ASSIGNMENT ONE
THE ENERGY EATERS
CHAPTER I
Storm Over Gerry
NOBODY knows exactly what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable body. Science, with a view to solving that bewhiskered problem, had been eagerly watching the feud between Nine Planets Films, Inc. and Gerry Carlyle, the Catch-'em-Alive woman. But so far honors had been about even, though Gerry's hot temper had become even fierier under the strain, and Von Zorn, president of the great motion picture company, had been under a doctor's care for some time.
At the moment he was sitting behind his gleaming glass desk and twitching slightly as he glared at Anthony Quade, ace director and trouble-shooter extraordinary for Nine Planets.
"Look," he said in a deceptively soft voice, "I don't ask for much, Mr. Quade. Just a little cooperation from my staff. All I want is a signature, two short words on this contract. That's not too much to expect from a billion dollar organization with the cream of the System's technical and promotional brains, is it?"
Quade settled his large, big-boned body more comfortably in the chrome and leather chair and blinked sleepily. Von Zorn changed his tone and his voice quavered slightly as he went on.
"I'm a sick man, Tony. I can't stand this continual worry. Somehow I don't think I have long to live. My heart. And all I ask you to do is get a signature on this contract."
"A great act, Chief," Quade said approvingly. "But I've heard it a few dozen times before. I think I'm allergic to your heart. Every time you get angry I find myself dodging Whip's on Venus or shooting energy-storms on Mars. I need a vacation."
"Afraid?" Von Zorn asked tauntingly.
"Sure," Quade said. "I've fought haywire robots from Pluto; I've handled the worst temperaments on the Moon; I've even brought you pix of the Martian Inferno. But I positively won't risk my life with that--that Roman candle in skirts."
"Think of the box office."
"I know. It's worth millions to have Gerry Carlyle tied up in a contract so she won't go off and bring back a cargo of Martian monsters for the London Zoo every time we shoot a Mars epic with robots. I don't like it any better than you do, Chief. That dame scoops us every time--and the public won't look at our robots when they can see the real thing. I can see myself asking Gerry Carlyle to sign that contract."
Von Zorn hesitated. "Tony, I'd ask her myself. Only?"
"Only what?"
"She won't sign."
Quade nodded, frowning. "We've got nothing she wants. You can offer her a fortune and she'd still say no. The only--wait a minute!"
Von Zorn tensed. "Got an idea?"
"Maybe. Gerry Carlyle will sell her soul for one thing--a new monster. Something nobody's ever captured or even seen before. Jumping Jupiter, I've got it! If she'll make a flicker for us, we'll give her the beast for her Zoo." Von Zorn said, "And just where do we get this beast?"
"Just leave that to me. I've plenty of technical resources in the labs."
"If you're thinking of a synthetic monster?"
"What I'm thinking of will surprise you," Quade said mysteriously. "Give me thirty days, and I'll get you a beast that'll make Gerry Carlyle turn green. Chief, she'll be begging you to let her sign that contract."
Grinning, Quade went out, leaving Von Zorn licking his lips at the prospect of a defeated and supplicant Gerry Carlyle.
* * * *
It was bedlam. Newscasters swarmed in the office; photographers snapped their flashbulbs continually; questions and shouts filled the place with babble. Through it all the central figure posed gracefully against the massive desk, cool and unperturbed as an iceberg.
She was dressed in mirror-polished high boots, riding pants, and polo shirt open at her tanned throat; these were the badges of her profession. For this was the New York office of Gerry Carlyle, grim huntress of fierce monsters on the inhospitable planets of the solar System, serene and gracious hostess now.
But the occasion was one that tried to the utmost the steel control she placed on her fiery temper. For Gerry, according to the delighted newsmen, had been scooped--and how!
"No two ways about it, Miss Carlyle," said one of the reporters. "This what's-his-name has really got something--a form of life nobody's ever seen before."
"Seeing is believing," said Gerry sweetly.
"Every newscast from the Moon, for the last six hours has had something about these jiggers. From Mercury, the guy says."
Gerry quirked up an eyebrow. "I've scoured Mercury's twilight zone twice for life-forms; I've brought back the only living things ever seen by man on the surface of Mercury. I even went over the dark side once."
"These animals come from Hotside."
"That, to begin with, is a bare-faced lie," Gerry smiled. "D'you know what the temperature is on the sunward side of Mercury? No matter what kind of insulation he used in his spacesuit, a man's brains would boil in a split second."
"Sure," said the reporter. "But this guy has the creatures, Miss Carlyle, and nobody has ever seen anything like 'em before, and he claims they're from Hotside."
"Well, you're just wasting your time, boys, if you've come up, here to get my statement. I've already told you it's a hoax."
"Professor Boleur looked 'em over. He says they're the McCoy," persisted the nervy reporter, defying the lightning.
Gerry scowled at this, and more flashbulbs went off. Boleur's reputation was unimpeachable, impossible to ignore.
Just then Gerry's secretary came in, looking apprehensive.
"A telecall, Miss Carlyle. From-er-from the Moon."
Electric tension filled the room. Gerry took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and closed it again. She said very softly, "If it's from Mr. Von Zorn, tell him I'm not in."
"No, it's a Mr. Anthony Quade."
"I've never heard of him," Gerry said witheringly, and turned away. But a dozen eager voices informed her that Tony Quade was the man who had brought back the monsters from Mercury, and that he was one of the biggest figures in the film industry.
"Really!" said Gerry scornfully, and strode into the televisor room, dark eyes narrowed dangerously. The reporters trailed her.
Quade was visible on the screen, leaning negligently forward, puffing on a blackened briar. He opened his mouth to speak, but the woman gave him no chance.
"You," she stated, "are Quade, Von Zorn's stooge. For months your unpleasant boss has been after me to make a picture for Nine Planets. Whatever this nonsense is about bringing back a monster from Hotside, its purpose is to trick me into signing a contract. The answer is--no! But definitely!" The cold, incisive words made Quade blink. Obviously he had underestimated this very capable young woman.
He shrugged.
"You're quite right, Miss Carlyle. Except that there's no trickery involved. It's a straight business proposition. As a rule I don't like to do business with women because they're apt to use their emotions instead of their brains, but?" Quade paused, eyeing Gerry blandly.
The woman's lips tightened. For her, Catch-'em-Alive Carlyle, to be accused of feminine weaknesses, was insupportable.
"Go ahead, Mr. Quade," she said. "I'm listening."
Quade nodded slightly, and Von Zorn himself moved into focus. His small, simian face was twisted into a somewhat frightful smile. Between cupped hands he held what appeared, at first glance, to be a large ball of fur, perhaps a trifle larger than a porcupine. It was amorphous, settling itself constantly into new positions like a jellyfish.
Von Zorn lifted one hand and literally poured the remarkable creature from one palm to the other. As he did so, a myriad pale orange and blue sparks flickered about the tips of the animal's furlike coat.
Gerry's lips parted to form a round, red "O." For a moment she stood undecided, her extreme distaste for Von Zorn battling with her natural instincts as a huntress.
Curiosity won. She moved closer to the screen.
"It's something new," she admitted reluctantly. "I've never run across anything just like it. Where did you get it, Mr. Quade?"
"Mercury Hotside. That's the truth."
"Well--how?"
Von Zorn broke in, leering slightly.
"That's a professional secret."
Gerry looked through the man without apparent difficulty.
"What sort of creature is it, Mr. Quade? It hasn't any eyes, nose, ears or limbs, as far as I can see."
"Quite right," Quade said, "It has no visible sensory organs. Our labs are working on that angle right now, investigating. If you'd like to examine one of these closely--we have several of 'em--they'll be in the Nine Planets exhibit room on Lunar Boulevard. I'd like to send you one for the London Zoo, but?"
Von Zorn broke in.
"I can send one to you by spacemail right now, if?" He held up a sheet of paper that was obviously a contract. "If you get what I mean!" Gerry's rigid control snapped. She struck savagely at the televisor switch, and the screen went blank. The reporters surged around her. This was a story! Gerry Carlyle beaten fairly, forced to dicker with her most hated enemy if she wished to keep the reputation of the London Zoo as the only complete collection of the System's life.
Gerry impaled everyone in the room with a scorching glance. "I know what you're thinking," she snapped. "And the answer is no. Finally and irrevocably--no!"
The reporters left with the air of men retreating from the brink of a volcano, and presently Gerry Carlyle was alone.
The volcano paced the room, seething, After a time Gerry paused, and let out a quiet whistle. She called her secretary
"Yes, Miss Carlyle?"
"Give the London Zoo a call, will you? Tell 'em to send over Volume 7 from my private file. By stratosphere plane. I'm in a hurry." Gerry's notebooks, compiled into a library of incredible fact that read like fantasy, were the result of years spent exploring the alien worlds of the System.
She remembered now that, during one of her earliest trips, she had discovered a microscopic Martian spore that in some respects resembled Von Zorn's Mercurian importation. Unfortunately she couldn't recall much about it, but nevertheless a vague uneasiness gnawed at the back of her mind.
She had a hunch that Von Zorn and Quade were running into trouble.
)
The Interplanetary Huntress Returns for more of the unique blend of action, humor and romance that made Femme Fatales, a website devoted to "pulp's crime-fighting heroines," proclaims her "an adventuress of the first water." Here is more of the interplanetary "bring-'em-back-alive" gal, Gerry Carlyle, science fiction's first heroine. First, she's off to the moon to rescue the colony there from certain death when the heat, oxygen and gravity fail due to the chilling menace of the energy-eaters. But Luna is only the launching pad for her real adventure, a rocket voyage around the sun for a once-in-a-lifetime chance to rendezvous with Almussen's comet--where she comes face-to-face with the "seven sleepers"--a dangerous alien lifeform within the comet! But when danger calls, when the odds are long, when men are helpless--that's when the icy-eyed woman the media dub, "the interplanetary huntress," arrives on the scene. (And you can be sure her carefree, sardonic co-pilot, Tommy Strike, the man she loves to hate and hates to love, won't be far behind!) Return to the thrilling futures of yesteryear, before computers were invented, before spaceflight grew tame, when women and men rocketed from planet to planet in search of, and finding, high-adventure and a life that challenged them to be the most they could be. As Galaxy Science Fiction Magazine put it: "This will take you back to the good old days of S-F--the days of monsters and gimmicks.... The heyday of Gerry Carlyle, the fabulously gorgeous interplanetary hunter--sizzling stuff--surprisingly readable. If you like a huge collection of assorted BEMs and well-thought-out gimmicks in tight situations, you will assuredly go for this." The second in a three volume edition of the Adventures of Gerry Carlyle, Interplanetary Huntress.
