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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vampires of Space, by Sewell Peaslee Wright
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Vampires of Space
+
+Author: Sewell Peaslee Wright
+
+Release Date: July 8, 2009 [EBook #29353]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VAMPIRES OF SPACE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Meredith Bach, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Transcriber's Note:
+
+   This etext was produced from Astounding Stories, March 1932. Extensive
+   research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
+   publication was renewed.]
+
+
+[Illustration: _Our sprays met them in mid air._]
+
+
+
+
+Vampires of Space
+
+By Sewell Peaslee Wright
+
+  Commander John Hanson recounts his harrowing adventure with
+  the Electites of space.
+
+
+Sometimes, I know, I must seem a crotchety old man. "Old John Hanson,"
+they call me, and roll their eyes as though to say, "Of course, you have
+to forgive him on account of his age."
+
+But the joke isn't always on me. Not infrequently I gain much amusement
+observing these cocky youngsters who strut in the blue-and-silver
+uniforms of the Service in which, until more or less recently, I bore
+the rank of Commander.
+
+There is young Clippen, for instance, a nice, clean youngster; third
+officer, I believe, on the _Caliobre_, one of the newest ships of the
+Special Patrol Service. He drops in to see me as often as he has leave
+here at Base, to give me the latest news, and to coax a yarn, if he can,
+of the old days. He is courteous, respectful ... and yet just a shade
+condescending. The condescension of youth.
+
+"Something new under the sun after all, sir," he commented the other
+day. That, incidentally, is a saying of Earth, whence the larger part of
+the Service's officer personnel has always been drawn. Something new
+under the sun! The saying probably dates back to an age long before man
+mastered space.
+
+"Yes?" I leaned back more comfortably, happy, as always, to hear my
+native Earth tongue, and to speak it. The Universal language has its
+obvious advantages, but the speech of one's fathers wings thought
+straightest to the mind. "What now?"
+
+"Creatures of space!" announced Clippen importantly, in the fashion of
+one who brings surprising news. "'Electites,' they call them. Beings who
+live in space--things, anyway; I don't know that you could call them
+beings."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Hm-m." I looked past him, down a mighty corridor of dimming years.
+Creatures that lived in space.... I smiled in my beard. "Creatures
+perhaps twice the height of a man in their greatest dimension? In shape
+like a crescent, with blunted horns somewhat straightened near the tips,
+and drawn close together?" I spoke slowly, drawing from my store of
+memories. "A pale red in color, intangible and yet--"
+
+"You've heard, sir!" said Clippen disappointedly to me. "My news is
+stale."
+
+"Yes, I've heard," I nodded. "'Electites,' they call them, eh? That's
+the work of our great scientific minds, I presume?"
+
+"Er--yes. Undoubtedly." Clippen started to wander restlessly around the
+room. He had a great respect for the laboratory men, with their white
+coats and their wise, solemn airs, and he disliked exceedingly to have
+me present my views regarding these much overrated gentlemen. I have
+always been a man of action, and pottering over coils and glass vials
+and pages of figures has always struck me as something not to be
+included in a man's proper sphere of activity. "Well, I believe I'll be
+shoving off, sir; just dropped in for a moment," Clippen continued.
+"Thought perhaps you hadn't heard of the news; it seems to be causing a
+great deal of discussion among the officers at Base."
+
+"Something new under the sun, eh?" I chuckled.
+
+"Why, yes. You'll agree to that, sir, surely?" I believe the lad was
+slightly nettled by my chuckle. No one likes to bear stale news.
+
+"I'll agree to that," I said, smiling broadly now. "'Tis easier than
+debating the matter, and an old man can't hope to hold his own in
+argument with you quick-witted youngsters."
+
+"I've never noticed," replied young Clippen rather acidly, "that you
+were particularly averse to argument, sir. Rather the reverse. But I
+must be moving on; we're shoving off soon, I hear, and you know the
+routine here at Base."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He saluted me, rather carelessly, I should say, and I returned the
+salute with the crispness with which the gesture was rendered in my day.
+When he was gone, I turned to my desk and began searching in that huge
+and capacious drawer in which were kept, helter-skelter, the dusty,
+faded, nondescript mementoes of a thousand adventures.
+
+I found, at last, what I was seeking. No impressive thing, this: a bit
+of metal, irregular in shape, no larger than my palm, and three times
+the thickness. One side was smooth; the other was stained as by great
+heat, and deeply pitted as though it had been steeped in acid.
+
+Silently, I turned the bit of metal over and over in my hands. I had
+begged hard for this souvenir; had obtained it only by passing my word
+its secret would never reach the Universe through me. But now ... now
+that seal of secrecy has been removed.
+
+As I write this, slowly and thoughtfully, as an old man writes,
+relishing his words for the sake of the memories they bring before his
+eyes, a bit of metal holds against the vagrant breeze the filled pages
+of my script. A bit of metal, no larger than my palm, and perhaps three
+times the thickness. It is irregular in shape, and smooth on one side.
+The other side is eroded as though by acid.
+
+Not an imposing thing, this ancient bit of metal, but to me one of my
+most precious possessions. It is, beyond doubt, the only fragment of my
+old ship, the _Ertak_, now in existence and identifiable.
+
+And this story is the story of that pitted metal and the ship from which
+it came; one of the strangest stories in all my storehouse of memories
+of days when only the highways of the Universe had been charted, and
+breathless adventure awaited him who dared the unknown trails of the
+Special Patrol Service.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The _Ertak_, as I recall the details now, had just touched at Base upon
+the completion of a routine patrol--one of those monotonous, fruitless
+affairs which used to prey so upon Correy's peace of mind. Correy was my
+first officer on the _Ertak_, and the keenest seeker after trouble I
+have ever known.
+
+"The Chief presents his compliments and requests an immediate audience
+with Commander Hanson," announced one of the brisk, little attaches of
+Base, before I'd had time to draw a second breath of fresh air.
+
+I glanced at Correy, who was beside me, and winked. That is, I quickly
+drew down the lid of one eye--a peculiar little gesture common to Earth,
+which may mean any one of many things.
+
+"Sounds like something's in the wind," I commented in a swift aside.
+"Better give 'no leaves' until I come back."
+
+"Right, sir!" chuckled Correy. "It's about time."
+
+I made my way swiftly to the Chief's private office, and was promptly
+admitted. He returned my salute crisply, and wasted no time in getting
+to the point.
+
+"How's your ship, Commander? Good condition?"
+
+"Prime, sir."
+
+"Supplies?"
+
+"What's needed could be taken on in two hours." In the Service, Earth
+time was an almost universal standard except in official documents.
+
+"Good!" The Chief picked up a sheaf of papers, mostly standard charts
+and position reports, I judged, and frowned at them thoughtfully. "I've
+some work cut out for you, Commander.
+
+"Two passenger ships have recently been reported lost in space. That
+wouldn't be so alarming if both had not, when last reported, been in
+about the same position. Perhaps it is no more than a coincidence, but,
+with space travel still viewed with a certain doubt by so many, the
+Council feels something should be done to determine the cause of these
+two losses.
+
+"Accordingly, all ships have been rerouted to avoid the area in which
+it is presumed these losses took place. The locations of the two ships,
+together with their routes and last reported positions, are given here.
+There will be no formal orders; you are to cruise until you have
+determined, and if possible, eliminated the danger, or until you are
+certain that no further danger exists."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He slid the papers across his desk, and I picked them up.
+
+"Yes, sir!" I said. "That will be all?"
+
+"You understand your orders?"
+
+"Yes, sir!"
+
+"Very well. Good luck, Commander!"
+
+I saluted and hurried out of the room, back to my impatient first
+officer.
+
+"What's up, sir?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Can't say that I know, to be truthful about it. Perhaps nothing;
+perhaps a great deal. Give orders to take on all necessary supplies--in
+double-quick time. I've promised the Chief we'll be ready to shove off
+in two hours. I'll meet you in the navigating room, and give you all the
+information I have."
+
+Correy saluted and rushed away to give the necessary orders.
+Thoughtfully, I made my way through the narrow, ethon-lighted
+passageways to the navigating room, where Correy very shortly joined me.
+
+Briefly, I repeated the Chief's conversation, and we both bent over the
+charts and position reports.
+
+"Hm-m!" Correy was lost in thought for a moment as he fixed the location
+in his mind. "Rather on the fringe of things. Almost anything could
+happen out there, sir. That would be on the old Belgrade route, would it
+not?"
+
+"Yes. It's still used, however, as you know, by some of the smaller,
+slower ships making many stops. Or was, until the recent order. Any
+guesses as to what we'll find?"
+
+"None, sir, except the obvious one."
+
+"Meteorites?"
+
+Correy nodded.
+
+"There's some bad swarms, now and then," he said seriously. I knew he
+was thinking of one disastrous experience the _Ertak_ had had ... and of
+scores of narrow escapes. "That would be the one likely explanation."
+
+"True. But those ships were old and slow, they could turn about and
+dodge more easily than a ship of the _Ertak's_ speed. At full space
+speed we're practically helpless; can neither stop nor change our course
+in time to avoid an emergency."
+
+"Well, sir," shrugged Correy, "our job's to find the facts. I took the
+liberty of telling the men we were to be ready in an hour and a half. If
+we are, do we shove off immediately?"
+
+"Just as soon as everything's checked. I leave it to you to give the
+necessary orders. I know I can depend upon you to waste no time."
+
+"Right, sir," said Correy, grinning like a schoolboy. "We'll waste no
+time."
+
+In just a shade less than two hours after we had set down at Base, we
+were rising swiftly at maximum atmospheric speed, on our way to a
+little-traveled portion of the universe, where two ships, in rapid
+succession, had met an unknown fate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I wonder, sir, if you could come to the navigating room at once?" It
+was Kincaide's voice, coming from the instrument in my stateroom.
+
+"Immediately, Mr. Kincaide." I asked no questions, for I knew my second
+officer's cool-headed disposition. If something required my attention
+in the navigating room, in his opinion, it was something important. I
+threw on my uniform hurriedly and hastened to Kincaide's side, wondering
+if at last our days of unrewarded searching were to bear fruit.
+
+"Perhaps I called you needlessly, sir," Kincaide greeted me
+apologetically, "but, considering the nature of our mission, I thought
+it best to have your opinion." He motioned toward the two great
+navigating charts, operated by super-radio reflexes, set in the surface
+of the table before him.
+
+In the center of each was the familiar red spark which represented the
+_Ertak_ herself, and all around were the glowing points of greenish
+light which gave us, in terrestial terms, the locations of the various
+bodies to the right and left, above and below.
+
+"See here, sir--and here?" Kincaide's blunt, capable forefingers
+indicated spots on each of the charts. "Ever see anything like that
+before?"
+
+I shook my head slowly. I had seen instantly the phenomena he had
+pointed out. Using again the most understandable terminology, to our
+right, and somewhat above us, nearer by far than any of the charted
+bodies, was something which registered on our charts, as a dim and
+formless haze of pinkish light.
+
+"Now the television, sir," said Kincaide gravely.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I bent over the huge, hooded disk, so unlike the brilliantly illuminated
+instruments of to-day, and studied the scene reflected there.
+
+Centered in the field was a group of thousands of strange things, moving
+swiftly toward the ship. In shape they were not unlike crescents, with
+the horns blunted, and pushed inward, towards each other. They glowed
+with a reddish radiance which seemed to have its center in the thickest
+portion of the crescents--and, despite their appearance, they gave me,
+somehow, an uncanny impression that they were in some strange way,
+_alive_! While they remained in a more or less compact group, their
+relative positions changed from time to time, not aimlessly as would
+insensate bodies drifting thus through the black void of space, but with
+a sort of intelligent direction.
+
+"What do you make of them, sir?" asked Kincaide, his eyes on my face.
+"Can you place them?"
+
+"No," I admitted, still staring with a fixed fascination at the strange
+scene in the television disk. "Perhaps this is what we've been searching
+for. Please call Mr. Correy and Mr. Hendricks, and ask them to report
+here immediately."
+
+Kincaide hastened to obey the order, while I watched the strange things
+in the field of the television disk, trying to ascertain their nature.
+They were not solid bodies, for even as I viewed them, one was
+superimposed upon another, and I could see the second quite distinctly
+through the substance of the first. Nor were they rigid, for now and
+again one of the crescent arms would move searchingly, almost like a
+thick, clumsy tentacle. There was something restless, _hungry_, in the
+movement of the sharp arms of the things, that sent a chill trickling
+down my spine.
+
+Correy and Hendricks arrived together; their curiosity evident.
+
+"I believe, gentlemen," I said, "that we're about to find out the reason
+why two ships already have disappeared in this vicinity. Look first at
+the charts, and then here."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They bent, for a moment, over the charts, and then stared down into the
+television disk. Correy was first to speak.
+
+"What are they?" he gasped. "Are they ... alive?"
+
+"That is what we don't know. I believe they are, after a fashion. And,
+if you'll observe, they are headed directly towards us at a speed which
+must be at least as great as our own. Is that correct, Mr. Kincaide?"
+
+Kincaide nodded, and began some hasty figuring, taking his readings from
+the finely ruled lines which divided the charts into little measured
+squares, and checking speeds with the chronometers set into the wall of
+the room.
+
+"But I don't understand the way in which they register on our navigating
+charts, sir," said Hendricks slowly. Hendricks, my youthful third
+officer, had an inquiring, almost scientific mind. I have often said he
+was the closest approach to a scientist I have ever seen in the person
+of an action-loving man. "They're a blur of light on the charts--all out
+of proportion to their actual size. They must be something more than
+material bodies, or less."
+
+"They're coming towards us," commented Correy grimly, still bent over
+the disk, "as though they knew what they were doing, and meant
+business."
+
+"Yes," nodded Kincaide, picking up the paper upon which he had been
+figuring. "This is just a rule-of-thumb estimate, but if they continue
+on their present course at their present speed, and we do likewise,
+they'll be upon us in about an hour and a quarter--less, if anything."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"But I can't understand their appearance in the charts," muttered
+Hendricks doggedly, still turning that matter over in his mind. "Unless
+... unless ... ah! I'll venture I have it, sir! The charts are operated
+by super-radio reflexes; in others words, electrically. They would
+naturally be extremely sensitive to an electrical disturbance. Those
+things are electrical in nature. Highly so. That's the reason for the
+flare of light on the charts."
+
+"Sounds logical," said Correy immediately. "The point, as I see it, is
+not what they are, but what we're to do about them. Do you believe, sir,
+that they are dangerous?"
+
+"Let me ask you some questions to answer that one," I suggested. "Two
+ships are reported lost in space--in this immediate vicinity. We come
+here to determine the cause of those losses. We find ourselves the
+evident objective of a horde of strange things which we cannot identify;
+which Mr. Hendricks, here, seems to have good reason to believe are
+somehow electrical in nature. Putting all these facts together, what is
+the most logical conclusion?"
+
+"That these things caused the two lost ships to be reported missing in
+space!" said Hendricks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I glanced at Kincaide, and he nodded gravely.
+
+"And you, Mr. Correy?" I asked.
+
+Correy shrugged.
+
+"I believe you're, right, sir. They seem like such rather flimsy,
+harmless things, though, that the disintegrator rays will take care of
+without difficulty. Shall I order the ray operators to their stations,
+sir?"
+
+"Do that, please. And take personal charge of the forward projectors,
+will you? Mr. Hendricks, will you command the after projectors? Mr.
+Kincaide and I will carry on here."
+
+"Shall we open upon them at will, or upon orders, sir?" asked Correy.
+
+"Upon orders," I said. "And you'll get your orders as soon as they're in
+range; I have a feeling we're in for trouble."
+
+"I hope so, sir!" grinned Correy from the door.
+
+Hendricks followed him silently, but I saw there was a deep, thoughtful
+frown between his brows.
+
+"I think," commented Kincaide quietly, "that Hendricks is likely to be
+more useful to us in this matter than Correy."
+
+I nodded, and bent over the television disk. The things were perceptibly
+nearer; the hurtling group nearly filled the disk, now.
+
+There was something horribly eager, horribly malignant, in the way they
+shone, so palely red, and in the fashion in which their blunt tentacles
+reached out toward the _Ertak_.
+
+I glanced up at the Earth clock on the wall.
+
+"The next hour," I said soberly, "cannot pass too quickly for me!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had decelerated steadily during the hour, but we were still above
+maximum atmospheric speed when at last I gave the order to open the
+invaders with disintegrator rays. They were close, but of course the
+rays are not as effective in space as when operating in a more favorable
+medium, and I wished to make sure of our prey.
+
+I pressed the attention signal to Correy's post, and he answered
+instantly.
+
+"Ready, Mr. Correy?"
+
+"Ready, sir!"
+
+"Then commence action!"
+
+Before I could repeat the command to Hendricks, I heard the deepening
+note of the atomic generators, and knew Correy had already begun
+operations.
+
+Together, and silently, Kincaide and I bent over the television disk. We
+watched for a moment, and then, with one accord, lifted our heads and
+looked into each other's eyes.
+
+"No go, sir," said Kincaide quietly.
+
+I nodded. It was evident the disintegrator rays were useless here. When
+they struck into the horde of crescent-shaped things coming so hungrily
+toward us, the things changed from red to a sickly, yellowish pink, and
+seemed to writhe, as though in some discomfort, but that was all.
+
+"Perhaps at closer range...?" ventured Kincaide.
+
+"I think not. If Mr. Hendricks is correct--and I believe he is--these
+things aren't material; they're not matter, as we comprehend the word.
+And so, they can't be disintegrated."
+
+"Then, sir, how are we to best them?"
+
+"First, we'll have to know more about them. For one thing, their mode of
+attack. We should know very soon. Please recall Mr. Hendricks, and then
+order all hands to their posts. We may be in for it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hendricks came rushing in breathlessly.
+
+"The rays are useless, sir," he said. "They'll be on us in a few
+minutes. Any further orders?"
+
+"Not yet. Have you any ideas as to their mode of attack? What they can
+do to us?"
+
+"No, sir. That is, no reasonable idea."
+
+"What's your unreasonable theory, then, Mr. Hendricks?"
+
+"I'd prefer, sir, to make further observation first," he replied.
+"They're close enough now, I think, to watch through the ports. Have I
+your permission to unshutter one of the ports?"
+
+"Certainly, sir." The _Ertak_, like all Special Patrol ships of the
+period, had but few ports, and these were kept heavily shuttered. Her
+hull was double; she was really two ships, one inside the other, the two
+skins being separated and braced by innumerable trusses. Between the
+outer and the inner skin the air pressure was kept about one half of
+normal, thus distributing the strain of the pressure equally between the
+two hulls.
+
+In order to arrange for a port or an exit, it was necessary to bring
+these two skins close together at the desired point, and strengthen this
+weak point with many braces. As a further protection against an
+emergency--and a fighting ship must be prepared against all
+emergencies--the ports were all shuttered with massive doors of solid
+metal, hermetically fitted. I am explaining this so much in detail for
+the benefit of those not familiar with the ships of my day, and because
+this information is necessary that one may have a complete understanding
+of subsequent events.
+
+Hendricks, upon receiving my permission, sprang to one of the two ports
+in the navigating room and unshuttered it.
+
+"The lights, please?" he asked, over his shoulder. Kincaide nodded, and
+switched off the _ethon_ tubes which illuminated the room. The three of
+us crowded around the recessed port.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The things were not only close: they were veritably upon us! Even as we
+looked, one of them swept by the port so close that, save for the thick
+crystal, one might have reached out into space and touched it.
+
+The television disk had represented them very accurately. They were, in
+their greatest dimension, perhaps twice the height of a man, and at
+close range their reddish color was more brilliant than I had imagined;
+in the thickest portion of the crescent, which seemed to be the nucleus,
+the radiance of the thing was almost blinding.
+
+It was obvious that they were not material bodies. There were no
+definite boundaries to their bodies; they faded off into nothingness in
+a sort of fringe, almost like a dim halo.
+
+An attention signal sounded sharply, and Kincaide groped his way swiftly
+to answer it.
+
+"It's Correy, sir," he said. "He reports his rays are utterly useless,
+and asks for further orders."
+
+"Tell him to cease action, and report here immediately." I turned to
+Hendricks, staring out the port beside me. "Well, what do you make of
+them now?"
+
+Before he could reply, Kincaide called out sharply.
+
+"Come here, sir! The charts are out of commission. We've gone blind."
+
+It was true. The charts were no more than twin rectangles of lambent red
+flame, with a yellow spark glowing dimly in the center of each, the fine
+black lines ruled in the surface showing clearly against the wavering
+red fire.
+
+"Mr. Hendricks!" I snapped. "Let's have your theory--reasonable or
+otherwise."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hendricks, his face pressed at an angle against one side of the port,
+turned toward me, and swung the shutter into place. Kincaide snapped on
+the lights.
+
+"It's no longer a theory, sir," he said in a choked, hushed voice,
+"although it's still unreasonable. These things--are _eating_ us!"
+
+"Eating us?" Correy's voice joined Kincaide's and mine in the
+exclamation of amazement. He had just entered the navigating room in
+response to my order.
+
+"Eroding us, absorbing us--whatever you want to call it. There's one at
+work close enough to the port so that I could see it. It is feeding upon
+our hull as an electric arc feeds upon its electrodes!"
+
+"Farewell _Ertak_!" said Correy grimly. "Anything the rays can't
+lick--wins!"
+
+"Not yet!" I contradicted him. "Kincaide, what's the nearest body upon
+which we can set down?"
+
+"N-127, sir," he replied promptly. "Just logged her a few minutes ago."
+He poured hastily through a dog-eared index. "Here it is: 'N-127,
+atmosphere unbreathable; largely nitrogen, oxygen insufficient to
+support human life; no animal life reported; insects, large but reported
+non-poisonous; vegetation heroic in size, probably with edible fruits,
+although reports are incomplete on this score; water unfit for drinking
+purpose unless distilled; land area approximately--'"
+
+"That's enough," I interrupted. "Mr. Correy, set a course for N-127 by
+the readings of the television instrument. Mr. Kincaide, accelerate to
+maximum space speed, and set us down on dry land as quickly as emergency
+speed can put us there. And you, Mr. Hendricks, please tell us all you
+know--or guess--about the enemy."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hendricks waited, moodily silent, until the ship was coming around on
+her course, picking up speed every instant. Kincaide had gradually
+increased the pull of the gravity pads to about twice normal, so that we
+found it barely possible to move about. The _Ertak_ was an old-timer,
+but she could pick up speed when she had to that would have thrown us
+all headlong were it not for the artificial gravity anchorage of the
+pads.
+
+"It's all guess-work," began Hendricks slowly, "so I hope you won't
+place too much reliance in my theories, sir. I'll just give you my line
+of reasoning, and you can evaluate it for yourself.
+
+"These things are creatures of space. No form of life, as we know it,
+can live in space. Therefore, they are not material; they are not
+matter, like ourselves.
+
+"From their effect upon the charts, we decided they were electrical in
+nature. Not made up of atoms and electrons, but of pure electrical
+energy in an unfamiliar form.
+
+"Then, remembering that they exist in space, and concluding that they
+were the destroyers of the two ships we know of, I began wondering how
+they brought about the destruction--or at least, the disappearance--of
+these two ships. Life of any kind must have something to feed upon. To
+produce one kind of energy we must convert, apparently consume, some
+other kind of energy. Even our atomic generators slowly but surely eat
+up the metal in which is locked the power which makes this ship's power
+possible.
+
+"But, in space, what could these things feed upon? What--if not those
+troublesome bodies, meteorites? And meteorites, as we know, are largely
+metallic in composition. And ships are made of metal.
+
+"Here are the only proofs, if proofs you can call them, that these are
+not wild ideas: first, the disintegrator rays, working upon an
+electrical principle, reacted upon but did not destroy these things, as
+might be expected from the meeting of two not dissimilar manifestations
+of energy; and the fact that I did, from the port, see one of these
+space-things, or part of one, flattened out upon the body of the
+_Ertak_, and feeding upon her skin, already roughened and pitted
+slightly from the thing's hungry activities."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hendricks fell silent, staring down at the floor. He was only a
+youngster, and the significance of his remarks was as plain to him as it
+was to the rest of us. If these monsters from the void were truly
+feeding on the skin of our ship, vampire-like, it would not be long
+before it would be weakened; weakened to the danger point, weakened
+until we would explode in space like a gigantic bomb, to leave our
+fragments to whirl onward forever through the darkness and the silence
+of outer space.
+
+"And what, sir, do you plan to do when we reach this N-127?" asked
+Correy. "Burn them off with a run through the atmosphere?"
+
+"No; that wouldn't work, I imagine." I glanced at Hendricks inquiringly,
+and he shook his head. "My only thought was to land, so that we would
+have some chance. Outside the ship we can at least attack; locked in
+here we're helpless."
+
+"Attack, sir? With what?" asked Kincaide curiously.
+
+"That I can't answer. But at least we can fight--with solid ground under
+our feet. And that's something."
+
+"You're right, sir!" grinned Correy. It was the first smile that had
+appeared on the faces of any of us in many minutes. "And fight we will!
+And if we lose the ship, at least we'll be alive, with a hope of
+rescue."
+
+Hendricks glanced up at him and shook his head, smiling crookedly.
+
+"You forget," he remarked, "that there's no air to breathe on N-127. An
+atmosphere of nitrogen. And no water that's drinkable--if the reports
+are accurate. A breathing mask will not last long, even the new types."
+
+"That's so," said Kincaide. "The tanks hold about a ten-hours' supply;
+less, if the wearer is working hard, or fighting."
+
+Ten hours! No more, if we did not find some way to destroy these leeches
+of space before they destroyed the _Ertak_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the next half hour little was said. We were drawing close to our
+tiny, uninhabited haven, and both Correy and Kincaide were busy with
+their navigation. Working in reverse, as it were, from the rough
+readings of the television disk settings, an ordinarily simple task was
+made extremely difficult.
+
+I helped Correy interpret his headings, and kept a weather eye on the
+gauges over the operating table. We were slipping into the atmospheric
+fringe of N-127, and the surface-temperature gauge was slowly climbing.
+Hendricks sat hunched heavily in a corner, his head bowed in his hands.
+
+"I believe," said Kincaide at length, "I can take over visually now." He
+unshuttered one of the ports, and peered out. N-127 was full abreast of
+us, and we were dropping sideways toward her at a gradually diminishing
+speed. The impression given us, due to the gravity pads in the keel of
+the ship, was that we were right side up, and N-127 was approaching us
+swiftly from the side.
+
+"'Vegetation of heroic size' is right, too," said Correy, who had been
+examining the terrain at close range, through the medium of the
+television disk. "Two of the leaves on some of the weeds would make an
+awning for the whole ship. See any likely place to land, Kincaide?"
+
+"Nowhere except along the shore--and then we'll have to do some nice
+work and lay the _Ertak_ parallel to the edge of the water. The beach is
+narrow, but apparently the only barren portion. Will that be all right,
+sir?"
+
+"Use your own judgment, but waste no time. Correy, break out the
+breathing masks, and order the men at the air-lock exit port to stand
+by. I'm going out to have a look at these things."
+
+"May I go with you, sir?" asked Hendricks sharply.
+
+"And I?" pleaded Kincaide and Correy in chorus.
+
+"You, Hendricks, but not you two. The ship needs officers, you know."
+
+"Then why not me instead of you, sir?" argued Correy. "You don't know
+what you're going up against."
+
+"All the more reason I shouldn't be receiving any information
+second-hand," I said. "And as for Hendricks, he's the laboratory man of
+the _Ertak_. And these things are his particular pets. Right,
+Hendricks?"
+
+"Right, sir!" said my third officer grimly.
+
+Correy muttered under his breath, something which sounded very much like
+profanity, but I let it pass.
+
+I knew just how he felt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have never liked to wear a breathing mask. I feel shut in, frustrated,
+more or less helpless. The hiss of the air and the everlasting
+_flap-flap_ of the exhaust-valve disturb me. But they are very handy
+things when you walk abroad on a world which has no breathable
+atmosphere.
+
+You've probably seen, in the museums, the breathing masks of that
+period. They were very new and modern then, although they certainly
+appear cumbersome by comparison with the devices of to-day.
+
+Our masks consisted of a huge shirt of air-tight, light material which
+was belted in tightly around the waist, and bloused out like an ancient
+balloon when inflated. The arm-holes were sealed by two heavy bands of
+elastic, close to the shoulders, and the head-piece was of thin copper,
+set with a broad, curved band of crystal which extended from one side to
+the other, across the front, giving the wearer a clear view of
+everything except that which was directly behind him. The balloon-like
+blouse, of course, was designed to hold a small reserve supply of air,
+for an emergency, should anything happen to the tank upon the shoulders,
+or the valve which released the air from it.
+
+They were cumbersome, uncomfortable things, but I donned mine and
+adjusted the menore, built into the helmet, to full strength. I wanted
+to be sure I kept in communication with both Hendricks and the sentries
+at the air-lock exit, and of course, inside the helmets, verbal
+communication was impossible.
+
+I glanced at Hendricks, and saw that he was ready and waiting. We were
+standing inside the air-lock, and the mighty door of the port had just
+finished turning in its threads, and was swinging back slowly on its
+massive gimbals.
+
+"Let's go, Hendricks," I emanated. "Remember, take no chances, and keep
+your eyes open."
+
+"I'll remember, sir," replied Hendricks, and together we stepped out
+onto the coarse gravel of the beach.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before us, waves of an unhealthy, cloudy green rolled slowly, heavily
+shoreward, but we had no eyes for this, nor for the amazing vegetation
+of the place, plainly visible on the curving shores. We took a few
+hurried steps away from the ship, and then turned to survey the monsters
+which had attacked it.
+
+They literally covered the ship; in several places their transparent,
+glowing bodies overlapped. And the sides of the _Ertak_, ordinarily
+polished and smooth as the surface of a mirror, were dull and deeply
+eroded.
+
+"Notice, sir," emanated Hendricks excitedly, "how much brighter the
+things are! They _are_ feeding, and they are growing stronger and more
+brilliant. They--look out, sir! They're attacking! Our copper
+helmets--"
+
+But I had seen it as quickly as he. Half a dozen of the glowing things,
+sensing in some way the presence of a metal which they apparently
+preferred to that of the _Ertak's_ hull, suddenly detached themselves
+and came swarming directly down upon us.
+
+I was standing closer to the ship than Hendricks, and they attacked me
+first. Several of them dropped upon me, their glowing bodies covering
+the vision-piece, and blinding me with their light. I waved my arms and
+started to run blindly, incoherent warnings coming to me through the
+menore from Hendricks and the sentries.
+
+The things had no weight, but they emitted a strange, electric warmth
+which seemed to penetrate my entire body instantly as I ran unseeingly,
+trying to find the ship, tearing at the fastenings of my mask as I ran.
+I could not, of course, enter the ship with these things clinging to my
+garments.
+
+Suddenly I felt water splash under my feet; felt its grateful coolness
+upon my legs, and with a gasp I realized I had in my confusion been
+running away from the ship, instead of toward it. I stopped, trying to
+get a grip on myself.
+
+The belt of the breathing mask came loose, and I tore the thing from me,
+holding my breath and staring around wildly. The ship was only a few
+yards away, and Hendricks, his mask already off, was running toward me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Back!" I shouted. "I'm all right now. Back!" He hesitated for an
+instant until I caught up with him, and then, together, we gained the
+safety of the air-lock. Without orders, the men swung shut the ponderous
+door, and Hendricks and I stood there panting, and drawing in breaths
+of the _Ertak's_ clean, reviving air.
+
+"That possibility was one we overlooked, sir," said Hendricks. "Let's
+see what's happening."
+
+We opened the shutter of a port nearby and gazed out onto the beach we
+had so hurriedly deserted. There were three or four of the glowing
+things huddled shapelessly around our abandoned suits, and ragged holes
+showed in several places in the thin copper helmets. Even as we looked,
+they dissolved into nothingness, and after a few seconds of hesitation,
+the things swarmed swiftly back to the ship.
+
+"Well," I commented, trying to keep my voice reasonably free from the
+feelings which gripped me, "I believe we're beaten, Hendricks. At least,
+we're helpless against them. Our only chance is that they'll leave us
+before they have eaten through the second skin; so long as we still have
+that, we can live ... and perhaps be found."
+
+"I doubt they'll leave us while there's a scrap of metal left, sir,"
+said Hendricks slowly. "Something's brought them from their usual
+haunts. There's no reason why they should leave a certainty for an
+uncertainty. But we're not quite through trying. I saw something--have I
+your permission to make another try at them? Alone, sir?"
+
+"Any chance of success, lad?" I asked, searching his eyes.
+
+"A chance, sir," he replied, his glance never wavering. "I can be ready
+in a few minutes."
+
+"Then, go ahead--on one condition: that you let me come with you."
+
+"Very good, sir; as you wish. Have two other breathing masks ready. I'll
+be back very soon."
+
+And he left me hastily, taking the steps of the companionway two at a
+time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was nearly an hour before Hendricks returned, bringing with him two
+of the most amazing pieces of apparatus I have ever seen.
+
+To make each of them, he had taken a flask of compressed air from our
+emergency stores, and run a flexible tube from it into a cylindrical
+drinking water container. Another tube, which I recognized as being a
+part of our fire-extinguishers, and terminating in a metal nozzle,
+sprouted from the water container. Both tubes were securely sealed into
+the mouth of the metal cylinder, and lengths of hastily-knotted rope had
+been bound around each contrivance so that the two heavy containers, the
+air flask and the small water tank could be slung from the shoulders.
+
+"Here, sir," he said hastily, "get into a breathing mask, and put on
+these things as you see me do. No time to explain anything now, except
+this: as soon as you're outside the ship, turn the valve that opens the
+compressed air flask. Hold this hose, coming from the water container,
+in your right hand. Don't touch the metal nozzle. Use the hose just as
+you'd use a portable disintegrator-ray projector."
+
+I nodded, and followed his instructions as swiftly as possible. The two
+containers were heavy, but I adjusted their ropes across my shoulders so
+that my left hand had easy access to the valve of the air flask, and the
+water container was under my right arm where I could have the full use
+of the hose.
+
+"Let me go first, sir," breathed Hendricks as we stood again in the
+air-lock, and the door turned out of its threaded seat and swung open.
+"Keep your eyes on me, and do as I do!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He ran heavily out of the ship, his burdens lurching. I saw him turn the
+pet-cock of the air flask, and I did likewise. A fine, powerful spray
+shot from the nozzle of the tube in my right hand, and I whirled around
+to face the ship.
+
+Several of the things were detaching themselves from the ship, and
+instinctively, I turned the spray upon them. Hendricks, I could see out
+of the corner of my eye, did likewise. And now a most amazing thing
+happened.
+
+The spray seemed to dissolve the crescent-shaped creatures; where it
+hit, ragged holes appeared. A terrible hissing, crackling sound came to
+my ears, even through the muffling mask I wore.
+
+"It works! It works!" Hendricks was crying over and over, hardly aware,
+in his excitement, that he was wearing a menore. "We're saved!"
+
+I put down three of the things in as many seconds. The central nucleus,
+in the thickest portion of the crescent, was always the last to go, and
+it seemed to explode in a little shower of crackling sparks. Hendricks
+accounted for four in the same length of time.
+
+"Keep back, sir!" he ordered in a sort of happy delirium. "Let them come
+to us! We'll get them as they come. And they'll come, all right! Look at
+them! Look at them! Quick, sir!"
+
+The things showed no fear, no intelligence. But one by one they sensed
+the nearness of the copper helmets we wore, and detached themselves from
+the ship. They moved like red tongues of flame upon the fat sides of the
+_Ertak_; crawling, uneasy flames, releasing themselves swiftly, one
+after the other.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our sprays met them in mid-air, and they dissolved like mist, one after
+the other.... I directed my death-dealing spray with a grim delight, and
+as each glowing heart crackled and exploded, I chuckled to myself.
+
+The sweat was running down my face; I was shaking with excitement One
+side of the ship was already cleared of the things; they were slipping
+over the top now, one or two at a time, and as rapidly as they came, we
+wiped them out.
+
+At last there came a period in which there were none of the things in
+sight; none coming over the top of the sorely tried ship.
+
+"Stay here and watch, Hendricks," I ordered. "I'll look on the other
+side. I believe we've got them all!"
+
+I hurried, as best I could, around to the other side of the _Ertak_. Her
+hull was pitted and corroded, but there was no other evidence of the
+crescent-shaped things which had so nearly brought about the ship's
+untimely, ghastly end.
+
+"Hendricks!" I emanated happily. "'Nothing Less Than Complete Success!'
+And that's ours right now! They're gone--all of them!"
+
+I slipped the contrivances from my shoulders and ran back to the other
+side of the ship. Hendricks was executing some weird sort of dance,
+patting the containers, swinging them wildly about his body, with an
+understandable fondness.
+
+"Come inside, you idiot," I suggested, "and tell us how you did it. And
+see how it feels to be a hero!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It was just luck," Hendricks tried to make us believe, a few minutes
+later, when Kincaide, Correy, and myself were through slapping his back
+and shaking his hands. "When you, sir, splashed into the water, I had
+just torn off my mask. I saw some of the water fall on one of the things
+clustered upon your helmet, and I distinctly heard it hiss, as it fell.
+And where it fell, it made a ragged hole, which very slowly closed up,
+leaving a dim spot in the tentacle where the hole had been. As I figure
+it, the water--to put it crudely--short-circuited the electrical energy
+of the things. That, too, is just a guess, but I think it's a good one.
+
+"Of course, it was a long chance, but it seemed like our only one. There
+was nothing more or less than acidulated water in the containers; and
+the air flasks, of course, were merely to supply the pressure to throw
+the water out in a powerful spray. It happened to work, and there isn't
+anybody any happier about it than I am. I'm young, and there're lots of
+things I want to do before I bleach my bones on a little deserted world
+like this, that isn't important enough to even have a name!"
+
+That was typical of Hendricks. He was a practical scientist, willing and
+eager to try out his own devices. A man of action first--as a man should
+be.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+None of us, I think, spent a really easy moment until the _Ertak_ was
+back at Base. Our outer hull was weakened by at least half, and we were
+obliged to increase the degree of vacuum there and thus place the major
+portion of the load on the inner skin. It was a ticklish business, but
+those old ships were solidly built, and we made it.
+
+As soon as I had completed my report to the Chief, the _Ertak_ was sent
+instantly to a secret field, under heavy guard, and a new outer hull put
+in place.
+
+"This can't be made public," the Chief warned me. "It would ruin the
+whole future of space travel, as people are just learning to accept it
+as a matter of course. You will swear your men to utter secrecy, and
+pass me your word, in behalf of your officers and yourself, that you
+will not divulge any details of this trip."
+
+The scientists, of course, questioned me for days; they turned up their
+noses at the crude apparatus Hendricks had made, and which had saved the
+_Ertak_ and all her crew--but they kept it, I noticed, for future
+reference.
+
+All ships were immediately supplied with devices very similar, but more
+compact, the use of which only chief officers knew. And the scientists,
+to my knowledge, never did improve greatly on the model made for them by
+my third officer.
+
+Whether or not these devices were ever used, I do not know. The
+silver-sleeves at Base are a close-mouthed crew. Hendricks always held
+that the group of things which so nearly caused the deaths of all of us
+had wandered into our portion of Universe from some part of space beyond
+the fringe of our knowledge.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But the same source which supplied one brood may supply another.
+Evidently, from young Clippen's report, this thing has happened. And
+since starting this account, I have determined why the powers that be
+are willing now to have the knowledge made public. The new silicide
+coating with which all space ships have been covered, is proof against
+all electrical action. That it is smoother and reduces friction, is, in
+my opinion, no more than a rather halty explanation. It is, in reality,
+the decidedly belated scientific answer to a question raised back in the
+hey-day of the _Ertak_, and my own youth.
+
+That was many, many years ago, as the crabbed, uncertain writing on
+these pages proves.
+
+And now, rather thankfully, I am about to place the last of these pages
+under the curious weight which has held the others in place as I have
+written. That irregular bit of metal from the hull of the _Ertak_, so
+deeply pitted on the one side, where the hungry things had sapped our
+precious strength.
+
+"Electites," the scientists have dubbed these strange crescent-shaped
+things, young Clippen said. "Electites!" Something new under the sun!
+
+New to this generation, perhaps, but not to old John Hanson.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Vampires of Space, by Sewell Peaslee Wright
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