Last Son of Krypton (24 page)

...and the pyramid had no point. The Master was gone, along with all his intentions.

Superman and the computer terminal crashed a space warp directly at the star Vega.
The hero was inside the time-snatcher again in less than 30 seconds of real time.
 

"The Master's gone," he told Luthor before the scientist knew he was back, "took off somewhere. Can you trace him?"

What followed were seconds wasted annoyingly, several useless words in abbreviated conversation, startled instants, and random feed-outs from the computer. There were checks and double-checks that always came out the same and were thus even more annoying in their original accuracy.

The battle on Oric was over, and Superman and Luthor had apparently won it, if only by default. The answer from the computer was the same each time. The course was locked in long ago. The Master had gone to Earth.

T
he scene struck Luthor as extremely funny. He laughed so hard he had to hold his stomach in with both hands.
 

There stood the biggest genuine legend Luthor had ever met, surrounded in this time-snatcher cab by the super-scientific technology of the Galactic Arm. This Man of Steel had bested all that surrounded him. He had, at least for the moment, confounded a brilliantly conceived and nearly executed scheme for massive conquest. A scheme that might still prove successful, owing in large part to this lunk-headed hero's amazing lack of imagination.

"Well, I don't see what's so funny, Luthor. I just said I think it's a trap. It's too much of a coincidence for Earth to be the Master's planned starting point for his takeover."

Luthor fell off his chair, trying to catch his breath, laughing.

"Keep up that heavy respiration, Luthor, and you'll use up your oxygen supply."

He laughed some more.

"I mean, if you were the Master and you wanted to get somebody like me out of the way, wouldn't you go somewhere where I'd feel on home territory to spring your trap?"

"You hopeless loon! I thought I was conceited, but—" Luthor lost his breath again and rolled over, nearly belching out his diaphragm.

"The universe is sinking slowly down around our ankles, and you think it's a laugh."

"Listen—" he broke up again.

After a few moments Luthor snatched back his composure long enough to tell his strange ally what he thought was going on.

"You think you're the only thing that's happening on Earth, don't you?" Luthor's tone became accusatory.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you're always accusing me of trying to make myself emporer of Earth, aren't you?"

"You've practically admitted it."

"I've said there are less worthy pursuits for someone of my intelligence and talent."

"If you say so."

"There are worlds around with greater natural resources, more developed wealth. You know that. And worlds without super-heroes parading around the place in funny clothes making sure nobody's tougher than they are. And I think I've made it clear that I'm altogether capable of finding and conquering myself a planet or two."

"I'll concede that point."

"But I've hung around Earth for a reason. I don't know why you kick around the place looking for work yourself if you haven't realized that what's happening on Earth right now is something any conquerer would give his Captain Video secret code ring to have."

"I'm afaid I don't think along those lines. What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about a global culture whose scientific wealth has outstripped by a light
year its social and political development in just one or two generations. I'm talking about a race with a population of humans that the planet manages to support far beyond its apparent ability to do so. I'm talking about four billion—count'em—four billion inteligent, incredibly industrious creatures. Capable of making decisions, with the manual dexterity to tie knots and pull triggers, who can navigate courses and plan complicated procedures over not only the next hour or the next day, but the next century. What's the intelligent population of the planet Regulus-6?"
 

"About 760 million."

"And at what stage of scientific development are they?"

"Last time I was there, someone had just figured out the steam turbine."

"And it'll be centuries before anyone comes up with the idea of putting it to use in transportation or trade."

"When were you on Regulus-6?"

"Remember when I broke out of jail last year and nobody knew where I was for three weeks?"

"You went to Regulus-6?"

"Give the man a cigar."

"I'm impressed."

"Listen. The population boom on Earth has gotten out of hand. There are whole cities—countries—continents—full of people aching for something useful to do with their lives. Talented, intelligent people. And what's more, the whole cockamamie world is wired for sight and sound. There isn't a grain of sand on the globe that doesn't have radio waves slicing through it, cauterizing it with electronic mumbo-jumbo twenty-four hours a day. The first Hitler type that can coordinate all that communications paraphernalia has the immediate galaxy's greatest living resource in the palm of his hand. And if it's title to the Galactic Arm the guy wants, then all he's got to do is convince all these intelligent, obedient, bored creatures that it'd be a kick to go off and do some heavy conquering for him. It worked with the Crusades, and look at all the trouble that caused."

"If you've realized that all along, why haven't you done it yourself?"

Luthor was beyond amusement. "What the sizzling suns do you think you've been keeping me from doing all these years, Jocko, playing Monopoly?"

"Great Krypton!"

"You talk funnier than I do, you self righteous lunk. That hybrid clown isn't on Earth to trap you. He's there despite you. And the longer you stay here worrying about it, the likelier it's going to be that he'll be able to—"

But Superman was gone, and Luthor wondered why the big guy kept winning.

Luthor had work to do, too. If those twenty-one facsimiles of the planet Oric were allowed to continue hanging there in orbit much longer, the original would inevitably turn into space dust in a cataclysm visible clear to Andromeda. As long as he was going about setting straight the balance of worlds today instead of dismembering them, he might just as well put everything here back the way it belonged before he went home. Besides that, there was something on Oric he had to pick up before he left.

The big Videobeam television screen in the sidewalk window next to the Galaxy Building was the first thing that struck Clark Kent as odd. Dan Reed, the newscaster who generally subsituted for Clark during vacations, was on the air with the 4:55P.M.
billboard. This was the five-minute summary of news headlines to be expanded on an hour later on the evening news.
 

As Reed signed off he said, "This is Dan Reed with Wednesday's headlines from the WGBS newsroom. Join me for the full report one hour from now."

Wednesday. Was it possible that Superman had miscalculated his space-warp travel and returned a day before he left Oric, or was the station simply runnning a tape of yeserday's news for some reason?

Clark stepped into the lobby for a newspaper. Yes, it was Thursday all right.

"B
ack from your vacation early, aintcha, Mr. Kent?" the lobby newsdealer said.
 

"Just a few days. Thought I'd take the rest of this week off later in the year, Jack."

"Well, you're back none too soon. Your friends been actin' awful weird all day."

"How so?"

"Well, like that Lombard guy. Y'know, the one with all the girlfriends?"

"I know which one you mean."

"He come in this morning, bought a paper, said 'good morning,' and went on up the elevator."

"What's weird about that?"

"Well, every morning since he got his job here he's walked in, said 'Hi, Jack, how's tricks' and tried to pass me a nickel for a quarter paper. Then he laughs like it's a big joke and goes off. Every morning like clockwork."

"Hi, Jack, how's tricks?"

"At first I said something like, 'She's fine, how's Agnes' but he didn't notice. He'd just laugh and go off...

"He would."

"Yep. 'Hi, Jack, how's tricks' Rest of the TV people were a little screwy, too. Like that nice Miss Lane who's all go-get-em all the time? She walked in prim and proper as can be, says 'good morning' just like Lombard, and walks to the elevator like nothing's wrong."

"So?"

"So? Miss Lane don't come in till four in the afternoon, that's so. She always knew what time it was before. Everybody said 'good morning,' and that's all. No matter what time of day it was."

"Thanks, Jack," Clark said, walking to the elevators. "I'm sure it's nothing, just nerves."

"Nerves. I dunno, Mr. Kent, I always said of all those screwy TV guys you were the only normal one."

The twentieth floor was naked as a ghost town. Even the wire service machines were silent. Clark walked into the hall, past the receptionist.

"Good morning," the girl said.

Clark strode down the hall to his office, passing open doors with a person at a desk behind each one, hands clasped, eyes front, faces pleasantly blank. Clark was the most animated, interesting person in the entire television operation. He greeted the faces behind the open office doors as he passed them. "Good morning," each one said.

The Master was surely on Earth somewhere. Or near it. Every television and radio station would be like this by now, every telegraph and telephone office, its personnel somehow mesmerized. Waiting. Clark ambled into Steve Lombard's office, sat down, and put his feet up on the desk.

"Good morning, Clark," Lombard said pleasantly.

"Hi, you dumb jock," Clark answered. "How's tricks?"

"Fine, thank you, and yourself?"

"Nothing new. Had a pretty good vacation, just flew in from Vega. Fought off an army of rocket-powered robots and saved a planet from blowing up this morning before breakfast."

"That's nice."

"Tell me, Steve, you overblown fool, what's everybody waiting around for?"

"The address."

"Whose address?"

"The Master's."

"When's that?"

"Six P.M. eastern time."

"Am I correct in assuming that he has managed to tie in all media on the planet to some broadcast facility of his own?"

"I don't know."

"Has he allowed for simultaneous translation over the airwaves using those language devices everyone on his home planet wears?"

"I don't know."

"Don't know much, do you, Grizzly? Tell me, when he got you all under his power, did you get to see what he looked like, this mysterious Master? Did he show you his face on a monitor screen of some sort?"

"He has four arms and a large mustache," Lombard said in a monotone. "'Gainst his rule need for freedom sure will fade."

"I thought so." Clark leaned back. "By the way, Stevieboy, while I've got you here, and since we have nearly an hour before the broadcast, there are some things I've been meaning to tell you."

"Yes, Clark?"

"For example, did you know you were a conceited jerk with delusions of self-worth?"

"Yes, Clark."

"And that you are quite incapable of feeling much of anything for anyone but yourself, and so you compensate by being aggressive and obnoxious?"

"Yes, Clark."

"And that bet we've got going, about the relative appeal of your Bloody Mary and my mother's special soft drink formula, remember that?"

"Yes, Clark."

"Well, the fix is in. It's rigged, you see, and you're going to be awfully embarrassed when you can't have enough of my soft drink."

"Yes, Clark."

"Let's see now. What did I leave out...?"

In a synchronized orbit 22 thousand miles over the Atlantic Ocean the Master and his slaves made a final check of the content of the Master's broadcast. It would do the job, the Master concluded.

At precisely 6 P.M. Eastern Time the Master was poised in his warp vehicle before a sophisticated broadcast camera. He began to speak.

In San Francisco a young woman named Linda Fentiman was watching television. The picture rolled momentarily as an unfamiliar face came on the screen and said,

"This is Clark Kent with the WGBS News from Metropolis ..."

In the Chinese province of Kwangtung a boy named Hua Lo-Feng rode a bicycle and listened to a small radio strapped to the handlebar as he heard an unfamiliar voice speak in fluent Cantonese, "...today's lead story concerns the apparent takeover by an alien financier of all mass communications facilities on Earth..."

Over the airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, Charles Belleville, a French pilot, and Kwame Niiga, a fight controller, were interrupted on their shortwave communication by a voice they heard speaking respectively French and Afrikaans, "...the alien is a native of the Vega star system and is reputedly known to Superman, who made this broadcast possible..."

And in telephone conversations all over the world, in languages and dialects uncounted, conversations were interrupted by "...details later in the show...."

A thunderous crack of sound interrupted Clark Kent's broadcast, and several feet in front of the reporter, among three dazed technical workers who were the only people in Studio B with Clark, lights and smoke of all colors began to swirl.

The colors collected and hardened into the form of Towbee, the minstrel from space, his once elfin face twisted with determination and rage.

"I am the Master," Towbee said, "and I assume you are prepared to die." He had no disguise to drop but his madness.

THE INFINITE

Humans once believed that God's love moved the planets and stars.

In their quest for the nature of God's love, humans learned that the conspiracy of certain forces, to which they gave names like
gravitation
,
momentum
and
equilibrium
, was actually responsible for the movements of the planets and stars.