Empire

by Clifford D. Simak

  _CHAPTER TWELVE_

  Scorio snarled at the four men: "I want you to get the thing done right.I don't want bungling. Understand?"

  The bulky, flat-faced man with the scar across his cheek shuffleduneasily. "We went over it a dozen times. We know just what to do."

  He grinned at Scorio, but the grin was lopsided, more like a sneeringgrimace. At one time the man had failed to side-step a heat ray and ithad left a neat red line drawn across the right cheek, nipped the end ofthe ear.

  "All right, Pete," said Scorio, glaring at the man, "your job is theheavy work, so just keep your mind on it. You've got the two heaters andthe kit."

  Pete grinned lopsidedly again. "Yeah, my own kit. I can open anythinghollow with this rig."

  "You got a real job tonight," snarled Scorio. "Two doors and a safe.Sure you can do it?"

  "Just leave it to me," Pete growled.

  "Chizzy, you're to pilot," Scorio snapped. "Know the coordinates?"

  "Sure," said Chizzy, "know them by heart. Do it with my eyes shut."

  "Keep your eyes open. We can't have anything go wrong. This is tooimportant. You swoop in at top speed and land on the roof. Stand by thecontrols and keep a hand on the big heater just in case of trouble.Pete, Max and Reg will go to the lockdoor. Reg will stay there with thebuzzer and three drums of ammunition."

  He whirled on Reg. "You got that ammunition?"

  Reg nodded emphatically. "Four drums of it," he said. "One solid roundin the gun. Another drum of solid and two explosive."

  "There's a thousand rounds in each drum," snapped Scorio, "but they lastonly a minute, so do your firing in bursts."

  "I ain't handled buzzers all these years without knowing something aboutthem."

  "There's only two men there," said Scorio, "and they'll probably beasleep. Come down with your motor dead. The lab roof is thick and theplane landing on those thick tires won't wake them. But be on your guardall the time. Pete and Max will go through the lockdoor into thelaboratory and open the safe. Dump all the papers and money and whateverelse you find into the bags and then get out fast. Hop into the planeand take off. When you're clear of the building, turn the heaters on it.I want it melted down and the men and stuff inside with it. Don't leaveeven a button unmelted. Get it?"

  * * * * *

  "Sure, chief," said Pete. He dusted his hands together.

  "Now get going. Beat it."

  The four men turned and filed out of the room, through the door leadingto the tumbledown warehouse where was hidden the streamlined metal ship.Swiftly they entered it and the ship nosed gently upward, blasting outthrough a broken, frameless skylight, climbing up and up, over thegleaming spires of New York.

  Back in the room hung with steel-cloth curtains, alone, Scorio lit acigarette and chuckled. "They won't have a chance," he said.

  "Who won't?" asked a tiny voice from almost in front of him.

  "Why, Manning and Page ..." said Scorio, and then stopped. The fire ofthe match burned down and scorched his fingers. He dropped it. "Whoasked that?" he roared.

  "I did," said the piping voice.

  Scorio looked down. A three-inch man sat on a matchbox on the desk!

  "Who are you?" the gangster shouted.

  "I'm Manning," said the little man. "The one you're going to kill. Don'tyou remember?"

  "Damn you!" shrieked Scorio. His hand flipped open a drawer and pulledout a flame pistol. The muzzle of the pistol came up and blasted.Screwed down to its smallest diameter, the gun's aim was deadly. Astraight lance of flame, no bigger than a pencil, streamed out, engulfedthe little man, bored into the table top. The box of matches explodedwith a gush of red that was a dull flash against the blue blaze of thegun.

  But the figure of the man stood _within the flame_! Stood there andwaved an arm at Scorio. The piping voice came out of the heart of thegun's breath.

  "Maybe I'd better get a bit smaller. Make me harder to hit. More sportthat way."

  * * * * *

  Scorio's finger lifted from the trigger. The flame snapped off.Laboriously climbing out of the still smoking furrow left in the oakentable top was Greg Manning, not more than an inch tall now.

  The gangster laid the gun on the table, stepped closer, warily. With thepalm of a mighty hand he swatted viciously at the little figure.

  "I got you now!"

  But the figure seemed to ooze upright between his fingers, calmlystepped off his hand onto the table. And now it began to grow. Watchingit, Scorio saw it grow to six inches and there it stopped.

  "What are you?" he breathed.

  "I told you," said the little image. "I'm Gregory Manning. The man youset out to kill. I've watched every move you've made and knowneverything you planned."

  "But that isn't possible," protested Scorio. "You're out on the WestCoast. This is some trick. I'm just seeing things."

  "You aren't seeing anything imaginary. I'm really here, in this roomwith you. I could lift my finger and kill you if I wished ... and maybeI should."

  Scorio stepped back a pace.

  "But I'm not going to," said Manning. "I have something better saved foryou. Something more appropriate."

  "You can't touch me!"

  "Look," said Manning sternly. He pointed his finger at a chair. Itsuddenly grew cloudy, became a wisp of trailing smoke, was gone.

  The gangster backed away, eyes glued to the spot where the chair hadvanished.

  "Look here," piped the little voice. Scorio jerked his head around andlooked.

  The chair was in Manning's hand. A tiny chair, but the very one that haddisappeared from the room a moment before.

  "Watch out!" warned Manning, and heaved the chair. The tiny chairseemed to float in the air. Then with a rush it gathered speed, grewlarger. In a split second it was a full-sized chair and it was hurtlingstraight at the gangster's head.

  With a strangled cry Scorio threw up his arms. The chair crashed intohim, bowled him over.

  "Now do you believe me?" demanded Manning.

  Scrambling to his feet, Scorio gibbered madly, for the six-inch figurewas growing. He became as large as the average man, and then muchlarger. His head cleared the high ceiling by scant inches. His mightyhands reached out for the gangster.

  Scorio scuttled away on hands and knees, yelping with terror.

  Powerful hands seemed to seize and lift him. The room was blotted out.The Earth was gone. He was in a place where there was nothing. No light,no heat, no gravitation. For one searing, blasting second he seemed tobe floating in strangely suspended animation. Then with a jolt he becameaware of new surroundings.

  He blinked his eyes and looked around. He was in a great laboratory thathummed faintly with the suggestion of terrific power, that smelled ofozone and seemed filled with gigantic apparatus.

  Two men stood in front of him.

  He staggered back.

  "Manning!" he gasped.

  Manning grinned savagely at him. "Sit down, Scorio. You won't have longto wait. Your boys will be along any minute now."

  * * * * *

  Chizzy crouched over the controls, his eyes on the navigation chart.Only the thin screech of parted air disturbed the silence of the ship.The high scream and the slow, precise snack-snack of cards as Reg andMax played a game of double solitaire with a cold, emotionlessprecision.

  The plane was near the stratosphere, well off the traveled air lanes. Itwas running without lights, but the cabin bulbs were on, carefullyshielded.

  Pete sat in the co-pilot's chair beside Chizzy. His blank,expressionless eyes stared straight ahead.

  "I don't like this job," he complained.

  "Why not?" asked Chizzy.

  "Page and Manning aren't the kind of guys a fellow had ought to befooling around with. They ain't just chumps. You fool with characterslike them and you got trouble."

  Chizzy growled at him disgustedly, bent to his controls.

  Straight ahead was
a thin sliver of a dying Moon that gave barelyenough illumination to make out the great, rugged blocks of themountains, like dark, shadowy brush-strokes on a newly started canvas.

  Pete shuddered. There was something about the thin, watery moonlight,and those brush-stroke hills....

  "It seems funny up here," he said.

  "Hell," growled Chizzy, "you're going soft in your old age."

  Silence fell between the two. The snack-snack of the cards continued.

  "You ain't got nothing to be afraid of," Chizzy told Pete. "This tub isthe safest place in the world. She's overpowered a dozen times. She canoutfly anything in the air. She's rayproof and bulletproof andbombproof. Nothing can hurt us."

  But Pete wasn't listening. "That moonlight makes a man see things. Funnythings. Like pictures in the night."

  "You're balmy," declared Chizzy.

  Pete started out of his seat. His voice gurgled in his throat. Hepointed with a shaking finger out into the night.

  "Look!" he yelled "Look!"

  Chizzy rose out of his seat ... and froze in sudden terror.

  Straight ahead of the ship, etched in silvery moon-lines against thebackground of the star-sprinkled sky, was a grim and terrible face.

  It was as big and hard as a mountain.