How his brother had done it, under the very noses of a thousand guards, he could not imagine.
But less than a thousand miles out, he had discovered quickly enough that he was not alone on the Resurrection IX, while still strapped into his webbing, he had heard the footsteps.
And when the compartment door to control country had slammed open, and he had seen Paulie’s big, wedge-torsoed body, poised there in the companionway, he had screamed. For there should have been no one else out here with him.
Not only was this a dangerous solo flight! It was a crucial test for him. Eight ships had gone before, and eight ships had exploded in space, or crashed back to Earth, or shot off into the void, or—
Eight ships before, and yet there was no reason why he should not have made it, for he was in great shape, along with the top shape of his ship. He would have made it! Except—
“Brad! Hey, dear brother, where are you?”
The footsteps clanked heavily overhead, and Brad prayed again in the cavern of his skull that Paulie would not look down. For, save for the area that was blocked off by the crossbeam of the overhead catwalk, he was plainly visible from above. In the dusking light that was still clear enough to see by, Brad knew that his brother could aim the blaster and char him to ashes before he could extricate himself.
He pressed closer, his breath catching in his throat.
The steps passed by, and Paulie went further toward the “rear” of the rocket. On a lower level, the whine of the spinturbos reminded Brad that without the centrifugal spin of the ship, there would be no gravity. And wouldn’t that be a help to Paulie….
The steps receded, and Brad breathed easier again. Why had Paulie done this fantastic, incredible thing? Why? Well, he knew the answer to that, too. He knew exactly what had made Paulie think he could get away with the murder of his brother.
He thought back, remembering the first few moments of shock and horror. When the control door compartment door had slammed open, and Brad craned his neck around in chill apprehension, he had found himself staring into a face that was almost identical with his own.
Almost identical for Brad and Paulie Woodland were twins.
But there were differences, too—in eyes and voice and gesture—and when they were together they could easily be told apart. Only when one was absent, did the other seem a replica of both.
“When all those flashbulbs go off, at the landing,” Paulie had said softly, smiling at him from the compartment doorway, “everyone’ll be so full of hot-juice and hysteria, they won’t stop to think you look different. You went up alone, came back alone. Maybe, they’ll tell themselves, space does that to a man, sort of changes his face a little. No sweat, Brad boy. No sweat at all. You go out the lock, and into the sun, and I go back to glory. How’s that, Brad boy?”
Brad had been petrified with horror. The blaster had loomed enormous in his brother’s clasp. He had watched the bell-muzzle of it, and felt the roaring blast of its power, deep inside himself. He had waited a split-second for Paulie to pull the trigger, releasing one of the gelatin loads into the reaction chamber, and then he had defended himself. He had fallen forward, and slammed his palm flat onto the light control switch. The compartment had gone instantly black. Only the stars outside the curved viewpoint had cast any light.
Then, as Brad had fumbled with the snaps on the webbing, as he had lunged against the web and fallen free, tumbling to the deck, Paulie had pulled the trigger.
The hissing roar of the blaster had filled the compartment, and in the light of the flash, his face had assumed a gargoyle cast—the eyes wide with hate, the mouth slashed open and hungry, like the mouth of a killer fish, the cheeks strained across in a death-grin.
Brad had rolled, coming up with knees bent, and hitting Paulie low. His brother had cried out in pain and shock, and had gone over backward. Brad had grabbed for the blaster, but Paulie had fought back, stubbornly refusing to release it.
Then Brad had run!
He had been running ever since. Two hundred thousand miles from Earth, he had been dodging and running and trying to escape his brother. The ship could carry itself. The astroplot made the machine almost a robot—until turnover time came—and Brad knew he would not have to worry about getting back up to the control compartment before they rounded the Moon. Eventually he’d have to go up and slap a few switiches, compute a few vectors, blast a few bursts. But that could wait. Right now he had to figure a way to kill Paulie before his brother got to him.
Far behind him he heard footsteps clanking down the compartment ladder. When the ship was tail-down, the ladder ran vertically. But with the ship “horizontal’ ’it was a runged catwalk down the center of the section. Branching off from it, were several smaller ladders, leading to the compartment floors. It was down one of these offshoot ladders that Paulie was climbing now—the ladder into the hydrazine tank compartment. He was getting closer.
Brad bit his lips again. He was trapped for the moment. If Paulie examined the compartment thoroughly—and why should he fail to do so?—he was bound to see Brad wedged in between the tanks. He had to get out of where he was before his brother came down to the deck.
He edged out, keeping the round bulk of the tank between himself and the ladder. He got loose finally, and heard the sound. Someone jumping, to land heavily. Then the footsteps started again.
Brad cast an alarmed glance behind hmself. The corridor stretched back for only a short distance. There was no place to go. Just more tanks, and water valves to the flow-through ducts, and tool closets, and—
Abruptly he felt a surge of relief. Had he stumbled on the solution to his nightmare that had for so long seemed destined to end only with his death? Was the tool closet his salvation?
He edged down the corridor, keeping close to the tanks. In a minute he was at the end of the corridor, his back against the closet, his hand pressed to the opener. He pulled up on it with one finger, and it slid open easily. He rummaged inside for a moment, finally coming up with a double-thread wrench. Big and blocky and steel-jawed, it was not the most powerful weapon ever invented, but it was better than no weapon at all.
The hand-grip felt reassuring.
Brad melted back against the tanks, the wrench held tightly in his fist. He saw a shadow floating along the deckplates, in the cool dusk of the compartment. He saw the shadow’s arm extend, saw the blaster clearly. He raised the wrench over his head, and remained poised, waiting.
The shadow drew nearer, and Brad saw the toe of a boot around the tank’s bulk.
He drew in his breath sharply, and just at that moment—before he could bring the wrench down—the alarm went off throughout the ship. The sounding button went home, and the red alert screamed, and he knew he must get updecks to turn the ship. The shadow stopped moving and edged backward, and Brad, hardly thinking, knowing he was doomed unless he turned the ship immediately took a quick step forward and threw the wrench.
It spanged off the tank beside Paulie’s head, and hit the deck with a crash. Brad did not hesitate. He was out and running, crouched low. He hit Paulie low again, and kept right on moving. He was halfway up the ladder before he heard Paulie coming after him. But this time the angle of the tanks and the bulk of the ladder protected him.
He raced down the long corridor, avoiding the tripstops of the ladder that lay along the floor, and hit the control country door with a crash that jarred every bone in his body.
He was inside then, and slamming the door. He braced it closed with a panel chock that fastened magnetically to the floor, and he prayed Paulie could not get in.
Then he was calculating the vectors—putting everything else from his mind for the moment—and slapping home the switches, and blasting the tubes in just the right way.
Beneath the ship, the bloated, cratered white face of the Moon passed by, wheeling and glittering in his eyes as the banks of auto-recorders and telemetering devices probed downward and took readings. Man’s first manned jump around the Moon.
Brad Woodland stared fascinated, and speechless. He wanted to yell, “Paulie! Paulie! I’ve done it! I’ve made it where the others couldn’t! I’ve passed the Moon, damn it, and here I am!” But he couldn’t.
He watched Earth’s satellite for a long, long moment, and then he realized the shattering sound he had been hearing for the past few minutes was not in his mind at all but the compartment door being systematically blasted open.
He spun just as it crashed inward, and he got a full-face view of Paulie, his brother, and the blaster…just before Paulie pulled the trigger.
THE DREAM:
Youth in two parts. Split like a pea-pod down the center, with each section possessing a vigorous life of its own. The Alicia party, where Brad had won the girl by his quick wit, and Paulie had lost the girl because of his surly nature and quick temper. The days of wanting to speak, to say something, to get through the wall that stood between brother and brother, but always with silence. The days when Mama and Dad had looked strangely at them and asked themselves, “What’s the matter with those two? They’ve always been such good buddies.”
First there had been Alicia, when Paulie was the wiser, and Brad the angrier. Then the hot rod days, and the skin diving days and finally the high school college post-grad Army days. Then the tests for Resurrection IX.
Brad
Brad
Brad
No Paulie—just Brad. Paulie left on the outside, a lesser shot with the Redstone missile men. Just Brad into the sky and the night, and the fire with the silvered salmon that was a ship to space dedicated. That had been the way of it, with footsteps that came nearer, nearer, nearer as a face that was his face—and all faces—lived there in a ring of flame and fire from the blaster.
Brad Woodland awoke!
Somehow, Paulie had missed. He was still very much alive. He got to his feet, shaking. Silence shimmered through the ship. But Paulie was back there somewhere. It had to be. The ship tilted. The autoplot bleated, and Brad looked at the plot-tank. They were nearly home.
Comm Center Redstone Tower was trying to pin them with location leads; the board was going mad. He was going to make it. Somehow, he had escaped the wrath of his jealous brother, who had always come second to him, always, always, and who would run also-ran this time?
He fell into the webbing, strapped down, and brought the flaming bulk of the Resurrction IX in for a perfect pit-landing.
Man had gone around the Moon, and lived to report the event in person. The ship was silent in its pit.
When the elevator brought Brad Woodland down from the ship, he wasted no time with the reporters. He ran instead to the little cluster of Army officers who stood waiting by the ready-pool, and saluted sharply.
They returned the salute, and congratulated him. Brad Woodland did not give them a moment to finish their congratulations.
“Listen, General, I don’t know how it happened, but you know my brother Paulie—the one who looks like me? Somehow he managed to smuggle himself on board at blastoff, and he tried to kill me all during the trip. He had a blaster, and he burnt away the control room door, and just missed killing me. Look, General, send someone on board now to get him off. I want to prefer charges.”
The General motioned swiftly to the two heavyset med-men and, still talking calmly, still denouncing his brother, Brad was led away.
The General turned to his staff and his face was tight with the crease-lines of strain. “After they remove the suggestion leads in his brain, he’ll be back to normal,” he said.
One of the reporters, who had been eavesdropping, stepped forward and impudently asked, “Just why did you feel that you had to drive him buggy, General? Statement for the Globe.”
The General looked for a moment as though he would like to strike the reporter. But then with an effort he controlled himself, and explained in a level voice, “We sent up eight ships. Each trip was a failure simply because all eight pilots went mad. Space does that to the general run of pilots, apparently. So we hypno-conditioned Woodland to think he was in mortal danger, thus keeping his mind off the rigors of space. It worked. He dreamed up a death-brother who was stalking him, and it allowed him to make the turn and get back safely with the ship. That’s all I have to say.”
The reporter pursed his lips, watching the crews who were bringing down the telemetering devices and autoplot parts from the ship. As they moved past, to the analysis sections, the reporter said, “So there was no brother and no blaster and nothing at all. Just hallucinations, right?”
The General nodded. “Precisely.”
The reporter pursed his lips again, and nodded his head in agreement. “I see, General. Then if it was in his mind, and you’re sure there was no blaster on that ship—”
The General cut in, “Quite sure. We searched that ship thoroughly before takeoff, to make sure there was no way he could harm himself.
The reporter resumed quickly, “Then if it was all in his mind, General, how do you account for that?”
The reporter pointed, and the General’s face turned quite white as he watched one of the disassembling crews moving past with a piece of metal.
It was the control compartment door—completely blasted and slagged, with the radiating white lines of glowing destruction that can be made only by a blaster.
Recently, Cosmopolitan Magazine, for some inexplicable reason, selected me as one of the “most eligible swinging bachelors in Hollywood.” They came and took my picture lounging on the steps of my bed, with three attractive young ladies I had been dating draped around me. While it did my ego enormous good, I realized all the while that it was a shuck. I am by no means Baby Pignateli or Porfirio Rubirosa or even Oil Can Harry. I am a poor Jewish kid from Painesville, Ohio and New York City who works exceedingly hard to keep up the house payments and buy himself enough time writing TV so he can take off seven months a year to write books. I am by no means jet set. (Actually, I understood why they selected me. All the other “swinging” candidates were from the same set: loafers and scions of wealthy families who had nothing to do but chase broads. They needed one common day laborer. Since I had been around that set, but was not in or of that set, they felt I was just too-too perfect. Sort of a concession to all the grease monkeys and farm laborers in the audience, showing you too can make it in hotcha society, if you keep your thumbs out of the anchovy dish.) Being officially a swinging bachelor has its responsibilities. One has to make profound and penetrating comments on love and male-female relationships, among other duties. (For my definitive thesis on the subject, see my forthcoming hardcover, “Love Ain’t Nothing But Sex Misspelled” from Trident Press.) (In case you weren’t paying attention, that was the commercial, friends.) Some years ago, during my first marriage, the lady with whom I was sharing a padded cell made the comment that all my stories were about violence and unhappiness and a world running amuck. She challenged me to write a nice, simple love story; a boy/girl story that would warm the heart, kindofa Frances Parkinson Keyes story. I snorted with laughter. Deprecatingly I replied that nothing could be easier for a diversified genius of my magnitude. So I sat down and wrote this tender, touching love story about a shell-shocked Marine and a blind girl in a madhouse, and I called it
The Time of the Eye
IN THE THIRD year of my death, I met Piretta. Purely by chance, for she occupied a room on the second floor, while I was given free walk of the first floor and the sunny gardens. And it seemed so strange, that first and most important time, that we met at all, for she had been there since she had gone blind in 1945, while I was one of the old men with young faces who had dissolved after Korea.
The Place wasn’t too unpleasant, of course, despite the high, flat-stone walls and the patronizing air of Mrs. Gondy, for I knew one day my fog would pass, and I would feel the need to speak to someone again, and then I could leave the Place.
But that was in the future.
I neither looked forward to that day, nor sought refuge in my stable life at
the Place. I was in a limbo life between caring and exertion. I was sick; I had been told that; and no matter what I knew—I was dead. So what sense was there in caring?
But Piretta was something else.
Her delicate little face was porcelain, with eyes the flat blue of shallow waters, and hands that were quick to do nothing important.
I met her—as I say—by chance. She had grown restless, during what she called “the time of the eye,” and had managed to give her Miss Hazelet the slip.
I was walking with head bowed and hands locked behind my bathrobe, through the lower corridor, when she came down the great winding stairway.
On many an occasion I had stopped at that stairway, watching the drab-faced women who scrubbed down each level, each riser. It was like watching them go to hell. They started at the top, and washed their way down. Their hair was always white, always lank, always like old hay. They scrubbed with methodical ferocity, for this was the last occupation for them, before the grave, and they clung to it with soap and suds. And I had watched them go down to hell, step by step.
But this time there were no drudges, on their knees.
I heard her walking close to the wall, her humble fingertips brushing the wainscotting as she descended, and I realized immediately that she was blind.
That blindness deeper than lack of sight.
There was something to her; something ephemeral that struck instantly to the dead heart in me. I watched her come down with stately slowness, as though she tripped to silent music, until I was drawn to her in spirit.
“May I be of service?” I heard myself politely inquiring, from a distance. She paused there and her head came up with field mouse awareness.
“No, thank you,” she said, most congenially. “I am quite able to care for myself, thank you. Something that person,” she twitched her head in the direction of upstairs, “cannot seem to fathom.”
From the Land of Fear Page 4