Collected fiction, p.111
Collected Fiction, page 111
We wasted more time while the ships were floated out. Without waiting to don protective bandages I dived into one, Andy into the other. We shot up side by side, then Andy trailed me as I led the way at breakneck speed.
I flicked on the audiophone, tried to get in touch with Jimmy. But reception was bad, especially at this pace. I didn’t dare slow down.
I was sweating and gasping for breath when the cluster of camera and stunt-ships loomed up before me, tiny against the vast immensity of space. I saw my own ship, called Andy on the ’phone and pointed it out to him. On the screen I saw his jaw tighten grimly.
“I’ll cut around—” he said.
THE rest was lost as his tubes jetted ill and he curved away from me in an arc that would intersect Daly’s craft.
Then another figure came on the screen. It was Jimmy’s. He was bandaged from head to foot, a huge, disproportioned monster with triple lenses magnifying his eyes, his face completely hidden otherwise. Only his voice, muffled and thick, told me of his identity.
“Watch the show, Mike,” he said. “This is going to be good!”
“Jimmy!” I yelled. “Hold it—”
“Happy landings, fella,” he said, and his hand touched a lever and swung it over.
The screen for a moment showed only a starlit space. Then a ship came into view, and a rocket blasted from it. That was the beginning. I saw the vessel jerk, recoil as another tube jetted; then the whole hull seemed to explode in a roaring, raving hell of fire.
I realized that the audiophone was still connected by beam to Jimmy’s ship. I heard him grunt, heard his breath go out with a rush; heard him fighting for air. The choking, rattling noises that came to me were almost unheard amid the grinding and screaming of metal. The spacespin was tearing the guts out of the ship, and I gritted my teeth to keep from yelling.
Power—power that would strain solid, toughened steel—blasting with unimaginable force at the flesh and bone of a man!
I heard Andy’s voice, hoarse, scarcely human.
“Jimmy!” he cried, “Jimmy!”
And in answer the spaceship sent up a scream of tortured metal. I could no longer hear a sound from Jimmy amid the uproar. I saw a camera-ship flash down, caught a glimpse on the vision screen of Dancey’s face, alight with an infernal mixture of delight and horror. The big boss himself had come out to screen this scene.
I could see his lips frame the words, “What a shot! God, what a shot!”
The titans bottled up in the rockets were bursting free and leaping redly to the stars in mad exultation. The ship spun madly, jolting, rocking, a flame of supernal brilliance against eternal night.
Then, quite suddenly, it was over. The rockets died. One tube jetted a last spark; then the ship hung silent and quiescent. My screen went blank, abruptly lit up to show the control room of Jimmy’s ship, and a slumped, motionless figure strapped to the pilot’s seat. Blood stained the bandages.
“Harrigan!” Dancey’s voice called.
And I heard Andy shouting, “Jimmy!”
I couldn’t speak; my lips were bitten through and bleeding.
The kid stirred; a bandaged hand groped out vaguely.
“Yeah—I’m okay—” a voice croaked.
The sound of hoarse breathing came.
“The drinks—are on you, Mike!” Jimmy gasped.
I felt a surge of reaction that left me limp and dizzy. Cutting through the haze that surrounded me came a new voice, shrill with hysteria, knife-edged with bitter hatred. Daly’s voice!
“Damn you, Sloane!” he screamed. “You’re not coming out alive! Not if I can help it!”
The screen was a shifting mirage. I got a glimpse of Daly’s contorted face, drug-maddened, eyes red with insanity. I saw his fingers stab at the controls.
I saw Jimmy jerk erect, reach forward—and fall back limply, to hang motionless against the straps.
And, bright against the stars, I saw Daly’s cruiser racing straight for the ship where Jimmy lay unconscious!
QUICKER than thought were my actions as I jerked at the controls, blasted my rockets, shot down toward the killer. But swift as I was, Andy was before me. I saw his lean, silver racer leap past me, and his face appeared on the screen, lips set in a mirthless grin, eyes alight with the old battle lust. I could never have reached Daly in time. No pilot in the system could—but one.
It meant death.
It meant acceleration that would kill a man unprotected by bandages and other safeguards. For a second Andy’s stare flickered aside and met mine. I saw him nod a little—and I don’t like to remember what happened after that.
He let go all his stern rockets at once. It took split-second calculation, unbelievably perfect piloting. And it took valor, too—the valor of a hero.
I saw Andy’s face go. The acceleration smashed down on him; the devil in the rockets took him by the throat and strangled him; it crushed his eyes and left red hollows; it tore his lips to ribbons and clawed the flesh from his cheeks. The rocket titan killed Andy in a pulse-beat, right there before me.
Then there was a white flare; lightnings raved across the screen; and when the beam shifted I saw two shattered hulks drifting in space.
I saw Jimmy’s bandaged figure on the screen, and he stirred and tried to sit up.
I heard the warning siren shrieking through the audiophone.
And I heard Dancey’s voice, breathless, tight with strain, gasping over and over, “God, what a shot! What a shot!”
Then, later, when I stood by Jimmy’s hospital bed in Thaler Island, knowing that his injuries were not fatal, the old tightness came back into my throat as I noticed how much his grin, twisted and painful as it was, resembled Andy’s. I hadn’t told him about his brother yet. I’d wait a while.
But I told him enough to make a light come into his bloodshot eyes.
“Then we can go home, Mike? Back to—to Earth?”
I nodded. “Back to Earth. And Bette. As soon as you mend a few broken bones.”
“And you say Andy fixed it up,” the kid said softly. “He—he’s a swell guy, Mike. A gentleman and a scholar.”
“Yeah,” I said, and my voice wasn’t quite steady. “A gentleman. A gentleman—and a pilot.”
WORLD’S PHARAOH
Pete Manx Annihilates Time and History as He Streamlines the World of Yesterday
PETE MANX had a headache. “The headache’s name was Dr. Jit Horatio Mayhem. The worthy doctor was driving customers away from Pete’s lucrative concession in Funland.
“Shoot till you win!” Pete bawled. “Knock over a milk bottle—it’s easy. Prizes for one and all! You can’t lose!” Mayhem’s small, scrawny figure bobbed about excitedly.
“A word with you, Mr. Manx. I must have a word with you.”
“Shoot till you win!” Pete squalled, and to Mayhem: “Go ’way. You bother me. Prizes for—”
Mayhem took out a wallet big enough to choke a politician and began to count out vast quantities of currency. Pete gulped, stared at the money, and beckoned to his shill.
“Take over, Joe. I’ll be back. C’mon, Doc.” His squat form vaulted the counter; he collected Mayhem and the dough and led the jittery man of medicine to a quiet spot behind the booth. “Now spit it out. What’s eating you?”
“I need your help,” Mayhem said. “I’m in trouble.”
Pete’s gaze clung lovingly to the greenbacks. “Yeah?”
“I’ll pay you well. Just for a little bit of help. Not much. A—an experiment—”
“Whoa!” Pete said, backing away. “You tried that on me before. Sending me back to Rome in your time machine. Landing me in a circus full of starving lions, Ixnay. Not for me. Not twice.”
“It isn’t a time machine,” Mayhem snapped. “There’s no such thing. My device simply sends your consciousness into the central time-hub around which time itself revolves. You didn’t travel in time. Your mind merely took possession of the brain and body of a Roman citizen.”
Pete laughed bitterly. “Yeah. Me and your pal Professor Aker. I still think it was a dirty trick—sending us both back in time like that.”
At mention of Aker’s name Mayhem had turned slightly green. He hesitated, licked his lips, and finally said: “Uh—that’s just the trouble, Pete. The professor and I got in a slight—er—argument, and he contended my device was a fake. Claimed it was hypnotic in nature. Ha! I—well—I had occasion to prove my point.”
“Oh-oh,” Pete whistled. “I bet you sent the prof back to Rome again.”
“Not exactly,” Mayhem denied, looking worried. “Egypt was his destination.”
“A nice place for a vacation. I hear the weather’s swell there. Pyramids and stuff, huh?”
“Egypt was a slightly different place under the Pharaohs. A bit—er—savage. The professor is a rather impractical man, I fear. A man of science, true, but he hasn’t sense enough to come in out of the rain.”
“Does it rain in Egypt?” Pete asked blandly, and, without waiting for an answer, went on: “Your machine works both ways, don’t it? Why don’t you bring the prof back?”
“I can’t,” Mayhem moaned. “Time is curved, like space, and I should be able to bring him back. But the device had a breakdown. It’ll take weeks to repair. I can still send minds into the past, but I can’t bring them back. Not till I’ve got a certain part that has to come from London, and even then it’ll take time. Aker got into all sorts of trouble in Rome, you know. He may be killed before I can get him back from Egypt.”
“Well, I won’t rat,” Pete grunted.
“And they can’t hand a murder rap on you without a stiff. Cheer up.”
“But everybody knows I experimented on Aker. They’re asking questions already. Pete, you got along all right in Rome. I want you to go back to Egypt, find Aker, and keep an eye on him till. I get the machine fixed.”
“Glad to have seen you again! Pete said. “Good-by.”
“You won’t do it?”
“Do I look like I just got out of the ninny-bin?”
“Ninny-bin?”
“Booby-hatch. Nut-house. Don’t you understand English?”
“Yes,” Mayhem said with wasted irony. “I understand English. And I’ll pay you five thousand dollars to help me out.”
PETE shook his head slowly. “I could use that dinero. I could go to New York and open a concession at the Fair. Cripes, if it was anything else—but it’s suicide. Not for little Pete. Sorry, Doc.”
Pete turned away. Then he stopped. Something was digging painfully into the small of his back. He stood perfectly still.
“I didn’t think it of you, Doc,” he said reproachfully. “Pulling a rod on me. It ain’t friendly.”
“You,” Dr. Mayhem observed, “are going to—er—take a ride with me. The gun will be in my pocket. If you make any outcry I shall shoot you in the most painful spot I can. If you keep quiet, you’ll get five thousand dollars eventually.”
“It will buy me a swell tombstone,” Pete said thoughtfully.
“Shut up,” Mayhem requested. “And start walking.”
It was not a nice-looking laboratory. Pete wondered why scientists always had a lot of wires and cables and such stuff around. Probably for a front, he decided. As a barker of some years’ standing Pete knew the value of a good front.
Right now he sat uncomfortably in a metal chair, straps holding him firmly by wrists and ankles, and wondered when the Doc was going to turn on the juice. Mayhem was doing horrible things to a switchboard in the corner. Pete shuddered and said wistfully:
“It ain’t right. You know it ain’t, Doc.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m a free citizen of the United States of America. I know my rights and you can’t—”
“You’ll be a citizen of Egypt as soon as this tube warms up. Damn that rheostat.”
Not knowing what a rheostat was, Pete did not answer. Finally he burst out:
“Hey Doc! I just remember I can’t talk Egyptian.”
“You won’t have to,” Mayhem explained. “I’ve improved my device since I sent you to Rome. When, your mind enters the brain of an Egyptain, it will automatically hook up with the memory center. That’s as well as I can explain it to you. I don’t quite understand it myself. You’ll be able to talk and understand Egyptian, all right.”
“It ain’t right,” Pete said glumly. “You can’t get away from that.”
Mayhem attacked an insulator. “Now remember what I told you. I can’t bring you or Aker back for weeks. It’ll be your job to find him and keep him out of trouble till I get my repairs done. All set?”
“No!” Pete cried in a heartfelt manner.
Bang!
Mayhem had pressed a button. Things began to happen with unpleasant promptitude. Pete’s inner consciousness suddenly fled from his unprepossessing body and was projected into another time-sector.
ONCE, to his regret, Pete Manx had sampled a curious concoction made chiefly of tequila, vodka, and absinthe. His sensations were rather similar now. Only the elevator was spinning around instead of rising and falling. Then he decided it wasn’t an elevator. It was his brain, revolving rapidly inside his throbbing skull. Pete had never heard of centrifugal force, but he was worried about how long his abused brain would be able to hang together.
He opened his eyes and looked at the biggest room he had ever seen. Towering pillars unheld a roof that-seemed slightly under a mile high. There was the room. A bearded man sat there, on his head the Uraeus crown of Aegyptus.
Cheops, the Pharaoh, plucked a flea from his whiskers, examined it intently, a throne on a raised dais at one end of and finally disposed of the unhappy creature in no uncertain manner. Then he looked up and said:
“We have little patience with blasphemers. This Theth-Aton must die.” Pete discovered that the room was filled with a multitude of people, both male and female, wearing garments he could not help considering slightly indecent. There was a time and place for all things, including strip-teases. Pete blushed and dropped his pike.
“Brainless offspring of a crocodile,” said a gigantic Nubian standing near by. “You’re a fine soldier.”
“Soldier?” Pete gulped, realizing he was speaking Egyptian.
“One of the Pharaoh’s own guard,” said the Nubian. “Now pick up your pike and keep quiet or I’ll impale you myself.”
Pete recovered his weapon and took his place in the line of stolid guardsmen who lined the frescoed walls. He stared at Cheops and at the chained malefactor who stood before the dais, held by two brawny Egyptians.
The malefactor was lean and scrawny as an eel, and a dirty white beard drooped disconsolately over his bare chest. He was tastefully clad in a loin-cloth and a golden earring.
“Blaspheming the gods is a dangerous thing,” Pharaoh remarked.
“He made false prophecies,” somebody put in. “He said there were no gods.”
“That’s bad,” Pete said to himself. “A man ought to learn to keep his mouth shut.”
“Well, throw him in a dungeon,” Cheops decided. “He shall die at the full of the moon. In some interesting and unusually painful manner.”
Then Pete got a shock. The malefactor, Theth-Aton, began to bawl: “You can’t do this to me! I’m not an Egyptian! It’s a frame-up—”
Theth-Aton was talking English!
“Professor Aker!” Pete cried, forgetting his caution. “Hey, Prof! Is that you?”
Aker recognized the phraseology, if not the voice, of his former companion in Rome. He whirled.
“Pete! Pete Manx!”
“Oh, for Set’s’ sake,” Cheops growled. “What in the name of the sacred ibis is this? Bring that man forward.”
Pete was escorted firmly toward the dais. The Pharaoh scrutinized him carefully.
“Who are you?”
“Uh—Puto-Manes is the name,” Pete improvised. It didn’t sound very Egyptian, but was the best he could do at short notice.
“Do you know this criminal?”
“Sure. He’s an old buddy of mine.” Cheops rubbed his nose. “Indeed.”
“Yeah. He ain’t an Egyptian. He’s an American citizen. You see—” Forthwith Pete rashly launched forth into an explanation of Dr. Mayhem’s experiment. When he had finished there was a dead silence.
“Mad as a camel,” Cheops remarked at last. “We’ll see how a little hard work affects you. By rights you should be skinned alive for not falling on your face before the throne. But in view of your evident madness we shall be merciful. Set him to work on the Pyramid. The audience is ended.”
Pete was dragged away protesting. Professor Aker was also led off, presumably to a dungeon. Cheops continued investigating the fauna in his beard.
PETE MANX, sweated and toiled in the hot African sun. One of a group of two hundred, he was pulling a gigantic block of stone over greased rollers. He panted and puffed wearily, with one eye alert for an overseer.
“Manx on a chain gang,” he groaned. “I’ll never live it down. Cripes!”
“Put your back into it, Puto-Manes, thou lazy relative of a decayed hippopotamus,” said an overseer, flicking a lash painfully on Pete’s back.
A tall, sour-faced slave beside Pete, who name, it seemed, was Aha, whispered:
“Keep your face down when you talk. You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“I’ve been yanking at that pebble for ninety-seven years,” Pete said bitterly.
“What were you before? A Puoni? One of the Red Sea races?”
“A shavetail,” Pete said, remembering the Nubian’s words; in the Pharaoh’s throne-room. “And a sucker.”
“Your words are strange,” Aha murmured. “But I was a priest of Ra.”
“Ra?”
“Ra.”
“You sound like a college punk at a football game,” Pete observed, but Aha, not understanding, merely smiled in a friendly fashion. The conversation continued. Pete learned, finally, that Ra was the chief god of Egypt, that Aha had been fired from his job for taking bribes too openly, and. that the hierarchy of priests didn’t like Cheops.
Peter had an idea. “And you’re a priest?”
“I was.”
