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  THE MAN WITHOUT A WORLD

  A Complete Novelet of the Ark of Space

  By

  John Coleman Burroughs and Hulbert Burroughs

  Hulbert Burroughs and John Coleman Burroughs, the sons of Edgar Rice Burroughs, graduated from Pomona College a scant four and five years ago respectively. Since then their various interests have led them into work and travel together, as well as separately.

  Hulbert has been an archeologist in New Mexico and Arizona; photographer on the Carnegie Institute - Pomona College Expedition to the Giant Ground Sloth caves in the Lower Grand Canyon; explorer and photographer in Lower California.

  John Coleman Burroughs, wielder of a Phi Beta Kappa Scholarship key, is not only a writer and photographer but a commercial artist as well. His paintings of Mexican Indians have been exhibited extensively in the West.

  Together the brothers traveled into out-of-the-way places of Mexico gathering story material, photographing and painting modern descendants of the ancient Aztec and Mayan races. Writing and adventure are iIn their blood. They enjoy science-fiction writing. They collaborate for speed, and because they like working together.

  From Thrilling Wonder Stories June 1939

  CHAPTER I - Rodent Peril

  It might have been a reading room in a public library except that the walls were of satiny metal and there were no windows. Indirect, cold light illumined the entire chamber in such a manner that no obscuring shadows were cast. Silent ventilator registers purified the air with a draft that contained precisely the correct amount of warmth and humidity for the comfortable sustenance of human life.

  As a matter of fact, it was a little-used section of the central library of Arkadia, the great Ark of Space which had been hurtling through the Universe for approximately one hundred and ninety-five years. The oncoming generations had lost all interest in the dry history of nations and of individual men prior to the Great Exodus. There was so much else to do—performing the innumerable tasks assigned to each person and keeping up with the science of today as propounded and furthered by the savants in the educational chambers.

  A single person sat here diligently poring over an ancient volume with its chemically treated pages and flexible metal binding which resisted the ravages of time. Malcomb Mandark, dark-haired and broad-shouldered son of the commander-in-chief of the Arkadia, was the only one of his generation who found vivid interest in the perusal of lives and exploits of great men in the dim past on an Earth he had never known. A sheer waste of time and intelligence quotient, his colleagues jokingly termed his obsession. What could dry and musty history of a dead past teach these argonauts of space who faced an unbelievably and startlingly strange future!

  The visi-screen on the table before young Mandark came to life with a musical chime and a soft glow. Instantly he looked up and flipped a toggle switch. At once the lovely face of Valia Burtis flashed into view and smiled at him.

  “Mai,” said her sweet voice, “what on Arkadia are you reading this period?”

  The young man smiled a bit sheepishly. He valued Valia’s opinion over that of all others aboard the space ship. Almost hesitantly he held up the volume in his hands so she could read the title.

  “The Biography of Benjamin Franklin,” she read, wrinkling her nose prettily. “Who in the Universe was he?”

  “A great American of his day,” Mai answered enthusiastically. “America! That’s where your ancestors and mine came from, Valia, to join this spatial voyage.”

  “Yes, I know," she agreed. “I didn’t have to delve in that musty old corner of the history library to learn that. But never mind. I called you to tell you that Commander Mandark has just descended alone to the lower levels on a special tour of inspection. I thought you ought to know, Mai.”

  The young man became instantly apprehensive.

  “Yes, I should,” he cried. “Thank you, Valia. I’ll join him at once. See you during the next relaxation period.”

  He flipped off the visi-screen, put away the volume in its receptacle, and hurried out into the corridor which ran past the library suite. Making his way hastily toward the central portion of the great ship, he descended by escalator from level to level of the vast craft, inquiring of workers and officers about his father. Ten minutes later he was down in the lowest level of the Arkadia, down where the hull of the ship was packed with various soils from Earth, where the roots of plants and trees and growing things had worked out intricate designs in nearly two hundred years.

  His pulse quickened, and a queer little thrill shot through him. Not for more than fifty years had any man descended to keel level of the Ark of Space alone. It was too dangerous. His own father had put seals on all the storerooms and holds of this level himself. And now Mandark, senior, was violating his own orders.

  Mai had reached the metal door which gave upon the underworld of the botanical gardens when he heard a strangled cry. Instantly he flung the door open, noting as he did so that the seal had been removed. He leaped inside, flipping his ray gun up from its holster at his belt.

  There in the soft light, sprawled on the damp and moldy pathway between the wire-netted walls of root-entangled earth, lay the figure of his father. Crouched above his bloodied form was a huge and furry monstrosity with great reddish eyes and long coarse whiskers. It was a giant weasark, nearly as large as a horse such as was kept with other animals on the third level.

  Mai leveled his gun and fired one withering blast. The creature emitted a horrible squeak, reared up on its powerful hind legs and tail like a kangaroo, pawed furiously at its snout, and then toppled backward — dead. The young man, overcoming his loathing of the ugly creature, sprang to the side of the injured man.

  “Father!” he cried in anguish.

  The old scientist-commander lay in a widening pool of crimson and did not answer. From the small pouch at the belt of his gold-studded tunic Mai drew a metal box. Deftly he sprinkled a fine powder into the open wound left by the rodent’s fangs. The older space man relaxed as the pain subsided. He opened his eyes and nodded weakly toward the still quivering body of the weasark.

  “Tem Zuick was badly shaken by a dream he had,” he gasped out. “I have worried, too, for years. So I foolishly came down alone to investigate. You — you must kill all these creatures, Mai, before the Arkadia and all its precious cargo are destroyed. These last survivors of the human race must not die now — wiped out by a scourge we accidentally brought from Earth.”

  Mai clutched his father’s hand. His young face looked leaner, colder than his twenty years warranted. Well he knew the danger and well he realized the gravity of his commander’s charge.

  From the maze of pathways and roots and conditioning pipes another pair of red eyes gleamed at them.

  “I am an old man anyway, Mai,” went on the father gently. “My death does not greatly matter; my period of usefulness is over. But you have a long lifetime to serve. Rador will assume command of the Arkadia now, but you are a born leader. Who knows, you may some day command the Ark of Space yourself. Meanwhile — meanwhile, my son, I leave the preservation and guardianship of this great ship to you. Find a method to exterminate these terrible weasarks, or we are lost. To you, Malcomb, I leave — the future of all mankind!” With this solemn charge the old man gasped once, shuddered, and lay still.

  MAL MANDARK’S mighty hand was again gripping the butt of his ray gun. His eyes were no longer on his father’s lifeless body. Back through time and space his mind raced to an Earth he had never known — an Earth which had given him his entire rich heritage, yet which he had never even seen save through the electro-telescope mounted in the upper turret of the great Ark of Space. For Mai w
as a true son of the interstellar void. Born twenty years ago to his mother in the hospital vault of the Arkadia, he had come into existence in a great ship which had already been cleaving its meteoric and majestic way through the cosmos for a hundred and seventy-five years.

  But of all the thousands of souls aboard the Arkadia, only to Malcomb Mandark was the lost Earth very real. From the Ark’s great library he had learned more of the dead planet than any living man. He knew the violent scenes of the dying planet as vividly as though he had lived through those last days. He knew the panic of humanity when the sun began inexplicably to cool; when, by some inner chemical change, it started radiating cold light instead of life-giving and sustaining heat. Since that distant day Arkadian scientists had reproduced cold light and explained the catastrophic phenomenon, but that didn’t change the cataclysm of the past any.

  The oceans froze solid. Battles raged between doomed nations for possession of volcanic craters and surviving warm spots. Mass hysteria, looting, crime, everything ran riot while people and flora and fauna died on every hand. Finally one hundred great scientists banded together to forestall the complete annihilation of mankind. For five frantic years they worked, building and equipping a gigantic, super-space ship. Stock and plants and passengers were selected with great care to people this complete microcosm of a world which carried its precious freight of the sum of human knowledge.

  Astronomers feverishly searched the heavens, seeking a new world in another solar system where man might survive. And at last the huge sun, Sirius, was finally chosen as their goal. Sirius—fifty-two trillion miles away—man’s greatest hegira! Rendered as self-supporting as was scientifically possible, the Arkadia parted from its mother planet and set upon its epic starry course to find a world in the family of Sirius where man could live and continue to evolve.

  All of this flashed through the young man’s mind as he stood there above his father. At the present computation, within twenty-five years — if no calamity overtook the Ark — it would reach the planetesimal orbits of Sirius. Alas that Commander Man-dark had not lived to set foot on solid terra firma. Like several thousand others he had been born, had lived and had died within the metal confines of a space ship — an orphan of the Universe.

  The watching giant weasark grew bolder and crept out of its labyrinth. Comet-like, Mai’s hand zoomed down to the ray gun at his belt and brought up the weapon. Red eyes studied the man-creature. The long, spiny whiskers wriggled with the sniffing motion of the quivering nose, and the hairless tail whipped to and fro like an undulating serpent.

  Mai sighted his weapon carefully. The development of engines of destruction and implements of war had not kept pace with the other scientific advances in the comparative safety of the Ark of Space. He doubted if he could repeat his former shot—puncturing the supra-orbital sinus to strike the brain above the eye. Furthermore, the ray chamber elements were still hot, and the intensity of the electrocuting ray would be diminished in inverse ratio.

  Nevertheless, his trigger finger coolly tightened. A weakened stream of electronic vibrations flashed a path of sparks to the tip of the oncoming monster’s nose. The creature stopped short, stunned but uninjured, and shook its head. Then, emitting a shrill squeak of rage, it prepared to charge.

  Quickly Mai scooped up the body of his father and leaped backward through the vault door, slamming the heavy metal barrier just in time. Shakily he was replacing the seal on the automatically locked barrier as two young men came racing along the corridor from the gravity lift.

  Tem Zuick, a slender young man of Mai’s age, with sensitive face and great dark eyes beneath a lofty brow, hesitated and shuddered. Then he bounded forward to assist in the carrying of the Ark’s commander.

  “Great Void, Mai!” he cried. “What happened?”

  “Father was making a special tour of this level. Valia warned me he had come alone, and I followed him — too late.” Mai’s voice was calm and clear, betraying no evidence of the terrible grief he felt.

  “These dirty weasarks — these — these galactic ghouls must be destroyed, Mai,” exclaimed Tem Zuick. “Just wait until I perfect that disintegrator ray I am working on. I’ll make ray guns that won’t be impotent!” A wild look came into the eyes of the youth who had the face of a dreamer.

  “What brought the two of you down here, Roto?” Mai asked the second man, a moon-faced, stalwart little man in the uniform of a corporal of the Arkadia’s police, who looked like a dwarf star beside an island universe in contrast to Mai’s tall figure.

  “Rador is sending out an urgent call for your father to come to the observatory. We piped him in on the visi-screen in Tern’s workshop. Blast my rocket tubes, but he looked excited! So Tem and I started hunting. We traced both of you down here.”

  “Rador seldom gets excited,” commented Mai thoughtfully. “I will report to him.”

  It was high time to do something about the weasarks; sealing them off in the lowest level was not enough. Strange, thought Mai, how the Ark had been prepared for every emergency save that of warfare—a hopeful sign for the future of the race, but very inconvenient now. There was no practical method for disposing of the weasarks without endangering the lives of the people aboard, or even endangering the craft itself.

  Descendants of a weazel-like rodent and small wharf rats of Earth days, the weasarks — so named because they were a peculiar evolutionary development of the Ark—had already made an alarming dent in precious stores and had done untold damage to root life and soil. For the first fifty years they were unnoticed. In the next fifty they evolved to their present form and doubled in size and number, possibly due to the action of the cosmic rays. There was no magnetic shield against these rays in the lowest level of the Ark.

  During the third fifty years the weasarks became so bad that the chambers of lower levels had to be sealed off to confine them while punitive attempts were made to exterminate them. Nothing satisfactory was accomplished. Then nature took a hand. Whatever the cause of the prodigious increase in size of the rodents in each succeeding generation, it was physically impossible for numbers and size both to increase. Thus, the rate of production became more or less static, but the size continued to expand until now the weasarks were the equivalent of horses. Mai had been appalled by the pair he had fought. No wonder Tem Zuick had bad dreams, and Commander Mandark had begun to fear for the ultimate safety of the voyage through space.

  Words from Tem Zuick recalled Mai.

  “I tell you, Mai, I can’t sleep for thinking of those hideous monsters," said the fanatical-eyed young man. “I had a dream so vivid about them gnawing out of the lower levels and overrunning the entire Ark, devouring all our livestock, stored foods, invading our granaries, ruining the gardens, and actually killing people—I had to tell your father about it. They were everywhere — in our living quarters, laboratories and control rooms. I woke up with a mental picture of the Ark hurtling through space—a meteoric tomb for us all!”

  Tem Zuick covered his face with his hands and sobbed like a child.

  “Never mind, Tem,” Mai soothed. “We will see that the two lowest levels are permanently sealed, and you can go ahead with your plans for your disintegrator gun without fear.”

  Reaching the gravity lift, Mai laid his father’s body down gently upon empty air about couch height to the level upon which they stood. There was no floor, no cage in the shaft; the men were simply suspended in space. Roto pressed a stubby fingertip on a button. The quartz doors slid to, and they sped upward as though in a well behaved elevator toward the upper levels of the Arkadia.

  CHAPTER II - Nova Terra

  Before a sorrowful gathering of Arkians the general’s body was filled with a liqiud disintegrator. It was then set aside in the spatial tomb to be ejected with other caskets when the Ark next passed through the gravitational field of some celestial sphere. Otherwise, the caskets would remain within the gravitational field of the Arkadia and hurtle through space beside the Ark like a miniature sol
ar system.

  At the close of the ceremonies, Mai felt a hand placed gently on his shoulder. It was Rador, the Ark’s elderly engineer-astronomer. Tall, handsome, he was garbed in a long tunic of white Ark cloth. With his snow-white beard, Rador appeared the perfect synthesis of wisdom and age. That hand on Mai’s shoulder conveyed both sympathy and excitement.

  “You sent for my father before — the accident?” asked Mai.

  “Yes,” said Rador. “But now it is doubly urgent that you come with me immediately to the observatory!” Together the two men hurried from the large assembly room to the gravity lift.

  “On the official examination graphs,” said Rador, “I have been watching your intelligence, knowledge, and leadership quotient curves rise. Soon they will pass mine and then you will be chosen the Ark’s new leader—”

  The quartz doors slid closed, and they began rising upward in the gravity lift.

  “— and as the Ark’s future leader,” continued Rador, “you must be the first to confirm the new course I’ve just set. During the last three periods my eyes have barely left the magni-telescreen. I have made a startling discovery, Mai!”

  Mai’s heart leaped to his throat. He had not been unaware that some day he might be the Ark’s commander, but now the sudden realization of that great responsibility bore heavily upon him. Highest officer of this man-made meteor! The only thing akin to a world he had ever known was this mile-long, thoroughly insulated bullet that hurtled through space—a meteor and a machine as scientifically compact as any piece of machinery ever made.

  From the delicate mechanism of the anti-gravity electrical propulsion apparatus and the artificial atmosphere oxygenator plant to the retractable magni-electro telescope, every section of the giant streamlined ship was thoroughly complete, systematized. And since the temperature of the outer regions of space approximated the absolute zero of —273° C., the ship was thoroughly insulated and air-conditioned.