The Gate to Xoran

by Hal K. Wells

He sat in a small half-darkened booth well over in the corner-the man with the strangely glowing blue-green eyes.The booth was one of a score that circled the walls of the "Maori Hut," a popular night club in the San Fernando Valley some five miles over the hills from Hollywood.It was nearly midnight. Half a dozen couples danced lazily in the central dancing space. Other couples remained t te- -t te in the secluded booths.In the entire room only two men were dining alone. One was the slender gray-haired little man with the weirdly glowing eyes. The other was Blair Gordon, a highly successful young attorney of Los Angeles. Both men had the unmistakable air of waiting for someone.Blair Gordon's college days were not so far distant that he had yet lost any of the splendid physique that had made him an All-American tackle. In any physical combat with the slight gray-haired stranger, Gordon knew that he should be able to break the other in two with one hand.Yet, as he studied the stranger from behind the potted palms that screened his own booth. Gordon was amazed to find himself slowly being overcome by an emotion of dread so intense that it verged upon sheer fear. There was something indescribably alien and utterly sinister in that dimly seen figure in the corner booth.The faint eerie light that glowed in the stranger's deep-set eyes was not the lambent flame seen in the chatoyant orbs of some night-prowling jungle beast. Rather was it the blue-green glow of phosphorescent witch-light that flickers and dances in the night mists above steaming tropical swamps.The stranger's face was as classically perfect in its rugged outline as that of a Roman war-god, yet those perfect features seemed utterly lifeless. In the twenty minutes that he had been intently watching the stranger, Gordon would have sworn that the other's face had not moved by so much as the twitch of an eye-lash.****Then a new couple entered the Maori Hut, and Gordon promptly forgot all thought of the puzzlingly alien figure in the corner. The new arrivals were a vibrantly beautiful blond girl and a plump, sallow-faced man in the early forties. The girl was Leah Keith, Hollywood's latest screen sensation. The man was Dave Redding, her director.A waiter seated Leah and her escort in a booth directly across the room from that of Gordon. It was a maneuver for which Gordon had tipped lavishly when he first came to the Hut.A week ago Leah Keith's engagement to Blair Gordon had been abruptly ended by a trivial little quarrel that two volatile temperaments had fanned into flames which apparently made reconciliation impossible. A miserably lonely week had finally ended in Gordon's present trip to the Maori Hut. He knew that Leah often came there, and he had an overwhelming longing to at least see her again, even though his pride forced him to remain unseen.Now, as he stared glumly at Leah through the palms that effectively screened his own booth, Gordon heartily regretted that he had ever come. The sight of Leah's clear fresh beauty merely made him realize what a fool he had been to let that ridiculous little quarrel come between them.Then, with a sudden tingling thrill, Gordon realized that he was not the only one in the room who was interested in Leah and her escort.Over in the half-darkened corner booth the eerie stranger was staring at the girl with an intentness that made his weird eyes glow like miniature pools of shimmering blue-green fire. Again Gordon felt that vague impression of dread, as though he were in the presence of something utterly alien to all human experience.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories

ebook

First published July 9, 2010

About the author

Harold Kerton Wells was born in September 1899 in Little Hocking and lived in Belpre and Athens, Ohio, before seeking greener pastures on the West Coast. Wells enlisted in the Ohio National Guard in May 1917, a little more than a month after the United States declared war on Germany. He was discharged fourteen months later with a Surgeon's Certificate of Disability. Wells was classified as 50% disabled, but I don't know the nature of his wound, injury, or illness. Two years later he was enumerated in the federal census in Athens where he worked as a salesman in a dry goods store. His father was employed as a carpenter at the state hospital, a place now reputed to be haunted.

By 1930, Wells was living in Los Angeles and calling himself a writer of magazine fiction. The earliest credits I have found for him are from about that time period: articles for Motion Picture Magazine in 1927-1928 and stories in Weird Tales in 1929-1932. His stories for "The Unique Magazine" were three in number, the last of which has a very intriguing title: "The Brass Key" (Feb. 1929), "The Daughter of Isis" (Feb. 1930), and "The Ordeal of Wooden-Face" (Jan. 1932). Wells also wrote a letter to the magazine, printed in the February issue, 1935. Incidentally, Wells was enumerated with Richard W. Faubion in Los Angeles in 1930. Faubion may or may not have been the same man who later served in the air force as a psychologist.

Hal K. Wells wrote several more stories for fantasy and science fiction magazines from 1931 to 1954. His credits include tales for Astounding Stories, Fantastic Universe, Mystery Tales, Startling Stories, Super Science Stories, and Thrilling Wonder Stories. He was also the author of a story upon which the film A Moony Mariner (1927) was based.

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Reviews

[Zen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is a Classic, By-The-Books, piece of Classic Alien Invasion Golden Age Sci-Fi Pulp Action.

A Metal Alien is going to open up a Gate between Xoran and Eath so that the Nasty Avenging Robots can invade an unsuspecting Earth.

I can almost picture the B&W 1950's Television version of this story with its Cheap Sets with Flahing Lights and Sparks of Electricity, the Cheesy Alien Robot Makeup, the Male Lead being a Retired Sports Star trying to break into Acting, the awkward Fight between our Hero and the Alien, the Heroine with a Hairdo that is stiff and immovable......

So just a lot of Cheesy fun. Just don't expect much in the way of Literature.

And to end this review, here is the Explanation for how the Gate from Xoran works, just in case you are interested:

"That gate [Arlok points] is the one through the fourth dimension, for Xoran and your planet in a four-dimensional universe are almost touching each other in spite of the great distance separating them in a three-dimensional universe. We of Xoran, being three-dimensional creatures like you Earthlings, can not even exist on a four-dimensional plane. But we can, by the use of apparatus to open a Gate, pass through a thin sector of the fourth dimension and emerge in a far distant part of our three-dimensional universe.

“The situation of our two worlds,” Arlok continued, “is somewhat like that of two dots on opposite ends of a long strip of paper that is curved almost into a circle. To two-dimensional beings capable only of realizing and traveling along the two dimensions of the paper itself those dots might be many feet apart, yet in the third dimension straight across free space they might be separated by only the thousandth part of an inch. In order to take that short cut across the third dimension the two-dimensional creatures of the paper would have only to transform a small strip of the intervening space into a two-dimensional surface like their paper.

“They could, do this, of course, by the use of proper vibration-creating machinery, for all things in a material universe are merely a matter of vibration. We of Xoran plan to cross the barrier of the fourth dimension by creating a narrow strip of vibrations powerful enough to exactly match and nullify those of the fourth dimension itself. The result will be that this narrow strip will temporarily become an area of three dimensions only, an area over which we can safely pass from our world to yours.”

You see? All you really needed in those days was a Sciencey sounding Explanation for Something and you wrote a story around it. Great Stuff!

[Phil Giunta · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sentient, invincible robot named Arlok comes to Earth (somehow) to abduct two humans for experimentation (plot device) and open a gateway to his distant homeward of Xoran, which will allow an army of his kind to conquer our planet. Originally printed in the January 1931 edition of Astounding Stories, this tale is a product of its time with the hero an all-American football player who tries to rescue his former fiancee and gorgeous Hollywood actress girlfriend from the robot's clutches and thwart its evil plans for global domination (cue dramatic music).

[Forked Radish · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Alas, poor Arlok! I knew him well, Leah.”
“Then why did you cut him up?”
“He has quite a funny bone!”
“He had funny bones, you mean.”
Note: Millikan rays = cosmic rays

[Alec · Rating 2 out of 5]

very basic stop the aliens from invading story, the only positive I can say is the fun style of classic sci-fi.

[Tony Ciak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun and weird, scifi short story