by Jerry eBooks
“Well, you’re here, that’s what matters. Tell me about yourself. Have you married?”
“Huh, uh, no. Let’s not waste time talking about me. Nothing ever happens to me anyhow. How in Jordan’s name did you get in this jam, Hugh?”
“I can’t talk about that, Alan. I promised Lieutenant Nelson that I wouldn’t.”
“Well, what’s a promise, that kind of a promise? You’re in a jam, fellow.”
“Don’t I know it!”
“Somebody have it in for you?”
“Well, our old pal Mort Tyler didn’t help any; I think I can say that much.”
Alan whistled and nodded his head slowly. “That explains a lot.”
“How come? You know something?”
“Maybe,—maybe not. After you went away he married Edris Baxter.”
“So? Hmm-m-m—yes, that clears up a lot.” He remained silent for a time.
Presently Alan spoke up: “Look, Hugh. You’re not going to sit here and take it, are you? Particularly with Tyler mixed in it. We gotta get you outa here.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Pull a raid, maybe. I guess I could get a few knives to rally round and help us; all good boys, spoiling for a fight.”
“Then, when it’s over, we’d all be for the Converter. You, me, and your pals. No, it won’t wash.”
“But we’ve got to do something. We can’t just sit here and wait for them to burn you.”
“I know that.” Hugh studied Alan’s face. Was it a fair thing to ask? He went on, reassured by what he had seen. “Listen. You would do anything you could to get me out of this, wouldn’t you?”
“You know that.” Alan’s tone showed hurt.
“Very well, then. There is a dwarf named Bobo. I’ll tell you how to find him . . .”
ALAN climbed, up and up, higher than he had ever been since Hugh had led him, as a boy, into foolhardy peril. He was older now, more conservative; he had no stomach for it. To the very real danger of leaving the well-traveled lower levels was added his superstitious ignorance. But still he climbed.
This should be about the place, unless he had lost count. But he saw nothing of the dwarf Bobo saw him first. A slingshot load caught Alan in the pit of the stomach, even as he was shouting, “Bobo!”
Bobo backed into Joe-Jim’s compartment and dumped his load at the feet of the twins. “Fresh meat,” he said proudly.
“So it is,” agreed Jim indifferently. “Well, it’s yours; take it away.”
The dwarf dug a thumb into a twisted ear, “Funny,” he said, “he knows Bobo’s name.”
Joe looked up from the book he was reading: Browning’s Collected Poems_, L-Press, New York, London, Luna City, cr. 35. “That’s interesting. Hold on a moment.”
Hugh had prepared Alan for the shock of Joe-Jim’s appearance. In reasonably short order he collected his wits sufficiently to be able to tell his tale. Joe-Jim listened to it without much comment, Bobo with interest but little comprehension.
When Alan concluded, Jim remarked, “Well, you win, Joe. He didn’t make it.” Then, turning to Alan, he added, “You can take Hoyland’s place. Can you play checkers?”
Alan looked from one head to the other. “But you don’t understand,” he said. “Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”
Joe looked puzzled. “Us? Why should we?”
“But you’ve got to. Don’t you see? He’s depending on you. There’s nobody else he can look to. That’s why I came. Don’t you see?”
“Wait a moment,” drawled Jim, “wait a moment. Keep your belt on. Supposing we did want to help him, which we don’t, how in Jordan’s Ship could we? Answer me that.”
“Why, why,” Alan stumbled in the face of such stupidity. “Why, get up a rescue party, of course, and go down and get him out!”
“Why should we get ourselves killed in a fight to rescue your friend?” Bobo pricked his ears. “Fight?” he inquired eagerly. “No, Bobo,” Joe denied. “No fight. Just talk.”
“Oh,” said Bobo and returned to passivity.
Alan looked at the dwarf. “If you’d even let Bobo and me—”
“No,” Joe said shortly. “It’s out of the question. Shut up about it.”
Alan sat in a corner, hugging his knees in despair. If only he could get out of there. He could still try to stir up some help down below. The dwarf seemed to be asleep, though it was difficult to be sure with him. If only Joe-Jim would sleep, too.
Joe-Jim showed no indication of sleepiness. Joe tried to continue reading, but Jim interrupted him from time to time. Alan could not hear what they were saying.
Presently Joe raised his voice. “Is that your idea of fun?” he demanded.
“Well,” said Jim, “it beats checkers.”
“It does, does it? Suppose you get a knife in your eye; where would I be then?”
“You’re getting old, Joe. No juice in you any more.”
“You’re as old as I am.”
“Yeah, but I got young ideas.”
“Oh, you make me sick. Have it your own way, but don’t blame me. Bobo!”
The dwarf sprang up at once, alert. “Yeah, Boss.”
“Go out and dig up Squatty and Long Arm and Pig.”
Joe-Jim-got up, went to a locker, and started pulling knives out of their racks.
HUGH HEARD the commotion in the passageway outside his prison. It could be the guards coming to take him to the Converter, though they probably wouldn’t be so noisy. Or it could be just some excitement unrelated to him. On the other hand it might be . . .
It was. The door burst open, and Alan was inside, shouting at him and thrusting a brace of knives into his hands. He was hurried out of the door, while stuffing the knives in his belt and accepting two more.
Outside he saw Joe-Jim, who did not see him at once, as he was methodically letting fly, as calmly as if he had been engaging in target practice in his own study. And Bobo, who ducked his head and grinned with a mouth widened by a bleeding cut, but continued the easy flow of the motion whereby he loaded and let fly. There were three others, two of whom Hugh recognized as belonging to Joe-Jim’s privately owned gang of bullies, muties by definition and birthplace; they were not deformed.
The count does not include still forms on the floor plates.
“Come on!” yelled Alan. “There’ll be more in no time.” He hurried down the passage to the right.
Joe-Jim desisted and followed him. Hugh let one blade go for luck at a figure running away to the left. The target was poor, and he had no time to see if he had thrown 01000. They scrambled along the passage, Bobo bringing up the rear, as if reluctant to leave the fun, and came to a point where a side passage crossed the main one.
Alan led them to the right again. “Stairs ahead,” he shouted.
They did not reach them. An airtight door, rarely used, clanged in their faces ten yards short of the stairs. Joe-Jim’s bravoes checked their flight and they looked doubtfully at their master. Bobo broke his thickened nails trying to get a purchase on the door.
The sounds of pursuit were clear behind them.
“Boxed in,” said Joe softly. “I hope you like it, Jim.”
Hugh saw a head appear around the corner of the passage they had quitted. He threw overhand but the distance was too great; the knife clanged harmlessly against steel. The head disappeared. Long Arm kept his eye on the spot, his sling loaded and ready.
Hugh grabbed Bobo’s shoulder. “Listen! Do you see that light?”
The dwarf blinked stupidly. Hugh pointed to the intersection of the glowtubes where they crossed in the overhead directly above the junction of the passages. “That light. Can you hit them where they cross?”
Bobo measured the distance with his eye. It would be a hard shot under any conditions at that range. Here, constricted as he was by the low passageway, it called for a fast, flat trajectory, and allowance for higher weight then he was used to.
He did not answer. Hugh felt the wind of his swin
g but did not see the shot. There was a tinkling crash; the passage became dark.
“Now!” yelled Hugh, and led them away at a run. As they neared the intersection he shouted, “Hold your breaths! Mind the gas!” The radioactive vapor poured lazily out from the broken tube above and filled the crossing with a greenish mist.
Hugh ran to the right, thankful for his knowledge as an engineer of the lighting circuits. He had picked the right direction; the passage ahead was black, being serviced from beyond the break. He could hear footsteps around him; whether they were friend or enemy he did not know.
They burst into light. No one was in sight but a scared and harmless peasant who scurried away at an unlikely pace. They took a quick muster. All were present, but Bobo was making heavy going of it.
Joe looked at him. “He sniffed the gas, I think. Pound his back.”
Pig did so with a will. Bobo belched deeply, was suddenly sick, then grinned.
“He’ll do,” decided Joe.
The slight delay had enabled one at least to catch up with them. He came plunging out of the dark, unaware of, or careless of, the strength against him. Alan knocked Pig’s arm down, as he raised it to throw. “Let me at him!” he demanded. “He’s mine!” It was Tyler.
“Man-fight?” Alan challenged, thumb on his blade.
Tyler’s eyes darted from adversary to adversary and accepted the invitation to individual duel by lunging at Alan. The quarters were too cramped for throwing; they closed, each achieving his grab in parry, fist to wrist.
Alan was stockier, probably stronger; Tyler was slippery. He attempted to give Alan a knee to the crotch. Alan evaded it, stamped on Tyler’s planted foot. They went clown. There was a crunching crack.
A moment later, Alan was wiping his knife against his thigh. “Let’s get goin’,” he complained. “I’m scared.”
THEY REACHED a stairway, and raced up it, Long Arm and Pig ahead to fan out on each level and cover their flanks, and the third of the three choppers (Hugh heard him called Squatty) covering the rear. The others bunched in between.
Hugh thought they had won free, when he heard shouts and the clatter of a thrown knife just above him.
He reached the level above in time to be cut not deeply but jaggedly by a ricocheted blade.
Three men were down. Long Arm bad a blade sticking in the fleshy part of his upper arm, but it did not seem to bother him. His slingshot was still spinning. Pig was scrambling after a thrown knife, his own armament exhausted. But there were signs of his work; one man was down on one knee some twenty feet away. He was bleeding from a knife wound in the thigh.
As the figure steadied himself with one hand against the bulkhead and reached towards an empty belt with the other, Hugh recognized him.
Bill Ertz.
He had led a party up another way, and flanked them, to his own ruin. Bobo crowded behind Hugh and got his mighty arm free for the cast. Hugh caught at it. “Easy, Bobo,” he directed. “In the stomach, and easy.”
The dwarf looked puzzled, but did as he was told.
Ertz folded over at the middle and slid to the deck. “Well placed,” said Jim. “Bring him along, Bobo,” directed Hugh, “and stay in the middle.” He ran his eye over their party, now huddled at the top of that flight of stairs. “All right, gang; up we go again! Watch it.”
Long Arm and Pig swarmed up the next flight, the others disposing themselves as usual. Joe looked annoyed. In some fashion, a fashion by no means clear at the moment, he had been eased out as leader of this gang, his gang, and Hugh was giving orders. He reflected as there was no time now to make a fuss. It might get them all killed.
Jim did not appear to mind. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying himself.
THEY PUT ten more levels behind them with no organized opposition. Hugh directed them not to kill peasants unnecessarily. The three bravoes obeyed; Bobo was too loaded down with Ertz to constitute a problem in discipline. Hugh saw to it that they put thirty-odd more decks below them and were well into no man’s land before he let vigilance relax at all. Then he called a halt and they examined wounds.
The only deep ones were to Long Arm’s arm and Bobo’s face. Joe-Jim examined them and applied presses with which he had outfitted himself before starting. Hugh refused treatment for his flesh wound. “It’s stopped bleeding,” he insisted, “and I’ve got a lot to do.”
“You’ve got nothing to do but to get up home,” said Joe, “and that will be an end to this foolishness.”
“Not quite,” denied Hugh. “You may be going home, but Alan and I and Bobo are going up to no-weight; to the Captain’s veranda.”
“Nonsense,” said Joe. “What for?”
“Come along if you like, and see. All right, gang. Let’s go.”
Joe started to speak, stopped when Jim kept still. Joe-Jim followed along. They floated gently through the door of the veranda, Hugh, Alan, Bobo with his still-passive burden, and Joe-Jim. “That’s it,” said Hugh to Alan, waving his hand at the splendid stars, “that’s what I’ve been telling you about.”
Alan looked and clutched at Hugh’s arm. “Jordan!” he moaned. “We’ll fall out!” He closed his eyes tightly.
Hugh shook him. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s grand. Open your eyes.”
Joe-Jim touched Hugh’s arm. “What’s it all about?” he demanded. “Why did you bring him up here?” He pointed to Ertz.
“Oh, him. Well, when he wakes up I’m going to show him the stars, prove to him that the Ship moves.”
“Well? What for?”
“Then I’ll send him back down to convince some others.”
“Hm-m-m, suppose he doesn’t have any better luck than you had?”
“Why, then,” Hugh shrugged his shoulders “why, then we shall just have to do it all over, I suppose, till we do convince them.
“We’ve got to do it, you know.”
THE END.
Nightfall
Issac Asimov
How would a people who saw the stars but once in two thousand years react—
“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of Cod!”—Emerson
ATON 77, director of Saro University, thrust out a belligerent lower lip and glared at the young newspaperman in a hot fury.
Theremon 762 took that fury in his stride. In his earlier days, when his now widely syndicated column was only a mad idea in-a cub reporter’s mind, he had specialized in “impossible” interviews. It had cost him bruises, black eyes, and broken bones; but it had given him an ample supply of coolness and self-confidence.
So he lowered the outthrust hand that had been so pointedly ignored and calmly waited for the aged director to get over the worst. Astronomers were queer ducks, anyway, and if Aton’s actions of the last two months meant anything, this same Aton was the queer-duckiest of the lot.
Aton 77 found his voice, and though it trembled with restrained emotion, the careful, somewhat pedantic, phraseology, for which the famous astronomer was noted, did not abandon him.
“Sir,” he said, “you display an infernal gall in coming to me with that impudent proposition of yours.”
The husky telephotographer of the Observatory, Beenay 25, thrust a tongue’s tip across dry lips and interposed nervously, “Now, sir, after all—”
The director turned to him and lifted a white eyebrow. “Do not interfere, Beenay. I will credit you with good intentions in bringing this man here; but I will tolerate no insubordination now.”
Theremon decided it was time to take a part. “Director Aton, if you’ll let me finish what I started saying I think—”
“I don’t believe, young man,” retorted Aton, “that anything you could say now would count much as compared with your daily columns of these last two months. You have led a vast newspaper campaign against the efforts of myself and my colleagues to organize the world against the menace which it is now too late to avert. Yo
u have done your best with your highly personal attacks to make the staff of this Observatory objects of ridicule.”
The director lifted the copy of the Saro City Chronicle on the table and shook it at Theremon furiously. “Even a person of your well-known impudence should have hesitated before coming to me with a request that he be allowed to cover today’s events for his paper. Of all newsmen, you!”
Aton dashed the newspaper to the floor, strode to the window and clasped his arms behind his back.
“You may leave,” he snapped over his shoulder. He stared moodily out at the skyline where Gamma, the brightest of the planet’s six suns, was setting. It had already faded and yellowed into the horizon mists, and Aton knew he would never see it again as a sane man.
He whirled. “No, wait, come here!” He gestured peremptorily. “I’ll give you your story.”
The newsman had made no motion to leave, and now he approached the old man slowly. Aton gestured outward, “Of the six suns, only Beta is left in the sky. Do you see it?”
The question was rather unnecessary. Beta was almost at zenith; its ruddy light flooding the landscape to an unusual orange as the brilliant rays of setting Gamma died. Beta was at aphelion. It was small; smaller than Theremon had ever seen it before, and for the moment it was undisputed ruler of Lagash’s sky.
Lagash’s own sun, Alpha, the one about which it revolved, was at the antipodes; as were the two distant companion pairs. The red dwarf Beta—Alpha’s immediate companion—was alone, grimly alone.
Aton’s upturned face flushed redly in the sunlight. “In just under four hours,” he said, “civilization, as we know it, comes to an end. It will do so because, as you see, Beta is the only sun in the sky.” He smiled grimly. “Print that! There’ll be no one to read it.”
“But if it turns out that four hours pass—and another four—and nothing happens?” asked Theremon softly.
“Don’t let that worry you. Enough will happen.”
“Granted! And still—if nothing happens?”
For a second time, Beenay 25 spoke, “Sir, I think you ought to listen to him.”