The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mission
    
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Title: Mission

Author: John Hollis Mason

Release date: March 21, 2024 [eBook #73217]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Columbia Publications, Inc

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


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                                MISSION

                         By John Hollis Mason

                    It would be so easy to conquer
                     these primitive creatures....

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                Science Fiction Quarterly Spring 1942.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


The cylinder stood on the edge of a grassy plain. It was enveloped in
a shimmering nimbus of golden brilliance. Lying grotesquely crumpled
before the cylinder was a strange, alien figure--unmoving.... A little
distance away was another figure, also crumpled and still, but more
human-like in appearance. Fifty yards beyond began a deep forest.

Aside from the occasional murmuring breeze that rustled the grass there
was no sound or movement to disturb the tableau. And the stillness made
it all the more mysterious.

       *       *       *       *       *

Krai landed on the edge of the forest. His search for intelligent life
had been unfruitful up to now. But as he passed over the forest he had
seen what he was looking for. A village of tree-dwellers.

Equipping himself with a portable pressure projector, Krai let himself
out through the air-lock and stepped for the first time to the surface
of earth. The air-lock's outer seal--a cumbrous affair over three feet
thick--swung automatically back into place behind him and, as it did, a
shimmering nimbus of brilliant golden light enveloped the space ship.

Krai experienced some difficulty in accustoming himself to the heavier
gravitational pull of the new planet at first. But this was short-lived.

As he moved over the plain toward the forest, Krai cut a strange
figure. He was small and squat, barely four feet high; his body
triangular-shaped and tapering to a truncated point at the top. Three
thin tentacular legs supported the trunk and provided locomotion. Four
equally thin and powerful appendages were attached to the upper part of
the trunk, two on the chest and one on each side of the hardly visible
head. Each of Krai's two large eyes was embedded in the end of a
foot-long stalk, giving him highly maneuverable and easily concentrated
vision in all directions. Several spiracles dotted the lower part of
the head, on each side of which was a huge ear--nature's answer to the
problem of his own world's thin atmosphere.

In the denser air of the earth these latter proved very useful, if
a trifle disconcerting with their powers of magnification. He could
distinguish the slightest sounds at tremendous distances. The patter of
an animal's feet deep in the forest; the noise of a falling branch.

In places the forest was quite thick and the going sometimes difficult,
but for the most part the journey was uneventful. Presently he began to
catch the sounds of movement and voices.

Krai approached warily. He realized that these people were still very
primitive, had not even begun to walk on the ground. Up to now he had
exercised overmuch caution because he hadn't known what to expect, but
now he knew there was nothing to fear.

Detaching his pressure projector from the equipment secured to his
back, Krai advanced on the alert. His job was by no means an easy
one, despite the fact that everything seemed to be working in with his
plans. If he were discovered, disaster could still wreck those selfsame
plans.

He paused. Through the concealing foliage he looked out upon a small
clearing. In the trees surrounding this were the houses of the arboreal
community and, singly and in groups, chattering gibberish to each
other, its inhabitants.

       *       *       *       *       *

They were outlandish-looking beings to Krai, just as he would have been
to them. Nearly twice as tall as he and powerful with the strength of
the brute. Few of them wore any covering, but the plentiful hair on
their bodies seemed to be ample covering of itself. Communication was
carried on with a combination of grunts and gestures and as far as Krai
could make out the articulate part was very limited in meaning; almost
incomprehensible to an intelligent mind.

So far they hadn't detected the presence of another, but the alien knew
he must not tarry.

Moving into the shelter of two thick tree boles, Krai brought his
pressure projector into play. The large communal house suddenly
appeared to smash in upon itself, as though crushed by a giant hand.
Screams of agony issued from the splintered walls as it crashed to
earth. The tree-dwellers stopped everything they were doing to gaze
in stupefaction at this prodigy. But before they could voice their
amazement, another structure shattered under the emanation from the
pressure projector. As the ray was invisible, it appeared to the
thunder-struck denizens as though some angry unseen demon were venting
his displeasure upon the village. Instinctively, a large crowd banded
together for mutual protection. This was what Krai had been waiting
for. They were annihilated.

Those who still lived fled. But Krai's implacable destruction sought
them out and none got far before they were caught.

When the alien emerged from his place of concealment, all that remained
of the village was a few heaps of shattered pulp. He had done his job
well.

       *       *       *       *       *

As Krai retraced his steps through the forest, his thoughts were far
away. They reached back across the millions of miles of emptiness he
had traversed to come here, back to his own people. They had been
doomed; extinction facing them from over-population and lack of
water. Mars was nearing the end, and its mighty race seemed about to
share the fate of their planet, when a ray of hope came to them. The
long-forgotten secret of inter-planetary travel had been rediscovered.
It was as a straw to the dying man.

And Mars clutched at it. A small space rocket was built with all speed.
Earth, long eyed with anticipation by believers in the practicality
of flight between the worlds, was chosen as the objective. Krai, an
acknowledged expert in atmospheric travel and the problems confronting
a space traveler, found himself selected to make the voyage. His job
was to discover whether the Earth was suitable for Martian settlement,
or if it could be made so. Astronomical observation had made this
fairly certain, however, and that part of his task was merely one
of confirmation. But he was also to ascertain whether there was any
intelligent life upon the world. If this proved to be the case and the
opportunity presented itself, he was to wipe it out. It was ruthless,
of course, but the Martians were facing death themselves and had to
be ruthless. They couldn't take a chance on being attacked by Earth's
inhabitants before they were accustomed to the new conditions and could
fight back without being at a disadvantage.

The Martian felt a deep satisfaction as he made his way back to his
space ship. There might still remain much to be done, but there was no
doubt in his mind about the future now--a bright future and long, new
life for Mars....

But Krai might have felt very differently had he seen the hate-filled
eyes that pursued his retreating figure. One of the brute-men of the
arboreal community had been absent on a private hunting expedition when
the Martian began hostilities, only returning in time to see the demon
(as Krai appeared to the savage mind) leaving the scene of destruction.

The tree-dweller's first thought was of his mate. But prudence dictated
that he remain concealed till the retreating form of the demon
disappeared among the trees. Then he searched frantically for his
mate. Eventually he found her--crushed among the splinters of their
tree-house.

A terrible, burning hate took hold of the savage. An all-consuming hate
overcame his instinctive fear of the demon-thing he had seen. Thoughts
of revenge crowded all else from his mind.

Then, with quick resolve, the tree-man took to the trees in pursuit
of the demon. His hyper-sharp sense of smell soon enabled him to pick
up the trail of his quarry. Presently the forest began to thin out,
giving way to open plain. Nearing the edge of the trees, the eagle
eyes detected movement, then the grotesquely alien figure of the
demon-thing came into view. Krai was in the open now. With a spurt of
speed, accelerated by white-hot hate, the pursuer reached the edge of
the forest--too late.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Martian was nearly to his ship. Another moment and he would be
safe. The brute-man hated the ground and feared the incredible powers
of the demon-thing too much to risk physical combat. There was only one
chance.

Whipping a huge, jagged-edged stone from his girdle, the tree-dweller
hurled it with all the energy of his tremendous thews. With deadly
accuracy the stone shot through the air. Krai never knew what hit him;
his brain-case was shattered like an egg-shell. He dropped in his
tracks.

His desire for revenge satisfied, the tree-dweller began to comprehend
the magnitude of his feat. Single-handed, he had killed the demon-thing
that destroyed his people! For a moment he was a little dizzy with the
enormity of it.

Then, attracted by the golden glow of the big cylinder, the brute-man
forgot all else to investigate this new miracle. He was confident in
his ability to deal with anything that arose now and the shimmering
beauty of the golden emanation intrigued him.

He reached out tentatively. As the hirsute hand passed through the
nimbus a look of startled surprise appeared on the face of the
tree-dweller.

Then he collapsed. As the limp hand broke contact with the brilliance
surrounding the space ship there was an almost perceptible crackle of
energy. And for a moment the acrid pungence of ozone hung in the air.





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