The Bloodless Peril by Will Garth (Henry Kuttner) Read online

  Thrilling Wonder Stories, December, 1937

  The Bloodless Peril by Will Garth (Henry

  Kuttner)

  Science evolves a superior plant kingdom when a war of the future is waged in the laboratory.

  HE world map was dotted with

  blood. In Berlin, Paris, New York,

  T

  Tokyo, tall buildings lay in

  wreckage with corpses dotting the debris.

  On the plains of the Argentine and the

  Dakotas men and cattle lay swollen in

  death caused by fungoid spores rained

  down in bombs from war planes.

  World war! A fight to the death

  between the white and yellow races of the entire globe.

  In the East the center of strategy

  was Tokyo. Walled in by men and

  machines, barricaded by a shell of

  electronic force so tremendous that it

  Thrilling Wonder Stories 2

  drained the power resources of the Orient thick red beard and frosty blue eyes got up.

  like water through a pipe, men moved pins

  “Professor

  Ryder

  Storm.”

  on maps with the result that millions more The big man boomed: “I present to

  died.

  the High Command my recently isolated

  In the West the strategic center was

  filterable virus known as Ryder’s Palsy,

  Chicago. And there on the evening of April and its antidote. As you know, an ounce of third, 1988, a war council was gathered

  it dropped in an exploding glass vial can between the High Command of the white

  make imbecile, shivering wrecks out of all race, and its greatest scientists. The human beings within two square miles.”

  meeting was for the purpose of

  One after another the scientists of

  coordinating science’s contributions.

  the West rose. Finally a Frenchman got up Hugh Farrell, President of the and said in cold, incisive tones: United States and of the council, faced the

  “I am, as you know, a botanist. I

  gathering. Overhead could be heard the came to give my latest hybrid—a poison drone of guarding stratosphere planes. The flower which sprouts and grows rapidly,

  air quivered with the backlash of the and the seeds of which can be dropped electronic force wall barricading Chicago behind enemy lines. But I feel that my

  as Tokyo was barricaded.

  contribution must be small indeed

  But more than ionization made the

  compared to the probable gift that could be atmosphere quiver. The yellow men were

  made by the greatest botanist among us—

  ahead in the war game and the whites knew Professor L. H. Hart, who for some strange it. The white race faced extinction.

  reason”—the man’s voice dripped acid —

  Farrell put the realization into “has not chosen to speak.”

  words.

  There was a hush. Farrell looked

  “Occidentals, you have heard the

  from face to face.

  situation outlined. We must find new

  “Professor L. H. Hart,” he said at

  weapons of war, or we die. So we have

  last.

  called you scientists to ask if you have

  There was no answer. Farrell’s

  anything to offer. Anything—so it may be

  white lips compressed.

  turned to military usage!”

  “Not present? What scientist dares

  not to answer the call of his race?”

  THERE was silence, then babel as the

  “Professor Hart is present,” came a

  scientists were swept with war frenzy. A

  calm, sweet voice. “But Professor Hart

  man leaped to his feet.

  does not care to participate in plans of

  “Herr Doktor Bruenig, ” Farrell war.”

  acknowledged.

  An almost physical shock rocked

  “I offer my latest work,” shrilled

  the house. Every eye turned to the person the man. “Chrome steel with molecules so

  who was an eminent scientist and at the

  arranged that no known projectile can same time a beautiful woman.

  penetrate it.”

  She got up slowly, tall, Junoesque,

  Thunderous applause. Bruenig sat

  striking in her plain white tunic.

  down and two other metallurgists only a

  “I came tonight,” she said, “hoping

  little less famous rose and gave up secrets to find others like myself: scientists who representing decades of labor.

  would refuse to lend their intellects to mass A big, barrel-chested man with a

  murder. I find none. All are ripe for war. So

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  3

  I shall stand alone. President Farrell and stratosphere midget flung itself westward, others of the High Command, I refuse to

  with Laura Hart at the controls. After it lend my few achievements to the purpose

  came Storm’s fast ship. The first sky-louse, of destruction.”

  as the small fast vehicles were called,

  There was pandemonium. Then showed lights, then sounded the secret code Ryder Storm of the flaming beard leaped

  which cleared a sector of the electronic

  up.

  barricade. It flashed through, followed by

  “One moment all! I believe the second sky-louse, and crossed the Professor Hart, in her disappointment at the Mississippi at eight hundred miles an hour.

  bloodshed any woman would naturally

  It cleaved the darkness, as its

  hate, is speaking words she does not quite pursuer cleaved it, until the far-flung

  mean—”

  Rockies showed ghostly in the night. Then The woman’s soft voice cut in it hurtled toward a small flat space on the impersonally.

  edge of a precipice.

  “My thanks to Professor Storm for

  It looked like a natural table-space,

  his championship. But my words were and the cliff behind it looked unbroken.

  final. I refuse to act in violence. With the Actually it was a minute landing field and permission of President Farrell, I shall cunningly concealed in the cliffside was a leave now.”

  portal large enough to take the little ship in.

  With the grace of a girl, she moved

  Laura Hart gauged space beneath

  calmly to the nearest exit. Names which no her by the Geiger meter which bounced

  scientist should know were howled after

  black light down and measured its rebound.

  her, but her cool face showed no sign that She came to a perfect landing and jumped

  she heard. The exit door closed behind her from the ship. Storm was already down. He and a dozen men leaped to their feet.

  got to the cliff portal ahead of her.

  “Stop

  her!”

  The woman faced him, cold, still.

  “Jail her as an enemy alien!”

  “Let me pass,” she said quietly.

  “Make her cooperate!”

  Ryder Storm stood aside, but

  “We fight for our lives—and she

  followed after her into the slowly opening refuses aid!”

  cliff door. In a garden as lush as though Farrell’s upraised, weary hand grown in the tropics instead of in a cave forced silence.

  where
no sunlight ever penetrated, he

  “You don’t force women, even caught her arms and made her look at him.

  great scientists, to your will. Anyway, you A great bush loaded perpetually with blue couldn’t force this one! I know Professor roses drooped beside them.

  Hart. Rack and fire could not break her

  “Laura! You’ve got to listen to

  will.”

  reason. What you said in council was

  His tired eyes rested on Storm’s

  unforgivable. You’d have been mobbed if

  blue-blazing ones. He beckoned. Storm, it hadn’t been for your great name.”

  red-bearded and red-tempered, a gorilla of She only looked at him, serene and

  a man with the brain of a genius, came to cool as the northern snows. Storm shook

  the platform and the president spoke briefly her in his exasperation.

  to him....

  “You don’t seem to realize what

  this war means. It is the white race or the IN THE black night, over a darkened city, a yellow! One must die. Perhaps both, with

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  Earth a ruined ball, if the war can’t end humanity, Storm, because I have recently

  soon! And the only way it can be ended is discovered that man is in the twilight. His by quick victory. For us, please God!”

  rule is almost over. He shall die out

  “I will not join in war,” said Laura

  anyway. And my knowledge of that makes

  Hart.

  me indifferent to his present fate.”

  “You must! The white race needs

  “How do you know? Can you read

  your brain.”

  the future?”

  “No.”

  “In this one respect, I can,” said

  “For the sake of the race—of the

  Laura calmly. “I know man is about done,

  world—”

  and I know the form of life that shall

  “No!”

  replace him as Earth’s ruler. Would you

  “You would see human beings die

  like to know, Ryder? The life that shall

  by the million when some great discovery

  supplant his is the life you have just

  of yours might just possibly end the war in ridiculed. My silly flowers might

  a week? You would see Earth reduced to

  eventually rule the world!”

  savagery?”

  Storm stared open-jawed.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re

  mad!”

  “You mean that?” Ryder said

  “Am I? You shall see what no one

  hoarsely.

  else has ever been shown. You shall see the

  “I mean it. I don’t care what peaceful, calm, kindly form of life that is happens to humanity.”

  going to take humanity’s place. No more

  Storm drew a great breath. He wars, Ryder. No more stupid bloodshed. It released her arms.

  will be a better world when humanity has

  “I can see that my presence here is

  finally destroyed itself. A peaceful, lovely futile. I had hoped our long companionship world with no greed or destruction in it.”

  would mean something. Good-by.”

  “Mad,” whispered Storm, his big

  He turned. Laura looked after him

  body seeming to shrink.

  with unaccustomed color in her cheeks.

  But the woman only smiled. “You

  “Ryder—”

  shall see.”

  The big man turned quickly back.

  She beckoned to a man in

  “Well?”

  mechanic’s clothes. “Roll the two ships in,

  “I don’t usually explain my please. And then instruct the others to see decisions,” Laura said. “But I don’t like to that I am not disturbed for the next hour.”

  see you go away looking—like that. So I

  She led Storm through the

  will, to you.”

  marvelous subterranean garden to a great

  “I can guess,” Storm snapped. metal door, which she opened with code

  “You’re a woman before you’re a scientist.

  and combination key.

  You’re a milk-and-water pacifist. You’d

  “No other eye but yours has ever

  rather hide here—until an Oriental seen my secret laboratories, Ryder. No squadron blows your mountain down—and

  other eye ever shall.”

  play with your silly flowers, than help

  “Unless you decide to work with

  humanity.”

  the High Command against the warring

  yellow men,” said Ryder.

  THE woman shook her head. “That’s not

  Laura Hart’s shoulders rippled.

  the reason, I am unconcerned with

  “Small chance of that! I prefer

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  5

  peaceful flowers to bestial humans.”

  perfect flower—crested each. Then, like a Storm’s first impression in the great

  bubble bursting, the flower drooped and

  room behind the metal door was one of

  withered. Up and down, like tides in the

  color. Green predominantly, but splashes

  ocean. Like waves. Only the waves were

  also of every other color.

  growing and dying plants!

  His next was that he seemed to

  “In the name of heaven—”

  stand in the midst of a green and turbulent

  “Evolution,” said Laura Hart.

  sea which surrounded but did not envelop

  “Growth and death in the span of three

  him.

  seconds instead of a full summer.”

  His third was a realization that he

  “It actually looks like that. But it

  stood under a different kind of light than can’t be!”

  any he’d ever seen before, and a sense of

  “It is, Ryder. Years ago I learned to

  sublime well being.

  speed up life. I did it with plant life by Then he began to note details.

  irradiating peat moss beds and the

  The walls of the big chamber were

  surrounding air with super-violet rays from lined with large glass tanks. In each was the lamps overhead, and by constantly

  the flashing color, the rhythmic movements forcing into the growing-beds a mixture of that made him feel that he was in a nitrogen, oxygen and phosphates which is varicolored ocean.

  my own secret formula. That forced the

  He stepped toward the nearest tank,

  growth faster and faster, culminating in

  in which was the one color, green.

  these beds where an entire plant generation He saw an undulating surface lasts a bit less than three seconds.”

  halfway up the tank. It moved regularly, up

  “Three seconds-—from seed

  and down, taking about three seconds for

  germination to death and decay?”

  each rise and fall. Up, a brighter green;

  “Exactly. Nearly a million

  down, darker and duller; up again. Like a generations in a year. You see the future heaving little pond.

  vistas revealed by that. In a year I can see In the bluish radiance of the locked

  plant evolution as it will take place in the laboratory, Ryder felt a tendency to shiver.

  next few hundred thousand years. I know

  The tide in the tank had no meaning for

  what plants will be like a half million years him, and thick glass was between him and

  from now. And there is one plant—”

  it. Yet he felt the subtle presence of danger.

  Laura Hart’s voice was dreamy.

  P
rophecy was mysterious in her blue eyes.

  HOWEVER, Laura didn’t seem to feel that

  “There is one plant which has

  way. He looked at her, and went to the next evolved most powerfully and successfully

  tank.

  under my forced feeding. The plant that

  In here was color, purple, flashing

  shall rule the world! At the period in its on and off and rising up and down as the

  evolution in which it is most perfect, I

  green stuff had, with a cycle lasting only a stopped the forcing process so that now

  few seconds.

  specimens grow naturally as they will in

  Then he started, for here the nature

  the far future. Come, you shall see them.”

  of the heaving stuff was coarser and he

  She led Storm through the

  could distinguish its broad flat particles.

  laboratory, to a second door. He looked

  Those particles were leaves. Plant leaves!

  from side to side. Here was a tank in which Up they swelled. A purple blob—a

  a flower new to botany produced a reddish

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  bloom as large as a pumpkin every three

  laboratory, twice hidden by great metal

  seconds. There was a thing like a barrel

  doors from intrusion.

  which opened a veined lid like a trap