The Beast of Space - F E Hardart

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Beast of Space by F. E. Hardart. Here, the
dark cave along which NAT's sterret had been creeping broaden
into what his powerful searchlight revealed to be a low, wide,
smoothly circular room. At his feet lapped black, thick looking
waves of an underground lake, a pool of viscous substance

(00:23):
that gave off a penetrating, poignant odor of acid, sweetish
and intoxicating, Unlike any acid he knew. The smell rolled
up in a sickening, sultry cloud that penetrated his helmet,
made him cough and choke. Near its center projected from
the sticky stuff what appeared to be the nose of

(00:43):
a space ship. He looked down near his feet at
the edge of the pool, where thick, slowly moving tongues
of the liquid appeared to reach up toward him, as
if intent on pulling him into its depths. As each
hungry way fell back, it left a slimy, snake like
trail behind. Now came a wave of strange music, music

(01:06):
such as he had never heard before. Faintly it had
begun some time back, so faintly he was barely aware
of it. Now it swelled into a smooth, impelling wail,
lulling him into drowsiness. He did not wonder why he
could hear through the sound proof space helmet he wore.

(01:26):
He ceased to wonder about anything. There was only the
strange sweetness of the acid and the throbbing music. Abruptly,
the spell was broken by something shrilling in his brain,
sending little chills racing up and down his spine. Digger
a small, oddly canine like creature with telepathic powers, a

(01:48):
space dweller which men found when they first came to
the asteroids. The relationship between space hounds and men was
much the same as between man and dog in the
old earth bound days. Appropriate name for the beast. Digger.
With those large, incredibly hard claws designed for rooting in

(02:08):
the metal make up of the asteroids for vital elements,
the space hound could easily have shredded the man's spacesuit
and helmet, could at any time tear huge chunks out
of men's fine ships. The half conscious man jerk his
thin form, erect his mouth, which had gaped loosely closed
with a snap into firm lines. She isn't in this

(02:31):
hell hole, Digger. You wouldn't expect her to be where
we could find her. Easily, scooping the small beast up
under his good arm, he quickly climbed the steep, slimy
slope of the cave. The other arm in his suit
hung empty. That empty arm in the spacesuit told the
story of an earth Man become voluntarily exile, choosing the

(02:53):
desolation of space to the companionship of other humans who
would deluge him with unwonted simple The space hound was
friendly in its own fashion. Fortunately, such complex things as
sympathy were apparently outside its abilities. The two could interchange
impressions of danger, comfort, pleasure, discomfort, fear, and appreciation of

(03:18):
each other's company, but little more. Whether or not the
creature could understand his thoughts he could not tell. As
he went on, he reviewed mentally the events leading up
to his landing. Here, the sudden appearance on his teleview
screen of the face and slim shoulders of a girl,
her attractiveness plainly distinguishable through her helmet. For a moment

(03:42):
he forgot that he disliked women. The call for help
cut short, but not before he had learned that apparently
she was being held prisoner on asteroid Moira. He knew
he'd have to do what he could, even if it
meant unwanted company for an indefinite length of time. The
spell was gone. Soon after her face vanished. He remembered

(04:04):
former experiences with attractive looking girls, damned traditions, a change
in his course, and a landing on asteroid Moira. Here
he'd found a honeycomb of caves, all leading from one
large main tunnel. The cavern walls had been of a
translucent quartz like substance, ranging in color from yellowish brown

(04:26):
to violet gray. It looked vaguely familiar, yet he could
not place it. There was not time to examine it
more carefully. The room in which he had found the
evil hungry Lake had been the first one to the right.
Now he crossed to the opening in the opposite wall.
The mouth of this cave was much larger wider than

(04:49):
the other. He stood in the opening, slowly swung the
beam of his torch around the smooth walls. Still holding Digger,
who by now was indicating that he liked to be
set down, Nat released him unthinkingly, his mind fully taken
up with what the light revealed. Spaceships. The room was

(05:09):
packed with them, all sizes, old and new, a veritable sargasso.
At first, he thought they might be craft belonging to
nameless inhabitants of this world, but as he approached them
he recognized terrestrial identifications. The first was a Scout ship
of American spaceways. Nat recognized the name series, remembered a

(05:34):
telecast account of its disappearance in space. There was a
neat little reward for information as to its whereabouts. NAT's
lips curled in derision. It would equal the expense of
his journey out here. There was a deep groove in
the smooth material of the floor where the ship had
been dragged through the doorway into the room. What machines

(05:57):
could have done this work without leaving their own traces.
He went to the other ships. All were small, mostly
single or two's passenger craft. The last entering the logs
of many was to the effect that they were about
to land on the asteroid Moira to rescue a girl
held captive there. None had crashed. All ships were in

(06:20):
perfect order, but all were deserted. Two doors were gone
from the interior of one of the vessels. They might
have been removed for any of a hundred reasons, but
why here. NAT's glance swept around the room came to
rest on the figure of a heavy duty robot of
familiar design, semi human in form. It looked like some misshapen,

(06:43):
bent headless giant. He inspected it Meyer's robot Ink Earth,
designed for mining operations on Mars. Well, Digger, I can
see now how these ships were brought in here. That
robot could move any of one of these with ease,
But that doesn't explain where the humans have gone. It

(07:05):
might be space pirates using this asteroid for a base,
or it might be some alien form of life. We're
still free. Shall we beat it or stay and try
to check this out? He did not know how much
of this got over to the space Hound, but the
impressions he received in answer were those of approving their

(07:26):
remaining where they were. I suppose the best system is
to explore the rest of the caves in order. Let's go,
Followed by Digger, he walked quietly toward the next cave
on the left, slipped through the doorway, and, standing with
his back against the wall, swung the light of his
torch in a wide, swift arc about the room. Half

(07:48):
way round, he stopped Abruptly, a slim, petite figure appeared
clearly in the searchlights glare. The girl he had seen
on the televisor stood in the middle of the room,
face a telecaster, her back toward him. She did not
seem aware of him. As he moved forward. What could
be wrong? Surely that light would arouse her. The figure

(08:11):
did not turn as he approached. So near was he
now that he could seize her easily. Still she made
no move. Nat stepped to one side, flashed his torch
in her face. Her beautifully lashed eyes stared straight ahead, unblinkingly.
The expression on her lovely composed face did not change.

(08:35):
A robot, he laughed bitterly. But then he was not
the only one. She was an Earth product. Nat opened
her helmet and found the trade mark of Spurgeon's Robots
hung like a necklace about her throat. But whoever had
lured him here easily could have removed her from one

(08:55):
of the vessels in the front cave. It did not
seem like the work of pirates, more likely unknown intelligent beings.
He turned to examine the televiser. It too was an
Earth product. The mechanism was of old design, evidently it
had been taken from the first of the ships to
land here. Outside of the telecaster and the solitary robot,

(09:20):
there was nothing to be seen in this cave. A
sound behind him. He whirled heat rod, poised for swift
stabbing action. Nothing except small bowling ball things rolling in
through a narrow door, ridiculous things of the same yellowish
quartz material as composed the cave walls. At regular intervals,

(09:44):
a dull, bluish light poured forth from rounded holes in
their smooth sides, and issuing forth from within these comic
globes was the same weird, compelling music he had heard
before they rolled up to him, brushed against his toes.
A shrilling in his brain told him that Digger was

(10:05):
aware of them. Back Digger, he thought, As he drew
away from the globes. They poured their penetrating blue light
over him inspectingly, while the music from within rose and
fell in regular cadences, sweetly impelling and dulling to the
senses as strong oriental incense. But Digger was not soothed.

(10:28):
The spacehound lunged at one of the globes. Instead of
slashing its sides, he found himself sailing through the air
toward it. Nat received impressions of irritation combined with astonishment.
Within the globes. The music rose to a furious wine,
while one of the things shot forth long tentacles from

(10:49):
the holes in its side. Lightning swift. They shot forth
wrapped themselves about the body of the spacehound, constricting. Digger
writhed vainly, his claws powerless to tear at the whiplike tentacles.
Nat severed the tentacles at their base with the heat beam.
He turned strode toward the door, watching the spheres apprehensively

(11:11):
out of the corner of his eye, ready to jump
aside should they roll toward him suddenly, but they followed
at respectful distances, singing softly. Before he reached the door,
he found himself walking in rhythm to the music, his
head swaying. It came slowly insidiously before he was aware,

(11:32):
his body no longer obeyed his will. Muscles refused to
move other than in coordination with the music. His arm relaxed,
the heat rod sliding from his grasp. But Digger the
space house sent out a barrage of vibrations that fairly
rocked his brain out of his skull. Simultaneously, the beast

(11:53):
attacked the nearest globes, tearing fiercely at them. Rapidly. The
others rolled away, but two lay torn and motionless, the
music within them stilled. Nat reached down retrieved the heat rod.
I think we'd better look for a squeaker next time.
They might get you digger. They returned to the room

(12:14):
of the space ships, seeking one of the small portable
radio amplifiers used for searching out radium. It was known
as a squeaker because of the constant din it made
while in use. The noise would cease only when radium
was within a hundred feet of the mechanism. He found one.
After searching a few of the smaller ships. With the

(12:36):
portable radio strapped to his back, power switched on, he
started again down the main tunnel. The globe set up
their seductive rhythms as before, but he could not hear
them above the discord of his squeaker. Failing to lure
him as before, they sought to force him in the
direction they desired him to go by darting at him,

(12:57):
suddenly lashing him with their tentacles. But it was a
simple thing to elude them. Still remained the question why
could they want to lure him into that stinking pool
of acid. He flashed a beam of heat at the
nearest of the annoying globes. Under the released energy, it glowed,
yet did not melt, but the tentacle sheared off and

(13:20):
the blue lights faded. The flow of music changed to
shrill whines as of pain, and its rolling ceased. The
others drew back. He turned down another tunnel. They stopped
at the cave beyond the one where he had found
the robot girl. It was sealed by a locked door,

(13:40):
one of the air locked doors from that space vessel
firmly cemented into the natural opening of the cave. Nat
bent forward, listening, his helmeted head pressed against the door.
No sound. He was suddenly aware of the dead silence
that pressed in on him from all sides. Now that
the globes no longer sang and his squeaker had been

(14:02):
turned off, the powerful energy of his heat beams sputtered
as it melted the lock into incandescent droplets, which sizzled
as they trickled down the cold metal of the door.
The grease he quartz like material at the side of
the door glowed in the heat from his rod, but
no visible effect upon it could be seen. What was
that material? He knew, Yes, he knew, but he could

(14:27):
not place a mental finger on it. He thrust the
shoulder of his good arm against the heavy door, swung
it inwards, stepped inside, the light of his torch pierced
the silence, picked out a human skeleton in one corner.
He hurried toward it. No, it was not entirely a
skeleton as yet. The flesh and bone had been eaten

(14:48):
away from the lower part of the body to half
way up the hips, as though from some strong acid.
The rest of the large, sturdy frame lay sunken under
the remains of a spacesuit, which was tied clumsily round
the middle to retain all the air possible in the
upper half of it. Evidently some acid had eaten away

(15:09):
the lower half of the man's body after he had suffocated.
The face was that of a Norwegian. By one outstretched hand,
a small note book lay open, with a leather back upward.
The corners of several pages were turned under carelessly. Nat
swung the torch around the room. It was bare the

(15:29):
note book quickly He picked it up The page on
which the writing began was dated May tenth, twenty forty.
About two months ago, Helmar Swensen, my daughter Helena, aged nineteen,
and I were lured into the maw of this hellish
monster by a robot calling for help in our television screen.

(15:50):
This sting, known to man as asteroid Moira, is in
actuality one of the gigantic mineral creatures which inhabited a
planet before it exploded, forming the asteroids. Somehow, it survived
a catastrophe and, forming a hard, crustaceous shell about itself,
has continued to live here in space as an asteroid.

(16:13):
It is apparently highly intelligent and has acquired an appetite
for human flesh. Does singing spheres act as its sensory organs,
separated from the body and given locomotion. It uses these
to lure victims into its stomach. In the first cave,
I escaped its lure at first because of the squeaker

(16:34):
I carried with me. We set up these two doors
as a protection from the beast while we stayed here
to examine it. But the monster got me when I
fell and the squeaker was broken. My daughter rescued me.
After the acid of the pool had begun eating away
my flesh. My Helena is locked in the room opposite
this one. She has food and water to last until

(16:57):
July eighth. Oxygen seeps in here. Somehow the beast wants
to keep her alive until it can get her out
of the room to devour her. Here the writing became
more cramped and difficult to read. I have put the
key in my mouth to prevent the spheres from opening
the door. Should they force their way into this room.

(17:18):
Some one must come to save my Helena. I can't breathe.
The writing ended in a long scrawl, angling off the page.
The pencil lay some distance from the body July eighth,
but that had been almost a week ago. He unscrewed
the man's helmet, tried to pry the jaws open. They

(17:39):
would not move. The airless void surrounding the tiny planetoid
had frozen the body until now it was as solid
as the quartz cave walls. But there was but one
thing to do. The other door must be melted down.
He leaped half way across the room toward the door
in the opposite wall. Could it be possible that he

(18:00):
was in time? Anxiously he flung a bolt of energy
from his heat rod toward the lock, holding a flashlight
under the other stump of an arm. The molten metal
flowed to the floor like a rivulet of lava. The door,
hanging off balance, screeched open. Air swoosed past him in
its sudden escape from the room. He squeezed himself through,

(18:25):
peered carefully about to see a slim spacesuit start to
crumple forward in a corner. The girl was alive. He
started to order. The slim figure pulled itself erect again.
He saw a drawn, emaciated face behind the helmet. Then,
with a fury that unnerved him, she whipped out a

(18:46):
heat rod shot a searing bolt in his direction. He
felt the fierce heat of it as it whiz passed
his shoulder. In his brain, Digger's thoughts of attack came
to him. He flung an arm around the space hound
dragged it back as he withdrew toward the door. The
girl continued to fire bolt after bolt, strayed ahead, her

(19:07):
eyes wide and staring. They made the door. Waited outside
while the firing within continued. When at last it was
still within, he peered around the corner of the room.
She lay in a crumpled heap in the corner. Quietly,
he re entered picked her up awkwardly through the thin

(19:28):
resistant folds of the space suit. He could feel the
warmth of her, but could not tell whether the heart
still beat or not. They would have to take her
to one of the ships. Her limp form was held
tightly under his good arm. As Nat hurried down the
main tunnel, Digger apparently realized the seriousness of the situation,

(19:49):
for he received the impressions of must hurry from the
beast and another creature looking much like him, surrounded by
small creatures of the same type trapped in a crevice.
Aren't you a bit premature, old fellow, he chided. Half
Way there, the globes met them again. The things were

(20:09):
not singing. From their many eyes poured a fierce, angry
blue light. They rolled with a determination that frightened him,
Yet he strode on until they were barely a foot away.
Jomp Digger, the sphere stopped short, reversed their direction toward
the little group at a furious rate, Flinging out long

(20:31):
whiplike tentacles. One wrapped itself around NAT's ankle drew him
down He shifted the limp form over to his shoulder,
slipped out his heat rod. Quickly the tentacle was severed,
but now others took their place. He continued firing at them,
making each bold tell, but the numbers were too great.

(20:52):
Digger sprang into action, rending the globes with those claws
that were capable of tearing the hulls of space ships,
but tentacles lashed around him from the rear, snaked about
him so that he was helpless. The girl was slipping
off NAT's shoulder. He could not raise the stump of
an arm to balance her. It was stiff and useless.

(21:14):
He stopped firing long enough to make the shift, even
as the spheres attacked again. The bolts had put out
the lights in fully half the marauders, but the others
came on unafraid. Nat straddled Digger's writhing body, held the
space hound motionless between his legs. At short range, he
seared off the imprisoning tentacles, knowing that it would take

(21:37):
far more than a heat bolt to damage the well
nigh impregnable creature. He swooped the dog up under his
good arm and fled from the madly pursuing spheres, thanking
nameless deities that the gravity here permitted such herculean feats.
The spheres rolled faster. He soon found than he could jump.

(21:58):
So long as he was them, all was well, but
by the time the weak gravity permitted him to land,
they were waiting for him. He tried zigzagging. Good it worked.
He eluded them up to the mouth of the cave,
then jumped for the door of his ship's outer airlock.
Nat placed the girl in his bunk, removed the cumbersome spacesuit.

(22:20):
Her eyes blinked faintly, then sprang open, but they did
not see him. They were staring straight ahead. Her mouth
opened and shut weakly, as though she were speaking, but
no sound issued from it. He brought her water, but
when he returned she had fallen asleep. He returned to
the kitchen to prepare some food. You're still running around

(22:44):
in that pillow case, he remarked to Digger, as he
extracted the spacehound from it. Attend me. Now we know
why and how those people disappeared. It would take the
space patrol ship at least a month to arrive here.
I don't intend to perch on the back of this
devil as long as that. And if we leave old thing,

(23:05):
it'll just lure other chivalrous fools to very unpleasant ends.
And we've got to get this kid back to civilization.
She needs a doctor's care, preferably a doctor with two arms.
Digger's vibrations were one of general approval. We could poison it,

(23:26):
he went on. Only I'm not a chemist. Even if
I knew the compounds contained in that reeking stomach, I
wouldn't know what would destroy them. Might blow it up,
But we haven't enough explosive. No, we'll have to get
down into the things insides again. In fact, he paused, suddenly,

(23:47):
mouth open, congratulate me, Digger, I have it. The smell
of burning vegetables cut short his soliloquy. He fed the starved,
half blind girl, then left her sleeping, exhaustedly as he
squirmed into his suit. No sooner had he entered the
mouth of the cave than a half dozen of thus

(24:08):
singing sensory organs rolled quickly, yet not angrily, toward him.
The beast was apparently optimistic, for the globe sang their
most soothing, seductive tones. They tried to herd him into
the first cave on the right, but he had remembered
the squeaker. They could not distract him. Effortlessly, he leaped

(24:29):
over them toward the mouth of the cave on the left.
That was where the space ships lay, pointing in all directions,
like a carelessly dropped handful of rice. All the ships
were in running order. Good. Had there been one vessel
he could not move, then all was lost. The fuel

(24:49):
and several ran low. But after a few moments of
punching levers and pulling chokes, the under rockets thundered in
the big room. Taking care not to injure the motor
compartments of the other ships. Using only the most minute
explosion quantities, he jockeyed each ship around until all their
noses pointed in one direction. The exhausts pointed out through

(25:13):
the wide doorway. It was well that the beast had
formed curved corners in the room, otherwise the scheme would
not have worked. The exhausts, which did not point toward
the door directly, were toward the curved walls, which would
deflect the forceful gases expelled doorward. When he emerged from
the ship, the spheres attacked. He seared off their tentacles

(25:37):
throughout what seemed to be eternities. His body was becoming
a mass of bruises from the lash of their tentacles.
He burned his way through the swarm, onto ship after ship.
As he stepped from the last vessel, there was a
rumbling beneath his feet. Did the monster understand his intent?
Was it stirring in its shell? Most of the globes

(25:59):
had appeared. Now A nauseatingly sweet odor penetrated the screen
in his head piece, which permitted him to smell without
allowing the oxygen to escape. He hurried around to the
rear of the ship, an apprehensive sickening feeling at the
pit of his stomach. A thick, jelly like wave of

(26:20):
liquid was rolling over the floor, the reeking deadly juices
from the beast's stomach. If the liquid touched him, it
would eat through the heavy fabric, exploding the air pressure
from around his body. How was he to escape from
the cave? The answer came to him suddenly. Quickly he

(26:41):
darted back toward the nearest vessel. Two of the screaming
spheres blocked his way. He sent bolt after searing bolt
into them, more of a charge than he had given
any of the others. The lights in the globes went out,
their voices ceased, and they burst into slowly mountain incandescence.

(27:01):
Yet they were not consumed by their fire, only glowed
and intense white light, like that of a lighthouse. Lighthouse,
the word flashed through his mind, clearly, strongly. They glowed
like the zirconia lights of a lighthouse. Why hadn't he
recognized the greasy, quartz like material before? It was zirconia,

(27:25):
a compound of zirconium. Of course, a silicate base creature
could easily have formed a shell of it about itself.
Zirconia one of the compounds he'd intended prospecting for on
the moons of Saturn, worth over one hundred dollars per pound.
Because of its resistance to heat, it was used to

(27:46):
line the tubes of rockets. Terra's supply had long been
used up. Here was a fortune all around him, but
that fortune was about to be destroyed, he along with
it if he did not hurry, If he could only
reach the timing mechanism to yank from it the wires
connecting it to the other ships, it was at the

(28:07):
other end of the line. He started in that direction,
but a surge of fatal, thick acid rolled before him,
reaching for him with hungry, questing tongues. When it was
almost touching his toes, he leaped. As he floated toward
the floor, he placed a chair beneath him so that
his feet landed on the seat. The legs of the

(28:29):
chair sank slowly into the liquid. Again, he leaped, his
moment retarded by the fluid, which now reached half way
up the chair legs sucked and clung there. The sweetly
evil smelling stuff was rising rapidly, but the next leap
carried him into the main cave. Abandoning the chair, he

(28:51):
leaped once more out through the cave's mouth, pursued by
the waving tentacles of the sensory spheres. He had lost
precious minutes eluding the deadly acid. It would take at
least five minutes to get his ship away from the asteroid.
He must hurry before all those rocket motors were thrown
into action, or it would be too late. Leap and

(29:14):
leap again, it seemed ages, but he reached the ship,
bolted the door shut. Thumps against the door as the
pursuing globes ran up against it. A thought came to him. Swiftly,
he opened the door, permitted a few of them to enter,
then slammed it shut. With the heat gun, he sheared
off their tentacles. He could sell the zirconia in the entities.

(29:38):
Then he turned to the controls, and the ship zoomed
up and out. Nat had barely raised his ship from
the asteroid Moira when he saw the small planetoid Alert
suddenly bounding off its orbit at almost a right angle.
The sudden combined driving force of all the rockets within
the cave had sent it hurtling away like a rocket.

(29:59):
Its old elf. The asteroid housing the monster was heading
into the floor a group of asteroids there. The fifty
seven odd solid bodies of that group would grind, crack,
and rend that dangerous beast into harmless, dead fragments. A
good job, said a weak but softly friendly voice behind him.

(30:22):
He whirled. The girl stood in the doorway of the
pilot room, supporting herself against the door frame. Digger rubbed
thoughtfully against her legs. We'll just follow that asteroid, miss,
he said, and see if we can't pick up some
odd fragment of Zirconia when it smashed in the grindstone there.

(30:43):
Then we'll light out for Terra, she smiled. Earth to
him seemed like a very good place to go as
soon as possible. The End of the Beast of Space
by F. E. Hardart