Doorway to Destruction
By GAROLD S. HATFIELD
It was the Doorway to Earth's Destruction.
And Kelvin Martin, the only man who
could lock it—had lost the key.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Winter 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Old Kelvin Martin strained futilely against the rope that heldimmovable his thin wrists. A crimsoned bruise raced across his foreheadwhere Vance had slugged him with a heavy hand.
"Don't be a complete fool, Vance!" he said harshly. "That machine can'tbring you anything but trouble!"
The scientist's burly assistant glanced wearily up from where hecoupled heavy batteries in series at the rear of the glittering machinethat entirely filled one corner of the windowless room.
"Shut up," he said tonelessly.
Kelvin Martin sagged back in sheer futility, felt a deadly numbnesscreeping through his extremities from the tightness of his bonds. Hewatched the other out of eyes faintly fearful and desperate.
"I'll make a deal, Vance," he said finally. "I've got about eightthousand dollars in the bank; free me, don't try to use that machine,and the money is yours!"
Jon Vance's laughter was brittle and scornful.
"Eight thousand!" he sneered. "Hell, I've seen those snapshots youbrought back! Any one of those gems the 'other people' wore would bringthat. And I intend to bring back all I can carry!"
Kelvin Martin shivered, remembering the restless cruelty that had lainin the creatures he had found with his machine. There was still a dullache along his ribs where a needle-like ray of terrific energy hadseared.
"They aren't human, Vance." He tried to speak quietly, endeavoredto drive his point with impersonal logic. "They are of a fiercenessand cruelty such as you couldn't comprehend. And with their superiorweapons, they'd subjugate the entire world in a matter of days."
"Hooey!" Jon Vance spat insolently, patted the .45 automatic at hiship. "I think I might do a bit of subjugating myself."
He tested the batteries.
"I don't know how it works, Martin," he said briefly. "But I don'tcare, just as long as it makes me rich."
Of course, Jon Vance did not fully understand the machine; even he,himself, had trouble at times in comprehending the space-warpingpropensities of the machine he had built over a period of three years.
He knew only that the machine warped itself and its occupant intoanother universe—a galactic maelstrom of whirling suns and giganticplanets—onto a world where he had met a race of living beings thatseemed to be super-endowed with unhuman hate and cruelty.
He felt the sickness of futility within him when he remembered the onetime he had invaded that other space. He had stepped from the machineand been greeted, cautiously but cordially, by those great-headedsuper-beings. For days he had been entertained and shown the weirdsights of that alien planet. And it wasn't until he woke one night, tosee the curious machine hanging motionless over him, its pale blue auracovering his sleeping couch, that he realized that he was being drainedof his knowledge subtly every night.
He had raced from his sleeping room, fought with the single gun he hadtaken with him, blasted his way through the screaming mob that triedto hold him captive. He had fought down the long stairs, through thepalace door, and had fled into the night, pursued by the men who hadprotested their friendship.