Authentic Science Fiction, No. 23 — page 39: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

74 THE SINGING SPHERES ‘em, in fact—but one which said ‘Every action has an equal © and opposite reaction.’ Work it out from that!” Tubby groaned. “Come on, come on—let’s hear what you did!” “Those force-beams—we saw how Fuzzy-bubble lifted the stone and pulled over a slab of rock when he gave us his first demonstration. Now you can’t push or pull anything without 7 getting a purchase somewhere.” He warmed to his explana- “a tions and began to gesticulate. “Imagine a man trying to push a door open. He presses against it with his hands, thereby digging his feet more strongly into the ground. Just as old Isaac said—an equal and opposite reaction. Yet if by any chance the door opens suddenly, while’s he’s still shoving, the: q pressure from his feet throws him off balance—” Then I saw it all, and marvelled at its simplicity. When the guards directed force-beams to provide that invisible 4 barrier intended to hold us captive, it was also necessary to find support with a repulsor beam of similar strength against the rock. Indeed, had we tried to pass between them and the cliff we should also have found a barrier there, yet the ad- justed beams held the spheres themselves in perfect balance. But when Hartnell ran that gravity-reactor through the force-beams, it nullified all effort exerted on that particular side and—as in the illustration of the man pushing against a | locked door—threw them off balance so unexpectedly that they had no time to readjust their pressure, and so violently q that they slammed themselves to extinction on the jagged stone. {”? shattered every single bone in your arms and shoulders He merely laughed. “But I didn’t, did I, Pop? And © here we are—away from the Place of Execution, safe and — sound.” | “So far.” amended Tubby, gloomily. “Wonder why they had to pick on a corner like that for it. Why not have the ceremonies in those nice, clammy vaults. They’re more in keeping with the atmosphere—” “Better get Pop to ask Fandar about it,” said Hartnell, lazily. He lay back comfortably, hands clasped behind his } helmet. We might have been enjoying a leisurely picnic on a summer’s day, instead of waiting to be found by Makkub’s | murder squad. “You mad young fool!” I said, aghast. “You might have | THE SINGING SPHERES 75 Anyway, for want of something better to do, I passed on the query. “Oh, yes,” said Fandar, “the old Place of Execution was the room where Makkub visited you. That has not been used for many years now. Dissipated energy from the bodies of victims refused to disperse completely and gave rise to strange, disturbing manifestations—” Ghosts? They had them here, on Kardoon? I closed my eyes and shivered, despite the heat. What was I doing on this planet, at all? Why couldn’t I be somewhere getting on with my work? A moderately competent botanist, getting on in years now, ought not to be marooned on such a desolate, forsaken world—without a blade of grass or scrap of lichen— hearing bizarre stories about the ghosts of executed spheres. I was thankful we hadn’t learned such things before being thrust into that dark, egg-shaped cell. “Listen!” said Hartnell, suddenly. “Are they cheering, or something?” A shrill, confused uproar sounded in the inter-com, making us all experience once more that unpleasant head-swimming. It is Makkub,” explained Fandar. “He has announced the hour when the Machine of Revelation shall be operated again. ‘Three hundred thousand people have been chosen as sacrifices—” The Mattus coldly reflected his horror. “It is more than half our population! There is much eroaning. What we all regarded as an honour is now an affliction. The people are not happy—” Hartnell said nobody could expect them to be. It is no part of our duty,” I told Fandar, “to say how your world should be governed. Yet we have offered a solution— let the council depose Makkub.” f He sighed. “That is impossible—we must have a ruler and while he is in authority he must be obeyed.” I wondered if ever, in the long and savage catalogue of crazy ambition, there had ever been a more senseless massacre. Probably such had occurred somewhere, though I was glad I’d never heard of them. And this vast slaughter was to be pressed through in the hone that Makkub could see whether when he came to the end of his days, his people would succeed in interring him in a marked grave! The ridiculous horror of the whole business smacked of a madman’s dream. =} ‘comilcbooks:co