Empire
Page 8
_CHAPTER EIGHT_
A giant cylindrical hull of finest beryl steel, the ship loomed in thescreen. A mighty ship, braced into absolute rigidity by monster crossbeams of shining steel. Glowing under the blazing lamps that lighted thescene, it towered into the shadows of the factory, dwarfing thescurrying workmen who swarmed over it.
"She's a beauty," said Russ, puffing at his pipe.
Greg nodded agreement. "They're working on her day and night to get herfinished. We may need it some day and need it in a hurry. If Chambersreally gets that machine of his to rolling, space will be the only placebig enough to hide in."
He chuckled, a grim chuckle, deep in his throat.
"But we won't have to hide long. Just until we get organized and thenwill come the time when we'll call for the showdown. Chambers will haveto spread his cards."
Russ snapped the television switch and the screen went blank. Thelaboratory suddenly was a place of queer lights and shadows, bulgingwith grotesque machines, with sprawling apparatus, a place that hinteddarkly of vast power and mighty forces.
The scientist sat up in his chair. "We've come a long way, Greg. A long,long way. We have the greatest power man has ever known; we have analmost incomprehensible space drive; we have three-dimensionaltelevision."
"And," said Greg dryly, "we took Chambers to the cleaners on themarket."
They sat in silence. Greg smelled the smoke from Russ's pipe, mixed withthe taint of lubricant and the faint lingering scent of ionized air.
"We mustn't underrate Chambers, however," he declared. "The man made onemistake. He underrated us. We can't repeat his mistake. He is dangerousall the time. He will stop at nothing. Not even murder."
"He's going easy now," said Russ. "He's hoping Craven can find somethingthat will either equal our stuff or beat it. But Craven isn't having anyluck. He's still driving himself on the radiation theory, but he doesn'tseem to make much headway."
"If he got it, just what would it mean?"
"Plenty. With that he could turn all radiations in space to work. Thecosmics, heat, light, everything. Space is full of radiation."
"If it hadn't been for Wilson," Greg said, his voice a snarl, "wewouldn't have to be worrying about Chambers. Chambers wouldn't knowuntil we were ready to let him know."
"Wilson!" ejaculated Russ, suddenly leaning forward. "I had forgottenabout Wilson. What do you say we try to find him?"
* * * * *
Harry Wilson sat at his table in the Martian Club and watched the exoticMartian dance, performed by near-nude girls. Smoke trailed up lazilyfrom his drooping cigarette as he watched through squinted eyes. Therewas something about the dance that got under Wilson's skin.
The music rose, then fell to whispering undertones and suddenly,unexpectedly, crashed and stopped. The girls were running from thefloor. A wave of smooth, polite applause rippled around the tables.
Wilson sighed and reached for his wine glass. He crushed the cigaretteinto a tray and sipped his wine. He glanced around the room, scanningthe bobbing, painted faces of the night--the great, the near-great, thenear-enough-to-touch-the-great. Brokers and businessmen, artists andwriters and actors. There were others, too, queer night-life shadowsthat no one knew much about, or that one heard too much about ... theplayboys and the ladies of family and fortune, correctly attired men,gorgeously, sleekly attired women.
And--Harry Wilson. The waiters called him Mr. Wilson. He heard peoplewhispering about him asking who he was. His soul soaked it in and criedfor more. Good food, good drinks, the pastels of the walls, the softlights and weird, exotic music. The cold but colorful correctness of itall.
Just two months ago he had stood outside the club, a stranger in thecity, a mechanic from a little out-of-the-way laboratory, a man who waspaid a pittance for his skill. He had stood outside and watched hisemployers walk up the steps and through the magic doors. He had watchedin bitterness....
But now!
The orchestra was striking up a tune. A blonde nodded at him from anear-by table. Solemnly, with the buzz of wine in his brain and itshotness in his blood, he returned the nod.
Someone was speaking to him, calling him by name. He looked around, butthere was no one looking at him now. And once again, through that flowof music, through the hum of conversation, through the buzzing of hisown brain, came the voice, cold and sharp as steel:
"Harry Wilson!"
It sent a shudder through him. He reached for the wine glass again, buthis hand stopped half-way to the stem, paused and trembled at what hesaw.
* * * * *
For there was a gray vagueness in front of him, a sort of shimmer ofnothingness, and out of that shimmer materialized a pencil.
As he watched, in stricken terror, the point of the pencil dropped tothe tablecloth and slowly, precisely, it started to move. He stared,hypnotized, unbelieving, with the fingers of madness probing at hisbrain. The pencil wrote:
Wilson, you sold me out.
The man at the table tried to speak, tried to shriek, but his tongue andthroat were dry and only harsh breath rattled in his mouth.
The pencil moved on mercilessly:
But you will pay. No matter where you go, I will find you. You cannot hide from me.
The pencil slowly lifted its point from the table and suddenly was gone,as if it had never been. Wilson, eyes wide and filled with terriblefear, stared at the black words on the cloth.
Wilson, you sold me out. But you will pay. No matter where you go, I will find you. You cannot hide from me.
The music pulsated in the room, the hum of conversation ran like anundertone, but Wilson did not hear. His entire consciousness wascentered on the writing, the letters and the words that filled his soulwith dread.
Something seemed to snap within him. The cold wind of terror reached outand struck at him. He staggered from the chair. His hand swept the wineglass from the table and it shattered into chiming shards.
"They can't do this to me!" he shrieked.
There was a silence in the room a silence of terrible accusation.Everyone was staring at him. Eyebrows raised.
* * * * *
A waiter was at his elbow. "Do you feel ill, sir?"
And then, on unsteady feet, he was being led away. Behind him he heardthe music once again, heard the rising hum of voices.
Someone set his hat on his head, was holding his coat. The cold air ofthe night struck his face and the doors sighed closed behind him.
"I'd take it easy going down the step, sir," counseled the doorman.
An aero-taxi driver held open the door of the cab and saluted.
"Where to, sir?"
Wilson stumbled in and stammered out his address. The taxi droned intothe traffic lane.
Hands twitching, Wilson fumbled with the key, took minutes to open thedoor into his apartment. Finally the lock clicked and he pushed open thedoor. His questing finger found the wall switch. Light flooded the room.
Wilson heaved a sigh of relief. He felt safe here. This place belongedto him. It was his home, his retreat....
A low laugh, hardly more than a chuckle, sounded behind him. He whirledand for a moment, blinking in the light, he saw nothing. Then somethingstirred by one of the windows, gray and vague, like a sheet of movingfog.
As he watched, shrinking back against the wall, the grayness deepened,took the form of a man. And out of that mistiness a face was etched, aface that had no single line of humor in it, a bleak face with the fireof anger in the eyes.
"Manning!" shrieked Wilson. "Manning!" He wheeled and sprinted for thedoor, but the gray figure moved, too ... incredibly fast, as if it werewind-blown vapor, and barred his path to the door.
"Why are you running away?" Manning's voice mocked. "Certainly youaren't afraid of me."
"Look," Wilson whimpered, "I didn't think of what it meant. I just wastired of working the way Page made me work. Tired of the little salar
y Igot. I wanted money. I was hungry for money."
"So you sold us out," said Manning.
"No," cried Wilson, "I didn't think of it that way. I didn't stop tothink."
"Think now, then," said Manning gravely. "Think of this. No matter whereyou are, no matter where you go, no matter what you do, I'll always bewatching you, I'll never let you rest. I'll never give you a minute'speace."
"Please," pleaded Wilson. "Please, go away and leave me. I'll give youback the money ... there's some of it left."
"You sold out for twenty thousand," said Manning. "You could have gottentwenty million. Chambers would have paid that much to know what youcould tell him, because it was worth twenty billion."
Wilson's breath was coming in panting gasps. He dropped his coat andbacked away. The back of his knees collided with a chair and he foldedup, sat down heavily, still staring at the gray mistiness that was aman.
"Think of that, Wilson," Manning went on sneeringly. "You could havebeen a millionaire. Maybe even a billionaire. You could have had all thefine things these other people have. But you only got twenty thousand."
"What can I do?" begged Wilson.
The misty face split in a sardonic grin.
"I don't believe there's anything left for you to do."
Before Wilson's eyes the face dissolved, lost its lines, seemed to meltaway. Only streaming, swirling mist, then a slight refraction in the airand then nothing.
Slowly Wilson rose to his feet, reached for the bottle of whiskey on thetable. His hand shook so that the liquor splashed. When he raised theglass to his mouth, his still-shaking hand poured half the drink overhis white shirt front.