The Gods Hate Kansas Read online

  Running through the darkness he hurled the jack against the fence. Crackling flame blazed from the impact, alarm bells set up their harsh clangor and the warning light began to flash. A moment later the floodlights came on, revealing the inevitable squad of guards racing toward the trouble spot.

  Temple paused just long enough to locate his target, then turned and raced for the car. He heard the guards yell and a rifle blammed. The screech of the slug past his ear was close enough to indicate the miss was not deliberate. As he skidded around the front of the car, a shotgun bellowed and a storm of pellets rattled against metal and glass.

  He snatched the rifle, laid it across the car’s hood and let the sights come to rest on his target—the black mass of a power transformer on an elevated platform. He had noticed the transformer the first time he inspected the camp and recognized it as the nerve center of the deadly fence. But until tonight he had completely failed to realize its significance.

  Now he lined the sights carefully and squeezed the trigger. The rifle bucked and thundered. There was a dull clang and the diminishing scream of a ricochet as the slug glanced off the rounded transformer shell. The charging guards were directly in the line of fire and the bullet whizzing overhead apparently convinced them they were under attack. As one they dropped to their knees to steady their aim and let go a thundering volley.

  Buckshot and slugs slammed into the car, glanced off the hood and screeched past Temple’s ears. Only the fact that he was in shadow beyond the light saved him.

  Ignoring the deadly hail, he concentrated on putting his next shot dead center. The guards were barely a hundred yards away, shooting as they ran, when his second shot blammed out. A burst of livid flame and violet sparks engulfed the transformer and every light in the camp whipped out.

  In the blinding darkness, he could hear the guards milling, colliding, cursing and yelling for flashlights. He ran along the fence until the noises were far behind, then hurled the rifle. It struck the mesh and slid down but there were no alarm bells, no blaze of high tension sparks. For the moment the barrier was dead. At any instant an emergency circuit might be cut in, restoring its murderous potential.

  Temple shut his mind to that possibility, clawed his fingers into the steel network and went up like a squirrel, getting some added lift from his scrabbling toes. He reached the top and threw himself over and out into impenetrable blackness. Nothing he might land on could be more deadly than the fence reactivated.

  He landed on all fours with a force that wrung a grunt of pain from him. He was instantly up and limping toward the black mass of buildings, driven by the desperate need to find cover before the lights came back on. Apparently the camp had not been prepared for the emergency his shot had created, or the bullet had done more damage to the power line itself than he anticipated.

  Flashlights were weaving and bobbing from two directions as guards fanned out to cover the deadened fence. Temple dived into the blackness between two buildings and ran. His eyes were growing more accustomed to darkness so he could at least avoid major obstacles.

  He burst out onto one of the camp streets. To his left were running figures with flashlights whipping their pale puddles from side to side. To his right the massive bulk of the rocket tower loomed and he ran toward it. In that monstrous cylinder lay the heart of the camp secrets.

  Suddenly a dark shape sprang at him from the shadows of a row of parked trucks. He caught the glint of starlight on metal and heard the sharp inhalation of breath that proceeded a bellow of alarm. There was no time to identify the metal object or learn whether the figure was that of a guard or one of his own people.

  Temple hurled himself at the figure, putting his full momentum behind a swinging fist. His knuckles met jawbone and pain lanced up his arm. The figure flew backward into a truck, rebounded and slammed to the ground. The glinting object rolled free and Temple snatched it, feeling the metal case of a flashlight.

  He was almost to the tower when a flash beam swept out from behind a building, its puddle of light almost touching his feet. He swerved wildly and found cover behind some sort of crate as the bearer of the light stepped out. In the pale backwash of the light beam, he recognized the thin, ascetic face of Dr. Marko Spirovic, an authority on wave mechanics and one of the more recent arrivals at camp.

  Temple held his breath while the sweeping light narrowly missed the figure of the man he had downed, then moved on. Flicking the beam from side to side, Spirovic moved past his hiding place and started on. Temple drew a soft breath of relief and started to creep on toward his goal.

  He knew he had made no sound, but abruptly Spirovic swiveled around and pinned him unerringly with the flashlight beam. In its glow, Temple could see Spirovic’s thin lips drawn back, giving his face a wolfish, predatory look. His left hand held the light while his right grabbed for a curious-looking gadget, somewhat resembling a camera flash gun, suspended from a shoulder strap.

  What the thing was or how Spirovic had pinpointed his location so accurately were questions Temple left for later. He exploded from his crouch straight at the physicist. A wild yell burst from the slender figure as Temple’s shoulder sent him rolling. There were answering cries from close by.

  Temple stumbled, caught himself and ran. As he swerved to get off the open street, he saw Spirovic on his knees, pointing the strange object at him. A beam of ghostly bluish light shot from the flared barrel. Temple dodged instinctively and the beam only flicked one pistoning leg.

  He felt an instant of searing agony. Then his leg went completely numb, throwing him forward onto hands and knees. The blue beam snapped off and Spirovic ran toward him, shouting in a triumphant voice and tugging a flashlight from a hip pocket. For a fleeting moment Temple was in darkness.

  His leg was a dead, useless thing, without life or feeling, but his other limbs seemed unaffected. Clawing at the ground, he scrabbled forward, dragging the paralyzed leg, hurling himself behind one of the parked trucks an instant before Spirovic’s spare flashlight winked out.

  Temple’s ears were roaring, his lungs gasping for breath. Behind him lights were weaving and voices yelling, but below his thigh he could feel the first tingle of returning sensation in the numb leg. The touch of the ray, whatever it was, had apparently been too brief to hold long. He lurched to his feet and hobbled around the truck in a travesty of a run, stumbling and panting.

  The pursuers momentarily lost him when he dived and rolled under a truck. He struggled up and ran again, limping and groaning, toward the tower. Behind him flashlights probed under and around the trucks.

  Then clearly he heard Spirovic’s heavily accented cry, “Over by the launch tower.”

  Temple swerved toward a low building against the tower’s base, hands clawing at the knob of a door. It swung inward, strangely thick and ponderous, and he plunged forward into the inky darkness beyond. A blast of chill, dead air struck his face and he realized this was some kind of refrigerated storeroom for perishables. But it was at least a momentary hiding place, unless Spirovic was again guided by the uncanny faculty that had twice revealed itself.

  He swung the door tight shut, turned and struck his feet on some solid but yielding object on the floor. He teetered, clawed at the empty darkness and fell with a jarring thud across whatever had tripped him. For a moment he lay still, fighting down the noisy gasping of starved lungs, listening for the faint sounds of the search outside. At best, he knew this haven was only temporary.

  He braced his hands to lever himself up and felt cloth and a yielding firmness. A stab of alarm sent him rocking back from the thing beneath. He got the captured flashlight out of his pocket, shielded the lens with his jacket and snapped it on.

  The dim glow of filtered radiance fell on the body of a man.

  Temple rocked back on his heels, his breath wheezing loudly in the dead silence of the insulated cold room. Then there was no sound at all as the light touched the unmistakable bloated face of a Crimson Plague victim.

  The light
wavered, then steadied as he fought for a measure of self-control and won. The sound of his shallow breathing resumed. He forced himself to look more closely at the raw-beef face but there was nothing recognizable. He lifted the light and gasped again, more sharply.

  The whole far end of the room was filled with similar bodies, piled like cordwood to the ceiling.

  His senses reeled and for a moment he teetered on the brink of madness. Somehow he had gained a belief that the people in the camp were immune to the Crimson Plague. But these victims must have been stricken inside the fence. But who were they? Workmen? Or were the bodies of his own team members in that gruesome stack? He realized with a sickening shock that some members of the Meteoritics Team had never appeared outside. Were his own close friends and associates here?

  A terrible thought struck him. He had not seen Lee’s golden hair among the crowds for at least two days. He started up suddenly, his jaw clenched against revulsion at the purpose forming in his mind.

  The Plague so contorted features that it would be impossible to identify the average person. But Lee’s blond hair would not be changed. He forced his dragging steps forward with a determination to examine every body in that pile to find her or reassure himself that she was not among the victims.

  Behind him the heavy door swung open and a powerful light blazed in. The exultant voice of Spirovic cried, “You will not elude us again, Temple.”

  He was still swinging around to face them when the blue beam caught him full in the face. He knew a moment’s blinding agony and then utter blackness.

  CHAPTER 9

  No Way Out

  His eyes opened slowly and heavily. It seemed to take an eternity for them to focus and even longer for his sluggish senses to grasp the messages they sent.

  He was lying on an iron cot in a small room without any other furniture and without windows. The only break in the four drab walls was a heavy wooden door. The ceiling was of stout steel mesh and the only light in the room came down through that from some artificial source outside his line of vision.

  Then memory came back with a rush and he sat up, surprised to find that his hands and feet were free. Since there was nothing else to look at, he squinted up through the mesh ceiling and saw smooth, curving walls mounting up and up to an impossible height. At their top a vaulted roof seemed to have a crack that split it into two equal halves.

  “The launch tower,” he gasped aloud. “I’m in some kind of a prison cell at the base and looking up at that roof that opens to let the rocket out.”

  Then he remembered the cold room full of bodies and with it came the stabbing fear for the safety of Lee and the others. He sprang up and lunged against the door, only to find it rock-solid. The walls were as unyielding.

  The low mesh ceiling caught his eye. He crouched, gathered himself and sprang straight up. His fingers clawed into the mesh, found holds and locked. He pulled himself up until his face was against the screen, immensely widening his angle of vision. His eyes snapped wide at the sight of the rocket ship almost filling the immense cylindrical silo.

  It was much larger than it had seemed in flight, well over a hundred feet in length, covered with a dull, seamless metal skin in which no port was visible. Entrance, he guessed, must be through a port near the tail, well below his line of vision. The only visible feature was a cowling, like a fluted collar, that circled the hull below the bluntly rounded nose. From this cowling a ring of tubes flared back. He guessed they were steering and stabilizing jets of some sort.

  By this time his straining muscles could take no more and he dropped back to the floor. His brain was spinning with new questions that could only be answered by someone behind this fantastic project. He threw back his head, filled his lungs and let go a bellow that echoed and re-echoed from the distant dome.

  “Hey!” he roared. “Get me out of here! What’s the idea of locking me up?”

  The booming echoes whispered away. He shouted again and again until his throat was raw and his lungs ached. When he had about given up in despair, he heard the pound of feet outside. A bolt slid aside with a rasping sound, and a sizable panel swung outward in the upper part of the door. Framed in the opening was the unsmiling face of Mullane.

  “Curtis, I must insist that you stop creating a disturbance that seriously hampers our concentration. You were confined here because you persistently interrupted work of vital importance. When that work is completed you will be free to leave. In the meantime, if you will be quiet and orderly you will receive your meals on time and perhaps even a few books to read.”

  “To hell with books!” Temple yelled furiously. “And to hell with you, old friend! If I’m such a pest, why not just knock me in the head and shove me in that cold room with all the rest of stiffs?”

  “We considered that,” Mullane said coldly, “but concluded that this way presented less annoyance. I hope you won’t force us to change our minds, Curtis.”

  Temple looked at the empty eyes and the expressionless face that belonged both to a warm friend and a cold stranger. His anger evaporated. “I’m sorry, Mully, but for God’s sake can’t you give me some idea of what’s going on in here? I saw the Plague bodies piled up. Are any of them from the Meteoritics Team? Is Lee alive and well? Don’t those bodies constitute a risk of contagion if you stay here?”

  He could almost feel a relaxing of tension. Mullane’s smile was almost human. “You can relax, Curtis. Lee is quite well and in no danger. She is—and all of us are—much too vital to the project to be permitted the slightest risk. Now I must return to my work.” He started to close the panel.

  “Wait,” Temple cried. “You haven’t told me anything about your work here. When did the rocket get back, or isn’t this the one I saw take off?”

  “It is the same one, Curtis. It returned on the following night, promptly on schedule.”

  “The following night? How long did that blue light keep me knocked out, and what in blazes is it?”

  “A force beyond your comprehension,” Mullane said brusquely. “You were unconscious for two days. It was not used at full power. I hope you won’t make that unpleasantness necessary.”

  “I don’t get this, Mully. Where could the rocket go and return the next night? On a trial orbit, maybe? Was it manned?”

  He sensed that Mullane, or the likeness of Mullane, had been disturbed about something and was desperately anxious to mollify Temple as far as possible. His willingness to linger and answer questions added to that feeling.

  “The rocket,” Mullane said quietly, “was flown to the moon by Dr. Rocossen. It carried a prefabricated, air-tight landing depot and portable equipment for launching the return journey. In a few days we shall be ready to begin operations on regular schedule.”

  “Now, Mully,” Temple said with ominous softness, “you are treating me like a mental delinquent. I don’t have to be a walking IBM machine to compute distances, speeds and time. No propulsion system on Earth could send a rocket to the moon and back within twenty-four hours.”

  “My boy,” Mullane said, almost jovially, “The system we employ was not created on Earth.”

  For moments Temple was too staggered to speak. Then he cried, “But why the moon? What’s so important on the moon?”

  “The only burying ground where the insulation of intervening space will prevent the bodies of Crimson Plague victims from contaminating all humanity. There appears to be no place on or in the Earth where they cannot continue to spread infection. The only salvation of humanity is to remove them from the Earth at once. There seems to be no other way to check the spread of the Plague, prevent world-wide chaos and give medical science the time it needs to develop combative measures.”

  Temple collapsed on the cot, his jaw sagging. “Then this whole crazy business was just to transport Plague victims to the moon.”

  “Precisely, Curtis. The government is behind us one hundred per cent, knowing the hope of the world lies with us. The present rocket will transport twenty-five bodi
es at a time. Work has already begun on one capable of carrying hundreds. An army of workmen is already constructing a landing field outside where special planes can deliver bodies from anywhere on Earth.”

  “But what protects you and the people who deliver the bodies from contagion? If you know an immunizing agent, for God’s sake, give it to the public and stop this slaughter and panic. What is the Crimson Plague anyhow?”

  “The meteorites brought the Plague from outer space. We do have an immunizing agent, but it will take months to produce it in quantity and in the meantime humanity may be destroyed. This is our only hope of buying time to build defenses. Now I hope you understand, Curtis.”

  “I think I do,” Temple said softly. “The Culwain Expedition cracked open a meteorite, found the Plague, alerted the government and designed this impossible space travel method to save humanity. Is that about it, Mully?”

  “Precisely, Curtis. You are, as I have always said, an extremely perceptive young man.”

  “And you, Mully,” Temple said, “are an unholy damned liar!”

  For an instant Mullane’s face was almost human in its icy rage. “You—you stupid fool!”

  “You’re the fool,” Temple said wearily, “standing there and trying to tell me these lies. What do you take me for? You geniuses—none of whom has had medical training—expect me to believe you saw organisms the best medical instruments on Earth can’t find? And instantly pounced on an immunizing agent for which real doctors have given their lives? Go peddle that to the kiddies on the bedtime story hour, Mully. I’m a big boy, now.”

  Mullane was already swinging the panel shut. Before it completely closed he snarled, “Our first decision concerning you was clearly a mistake, Curtis. However, a more intense application of the blue beam will correct the error and eliminate further interference.”

  Through the narrow slit, Temple looked straight into Mullane’s eye and delivered his parting shot. “Why bother with something you might have to explain later, Mully? Why don’t you just give me the Crimson Plague like the others and cart me off to the moon?”