Read Ebook: The manless worlds by Leinster Murray Finlay Virgil Illustrator

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Ebook has 382 lines and 19499 words, and 8 pages

That fleet had been detected far out and swept with fighting-beams and every living thing in the attacking ships died instantly. So planets were independent of each other. But when space-ships ceased to be used the fighting-beams were needless and ultimately were scrapped or put into museums.

"Somebody," the mayor said wrathfully, "has changed those beams! They're not tuned to animal tissue in general any more! They're tuned to male tissue. To blood containing male hormones, perhaps! And Sinab Two is building an empire with 'em! We found out only two weeks ago!

"There's a planet near Ades--Thom Four. Four years ago its matter-transmitter ceased to operate. The Galaxy's going to pot anyhow. Nothing new about that! But we just learned the real reason. The real reason was that four years ago fighting-beams swept Thom Four from pole to pole. The beams killed men and left women unharmed.

"Every man on Thom Four died as the planet rotated. The beams came from space. Every man and every boy and every male baby died! There were only girls and women left." He added curtly, "There were half a billion people on Thom Four!"

Kim stiffened. Dona, beside him, drew closer.

"Every man killed!" said Kim. "What--"

The Mayor Steadheim swore angrily.

"Half the population! On Ades we're nine-tenths men! Women don't run to revolt or crime. There'd not be much left on Ades if those beams swept us! But I'm talking about Thom Four. The men died. All of them. So many that the women couldn't bury them all.

"One instant, the planet was going about its business as usual. The next, every man was dead, his heart burst and blood running from his nostrils. Lying in the streets, toppled in the baths and eating-halls, crumpled beside the machines.

"Boys in the schools dropped at their desks. Babes in arms, with their mothers shrieking at the sight! Only women left. A world of women! Cities and continents filled with dead men and women going mad with grief!"

Kim felt Dona's hand fumbling for his. She held it fast.

"Go on!" said Kim.

"When they thought to go to the matter-transmitter and ask for help from other planets the matter-transmitter was smashed. They didn't go at first. They couldn't believe it. They called from city to city before they realized theirs was a manless world. Then, when they'd have told the men of another planet what had happened--they couldn't.

"For four years there was not one man or boy on the planet Thom Four. Only women. The old ones grew older. The girls grew up. Some couldn't remember ever seeing a man. No communication with other worlds. Then, one day, there was a new matter-transmitter in the place of the smashed one. Men came out of it. The women crowded about them.

"The men were very friendly. They were from Sinab Two. Their emperor had sent them to colonize. There were a thousand women to every man--ten thousand! Some of the women realized what had been done. They'd have killed the newcomers. But some women fell in love with them, of course!

"In a matter of days every man had women ready to fight all other women who would harm him. Their own men were dead four years. What else could they do? More and more men colonists came. Presently things settled down. The men were happy enough. They'd no need to work with all the women about.

"They established polygamy, naturally! Presently it was understood that Thom Four was part of the empire of Greater Sinab. So it was. What else? In a generation there'll be a new population, all its citizens descended from loyal subjects of the emperor.

"And why shouldn't they be loyal? A million colonists inherited the possessions and the women of a planet! It was developed. Everything was built. Every man was rich and with a harem. A darned clever way to build an empire! Who'd want to revolt--and who could?"

He stopped. The two moons of Terranova floated tranquilly, higher in the sky. The soft sweet unfamiliar smells of a Terranovan night came to the small group on the terrace of Kim Rendell's house.

"That's what's ahead of Ades!" raged the Mayor of Steadheim. "And I've four sons! A woman of Thom Four smashed the lock on the new matter-transmitter, which set it to send only to Sinab, and traveled to Khiv Five to warn them. But they laughed at her and when she begged to be sent to a distant planet they grinned--and sent her to Ades!"

He paused.

"Not long after, a criminal from Khiv Five--he'd struck a minor noble for spitting on him--came to Ades. There'd been inquiry for that woman. Spies, doubtless, from Thom Four, trying to trace her. It was clear enough she'd told the truth."

"So," said Kim slowly, "you think Ades will be next."

"I know it!" said the Mayor of Steadheim. "We've checked the planets that have cut communication in our star-cluster. Twenty once inhabited planets have ceased to communicate in the past few years--the twenty planets nearest to Sinab. We figured Khiv Five would be next. Then we'd be in line for it.

"Khiv Five cut communications four days ago! Every man on Khiv Five is dead! We've had exiles from a dozen nearby planets. All know Khiv Five is cut off. It's inhabitated only by women, going mad with grief!

"In a few years, when they grieve no longer, but despair instead, new colonists from Sinab will come out of a new matter-transmitter to let the women fall in love with them--and to breed new subjects for the Empire of Sinab! So we've got to have space-ships, man! We've got to!"

Kim was silent. His face was hard and grim.

The two small moons rose higher. Strange sweet smells floated in the air. Dona pressed close to Kim. On Terranova, across the gulf between island universes, Kim was surely safe, but any woman can feel fear for her man on any excuse.

Dona murmured in his ear.

"We're beaten, then," said the Colony Organizer bitterly. "Ades will be wiped out, we'll starve and the Sinabians will go through the First Galaxy, killing off the men on planet after planet and then moving in to take over."

Dona murmured again in Kim's ear. The Mayor of Steadheim growled profanely, furiously. Dona laughed softly. The two visitors stared at her suspiciously.

"What do we do, Kim Rendell?"

"I suppose," said Kim wryly, "we'll have to fight. We've no fuel and no weapons--but that ought to surprise them."

"Eh?"

The two visitors simply stared at him.

"You've got to get hafnium! You've got to get fuel! You can't face a battleship!"

"But," said Kim, "battleships have fuel on board and they'll have hafnium too. It'll be risky--but convenient...."

Actually the little ship was in the position of being able to go almost anywhere, but of having no hope at all of being able to come back.

It rose from Terranova though, just three days after the emergency was made clear. There were a few small gadgets on board--hastily made in the intervening seventy-two hours--but nothing deadly--nothing that could really be termed a weapon.

Kim jockeyed it with infinite care until it was aimed straight at the tiny wisp of nebulous light which was the First Galaxy, unthinkable thousands of light-years away. At long last he was satisfied. He pressed the transmitter-field button--and all space seemed to reel about the ship.

But, when the transmitter-field enveloped it, its mass dropped--divided by a factor approaching infinity. And its speed necessarily increased in exact proportion because its kinetic energy was undiminished. It was enclosed in a stressed space in which an infinite speed was possible. It approached that infinite speed on its original course.

Instantly, it seemed, alarm-gongs rang and the cosmos reeled again. Suddenly there was a glaring light pouring in the forward vision-ports. There were uncountable millions of stars all about and, almost straight ahead, a monstrous, palpitating Cepheid sun swam angrily in emptiness.

Dona watched absorbedly as Kim made his observations and approximately fixed his position. The Mayor of Steadheim looked on suspiciously.

"What's this?"

"Locating ourselves," Kim explained. "From the Second Galaxy the best we could hope for was to hit somewhere in the First. We did pretty well, at that. We're about sixty light-centuries from Ades."

"That's good, eh?" The mayor mopped his face. "Will we have fuel to get there?"

Kim began another jockeying for line.

"Khiv Five was beamed about a week ago," he said reflectively. "We're headed for there now. I think there'll be a warship hanging around, if only to drop into the stratosphere at night and pick up the broadcasts or to drop off a spy or two. Dona, you've got your wristlet on?"

Dona, unsmiling, held up her hand. A curious bracelet clung tightly to the flesh. She looked at his forearm, too. He wore a duplicate. The Mayor of Steadheim rumbled puzzledly.

"These will keep the fighting-beams from killing us," Kim told him wryly. "And you too. But they'll hurt like the dickens. When they hit, though, these wristlets trip a relay that throws us into transmitter-drive and we get away from there in the thousandth of a second. The beams simply won't have time to kill us. But they'll hurt!"

He made other adjustments--to a newly-installed switch on the instrument-board.

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