The 53rd Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK; Geoff St. Reynard

by Geoff St. Reynard

  Summersby let out an involuntary grunt when through the twenty-foot door came an eighteen-foot creature, a thing so mind-shakingly huge that even the ranger’s size complex wasn’t pleased by it. This was an adult: leaner in the body, broader of hand and thicker of limb, wearing trouserlike garments and a flaring jacket of royal purple caught by a ruby bar, it advanced calmly into the hall, clumping flat-footed in three yard strides. From its heavy-lipped gash of a mouth came noises like a whole orchestra badly in need of tuning.

  “Hwhrangg!” it cried, waving its hands in the air. “Breemingg!” It appeared to be soothing the children, telling them that Daddy was here.

  * * * *

  Mrs. Full, on the control platform, screamed. Her husband ran to her, Summersby stepped out irresolute, Adam stood stunned. But Porfirio Villa, afire with the heady make-believe carnage of the afternoon, was as quick to act as his fourth cousin Pancho could have been. A dozen waddling leaps, a swift swing of his legs over the side, and the Mexican landed in the little red vehicle with the vast control board, the car that only he had been able to master. Pressing buttons, pulling plungers, sliding levers, he whirled it around and sent it at the towering adult.

  The beast skipped out of his way, blaring anger; he came about sharply, gunned his “motor”—if it was that—and rammed the gigantean enemy on the leg. There was the clear sharp snap of bone breaking. As Villa’s car overturned, the creature fell at full length, with a crash like an elephant dropping out of a tree. It contracted its body and gripped its ankle with both hands, honking dismally.

  Summersby was running. He skidded up to the groveling Villa, yanked him to his feet and shoved him out of range of the injured beast. The two children had broken into the barks that were their equivalent of weeping, one drawing its goading rod. Summersby crouched, went toward it, hoping to bring it down before it stunned him. As he came within diving range, though, the orange airship streaked over his head and jammed its nose into the child’s belly. It folded over with a whoosh, grabbing its middle, as the toy wobbled off in eccentric flight.

  Mrs. Full, the expert at flying the miniature vessel, was hectically jamming her blocks along their metal rods; something had gone wrong with the mechanism at the crash. Her husband hauled her off the seat and rushed her toward the door.

  The remaining child stood in the middle of the floor, staring at its groaning, breathless playmate and at the maimed adult, honking a little frightened song to itself. Skirting it, the humans made for the door as fast as they could go.

  Summersby overtook Watkins. “I found it okay,” panted the crook.

  “Can you work it?” They were through the door now, the two of them in the lead, running across the first of the rooms.

  “There were other adults,” said Watkins. “Three or four saw me. I don’t know where they went.”

  “Can you work it?”

  “The matter transmitter?” He grinned briefly. “Sure. There’s two principles I don’t get, but—”

  The doorway before them was crowded by several of the giants. They came through, not hurrying, talking rather placidly; their movements had the swiftness of the children’s without their jerkiness. In their hands were green goads. They pointed and came down upon the humans.

  “Scatter!” yelled Summersby, and dodged under the shelf of the machine where he had taken cover last night. He went to the end. In seconds they would be peering under the shelf, spotting him, thrusting in their shockers and laying him out. And, damn it all, he cared! He didn’t want to be stopped when so much of the fight was won. His heart might stop, he couldn’t help that, but till it did he wanted to go on fighting. Balling his fists, he started to leave the sanctuary. Then he heard Adam Pierce begin to sing.

  He had a high tenor voice, mellow with a sweet touch of huskiness in it, and he was singing “Drink to Me Only” at the top of his lungs.

  He hadn’t gone crazy! Summersby remembered the punishments they had endured for making harmonious noises on the musical toy, the slap Adam got for singing, the agonies the kids had gone through at Earth-type melody. Adam had thought of the only weapon they could use—song.

  “Or leave a kiss within the cup,” roared Summersby, and without further thought walked into the room. Watkins had chimed in now, breathless but true of pitch.

  Three eighteen-foot brutes were standing there. Vast hands were pressed to bulbous heads, and agonized croaks came from gaping mouths. Whatever a tune did to them, it wasn’t pleasant. What weird auricular structure could cringe so from a simple song? It did, and that was enough.

  Mrs. Full clutched his arm. “One of them struck Calvin with his prod,” she wailed.

  “Where is he?”

  “Near that door.”

  Beginning to sing again, Summersby pelted for the prone milk inspector. He picked him up and slung him, limp as a dead doe, over his left shoulder. The others were gathering. He motioned them forward, and, as Watkins joined him, ran on.

  “Where’d you find your case?”

  “On a table. Hope the dough is all in there.” He glanced back. “They’re coming. We’re racking ‘em but they’re game.”

  The woman, Adam and Villa were right behind them. As they reached the midpoint of the third room, the dining hall, one of the beings staggered through the door behind them. It had lost its goad and was flattening its hands on its skull as Adam and Mrs. Full swung into “Dixie.” It came at them like a drunk, unable to navigate a straight course but determined to reach them. It’ll stamp on us, thought Summersby, easing Full back a little on his arm. It only has to come down once or twice with that Cadillac-sized foot and we’re squashed ants. He sang.

  “To live and die in....”

  The second brute appeared, lurched over and fell on the table, caught up a flat trencher and skimmed it at them. It was as big as a bathtub. “Drop!” cried Summersby, went to one knee, felt the wind of the trencher’s passing ruffle his hair.

  The next door was closed. Summersby slammed himself flat against the wall and Adam, cat-lithe and fast, scrambled up over him, stood on his shoulders and broke the controlling beam. The aliens came down the room like two epileptic furies. “Sing!” said Watkins. “Everybody!” The door slid aside with maddening slowness.

  “Try a fast one,” said Mrs. Full. “‘Blow the Man Down.’” It was a funny suggestion, coming from her. Summersby actually chuckled as he started to sing.

  “As I was a-walkin’ down Paradise Street....”

  * * * *

  The third monster entered the dining hall, caught the full blast of their five voices (Calvin Full was still out, but Villa was giving a rum-tum-tum accompaniment), and sank to its knees, shaking its head as though it had been sapped. One of the others made a desperate leap at them, landing prone within a yard of Summersby. Melodies affect its organ of equilibrium, he thought; poor thing’s in agony. “I says to her, Lollie, and how d’ye do....”

  They were through the doorway now. The only pursuer still on its feet was reeling after them, green rod still held in one shaking hand. Its rust-red eyes were bulging out from their deep pits, and a thin trickle of violet ichor came from its nostril. It made guttural, creaking noises.

  “Down at the end,” said Watkins. “The brown box.”

  “Did you gimmick it?” asked Summersby.

  “I think so. We have to take a chance. The main idea is easy. I guessed at a few things, but I think it’ll work. Unless one of our big pals checked on it and mucked up my improvements.”

  It was twenty yards away; but so was the last of the monsters. Summersby changed Full to his other arm and added his voice to the general clamor for a bar or so, then asked Watkins the question that had been nagging at him. “Can we all go? Or does somebody have to send the others?”

  “I’ll send you. I’m not too sure I can get through. The dials and focusing lenses are on the outside, you know.”

  “I’ll work it, then.” They were at the table; he dropped Full and helped Adam shove a ch
air to the table. The woman and Villa were singing “Quiereme Mucho” in Spanish, their voices a trifle hoarse by now.

  “You will like hell. It’d take me ten minutes to teach you how to work the transmitter. Think we have ten minutes?”

  The giant was standing still, weaving, pawing the air. It would not give in to its pain and dizziness. If it fell now it might hit them. It was that close.

  “You’ve got to show me. I have a bad heart. I’m due to die in a month or two,” said Summersby urgently.

  Watkins stared at him. “Do you think you went through the past hours with a rotten ticker? Don’t make me laugh.”

  “It’s true. I’m just waiting to die. You’re no more than thirty-eight or forty, and you’ve got twenty-two thousand dollars there,” he said, gesturing at the briefcase. “I don’t give a damn about the morals of the case. You’re a decent fellow and you ought to have this break.”

  Watkins snarled, as he gave the valiantly singing Mrs. Full a hand up to the chair seat, “You think I have a martyr complex? You think I want to stay here? I’m elected, that’s all! It’s me stays or it’s everybody! I haven’t the time to teach you to work it!” He hit Summersby a hard blow on the chest. “Your heart’s fixed up the same as Adam’s eyes and Cal’s sinus. These gentry could turn your lungs upside down without opening you up, they’re that good. Go back to your woods. You’re okay.”

  “No,” said Summersby with stubborn rage. “I’m sick of waiting to die. That’s why I took the coaster ride in the first place. That’s why I wanted—”

  “You’re nuts. You have a heart to match your frame, Highpockets, if you’d admit it. Hand up old Cal.”

  The monster took two wobbling steps toward them. They were all on the chair, then clambering onto the table. Watkins swung open the door of the brown box. “Fast,” he said urgently, “fast!”

  Adam had Cal by the armpits; he lugged him into the dark interior. Villa jumped in, Mrs. Full following. Summersby confronted the safe-cracker.

  “Show me how to work the machine. I don’t believe they could mend a bad heart.”

  Watkins handed him the briefcase with so unexpected a motion that Summersby took it automatically. “Send it to Roscoe & Bates, if I don’t turn up. I guess I can’t use it here.” He put a hand under his coat. “Go on, Highpockets.”

  “No!”

  Watkins drew a gun, a small steel-blue thing that looked as wicked as a rattler. Summersby had had no idea that he was carrying it. “Hop in, tall man,” said Watkins, grinning. “You’re holding up the works.”

  Reluctantly Summersby backed away, stood in the door of the box. He could jump Watkins, but if the mechanism were so complex, he would only doom them all. “You’re out of your head,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  Abruptly above the safe-cracker towered the fantastic form of their forgotten enemy, reaching for them, one hand still to its head. Summersby inflated his lungs.

  “Should auld acquaintance be forgot,” he roared tunefully, “and never brought to mind!”

  Everyone joined him. It was a startling cataclysm of sound, even to Summersby. The alien tottered, hand outstretched; its mouth fell open, its eyes popped, the violet blood coursed from its nostril; with a shudder it clawed the air, honked grotesquely, and pitched forward, half on and half off the table, where it lay gurgling. A spot on the side of its skull, about the width of a gallon jug, on which the hair grew sparse and gray, pulsed as though there were no bone beneath the skin, as though a bellows within was puffing it in and out, in and out. Its ear, thought Summersby. Probably we’ve wrecked it for good. Maybe the thing will die. Then Watkins is a gone goose, if he stays. He was about to lunge at the steady gun-hand when Adam and Villa yanked him backward into the box. Adam was crying.

  “Try and come too, Mr. Watkins, try and come too,” he said.

  Watkins laughed. “I’ll make out okay, son. I like my hide pretty well.” He waved with the gun. “Be seeing you.” Then he tossed the dark weapon into the box and slammed the door.

  CHAPTER 11

  There was darkness, then bright sun. They stood on a street corner, and Summersby could read the signs as plainly as Watkins must have read them in the focusing lens of the matter transmitter on the unknown planet.

  Broadway and 42nd Street. The five of them had clicked into being on the busiest corner of New York.

  “That old crook,” said Adam, gulping. “He focused us here for a gag.”

  “I look awful,” gasped Mrs. Full, and Summersby, glancing at her, agreed. Like all of them, she had lost weight; her skin showed the effects of a week’s washing without soap; and her skirt and blouse were mussed up, to say the least. All the men needed shaves. Calvin Full, recovering gradually from the shock of the goad, and still supported by Villa, looked like a Bowery wino.

  “Is he coming?” asked Adam, addressing Summersby. “Will Watkins be along too?”

  “I don’t know,” said Summersby. He stared up at as much of the sky as he could see beyond the block-high ads. “I hope so.”

  “My chili stand!” shouted Villa, suddenly awakening to the fact of New York about him. “That no-good relief man! I’ve got to see what he’s done to it!” Pushing Calvin to Adam, who grasped him by an arm, the Mexican waved hurriedly. “Come and see me,” he said to all of them. “I’ll give you a bowl free.” He hastened away into the crowd.

  “We’ve got to see about our clothes at the hotel,” said Mrs. Full. She sounded apologetic. “I hope we’ll see you again, Adam, and Mr. Summersby.”

  “I doubt it,” said Summersby. He looked at Full. “Coming out of it?” he asked.

  “Thanks,” said Cal, nodding. He took his wife’s hand. “Gave you my address, didn’t I?”

  “I have it,” said Summersby.

  “Well, good-bye,” said Mrs. Full.

  “You did a fine job up there,” said Adam Pierce. “I’m proud to have known you, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Adam. Good-bye.” They were gone.

  “I suppose you’ll be going too,” said Adam, somewhat wistfully.

  “I guess so. You’ll go home?”

  “I guess so,” Adam repeated. “My folks will be sore. They’ll never believe such a story. They’ll think I ran wild or something.”

  Summersby, still looking upward, and wondering if he could be staring blindly at the planet which Watkins must be trying to leave even now, put a hand on his heart. “Was he right? They did fix up everyone else.” He laughed. It was the first time he had laughed normally in seven months. “I could get into the rangers again,” he said. “Adam, I’ve got to see a doctor. I’ve got to find out something.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Adam unhappily. Summersby looked at him. “Really worried about your folks?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll come home and tell them, if you like.”

  Adam said gratefully, “Mr. Summersby, you’re a gentleman.”

  “No,” said Summersby, “no.”

  “Yes, sir, you are. Can we wait just a minute more? Mr. Watkins might be along any minute now.”

  “We’ll wait.”

  After a while Adam said, “Remember that first feed we got up there, pies and cookies and glass?”

  “I remember it.”

  “They must have just aimed that machine at a bakery window here on Earth, and taken glass and all.”

  “That’s it.”

  “Probably it was called a smash-and-grab robbery, down here.” He kicked something, bent down and picked it up. It was the safe-cracker’s gun. “I didn’t think he’d carry one,” said the boy. He looked closer at it. “God!”

  “What is it?” Summersby shifted the briefcase and held out a hand. Adam laid the weapon in his big palm. “He must have won it at the park that day,” Adam said. “That old crook! Old faker!”

  Summersby held it up. It looked like a small automatic of blued steel, but it was plastic. He turned it over. A pencil-sharpener.

  Summersby grunt
ed. “A toy,” he said, giving it back to Adam. “Nothing but a kid’s toy.”

  THE GIANTS FROM OUTER SPACE

  Originally published in Imagination, May 1954.

  CHAPTER I

  “Okay, make another check on the reading.”

  “I’ve made four checks already—”

  “Damn it, make another!”

  “It’s no use, Pink. The life-scanner’s never wrong.”

  “No possibility of a monkey wrench dropped into its innards? It couldn’t be seeing things that aren’t there?”

  “Not in a million years.”

  “Then there’s no water, no air, no gravity worth mentioning, and still—”

  “That’s right. There’s life on that silly-looking little apple. There’s somebody sitting on it!”

  In the ninetieth star system to be explored by the insatiably curious men of Earth, there were seven planets. Between the fourth and fifth from the star there was a belt of asteroids: some three or four thousand tiny planetary bodies traveling in vast ellipses around the star. At one time they had probably constituted a single planet, but some unimaginable explosion far back in time had scattered the great ball broadcast, and the largest of the resulting planetoids was now no more than 440 miles across. In the gargantuan belt of them, many were no bigger in diameter than the spaceship Elephant’s Child herself.

  When the instruments of the ship detected this belt of asteroids, Captain Pinkham turned aside as a matter of course, to cruise through it and let his cartographer map it, his organicus officer check it for signs of life, and all his other crewmen turn their inquisitive eyes and machines upon it. It was the seventh asteroid belt to be discovered by man, if you included the one between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, back home, incredible light-years behind....

  No life had ever been discovered on an asteroid, except for the vegetable-animal space-eating bacteria on Pallas. No life—

  Until now.

  * * * *

  Captain Pinkham headed for the tiny bit of planet, let his ship’s screens pick it up and relay its presence to the automatic recoil engines, which slammed the Elephant’s Child to a stop about twelve feet away from the knobbly slate-gray surface. The energy testers, having come into play simultaneously with the screens, at once flashed the green “Not Radioactive” sign; a fairly useless gesture, since a positive reaction would have turned the ship away at an angle before it entered the danger zone.