Fantastic Vignettes

by Jerry

  The annunciator on the desk buzzed. Henry punched the button. “Yes?” he said.

  “Lesser talking,” the speaker rattled. “Will you come into my office please. Couple of points I’d like to clear up. G.H.Q, is asking questions.”

  Henry put down the pencil and slide and walked out of his office. The guard outside the door half-saluted, but Henry knew he was being carefully scrutinized. They couldn’t take chances. The Androids were smart.

  He walked down the corridors of the laboratory fortress. Would it end in victory or defeat? he asked himself. Since the robot revolt, the Androids had taken half the world, the fibrous brain structures beating Man at his own game. Here in upper North America, the Humans were holding their own, but more and more it became difficult to counter-attack. It was too easy for the Androids to masquerade as Humans and filter in and destroy. That’s what the lab was working on—a suitable detector of the mechanical creatures.

  The guard admitted him to Leaser’s office. The Chief of Android Research, a tall powerfully built man, sat behind his desk and greeted him heartily.

  “Come in, Carlton,” he boomed. “How are you doing with the gamma wave job?”

  Henry shrugged. “It seems to be coming along, Chief,” he said, “but it’s slow, too damned slow.”

  “Well, don’t worry too much about it,” Lesser said cheerily. “You’re the best man we’ve got on the job. You know electronic brains inside out. The Androids will never get the rest of us as long as you’re with us.”

  Henry looked puzzled at the unaccustomed flattery. “I’m not so sure about that,” he said worriedly, “I hear that they’ve broken through along the coast at several points.”

  Henry was standing in front of Lesser’s desk while they were speaking. Suddenly the Lab head stood up facing him. Henry looked at him closely—and was struck with an awful thought—this couldn’t be Lesser!—but it was so fantastic that he dismissed it immediately.

  At that same instant, both Lesser’s hands raised and shot over the desk, pulling Henry against it an t then clamping about his throat. Simultaneously, Henry saw the body lying on the floor just in back of the desk.

  The horrified realization came to Henry even as the life was being choked out of him—the supposed Lesser was an Android! And he, Man’s hope—was dying. The Androids has triumphed . . .

  Psycho . . .

  Lee Owen

  MOST OF the time, the analyzers get ’em. It has to be that way or there’d be more wrecks in space than there are ships. Every spaceman from here to Bleakport on Pluto, takes a check-out before he steps aboard one of the cans.

  But once in a great while, once out of a million times or more, a psycho—permanent or temporary—will slip through. Usually it’s the temporary ones who make it because their patterns, the neuronic ones, aren’t as fixed. The machines are good, and the medicos act as a double check, but there’s always a chance that a mentally upset case will board a rocket craft—then space-madness; and if the victim isn’t grabbed . . .

  That’s what happened to the Feckner III. Brand new, just out of the Ketnnung yards on Mars City, she took aboard her crew in the usual routine fashion. As always the boys passed through the psychoanalyzers. There was no trouble, no one was stopped and she shipped out. The medico in charge who had examined the crew members swore before the investigating court that be hadn’t spotted the slightest abnormality—but then it was too late anyway. The lunatic got on ship.

  The two survivors described the picture vividly. They were both engineers who had been checking the life-boats when they spotted the madman. They were about to enter lock number three when they saw the fellow enter the passageway.

  He saw them and stopped. “You fools,” he cried, “I’m going to stop this horrible thing. Men weren’t made for space!” His voice was a half-shriek and he was drooling at the mouth. Both engineers knew immediately what was up. The fanatic was obviously struck with the ever-present malady of space-madness.

  He held a package in his arms. He shouted and cursed violently, then disappeared behind the door leading to the engine-room. The senior grabbed a phone tine to the control room and told the story. Tire captain immediately ordered an “abandon ship”. The engineers waited to hear no more. They were in a boat and away from the freighter before the Captain had finished talking.

  So they saw the flaring blast as the uranium pile disintegrated through whatever trigger the madman had employed. The ship was completely scattered into small masses of wreckage, and though the engineers searched the remnants they found no survivors.

  A case like this isn’t common. But space-madness is such a peculiar sickness, so weird and unexpected that only persons of extremely strong emotional make-up can be trusted to astrogate the big ones. They’re not on a positive identification now. Maybe they’ll make the perfect psycho-machines yet—they’ve got too . . .

  Out of the Past

  H.R. Stanton

  AS A CIVIL engineer with the Terran Services, I’ve knocked around quite a bit. I’m not particularly moved by emotion or sentiment. In my game you can’t be—not if you want to live long. I’ve seen sights that would make the average man’s blood run cold—sights which have left me unaffected. But there are rare times when even I am touched. I’ll never forget, as long as I live, that simple little discovery which Harry Fellen, my co-worker, and I made.

  We were doing a routine survey on Venus a few weeks back. It was hard uncomfortable work as all Venusian operations are. Try getting up some enthusiasm in a temperature of a hundred and twenty degrees with a relative humidity of one hundred per cent. Try doing it while you’re wearing a spore-suit and a filter mask. It’s not exactly fun.

  Anyhow we were running this survey, using a small copter, and doing a lot of marking on foot in the heart of the fantastic-growths that cover Venus. We’d left the copter at a temporary base and were running a base-line—just the two of us—to be used later in spotting a small rocket port. We had the best equipment—radio and optical, as well as a complete drawing room in the copter—but we were not exactly jumping with vigor. The swamps drain a man too easy.

  Harry was walking knee deep in mud toward me. I put down the optical sighter.

  “Jim,” he said in an unusually earnest tone, “come over here a minute will you?” He stopped and motioned me to follow him, “O.K.” I said, “What do you want.”

  “Take a look at this.”

  I followed him for a distance of about three hundred meters. The little walk was fatiguing. Harry was waiting.

  “What’s up?” I asked rather uncuriously. He pointed to a clump of vegetation at the base of a gigantic tree. I looked closely but I saw nothing unusual. Here was a huge lump of mossy, undergrowth, crawling alive with typical Venusian spore-growths, in all, an ugly sight.

  “I don’t see anything,” I said after a time.

  Harry took his light aluminum shovel and jabbed at the mould-covered pile. It gave a distinctly metallic ring. I looked curiously at Harry. Without a word I joined him and in five minutes we had uncovered a sizable expanse of metal. We were practically floating in our suits after the effort, but this was something!

  Harry looked at me and I looked at him. “You know what this is?” he asked in a feeble voice.

  “I know,” I said slowly, “that’s a rocket—and I’ll bet credits, it’s the Prometheus!”

  Seventy years ago the first interplanetary rocket to Venus was launched—and it had never been heard of again. The loss hadn’t stopped men, but I remember reading accounts of how the event was taken on Earth.

  To make a long story short, Harry and I went at it, uncovering enough metal to enable us to make a cut into the badly corroded thing. We saw the remnants of skeletal dust that remained under the thick coating of Venusian life-forms.

  Nothing was recognizable, no writings, no notes, no film. Only the etched nameplates told us the name of this incredible adventurer to the planets.

  Here, standing on an alien
planet, seeing the tragic remains of a glorious undertaking, realizing that we were of the same breed, made me feel prouder then, than ever before.

  Well, when the incident was reported, it made quite a stir; they’re going to leave the hulk here, and put up a monument to the men who made the last trip. I’m going to be in on the ceremony—not that I’m a sentimentalist you understand—but I want to hold my head just a bit higher . . .

  The Assassin

  Charles Recour

  HAVV SHIVERED under the crude woolen cloak, but no fear made his muscles tremor. It was cold and drafty in the steel ventilating tubes. Haw drew the cloak tighter about him and crouched deeper into the side-niche.

  His deep black eyes burnt with intensity. His tall gaunt frame wasted by hunger and work in the Shops, disguised the fierce energy that captivated him. Haw was destined, Haw had a purpose.

  He glanced down the dim-lit metal corridors. It was possible, but unlikely that a guard might wander this route; for it had been a long time since a Shopman had menaced Sklane.

  Haw lit a cigarette and as he inhaled the acrid smoke, he had to struggle to withhold a cough. The acrid smoke bit. It had been a long time since he had had such a luxury. But then nothing was too good for a Shopman with the courage to seek out Sklane.

  His ears caught the clip-clop of sandals. Haw straightened and made himself squeeze even tighter into the niche. He stepped on the cigarette, an act that caused him silent anguish. One hand caressed the flame-pistol. Half-drawn, he thrust it back into his belt and his fingers found the long, keen-edged knife.

  Silently Haw prayed that the guard wouldn’t see him. From the confident sound of the nearing footsteps, he knew he hadn’t yet been spotted.

  As the guard drew abreast of the niche, his steps slowed and faltered. This was it, Haw thought wildly. He flung himself upon the dumb-founded man with ferocity born of desperation. One, two—and the knife was in. The man writhed briefly and then Haw let his body drop to the floor.

  The act had taken no more than a minute. Haw glanced at his precious watch which his fellow-Workmen had procured from some forgotten horde of “things”. He had seven minutes to go. According to plan he had to go down the tube now. Thank the gods that he had waited. If the guard had been five minutes later, he would have seen Haw and cut him down with one blast.

  Almost buoyantly, certainly confidently, Haw started his measured pace. It wasn’t a long trip. The grating opening loomed up shortly. He walked up to it and peered through its foot-wide apertures.

  The scene which confronted him was exactly that which the Spies had so often said. Haw could hear them now:

  “. . . he sits there like a bloated toad. That fat, rotten pig! Sklane revels in food and women. He is not a god. He is like us, only fouled inside . . .”

  Havv saw the reclining figure of the Leader. The gross massiveness of the man did indeed look like a toad. Attendants rushed around him, caring for his slightest wants. Fascinated at the luxury which he had only heard of, Haw brought himself to reality with a start. He must act now!

  He raised the heavy flame pistol. There was hardly a chance for him to get away after this night’s work. That he knew, but he also knew that he would be leaving a better world. Unhesitatingly he sighted along the shining barrel. He drew an accurate bead on the corpulent figure.

  He squeezed the trigger three times and the room beneath his ruptured into coruscant violence. In the maze of smoke Haw caught glimpses of mangled and mutilated flesh—but there was nothing in the position where Sklane had been.

  Exultantly Haw ran back along the musty tube, heedless now of cold. And when the first guards appeared at the mouth of the ventilating tube, Haw ran toward them unafraid—almost eagerly—for death was nothing to fear. Haw laughed in his eagerness to meet it—for his children, and his children’s children would never face another Sklane . . .

  Eternal Wanderer

  W.R. Chase

  THE FOLKLORE of the spaceways is as rich and entertaining as that of any people or place. And as in all stories there is just enough truth to gripping, just enough fantasy to be intriguing.

  “Son,” the grizzled veteran of many a Martian or Jovian or Plutonian run would say to the wide-eyed youngster at his side, whose first space flight included a lot of hanging around the crew and officers, “son, them stars have seen sights we’d be ashamed to talk about.” He’d gesture through the port with a stubby finger and maybe put a hand on the lad’s shoulder.

  “You’ve read in the history books in school son, about the tale of the Terran ocean-hopper, the Flying Dutchman, but let me tell you lad, you ain’t heard a thing until you’ve run into the story of The Seeker.

  “It’s enough to make your blood run cold, that story is. The Seeker—and he’s still a-huntin’ a port—was a selfish, rotten shell of a man. Yes, he was an Earthman, but one rotten apple don’t make a barrel.

  “He was on the Callisto—Luna hop through the Asteroid belt with a load of radioactives. They was short half-life stuff and every minute he saved in getting them to Luna was a hundred thousand credits in his bank account. An’ the penny pincher knew it.

  “He was cuttin’ through the Belt with gynos wide-open when his radioman caught a call on the monitor. Yes, son, the freighter picked up an Emergency from a liner that had caught a heavy chunk of metal in the nose and was in sad need of help.

  “You know the unwritten code of the spaceways—help your fellow rocketeer when he’s in trouble. Well lad, this devil looks at his radioman and says as cool as you please, keep ’er wide open. We ain’t stoppin’ !”

  “Yes sir, that man ran right through the belt and ignored the Emergency—an’ every single soul aboard the liner died before the patrol could get there.

  “But that ain’t the end of the story son. That Captain never made Luna. Somethin’ jumped his navigatin’ instruments, and he couldn’t plot a course. An’ his radio went out. He wasn’t heard from again.

  “But year in and year out, somebody always spots his ship. His gynos are full—on, and he’s in navigating radio range, but somehow he never makes it. His punishment is to ride the rocketways for all time, never managing to port his ship, always wandering through the system, seeking, forever seeking. An’ that’s the story of the Seeker.

  And the little boy will be open-mouthed at the tale, and he’ll press his face against the port peering into space. And as often as not, the old-timer will thrust out a finger and say:

  “See that light! That’s him, son! As sure as I’m here, that’s the Seeker . . .”

  Hope!

  Carter T. Wainwright

  THE LINE moved forward slowly, X McClary tensed. He had three more ahead of him.

  An icy bead of sweat rolled down his temple even though the day was cool.

  The man ahead of him was fumbling with his papers. He handed them serviley to the flat-faced Mongoloid sitting at the improvised desk. The soldier flipped through them.

  “No good,” he looked up at. the man before McClary. A slight gesture, a rapid-fire barrage of sing-song words, and two soldiers led the man away.

  Oh no, God, McClary thought, don’t let them stop me. Please. If they search me . . . left the thought unfinished.

  “Paper?” the Mongoloid officer barked.

  McClary handed him a thin sheaf of documents. He could feel the drawings around his waist crinkle and in his imagination the sound was audible. He bit his lip.

  No one had imagined defeat could be anything like this. It just was not conceivable. But it was. Now to get into Frisco required signatures and papers—and luck. The Mongoloids had the country in an iron, grip and they were suppressing the underground movements ruthlessly.

  Carelessly, the officer flung the papers back to McClary.

  Without a word, he took them. When he walked through the roadblock, McClary breathed freely.

  He walked down the streets—Frisco hadn’t taken much of a pulverizing, though Los Angeles was a shambles. That was before
the Surrender.

  Now, thought McClary, the thing is going to change. As soon as I get these plans to the underground headquarters, the Mongoloids are going to find a different world.

  As he walked along he thought about how easily he had gone through the road-block. That was funny—they must have been aware of the alarms.

  It took him three hours to get to the house on old Fenter street and the boys received him with open arms. The ultra-radio had pulsed the message. He had the Weapon!

  They didn’t give McClary a chance to refit. The papers were out and in the machine of the deceptive-appearing house the tools started to hum. Five hours after he arrived, McClary had the Weapon thrust into his hands.

  McClary hefted the crude, bell-mouthed weapon lovingly. This was his destiny. He hadn’t fought in the War but this was the most important clement to come out of it—and it was going to mean the end of the Mongoloids. With all their atomic weapons they’d be helpless before the disintegrating blasts of energy from the innocent hydrogen capsule.

  The shop below was humming with activity as the boys went to work on production. Build a few dozen of the simple machines and cut their way through the city. Single handed they could drive the Asiatics into the sea—and they knew it.

  Levy turned from the window.

  “You’ll get your chance, gang,” he said. “The patrols have got the joint surrounded. Brother, this better be good!”

  McClary shrugged. “I thought they let me through too easy. They figured on making a grand haul. Well, they’re going to.”

  Nonchalantly, he walked over to the window. Armored cars, tanks, trucks, soldiers—the full panoply of Mongoloid glory were moving in orderly circles around the house.

  McClary watched an officer—his golden suns showed him to be a colonel—walking toward the entrance to demand surrender.