Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  "So you got a yen to find out what happened here that night, have you, cull?" he said. "Okay, then. I'm goin' to spill you the works. But not till after we burn out the keister. Then we won't have anything to do but get out. Now open up that bag and get out the stuff."

  Rabbit stooped, slipped the catch on the black box and lifted out the contrivance of metal cylinders and rubber tubes. He stood dangling them from his fingers and looking at Morgan.

  "My fingerprints, Drill--all over this. I oughta wore gloves," he exclaimed.

  "Never mind that now. We'll wipe 'em off afterwards," Drill replied carelessly. "Turn on the gas. The one with A on it first."

  Rabbit turned a button. Drill struck a match and held it to the snout of the blowpipe. A threadlike yellow flame flickered into the dark. Rabbit twisted the other lever. The orange pencil spat into a hard blue, almost colorless drill of hissing, sizzling heat.

  Drill pulled a chair up under the safe and motioned to Rabbit.

  "There you are. Go ahead and open her up," he said. "Cut a circle around the lock. After we get that out, the rest won't be nothing."

  HOLDING the blowpipe nozzle in both hands, Rabbit climbed up into the chair. He turned the flame on the safe door and started drawing it in a slow circle around the combination lock.

  Time dragged away. For twenty, thirty minutes, neither man spoke. The snarling buzz of the vicious little flame sang in the silence. The flickering yellow glow of the blobs of molten metal spattering out from under the tip threw the two faces into grotesque gargoylelike masks of light and shadow--the Rabbit's tense, flushed with excitement; Drill Morgan's cold, cynical, gripped in a leer of gloating mockery.

  "All right. That's good enough for now." Drill's voice broke the silence at last. "Now get out of the way while I open her up."

  Rabbit stepped down from the chair and Drill took his place. Drill had a glittering steel tool in his hand, Rabbit saw. Also he wore black cotton gloves.

  For a minute or so, Drill worked with the chisel at the face of the safe. He pulled away the melted-out lock and tossed it down into a cushioned chair. He stuck his hand into the opening and pulled it out again. As he did so, the remains of the safe door swung ajar on its hinges.

  Drill jumped down onto the floor.

  "There you are. Go get 'em," he said briefly.

  His eyes glittering, Rabbit scrambled back into the chair. With a cry of awed excitement, he pushed his hand into the safe and pulled out box after box. His arms full, he jumped down and ran to a table. He dumped down the boxes and a flood of glittering radiance poured out.

  Rabbit looked up at Morgan. His breath came fast, his little brown eyes were ablaze.

  "Well, there it is. Drill--and I did it!" he exclaimed. "Gee, it's easy when you know how. Now do we divvy up? What's my split for tipping you the lay?"

  Drill waved his hand magnanimously.

  "Well take it back to the room and split it there," he said. "You carry it all till then."

  Meekers hesitated, looked surprised, then swept the heap of blazing stones off the table into his hand, and dropped them into his pocket.

  "All right, if you say so," he murmured. "Now tell me about that night--the other time. Drill--"

  Drill Morgan laughed. The laugh was jerky, forced. The hand with which he scratched the match to light his cigarette made the little flame dance like a will-o'-the-wisp.

  "I'm over there at the box, see?" he began. "I've just got it open, and I'm hauling out the junk. Morrison's out in the hall, listening to see if anyone comes down the stairs.

  "The butler sneaks in through another door and hops me before I'm wise that he's within a dozen miles. I let him have it between the eyes. He drops like a log.

  "Everybody in the house wakes up and starts yelling. Jim and me, we take it on the lam and slide clear by the skin of our teeth. We hop it back to my room and finish the night there. We lay doggo there for a couple of days. I'm wise that the bulls have got a line on us. We're on the list. Sooner or later, one of us is going to get rapped.

  "The afternoon of the second day, while Morrison's taking a nap, I shift guns on him. That night we make a run for it.

  "Outside my place, we split. Morrison gets away clean. I'm pinched half an hour after I've soaked the junk with Rosy, the fence.

  "I've got a .32 calibre gun on me, the same size as the bullet that's in the butler. I've got a record. They're all set to shove me the works.

  "I tell them to go pick up Jim Morrison, look at his gat, notice it's a .32, also--and then compare the scratch markings on the bullets out of it with the one that killed the butler .

  "They do. When they fire test cartridges out of Jim's gun and mine, the marks on the bullets prove that the slug that smoked the butler was shot out of the gat he's carrying, and not out of the one I've got on me.

  "So that's all there is to it--Morrison burns, I get five years and then a pardon."

  A light of admiring awe glowed in Meekers' button-brown eyes.

  "Gee!" he murmured. "As easy as that--and you got away with it!"

  "Sure, I got away with it," Morgan laughed. It had been the way he expected. Now that he had talked, confessed, he felt better. His nerve was back again. "When you've got brains and nerve, you can get away with anything, cull," he said meaningly.

  Rabbit did not say anything. He shrank back from the diabolical expression on Morgan's lips. His eyes bulged. His weak, purposeless face began to twitch and tremble with sudden terror.

  Morgan got up out of the chair he had been sitting in as he talked, and pitched his cigarette into the fireplace.

  "Well, now that you know all about it, sap, let's travel," he said. "You go ahead first--and don't try to lose me, see?"

  Rabbit started to walk around Morgan, back toward the fireplace.

  "That gas gun--my fingerprints are all over it. I wanta wipe 'em off," he explained.

  Morgan grinned. His right hand slipped down into his coat pocket. The other hand flicked into Meekers' pocket and came out with the little man's gun.

  "You're wipin' off nothing. Get it punk?" he growled.

  "Why--why, Drill, what d'yuh mean?" Rabbit quavered. His face was white and horrified. "Yuh--yuh don't mean you're goin' to frame me. Drill? Yuh ain't goin' to put me on the spot to take the rap for this--"

  "I mean you're goin' to jam your yap and get lammin' outa here--or you won't never go," Morgan growled. He twitched the gat out of his pocket and jabbed the cold snout into Rabbit's ribs. "I smoked one guy here and another man just took the hot rap for it. If you don't wanta be another one, you savvy what's good for you. Get movin', dumb-wit."

  Rabbit did not move. A stubborn look--the crazy daring of utter terror--froze his ashy-white lips.

  "I ain't goin'! I won't!" he screamed. "You're framin' me! You're goin' to leave my prints here for me to get caught. I know the rest of it, too. At Rosy's you're goin' to kill us both and then switch the guns, the same as you did on Morrison, so it'll look like we killed each other."

  The little pickpocket's shrill voice rasped up into a shriek. "You lousy double-crossing rat, you! Give me my gun--"

  Screeching at the top of his lungs in a frenzy of hysterical rage, Rabbit threw himself onto Morgan. He hammered one puny fist into his face while with the other he clutched for his automatic.

  Morgan snarled out a curse. His face was livid green in the moonlight. With one smashing blow of his fist, he sent Meekers reeling backward.

  "Take it, then, you screechin' idiot," he snarled. "How d'yuh like this--"

  Six times in half as many seconds, Drill jerked the trigger as he drew bead on Rabbit's heart.

  EVEN while he was still firing, a dazed, uncomprehending expression muddled Drill Morgan's face, his jaw dropped. His eyes bulged in bewilderment.

  Six times, faint empty clickings instead of the roar of exploding powder popped grim mockery into his ears.

  "Those were all fake cartridges in your gun, Morgan."

  A cool, fa
r-away voice that Drill dimly recognized as Meekers' cut through the whirling daze that made his head spin. The Rabbit's face, grinning mockingly, swam round and round in front of him.

  "We had the bullets drawn, the powder dumped out, and the shells reloaded with salt behind the bullets. It seemed safer under the circumstances."

  Drill rubbed his eyes. Lights were blazing up in the room. From hiding places behind the long draperies that fell to the floor on either side of the windows, men in uniform, with guns in their hands, came pouring out.

  "Come on, Morgan. The game's up. Throw up your hands and don't make any trouble," the foremost one shouted. "We've got you with the goods."

  Directly opposite Drill, a young girl appeared and stood looking at him with scornful triumph gripping her face. Drill snarled a curse. She was the sister of Jim Morrison. Day after day, during the trial, she had sat in court gazing at him, the speechless hatred in her blue eyes lashing him like fiery whips.

  The big man in uniform stepped up and snapped the handcuffs around Morgan's wrists.

  "Let me introduce you to Eddie Carmichael, the cleverest detective in America." the officer grinned, nodding at the Rabbit. "He spent a dozen years on the stage before he went on the cops. He never does anything by halves. Maybe you realize that now, Morgan. He put in a clean seven months up at the big house just so you would get used to seeing him around and not suspect him for a dick when he finally conned you. Annie Hope is another one of our cops that got her experience in the real game before she went to work for the Secret Service of the United States. The Government just lent her to us. That house down there we dressed up just for tonight. It's all up with you, Drill. We had six witnesses behind those curtains listening to your confession how you killed the butler--"

  Drill Morgan burst into wild, mocking laughter.

  "You're tellin' me something? What good will it do you, you saps? They burned Morrison half an hour ago. You can't rap two men for the same job--"

  "Oh, no, they didn't burn Morrison. Not even a little bit," Carmichael grinned. With the laying aside of his part of the Rabbit, he seemed taller, straighter. His face had lost its sly, simian linings. His brown eyes were keen as knife blades as they bored into Drill Morgan's apoplectic countenance.

  "The Governor granted him a week's reprieve, to give us a chance to try this out on you. But all the papers got the word that he was going to die tonight. McCracken's family are all upstairs, keeping out of the way. That society notice in the papers was another come-on plant--just for you. Cedarcrest Lodge was opened a month ago." The Rabbit--Eddie Carmichael--lit a cigarette, and puffed the smoke in Morgan's face.

  "You were a hundred per cent sucker, Drill, all the way through," he grinned. "You bit for everything like a big hay-and-hen man from the sticks. And it was a woman's brain that doped out the plant. Edna Morrison here. She's been to college and studied psychology--if you know what that is.

  "She was determined her brother shouldn't die for a job he never did. She knew that when a crook goes back to the scene of his crime, he always has a wild craving to talk about it. It was her idea to get you here at the very hour when Jim was due to go to the chair, and kid this confession out of you."

  Drill Morgan did not hear what Carmichael was saying. He was fighting like a wild animal with the burly figures that pinioned him on either side. Fighting and screaming through his foaming lips as they dragged him away toward the shadow of the chair.

  * * *

  Contents

  THE GOLDEN JUDGE

  by Nathaniel Gordon

  A suggestion and a highly intriguing one--on how to settle the problems that involve face-saving among nations!

  UNITED NATIONS, N.Y., June 16, 1981--(AP)--In one of the most impressive ceremonies ever held in the United Nations building, the world celebrated today the 25th anniversary of the discovery of the "Golden Judge."

  General Terence P. O'Reilly, USA (Retired), the man responsible for the discovery, was the principal guest of honor. Obviously moved by the acclaim from virtually every member nation, Gen. O'Reilly made a brief speech recapturing for a moment the accidental circumstances of 25 years ago that so drastically reduced world tensions....

  * * * * *

  It was stifling hot in Jerusalem in the afternoon of June 16, 1956, and Major General Terence Patrick O'Reilly, United States Army, was rather more bored than usual. His Army career had gone well--two stars already at forty-five--until the mysterious workings of the Pentagon had given him perhaps the most frustrating posting a soldier could have.

  He was chairman of the mixed United Nations armistice commission trying to keep the uneasy peace between Israel and her Arab neighbors. For months he had presided over unending investigations of border incidents, some petty, some not so petty. He had signed reports reprimanding and recommending and approving, but nothing ever came of them, and he no longer expected anything ever would.

  Today's hearing was different, and not strictly in his field. But because he was an engineer, and because both Arabs and Israelis trusted him, he had agreed to listen to their opposing arguments on using the waters of the River Jordan.

  Too many years ago, the United States had offered to provide most of the funds for a "little TVA" on the river, benefitting both Israel and Jordan alike. At first, both had refused outright to have anything to do with the other. But over the years, skillful negotiating by Eric Johnston, the American President's personal envoy, had brought Israel and Jordan closer and closer together--until now they agreed on the disposal of ninety per cent of the water.

  But farther than this they would not go. For months, years, they balked on the remaining ten per cent, and the dams remained only blueprints.

  Terence O'Reilly was sick unto death of the arguments, and thought everyone else was, too. He had heard them over and over; he knew them by heart. He knew they were evenly balanced, with justice on both sides. He knew both nations longed for a settlement, but he knew neither would back down, for reasons of "face." Worst of all, he knew that any decision of his was meaningless. It was purely advisory, and he knew all too well what "advisory" opinions counted for out here.

  Yet he tried to look interested as the delegate from Jordan wearily produced an argument that every man in the conference room could recite word for word.

  In a brief lull, General O'Reilly groaned: "Why don't they toss a coin for it?"

  It was not as sotto voce as he meant.

  The Arab delegate stared at him. "I beg your pardon!"

  Flushing, General O'Reilly apologized, but the Arab was already talking excitedly to his fellow delegates. Puzzled, O'Reilly heard a confused babble of Arabic, then sudden silence.

  The Arab delegate had a glint in his eye as he asked for the floor.

  "In the name of my country," he said proudly, "we agree!"

  The word "agree" had not been heard in this chamber for many months, and General O'Reilly wondered if he had heard aright. "Agree?" he stared. "Agree to what?"

  "To toss a coin for it, as the chairman has proposed," the Arab said. "That is, it the Israeli delegation has the courage, the sportsmanship to agree." He looked tauntingly to his rivals across the room.

  The Israeli leader sprang to his feet, indignant. "I protest, Mr. Chairman, to this frivolous treatment of a serious matter, which will affect the future of--"

  He felt silent, aware of the contemptuous smiles on the faces of the Arabs.

  General O'Reilly kept his countenance. He said mildly: "Of course, if you are not willing to risk the luck of--"

  "We are afraid of nothing, sir!" the Israeli snapped. "We are as sporting as anyone else, but--" One of his fellow delegates whispered something to him. Then the whole Israeli delegation talked in low voices. Finally the leader rose again. "Will you permit me to telephone my minister?"

  Gravely the general recessed the meeting for thirty minutes. In his own room, he stared at himself in the mirror, still dazed.

  "My God!" he breathed. "They can't be t
aking it seriously!"

  But why not? If the arguments were so evenly balanced that not even Solomon could have chosen, if they really wanted a settlement, if they could never give in without losing "face"--why, what better method than to trust it to the fall of a coin? Still--things just didn't happen that way.

  When the thirty minute recess ended, the Israeli delegate arose. He glared across the room and announced defiantly: "My government also agrees! Let the coin decide!"

  The conference broke into clamor, but General O'Reilly had long since learned the value of prudence in Jerusalem. "The chairman agrees," he said judicially, "that in the circumstances, this is perhaps an excellent solution, perhaps the only solution. But this has been, to say the least, somewhat impulsive. Let me suggest both sides return to their governments and consider this well. Then, if you are both still willing, let us meet here one week from today, in this room--and the coin will decide!"

  * * * * *

  He had expected second thoughts, and he was not disappointed. Extremists on both sides of the Jordan screamed with indignation. Yet, oddly, most people seemed strangely excited, even pleased by the sporting proposition. They began to lay bets on the outcome.

  And both governments held firm. Probably, the general speculated, because they both wanted a solution--and there was no other solution in sight. Also, each hated to be the first to back down from a fair bet. It became a matter of honor.

  On the week end, General O'Reilly flew to Cairo to meet some friends passing through on a world tour. Like all tourists, they went to the Mouski, Cairo's great bazaar, and it was there, in the Street of the Goldsmiths, that the general got his idea.

  It cost him a chunk of money, out of his own pocket, but like most Irishmen, he was a sporting man himself. After all, he grinned to himself, I started the whole business, and I might as well do it up in style.

  He had decided that no ordinary coin would do for such an historic occasion. So he had a goldsmith make him a heavy solid-gold medallion almost twice as big as a twenty-dollar gold piece. He was not very much pleased with the design he sketched out hastily, but on the spur of the moment, he could think of nothing better.