BEYOND THE THUNDER

By H. B. Hickey

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories December 1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Ten thousand persons in New York looked skyward at the first rumble of sound. The flash caught them that way, seared them to cinder, liquefied their eyeballs, brought their vitals boiling out of the fissures of their bodies. They were the lucky ones. The rest died slowly, their monument the rubble which had once been a city.

Of all that, Case Damon knew nothing. Rocketing up in the self-service elevator to his new cloud-reaching apartment in San Francisco, his thoughts were all on the girl who would be waiting for him.

"She loves me, she loves me not," he said to himself. They were orchid petals, not those of daisies, that drifted to the floor of the car.

"She loves me." The last one touched the floor softly, and Case laughed.

Then the doors were opening and he was racing down the hall. No more lonely nights for him, no more hours wasted thumbing through the pages of his little black book wondering which girl to call. Case Damon, rocket-jockey, space-explorer, was now a married man, married to the most beautiful girl in the world.

He scooped Karin off her feet and hugged her to him. Her lips were red velvet on his, her spun gold hair drifted around his shoulders.

"Box seats for the best show in town, honey," he gloated in her ear.

He fished around in his pockets with one hand while he held her against him with the other. They'd said you couldn't get tickets for that show. But what "they" said never stopped Case Damon, whether it was a matter of theatre tickets, or of opening a new field on a distant airless planet.

"Turn off that telecast," he said. "I'm not interested in Interplan news these days. From now on, Case Damon keeps his feet on terra firma."

And that was the way it was going to be. His interest in the uranium on Trehos alone should keep him and Karin in clover for the rest of their lives. They'd have fun, they'd have kids, they'd live like normal married people. The rest of the universe could go hang.

"If you'd stop raving, I might get a word in edgewise," Karin begged.

"The floor is yours. Also the walls, the building, the whole darned city if you want it," Case laughed.

"That telecast is ticking for you. Washington calling Case Damon. Washington calling Case Damon. Since you left an hour ago it's been calling you."

"Let it call. It's my constitutional right not to answer."

But his mood was changing to match Karin's. His lean, firm-jawed features were turning serious. Tension tightened his powerful body.

"It must be important, Case," Karin said. "They're using your code call. They wouldn't do that unless it was urgent."

He listened to the tick of the machine. Unless you knew, it sounded only like the regular ticking that told the machine was in operation. But there were little breaks here and there. It was for him.

Three long strides took him to the machine. His deft fingers flicked switches, brought a glow to the video tubes.

"Case Damon," he said softly. "Come in, Washington."

It was Cranly's face that filled the screen. But a Cranly Case barely recognized. The man had aged ten years in the last three days. His voice was desperate.

"Good grief, man! Where've you been? Get down here fast. But fast!"

"Listen, Cranly. I'm on my honeymoon. Or have you forgotten? Remember three days ago you were best man at a wedding? Well, the fellow at the altar was Case Damon."

That should have gotten a smile out of Cranly. But it didn't. He was even a little angry now.

"This is an order, Case! I'm giving you the honor of being the first non-official person to know about it. Supreme Emergency Mobilization and Evacuation Order. New York was blasted out of existence an hour ago!"

All flights grounded, the skyport in a turmoil, but that little silver card got him and Karin through. Nobody knew yet what was going on. They were readying for something big, but they didn't know what as yet.

Case hurried Karin to his own hangar, bustled her into the small speeder.

"The fishing cabin on the Columbia, honey. Stay there! And don't worry if you don't hear from me."

He didn't even wait to see her take off. Karin would be safe enough. The cabin was a hundred miles from any possible military objective. All he had to do was sit tight until things were straightened out. New York blasted! That could have been an accident. It must have been an accident. The only alternative would be war. And there were no more wars. Somebody at Supreme Council must have lost his head to issue the E.M.E. order.

Sure, that was it. Leave it to the politicos to get excited and jump out of their skins. Below him the glistening towers of Kansas City flashed and faded and were replaced minutes later by the towers of St. Louis. Chicago was batting out a "clear the sky order."

All three of those cities would have been gone by now if there were really a war, Case told himself. But Cranly was no politician. And he wasn't the kind that scared easily.

It was Cranly who met him at Washington skyport. Cranly was scared, all right. He was more frightened than he'd been the time their ship had started to tear loose from their mooring on that moon of Jupiter. His face was gray.

"I'll fill you in as we go," he said. The official car jerked into high speed and Cranly talked. "It was no accident. Get that straight. New York was hit from the outside."

"But how? By what? Under the Unified Council there's no one who'd have anything to gain by war. There isn't even anyone on Earth with the power to make war."

"That's why we wanted you here. It figures to be an enemy from another planet."

"That doesn't make sense." Case swivelled around to face Cranly. "You and I know our system as well as anyone alive. Cut out the guessing and give me the facts."

"All right. Enough people saw the thing from Jersey so that we know what happened. They say there was a rumble like thunder. Out of a clear sky, mind you. Then—get this—the sky seemed to open! There was a blast of light. That's all. New York was gone."

"Atom blast?"

"Hardly. No mushroom cloud. Accident? No, and you'll learn why I'm so sure shortly."

Case Damon had met some of these men before. A few others he recognized from their pictures. The Supreme Council. They were plenty worried. Strogoff was chewing his mustache; Vargas drummed nervously with thick fingers. Cunningham and Osborn were pacing the floor.

"Thank heaven for one thing," Osborn said. Vargas looked up at him quickly, his dark eyes slits in his swarthy face.

"For what?" Vargas asked bitterly.

"That there has been no panic. Urban evacuations are proceeding quietly."

"I still think it could have been some natural phenomenon," Case interrupted. "Even a terrific bolt of lightning."

Cranly's big shoulders lifted as a recorder was wheeled into the room. He indicated where the machine was to be set down.

"We've wasted a little time in letting you make these guesses," he told Case. "All for a reason. We want you to realize fully what sort of weapon we are up against. Now listen to this message that was beamed onto the Council's private line a few minutes after the blast."

He went to the recorder and tripped a lever. The instrument settled to a low whine that soon disappeared as the recording tape entered the converter. The voice might have been in the room with them.

"To the Supreme Council of the Planet Earth: What happened to New York was only a token of what can be done to