The Man Without A World Read online

  Upon the floor of the vast chamber lay thousands upon thousands of feet of carefully coiled ark-metal chain. In the center of the huge coil was the Ark’s metal-capped keel hatchway. Directly above the hatch swung a heavy pulley through which the end of the chain was reeved. Fastened near the end of the chain was an oddly constructed chair. To its side was secured a heavy gun.

  From a near corner Mai dragged a heavy space-suit. No words passed between the two men as Roto helped him into the cumbersome outfit. From a small step-ladder Mai climbed into the chair suspended from the chain over the hatchway.

  “Quick, Roto,” said Mai, “take a look through the periscope. How close are we now?”

  “Blast my dials, Chief!” exclaimed the little fellow as he peered through the instrument in the hatch-cover. “We’re gettin’ awful close! Those clouds are sure dark!”

  “What does the altimeter read?” Mai barked out.

  “Hundred thousand feet,” Roto gulped, setting in motion the machinery which opened the hatch.

  “Hand up my oxygen helmet, then,” said Mai. “Remember your instructions !”

  As Roto lowered him away through the hatch, Mai felt an exhilarating thrill tingle his spine. It was the first time a living Arkian had left the ship since she was sealed tight those two hundred and fifteen long years ago!

  CHAPTER IV - Ben Franklin’s Kite

  Far below Mai, to the right, the faint glow of the first Nova Terrian dawn was breaking. As he swung clear of the Ark’s great hull he flicked on the radio transmitter encased in his helmet.

  Rador, Slooken and the other officers in the control room started to attention as a voice boomed from the loud speaker.

  “Rador! Calling Engineer Rador. Mandark calling Rador! Come in at seventeen hundred kilocycles!”

  In an instant the old engineer switched on the transmitter.

  “Mai! Where are you? What happened?”

  “Listen carefully to what I’m going to say, Rador. And follow my instructions to the letter. What happens in the next few hours — maybe minutes — will decide the Ark’s fate.”

  “Right, Mai. We’ll do anything you say. But what level of the Ark are you speaking from?”

  “I’m not in the Ark,” replied Mai. “Right now I’m about two thousand feet below the Ark.”

  Mai heard Rador’s gasp of surprise, but he gave the old man no chance for a reply.

  “Here’s the plan.” Mai’s voice came in very clearly. “I’m going to establish a lightning conductor on the surface of Nova Terra.” He paused. “Ever hear of one, Rador?”

  “I think so, but—”

  “I’m working on that age-old principle discovered by Benjamin Franklin. You know, the kite in a storm — static electricity coming down the string? Well, my kite happens to be one of those small editions of the gravity repulsors — the ones our ancestors stored away for us to use in lighter-than-air craft if and when we reached our goal. Roto and I made a swell ‘string’ for the kite several years ago by welding all our ark-metal chain together — nearly nine miles of the stuff. I had an idea years ago that those flashes were lightning and that we’d get in trouble trying to land. It was by reading up on all Earthly science and history that I found an analogy to compare with this. That’s how I got the idea. We’ve been working on it for years.”

  “But I still don’t quite see what you are going to do!” Rador said, bewildered.

  “This nine miles of Ark-metal chain will be held suspended in mid-air by the gravity-repulsing machine. I’ve a control lever right beside me here with wires running up to the repulsor. As soon as Roto finishes playing out all the chain. I’ll descend to the surface of the planet and anchor the chain. As soon as the chain is grounded, the air for a good distance around the chain will be partially insulated, and the Ark will then be able to descend within the insulated column of air to a safe landing. Later on we can build solid metal lightning rods — not little ones which even Earthmen admitted were unreliable, but big ones extending high into the air.”

  “But my God, Mai!” exclaimed Rador, comprehending. “You’ll be electrocuted long before you reach the ground! Come back before it’s too late — we’ll find some other way!”

  Mai laughed a bit shakily.

  “I forgot to tell you I’m wearing one of the insulated space-suits from the lower storage level. Not much danger of my being juiced. Anyway, it’s a risk I gladly take.” Then his tone changed. “Your job, Rador, is to guide the Ark down alongside the chain as soon as I ground it. How fast are you falling?”

  “I switched on our maximum potential,” replied Rador, “just after you left the control room and it seems to have slowed us up considerably. We’re sinking about a hundred feet a minute.”

  “Good!” exclaimed Mai. “If you can stay above the upper storm clouds until I get down there I think we have a chance.”

  “It’ll never work!” shrieked Slooken. “The idea is preposterous — the man’s mad! Cut him loose and we’ll turn back before it’s too late!”

  “Shut up, you fool!” shouted Mai. “It’s our only chance. We can’t turn back now. If anything should go wrong for me, Rador, take care of Valia for me.”

  “You’re right, Mai,” broke in Rador. “It’s our only hope. We’ll stand back of you. We’ll do anything you order! Of course, I’ll take care of Valia.”

  It took two hours for Roto to play out the nine miles of chain. Finally the small gondola containing the precious gravity repulsion machine was lowered away. By the time it had - cleared the hatch and swept free of the Ark’s hull, Mai had disappeared far below into the great cloud bank. Rador estimated the clouds to be 50,000 feet above the surface of the planet. The Ark was still 10,000 feet above the clouds.

  The temperature of the thin upper reaches of the atmosphere was very low, and Mai felt thankful for the heavy space-suit he wore. At his right hand was the lever by which he controlled the small anti-gravity apparatus at the upper end of the chain. Strapped to the side of the chair was the gun loaded with a spearlike anchor to which the lower loop of the strong ark-metal chain was attached.

  “Mai!” It was Rador calling. “You’ll have to speed up your descent. The Ark is dropping faster than I figured. It’s going to be a fight to keep her above the storm!”

  At that same instant a bolt of lightning struck the chain somewhere far above Mai. There was a sudden upward jerk on the chain. Almost immediately a blinding flash shot out from the anchor ten feet below him. With a hissing and sputtering it clung momentarily to the chain before it shot downward to the ground. A cyclonic rush of air whirled him about. Then a deafening peal of thunder. Mai thought his head was splitting wide open, and he was conscious of a tingling sensation.

  “Mai? Mai?" came Rador’s voice. “That nearly knocked my teeth out!” Mai finally exclaimed. “But the lightning rod is working!”

  “Are you all right?” shouted Rador. “Everything’s okay. What were you saying a second ago?”

  “I said you’ll have to hurry it up. The Ark’s sinking faster every minute.”

  “Right!” shouted Mai as he pulled the gravity control lever.

  Plummet-like he shot downward through dense clouds. A biting cold wind whistled past his helmet. In that next instant he felt another upward jerk. A second bolt passed from the end of the chain, and he closed his eyes against the blinding flash. Again the violent tornado of wind. Again the deafening burst of thunder. Again the tingling sensation, stronger this time.

  When he opened his eyes he gasped at the sight below him. He was beneath the clouds. Two thousand feet below lay the surface of Nova Terra. He was falling at an appalling speed. With an effort he thrust the control lever back.

  The landscape below him beggared description. It rivaled the most fantastic flights of his wildest dreams. Nova Terra had vegetation surely enough — but, God, what vegetation it was! Trees of weird shapes and colors reared their “branches” fully seven hundred feet into the air. Directly beneath him was a
treeless purple area extending to the edge of a mighty sea. Gigantic waves of apparently great viscosity were breaking upon a rocky and jagged coast whose foothills rose to sharp pinnacles.

  Again an upward jerk. A tremendous arm of lightning shot to the ground. A typhoonic rush of wind. A crack of thunder. And a distinct shock that partially paralyzed him. The bolt struck just within the forest below him. Every tree was seared and smoking for a hundred yards around. A steady, violent wind was blowing. But strangely no rain was falling. Suddenly Rador called.

  “For God’s sake, hurry, Mai! We’re only two hundred feet above the storm!”

  Beneath him rose sturdy, jagged rocks at the edge of the sea. It was the only likely place to ground the anchor chain. Rapidly he dropped to within a hundred feet above the rocks. It was a great effort for him to move his arms. The thick space-suit seemed to be bearing down heavily upon him. He could scarcely move his arm now on the control lever. The wind was taking him rapidly over the rocks toward the violently churning sea. Like some fiendish devil, it redoubled its efforts to thwart his purpose. Then came Rador’s tense words.

  “We’re just entering the upper level of the storm. Will it take much longer?”

  Mai had no time to answer. In his powerful hands he grasped the anchor gun with its heavy charge. With all his strength he raised the huge gun and thrust the gravity control lever forward with his knees. In that instant the fate of mankind hung in the balance.

  The resultant drop was all that he needed. Mai jerked the trigger. A terrific explosion shot the anchor out of the gun, lodged it far into a sturdy pinnacle of rock.

  “Rador!” Mai shouted into the microphone. He could not hear his own words above the whistling fury of the wind. The chair he sat in was swinging precariously.

  “Hello, Mai. Is everything all right?”

  “The chain is anchored,” yelled Mai. “The storm down here is terrific. When you break through the clouds you’d better head for an open area here. It’s bright purple. Can’t miss it. You’ll have plenty of room. There’s mud and rocks right below me—real ground! I’m going to be the first man to touch the new world!”

  A SUDDEN jerk tugged at the anchored chain, and a burst of static nearly deafened Rador at his receiver in the Arkadia’s control room.

  “Mai?” he shouted. “Mai? Are you all right?”

  But there was no answer. Mai Mandark, incased in his heavy space-suit of insulated metal, had not figured on the storing up of static electricity. He had had no chance to leave his descent chair. He swayed there, a lifeless, grotesque figure, just ten feet above the soil of the new Earth. Like his father before him, he had lived and died — a man without a world!

  A short time later the Ark of Space sank slowly from the lowering blue clouds, coming gently to rest upon the great purple veldt near the mighty sea with its roar of surf no human ears had ever heard before. Magically the area for a radius of several miles around the chain conductor was entirely free of lightning blasts. While outside that insulated field huge forks of flame shot downward from every side.

  It was Roto who reached Mai’s body first. Oblivious to the danger of electrocution, he climbed up and released his commander’s form. Sobbing, the stalwart little major knelt on the ground beside his dead leader as the quietly weeping Valia was conducted forward by the aged Rador.

  Columbus! Balboa! Hudson! Puny men who had only discovered continents, seas, rivers. Mai Mandark had safely led the surviving remnant of humanity to a new planet and, like Moses, had not lived to enter the promised land.

  “Science, new and old,” whispered Roto. “First Tem Zuick; now you, Mai. And most of them thought you were foolish to study Earth history!”

  The End