THE populace of the northeastern United States could not help but notice that the eclipse and the accompanying special effects contradicted all the known scientific laws of the universe, as well as a few mystical ones, but the more astute among them realized instantly that tremendous inconsistencies were woven into the fabric of life, and there was no reason to assume the fabric of the universe was any different.
Each individual reacted to the visuals in an individual way. However, it is unnecessary to delineate the reaction of each person who happened to be in New England at the time; a few representative examples will suffice.
Fernando Martinez, for instance, a dishwasher in Boston, was leaning against the brick wall outside the restaurant where he was currently employed, smoking a Winston, drinking beer, and chatting with friends about the busty charms of the new waitress, when he became aware of the shadows smothering the sky. Deeply religious impulses, which he had successfully repressed for years, surged to the fore of his consciousness, and he became certain Judgment Day had arrived. A quick check of his memory revealed many disgusting and perverted sins, and the check only accounted for his deeds of the past week. Convinced he would be sentenced to Hell, his body was unable to withstand the emotional strain and Fernando died of a heart attack on the spot.
Most reactions were not so extreme.
Ruth and Biff, two romantically involved teens, were enjoying themselves magnificently in the woods when they were interrupted by the eclipse. An awestruck Biff became distracted, thus setting the stage for an argument wherein each party, with some justification, accused the other of being unromantic.
Tommy Two-Hawks, an American-Indian high-rise construction worker, paused twenty-nine stories above the streets of a Connecticut city and discovered glorious heights within himself that only his ancestors had known. Micky Martin, who averaged fifteen comic book stories a month, flicked on the electric lights and jotted down four brief plots. Rita Belmont put aside her housework for the rest of the day, celebrating the eclipse because she felt like it. Jory Phillips, who did not allow an opportunity to pass him by when it concerned the game of marbles on the playground, selected a few choice cat’s-eyes while his playmates watched the skies.
Many a talk-show host and weather forecaster made tentative, reasonable explanations for the phenomena, but none came, as close as Griswold F. Grubb, retired fisherman, who sat outside the general store of Pitched Forks, Maine, and said, “Ask dat Zarkov fella what’s goin’ on. Bet he knows. ’Fact, wouldn’ be ’prized if he wasn’ ’sponsible.”
Blast Off!
THE personal history of Dr. Hans Zarkov was not so different from that of many of his ethnic origin and generation, save that he had survived. His mother had managed to have Hans smuggled into England before the Holocaust had begun in earnest. His father was gassed after being held prisoner for several years; his mother survived—after a fashion. While in the camps, she forgot the person she had been, forgot that once she had had a husband and a child. Zarkov searched five years for her after the war. When he found her, he realized she would never again be the laughing, considerate, iron-willed woman of his early childhood. She was silent, sulking, toothless, her hair prematurely gray and her face creased and haggard; she was a seamstress in a huge dry-cleaning establishment, doing the same work she had been forced to do in the camps. Her remembrances of her son were vague. Zarkov was truly alone. After he emigrated to America, he occasionally sent her money, though he knew she would not understand why (or who had sent it, for that matter). She never acknowledged it, she never wrote him a note, and Zarkov did not learn of her death until six months after she had been buried in a nameless grave.
Perhaps as a reaction to her passing, Zarkov plunged himself into the world of the intellect. He had intended to be a patent lawyer, but he soon realized that the work, though profitable, would be too boring for a man of his mental stature. He studied the sciences. While his fellow graduate students were doing the twist and other frivolous dances, Zarkov was sitting in his dorm room formulating the groundwork for theories and experiments which would ultimately lead to mankind’s understanding of the neutrino. Almost as an afterthought, he proved via mathematics that it was theoretically possible for an entire universe to be enclosed in an electron. His paper on subatomic worlds became a sensation, and he was immediately compared to da Vinci and Einstein. “Pish and tosh,” replied Zarkov when informed of the comparison. “They are mere theorists, dreamers with their heads constantly in the clouds. I make my thoughts reality. If I cannot make it real, then it does not exist and it might as well be consigned to the work of a science-fiction writer.”
To prove his point, Zarkov began work on an interdimensional field ray which would permit man to peer directly into the fourth dimension. The project was a controversial one, to say the least, especially since Zarkov demanded a million dollars in funding at the onset.
Now, the first thing people noticed about this remarkable young scientist was that he lacked the personal touch; he could infuriate a man at fifty yards and a woman at twenty-five. His effect upon his peers was much more powerful; he infuriated them with his mere ideas. So when the experimental model of Zarkov’s invention exploded, sending chunks of the building housing it all over campus, miraculously injuring only three people, it came as a surprise to no one that Zarkov failed to rally enough support behind him to continue. In fact, since one chunk had landed squarely in the university dean’s begonia garden, it surprised no one that Zarkov was soon searching for gainful employment.
The Pentagon was interested in hiring him, naturally enough. But though Zarkov was developing the singlemindedness and indefatigable spirit which would eventually cause three wives to leave him due to his neglect of them in favor of science, he did not totally perceive the world in terms of equations and fundings. He remembered war and what war did to people. If pressed, he admitted in an unsentimental fashion that his goal was to make life better for mankind. He was a man of ideals. Consequently, and in no uncertain terms, he refused the Pentagon’s offer to invent weapons. In fact, his terms were so blunt that the Department of Immigration threatened to deport him. The Department was very insistent until Zarkov informed it (via The New York Times) that he had been a United States Citizen since his twenty-seventh birthday.
However, Zarkov had no objections to being a civilian employed by NASA. The lure of the infinite void of space was so great that he, like many other noted scientists, pretended the only possible results of the space program would be peaceful and, hence, beneficial for all mankind. He used the race with the Russians as a lever to secure funding for pet projects. In reality, he did not care if the first man to set foot on the moon was an American, a Russian, or an Armenian midget. Ideologies and nationalities did not separate mankind into different species.
The brilliant, dynamic, irascible scientist soon became a legendary figure, famous at Cape Kennedy, the stuff of fairy tales in civil and military offices throughout the remainder of the nation. He did not deign to waste his considerable wit when he wished to put a bureaucrat or a paranoid general in his proper place. Zarkov merely stared at the offender and rubbed his thick black beard and scowled like a Victorian teacher opening a closet door to discover a pervert having his way with her prepubescent charge. Few men resisted this stare. No man dared to transfer Zarkov to another department or to challenge his ideals. Zarkov spared neither the high nor the low effects of his fiery temper; many a beaker had been hurled in his laboratory. Fortunately his aim was most frequently likened to that of Wrong Way Corrigan.
Once, legend had it, President Johnson, while touring the Cape, disregarded the cautious words of his sycophants and dropped into Zarkov’s office unannounced. Evidently the President had expected Zarkov to be pleasant and subservient. He exited in five minutes, stunned and shocked, his hound-dog ears blistering from the obscenities and vilifications heaped upon him for perpetuating the war in Vietnam. A general who attempted to defend the President by calling Zarkov a Communist was in turn denounced as “a thick-skulled baboon utterly lacking in decency and respect for the higher ideals of mankind, little better than a charter member of the KKK and certainly no smarter than one.”
No wonder then that when the space program lost its impetus Zarkov was one of the first scientists to be laid off. Due to a computer error, he did not receive his first unemployment check for over a year, but he was only interested in collecting it as a matter of principle. He was not particularly enamored with an economic system which, in the future, would result in greater hardships for politicians to remedy. Politicians were humanitarians only during election years anyway. Zarkov was far more concerned about the inklings of greater insights into the working of the universe, inklings which he had only begun to perceive in the vaguest sense of the word during his tenure at NASA. These inklings in addition to his temper and his impatience with the meanderings of small minds, were enough to damage his scientific reputation.
Zarkov did not know when he first arrived at these insights. Perhaps the inherent philosophical implications were inexorably woven with the tumultuous events of his painful youth. Perhaps he had merely perceived them in a dream. Whatever the cause, whatever the origin, Zarkov became fond of proclaiming that the greatest religions of the world were unprepared to fathom the true nature of the universe. However mankind visualized the ultimate creator, it was doomed to be incorrect; for could a grain of dust visualize a painting by Titian? (“How about a drawing by Frank Paul?” asked an assistant, who was immediately fired.) Zarkov became convinced that mankind was too puny and frail to conquer the universe, indeed, that perhaps mankind should conceal itself on Earth in the hopes the universe would not notice it was there. For Zarkov had sensed malign forces in the infinite scope that were completely indifferent to mankind’s fate. Many a night he wandered about on the estate he had inherited from a distant relative, staring at the beautiful stars in the clear black sky, and he felt the vastness of the universe bear down on him like a tremendous weight. Even as his spirit soared, it was sucked into the black hole of despair.
The melancholia inherent in the gloomy estate fully matched that in Zarkov’s breast, forcing him to escape into the meaningless problem-solving of his inventions. His relative had had a mania for tropical gardening, an expensive hobby for a New Englander. Consequently the living quarters and the labs were bordered on both sides by greenhouses, and above was a third greenhouse in the form of a tower. Zarkov had given no thought to what it would be like to live in such a building when he had helped his relative design it; never had he thought he would inherit it and have no other place to go.
Despite the pleasant greenery (Zarkov grew most of his vegetables beneath the glass whose properties were enhanced by solar batteries), there was a certain sterility to the estate which was not conducive to relaxation. Zarkov never felt he was at home; he felt, instead, that he had been marooned in a temporary resting spot which had suddenly, inexplicably become permanent, like the characters in those surreal speculative fiction stories who found themselves stranded in airplanes that would never land, or in buses that would never reach their destinations. He and his assistant, Munson (an undependable sort but the best help he could get), slept on cots. For breakfast they fixed cold cuts and lettuce and tomato and mayo on white bread; and for supper they served vegetables and frozen foods in arbitrary combinations. One particularly melancholy evening, perhaps the lowest point of Zarkov’s life since the war, they ate fresh cauliflower with Kraft’s Pasteurized Cheese Spread and a special brand of frozen lasagne laced with preservatives. Munson loved it. They washed their laundry in a machine which, for all the good it did them, was little better than beating their clothing on rocks. They hung the laundry to dry on lines in a section of the greenhouse where Zarkov, with his black thumb, could never get anything to grow. Huge brown wads of dust defaced every corner and hid beneath every chair. The trash from Munson’s occasional forays to fast food restaurants overflowed from the big tan plastic container next to the washing machine. There was no space for pictures on the walls, for Zarkov’s equipment and inventions precluded any reasonable attempt at interior decorating. The ruins of a television set rusted in the backyard. (Zarkov had thrown it outside after his profile on “Sixty Minutes.”) The only entertainment was provided by the cassettes of rock-and-roll music sent by a friendly corporation executive whose firm manufactured the few inventions Zarkov had patented.
Often Zarkov roamed the grounds near the greenhouse that was his home, listening to the strains of The Beatles or The Who through the speakers, pondering the eons of evolution which had led to his being, or merely making another of his innumerable observations on the plight of twentieth-century man. Though he had passed his forties, the spiritual barrenness of the universe made him feel as if he had been cast adrift in a teenage wasteland.
Fortunately for Zarkov’s sanity, he managed to preoccupy himself sufficiently with scientific problems, otherwise he might have been ensnarled in the psychic spiral that frequently sends social outsiders into the bottomless depths of hopelessness. The belief that life is futile often leads to days of neutrality where nothing is gained and everything is lost. Zarkov clung to the notion that only actions and deeds provide life with meaning. And every morning as he stumbled out of his cot, divested himself of his white gown and sleeping cap, and peered into the bathroom mirror, studying those bloodshot eyes and inspecting the pillow traces above the black beard, he wondered how such a magnificent brain could be housed in such a puny skull, how such an exhausted spirit could overcome an existence that fairly radiated despair to toil without hope of reward for mankind’s ultimate salvation. For Zarkov’s common sense had convinced him time and time again that sooner or later the universe would notice mankind, and that somebody had better be prepared. Nearly every night Zarkov sensed the ineffable cosmic forces girding for a frontal assault, and so he devoted his days to measuring the might of the forces which conceivably would one day attack. In his idealistic heart he prayed to whatever benign forces there were that peaceful resistance, at most, would be called for.
The revenues from his patents permitted him to devise mechanical concoctions that modern industrial executives would have broken many antitrust laws to secure. Zarkov invented a sine curve frequency modulator which transmitted waves to measure the expended energy of novas. From the materials of common gravel he created an alloy which did not contract when cooled. Using devices of inordinate sensitivity, augmented by a computer of almost independent intelligence (the size of a writing desk), he discovered a closed section of the galaxy where the heat would not spontaneously flow to the coldest regions; however, he was unable to extrapolate a theory to explain this, and he had no choice but to conclude that energies beyond his ken, perhaps artificial energies created by an alien intelligence, were responsible for the perplexing enigma. After months of arduous (and seemingly futile) effort, he created a vibratory force field which negated, somewhat, the effects of gravity waves. The force field, incidently, radiated four hitherto unknown primary colors; even the cynical and dense Munson was overcome by the simple beauty of this discovery. Zarkov estimated the density of the ether to a nanofraction, detected electric currents transmitted through the said ether that originated in other galaxies, discovered a star formed entirely of molten zinc, a quasar whose energy was mysteriously diminishing, a gigantic comet hurling itself between the galaxies, and innumerable indications of intelligent life—such as a planet exploding for no discernible reason. Yes, Zarkov’s astronomical instruments were of such sensitivity that he had actually pinpointed the location of over fifty planets; he possessed fragments of information about some. But not even his high idealism could convince him that mankind was emotionally and intellectually prepared for the fruits of his genius, even his relatively benign fruits. That is why he designed many weapons to protect mankind from the dangers of the unfeeling and uncaring universe, but why he never brought himself to build them. Thanks to “Sixty Minutes” and his own iconoclasm, he was left alone, but if those dodo-heads at the Pentagon ever learned of the blueprints in his safe . . .
However, when the peculiar energies began manifesting themselves between Jupiter and Mars, Dr. Hans Zarkov wished many a time that he had confided in those same dodo-heads.
The cinder fell in an arc above the gloomy estate; it crashed through the greenhouse glass as if that had been its intention, and it landed between the legs of the sleeping man sprawled beneath the brown blankets on the cot. A column of thick, odorous smoke arose from the blankets.
Munson awoke. He sniffed something in the air. Smells like a decaying skunk, he thought, recalling an incident from his childhood when he had tried to bury one in the backyard. Then Munson’s short red hair stood on end; his eyes bulged until they protruded nearly as much as his fat red cheeks. Throwing the blanket from the cot, he slipped into his shoes (he was otherwise fully clothed) and stamped the cinder into harmless ashes. Only when the immediate danger was taken care of did he notice the blackness above. There was not a star in the sky, emphasizing the unholy nature of the darkness. He steadied himself by leaning against a console. “Dr. Zarkov! The sun!”
The doctor was caught in the throes of a nightmare. He dreamed he was in the upper bedroom of the white two-story house of his childhood; he walked through the hall and down the stairs and through another hall as if he were a wraith, gliding past the antique furniture and portraits of his great-grandparents, until he reached the window through which he saw what in his childlike eyes was the great expanse of the backyard; over fifty yards away stood the stoic tall evergreens he loved so much to climb. Much nearer was the alien who had come for him. It was a gigantic orange creature with yellow spots, long skinny legs, longer skinnier arms, a single round eye in the center of its massive stomach, and a tubular sucking organ instead of a neck and head. It ran toward the child Zarkov. Relentlessly. Ruthlessly. The sucking organ broke through the glass with a numbing crash and struck! It completely covered the child Zarkov’s head, smothering him in blackness. Then . . .
“Dr. Zarkov! It’s eight twenty-four and there’s no sun!”
The first thing Munson checked was his heartbeat; numbed by an adrenaline rush, he did not know what to do first. Zarkov, as usual, had given him such vague instructions that several valid courses of actions were possible, not to mention the invalid ones. Running his stubby fingers through his red hair, wondering if he would ever get the chance to shampoo it, Munson dashed to another console and pushed buttons and turned knobs and flicked switches. “I know it’s against orders,” he said, “but I’m going to intercept some television frequencies so I can find out what’s on the news.”
Zarkov nodded. “Any source of information is acceptable under the circumstances.”
La di da, thought Munson as he turned a knob and stared at a screen above him. First he intercepted a quiz show, then a Lucille Ball rerun, then an episode of “Tarzan” starring Ron Ely. When he intercepted a picture of Brad Cassidy, TV newsman, speaking into a microphone, Munson breathed a sigh of relief.
“According to scientists at NASA,” said Cassidy over the airwaves, “this unpredicted solar eclipse is no cause for alarm. They have been in conference with the President, however, since seven o’clock this morning, briefing him on . . .”
Snarling, grunting his displeasure, Zarkov killed the sound.
“What did you do that for?” whined Munson, fiddling with the knobs to restore the sound.
“The President is a peanut brain,” said Zarkov. “I swear, ever since Ford allowed reporters to take pictures of him buttering his breakfast muffins on the wrong side . . . Well, it’s been very bad for the country, I can tell you that.”
Right, thought Munson. Perfectly clear as usual. His dissatisfaction with his employer was overwhelmed by his concern when a ticker tape clicked from the console next to that controlling the screen. Holding his breath, Munson gingerly tore it from the slot. He read it several times. He stuttered something incomprehensible after each reading. He swayed, stricken with an attack of gas. He felt the blood draining from his face.
“What did you find? The moon out of orbit?”
“You could say that,” replied Munson when he could manage it. “By more than twelve degrees! This must be a mistake! I told you we should rig new transistors and overhaul this thing.” He whacked the console briskly.
“It’s not a mistake,” said Zarkov grimly. “It’s an attack. I’ve been right, all these years. Fire up those transducers, will you?”
“What the hell do I care?” asked Zarkov. “I tried to warn him. He wouldn’t listen. A poor man’s Hindenburg, looking for his Hitler.”
The blackness outside was briefly illuminated by red waves exposing a torrent of small meteors. The cinders crashed into trees, knocking over three and setting four afire.
Though his body meant it as a gasp, Munson wheezed horribly, like a coronary victim suddenly stricken with asthma.
“Merely fragments of moon rock,” said Zarkov in tones as comforting as he could make them. “Our moon is being subjected to some enormous force from outer space—a kind of energy beam.”
Now red lightning bolts stabbed across the sky. Their jagged fingers touched points throughout the landscape. Glass, shattered noisily, pieces dropping about the harried scientists. Munson hastily covered his face with his hands, but Zarkov calmly continued his tasks at the console. The lights flickered, the screen faded; Zarkov did not notice as he read a printout. He sighed, but there was a glimmer of suppressed excitement in his voice as he said, “Time for us to go, Munson.”
“Go where?”
Zarkov clenched the hand holding the printout into a fist. The veins of his neck protruded and his jaw was set so tightly that Munson expected to see bits of enamel fall from his mouth. “I’ve got the coordinates now—the direction of the energy beam’s source. This is what we’ve been waiting for. We’ll go up and counterattack them!”
Munson gulped loudly. He slowly turned to stare at the ornate golden space capsule looming above the foliage in the greenhouse behind him. “Surely you jest!”
“No.”
“You’re crazy! I’m not going up in that!”
Nodding as if he had expected this reaction all along, Zarkov opened a drawer and pulled out a revolver.
“Doctor! I thought you were a man of peace!” exclaimed Munson.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. I can’t handle the capsule alone. Get your toothbrush, Munson; you’re going on a trip to the stars!”
The small plane carrying Flash Gordon and Dale Arden flew blindly in the impenetrable darkness. The pilot wondered if they had somehow flown into a spacious cave, and he unconsciously tensed for an impact into unyielding rock that would arrive without warning, at any second. The copilot, though just as nervous as his companion, wondered if they had somehow flown into a tremendous womb; if only it wasn’t so cold . . . However, they spoke to one another with professional aplomb, as if nothing unusual was happening, as if they navigated absolute darkness every day.
“What’s the word from Boston, Bill?” asked the pilot.
The copilot frowned and shook his head. “Zip. Zilch. Zero. All channels dead.” For the first time he permitted traces of amazement to creep into his voice. “Say, get a load of those VORs . . .”
The needles on virtually every instrument of the controls spun crazily, registering impossible and contradictory information that altered just as crazily and just as impossibly with each passing second.
Suddenly, the pilot exclaimed, “On the left, about nine o’clock high!”
The darkness parted, wounded by a warm glow of red, as if some mad and powerful painter had cast his watercolors into the sky. Terrible, terrific bolts of red lightning stabbed from the warm glow, reaching toward the ground below like a murderer’s knife. The atmosphere itself seemed to react against this alien lightning with an electricity of its own, hoping to reject it or consume it like a gaseous antibody. A streak of lightning barely missed the nose of the plane; it disintegrated an instant before the nose would have struck it.
Now the pilot permitted himself to express a hint of panic and fear. “Hold on tight, Bill, let’s put this baby down right here.”
The moment the copilot touched the flap control, painful electricity coursed through him, and his vision was blinded by a crimson wave. The copilot was vaguely aware of the pilot grabbing his arm, of the pilot experiencing a similiar pain, but those were the last impressions of his life.
The unconscious bodies of the pilot and copilot were sucked through the broken glass as if their seat belts were nonexistent, sucked into the cold, foreboding blackness.
In the passenger section, Flash and Dale had spent the time sitting quietly, pondering the limbo into which they had been thrust. Frustrated that he could do nothing constructive in this predicament, Flash concentrated upon having a steadying, calming influence on Dale, who was finding the situation much more difficult to cope with. The peace Flash summoned in times of need could not relieve him of his anxieties. He had the premonition that the lessons of the past would be of no help in the coming hours, that each risky deed would be performed without full knowledge of the consequences.
The cockpit curtains flapped. Without thinking, Flash unsnapped his seat belt and rushed toward the cockpit, only to find himself fighting a gale. His stomach tightened as if he had swallowed a concrete slab.
When Flash saw that the pilots were gone, he was thankful that at the least he could spend his final moments battling the inevitable. Sliding into a seat, he grabbed the bucking wheel yoke, pulling it back with all his strength. He kicked at the rubber pedals. He could not allow himself to be distracted long enough to see Dale’s face as she entered the cockpit, undoubtedly struggling against the gale, and said, “My God! Where did the pilots go?”
Setting his jaw, his heart fearful over Dale’s fate, Flash said between his teeth, “Hydraulic’s gone. Grab that other wheel, help me pull her up!”
Staggering into the other seat, Dale tugged at the wheel. She was paralyzed by despair when she realized that her efforts had been in vain. Tensing every muscle, she pulled at it again, draining her mind of every irrelevant thought. When it seemed her efforts had been met with some small success, she said, “Are we coming up? I can’t see a thing!”
“Me neither. Look for the landing lights!”
Dale glanced about what remained of the cockpit. The controls and instrument panels were totally incomprehensible. “This isn’t my scene! Look where?”
Though it was risky, Flash released one hand from the wheel and pointed at the controls above Dale. “Switches up there; start hitting them!”
Dale instantly complied. She remembered a comic short she had seen as a child; the three comedians, stranded in a crashing rocket ship, did the only thing they could: they pushed buttons and hoped for the best. When the landing lights finally flooded on, Dale was relieved only because she could once again grab the wheel with both hands.
Flash realized they could not keep the plane in the air much longer; it was foolish to try. He began scanning the ground below, searching for an adequate landing site. He glimpsed a strange tower—a greenhouse?—in the center of a gloomy estate.
“I was afraid you’d ask that,” replied Flash, smiling despite himself.
Red bolts of jagged electricity shimmered and danced on the nose and wings. The atmosphere howled as if its very atoms were disintegrating into nothingness.
Zarkov’s hand trembled as he aimed the revolver at the cowering Munson. His mind full of questions dancing like skeletons in a graveyard, preying upon his sanity, his face remained impassive, his blazing eyes providing the only indications of the irrationality lurking beneath the surface of his personality. “Munson, you’ll go down in history as a putz.”
Munson folded his arms across his flabby chest and shook his head, his fat cheeks shaking in the dim light. “I don’t care. At least I’ll be a living putz.”
“I swear, Munson, I’ll shoot!”
Munson shrugged, his moving hands exhibiting his exasperation. “Get shot or go up in that thing—what’s the difference?”
“This way you’ll be giving your life to save the Earth! Haven’t you any spirit at all?”
As if to answer Zarkov’s question, Munson calmly walked away, through the greenhouse, toward the nearest exit.
I knew I should have hired that coed instead, thought Zarkov. You just can’t get good help these days. “I tell you I can’t get off alone. I need someone!”
But Munson ignored him. Zarkov swallowed something large and slimy that somehow had been manufactured in his mouth. Munson—the putz—had been right about one thing: Zarkov was indeed a man of peace. He nervously drew a bead above Munson’s head. Perhaps if he gave his assistant a little haircut, then he would begin to see things in a more reasonable light; he would be glad to sacrifice himself for the good of the billions on Earth. However, Zarkov was reluctant to pull the trigger because he could not keep his arm steady. Just as he began to increase the pressure on the trigger, a horrendous crashing—the impact of metal upon dirt—distracted him. He heard the whirring of propellers, the roar of coughing engines drowning out the crackling lightning and the eternally hissing wind. He glanced about, and was vaguely aware that Munson was walking toward the door as if nothing unusual was transpiring, perceiving bright lights tearing away the darkness, growing larger, approaching with the inevitability of a divine presence.
That plane is coming in for a crash landing.
The door slammed open. Followed by the remorseless white light, a panic-stricken Munson dashed into the greenhouse. The plane crashed through the door and glass, creating a noise the sky could not have equaled if it had been rent asunder by Zeus himself. Bowling over pots and plants as if they were splinters, it crushed Munson beneath its terrific weight.
When the plane finally halted, Zarkov stared at the pool of blood seeping out from underneath the metal. Dazzled by the vision of what Munson must have looked like under there, he pictured his assistant totally flat, his bones broken and his organs crushed and his face mangled beyond recognition. Though this vision stunned and horrified Zarkov for a moment, he managed to keep his irrational wits about him. He realized the pilot of the plane was strictly inept, but very, very brave. He crept backward into the darkness.
Inside the cockpit, Flash wiped a trickle of blood from his forehead. “You all right?” he asked Dale.
She smiled. “I’m terrific.”
You sure are. “Come on, let’s get out of here before she blows.”
Though the gesture was perhaps unnecessary, Flash kicked open the cockpit emergency exit. But he was so full of joy, so glad to be alive, that he did not care. Each second stretched onward for an infinity of happiness. He jumped to the ground, turned, and held out his arms. Only the greatest restraint prevented him from spoiling the innocent pleasure of the moment and crushing Dale’s lithe body to his breast when she leaped into his embrace.
“Just hold me two seconds,” said Dale to Flash. “Then drop me and I’ll kiss the ground.”
As Flash set her down, Zarkov said, “Good morning.” Not an original salutation perhaps, certainly not one his future biographers would repeat, but under the circumstances, simplicity was the best. As the couple faced him, he took a step from his cloak of darkness. The hand gripping the revolver was cold and wet. “Are you injured?”
Forgetting the scratch on his forehead, Flash said, “Lord knows why, but it seems not.”
“A miracle. I expect you’d like to use my phone.”
“Thanks. I would,” said Flash, grateful for the stranger’s generosity, not noticing Dale was regarding the bearded man with suspicion.
“It’s in there,” said Zarkov, pointing to the capsule entrance. Fortunately, the capsule had not been damaged when the plane crashed into the greenhouse. It resembled a huge golden eraser; symmetrical projections jutted outward at equal distances apart throughout the exterior, providing the space capsule with an old-fashioned appearance that had appealed to Zarkov when he had designed it, but which he now regretted because it did not look like it could fly fifty yards without exploding. Zarkov walked behind the couple as they approached the capsule; should he take the man or the woman? It did not matter. The white light radiating from the capsule interior was like an altar in Zarkov’s mind. Or like a web.
Glancing about the wrecked greenhouse, seeing vegetables growing in the undamaged planters, Dale noticed the red stains beneath the plane and thought, Ah, we ruined his tomato crop. “We’ve wrecked your place,” she said. “I’m sure the insurance will . . .”
Zarkov interrupted her. “Please, don’t mention it.”
Flash asked, “What in hell’s happened to the sun?”
Zarkov shrugged, hoping he looked and sounded like an innocent layman. “Looks like an eclipse to me.”
“Are you sure?” asked Dale. “There wasn’t anything on TV last night about an eclipse today.”
Zarkov became so incensed that he nearly forgot the revolver behind his back and gestured with both hands. “Television! Pap for credulous fools! Insipid twaddle for people who twiddle their diddles!”
“You don’t have to lose control,” said Flash. “Television performs many valuable functions in today’s modern technological society, and criticizing the medium with such vehemence is not constructive.”
Zarkov cleared his throat. “You’re right, of course. Forgive me. I forgot that if you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem. I assure you my lapse was momentary.”
Unaware of the concealed revolver, Flash placed his hand on the scientist’s shoulder and looked directly into his eyes. “I’m certain it was. You must forgive my tendency to moralize. It’s one of the disadvantages of being in the public eye.”
“We’ve all been under a strain,” said Dale.
“Absolutely,” said Flash. “Unexplained phenomena invariably lend life a surreal texture that makes us all subject to Sartre’s nausea.”
“I couldn’t have put that better myself,” said Zarkov, laughing, indicating the ramp leading into the capsule. “Please, right in there. I’ll show you the phone.”
Flash nodded and smiled, then, taking Dale’s elbow, walked her up the ramp. Experiencing a premonition, he was unable to pinpoint its substance. This stranger was a good man—Flash’s instincts were certain of it; nevertheless, he could not ignore the distinct sensation of walking into danger. The muscles of Dale’s arms were tense.
Inside the capsule, Flash and Dale searched wide-eyed for a telephone. Or for anything resembling a telephone. Three cushioned black chairs with straps were bolted about a white control stand. The white and pinkish-white walls were, for the most part, bare and ascetic, with console panels in two corners. Flash glanced at the instruments on the control stand; they were of the same nature but more intricate than those of the plane. It was impossible, completely surreal, but he had the sinking feeling that he knew exactly what kind of apparatus he and Dale had stepped into.
They turned almost as one to face the stranger leaning in the doorway. Dale, quite pale despite her excitement, exclaimed, “You’re Doctor Hans Zarkov!”
Zarkov performed a mock-bow, acknowledging his identity. “How did you know?”
“I saw you on ‘Sixty Minutes.’ No wonder you don’t like television.” She turned to Flash. “Don’t you remember? He’s the scientist who kept saying there’d be an attack on the Earth! They called him the poor man’s Billy Mitchell. They kicked him out of NASA and . . .”
“Enough!” said Zarkov. “Besides, I was laid off. There’s a difference, though the reporter from ‘Sixty Minutes’ can’t make the distinction.” He pointed the gun at them.
“Unfortunately not. The attack has begun. I estimate we have eleven days before our moon crashes down and destroys us. I need aid in taking off.”
“In what?” asked Flash, hoping to stall for time.
“In this, in my space capsule.”
“This is a space capsule?” exclaimed Dale.
“Indeed, my greatest invention. Like many dreamers, I have built a spaceship in the grand American tradition, without the aid of the government or a corporation, taking parts where I could get them, with only my native ingenuity to help me. Though my capsule wasn’t built in a backyard per se, it was built close enough to one so I can say that I’ve joined the honored ranks of backyard scientists! And unlike many dreamers, I have succeeded; my capsule works!”
“Have you tested it?” asked Flash.
“No, but I have faith.” Inhaling deeply, Zarkov straightened his shoulders, keeping his bead on the couple. “If not, then I wouldn’t have worked so hard. The engine for this baby was cannibalized from those of old bombers, and it sings like a bird. The body was welded from the husks of obsolete rockets I purchased from NASA. The other parts I needed I got from saving Green Stamps. No, this capsule hasn’t been tested, but I’ve my resources, young man, I’ve my resources. In just a few minutes, we’ll be taking off.”
“For where?” asked Dale.
“Up there. We are being attacked from the stars. I need one person to hold down that red pedal during blastoff.” Which one? thought Zarkov. He glanced at Dale’s shapely legs, felt the pangs of passion surging in his breast, and realized that if he survived his sally and was marooned in space, he would have other, deeper needs. He pointed the revolver at Dale. “You’re the lighter of the two. Sit down in the end seat.” To Flash: “You can leave. Tell the world what Hans Zarkov has done.”
He’s got a coach’s ego, thought Flash. He said to Dale, “I guess I’ll be running along.”
Attempting to keep a brave face, Dale replied, “Remember to put out the cat, will you?”
For an instant Zarkov was afraid he would be forced to shoot the young man in cold blood, but his subconscious mind, which was much wiser than he, suddenly guided his motions. Like a man in a dream, he watched himself sidestep Flash and smash him on the back of the head with the revolver. This deed successfully accomplished, Zarkov felt a heady zeal he feared was totally out of character for a man of peace. However, he could not bask in his glow of victory for long. Before the young woman could act (she was distracted by her concern for her friend), he pulled shut the capsule door.
Shaking his head to ward off dizziness, Flash picked himself up and struck the madman in his soft belly. As the madman was woefully out of shape, Flash expected him to fold like cardboard, but the madman was driven by forces which habitually allow puny mortals to overcome the limitations of their flesh. Zarkov and Flash grappled like animals, struggling for superiority, as Dale watched with horror, waiting for Flash to deal the villain a telling blow. However, when the blow came, it propelled Zarkov directly into a big red button that appeared to have been liberated from Con Edison.
“Sit down!” shouted Zarkov. “Keep a foot on the red pedal or the G-forces will kill us all!”
Wow, he’s really dedicated, thought Flash.
The capsule began shaking like a Cadillac moving down a steep hill with its emergency brake in gear. The engines rumbled and the glass of the greenhouse shook as if the earth was moving. Flash became subliminally aware of chemicals mixing and reacting violently beneath his feet. He sensed fire and destruction only marginally harnessed. Fearing for his life, he suffered a paralyzing terror, for now the unknown was no longer an abstraction. At least he had known the capabilities of the plane; at least there he had been able to act. But suddenly the Fates had thrust him completely under Zarkov’s control.
Zarkov, who had already strapped himself in, shouted, “The red pedal! The red pedal!”
Flash experienced a curious weightlessness, though his feet remained firmly planted on the floor. Then a weight descended upon him. He saw Dale struggling to strap herself in the center chair.
The capsule was taking off!
Zarkov uttered something cryptic: “Sorry, Munson, you missed your opportunity.”
However, Flash had no time to ponder the remark’s meaning. The weight of a thousand griefs was pressing down upon him, flattening him. Every heartbeat and every tortured breath racked him with pain. He pulled himself toward the empty chair, fell into it, struggled to turn himself around. He was barely able to strap himself in. Without thinking, motivated by instinct more than his consciousness, he extended his foot and stamped on the red pedal, exerting an unexpected strength derived from a source deep within his spirit, a strength that had served him well during many exhausting football games. Just to glance at Dale (who had blacked out) cost him a tremendous effort.
Zarkov mumbled, “Friendship—built this to send out in friendship—hands across the void—tentacles across the void—couldn’t bring myself to arm it—the end now—unless we three can—’less we can . . .” And he became silent.
Flash felt a twinge of concern for the scientist; he attempted to convince himself that it was a purely intellectual concern for the sanctity of a human life, but there was something engaging about that idealistic madman. Flash’s interest in Dale, however, evoked no doubts whatsoever. As he watched her still form, he was awash with love and anxiety. Then he turned his eyes upward, toward the white ceiling, and tried to see the stars through the material. Filled with the majesty of space, realizing he was fulfilling a lifelong dream he had never seriously hoped would become a reality, he, too, blacked out.
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