavy
water that was both a moderator
and a source of steam for the turbo-
generators.
The old man snarled as I flung
myself upon him. It was hard to
get a grip on his body — he was still
wearing his outdoor clothing, heavy
drill with a fur lining, and it was
foul and slippery with years of
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
163
grease and dirt. But I got my fingers
in his collar, tried hard to rip the
breathing mask from his head. I
had to forfeit my hard -won advan-
tage as he all but tore off my own
respirator.
Out of the corner of an eye I
could see Jane. She was frantically
manipulating controls — replacing
screens and withdrawing uranium
slugs. It was impossible that she
should hit the right combination —
the only men who could do that
lay unconscious at our feet.
But she erred on the side of
safety. The whine of the generators,
of which we had not been con-
scious until its cessation, faded and
died. There was momentary, con-
fusing darkness, as the power failed
•and when the emergency batteries
took over the lamps were sparse
and dim.
But before this happened Mulliris
and I were on the floor. He was an
old man and weak — he should have
been weak anyway — but he had
what I lacked, co-ordination with
local gravitational conditions. He
may, too, have had the desperate
consuming surge of strength that
comes to the insane.
At any rate he was sitting astride
my body and had both hands at my
throat, tearing at the neckband of
my mask. Both of mine were on his
skinny wrists — but struggle as I
might I knew that it was only a
matter of seconds before the mask
would be off.
The supreme irony of it all was
hearing, faintly but unmistakably,
the penetrating whirr of Jane's little
camera. It would make a good
picture, I told myself, a swell picture.
But neither of us would live to
see it.
Jane was still at the control
panel. How . . . ?
When the lights went out Mullins
whipped one of his hands away
from my throat. When they came
on again that hand was holding a
gun — an ugly long-barreled pistol
of point-five caliber. I saw his thin
gnarled finger tighten on the trigger.
And then Jane was on him, both
hands on his gun wrist, wrenching
and twisting. The gun went off, its
report thunderous at such close
quarters. The heavy slug from his
own weapon took Mullins in the
side. The fight was over.
We knelt by the body of the old
man.
The thin plastic of his breathing
mask was rising and falling ever so
gently. Had it not been for this we
would have thought him dead — it
was impossible to detect any heart-
beat through the thick clothing. He
wasn't dead — which meant he would
be able to talk.
"Get the clothes off him! " ordered
Jane.
While I was busy with this un-
savory task — it must have been the
first time in years it had been done
-Jane turned her back to me and I
heard the sound of something
ripping. Whatever garment she was
wearing under her skirt was being
pressed into service for a bandage.
She didn't know until later that her
camera, perched on the bench from
which it had recorded the fight, had
164
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
not failed to function on this happened to be in the immediate
occasion.
I got Mullins' fur-lined jacket off
and two or three shirts which, when
new, might have been any color,
then a layer of thick, woolen under-
wear. There wasn't as much blood
as I had anticipated. The bullet had
caught him Just below the ribs on
the right side, had gone right
through without penetrating deeply
on its
way.
"He'll live," said Jane. With deft
fingers she began to bandage the
wound to staunch the flow of blood.
"But it's a, pity that we have no
germicide handy. I don't see how
that mess can possibly fail to turn
septic.
The next thing was to return the
Last of the Swagmen to conscious-
ness. There was a valve on the
oxygen cylinder in his haversack, a
valve whereby the oxygen supply
could be regulated. This we opened
to its fullest extent, then sat back
and awaited developments.
While we sat and waited we
marveled that this dirty unkempt
creature should have held briefly in
his hands the power of a god. For
we now had time to work out what
would have happened had the pile
got out of control.
The power station would, of
course, have ceased to exist — but
there was another more modern
station handling the bulk of the
Martian energy demands. A few
square miles of desert would have
been fused and vaporized — but that
would not have caused serious in-
convenience except to the few who wot shot me, ain't yer? Yer 'ad ter
vicinity.
However the door to the tunnel
leading to Port Gregory had been
left open — we found afterwards that
Mullins had sabotaged the controls
that should have slammed it shut
seconds before the blast. And along
the tunnel would have rushed a
wave of searing gas — a projectile
along the bore of a sixty-mile-long
gun-barrel.
The dome of the capital city
would have burst like a soap bubble
•and any who were lucky enough
to survive the actual explosion
would have died far more un-
pleasantly as the lethal radiations
burned out eyes and lungs. It
wasn't nice to think about it.
And this — this — had held* the
power of life and death over half a
million fellow beings!
Mullins stirred and muttered — a
tall thin dirty old man. His beard
and sparse hair should have been
white — but they were so encrusted
and stained as to be green instead.
I looked more closely, interested in
spite of myself. That green could
hardly be the resut of even years of
it looked for all the world
as though some tiny plant were
growing on his scalp.
"It thinks I'm dead," came a
cracked voice from behind the
breathing mask. "It's
left me alone. But 'oo are you?"
"Never mind," said Jane crisply.
"You tell us what you were doing-
and who told you to do it."
"A sheila — yair. You're the one
neglect
swagman s
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
165
save yer boy friend. But yer ain't
Johns, are yer?"
"No. We're not police."
"Then I'll tell yer. It was way
up north, past Paris du Ciel, past
Tamaragrad even. Right up where
the ice and snow march down to the
edge o' the thirsty red desert. An'
there's forests up there — forests of
this ere Collinsia.
"It ain't any good to the chemists
the way it grows there — like trees it
is, like trees with spiky leaves and
big spikes growin' out o' the trunks
like knives. An' there's rabbit there
thousands of 'em, all colors. An*
them bastards 'ide in the forest an'
come out now an' again for an 'op
over the desert. When they see me
they all bolted back among the
trees an' 'id. „
"But I waited an' watched an' saw
that there was paths runnin' into
the woods. Paths big enough an'
wide enough so that yer can just
squeeze along 'em without them
knives rippin' yer ter shreds. An*
I thought as I'd set my traps along
them paths.
"But first of all I wanted to see
where them paths led to — for all I
know there might be anything
be'ind all them spikes an' spines.
An' when Collinsia puts up that
sort o' barricade you can bet yer
boots that there's somethin' worth-
while be'ind k.
*I must 'a' gone miles an' miles
an' miles — an' still nothin' but them
damn' livin' bayonets. Just them
an' now an' again a sort o' clearin*
where there was Collinsia of another
sort — but the rabbits 'ad 'ad all
that.
"It was in one o* them clearin's
1
that I bedded down for the night. I
'ad some rabbit meat in my tucker
bag an' I made a little fire an' boiled
a billy o' tea. An' I got out my little
airtight tent an' I was all set fer a
good night's kip. I could 'ear them
rabbits thumpin' around under me
•the ground must 'a been like an
'oneycomb.
"And then, just as I was dropphV
off, I 'eard the, noise of somethin*
crashin' around in the bush. It
should 'a' made me careful— but I'd
left the fire burnin' outside the tent
an' that'd keep anything off.
"When the tent was ripped away
in the night it was pitch dark. An'
there I was, gaspin' an' chokin'-
an' when that sort o' thing 'appens
to yer the first thing yer reaches for
is yer mask.
"They let me put it on — an' then
they grabbed me by the arms an'
legs so I couldn't move. I couldn't
see '00 they v/as — but I could 'ear
that chitterin' sound they makes wi'
them funny sideways mouths o'
theirs an' I could feel their claws
grippin' me.
"Then they got me to me feet an'
started shovin' me down the path.
An' when I was trippin' every second
step they lifted me up an' carried
me. Phobos was just beginnin' to
show over the tops o' the trees when
they dived down into a tunnel.
'Muliins,' says I to meself, 'this is
where you makes a meal for Baby
Crab an' all 'is little brothers an
sisters an cousins an aunts.
»»
i66
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
««
"It was a long tunnel — an* though
we'd lost sight o' the sky long since
there was still light— a sort o' glow
like wot yer gets from the 'ands of
yer watch. I noticed that the air
was pressin' me mask against me
face — an' that meant that it must
be thick enough ter breath.
But when I tried to reach up to
take it off them crabs just dug their
claws in all the 'arder. And then
damme if one of 'em didn't do it
'imself — careful like so as not to
tear the plastic — as we was passin'
through part o' the tunnel wot was
all overgrown wi' creepers an' such.
"An' then we came to where It
was. Don't ask me about It, I just
can't remember that part. But It
told me what to do — an' one o' the
crabs took most o' the gear out o'
my tucker bag an' filled it up wi*
things like kids' toy balloons. An' It
told me that they was full of a gas
or somethin', and that once they
was bust anyone 'oo wasn't wearin'
a mask'd pass out.
"Then the crabs took me back to
the surface, bein' careful ter see that
I 'ad me respirator back on. I re-
member that my 'ead was itch in'
worse than usual but I couldn't
scratch it wi' me 'eadpiece in the
way.
"An' there was somethin' inside
my brain that kep' me goin' with-
out food an' without sleep — although
k let me drink from the canals as
I 'eaded south. I wanted to tell the
guards on the gate at Port Gregory
wot I 'ad ter do but It wouldn't let
me.
to meself, loud-like, it might break
the spell, but it didn't do no good.
An all the time that I was fightin'
your man 'ere, Missus, I was a-tryin'
to make meself lose. It made me
pull the gun — I've never used it on
anything but crabs . . ."
Then, in a pleading voice, "You
won't turn me over to the Johns,
will yer? They'll make me talk,
they'll make me say wotever they
want me to."
<«
'No," said Jane.
Abruptly there were sounds of
voices from the corridor outside, a
clatter of booted feet running over
the stone floor. Men were all around
us, uniformed, armed. Jane and I
raised our hands high before the
menace of their leveled guns. Mul-
lins — lying supine with a blood-
stained bandage about his torso —
they ignored.
"Shoot the rats now!" yelped
somebody. "They'd have blown
Port Gregory clear to Pluto if we
hadn't got here in time!
"It wasn't them," came a thin,
cracked voice from the floor. "It
was me — Mullins." The voice took
on a note of pride. "The Last o' the
Swagmen. They stopped me."
"Mullins!" said one of the
>*
"Who'd
9 >
«<r
I thought that perhaps if I sung
troopers. "Whod a thought the
old creep had it in him? Pick him
up, men. We'll take 'em all back
for questioning."
"You'll never take me alive!"
cried Mullins.
With surprising agility he sprang
to his iect, pushed through the ring
of men surrounding us. Shots were
fired — but the light was bad and
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
167
the Australian was weaving as he
ran. Briefly he bent over a metal
manhole cover in the stone floor,
sent k m a clattering trajectory that
swept the first of his pursuers off his
feet. He stood briefly poised over
the black hole — then he was gone.
A long time afterwards we heard
the splash.
There were technicians with the
troopers and they busied themselves
getting things running once more.
We heard one of them say, "D'ye
remember when poor old Malcolm
fell into the boiler feed? We got
his bones next time we cleaned out
■absolutely clean and white they
were."
Somewhere something was start-
ing up. Its rhythmic chatter seemed
to match the 'meter of a song, an
old song-
"Up jumped the swagman, sprang
into the billabong,
"You'll never catch me alive!'
said he;
And his ghost may be heard as
you pass by that billabong —
"You'll come a-waltzine Matilda
the effects of the anaesthetic gas,
with me!
t tr
Fve often wondered since if the
generator room of that power sta-
tion is haunted now.
*
VI
Explanations were in order when
we got back to Port Gregory.
Luckily for us those who had been
on duty at the power station door
were able to confirm our story in
part, as soon as they recovered from
There was Mullins' swag with
some twisted and dried shreds of
vegetable matter in k — shreds that
might well have been ail that re-
mained of bladders that once had
held something of a gaseous nature.
And there were Jane's films —
these gave a complete sound and
visual record of the events of that
night from EDDY'S BAR 8c GRILL
onwards. The last part, that dealing
with Mullins' story, Jane managed
to remove and hide. If it had
occurred to anybody that anything
was being suppressed the missing
portion would have had to be pro-
duced. But the shots, inadvertently
recorded, of Jane tearing up her
slip to make bandages were proof
positive of her candor.
Nevertheless we had a sticky
time. It was only our Terran citizen-
ship, plus the fact that we were
both employees of powerful cor-
porations, that saved us from a
stickier one. The most galling part
of k was to have Carmichael — Jane
pointed him out to me, one of those
little dark clever looking characters
■sitting in on the interrogation we
were put through.
. But he wouldn't use the story-
it showed Interplanetary News Ser-
vices and its gallant news hounds in
far too good a light. He could use
his influence with the censor to
have k killed if Jane wanted to
broadcast k from any of the Martian
stations. But Jane didn't want to
broadcast k until she had the full
story, Carmichael wanted that story
too, for his Extra-Terran News.
i68
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
Then there was the Walru^
bumbling around, very distressed
about it all. "You shouldn't do thesq
»
««
9f
things," he kept on saying. "Youj
shouldn't do these things/"
"Look, Mr. Consul," I said at last*
if we hadn't done these things, asj
you put it, there'd be none of us
alive to talk about it." ,
"But the police, Mr. Basset-Wills.
It's what they're paid for.
"Fat chance a mere Terran has of .
getting a Martian cop interested in
anything," said Jane.
The Walrus made no verbal reply.
He just glared.
I looked about me and felt, not
for the first time, that I was getting
rather tired of the environment. We
were in a room in the Port Gregory
Police Headquarters. It was plain
but comfortable enough — if one
ignored the fact that the best easy
chair was firmly occupied by Car-
michael of the E.T.N.
I met Carmichael's eyes, then,
annoyed by the look of tolerant
amusement that was all too evident
in them, shifted my regard to the
old Consul. He had gone to the
faucet in one corner beneath which
was a container of paper cups.
He took a cup from the con-
tainer, held it beneath the tap and
pressed the spring lever. Instead
of the anticipated steam of clear
ice water only a thin muddy trickle
emerged. He muttered something
under his breath and threw the cup
from him.
"Didn't you know, Mr. Consul?"
asked the E.T.N, man lazily. "The
n
t<
made
long
water's been off since zero seven
hundred this morning."
'Why?" demanded Jane.
'Because, Meredith, we are at
war. While you and Mr. Basset
Hyphen Wills were cavorting
around the Old Power Plant every
city on Mars went to Action Sta-
tions."
"Action Stations?" I gasped. My
dread, the feeling of sick fear that
my stomach drop a helluva
way into nothingness, must
have been written large on my face
for any observer to read. We had
had the beginnings of an atomic
war once — and every sane person
knew that such a conflict on a large
scale can but have only one finish.
"You needn't get alarmed, Wills.
We're still on speaking terms with
the Terran Central Government,"
Carmichael added.
"But who are you fighting?" This
was Jane and even then I had an
idea that she was demanding con-
firmation rather than information.
"Who are you fighting?"
"Of course," put in the Walrus,
"all Terran nationals must take
shelter in the Consulate."
Nobody paid any attention. Car-
michael took out his cigarette case,
selected a cigarette with much care.
Then, "I don't know," he admitted.
"Do you, Meredith?"
"I don't know either,
The verb
cented.
said Jane.
was ever so subtly ac-
"But what's the dope?"
"You were with us when we
went out to get shots of the crabs
headed towards Port Gregory along
CasarteJli's Canal. You saw the way
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
that they seemed ot be marching
almost in military formation. And
you saw the way that they broke
and scattered when our plane came
low and its jets started to cook
them.
*
"There was no intelligence there
it was just a mob of mindless
animals bolting for cover — and the
bulk of 'em didn't even have the
savvy to go for the cover that was
nearest and most obvious, the canal
itself.
"Nobody worried much about the
things until the water went off this
morning. Everybody knew what the
cause was — just a dust storm that
had passed a few miles north of the
city and had not been observed or
reported. The usual crews went out
in their usual 'sandcats with their
usual tools. They did not come
back. And the water did not come
on at all.
"The Department of Water
Transport and Irrigation finally got
tired of calling the gang boss on
the radio telephone and decided to
send a plane. It had a crew of two.
One man, the pilot, came back.
"It appears that he reached the
place where the canal was blocked
by what looked like a sand dune.
The sluggishly flowing water from
the north was just spreading out on
each side of the obstruction —
spreading out and soaking into the
sand. Not far from the dry bed of
the canal, just south of the obstruc-
tion, he saw the sandcats of the
working gang. All three machines
were standing idle and there was no
sign of life in or around them. He
169
came lower — and saw that the dune
had a peculiarly mottled appearance.
And he saw something white
littered on the sand beside one of
the sandcats.
"Well, he came down on his jets,
landed and the co-pilot put on his
respirator and went out to see what
was what. The pilot didn't like the
looks of things and 1 decided he'd
better stay put and keep his jets
warm for a quick getaway.
"The co-pilot went first of all to
the litter of white rubbish beside
the stranded sandcats. The pilot saw
him bend down to examine it —
then he straightened up in a hurry
and started running back to the
plane. And then the desert simply
vomited crabs — thousands of them
there must have been.
"The co-pilot had his gun out and
was letting fly right and left — but
he had to stop to reload. And that
was the end of him. The pilot was
shooting too — but there were so
many of 'em that he made no im-
pression. He kept the door open as
long as he dared, hoping that his
mate would make it.
"When he saw nothing but a
heap of crabs with shreds of cloth
and pieces of red meat in their
claws he knew it was useless. He
slammed the door in a hurry-
there were a few hundred of the
beasts headed his way from what
was left of the co-pilot — and gave
her the gun. And nearly went crash-
ing over on to his side.
"While he had been firing at the
crabs attacking his mate others had
come up on his blind side, had
170
FANTASTIC UNIVERSB
crawled over his ,wings and fuselage.
Luckily he was able to get his jets
balanced — and after a few minutes
in the air he had most of em shaken
off.
*
"Then he came down again. He
saw then, what had caused the
mottled appearance of the dune
choking the canal — it was the bodies
of myriads of crabs. When he
saw what was left of his co-pilot he
tried to come low over the desert
and blast the beasts with his jets —
but they burrowed down into the
sand before he could get neat
them."
"And so?" asked Jane softly.
"The crabs have declared war on
us. Reports have been coming in
from all the cities. Canals have
been choked, isolated hunters and
trappers and prospectors ambushed
and massacred. A caravan between
Paris du Ciel and Nieu Arnhem has
been attacked — the crabs stopped
the desert schooners by sheer weight
of numbers, jammed the caterpillar
tracks with their bodies.
"The only way to get the pas-
sengers and crews out is by air —
and that's not as easy as you might
think. One plane landed a little
way from the sandcats — and as soon
as its doors were open the crabs
were all over it and into it.
"The next pilot was smarter. He
tried to make a really close landing
— and incinerated the desert-
schooner and everybody inside it.
They're going to try flame throwers
and asbestos suits next. Mean-
while, with bars of metal that they
got from somewhere, the crabs have
ft
use atom
pried open one of the sandcats"
"You didn't see the caravan that
left here this afternoon for Marsala,
did you? No, you wouldn't. But
you should have — it wasn't a cara-
van, it was a convoy. A dozen
desert schooners armed with flame
throwers — and an air escort.'
"Why don't you
bombs?" I asked.
"Use your head, man! The blasted
things hide in the sand as soon as
they see a rocket plane coming. The
only time we see 'em is when they're
besieging a stalled caravan — as be-
tween Paris du Ciel and Nieu Arn-
hem — or when there's a mob of
em too close to a canal or to a
city for safety.
"And we've got to make 'em —
which takes time, especially with
the water supply so uncertain. It's
cut off now from the Old Power
Station. But if this goes on we
shall have to drop some— canals or
no canals. .
He turned to Jane, "What do you
know about this, Meredith?"
"I know nothing."
Again there was the faint accent
on the know. Carmichael noticed it
this time. "Oh, I see. One of your
famous hunches. And if you're
allowed to follow it what do you
propose to do?" .
"There's a Spur ling Three at the
spaceport — you probably know that
I purchased it some few days ago.
The local Aviators' Guild won't play
— but I have my own pilot here.
Mr. Basset-Wills is already on the
I.P.N.S. payroll."
"I should have thought of that.
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
171
-
But a Master Astronaut's Certificate
isn't as good as local knowledge.
You can have your pilot now-
you can have your pick of the pilots
in the Guild."
•u
?>
t«
**
'Thank you. But I think I'll stick
to Peter. He should be able to read
a map. I take it that you're speaking
for the big white chiefs, Carmichael?
What strings are tied to this lovely
proposition?
None," replied the E.T.N, man.
At least — not so you'd notice it.
Any visual or sound recordings you
make will, of course, have to go
through the censor — but that's
routine. Frankly we want to get to
the bottom of this — and fast. You
can ferret out the truth if anybody
can.
"Thank you, kind sir. When can
we go?"
"Any time you like. Your Spur-
ling is stocked up with food and
water. There are maps and instru-
ments. There are two automatic
rifles with ammunition, two flame
throwers and a couple of hand guns
each."
"And no strings?"
"No strings."
"Good. But well not start till
daylight tomorrow morning. There
are a few things to check first. To
begin with — have you any of these
crabs in captivity?"
"Yes. They found two still cling-
ing on to the wings of the Depart-
ment of Water Transport and Ir-
rigation plane."
"Take us to em."
"Really, Miss Meredith," bleated
the Walrus plaintively, "in times
like these all Earth nationals
should . . ."
". . . take refuge in the Con-
sulate," finished Jane. "But who-
ever or whatever is behind all this
doesn't give a damn if you're a
Terran or an Alpha Centaurian. All
we are is crab fodder. Or," she added
under her breath, "fertiliser sounds
a lot more like it."
VII
Before we did anything else we
saw the first — and only — two pris-
oners of this strange campaign. We
had to go outside the dome to see
them and, frankly, it hardly seemed
worth the trouble of putting on out-
door clothing and respirators just
to look at two such ugly specimens.
They have a half dozen or so in
the London Interplanetary Zoo back
on Earth — and once you've seen
them you've seen all Martian land
bs. True — these, not having to
labor against the pull of a heavier
gravity, were a little more spry.
But they were no more handsome.
I don't know whether you've seen
the beasts. They aren't very pre-
possessing. Their body is about
twelve inches in diameter by nine
in thickness and is balanced on top
of a bunch of spidery stilts fully
five feet in length.
The limbs on which the claws are
mounted are elongated far beyond
the proportions of those of their
Terran ancestors. The eyes are on
long telescopic stalks, so that when
the creature is submerged in the
sea of sand it can use them as peri-
scopes. And there are two antennae
172
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
mg
«
It
9f
which can, In the Martian variety,
be used as a sort of iasso.
These two were in a cage of stout
wire toward the edge of the land-
field. Now and again they
would seize the thick strands with
their massive claws, shake and
strain with uncoordinated fury.
There was no concerted action, no
evidence of intelligent co-operation.
We felt that the two prisoners were
dimly aware of us only as food, as
enemies larger than themselves.
I thought so," said Jane softly.
I thought so . . .'
What with the thin air and our
masks I barely heard her. Car-
michael, who was standing further
from her than I was, did not. He
was not intended to. I bent towards
Jane until the transparent plastic
fronts of our helmets were touch-
ing and demanded what it was she
thought.
The vegetable gardens on the
crabs' backs, you fool. Don't you
see the connection between them
and poor old Mossy Whiskers?"
"Mossy Whiskers? Oh, you mean
Mullms. Frankly, no."
"It's obvious. It — "
Just then a shift of the thin wind
brought a great cloud of black oily
smoke billowing over us from the
trench that had been hastily dug
around the city. Masked as we were
it made no difference whatsoever
to our breathing — but it seemed
that it should.
Involuntarily I held my breath.
After I had brought up my sleeve
to wipe my facepiece clear I saw
that Jane was headed in the direc-
<«
tion of the trench full of burning
oil, the flame throwers and the as-
bestos-suited figures like demons
from some medieval hell.
I followed but there was nothing
much to see. Just a ditch packed
with lurid fire, just the flame throw-
ers on its nearer edge, standing to
the alert like the artillery of a be-
leagured city. They were the artil-
lery of a beleaguered city — and
upon them devolved the task of
keeping the gates and the landing
field clear of the investing hosts.
We watched for awhile. The
scene had its fascination — but there
was no action to compel the inter-
est. Action there had been — the
of crustacean corpses with
legs
was
Port
piles or crustacean corpses
burst carapaces and cindery
attested to that. But nothing
happening just then.
So Jane went back into
Gregory to pack whatever gear she
required for the morrow's trip and
I got Carmichael to show me our
Spurling Three. By the time I had
assured myself that all was in or-
der the last of the daylight was
gone and the cold stars were look-
ing down on the ruddy fires, Man's
age-old defense against a hostile
Nature.
She was a nice little job, that
Spurling Three. I had flown similar
turret-drive ships on Gannymede-
flying transport is essentially the
same on all the worlds with thin
or non-existent atmosphere. Car-
michael — or the people he was rep-
resenting — had certainly done us
proud in the matter of equipment.
Charts for the whole of Mars, cor-
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
173
rected almost to the latest second,
and a chronometer and a bubble
sextant for use in the event — far
from impossible these days — of a
failure of the Martian Loran sta-
tions.
She was commodious too. We
could live in her pressure cabin for
days at a stretch, if need be, with-
out suffering more than minor dis-
comforts. And whoever had looked
after the commissariat must have
had a siege of at least a month's
duration in mind.
Dawn was just coloring the
desert rim when we blasted off that
morning. The smoke from the
flame defenses hung low and oily
and through the dark artificial
clouds the sun struggled with a dim
ruddiness foreign to Mars with its
clear thin atmosphere. But it was
a matter of seconds only before our
roaring jets lifted us above the
smokescreen. Port Gregory looked
like an island, like a strangely sym-
metrical rock lifting its ivory pin-
nacles above a black swirling sea.
For awhile I busied myself with
the turret drive, trying to strike the
correct combination of jet angle
and power feed that would give
me desired forward momentum
without loss or gain of altitude.
all
the
but one thing we
I could have left it all to
automatic pilot
are taught in the Service is never
to place too implicit a faith in any
machine. Man, with all his short-
comings, is a robust robot who can
take over when conditions have
caused a breakdown of the often
more fragile, invariably more spe-
cialized, mechanisms.
"Set the course zero, zero, zero,"
said Jane. "Speed six hundred
knots."
"Terran or Martian?"
"What does it matter? Anyhow
you'd better navigate this beast.
Follow the canal to Paris du Ciel,
then circle the city at low speed.
I want some shots. While we're
about it we may as well have a look
at Marsala — and Nieu Arnhem
and
Tamaragrad
and the others.
and Collisburg
»
'And what time do you plan on
getting to the tulgey wood just
south of the North Pole?"
"It's not important. Just about
dark will do. We'll set the jets to
hover, get in a good night's sleep,
then we'll have a full day to ex-
plore."
"Okay. You're the captain."
So all that day we spent sweep-
ing along the canals, observing the
damage wrought by the crustacean
armies. We could see that while
progress had been made in clearing
the worst blockages the work of
blocking was still going on.
Hordes of crabs we glimpsed,
hordes that melted speedily into the
desert sand at our approach. Look-
ing astern we saw them break sur-
face, mottling the rusty expanse
with a darker brown, looking for
all the world like some fantastically
swift-growing form of plant life
springing up in our wake.
Other planes were in the air,
planes bearing the insignia of the
Martian Government. Most of them
l 74
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
ignored us but now and again some
officious patrol commander would
demand our identity and destina-
tion. But they let us go on our
lawful occasions without hindrance.
But our observations of the Mar-
tian cities between Port Gregory
and the northern polar cap taught
us nothing new. The domes them-
selves differed only in minor de-
tails from each other — Paris du Ciel
could be distinguished by the grace-
ful latticework towers surmounting
it, Tamaragrad by the huge statue
of Tamara Rynin, commander of
the first Soviet expedition and first
woman on Mars — but the scene
around each was a repetition of
that around Port Gregory.
There was the same moat dug
deep into the sand, filled with burn-
ing oil, the same batteries of im-
provised flame throwers. We saw
only one thing fresh, a convoy of
the desert schooners fighting its way
into Nieu Arnhem. And when the
dozen big tractors had forced their
way through the myriad armored
bodies of the crabs one of their
number was left stalled, its cater-
pillar tracks clogged by the crushed
bodies of the enemy.
Its flame throwers spurted vi-
ciously but briefly — they must have
been in use almost continuously on
the run from whatever city the con-
voy had come. And then the crabs
were all around and all over it.
One of the patrolling aircraft
swooped low over the scene, trail-
ing a fine, misty spray. When it
had passed the crabs were motion-
less and masked figures emerged
from the body of the tractor, worked
frantically to clear the tracks before
fresh hordes would be upon them.
There was nothing we could do
to help and in any case the situa-
tion appeared to be well under con-
trol. So having obtained our shots
we pushed on. The sun was foun-
dering fast below the desert's west-
ern rim when a low glare in the
sky ahead told of the nearness of
the polar icefield. A dark mass
short of the glare had to be the
forest of which Mullins had talked.
Dark
VIII
and forbidding,
black
against the pale glare to the north-
ward, stretched the forest. Its edge
was a seemingly unbroken wall set
against the southern sands, a living
wall, a wall whose face was set
with knives and spines, with yard-
long bayonets presented against any
possible invader.
To the east the forest was
bounded by Casartelli's Canal. We
followed the waterway north to the
edge of the ice and snow, to the
white dead plains that were harshly
scintillant in the aching beams of
our searchlights.. The sun had now
set and only Deimos, low in the
sky, cast its shifting radiance over
the scene.
But in the powerful light of the
lamps we could find no break in
the wall of greenery. West we flew,
along the forest's northern edge,
then south down Duval's Canal, its
western boundary. Over the forest
we flew — and there was no sign of
even a small clearing.
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
175
Our original scheme had been to
hover for the night just south of
the wood. No better plan presented
itself and so it was that I set the
controls to maintain a comfortable
five-hundred-foot altitude. I didn't
feel too happy about it.
In Space, if your drive should
fail, you have plenty of time to do
something about it. Here, over a
planetary surface, it seemed very
risky. Still it was less risky than
making a landing and having what-
ever monsters were harbored by the
forest swarm over the Spurling
while we slept.
For awhile we sat in the pilots'
chairs and smoked and talked. Both
moons came up, hurtled eerily
across the black sky. The dark mass
below and to" the north seemed to
shift and stir. We knew that it
was only a trick of the light — but
it seemed to be the enchanted wood
of all the less pleasant fairy stories
of our childhood.
And then a portion of the shad-
owy bulk seemed to put out pseud -
pods, stretched hungry arms out
over the desert. Jane reached for
her camera fast, and I just sat and
stared. It wasn't possible, but . . .
There was an evil magic in the
night that made anything possible.
Anticlimactically the arms of
darkness broke off from the parent
body, split each into a hundred
black blobs. Over the sand they
raced with a peculiarly jerky mo-
tion, coalesced and then exploded
into a thousand leaping fragments.
The rabbits were making high
festival under the light of the
moons, were sporting with a cuxc-
free abandon unknown to higher
life forms weighed down with the
cares and troubles brought by in-
telligence and the responsibilities of
civilization.
From the shadowy wood marched
other shadows, compactly grouped,
military. Moving with fast pre-
cision they wheeled over the moon-
lit sands, encircled the gamboling
rabbits with a thin cordon. This
drew in towards the edge of the
woods, for all the world as though
it were a loop of rope, a noose, be-
ing drawn tight by somebody with-
in the shadows. Somebody — or
something.
"So the party's over," said Jane
at last. "The bunnies have had their
fun and frolic, their evening's ex-
ercise. The sheepdogs have rounded
up the flock for the night. And I
think it's time to get some sleep."
She bedded down on the settee
in the little living cabin and I made
a passable enough couch with the
two pilots' chairs. The next thing
we knew ' the time-alarm was
shrilling and the sun was just top-
ping the eastern horizon.
There were no si ens of life when
we grounded gently on the fine
sand. We put on our fur-lined
coveralls over our indoor clothing
and asbestos woven fabric suits on
top of everything. We buckled on
the belts with the heavy pistols in
their holsters, with ammunition
pouches for both the hand guns and
the automatic rifles.
We assisted each other with the
harnesses to which were affixed the
176
canisters of the portable flame
throwers. We put on our respi-
rators. And then we found that
we couldn't get out of the cabin
door. It was the flame throwers
that were the trouble. So we had
to take them off and put them on
again when we got outside.
The next job was bedding the
grapnel. It did't seem possible that
any anchoring device could find a
grip in the dry pulverized sand of
Mars. But whoever had designed
these grapnels had done a masterly
job. Their many spidery arms, their
spatulate extensions, would catch
and hold. Whether or not they
could have held against a wind
with the weight of Earth's atmos-
phere behind it is a moot point —
but on Earth you'd have something
a little more solid in which to
anchor.
About six feet above the grap-
nel, attached to the mooring cable,
was a remote control device. On
its button being depressed the drive
would start, the ship would rise
vertically and hover at a prede-
termined altitude, well clear of any
inquisitive or hostile animals or hu-
mans.
It was necessary, on actuating the
remote control mechanism, to step
well back to avoid being caught by
the backblast of the jets. Then the
tiny control panel could be un-
shipped with a simple anti-clock-
wise half -turn. It was like a key
inasmuch as only this panel would
fit into this particular socket.
All very ingenious and all very
foolproof — provided one did not
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
want to gQt away in a tearing hurry,
I, for one, hoped this would not be
the case.
Walking along the edge of the
forest we looked in vain for an
opening. It would have been sui-
cidal to attempt to force a way in
- — this we found with our first ten-
tative experiments. The needle-thin
ends of the vegetable bayonets
penetrated with ease the thicknesses
of asbestos weave and fur-lined
drill, inflicted a painful prick on
the inquisitive finger.
The cutting edge of the defenses
was tried upon the tough plastic
leather of a pistol holster — and the
ease with which it sheared through
the stout synthetic made it plain
that it would be far healthier to go
for a swim in a sea of broken
bottles.
It was perhaps half an hour after
we had commenced our exploration
that we found the pathway. We
would have passed it without see-
ing it as in all probability we had
passed many similar openings, had
it not been for the white rabbit.
The animal was standing there quite
quietly, its snowy fur in startling
contrast to the dark foliage. It let
us approach within a few feet of
it before it turned and loped into
the shadows.
It was the first time that I had
seen one of the rabbits at close
quarters. I was familiar enough
with their terrestrial ancestors—
and it came as a shock to see for
myself what changes had been
wrought in the homely stock by
an alien environment.
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
177
Fully five feet high the animal
stood. Had it not been for the ab-
sence of tail it could have passed
for a kangaroo of sorts. The chest
was developed to house the big
lungs demanded by the thin atmos-
phere, making the creature, in spite
of its powerful hind legs, look ab-
surdly topheavy.
It stood — or rather squatted — and
regarded us with faintly curious
pink eyes. The split upper lip
worked over the big projecting in-
cisors. We knew that rabbits, even
on Mars, weren't carnivorous but
those over-large teeth looked to be
capable of inflicting considerable
damage at close quarters. So did
the claws with which both fore and
hind feet were armed.
We stood and looked at the
white rabbit and the white rabbit
stood and looked at us and it wasn't
until we brought our automatic
rifles to the ready that the albino
decided it didn't care for our com-
pany. It turned, dropped to all
fours and vanished into the wood.
It was all too Alice-in-Wonderland-
ish. And so, with unreality strong
upon us, we followed — or tried to
follow.
It was the flame throwers that
got in the way. They were too
bulky, much too bulky. It didn't
matter whether we tried a frontal
approach or sought to sidle in
through the opening. They caught
and held.
When our protective clothing
was shredded by a score of deep
slashes, each one barely missing the
skin beneath, we decided that we
would have to abandon what was,
probably, our most effective wea-
pon. It never occurred to us to use
these same projectors to clear a
path through the undergrowth that
cut at us.
It wouldn't have mattered much
if we had — it is probable that had
we done so their charges would
have been exhausted long before
we wished to use them for any-
thing else but road clearance.
Her voice muffled by her head-
piece, thin in the thin air, Jane
was saying something. I strained
my ears to catch it.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my
son,
The jaws that bite, the claws
that catch,
Beware the Jub-jub tree and
shun
The frumious bandersnatch.
i»
• It was ail very apposite — and In
this forest of spiny growths that
stretched their bayonet leaves a
hundred or more feet into the thin
air it was not very cheering. The
light — or lack of it — was all wrong
for one to be able to appreciate
Lewis Carroll's nonsense as it was
meant to be appreciated.
In this green gloom the Jub-jub
"tree," with its sharp swords and
knives lining the narrow winding
path along which we trod, was in-
deed a thing of which to beware.
It had ceased to be Collinsia Utilen-
sis, a mere plant existing for the
use and convenience of the master
race of the known Universe.
tli ought
i 7 8
It was something older, stronger,
something guarding its secrets with
a quietly vicious determination.
And all the time I was mentally
kicking myself for letting a few
lines of absurd doggerel send my
mind wandering along such non-
sensical tracks.
We saw no more of our friend
the white rabbit. Once or twice we
we glimpsed movement
along the trail, figures that vanished
behind the next corner just before
we could see them properly. It
may have been imagination, it may
not. But so far we had encountered
nothing but the purely passive hos-
tility of the spiky plants.
Then we came to the clearing.
It was roughly circular, about
twenty feet in diameter. The
ground was covered with a short
mossy growth, springy under the
feet. It may have been only an-
other manifestation of the versatile
Collins ia — but it was hard to ap*-
preciate the fact that it was all
part of the same plant whose tower-
ing upthrust shut out the very sky.
In any case we had more important
things than botany on our minds.
For there were the remains of a
plastic tent strewn over the ground.
Something had tried to eat the in-
edible synthetic, something else had
shredded it with sharp claws.
But it was obviously a portable
shelter of the type used by the
trappers and prospectors, such as
had been used by the Last of the
Swagmen. And a smoke-blackened
cylinder of thin aluminium was
proof positive that this was where
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
MulHns had made his last camp.
Not that I realized what it was at
first, I didn't realize until I heard
Jane softly singing
*»
And he sang as he watched and
waited while his billy boiled,
You'll come a-waltzing Ma-
tilda with me!"
But the evocation of the ghost of
the dead Mullins would get us no-
where. I fought to throw off the
mood of doubt, of indecision, that
had somehow descended upon us.
I tried not to hear the furtive
rustlings that came from all around
us, where something stirred in the
thick undergrowth.
I think these pitiful relics of the
Last of the Swagmen had brought
it home to us that we were fools
rushing in where any angel would
fear to tread, that the only advan-
tage we had over the Australian
was that we were forewarned. But
we were no better armed.
Jane, of course, regarded this, of
all moments, as a time suitable for
further quotation from Carroll.
"And as in uffish thought he
stood
The Jabberwock, with eyes of
flame,
Came whiffling through the
tulgey wood
And burbled as it came . . ."
i
It would be incorrect to describe
the sound as whiffling. That word
conveys an impression of speed.
This was more the noise of ar-
THE "FOREST OF KNIVES
79
mored bodies forcing themselves
not too rapidly through a natural
barbed-wire entanglement. There
were plenty of them. And they
didn't burble.
The sound that came from their
multitudinous mouths was more of
a dry rustling, the grating of horny
surface on horny surface as the dis-
gustingly complex machinery of
crustacean jaws worked avidly and
unceasingly.
Had we stayed in the clearing
we could have field them off indefi-
nitely — given an inexhaustible sup-
ply of ammunition. It was simple
— as soon as an armored carapace
pushed through the undergrowth a
heavy slug from a pistol or a high
velocity rifle bullet would smash it.
At that range" we couldn't miss.
The slaughter was great but k was
getting us precisely nowhere. Our
only hope of escape lay in fighting
our way back to the desert and the
Spurling Three.
Speaking hastily in broken sen-
tences between bursts from our
guns, we arranged a plan of cam-
paign. I was to go first, clearing
a way ahead, and Jane was to fol-
low, her back to my back, fighting
off pursuit.
For the first few yards it worked.
It seemed as if our enemies were
discouraged by the accuracy of our
fire. We allowed ourselves to feel
hopeful. But we had forgotten one
thing — the fact that they could
climb. And when a shower of heavy
bodies — all legs and pincers and
flinty armor — dropped on us from
above we knew the fight was over.
We went on fighting — but we knew
the fight was over.
IX
We didn't go on fighting long
either. Our rifles were snatched
from us. We managed to get off
a round or two from our pistols-
and then they were gone. There
was a brief period of the frenzied
snapping off of spidery limbs with
our hands — a nightmarish business
that even now gives me the cold
shudders when I think about it.
They got me down first. There
were pincers at my arms and legs,
gripping painfully. There was the
weight of a dozen or more armored
bodies on my chest. And there were
sharp-clawed spiny feet scrabbling
over my clothing and over my hel-
met until I feared that the tough
transparent plastic would tear, that
I would asphyxiate helplessly in the
too-thin air of Mars.
Looking back on it all I am rather:
amused that I should have been so
concerned about the manner of my
going when I was as good as gone.
It may have been that Mullins'
story, if it were true, promised us
at least a few more hours of life.
In those few hours anything could
happen.
Out of the corner of my eye I
saw Jane go down, saw her picked
up and carried, still in a supine po-
sition, along the narrow path. I
felt the pincers on my wrists and
arms, ankles and legs, tighten their
grip.
Then the crabs lifted me from
the ground and I saw the tracery of
a8o
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
dark spikes and fronds, the tiny in-
frequent patches of distant sky, be-
gin to move. The pain of serrated
claws pressing deep had dulled to
numbness when the limited over-
head view changed abruptly to the
brown earth roof of a tunnel. For
a little it was dark and then there
was a wan greenish phosphores-
cence.
It was warm down here. Our
heavy clothing had been ideal for
the near-freezing midday tempera-
ture of the surface but now, even
though no muscular effort was be-
ing made, it was uncomfortably
hot. The desire to scratch, to wipe
away the little rivulets of perspira-
tion running down my face, was
almost more than I could stand.
More than anything else in the
world I wanted to tear off my mask,
to put an end to the intolerable
irritation. But steel-hard pincers
would not permit the slightest
movement.
The air was getting thicker. The
outside pressure was approximating
that inside our respirators. They no
longer stood out from our faces like
inflated balloons, they sagged down
and rested clammily on our fea-
tures like an extra skin. They added
considerably to our discomfort. We
were helpless to do anything.
We came at last to a place of
growing things — a cavern where a
thin path or tunnel wound tortu-
ously through a tenticular mass of
luminescent foliage. It was here
that the crabs stopped, that their
appendages with amazing dexterity
1!
»
«»■
M
»
is
loosed the fastenings of our masks.
The masks were lifted from our
heads and it was then that I heard
Jane.
"Peter," she was calling. "Peter!
Are you all right?
"Yes. And you?
"I'm doin' fine. As well as can
be expected, anyhow. I can still
breathe — and at last I can talk —
Damn/"
'What's wrong?"
'A mouthful of some floury stuff.
It's coming from these blasted vines.
My hair is full of it.
"So is mine. And it's itching . . .
"Then this is it," she said. "Re-
member poor old Mull ins and his
mossy hair and whiskers. Remem-
ber the crabs and the lichenous
growth on their shells."
Things began to add up and
make sense.
"But," I objected, "the rabbits.
Why can't it do the same to them?
I don't know. Maybe their in-
stincts of cleanliness are too strong
for it, maybe they go and roll in
the sand before this parasitical weed
has a chance to catch hold. Per-
haps Mnllins could have done like-
wise had his personal hygiene been
up to that of the rabbits. It may
be strong enough to make me blow
up a power station — but it'll have
to be stronger still to stop me from
washing my hair!
By this time we were out of the
cave of vines, were being carried
deeper and deeper still below the
surface of Mars. The tunnel was
dark again but a dim steady radiance
was coming from ahead. There was
9$
««
n
THE FOREST
KNIVES
181
light there — and, as we were carried
closer to its source, a smell. It was
a smell compounded of carrion and
of growing things, a smell of life
and of death. Of life — but no nor-
mal healthy life could smell like
this.
The stench was overpowering
when at last we were borne into
the deepest cavern of all. It came
from a pile of animal carcasses that
were stacked around what at first
sight appeared to be a huge snake.
But its black coils were completely
motionless, and there was neither
head nor tail.
Without tapering, without any
dimunition of thickness whatsoever,
the lower end vanished into the
soil of the cavern floor. The upper
portion divided itself into scores of
tentacles some of which, scarcely
less in diameter than the parent
body, seemed to have penetrated the
earthern roof and walls of the cave.
Others, varying in thickness from
a thin whiplash to a half -inch wand,
drooped listlessly, not unlike the de-
jected branches of a Terran weep-
ing willow.
But it was alive — of that there
was no doubt. And it was power-
ful. Almost visible waves of force
beat out around it. Little tendrils
of thought crept from it, insinuated
themselves, questing, into our
minds. Insinuated themselves — and
recoiled.
There was surprise there — and
disappointment. Surprise that here
were two specimens of homo
sapiens far less easy to control than
the last specimen, until then the
only living one, had been. And dis-
appointment — for the same reason.
"So it didn't catch," Jane said
softly. "It didn't catch. I see now
•those seeds or spores or what-
ever they were that were dusted on
us in that cave of vines are yet
another manifestation of Collinsia
Utilensis. A very specialized one.
"They are en rapport, telepath-
ically, with the parent-root here.
Through them this — intelligence
controls the organisms on which
it has planted its agents. Through
them it sees with their eyes. It was
easy enough to start them on the
crabs — their shells are far from
clean: There is dried crusted blood
all manner of filth, relics of
ever since the monsters first
there,
meals
burst from the egg.
"With rabbits it wouldn't be so
easy — they are clean from the word
go and keep themselves so. The
same applies to us — I hope. But on
poor old Mullin's scalp the spores
found fertile soil. I hope it can't
understand what I'm saying."
I hoped so, too. It had just struck
me that while It had Mullins un-
der its control It could have learned
English. And the prospects of be-
ing rolled in that pile of carrion,
of decomposing rabbit carcasses
that provided sustenance for the
plant intelligence, was not one
upon which to dwell with any de-
gree of enthusiasm.
I hoped that it had no organs of
hearing.
And when the crabs, still grip-
ping me hard and painfully, car-
ried me to the huge root I feared
3.82
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
that the worst was about to hap-
pen. But they halted when still a
few feet from the stinking pile,
halted and froze into immobility.
The tendrils pendent from the
top of the root stirred sluggishly.
They writhed into slow, painful
movement. I heard Jane gasp with
horror behind me. She told me
afterwards that she feared this was
the vampire plant so beloved of
fantasy authors, that I was to be
drained of blood to make a meal
for the vegetable monster.
From the bunch of tentacles two
separated themselves. They were
unlike the others inasmuch that
each bore on its end what looked
Jike a flat sucking disc. Their ap-
pearance was far from reassuring.
Down they came with slow deliber-
ation. The first made contact with
my left temple. There was a mild
tingling shock. Seconds later the
other attached itself to my right
temple.-
It is hard to describe what hap-
pened afterward. It is best to say,
perhaps, that without volition I
found myself remembering every-
thing. From my very earliest days
right to the present moment the
stream of memory flowed through
my brain — flowed, I am sure, into
whatever alien mind was possessed
by our captor. There were things
I had forgotten, things that I had
often tried to forget. There was
all my knowledge, all my experi-
ence, all that I was.
And that wasn't the whole of it.
Try to imagine a sort of psycho-
logical osmosis. It's not the correct
*
term, I know, but that's how it
worked out. It wasn't a one way
traffic. I don't think for one mo-
ment that Collinsia intended things
to pan out that way — it just hap-
pened.
As far as my end was concerned
it was like watching two cinema
screens at once. One film I had
seen before — but the other bad
never been seen by Man. It was
the story of a world, small, barren
world to which intelligent life
had come relatively late.
It was the story of one intelli-
gence which had grown near the
north pole of the planet, which was
anchored as much by the shortage
of water elsewhere as by its own
immobility, to the moisture just
south of the polar icecap.
There it preyed upon the stems
and leaves and fruit which were the
laboratories, the observatories, of
the intelligence, a little hardy ani-
mal not unlike the earthly arma-
dillo. The intelligence developed
spiny protections for its above-the-
surface growths, for the unintelli-
gent projections of itself that ob-
served and recorded.
And the armadillo-beast ranged
over the surface of the red planet
until at last there was no more
plant life to be found, until it died
vainly in its thousands on the spe-
cialized, deadly barriers protecting
the intelligence from depredation.
But the intelligence was curious.
Its tendrils explored the bodies of
the dead armadillos, paid special
attention to the brain. And it de-
veloped yet another form of itself
ft
THE FOREST OP KNIVES
185
fc tiny almost fungoid growth
that flourished on any not-too-clean
surface of living integument.
It was, in ways that were incom-
prehensible to me, a sort of tele-
pathic receiving and transmitting
set. In various places the spiny
barrier v/as let down. The armadil-
los found the gaps, penetrated the
undergrowth and feasted. And, as
the microscopic spores fell on to
their carapaces, fell and rooted and
flourished, they became the slaves
of the intelligence.
It was then that the canals were
cut. Driving south, driven by the
cold brain outside their bodies, the
armadillo-beasts excavated their way
clear to the South Pole. Along the
canals fresh colonies of the intelli-
gence sprang* up, colonies whose
seeds were carried in the alimentary
canals of the little animals, colonies
whose seeds had been embedded
within the tempting fruits devel-
oped by the intelligence.
With excretions from their own
bodies the canal builders cemented
the beds of the canals — and built
strongly, surely, almost permanently.
And the whole of Mars was now
one vast laboratory for the intelli-
gence as the roots of the new col-
onies linked up with those of the
parent plant at the northern pole,
■
It was intended then that most of
the armadillos should die, that only
a small colony should survive as a
reservoir of mobile slaves for the
intelligence. The unwanted beasts,
their work done, were driven by
the intelligence to fall upon each
other with tooth and claw, to leave
their rotting bodies where they
would best serve as fertilizer.
The small number of favored
animals did not survive for long.
Out of the wreckage of the slaugh-
ter came a tiny enemy, a micro-
organism, a disease that ran through
the depleted ranks of the armadil-
los like a consuming fire.
Given time — the intelligence
could have coped with the situation.
It did find a cure for the disease —
but it was too late. Only males
were left and barely a score o£
those. And they, while they lived
spread the plant colonies to the last
few corners of the planet as yet un-
settled. And died.
Years passed, years during which
the canals silted up, years which
saw the gradual slackening of the
grip with which the intelligence
had once firmly held its world.
It tried to develop mobile forms
of itself, achieved a certain limited
success with feathery bundles that
drifted before the thin winds.
But true mobility, a mobility that
could work, that could delve and
build, somehow always eluded it.
There is no doubt that, given time,
the problem would have been
solved. But before it was even well
begun Man, on his wings of flame
and thunder, came down from the
stars to take over the planet.
X
Man was always a mystery to the
intelligence. It had no opportuni-
ties for a thorough examination, no
chance for anything more than
superficial observation. At first it
184
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
seemed that a mutually profitable
relationship, a sort of symbiosis,
might be possible. Man cleared the
canals, set again in motion the
sluggish flow north and south from
the melting icecaps. Of this the
the intelligence was coldly appreci-
ative.
But it soon became obvious that
Man regarded himself as the mas-
ter, saw the colonies of the intelli-
gence as no more than a humble
life form set on Mars for his use
and convenience. To him the
thorny barriers protecting the plant
laboratories and observatories were
no barrier.
And man brought with him
humbler life forms. One of these,
furry, stupid, might make an ideal
slave for the intelligence. But for
one thing. The seeds of the tele-
pathic organisms would not flourish
in its clean pelt. But it didn't mat-
ter. The other creature, carnivor-
ous, heavily armed and armored,
could be enslaved. With it other
less well equipped life forms could
be controlled - — or exterminated.
There was more, much more.
But the point of view was so hope-
lessly alien that it was impossible
more than vaguely to sense its
meaning.
During the latter stages of this
strange inquisition, this forced ex-
change of thoughts and memories,
the crabs released my arms. I was
free .to move — but it was an illusory
freedom. As long as the tendrils
with their discs were in contact I
was able to move only as the intel-
ligence directed.
One by one, reluctantly, I
emptied my pockets. Item by item
I handed their contents up into the
nest of writhing tentacles,
each article was examined
And as
I found
myself visualizing its use, its ap-
plication.
Then it was all over. The big
pincers clamped down again on my
arms, the discs were withdrawn
from my forehead. I managed to
turn my head as I passed Jane. She
was looking white and sick.
"Cheer up," I was able to say.
"It's not too bad. You learn as
much about It as It learns about
you. When we get out of here
you'll have the news beat of all
time."
"When we get out," she said.
During my own inquisition I had
found time to wonder briefly,
vaguely, why Jane had kept so
silent. Now I found out. I tried
to say something reassuring, some-
thing showing a hope, a confidence,
that I was far from feeling. I never
got passed the first syllable.
.One of those infernal crabs
clapped its pincer down on my
mouth — and in its pincer it was
holding a pad of some spongy vege-
table matter. One taste of it de-
cided me that a dignified silence
was the best policy.
I could watch. I was amazed. It
seemed to me that the whole pro-
cess had taken hours — though it
could not have endured more than
minutes at the most. Then came
the handing over and examination
of the contents of pockets and
pouches. I felt a conviction that it
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
would break Jane's heart to have
to lose her camera, the little ma-
chine that already held within its
body records that would be invalu-
able should we ever get back to
civilization.
But cigarette case, cosmetics con-
tainer and handkerchiefs were all
dealt with.
Then it was the turn of the pho-
tographic and sound - recording
equipment and accessories. I didn't
see what the first item was. I knew
it was something important from
Jane's strained expression.
I did not know until afterwards
the intensity of the effort with
which she had snapped the psychic
bonds that held her — snapped them
for just long enough to move the
index finger of her right hand a
fraction of an inch.
With shocking suddenness the
little object burst into incandes-
cence. I know now that its light
was not of sufficient intensity to be
actually dangerous — but our eyes
by this time were well accustomed
to the dimly glowing dusk of the
caves.
I saw the
root writhe
source of the searing radiance
even though I now had no physical
contact with the intelligence Its
wordless screaming beat strongly
inside my brain. And for Jane it
was worse. The two sucker pads
were still touching her forehead
she was receiving all the thing's
frightened agony.
The pincers of the crabs grip-
tendrils of the great
and recoil from the
-and
ping my legs and arms relaxed,
opened. I fell heavily to the
ground. The crabs stood motionless
in stiff ungainly attitudes — ugly
clockwork toys somebody had for-
gotten to wind. Not sparing them
a second glance I scrambled hastily
to my feet. With eyes half closed
against the light I lurched forward.
Jane was sprawled where she had
been dropped. As each wave of
pain, of fear, from the plant intelli-
gence struck her she twitched. Her
face was a deathly white in the
glare of her daylight lamp. Her
eyes were shut.
It took only a second's work to
snatch the two tendrils away from
her head. They came easily; hung
limp and lifeless once they were
clear. I wanted to hold her, to pro-
tea her. This I did — but not for
long. She stirred, the eyes flickered
open.
"Where's my camera?" were her
first words.
So the moment passed. I found
myself holding the flaring light
while she took shots of the huge
root with its writhing tendrils and
tentacles, of the crabs frozen in
their attitudes of menacing ugli-
ness. ;
"It's a pity we couldn't get the
she murmured. "But this will
rest,
have
to do.
7t
We found our respirators in our
pouches — it was obvious that the
thing in the cave had intended us
to return to the
tended to use us
I ins. But Mullins
surface, had in-
as It had Mul-
had returned to
the surface with the aid of all the
I
86
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
queer denizens of this odd corner
of Mars. We would have had no
such aid — and our weapons were
gone.
AH but one and that the most
powerful of all — light, that was to
this dweller in the darkness a sear-
ing flame. Light, that would immo-
bilize as long as it lasted the power
station from which all the living
automata of Mars drew their energy.
Light, that had by Jane's reckoning
but a scant fifteen minutes more to
live.
So we left it there. We had a
pocket flash, feeble by comparison,
that would light us to the surface.
We hurried through the tunnels,
pausing only to ship our respirators
when we came to the cave of the
vines.
On our way we passed many of
the giant crabs. They were not
dead — and they were not as mo-
tionless as those in the cavern of
the intelligence had been. Their
claws twitched hungrily as we hur-
ried past, the spidery legs trembled.
The light was dying.
The tunnel seemed unconscion-
ably long. Not until we blundered
into the spines and spikes of Col-
lensia in its tree-like form did we
realize that night had fallen on the
upper world during our captivity.
Neither Phobos nor Deimos was
anywhere near the zenith — all that
filtered through the dense canopy
was the faint light of such rare
stars as were almost directly over-
head.
Around us the forest was stirring,
was awakening from the sleep into
which we had plunged k. And
from the tunnel up which we had
fled came rustling and scraping
noises. Overhead something droned,
shone briefly incandescent through
the lattice of spiny fronds.
"I hate to do it," Jane was almost
sobbing, "but it's our only chance!"
She directed the beam of her
pocket flash upwards. It stabbed
the darkness in broken rhythm-
three dots, three dashes three dots.
The droning roar was growing
louder and as the flare of jets struck
down through the trees Jane sent
her SOS again.
Whoever was up there would
have to be fast. The darkness
around us was alive with crepitating
menace. I do not know to this day
why the thing in the cave was so
slow in throwing all Its forces
against us. Weaponless, we stood
no chance of survival.
It may be that though the light
had died It had still to collect its
scattered faculties. Or it may well
be that what seemed to us to be
long minutes was in reality only
short seconds.
The ship in the sky was coming
down. She was painfully slow-
she had literally to burn her way.
And she had to descend in a tight
spiral. Otherwise a patch would
have been cleared only directly un-
der the jets and her nose and tail
assembly would have caught and
held in the trees. At the finish we
had to retreat into the tunnel to
escape being incinerated by the
down-stabbing lances of fire.
Jane shone her torch down the
THE FOREST OF KNIVES
187
tunnel. Its beam fell on a night-
mare jumble of jointed pincers and
spidery legs and waving antennae.
The crabs were coming up slowly,
hesitantly. But they were coming.
They were coming up faster than
the ship was coming down.
There was something hard and
round at my feet — I remembered
having stumbled over this same ob-
ject on my way out. I bent
and picked it up. It was a stone,
old and rounded. It was a good two
feet in diameter.
When I threw it I heard the
sound of splintering shells, of spat-
tering body fluids. It was intensely
satisfying. But there were no more
stones for me to throw.
We felt the -unmistakable tremor
as the ship grounded and the tun- •
nel mouth flared with multi-colored
iire for a second before the drive
was cut. As we stumbled out into
the open a door in the fuselage
gaped suddenly. In it, silhouetted
against the light, was a black fig-
ure, urgently waving.
We needed no pressing invita-
tion to enter the ship. And even
the fact that the waving figure was
Carmichael of ETN did little to
take the edge off our relief. Frankly,
it did nothing to take the edge off
mine.
Carmichael was very decent about
it all — the discovery of the plant
intelligence was an I.P.N.S. scoop
and broadcast as such. The rescue
of Jane Meredith was an E.T.N,
scoop — and neither I.P.N.S. nor
Jane herself was inclined to deny
alien intelligence.
the rival firm full credit for what
they had done.
The unfortunate part of it all was
that Jane's script and films had to
go through the censorship. And the
editing — for that was what it was
-was beautifully done. It seemed
at first glance that almost nothing
had been deleted.
Almost nothing was. Such few
changes as had been made called it
the story of a gallant people fighting
a desperate battle against a sinister
And somehow
the real unflattering issue was ob-
scured, lost.
We can tell the story now — but
it has lost its news value. The beat
has been made and has gone down
in newscasting history and in the
memories of the public. The Mar-
tians have gained considerable inter-
planetary prestige in consequence.
They were grateful to us, these
same Martians. Jane was presented
with no less than three outfits of
finest Martian bunny, of a quality
that but rarely finds its way onto
the open market. Had she desired
they would have clothed her in the
precious fur from the skin out.
They were grateful to us — but
they didn't like having us around.
And when Thunder jiame put in,
outward bound for the Jovian sys-
tem, they booked first class passages
for us, notwithstanding the fact
that we wanted to return to Earth
by the shortest and quickest route.
But they didn't like having us
around.
**You'd think we were plague
carriers," I complained to Jane.
i88
FANTASTIC UNIVERSE
"In a way we are," she replied.
"You know what the native intelli-
gence thinks of humans — to It we're
all just a parasitical pest, battening
off a planet where we don't belong.
The worst part of it is people here
are just going to have to endure it.
For if they destroy It, they destroy
the entire life -balance of the planet
itself."
"So why does that make them
not want us around?" I asked.
t<T^"
Kiss me, you fool," she said.
And, when I had done so to her
satisfaction, "Does anyone like
having people around who have
learned from a vegetable that they
are nothing but two-legged lice?
People who know they are going
to have to play up to this vegetable
in spite of what It thinks of them?"
"I begin to see your point," I
said. "Come to think of k y Martians
being hypersensitive anyway, it
couldn't have been fun for them.
Jane looked at me and sighed
and shook her beautiful blond head.
"It's a good thing I'm going to
make an honest man of you as soon
as we can gtt the papers," she in-
formed me. "You're not really
bright enough to be wandering
around loose, darling."
"Careful," I told her, "or you'll
be making me feel the way we make
the Martians feel."
"Which," she said loftily, "is en-
tirely fit and proper for husbands."
Those among you who occasionally like to vary your science fiction diet
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new and old crime fiction.
The current issue features a fresh-minted short novel by Octavus Roy
Cohan, "Let Me Kill You Sweetheart" — and other new stories by Leslie
Charteris, William Campbell Gault, Morris Cooper and Hay den Howard.
And the reprint roster includes one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's rare non-
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Kelland, Edgar Wallace, Rufus King and Cornell Woolrich.
Here is mystery fiction by a line-up of authors of such uniform all-star
quality that, if you like detective stories, you cannot afford to miss.
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