Dusty Zebra: And Other Stories

by Clifford D. Simak

  It was the cylinder, however, that held my eye and struck terror deep into my soul. It was filled with some sort of milky liquid and in the liquid floated a naked, pulsating human brain. Just below the brain hung a face, the face of Ken Smith! His features were distorted in pain, from the cylinder rose the shrill screams of torture. Below the face trailed a portion of the spinal cord and what were apparently the voice organs.

  I was mad with terror and anguish at the scene before me. In two leaps I was at the table where the cylinder sat, had swept away the astonished priest who stood in my way, and flipped up the switch of the tiny mechanism beside the cylinder. Abruptly the transparency of the cylinder faded and the screaming was cut short. As I swung away from the table to face the priests, who were swiftly recovering from their astonishment at my appearance, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, that the cylinder had assumed a solid shape, a dull-grey, metallic shade.

  The priests surged forward, but as I jabbed the two guns forward, they fell back, murmuring.

  “One word out of you,” I hissed scarcely above a whisper, “and I’ll fry you where you stand.”

  They understood. They had no arms and they knew the reputation of the electro-guns. They knew, too, that a Terrestrial, discovered in a Martian temple, would be desperate and that he would not hesitate to kill and kill ruthlessly.

  I racked my brain. I was in a quandary. If I killed the priests and made a break, I might be able to win my way out of the temple. I had found my friend, however, and I could not leave him behind. When I went, the cylinder and the little machine that operated it, must go also. I could not leave Ken Smith, or what was left of Ken Smith, to suffer indescribable torture at the hands of these fiends. If the worst came to pass, I would train one of the guns on the cylinder and deliberately blast what I had seen in its milky contents out of existence. It would be better that way than leaving it there in the hands of the Martians.

  My glance fell on the mutilated body that lay on the second table. It was, I knew, the body of Ken Smith. He had said something about “my body over there.” The beastly men of Mars had stolen his brain and placed it in a cylinder! They had said something about him being immortal.

  The crooked little men before me had assumed the stoical expression that characterized the Martian race. All of them were draped in the robes of high office. I smiled grimly and they flinched at my smile. I had thought of what a rare bag of birds I had flushed. Their lives lay in a balance, lay at the end of my two gun-finger tips and they knew it.

  “Show me how this mechanism works,” I ordered the foremost one in a guarded whisper.

  The priest hesitated, but I made a peremptory motion with one of the guns and he stepped quickly forward.

  “One wrong move,” I warned him grimly, “and every one of you sizzle. I am here and I am leaving soon, with this cylinder. Maybe I’ll let you live, maybe I won’t.”

  The expressions on their faces never changed. They had courage, you have to say that much for them.

  “What do you wish to know of the machine?” asked the Martian who had stepped forward.

  “I want to talk to the man in the cylinder,” I said. “I don’t want to torture him, you understand. I want to talk to him.”

  The priest reached out a hand toward the machine, but I waved him back.

  “No,” I said. “You tell me what to do. If you direct me falsely…”

  I did not finish my threat. He beat me to it. He licked his thin lips and nodded his head.

  I laid one of my guns on the table, where I could snatch it up at a second’s notice, and reached out my hand to the machine.

  “You must turn that red indicator back of the green reading,” said the Martian. “Back of that the brain in the cylinder has full exercise of its faculties and experiences no ill effects. Above that mark torture begins. The machine is very simple…”

  “Yes,” I said, “it must be. But I am not interested in the machine. I want to talk to my friend. Now what do I do.”

  “All that is necessary is to close the switch you opened.”

  My fingers closed over the switch and pushed it home. My back was to the cylinder and I could not see what transpired, but no scream came and I knew that the priest must have informed me correctly.

  “You there, Ken?” I asked.

  “Right here, Bob,” came the well-remembered voice.

  “Listen closely, Ken,” I said. “We haven’t got much time. Something may happen any moment. Have you any suggestions for getting out of here.”

  “The way out through the corridor is clear?” asked the voice of my friend.

  “So far as I know. The guard is dead.”

  “Then roast the priests and on your way out give me a shot. Promise, though, to finish the priests first. After what they did to me … You understand. Eye for eye. Blast their brains, rob them of this eternal life they’ve given me. And be sure I’m done before you leave.”

  “No, Ken,” I said, “I’m taking you.”

  “You’re crazy, Bob.”

  “I may be crazy,” I retorted, half angrily, “but either both of us go out of here or neither of us go.”

  “But, Bob …”

  “We haven’t time to argue. You know the ropes better than I do. Any suggestions?”

  “Alright, then. Shut me off. Disconnect the cylinder from the machine and stick the machine in your pocket. You will need it … or rather, I will. It is run on a connection with any electric current. Disconnect it from the temple wiring. Wipe out the priests and stick me under your arm. That’s all. If we get out, we get out. If we don’t, crack me up before you wash out.”

  “That’s talking,” I cheered him. “What these animals have done to you doesn’t make any difference. We’re still pals.”

  “Sure, we’re pals. Only you’ll have to do all the fighting from now on.”

  My fingers were on the switch.

  “Just a second, Bob. I’ve thought of something. Think you can carry two of these tanks?”

  “How heavy are they?”

  “I don’t know. Not so heavy, though.”

  The priests were moving uneasily and I shouted a sharp command at them.

  “If you can do it,” droned the voice of my friend, “run into that room just across from you. You can see the door. There’s racks of tanks in there. Brains of dead priests, you know. Take one of them. He may be a great help.”

  “Okeh,” my hand started to lift the switch.

  “Don’t forget the priests. Damn them, give them …”

  The voice snapped short as I pulled the switch free.

  A latch clicked behind me and I swung about. In the doorway which opened from the second corridor stood another priest. Amazement was written all over his features. He was opening his mouth to scream a warning when I got him.

  The blast had scarcely left the muzzle of the gun, when I twisted back on my heel and not a moment too soon. All five of the priests were rushing me. The muzzle of the gun was not more than a few inches from the breast of the foremost one when I depressed the trigger. The priest was bathed for a second in a lurid blue flame that lapped over him from head to foot; for an instant he wavered in front of me, shriveled and blackened and then fell, his charred body breaking into pieces as it fell. The gun crackled and roared and I imagine that the noise could be heard even in the farthest corners of the temple. The electro-gun is not a silent weapon.

  Two of the priests died only a few feet from me and the third almost touched my throat with his skinny, twisted hands before I could stick the gun into his stomach and give him everything it had. He simply evaporated in a flash of electrical energy that almost knocked me off my feet.

  Staggering from the shock, I caught sight of the last of the priestly quintet rushing for the open door. My finger caught on the regulator and pushed it far over as I fired. It was un
intentional, but it was lucky for me that it happened. Set at full charge, the gun hurled a living thunderbolt across the room that snuffed the fleeing priest out of existence and blasted the entire opposite wall of the room into the outer corridor. Other masonry, falling with resounding crashes, completely blocked the passage.

  The room reeked with the charnel odor of burned flesh and the sickening stench of burning ozone. My ears were dulled by the thunder of the electro-gun in that vaulted room and my senses were reeling from the effects of the electrical charges set off at close quarters. With deafening crashes the masonry was still falling in the outer passage. I heard faint cries from some other quarter of the building and knew that the priests of Mars were aroused and racing toward this section of the temple.

  Stumbling to the table I wrenched loose the connections from the machine and thrust it in my pocket. I lifted the cylinder and was surprised to find it so light.

  Then I remembered. I was to take another cylinder. Had I the time? My friend had a good reason for wanting me to get one of the other cylinders. I was confident of being able to fight my way through.

  I resolved to try it. Setting the cylinder back on the table, I ran toward the door which Ken had indicated. Halfway to it I jerked out one of the guns. There was no need of fumbling with a lock now. Every second counted. Training the gun on the lock as I ran, I pressed the trigger. The heavy charge blasted away a section of the door and, running at full tilt, I struck it, driving it open. I sprawled into a room that was so large it at first bewildered me. In huge racks that left only alleyways between them, were piled cylinder on cylinder, identically like the one in which the brain of Ken Smith reposed.

  I clutched at the one nearest at hand, hauled it from its resting place and fled back into the other room.

  I could hear the enraged babble of the priests as they worked frantically to clear the corridor which my shot had blocked. There was no one in sight.

  With a cry of triumph, I swept up the cylinder which contained all that was left of my friend, and raced for the breach I had made between the room and the dark corridor.

  Once in it, I ran swiftly until I believed myself to be near the sharp turn. Throwing caution to the winds, I brought out my flash and cut the darkness with a swath of light. Behind me I heard a shrill yell and a flame pistol spat, but the distance was too great and the livid tongue of fire that it flung out fell far short.

  With fear riding my shoulders, I tore on. The pistol continued to spit. At the sharp turn in the corridor, I halted and pocketed my flash, hauling forth one of my guns. Quickly I stepped out from behind the projecting wall and as quickly stepped back. In that swift second of action I had swept the corridor behind me clean with an electric charge that incinerated all in its path.

  Like a drunken man, I staggered out of the door into the cold night. I almost stumbled over the body of the dead guard, but righted myself and fled on. Behind me rose a babble of fear and anger as the enraged and terrified priests sought, too late, to cut off my escape.

  The darkness soon swallowed me and a half hour later I was in a swift plane, which I had securely hidden the day before, headed for the wildernesses deep in the Arantian Desert. In the seat beside me were lashed two cylinders, identical in shape and size, but one held the brain of an Earthman and the other the brain of a Martian.

  Chapter IV

  In the Desert

  “It’s no use, Ken,” I said. “We’ve tried every way. It was just our luck that I had to pick a Martian who died years before the Terrestrials came to Mars. Even at that, he may know as much about it as any of the present day priests. He has coughed up splendidly, especially when I threatened to smash his cylinder with a hammer. These Martians seem to love their eternal life in the cylinders. That made him turn himself inside out. But all that he knows is how a brain is put into the cylinder. He claims that it is impossible to take one out and put it back into a body again.”

  I sat beside the cylinder in which floated the brain and face of Kenneth Smith.

  “Yes, Bob,” came the voice of my friend out of the cylinder, the lips in the face moving ever so slightly, “it looks as if I am here for the rest of my life, which our Martian friend assures us is for eternity, once you get inside one of these things. Funny how they can do a thing like that. Some sort of a chemical that keeps the brain alive. I suppose Tarsus-Egbo has told you what it is.”

  “Yes, he has. Was a bit reluctant about it, but I shoved the indicator up and let him howl for exactly fifteen minutes by the chronometer. When I shut it off, he was ready to tell me everything he knew about the composition of the stuff.”

  “What do you plan to do now, Bob?”

  “That’s a hard question, Ken. I’d like to try to take you back to Earth with me again, but that is almost an impossibility, at least for a few years. The Martians are going through every outgoing ship with a fine toothed comb. Probably I could slip out myself—but a man caught with one of these tanks! Boy, it would be just too bad! If we could get back to Earth we could go right on living as usual. Both of us are hunted men on Mars, for the desecration of the temple and on Earth for killing the two Martian priests, but we could manage somehow. I’m sticking by you, though, no matter what happens.”

  “Stout chap,” said Ken. “If I ever get to be too much of a burden, just hit the tank a crack and go about your way.”

  “You know I’ll never do that, Ken. We’re pals, aren’t we. If the Martians had stuck me instead of you into a tank, you would have acted just as I am acting now. I’d be a poor friend if I quit you now.”

  Silence reigned as we sat there, looking out over the red wilderness of sand and thorns that stretched for mile on interminable mile all about us.

  “If something happens,” I assured him, “well, something, you know. If a Martian ship would show up or if … well, you understand … I promise to hit you a clip. I will make sure you won’t fall into their hands again.”

  “That’s it,” said Ken, “Just say ‘So long, fellow, I hate to do this, but it’s the best way’ and swing the hammer. Be sure to swing it hard enough. This stuff may be tough, hard to break, you know.”

  The sun was sinking low in the sky and a chill was creeping over the crimson desert. I stirred and slowly rose.

  “I guess I’d better get a bite to eat. I’ll be back right away.”

  “Take your time,” said Ken, “I enjoy this scene. Leave me turned on. You might shift me a little bit toward the west. I like to watch the sun go down.”

  “All right, old fellow.”

  I patted the cylinder and shifted it slightly so that my friend could watch the setting of the sun.

  We had been in hiding for weeks. No place on Mars could have been more suitable as a hide-out than this mighty desert, a desert of red sand, peopled only by wicked thorn shrubs and poisonous insects and reptiles.

  We had been hopeful at first of obtaining useful information from the brain of the Martian I had stolen from the temple. Particularly I had wanted to find if there was a way of removing Ken’s brain from the cylinder and replacing it again in a human body. If there had been, the matter of finding a man willing to give his body and a surgeon to perform the operation would not have been too hard a task. Apparently, however, there was no way of doing it. Once the brain was in a cylinder it was there to stay…forever. Solemnly the Martian had assured me that the milky chemical in which the brain floated contained enough concentrated foodstuffs to nourish the brain and its few attached parts almost indefinitely. When the cylinder was not attached to the machine the brain was in a state of suspended animation and took none of the nourishment.

  I had suggested that I could go back to the temple again and attempt to select a cylinder which contained the brain of a priest who had died only a few years before, hoping that, since Tarsus-Egbo had died, there may have been some advancement in the science of the cult and that a way now m
ight be known of performing the operation.

  Ken had absolutely forbidden this. He had pointed out the danger. The temple was sure to be under unusually heavy guard as a result of our former adventures under its roof and I would have only one chance in a hundred of getting out if, in fact, I could even get in. He had also pointed out that there was no reason to believe the priests would know any way of replacing a brain in a body. To be placed in the cylinder seemed the highest ambition of the Martian priests. It meant eternal life, the thing most highly prized by them. Why, then, Ken asked, should they attempt to find a way of replacing a brain in a body when life in the cylinder seemed to be the greatly preferred type of existence? Sadly, I felt that I had to agree with him.

  I think, too, that Ken did not wish to be parted from me. He felt keenly his helplessness. He depended entirely upon me. He feared that, left alone, he might be recaptured by the Martians. I shuddered to think of what might happen to him if such a thing occurred.

  It was uncanny at first, talking to my friend’s brain inside the cylinder, but, realizing that we must accept the situation, we had maintained our friendship on its old standards. Ken joked about his helplessness, while I chose to ignore that he was anything other than the old Kenneth Smith whom I had once known in a human body.

  I had eaten and was just lighting up for an after-meal smoke, when my friend hailed me. I hurried to the side of the cylinder.

  “What is it, Ken?”

  “Take a look over there, Bob. Straight ahead of me, the only way I can look. I’ve been trying to figure out if I see something or not. I would swear that I could, a white speck of some sort. Just between those two hills where the sun is setting.”

  I strained my eyes, but could see nothing. I told him so.

  “Something funny about that,” commented Ken, “I am certain that I see something. Looks like a building of some sort. It may be that my senses have been sharpened by being put into this tank. They’re all I’ve got left to use and they may be developing. I’ve been watching that thing for a long time and I am convinced it’s not my imagination.”