After one flight, he regretted this attempt. The treads were waist-high, and he was getting too tired to leap them, especially with his arms full of thermos bottle. He bounced around to the elevators. The night elevators were working, but the button was far above his reach.
He sat down, panting, for a while. Then he got up and wearily climbed down the whole flight of steps again. He found the night elevator on the ground floor, with the door open.
There was nothing to do but walk in, for all the risks of delay and exposure to Guanella’s friends that such a course involved. The operator did not notice his entrance, and when he spoke the man jumped a foot.
“Say,” he said, “could you take me up to the floor where the giant’s head is?”
The operator looked wildly around the cab. When he saw O’Brien he recoiled as from an angry rattlesnake.
“Well, now,” said O’Brien, “you don’t have to be scared of me. I just want to go up to give the big guy his medicine.”
“You can go up, or you can go back to hell where you came from,” said the operator. “I’m off the stuff for life, I swear!” and then he bolted.
O’Brien wondered what to do now. Then he looked over the controls. He swarmed up onto the operator’s stool, and found that he could just reach the button marked “18” with his thermos bottle. He thumped the button and pulled down on the starter handle. The elevator started up with a rush.
When it stopped, he went out and wandered around the half-lit corridors looking for the side to which McLeod clung. He was completely turned around by now. But his attention was drawn by a rushing, roaring, pulsating sound coming from one corridor. He trotted down that way.
It was all very well to be able to move more actively than you could ordinarily, but O’Brien was beginning to get tired of the enormous distances he had to cover. And the thermos bottle was beginning to weigh tons.
Euclid O’Brien soon found what was causing the racket. It was the tornado of breath going in and out of McLeod’s nose, a part of which could be seen directly in front of the window at the end of the corridor. The nose was a really alarming spectacle. It was lit up with a crisscross of lights from the street lamps and searchlights outside, and by the corridor lights inside. The pores were big enough for O’Brien to stick his thumb into. Sweat ran down it in rippling sheets.
He took a deep breath and jumped from the floor to the windowsill. He could not possibly open the window. But he took a tight grip on the thermos bottle and banged it against the glass. The glass broke.
O’Brien set the thermos bottle down on the sill, put his hands to his mouth, and yelled, “Hey, Mac!”
Nothing happened. Then O’Brien thought about his voice. He remembered that Guanella’s had gone up in pitch when Guanella had drunk the shrinko. No doubt his, O’Brien’s, voice had done likewise. But his voice sounded normal to him, whereas those of ordinary-sized men sounded much deeper. So it followed that something had happened to his hearing as well. Which, for O’Brien, was pretty good thinking.
It was reasonable to infer that both McLeod’s voice and McLeod’s hearing had gone down in pitch when McLeod had gone up in stature. So that to McLeod, O’Brien’s voice would be a batlike squeak, if indeed he could hear it at all.
O’Brien lowered his voice as much as he could and bellowed, in his equivalent of a deep bass, “Hey, Mac! It’s Obie!”
At last the nose moved, and a huge watery eye swam into O’Brien’s vision.
“Ghwhunhts?” said McLeod. At least it sounded like that to O’Brien—a deep rumbling, like that of an approaching subway train.
“Raise your voice!” shouted O’Brien. “Talk—you know—falsetto!”
“Like this?” replied McLeod. His voice was still a deep groan, but it was at least high enough to be intelligible to O’Brien, who clung to the broken edge of the glass while the blast of steamy air from McLeod’s lungs tore past him, whipping his diaper.
“Yeah! It’s Obie!”
“Who’d you say? Can’t recognize you.”
“Euclid O’Brien! I got some stuff to shrink you back with!”
“Oh, Obie! You don’t look no bigger’n a fly! Did you get shrunk, or have I growed some more?”
“Frankie Guanella’s mob shrunk me.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake do something for me! I can’t get my breath, and I’m gonna pass out with the heat, and my legs are gonna bust any minute! I can’t hold on to this building much longer!”
O’Brien waved the thermos bottle.
McLeod thundered: “Whazzat, a pill?”
“It’s a shrinko cocktail! It’ll work all right, on account of that’s what shrunk me. If I can get it open . . .” O’Brien was wrestling with the screw cap. “Here! Can you take this cap between your fingernails and hold on while I twist?”
Carefully McLeod released the grip of one of his hands on the windowsills. He groaned at the increased strain on his legs, but the overloaded bones held somehow. He put his free hand up to O’Brien’s window. O’Brien carefully inserted the cap between the nails of the thumb and forefinger.
“Now pinch, slowly,” he cried. “Not too tight. That’s enough!” He turned the flask while McLeod held the cap.
“All right now, Mac, drop the cap and take hold of the cork!” McLeod did so. O’Brien maneuvered the thermos so that its neck was braced in an angle of the hole in the glass. “Now pull, slow!” he called. The cork came out. O’Brien almost fell backwards off the sill. He clutched at the edge of the glass. It would have cut his hand if he had been larger.
“Stick your mouth up here!”
O’Brien never realized what a repulsive thing a human mouth can be until McLeod’s vast red lips came moistly pouting up at him.
“Closer!” he yelled. He poured the cocktail into the cavern. “Okay, you’ll begin to shrink in a few seconds—I hope.”
Presently he observed that McLeod’s face was actually a little lower.
“You’re shrinking!” he shouted.
The horrible mouth grinned up at him. “You got me just in time!” it roared. “I’d ’a been a dead bartender in another minute.”
“There he is!” shouted somebody behind O’Brien in the corridor. O’Brien looked around. Down toward him ran the three unshrunken gangsters.
He yelled to McLeod, “Mac! Put me on your shoulder, quick!”
McLeod reached for him. O’Brien scrambled out on the window ledge and jumped onto the outstretched palm, which transferred him to McLeod’s bare shoulder. He observed that McLeod’s fingers were bruised and bloody from the strain they had taken in contact with the windowsills. He found a small hair and clung to this. The gangsters’ faces appeared at the window a few feet above him. One of them pointed a gun out through the hole in the pane. McLeod made a snatch at the window with his free hand. The faces disappeared like magic, and O’Brien, over the roar of McLeod’s breath and the clamor in the street far below, fancied he heard the clatter of fleeing feet in the building.
“What happened?” asked McLeod, turning his head slightly and rolling his eyes in an effort to focus on the mite on his shoulder.
O’Brien explained, as the windows drifted up past him, shouting up into McLeod’s ear. As they came nearer the street, O’Brien saw hats blown off by the hurricane of McLeod’s breathing. He also saw an ambulance on the edge of the crowd. He figured the ambulance guys must have felt pretty damn silly when they saw the size of their patient.
“What you gonna do next?” asked McLeod. “Swell yourself up? I’d like to help you against Frankie’s gang, but I gotta go to the hospital. My arches are ruined if there isn’t anything else wrong with me.”
“No,” said O’Brien. “I got a better idea. Yes, sir. You just put me down when you get small enough to let go the building.”
Story by story, McLeod lowered himself as he shrank. Soon he was a mere twenty feet tall.
He said, “I can put you down now, Obie.”
“Okay,” said O’Brien.
At McLeod’s sudden stooping movement, the nearest people started back. McLeod was still something pretty alarming to have around the house. O’Brien started running again. And again his small size and the uncertain light enabled him to dodge through the crowd before anybody could stop him. He tore around the corner, and then around another corner, and came to Orson Crow’s cab. He banged on the door and hopped in.
“Frankie’s mob is after me!” he gasped.
“Where you wanna go, Chief?” asked Crow, who was now fazed by few things.
“Where could a guy a foot tall buy a suit of clothes this time of night? I’m cold.”
Crow thought for a few seconds. “Some of the big drugstores carry dolls,” he said doubtfully.
“Well, now, you go round to the biggest one you can find, Orson.”
They drew up in front of a drugstore.
O’Brien said, “Now, you go in and buy me one of these dolls. And phone one of the papers to find out what pier a boat for the Far East sails from.”
“What about the dough, Obie? You owe me a buck on the meter already.”
“You collect from Mac. Tell him I’ll send it to him as soon as I get to Borneo. Yeah, and get me a banana from that stand. I’m starving.”
Crow went. O’Brien squirmed around on the seat, trying not to show himself to passing pedestrians and at the same time keeping an apprehensive eye out for Frankie’s friends.
Crow got back in and started the motor as a huge and slightly battered-looking sedan drew up. O’Brien slid to the floor, but not quickly enough. The crack of a pistol was followed by the tinkle of glass as the cab started with a furious rush.
O’Brien, on the floor, was putting on the doll’s clothes. “Where’s that boat leaving from?”
“Pier eleven, on South Street.”
“Make it snappy, Orson.”
“What does it look like I’m doing? Taking a sun bath?”
When they reached the pier, there was no sign of the gangsters. O’Brien tumbled out with his banana.
He said, “Better scram, Orson. They’ll be along. Yes, sir.”
“I’ll see that you get off foist,” said Crow. O’Brien scuttled down the pier to where the little freighter lay. Her screws had just begun to turn, and seamen were casting loose the hawsers. Crow glimpsed a small mite, barely visible in the darkness, running up a bow rope. It vanished—at least he thought it did—but just then the gangsters’ car squealed to a stop beside him. They had seen, too. They piled out and ran down to the ship. The gangplank was up, and the ship was sliding rapidly out of her berth, stern first.
One of the gangsters yelled, “Hey!” at the ship, but nobody paid any attention.
A foot-high, Frankie Guanella capered on the pier in front of the gangsters in excess of homicidal rage. He shrieked abuse at the dwindling ship. When he ran out of words for a moment, Crow, who was climbing back into his cab to make a quiet getaway, heard a faint, shrill voice raised in a tinny song from the shadows around the bow hatches.
It sang, “On the road to Mandalay-ay, where the flying fishes play-ay-ay!”
Crow was too far away to see. But Frankie Guanella saw. He saw the reduced but still-round figure of Euclid O’Brien standing on top of a hatch, holding aloft his bloody ax in one hand. Then the figure vanished into the shadows again.
Guanella gave a choked squeak, and foamed at the mouth. Before his pals could stop him, he bounded to the edge of the pier and dove off. He appeared on the surface, swimming strongly toward the SS Leeuwarden, bobbing blackly in the path of moonlight on the dirty water.
Then a triangular fin—not over a couple of inches high, but still revealing its kinship to its relatives, the sharks—cut the water. The dogfish swirled past Frankie, and there was no more midget swimmer. There was only the moonlight, and the black hull of the freighter swinging around to start on her way to Hong Kong and Singapore.
Story Preview
NOW that you’ve just ventured through some of the captivating tales in the Stories from the Golden Age collection by L. Ron Hubbard, turn the page and enjoy a preview of Danger in the Dark. Join Billy Newman, who has newly purchased a South Seas island only to discover it’s haunted by the giant shark-god Tadamona. Unfortunately the sharp-toothed entity wants more than ritual sacrifice; it’s bent on destroying the entire island unless Billy battles it out like David (without the slingshot) versus Goliath!
Danger in the Dark
THE medicine drums were beating wearily and another, greater drum had commenced to boom with a hysteria which spoke of breaking nerves. The slither and slap of bare feet sounded upon Billy’s verandah, and he straightened up to see that Wanoa and several lesser chiefs had come.
They greeted him with deep bows, their faces stiff to hide the terror within them.
“Hafa?” said Billy, giving it the “What’s the matter” intonation.
“We come to seek your help,” said Wanoa.
“I have done all I can,” replied Billy. “But if you think what little medicine I have may stave off any new case . . .” He got slowly to his feet and reached mechanically for his topee, although it was already night.
“Medicine does no good,” said Wanoa with dignity. “We have found it necessary to use strong means—” He paused, cutting the flow of his Chamorro off short, as though he realized that what he was about to say would not go well with the mahstah.
“And?” said Billy, feeling it somehow.
“We turn back to old rite. Tonight we sacrifice young girl to Tadamona. Maybe it will be that he will turn away his anger—”
“A young girl?” gaped Billy. “You mean . . . you’re going to kill—”
“We are sorry. It is necessary. Long time ago priests come. They tell us about fellah mahstah Jesus Christ. We say fine. Bime-by island got nothing but crosses. Tadamona is boss god Kaisan. Tadamona does not like to be forgotten. For a long time he slept. And then he see no sacrifices coming anymore. He get angry. For thirty years we get no rest. We get sick, all the best people die, the crops are bad, the typhoons throw our houses down. Then white men here get plenty power and Tadamona jealous and not like. Things get worse and worse. Tadamona no like white man because white man say he is boss. Tadamona is boss.”
“You can’t do this,” said Billy quietly. “I won’t let you murder—”
“We not murder anybody,” said Wanoa. “Christina say she happy to die if people get saved.”
“Christina! Why, she . . . she’s a mission girl! You’re lying! She’s half-white! She would never consent to such a thing!”
Wanoa made a beckoning motion at the door, and Christina came shyly inside to stand with downcast face.
Billy walked toward her and placed his hand on her shoulder. Very often these last months he had watched her and wondered why he should go on forever alone. He would spend the rest of his life here, and Christina—she had that fragile beauty of the mestiza, beauty enough to turn the heads of most white men.
“You consented to this?” said Billy.
She nodded, not looking at him.
“Christina, you know something of white ways. You know what you have been taught. This Tadamona—why, he is nothing but airy mist. He is a superstition born out of typhoons and sickness and the minds of men who know little. Tadamona does not exist except in your imagination, and your death could do nothing to drive off this plague. You would only add another gravestone in the cemetery, and all the village would weep for you when the disease went on unabated.” And as she did not seem to be listening, he raised his voice with sudden fury. “You fools! Your island god doesn’t live! He never did live, and he never will! Give me this week and I’ll stop this plague! Obey my orders and it will take no more of your people! Tadamona! Damn such a rotten idea!”
They stared at him with shocked attitudes, then glanced uneasily out into the darkness.
“You must not speak so,” said Christina in a hushed voice. “He . . . he will come for you.”
“How can he
come for me if he doesn’t exist?” cried Billy.
“You have seen the footprints in the rock,” said Wanoa.
“A trick of lava!” shouted Billy. “No man or god has feet ten feet long!”
“You have heard him grumbling in the caverns of the point,” said Wanoa.
“A trick of the sea in hollow coral!”
“You have seen where he has torn up palms by the roots,” persisted Wanoa.
“They were ready to fall at the slightest breeze. I tell you, you can’t do this! Tadamona is in your heads, and only in your heads, do you understand? If he lives, why haven’t I seen him? Why?”
“He is too cunning for that,” said Wanoa. “And to see him, to look him full in the face, is to die. Those of our people who have seen him have been found dead, unmarked, in the streets. The wise ones here never stir about after midnight.”
“Bah! If he exists let him come and show himself to me! Let him walk up that path and call on me!”
They shrank back away from him as though expecting him to fall dead on the instant. Even Christina moved until his hand fell from her arm.
He was tired again. He felt so very alone and so small. “You can’t do this, Christina. Give me a week and I’ll stop this plague. I promise it. If I do not, then do what you like. But give me that.”
“More people will die,” said Christina. “I am not afraid.”
“It is the white blood in her,” said Wanoa. “It will quiet Tadamona. In a week, we will lose many, many more.”
Billy walked up and down the grass mat for minutes. He was weary unto death himself, and these insistent voices bored like awls into his skull. Again he flared:
“So a week is too much to give me?”
“You have had a week,” said Wanoa impassively.
Billy faced them, his small face flushed under the flickering hurricane lantern, the wind from the sea stirring his silky blond hair. For the moment he filled his narrow jacket completely. “Yes, damn you, I’ve had a week! A week obstructed by your yap-yap-yap about Tadamona. If a week is too much, how many days?”
If I Were You (Science Fiction & Fantasy Short Stories Collection) Page 7