Edmond Hamilton - Murder in the Void

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AN SF CLASSIC

MURDER IN THE VOID

EDMOND HAMILTON

An Alien Vandal Seeks Control of the Strangest Scientific Weapon Known to Man!

(This issue's classic is a rip-roaring example of purple prosed space opera from

the June 1938 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories and is by the acknowledged king of

the genre, Edmond Hamilton. Blurbs are from the orginal magazine printing.)

CHAPTER I

CRANE OF THE TSS

The black, moonless Venus night lay solid over the big metal house and its

surrounding grounds. The young Earthman who was creeping stealthily through

clumps of weird shrubbery and enormous flowers toward the house thanked heaven

fervently for the cloudy planet's stygian nights.

But Rab Crane knew that it was deadly dangerous approaching the house of

Doctor Alph, even under cover of darkness. For the Venusian scientist's home had

become a focus of interplanetary intrigue in the last few weeks. Every splanet in the

System had heard the rumor of Doctor Alph's discovery of a tremendous new

scientific weapon. And every one of them had agents trying to secure it. There

would be guards inside the house, without doubt.

Crane's bronzed, aquiline face tensed as he crouched for a moment beside a stiff,

grotesque shrub. As a member of the Terrestrial Secret Service he had been sent by

the TSS to get Doctor Alph's secret weapon and he'd do it or die trying.

Not a light showed from anywhere in the dark, square metal house.

"Too quiet," muttered Crane to himself. "Looks like a trap."

He shifted his stubby beam-pistol to his left hand, and with his right drew a

compact little instrument from his pocket. Then he moved silently on toward the

dark house.

"Here goes nothing," he whispered. "In two minutes I'll probably rate a nice

memorial plaque at headquarters.

Like a sliding shadow, Crane flattened against the side of the house, just beneath a

window. He reached up with the little oval instrument he held.

It was a recorder which registered the presence anywhere nearby of invisible

watchmen," those diabolically ingenious combinations of electric eyes and atomic

beams, effective alarms that blasted down intruders without warning.

To Rab Crane's amazement, the recorder showed no such protective devices in

operation around the window. What did it mean? It looked to him like a deliberate

trap set by the Venusian scientist.

But he had to go through with it. Too late to back out now. He severed the catch

of the window by a single tiny, smothered flash from his beamgun. He rolled the

flexible glass quickly aside and drew himself rapidly up into the dark room. He

poised motionless in the dark, listening. The house was as silent as the grave. He

could not understand it but his instincts warned him of peril.

Soundlessly he moved across the dark room. He knew that Doctor Alph's

laboratory lay at the back of the house. There, if anywhere, he might find some clue

to the Venusian scientist's great discovery that had so perturbed the planetary

governments.

He watched his little recorder alertly as he advanced, expecting it each moment to

flash the tiny signal spark that would warn of a network of deadly beams ahead. But

it gave no signal. Apparently the whole web of the houses protective beams had

been turned off at the main switch. But why?

* * *

Crane moved quickly out of the room into an equally dark hall. In the hall he

tripped on something soft and recoiled, his gun-arm stiffening.

He heard no sound. In a moment he ventured to flash a tiny needle of light from a

ring on his finger, onto the floor. His breath sucked inward with a sharp hiss. A

Venusian house-guard lay there! One glance assured him the man was dead.

The man's neck had been broken cleanly, as though by a twist of powerful hands.

The marks of the killer's hands were still visible, red against the Venusian's milky

white skin. A beam-gun was still in his limp hand.

So, Rab Crane thought, someone else had visited Doctor Alph's house tonight,

ahead of him. Probably some other interplanetary spy trying to get the Venusian

scientist's deadly secret for his own world just as Crane was trying to get it for

Earth.

Had the other spy got it?

Crane's heart went cold with apprehension at the thought. He straightened from

examining the dead guard and moved quietly down the dark hall. He had no fear of

the beam-web now. He realized that whoever had been ahead of him had cut off the

whole protective system.

He went around a corner of the hall and almost stepped on two more dead

Venusians. They, too, had been strangled by clutching fingers that had snapped

their necks like pipe-stems. Why hadn't they beamed the killer with their guns when

he attacked them?

The door of the laboratory was wide open. Inside, all was dark and deadly still.

But instinct warned Crane against showing a light as he stepped into the room. He

stopped, his eyes trying to penetrate the darkness. Then a smell came to him that

made the heir rise along the back of his neck.

The smell of fresh blood! It came from the darkness at his right. Crane flicked

on the tiny ray of his ring-light, swung its beam to the floor. Another body! And

one glance at the distorted face told him who it was.

The Venusian scientist's neck had been broken like those of the guards. But his

head had been smashed also into a bloody red mass. His massive face,

comparatively undamaged, stared upward in the beam of light, horribly contorted.

Then Rab Crane's stunned mind perceived something and instantly comprehended

its pressing significance. The blood pool from the shattered skull of Doctor Alph

was still widening along the floor! That meant that it had been no more than a few

moments since the killer had been there!

The killer must still be in the house! Rab doused his little light and sprang to his

feet. But the realization had come too late.

In the darkness behind him a harsh voice said, "Kill him!"

A black shape became a moving shadow in the darkness. With swift, heavy

strides it approached. Then a hard fist struck for Rab Crane's skull in a terrific

blow, even as he ducked. Only the lightning, instinctive swerve of the TSS man

saved him from instant death. As it was, the blow grazed his temple. He reeled,

falling stunned, but his senses did not leave him immediately.

As consciousness receded from him, Crane heard, as though in a dream, a voice

saying rapidly:

"Quick! To the Vulcan now! I'll carry the braincase!"

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Edmond Hamilton - Murder in the Void

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