The Conquerors by Lan Wright

Author:Lan Wright [Wright, Lan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci Fi Short Story
Publisher: Science Fantasy magazine
Published: 1954-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

It was several minutes before he managed to compose himself sufficiently, but when at last he raised his head, there was only anger in his eyes, still wet with tears of shock.

“Why couldn’t you leave us alone?” His voice shook with his emotion.

“Would you have left us alone here, once you had found a way of conquering us?” Baria retaliated gently.

Burl did not answer. He knew the charge was justified.

“Well, now we know, and we can do something about it.”

Baria shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“When I get back to Earth—”

“We won’t let you.”

“Try and stop me.” Burl rose gigantically and backed away from the table. “For all your power I do not think you will be able to stand the blast of an exploding pellet, Baria. There is still an element of mortality about you which I think is worth testing.”

He grabbed for the gun in his holster, but even as he drew it he knew with sickening horror that there was something wrong. The metal was soft and pitted in his hand, and as he looked down at it with wide, startled eyes, flakes of reddened, rusty metal fell to the floor and crumbled where they lay. As a weapon it was useless.

“You did not ask me why there was no metal on the planet,” Baria reminded him gently.

Burl regarded the crumbled ruin of the pistol as if it hypnotised him. The hand which held it opened spasmodically and allowed it to fall unchecked to the floor. It struck with a dull, doomed thud.

“There are elements in the physical make-up of this world which make it impossible for metal to exist.” Baria’s voice reached him through a roaring haze of horror as a thought was bom and grew within his mind. A thought which paralysed him with its grim significance, and he heard again the voice of Willis, “Bit more oxygen, fraction too much argon, and a couple of other gases which I can’t identify.”

“The ship,” he croaked, and turning rushed from the house, stumbling blindly and wildly across the threshold and out over the rough, uneven country.

Baria and Sanders walked to the door and stood watching him.

“Shall I stop him?” asked Sanders.

“No.” Baria sounded almost sad. “No, it would do no good.”

Burl blundered through the long grass and up the gentle slope to the top of the rise. Before him on the plain he could see the ship where they had left her. In the light of brilliant Sirius she did not shine or gleam as she had done on her native Earth, and there was no beauty about her as she lay on the too green grass of the plain. She was dull and reddened, her surface pitted and scarred as if she had laid there for uncounted centuries while the harness of her skin was worn by the seasons and the weather.

“Got to get her off.” The thought pounded in his brain and surged through his body, forcing his muscles to respond to the frantic effort of his mind.

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