Collected fiction, p.430
Collected Fiction, page 430
In the dark stones the toad sat breathing softly, its eyes looking not at the night, but at something far away.
In a blue brightness Pete went whirling and spinning down, the southern sea taking him eagerly to its depths. Below, the coral blazed with rich colors, and a tiger-shark curved away and was gone.
He swam upward. His head broke the surface and the blue sea lay under a blue sky, cradling the forested isle in the immense plain of waters. Beyond the lagoon lay the clipper ship. A rattling and a clanking came to Pete’s ears. The anchor was rising, white sails mounting on the masts. The wind caught the canvas and billowed them, and the ship heeled over a little as they filled taut and strained against the blue.
The ship was sailing.
Sudden desolation struck through Pete. He was afraid, abruptly, of being left alone on this enchanted ocean. He didn’t want to watch the clipper dwindle to a speck on the horizon. With desperate haste he began to swim toward the vessel.
In the translucent blue depths beneath him bright shapes moved. A school of dolphins broke the surface with their precise, scalloping play all about him. Showering silver rolled from their sleek hides as they leaped. But ever the rattling of the anchor chain grew louder.
Almost articulate . . . almost understandable altering to a harsh voice that commanded—what?
Waken—waken.
Waken to morning in Cabrillo, Pedrinho; waken to the tide that will take the Princesa out across the Gulf. You must go with the tide. You must see. Tampico and Campeche. You must look upon the real Tampico, with its black oil-tankers in the oily water. You must see the ports of the world, and find in them what men always find . . . So. waken, Pedro, waken as your father’s hand closes on your shoulder and shakes you out of your dream.
Not for you, Pedro.
Out of nowhere, a cool, small, inhuman voice said softly, “A gift is offered, Pedro. The old magic is not all evil. Reach up quickly, Pedro, reach up—”
Pete hesitated. The ports of the world—_ he knew how wonderful they were to see, and the Princesa would be waiting for him. But the chain of the clipper’s anchor was almost within reach. He heard the cool little voice, and he gave one more strong stroke in the water and reached up with both hands. The slippery wet surface of the anchor-chain met his dripping palms. He was. drawn up out of the sea.
Behind him voices faded. He thought he could hear dimly his mother’s cry, and the shrill tones of little Gregorio. But they dwindled and were gone in a new sound from deck, the sound of deep song rising above the shuffle of bare feet.
“As I was a-walkin’ down Paradise Street.
Hands were helping him over the rail. He saw grinning sailors pacing around the capstan, bending above the bars, singing and singing. He felt the sun-warmed deck beneath his feet. Overhead canvas creaked and slapped and the ship came alive as wind took hold of the sails and billowed them out proudly, casting sudden translucent shadows over the deck and the grinning men. The clipper’s bowsprit dipped once, twice, and spray glittered like diamonds on the gilded figurehead. He heard deep, friendly voices that drowned out the last faint, dying summons from—from—he could not remember.
Thunder rolled deeply. Pete looked up.
Mailed in shining armor, its tremendous wings clashing, a dragon swept through the sunlit air above Paramaribo.
BABY FACE
When a Tough Sergeant Reverts to Infancy He Just Won’t be Weaned from Fighting Mankind’s Foes!
CHAPTER I
Jolt For Jerry
ANY wise mutt calling me Baby Face is going to get a sock in the puss that’ll land him in 4F.
The name’s Jerry Cassidy, sergeant, U. S. Marines. I tip the scale at two hundred even, and I look a lot more like Wallace Beery than Baby Sandy. I do now, anyway. There was a time, though, when this didn’t hold true.
But if any lug feels like bringing that up, he’d better have knuckle-dusters handy. If Doc McKenney wasn’t such a nice old man, I’d break his neck for landing me in that jam. Transference of egos, bah!
The way it happened sounds mighty strange.
I am a big, good-natured looking feller, so I suppose the Captain’s wife figured it’d be safe to leave “Stinky” Dawson with me. I ran into Mrs. Dawson on Park, as I was coming out of Grand Central. She’s a cute little trick, blonde and sort of muzzy around the eyes—the look that starts your floating. Anyhow she was wheeling this baby carriage along when she saw me and said hello.
“Hi, Mrs. Dawson. Hope you’re well.”
“Well enough to go dancing with the Captain tonight,” she told me, laughing under her breath. “It’s wonderful to have him home again. You’re on leave too, aren’t you, Jerry?”
“I can prove it,” I said. “I got my pass. And I’m sort of going dancing tonight too, down at the Rainbow. My—uh—girl friend says I’ll learn how if I keep at it long enough.”
Mrs. Dawson looked at my feet in a kind of dubious fashion.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “How do you like New York?”
“I dunno. It isn’t much like New Guinea. Billie’s working till five, so I’m sort of killing time till then.”
“There’s not much to do on Park Avenue.”
“Right,” I said. “Only I know a sawbones who lives around here. Doc McKenney. He used to live in Keokuk where I come from, and I thought maybe I’d look him up.”
Mrs. Dawson was biting her lip. “Jerry,” she said, “I wonder if you’d do me an awfully big favor.”
I said sure I would, and what was it.
“Mind Stinky for half an hour. Would you do that? I hate to ask you, but it’s the maid’s day out and I had nobody to leave him with, and I simply must get another dress for tonight. I—I haven’t seen the Captain for so long, and—well, you know.”
“You bet I’ll mind the little—uh—the little fella,” I told her. “You run along and take your time, Mrs. Dawson.”
“Thanks so much! I won’t be long. And—look! I know! I’ll bring you something to take to Billie. There’s some lovely lingerie I saw last week at the store.”
I GOT kind of red around the collar. “L-lingerie?”
“Don’t be silly, Jerry! She’ll love it. Now you wait here, and if you get tired, go in that drug-store and have a coke or something. Okay?”
“Yes’m,” I said, and she went off. My hands felt too big. I looked at them, and they were blushing too. Lingerie! I didn’t think Billie would like it. Still, I could have been wrong. Women go for funny things.
I took a gander at the little squirt in the carriage. He was a fat, stupid-looking infant, slightly cock-eyed, and with great big cheeks that blobbed down on his shoulders. He had hands like starfish—stubby fingers sticking out in all directions—and he was trying to put his shoe in his mouth, doing a pretty good job of it. If he took after his old man, I figured he’d have a devil of a temper. So I didn’t argue with him about the foot. I smoked a cigarette and looked at things.
Pretty soon Stinky started to bellow. He was lying flat on his back, waving his arms and legs around, with his eyes all squinched up. His face had turned red. His voice reminded me of the Captain’s at certain times, like once when I’d got a little tight in Sydney and had a mild argument with some sailors.
Figuring he wanted his foot back, I shoved it into position, but he’d had enough of that. He turned purple and kept hollering. People were beginning to look at me. I got scared and had a mind to beat it. But I couldn’t leave the kid alone.
I went into the drug-store and asked the prescription clerk what to do. He didn’t know. All babies yelled, according to him, and it was good for them.
Not this baby! All of a sudden I noticed that one of his shoes was missing.
“Oh, gosh,” I said, feeling sick. “The blamed little ostrich must have ate it!”
I picked him up by the feet and shook him tentative, without much result, except he roared louder than ever. A crowd was gathering, but not a WAAC, WAVE, or SPAR among them. I dithered. I kept wondering what would happen when Mrs. Dawson came back and found Stinky had strangled to death on his shoe. Court martial, anyhow. I could stand that, but—I was worried about the poor little tyke.
Then I remembered Doc McKenney. His office was only a block away, so I sent the carriage scooting like a fast jeep up Park, leaving a trail of sweat from my forehead. All the while Stinky yelled, squalled, bawled, and tooted. He was sounding off, all right.
A sailor grinned at me.
“A walkie-talkie, huh?” he said, but I had no time to sock him. I yanked Stinky out of his carriage, ran up a flight of steps, and bounced through a door labeled Doc McKenney. A nurse looked up at me, startled.
“Quick!” I said. “Get the Doc. The small fry just ate his shoe!”
“But—but—”
A door across the room opened, and I saw the Doc’s familiar, wrinkled old face, with his gray hair sticking up like a cock’s comb. He was ushering somebody out, but fast.
“No!” Doc was yelling. “I’m not interested. I’m not satisfied with your credentials, and I’m getting in touch with the F.B.I. immediately. Get out!”
The man, a big husky with sleepy eyes and a bristling moustache, opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it like a trap snapping shut. He was mad, I could see that. But he didn’t do anything about it. He whirled and went out, with a furious glance in my direction.
“Doc!” I said.
“What? Who—well, for Pete’s sake! Jerry Cassidy. Who made you a sergeant?”
I passed the baby to him. “This is life and death. The kid ate a shoe or something. He’s strangling!”
“Eh? A shoe?”
I explained. Doc nodded at the nurse and took me into his office, a fairly big room with lots of equipment. He went to work on the baby, while I watched, scared stiff.
After a while Doc shrugged. “I can’t find anything wrong.”
“But he’s yelling. He ate a shoe, I tell you.”
THE nurse came in, with the missing shoe.
“I found this in the carriage downstairs,” she said. “Need help. Doctor?”
“No, thanks,” the Doc said. He put the shoe back on Stinky’s foot, but that didn’t solve the problem. The nurse went out. The kid kept on crying.
“He doesn’t look like you,” the Doc murmured absently. “Well, he’ll cry himself out pretty soon. What have you been doing?”
“ ’Course, he doesn’t look like me. He’s my Captain’s wife—I mean his baby’s Captain—oh, gosh, Doc! Do something!”
“What?”
“What’s he crying for?”
“That,” Doc McKenney said thoughtfully, “is one of the greatest mysteries of the ages. No one knows why babies cry. At least, why they cry when they haven’t got colic, aren’t being stuck by pins, or don’t require changing.”
“Is it—those?” I gulped.
“Well, it might be colic,” he said. “Not the others. I checked up.”
“I wish the little sprat could talk,” I moaned. “This is awful.”
The Doc perked up. “Well, I’ll be—I forgot. Here, Jerry. I’ll have this fixed up in a second or two. The first practical use for my Thought-Matrix Transfer. Here.” He unlocked a safe, dragged out a couple of soft helmets that looked like leather, and gave me one. It had wires woven into it, though it was flexible, and there was a tiny switch over one ear.
“You mean gag the kid?” I said. “We can’t do that. Besides, a handkerchief would work better.”
“Shut up,” the Doc growled. “I’m a humanitarian, or I wouldn’t have invented the Transfer helmets. It simply changes your mind.”
“I can do that by myself,” I pointed out Doc jammed one of the helmets over my head and donned the other himself. “I’ll show you,” he said. “Push the switch over.” I did. My head began to feel hot. There was a low humming.
Doc moved his own switch. Everything blurred for a second. Then I felt slightly giddy. The room had sort of swung around “Doc,” I said. “You’ve changed!” My voice sounded peculiar. Cracked and squeaky.
Doc McKenney had changed, all right. He was a big, husky guy, with a map like a punch-drunk gorilla . . .
I recognized that map. I saw it every morning when I shaved. Doc looked like me!
He grinned, flipped the switch, and came toward me to turn off the one on my helmet. “Take it easy,” he rumbled. “We’ve simply changed bodies, so to speak—though not actually. It’s in the nature of a remote control. The essential psych is not affected by the change, but the thought-matrix is, the basic pattern that makes up the conscious you.”
“Doc!” I said. “Help!”
I had a headache, and was scared. The Doc chuckled. “All right, we’ll change back. Flip your switch over again. That’s it. Now—”
The room swirled. I was looking at Doc McKenney. I was back in my own body. Automatically I flipped the switch, as the Doc did, and then collapsed in a chair.
“Wow!” I said. “Magic!”
“Nothing of the sort. I’ve simply invented a perfect method of diagnosis. All the physician has to do is change his mind with that of the patient, and he instantly feels all the aches, pains, and symptoms of the patient. The layman can’t describe with complete accuracy how he feels when he’s sick. But the doctor—putting himself completely in the place of the patient—can.”
“I got a headache.”
The Doc looked interested. “Have you?” I thought. “No. Funny. It’s gone now.”
“Ah! I’ve had a headache all day. Naturally you experienced it while in my body.”
“It’s crazy,” I said.
“Not a bit. The human brain emits patterns of energy. Those patterns have a basic matrix. Ever heard of remote control?”
“Sure. What of it?” I was interested.
DOC McKenney scratched his high forehead thoughtfully.
“Transplantation of the actual brain is a surgical impossibility. But the mind itself, the key matrix, can be transferred. It has certain definite vibrationary periods, and my helmets, working on the inductive principle of the diatherm, effect the necessary change. You see?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t want to hear any more about it. Stinky’s still crying, and if you can’t help me what’ll I do?”
“I am helping you,” Doc said. “This is it. I hadn’t thought of this application, but it’s beautifully logical. Babies can’t explain what’s wrong with them, because they can’t talk, but you can. I’ll show you.” He took the helmet off his own head and slipped it gently on Stinky’s, moving the switch as he did so. Before I knew what was happening, Doc had whirled on me and reached out and—and—
“Globwobble!” I said.
Something was wrong with my eyes. Things swam mistily. There was a big round blob above me—
And somebody was roaring like an organ gone crazy. With a frantic effort I uncrossed my eyes. It was Doc McKenney’s face hanging over me. I felt his fingers fumbling at my head. There was a click.
The bellowing in the background kept up. My throat and palate felt soft, blobby, and peculiar. My tongue kept crawling back into my gullet. I reached out, and a fat, starfish like pink object shot up. My hand!
My stars!
“Blogobble wog wog Doc whabble gob quop!” I said, in a remarkably infantile voice.
“Okay, Jerry,” the Doc said. “You’re in Stinky’s body, that’s all. He’s in yours. I’ll switch you back as soon as you tell me how you feel.”
This time I made more sense. I lisped a lot, though.
“Gemme ouda this! Quick!”
“Anything sticking you? After all, you want to know why the baby was crying.”
I hauled myself erect somehow. To a squatted position, that is. My legs were curled up and seemed helpless.
“I feel all right,” I managed to say. “Except I want back.”
“No pains?”
“No. No!”
“Then it was merely temper,” Doc said. “The emotions are transferred with the mind, but the sensory equipment stays with the body. The baby was just irritable. He’s still crying.”
I looked. My body, the body of Sergeant Jerry Cassidy, was lying on its back on the floor, arms and legs curled up, its eyes were tight shut, and its mouth open as it bawled. Great tears splashed down its—my—cheeks.
My mouth felt like I was eating mush, but I managed to tell him I wanted my own body back. My feeling was strengthened by the fact that Stinky was sucking my thumb, lying there on his back and drowsily staring up at the ceiling. At any rate, he’d stopped bawling. As I looked, his eyes closed and he started to snore.
“Well,” Doc said. “He’s gone to sleep. Maybe the mental transference has a soothing effect.”
“Not on me it hasn’t,” I snarled feebly, in a quavering soprano. “I don’t like this. Get me out!”
CHAPTER II
Baby Has a Thirst
BEFORE the Doc could transfer me back into my own body, there was a scuffling in the outer office, and the nurse squeaked briefly. I heard a thump. The door slammed open, and three tough mugs came in, holding guns in their fists—a Webley and two small, flat automatics. The man with the Webley was the same lug Doc McKenney had been throwing out when I arrived. The lug’s moustache was still bristling over the rat-trap mouth, and his eyes looked sleepier than ever. The other two were just gorillas.
“Smith!” Doc said. “Why, you filthy Nazi!” He dived for a scalpel, but Smith was too fast. The Webley’s barrel thunked against Doc’s temple, and the old man went down, cussing a blue streak till Smith hit him again.
“Gut!” one of the other thugs said. I hopped up from the operating table where I’d been squatting and lunged toward Smith, throwing a fast haymaker at his jaw. Unfortunately, my legs crumpled up, and I fell flat on my face, giving myself a nasty wallop on the nose.
“Who’s that?” somebody said. I rolled over. The gunman with the squint was pointing—with his gun—toward my own body, curled up on the carpet and snoring.
