The Lightening Men Read online

  The televised figure of the Earthman bounded to the top of the king’s dais.

  “Slaves of Sangorong!” shouted Mai’s voice from the screen image. “Would you fight to gain freedom, to have again the bodies with which you were born? Revolt and you can return to your own countries! Your masters are helpless if you refuse to serve them. Follow me! Watch!”

  Upon the screen they saw Mai hurl Thego bodily from his throne. They saw images of themselves taking up the cry, turning upon their masters. They saw themselves finally free, their masters lying helpless upon the floor. The revolt was complete. Mai’s image leaped forward, started to re-transform them all back into their own original shapes.

  It was extremely realistic, that screen image of Mai’s controlled thoughts. Shouts arose from the distorted mass of humanity.

  “The Earthman is right!” Noovia shouted. “He has shown you what we can do — that we can be free again! Let’s follow a great leader!”

  A mighty cry arose from the slave ranks. The crew of the magnet gun swung from their positions. In a great forward surge they walked, crawled, leaped and rolled toward Mai. Noovia’s fingers worked rapidly as she freed Mai from his cell.

  “Thank Sirius you’re safe!” she breathed.

  “Look!” cried Mai pointing upward. “Rador!”

  “Spawn of filth!” bellowed a voice from the screen. There stood Thego’s own image — flashed from his own brain. “Go back where you belong or I’ll annihilate you! Will you never learn your lowly places?” Quickly his image turned toward the great control panel where Lightning Men assistants sat in mortal terror.

  “Quick, Ponsto!” shouted Thego. “The seventh lever on panel ten!”

  Mai bounded toward the control board. But he was too late. The fellow had already pulled the lever.

  Instantly a heavy door swung open at the far side of the room. The interior of the opening was dismally black. For a minute that seemed endless they waited, all eyes riveted upon that opening.

  Faintly at first, then heavily, came the pounding of many feet. Mai’s hopes raised. Could that sound be Rador and his own men running to their aid? Instantly those hopes faded.

  Through the doorway bounded a veritable stream of magnificently built fighting men — eight and nine-foot giants. They were armed with great broadswords. Mai grabbed Noovia’s arm.

  “The men from the sacred chamber!

  I can’t believe it — they’ve brought them back to life.” Quickly he shoved Noovia to a place of safety. “Keep this knife,” he ordered, “and stay here out of danger.” For a brief moment their eyes clung to one another.

  “Surrender, slaves!” Thego shrieked. “Surrender or you die!”

  “Never!” shouted Mai as he bounded forward toward the slaves. “Single them out!” he shouted. “Four slaves to every giant! Down with the Lightning Men!”

  In a rising crescendo of screams and shouts the slaves surged forward. The laboratory was a bedlam. Never before in history had such a battle raged. Legless human “arms,” practically helpless alone, suddenly swung to the backs and shoulders of massive-legged “mounts” that were armless and headless. But together they made a powerful fighting combination, rode riot among eight and nine-foot giants resurrected from the dead.

  Mighty “arms” swung like pile-drivers. Riderless “mounts” leaped and kicked. Long broadswords hewed a bloody swath through slave ranks.

  BUT the Gargantuan size and strength of the giant Lightning Men was taking heavy toll among Mai’s warriors. Those two hundred supermen were more than a match for even the thousands of distorted, crippled slaves.

  With a broadsword from the hands of a fallen giant Mai leaped among the ranks of the enemy. Time and again his blade sank deep into living flesh. But still his own men fell before the merciless onslaught of those cold, ruthless killers from the dungeons of Sangorong.

  Above the roar of screaming men came another sound. Rador was again trying for a landing.

  In that same instant Mai saw Thego. Borne on the shoulders of a giant, the king was mounting the magnet gun. In a moment the heavy machine swung toward the onrushing Arkian ships.

  To Mai Mandark those fast moving seconds were the longest of his life. The revolt was failing. His crippled slaves were being slaughtered. Overhead the Arkian ships were facing inevitable doom at the mercy of that diabolical electromagnet, to be sent whirling into space. Mai could never hope to reach Thego’s side against the giant standing above with waiting sword.

  “Mai!” came the professor’s familiar voice. “I’ve been studying that transformation apparatus — it has very interesting possibilities. If put to humanitarian uses —”

  “Transformation gun!” echoed Mai. “Come on, Professor!”

  With all the speed his elongated arms and legs would give him he leaped toward the transformation machine. He clambered up the scaffolding. Thego was aiming the magnet gun carefully, deliberately at Rador and the fleet, ready to send them careening into the void of space.

  Mai had watched the slaves operate the transformation mechanism. But he wondered if he could do it now — alone. The coldness of space shot through him.

  “That rod!” gasped the professor as he came to a breathless stop. “Back of the sighting coordinate —I think it should be pushed forward — throws the dynamo into action. Quite an ingenious idea. I’ve already made some notes of it.”

  Mai swung the ponderous mechanism about on its huge universal joint. What havoc he could deal out to Thego he did not know. It was but a wild hope. The sights came to rest on Thego’s back. Mai thrust the lever forward to its limit.

  Both guns discharged their invisible bolts at the same instant. The drag on the electric plant of Sangorong was tremendous. A throbbing recoil hurled Mai from his feet,

  “They’ve stopped fighting!” cried Noovia, “They’re watching Thego!” The king of Sangorong stood rigid in his tracks. Suddenly his body quivered.

  “Look, Mai!” gasped Noovia. “He’s — he’s swelling!” The giant guarding Thego had fallen face downward.

  Carefully Mai played the sights over Thego’s body.

  “You’ve done it!” shouted the professor. “He’s started to expand!” An ominous roar arose from the ranks of the giants as they bounded toward Mai with upraised swords.

  Coolly, deliberately, Mai swung the gun first upon one and then another of the onrushing horde.

  Instantly they stopped, transfixed by the invisible force. They fell to the floor. Their bodies started swelling.

  “Amazing!” gasped the professor. “You’ve pushed the control lever so far forward that you’ve induced a remarkable degree of cellular growth. An astounding mechanism.”

  A frightened hush fell over the slaves as they observed the transformation affecting the king.

  The fallen monarch had rolled from the gun scaffolding to the floor. He was nearly four times his former size. With each passing second the growth was visibly increased.

  The professor clutched Mai’s arm.

  “I fear that we may have trouble,” he exclaimed slowly. “He is obviously growing at a rate which is increasing in — er, ah, direct proportion. Now let me see —” The professor closed his eyes making mental calculations.

  The fallen giants were swelling at an alarming rate. Their expanding bodies wedged among the scientific equipment of the laboratory. A hissing and spluttering of sparks shot from a broken condenser. With each passing minute their sizes doubled. They crowded one against another like a mass of expanding balloons. Those beneath forced others to the top of the mass.

  “What’ll we do, Mai?” cried Noovia, “We’ll be crushed!”

  The entire floor of the auditorium was covered by the distending mass of human flesh. Slaves fought for the exits, scrambled over the gangantuan mass of living tissue. They leaped from one huge bloated corpse to the next. It was unbelievable, yet here was an actual threat to the city itself — a threat Mai himself had created,

  Noovia clutched Ma
i’s arm.

  “The copper dome!” she exclaimed. “Those horrible bodies will burst the dome. Then we’ll be exposed to the lightning!”

  “Quick, Noovia!” Mai shouted as he leaped from the scaffolding. “The magnet gun — it’s our only hope.”

  “Er, ah, I estimate,” commented the professor, still making mental calculations, eyes closed, “that the cellular growth in these bodies at the expiration of a period of — say ten minutes, will result in a size that will be — er, ah — an actual hazard to us.” Whereupon his eyes opened. “My word!” he exclaimed. “This is interesting!”

  Mai had scrambled to the magnet gun control mechanism. The pressure of the squirming, bulging mass wedged itself tighter and tighter against the gun scaffolding.

  Mai swung the muzzle of the gun downward. He knew it was a wild hope — but why wouldn’t it work? If those Arkian ships had been electrically repelled from the planet, why not a human body? There was no time to experiment. The gun upon Thego’s gigantic body, now nearly forty feet long. His finger pushed the nearest button. Thego moved toward the gun. Mai pressed the next button. The body rose slowly from the floor. Instantly Mai shot the current on full. Like a projectile from a catapult Thego, king of Sangorong, shot upward, crashed through the skylight and whirled into the clouds.

  “Thank Sirius,” breathed Noovia. “You’ve made it work!” Hurriedly, yet methodically, Mai played the gun over the bodies. It was a race against time. A horrible, gruesome race. One after another, singly, in groups of two, three and four, the bodies floated, twisted into the sky above. They all went whirling into the clouds, to be lost forever in the void of darkness beyond until some oppositely charged celestial sphere would suck them into a lonely grave.

  Mal!” came a familiar voice from from the doorway.

  “Rador! Roto!” shouted Mai wearily. “Thank God you got through.”

  Wearily, the old scientist placed a tired hand on Mai’s shoulder. Tears came to his eyes at the sight of Mai’s misshapen body.

  “Don’t worry about that, Rador. That machine over there will fix us all right.” It was several moments before Rador could speak.

  “My boy, you’ve done a marvelous piece of work. The fact that I got here with my men and have the rest of the city under control is only a gesture — but what you have done practically single-handed is almost unbelievable. Your father died for us, Mai,” he said, overcome by emotion, “but in you he lives again. You have given us a new life. Again a Mandark has saved his people.”

  It was many hours later. Mai, Noovia, and the rest of the deformed slaves, guided by their lightning-ray plates, had been re-transformed to their normal shapes.

  “There’s no reason,” Rador was saying, “why we can’t live here in peace with these Lightning Men. There are two cities. We could occupy one, they the other. I’m sure we could each contribute much toward the progress of human life and happiness on Nova Terra.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that, Rador,” replied Mai. “For though I was determined above all else to find a home for our people, I hated to think of thrusting these Lightning people from their city. I’m sure we can manage it now.”

  “I’m so glad,” exclaimed the professor scratching his bald head, “because I’ve wanted to experiment with that transformation mechanism. If properly adjusted, there is no reason why it won’t grow hair.”

  A lieutenant approached Mai.

  “Sir, Major Roto has just returned with the first load of Arkian settlers.” A few minutes later a beautiful woman walked into the laboratory at Roto’s side. Without a word Mai took her in his arms. At the far end of the hall Noovia saw, and her sparkling eyes clouded with tears. Turning, she ran from the room, pushing her way through stubborn ranks of crowding soldiers.

  “Come back, Noovia,” Mai shouted. “I love you!”

  Noovia looked back and then ran faster. Her black hair streamed out behind her.

  “Come back,” Mai shouted, “or I’ll shoot!”

  Noovia gave a little scream, halted. Mai’s arms shot out, caught her quickly to his breast.

  “Let me go!” she cried, and her little fists beat upon his broad chest. “Go back to your woman and leave me alone!”

  Instantly Mai’s face brightened with joy.

  “That was my mother I kissed,” he said softly, his eyes twinkling.

  Noovia’s dark, angry eyes suddenly softened. A tiny smile crept to her flushed cheeks. Slowly her arms stole around Mai’s neck and her soft lips parted.

  The son of the man without a world had found a mate in a new world.

  The End

  Table of Contents

  The Lightning Men

  THE TARZAN-TEAM AGAIN

  CHAPTER I - Son of the Stars

  CHAPTER II - Invisible Power

  CHAPTER III - Maid of Nova Terra

  CHAPTER IV - The Memory Machine

  CHAPTER V - Earthman's Lightning