Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  Minna walked up to Leroy Davis. He gaped at her and said, "You're crazy! Get back there. You're a crazy dame!"

  He fired the gun twice and Minna died appreciating the incongruity of his words. She went out on a note of laughter and as she fell, Jim Wilson, with an echoing animal roar, lunged at Leroy Davis. His great hand closed completely over that of Davis, hiding the gun. There was a muffled explosion and the bullet cut unnoticed through Wilson's palm. Wilson jerked the gun from Davis' weak grasp and hurled it away. Then he killed Davis.

  He did it slowly, a surprising thing for Wilson. He lifted Davis by his neck and held him with his feet off the floor. He squeezed Davis' neck, seeming to do it with great leisure as Davis made horrible noises and kicked his legs.

  Nora turned her eyes away, buried them in Frank Brooks' shoulder, but she could not keep the sounds from reaching her ears. Frank held her close. "Take it easy," he said. "Take it easy." And he was probably not conscious of saying it.

  "Tell him to hurry," Nora whispered. "Tell him to get it over with. It's like killing--killing an animal."

  "That's what he is--an animal."

  Frank Brooks stared in fascination at Leroy Davis' distorted, darkening face. It was beyond semblance of anything human now. The eyes bulged and the tongue came from his mouth as though frantically seeking relief.

  The animal sounds quieted and died away. Nora heard the sound of the body falling to the floor--a limp, soft sound of finality. She turned and saw Jim Wilson with his hands still extended and cupped. The terrible hands from which the stench of a terrible life was drifting away into empty air.

  Wilson looked down at his handiwork. "He's dead," Wilson said slowly. He turned to face Frank and Nora. There was a great disappointment in his face. "That's all there is to it," he said, dully. "He's just--dead." Without knowing it for what it was, Jim Wilson was full of the futile aftertaste of revenge.

  He bent down to pick up Minna's body. There was a small blue hole in the right cheek and another one over the left eye. With a glance at Frank and Nora, Jim Wilson covered the wounds with his hand as though they were not decent. He picked her up in his arms and walked across the lobby and up the stairs with the slow, quiet tread of a weary man.

  The sound of the jeep welled up again, but it was further away now. Frank Brooks took Nora's hand and they hurried out into the street. As they crossed the sidewalk, the sound of the jeep was drowned by a sudden swelling of the wailings to the northward.

  On still a new note, they rose and fell on the still air. A note of panic, of new knowledge, it seemed, but Frank and Nora were not paying close attention. The sounds of the jeep motor had come from the west and they got within sight of the Madison-Well intersection in time to see the jeep hurtle southward at its maximum speed.

  Frank yelled and waved his arms, but he knew he had been neither seen nor heard. They were given little time for disappointment however, because a new center of interest appeared to the northward. From around the corner of Washington Street, into Clark, moved three strange figures.

  There was a mixture of belligerence and distress in their actions. They carried odd looking weapons and seemed interested in using them upon something or someone, but they apparently lacked the energy to raise them although they appeared to be rather light.

  The creatures themselves were humanoid, Frank thought. He tightened his grip on Nora's hand. "They've seen us."

  "Let's not run," Nora said. "I'm tired of running. All it's gotten us is trouble. Let's just stand here."

  "Don't be foolish."

  "I'm not running. You can if you want to."

  Frank turned his attention back to the three strange creatures. He allowed natural curiosity full reign. Thoughts of flight vanished from his mind.

  "They're so thin--so fragile," Nora said.

  "But their weapons aren't."

  "It's hard to believe, even seeing them, that they're from another planet."

  "How so? They certainly don't look much like us."

  "I mean with the talk, for so long, about flying saucers and space flight and things like that. Here they are, but it doesn't seem possible."

  "There's something wrong with them."

  This was true. Two of the strange beings had fallen to the sidewalk. The third came doggedly on, dragging one foot after the other until he went to his hands and knees. He remained motionless for a long time, his head hanging limply. Then he too, sank to the cement and lay still.

  The wailings from the north now took on a tone of intense agony--great desperation. After that came a yawning silence.

  * * * * *

  "They defeated themselves," the military man said. "Or rather, natural forces defeated them. We certainly had little to do with it."

  Nora, Frank, and Jim Wilson stood at the curb beside a motorcycle. The man on the cycle supported it with a leg propped against the curb as he talked.

  "We saw three of them die up the street," Frank said.

  "Our scouting party saw the same thing happen. That's why we moved in. It's about over now. We'll know a lot more about them and where they came from in twenty-four hours."

  They had nothing further to say. The military man regarded them thoughtfully. "I don't know about you three. If you ignored the evacuation through no fault of your own and can prove it--"

  "There were four of us," Jim Wilson said. "Then we met another man. He's inside on the floor. I killed him."

  "Murder?" the military man said sharply.

  "He killed a woman who was with us," Frank said. "He was a maniac. When he's identified I'm pretty sure he'll have a past record."

  "Where is the woman's body?"

  "On a bed upstairs," Wilson said.

  "I'll have to hold all of you. Martial law exists in this area. You're in the hands of the army."

  * * * * *

  The streets were full of people now, going about their business, pushing and jostling, eating in the restaurants, making electricity for the lights, generating power for the telephones.

  Nora, Frank, and Jim Wilson sat in a restaurant on Clark Street. "We're all different people now," Nora said. "No one could go through what we've been through and be the same."

  Jim Wilson took her statement listlessly. "Did they find out what it was about our atmosphere that killed them?"

  "They're still working on that, I think." Frank Brooks stirred his coffee, raised a spoonful and let it drip back into the cup.

  "I'm going up to the Chicago Avenue police station," Wilson said.

  Frank and Nora looked up in surprise. Frank asked, "Why? The military court missed it--the fact you escaped from jail."

  "They didn't miss it I don't think. I don't think they cared much. I'm going back anyway."

  "It won't be much of a rap."

  "No, a pretty small one. I want to get it over with."

  He got up from his chair. "So long. Maybe I'll see you around."

  "So long."

  "Goodbye."

  Frank said, "I think I'll beat it too. I've got a job in a factory up north. Maybe they're operating again." He got to his feet and stood awkwardly by the table. "Besides--I've got some pay coming."

  Nora didn't say anything.

  Frank said, "Well--so long. Maybe I'll see you around."

  "Maybe. Goodbye."

  * * * * *

  Frank Brooks walked north on Clark Street. He was glad to get away from the restaurant. Nora was a good kid but hell--you didn't take up with a hooker. A guy played around, but you didn't stick with them.

  But it made a guy think. He was past the kid stage. It was time for him to find a girl and settle down. A guy didn't want to knock around all his life.

  * * * * *

  Nora walked west on Madison Street. Then she remembered the Halstead Street slums were in that direction and turned south on Wells. She had nine dollars in her bag and that worried her. You couldn't get along on nine dollars in Chicago very long.

  There was a tavern on Jackson near Wells. No
ra went inside. The barkeep didn't frown at her. That was good. She went to the bar and ordered a beer and was served.

  After a while a man came in. A middle aged man who might have just come into Chicago--whose bags might still be at the LaSalle Street Station down the block. The man looked at Nora, then away. After a while looked at her again.

  Nora smiled.

  * * *

  Contents

  THE BEASTS IN THE VOID

  By Paul W. Fairman

  The examiner looked doubtful and said, "But Mr. Holloway, regulations require that I read your log before I take verbal testimony."

  Holloway's face was drawn and ravaged. His bloodshot eyes sat in black pits. They were trained on the Examiner but looked through him rather than at him.

  Holloway said, "But, I must talk! I've got to tell you about it. I have to keep talking."

  "But--"

  Holloway's words tumbled out. "It started in the control cabin there in deep space. When Mrs. Kelvey came in. She was the blonde one. I turned around and she said, 'Captain, there's a great big tiger in the companionway.'"

  The desperate Holloway, fearful of being stopped or running out of words, went into minute detail. "She made the statement as a pouting complaint, almost casually. Then, before I could speak, she realized what she'd said and her face changed. A kind of horrified double-take. 'A tiger? In the companionway of a space ship?' This last was an incredulous question she asked herself. Then she fainted. I looked outside. I thought I saw something blurred and indistinct but it vanished quickly if it was really there at all. The companionway was empty. No tiger. No animal of any kind--"

  The Examiner, holding up a hand of protest, looked like a man directing traffic. "Please, Mr. Holloway--please. We must remember regulations."

  Holloway's eyes closed for a moment but he resolutely forced them open as though afraid of something.

  The scene was Holloway's two-room suite in the Space Port Hotel. There were three men present--Holloway, skipper of the Space King, John Mason, Port Resident, and Merle Kennedy, Section Examiner for the Space Authority people. Kennedy regarded Holloway with frank concern. Good heavens--the man was a complete mess. Looked ready to collapse. Kennedy turned to Mason. "This can be postponed, you know."

  Mason was regarding Holloway also. Strange, he thought; Holloway had left in a fanfare of publicity. Now it appeared his return would be even more dramatic. Maybe Holloway was that kind of a chap; the kind things just happened to.

  He was quite young though he certainly didn't look it now. He'd been known as a playboy ever since his father struck it big in Venusian oil. But good-looking, personable, he had worn the label well. He'd been good copy because the public regarded him with patronizing affection. To them, he'd been a nice kid having fun; not a young wastrel wasting his father's money.

  Naturally he would pick a glamour girl to play the romantic feminine role and Melody Hayden had filled the bill perfectly. Together, they had enchanted the public. Princess and Prince Charming stuff. Then tragedy. Disaster in a rocketing sports car; Melody's coffin sealed before the funeral; young Holloway coming off without a scratch. Melody's death was a bombshell and everyone asked. What will he do now? expecting of course, something sensational.

  He didn't let them down. Dramatically, he announced a completely new life. He bought a space ship and foreswore his old ways. He had quite a reputation as a big game hunter. He'd stalked the vicious Plutonian ice bears and lain in Venusian swamps waiting for the ten-ton lizards to rise out of the slime. He had knocked over the wiliest of animals, a telepathic Uranian mountain wolf and had dropped in flight a Martian radar-bat, a feat duplicated by only three other marksmen of record.

  So what more natural occupation than guiding hunting parties in deep space? Holloway had been obviously torn by Melody's tragic death. Perhaps out among the stars he could forget.

  * * * * *

  There had been some trouble, Mason recalled, in clearing Holloway's first cruise. A party of five. Not to any established hunting ground but a D. U. thing. Destination Unknown, and they were always trouble. Clearance had been made, though, and now--here was Holloway back again--dramatically of course--with one of his party dead and the other four in trance-like stupors. Strange.

  And stranger still, Holloway's reason for wanting to talk immediately; with no rest--no medical attention:

  "It will help keep me awake. I mustn't go to sleep. Can't I make you understand? I've got to stay awake."

  Mason pitied the man. He turned to Kennedy. "I have the log here, sir. Perhaps you could go over it now--"

  Holloway leaned forward. "I'll tell you what's in the log. Every word of it. If I just sit here waiting--"

  Mason laid a hand on his knee. "It's all right, old chap. I won't let you go to sleep. You and I will talk while Mr. Kennedy goes through the log. It won't take long."

  Mason handed the book to Kennedy. He was almost apologetic. "It's a strange log, sir, It--"

  "Strange?" Kennedy frowned. Logs had no right to be strange. There were regulations--rules stating exactly how a log should be kept.

  "Well sir, the lad is young. His first trip. I just meant there's perhaps a little more in the log than should appear there."

  "We'll see," Kennedy said. There was a slight frost on his words. If disciplinary measures were in the offing it would pay not to get too cozy with Holloway and the Resident.

  Kennedy opened the log. The first entry was dated June 3rd, 4:10 p. m. Earth time. Kennedy frowned. Permissible of course, but sloppy, very sloppy. The better skippers computed from Orion immediately after blast-off. Kennedy set back and began to read:

  June 3rd, 4:10 p. m.

  We blasted at 2:18 p. m. A good getaway. Course 58.329 by the polar angle. No blast sickness among the passengers. They are old hands. I put the automatic board into control at 3:50 p. m. I checked the tubes. Pressures balanced and equal.

  I don't like this cruise. I don't like Murdo. He's a domineering slob. The other four, well--Keebler is an alcoholic, Kelvey an empty-headed opportunist. I don't particularly dislike them. They're just a worthless pair who would rather fawn on Murdo and take his insults than work for a living. The two wives are both young. Martha Keebler has a child's mind in a woman's body. Jane Kelvey is an oversexed witch with an indecent exposure complex. I may have trouble with her. Already she's parading around in skimpy shorts and a bra. Evidently Murdo doesn't care for women. He pays no attention to her. Money and power are his dish. And a terrible restlessness.

  Melody baby--I wish you were here--

  June 4th, 3:00 p. m.

  I had a talk with Murdo about this silly cruise. Tried to swing him onto something that makes a little more sense. Pluto, Venus, Ganymede--some hunting ground I'm familiar with. No good. Even a suggestion and he thinks you're crossing him and snorts like a bull. Still demands to go to this place where big game prowls in space. Where elephants and leopards and snakes and anything you can name fly around your ship and look in your ports. Where you do your hunting in space suits right out in the void.

  Why in hell did I fall for this idiocy? Guess I just didn't care. Maybe I thought it was a good idea because it sounded like a cruise you could get killed on without much trouble. No--I shouldn't say that. Melody wouldn't like me to say it. She was so wonderful--so level-headed. How wrong they all were about us. About her. Because she was so beautiful, I guess. I tried to tell them I'd married an angel and they took bets among themselves on how long it would last. The answer to that would have been forever. It still is. I've lost so much and learned so much in such a very short time. The hell with Murdo and his four puppets. I'll take them out and bring them back. Then I'll go somewhere alone and I won't come back at all.

  Melody.

  Course 28.493 by the polar angle. Went through small asteroid field....

  * * * * *

  Kennedy looked up sharply. He frowned. "This log is unacceptable."

  Holloway was pacing the floor, his eyes blank an
d terrible "Unacceptable?"

  "Course and position should be noted within each twenty-four hour period. You missed June 5th entirely. You--" Kennedy leafed through the pages. "Why at times you missed three and four days in sequence!"

  "Sometimes I didn't have time to write."

  Mason tried to hide his disgust. How did men like Kennedy get into positions they weren't fitted for? The ass! Couldn't he see this man was suffering? Mason said, "Why not reserve comment until you've finished, Mr. Kennedy?"

  Kennedy's eyes widened at the sharp tone of Mason's voice. Really. When residents start dictating to Examiners--Kennedy saw the stiffness in Mason's face. And something more. He went quickly back to his reading:

  June 6, 1:00 p. m.

  I talked some more with Murdo about this fool cruise. He got wind of our destination--wherever it is--from some rich idiot in Paris. And I don't use idiot figuratively. His informant was in some kind of a private nut house--an exclusive insane asylum of idiots with lots of money--and he had lucid intervals. At one of these times he told Murdo where he'd been and what had happened. I don't think Murdo believes all of it but he wants to see for himself. Well, if he wants to spend his money chasing meteorites it's his business.

  Keebler got drunk as a goat. Strapped him in his bunk and left him there. Murdo spent a few hours explaining guns to Mrs. Keebler. I think he enjoys the look of wonder on her face. Makes him feel very superior knowledgewise. Her face is just built that way and so far as she's concerned he could be talking Greek. He thinks she's very beautiful. I wonder if he ever saw Melody's picture?

  Course 36.829 by the Orion angle. All clear.

  June 9th, 1:00 a. m.

  Course 36.841 by the Orion angle. Small asteroids.

  Jane Kelvey is bored and has started taking it out on me. When I passed her door it was open. She was taking a sponge bath, stark naked in the middle of the cabin. She turned around to face me and did a very bad job of acting flustered, trying to cover herself up with a small sponge! How crude can a female get? She was hoping I'd come in. If I had it would have been to slap her face. I got away as fast as I could.