Creatures of Vibration.

by Harl Vincent.

Carr Parker sat day-dreaming at the _Nomad's_ controls. More than a week of Earth time had pa.s.sed since the self-styled "vagabonds of s.p.a.ce" had left Europa, and now they were fast approaching the great ringed orb of Saturn with the intention of exploring her satellites.

Behind him, his Martian friend, Mado, was manipulating the mechanism of the _rulden_, that remarkable Europan optical instrument which Detis had installed in the vessel before they left. Mado was utterly fascinated by the machine, having spent most of his time during the voyage searching the surfaces of Saturn's moons for signs of human habitation. Now, as they headed directly for t.i.tan, the sixth satellite, he was completely absorbed in an examination of the heavy cloud layer that covered it.

But Carr's thoughts were of his bride, who still slumbered in their stateroom amidships. In his bachelor days he never had imagined he could find such contentment as had come with his marriage to Ora. He had fought shy of the fair s.e.x on Earth. Somehow, the women he knew back home had bored him; angling for a man's money and position, most of them, and incapable of giving real love and companionship in return for the luxuries they demanded. He was resigned to his single state.

But all that was changed by the little blue-eyed girl he had met in Paladar. She was a different sort; worth a hundred of those others and fulfilling to perfection the ideal he had always set up. On her world, Jupiter's satellite, Europa, he had neither wealth nor influence; he'd left these behind when he deserted Earth for a life of vagabondage among the stars. But, to the daughter of Detis, this lack meant less than nothing; his love, and hers, meant everything.

And, what a good sport she had been! When they were threatened by Rapaju and his minions; when they barely escaped being swallowed up by that monster of s.p.a.ce which Mado had likened to the Sarga.s.so Sea of Earth; when she herself proposed joining them in their rovings throughout the universe.

She was a companion of whom even the phlegmatic Martian was proud, she brought with her presence on the _Nomad_ a subtle something that made of the coldly mechanical s.p.a.ce-ship a thing of new beauty and a place of cheerfulness--a home. And, to think he had won her for his own. To think....

"Carr!" Mado's sharp exclamation startled him from his pleasant thoughts. "Come here and take a look at this," the Martian demanded, his voice betraying an excitement unusual for him. "Something is wrong on this satellite we're heading for."

Locking the controls in the automatic position, Carr turned to join his friend at the viewing-disk of the rulden. Mado had found an opening in the heavy cloud layer, and before them was an un.o.bstructed view of a rugged countryside where huge boulders had been scattered by the mighty hand of creation and where the sun shone weakly on the rim of a yawning crater in which sulphurous vapors curled. They saw this strange land as from an alt.i.tude of a few hundred feet, though the _Nomad_ was still more than a million miles from the satellite.

"What's wrong about that?" Carr grunted. "Excepting that it's just another of these barren and useless bodies that doesn't even provide us with an attracting interest."

"Wait," Mado replied, "You'll see in a moment. Something--"

At that instant there came a puff of blue flame from out the pit, carrying on its heated breath a drifting sheet of incandescence that fluttered and pulsated like a thing alive. Mado switched on the sound mechanism of the rulden and the roaring of the pillar of flame came to their ears. There were other sounds as well; the babble of alien voices and the rumble of drums.

Immediately the rough ground in the vicinity was filled with creatures of human mold, half naked red-skinned beings that rose up from behind the boulders and rushed toward the pit of fire and the uncanny heat mantle that wandered ghost-like along its rim. Two of them carried something between them, a struggling writhing something which they stood erect at the crater's edge. It was a girl!--a slim, bronzed figure that swayed there an instant uncertainly as the throb of the drums rose high and the voices of the a.s.sembled savages swelled in a monotony of exultant chanting.

"Good Lord!" Carr gasped. "A human sacrifice!"

A quick push, a piercing scream immediately drowned out by the cries of the mult.i.tude, and the girl was flung headlong into the welcoming folds of the white-hot ghost-mantle which hovered there like some greedy monster of the lava pools of Mercury. The thing closed in around the wildly struggling body, enwrapping it with exultant constrictions of its h.e.l.l-born substance and diving, flapping, smoking heat devil, into the flame from whence it had sprung. Mado touched a lever with quick trembling fingers and the rulden's disk went blank.

Sickened by what they had seen, the two friends stared at one another, white-faced.

"No place for us," Mado said, after a moment. "Not with Ora."

"Right!" Carr agreed grimly. "But I'd like to get in close enough to see more of t.i.tan. How high is this cloud layer?"

"About a mile above the surface. We can dive through and look them over; perhaps give them a taste of the disintegrator."

"Attaboy! You took the words out of my mouth. The devils! Who'd ever dream of such a horror in the twenty-fourth century--even out here?"

"What's the reason for this serious discussion?" The voice of Detis broke in on them from the door of the control room.

"Plenty!" Carr exclaimed. And the Europan listened gravely as he described the awful thing they had witnessed.

"I am not surprised," he said calmly, when the Terrestrial ended his recital. "There are certain emanations from the mother planet that most certainly will affect the mentality and baser instincts of a race living within their influence. I have been studying these vibrations for several hours."

They turned to the forward port as the scientist indicated the great orb of Saturn with its gleaming rings. Now, as they drew near to the enormous planet, it did indeed seem that there was a sinister quality in its shifting luminosity. Carr shivered, thinking of Ora.

"You mean," Mado asked, "that there are vibrations in the ether hereabouts that are set up electrically by the planet?"

"Precisely. Or rather I should say they are set up by the vast number of whirling particles of which its encircling rings are composed. The wave form propagated is of a characteristic that is in tune with those portions of the brain which control the savage impulses. We may certainly expect to find superst.i.tion-ridden ignorance and all manner of vice prevalent in the races of t.i.tan."

"You think these vibrations will affect us?" Carr inquired anxiously.

"Not if we make our visit short. The intensity is quite low."

"It'll be a short visit, all right. We'll be in t.i.tan's atmosphere in about forty minutes now, and, if I have my say, we'll be out of it and away again inside of an hour."

"Best thing you've said today," Mado approved. "But let's have another look in the rulden. We may find other gaps in the clouds."

The mechanism of the radio telescope whirred into life as he spoke and its disk shone bright with the reflected light of t.i.tan as it pictured the body. The _Nomad_ was speeding toward the ill-omened satellite at the rate of more than a thousand miles a second.

But the surface was nowhere visible and Mado adjusted the focus so that the view of the billowy cloud-covering fell rapidly away. Though actually they were approaching the satellite with tremendous velocity, it receded swiftly in the rulden's disk until the entire body showed as a perfect sphere of uniform brilliancy. All surface markings were concealed by the blanket of clouds.

"Just a moment, Mado," said Detis. "I believe I saw something."

The Martian pressed a b.u.t.ton and the image was stationary. A tiny black spot had appeared near one edge of the satellite's disk and this now spread rapidly like a blot of spilled ink. Then it stretched out into a wriggling line that quickly streaked its way across the equator, completely banding the body as they watched. A moment it lay there like a great serpent encircling the globe, and then it vanished in a flash of intense light that left them blinking in amazement. It was as if a trail of gunpowder had been laid across the surface and then set off by a torch in the hand of some unseen giant of the cosmos. A strange electrical storm that agitated the cloud blanket mightily, then left it more densely closed in than before.

Through the forward port the satellite could be seen with the naked eye, growing larger now and resolving itself into a tiny globe. To Carr it seemed that the diminutive moon winked provocatively as he turned to regard it without the rulden's aid. Off to the west, Saturn and her rings almost filled the sky, and their baleful light shone cold and menacing against the black velvet of the heavens.

Mado took the controls when the _Nomad_ entered the atmosphere of t.i.tan and drifted over the sea of clouds. He corrected the altimeter for the ma.s.s of this body of three thousand miles diameter, and noted that they were up about six thousand feet. Test samples indicated that the outside air, although thin, was pure. But they did not open the ports as they had no intention of landing.

Ora had not yet awakened and Carr hoped fervently that she would not do so until they had left the immediate vicinity of t.i.tan. It was vastly better if she missed seeing anything of the barbarians of the cloudy satellite. Besides, with her adventuresome and fearless nature, she'd not be satisfied merely to look on from afar--she'd want them to land.

And that must not be done.

Something tinkled metallically against the hull plates of the vessel.

Again and again the sound was repeated, and soon they saw that the air was filled with driving particles which clattered on the thick gla.s.s of the ports and contacted resoundingly with the hull. A vast cloud of black loomed directly ahead, springing up from the tossing cloud banks; and Mado yanked at the controls, swerving the _Nomad_ sharply from her course.

But there was no escaping the fury of that sudden squall; they were in the thick of it in an instant, and the ship was buffeted and tossed about as if it were a toy. Millions of the driving particles battered the _Nomad_ and the din of their pounding was terrific as the ship was whirled deeper into the midst of the tempest.

Carr saw that the black particles were piling up around the rim of the port, sticking fast to the metal of the hull. They were bristling in fantastic array, like iron filings adhering to the poles of a magnet. In a flash it came to him that these particles were magnetic; the _Nomad_ was covered with them and they piled on ever more thickly, soon weighting her down so heavily that she lost alt.i.tude. They were at the mercy of a furious electrical storm of mysterious nature.

"Imps of the ca.n.a.ls!" Mado shouted above the din. "We're finished! The machinery is paralyzed. This iron hail is charged."