New Writings in SF 29 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Keith Bulmer

  ‘Tell me!’ he said, throwing him back into the chair and turning in time to take the gun from Sal and return it to her holster. ‘Barnard’s Star. What about it?’

  ‘It’s in all the up-town papers. Six month’s count-down from the launch pad on the Lueneberger Heath. The first flight out of the solar system. They’ve broken the light barrier, whatever that means. And there’s a planet they’ve located. They’re going there.’

  ‘So what? - They asking for volunteers?’

  ‘No. No. Nothing like that. They’ve got a crew. All scientists and that. It’s the thing that’s going with them.’

  ‘What thing?’

  ‘Well, they don’t know what they’re going to find when they get there, do they? Might be anything - bug-eyed monsters or dinosaurs. So they’ve built this thing to protect them. Whatever it is they run up against, this Warrior thing will fix it.’

  ‘Warrior thing?’

  ‘You blasted slug!’ Sal whispered, throwing herself down on to the couch. ‘You’ve done it now!’

  ‘You knew about this, Sal? What is it? What’s a flight to Barnard’s Star got to do with me? What’s this about a Warrior?

  ‘He’ll tell you,’ she sighed.

  ‘O.K.,’ he ordered. ‘Carry on talking!’

  ‘Well,’ Murduck coughed and spat towards the fireplace. ‘That’s where the challenge comes in. It’s a sort of Public Relations exercise - getting the world in on the act to show how good they are. They’ve built this thing they say is a match for anything or anyone alive. And just to prove it, they’ve put out this challenge. Meet the Warrior, either with weapons, in which case it will use its own arsenal, or without when it’ll be just bare hands, man against machine. Its strength and cunning against yours. Anyone who can beat the Warrior’s got a free trip to Barnard’s Star.’

  ‘You don’t say!’ He turned to the window and, resting his hands on the sill, looked out at the darkening sky. A few stars glimmered through the haze.

  ‘You can go now,’ she said, wearily. ‘You’ve said your piece. Nothing will stop him now.’

  ‘You did want to know, boss? I did right to tell you?’

  He slipped a knife out from the sheath strapped to the inside of his left arm. He balanced the point thoughtfully on the palm of his hand.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You did right, Tom. But if I go. If I take up this challenge that’s Sal so sure I’m going to, I shall come back when I’ve fixed their Warrior for them and taken them to their star and back. And when I come back, anyone who hasn’t been nice to Sal is going to die very slowly, a slice at a time. You won’t get any ideas, Tom, will you?’

  He pushed him through the door and, tossing the gun casually for him to catch, turned his back and walked to the couch.

  * * * *

  ‘You’ll do that act once too often,’ she warned as Murduck returned the weapon to his shoulder and disappeared down the stairs.

  ‘Tom?’ he asked. ‘No. He’s quite sure this Warrior will kill me, he won’t take a chance himself.’

  ‘So it will,’ she sighed.

  ‘Tell me! You seem to know all about it.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I read the papers now and then. It’s been hitting the headlines for some time, diagrams and pictures and all. It’s like a spider, about the height of a man, they say. Apparently a spider is better designed for combat than we are. Nicely balanced body and the head central instead of vulnerable on the top where anyone can cave it in. It’s supposed to be quite impregnable, can see forwards and backwards, pick up a scent quicker than a bloodhound. It runs faster than a cheetah on four or six legs or it can stand on two and fight with the other six. Added to all that, it can fire every micro missile known to man.’

  ‘Interesting,’ he murmured. ‘Quite a little one-man army.’

  ‘But don’t be a fool, Eddie. They’re not really expecting anyone to take it on - it’s only a publicity stunt. So the public will know their money’s being well spent. If you answered that challenge, they’d laugh their silly heads off. If the Warrior wins and kills you, they’re well rid of you anyway; and if by any chance it didn’t, they’d never let you go back. You’re king of the Underworld - you said so yourself.’

  ‘I could do a deal.’

  She laughed her husky, musical laugh.

  ‘Eddie, for a king with a - what was it? - Z factor, you’re a maddening romantic. Do you think they’d ever keep a deal with you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he considered. ‘They would. You forget, Sal, what I’ve done for them. They’ve got the underworld anyway and they wouldn’t be without it. What would their nice civilized society be like without ours to take their misfits, their cripples, their mental defectives, their angry young men? They drive them over the bridges and leave them to us. They’re well rid of them. It’s easy and it’s cheap and it’s tidy. But it only works so long as there is a somewhere and a someone like me at the top to keep the other world in its ghetto. Why do you think they pay me tribute? It’s money well spent from their point of view. They could bomb and burn us out if they wanted to, but they don’t. This way, they’ve got democracy. A free society. Anyone can opt in or out. To have democracy, you have to have somewhere to opt to. I give them that.’

  ‘O.K.,’ she sighed. ‘You’re going. I knew you would, if you found out it was on. You can’t help yourself. But when you go, Eddie - come back to me.’

  ‘Sal.’ He sat and took her gently in his arms. ‘You care. You really care that I come back.’

  ‘And you,’ she nodded. ‘The man-killer of the underworld. You care that I care.’

  Her voice, he thought was very like that of the woman who had taken him in from the dead-cart, low-strung, husky, soft and coolly competent. He had never heard Sal’s voice so soft before.

  * * * *

  Three

  Larry Hawksworth, the publicity officer, stood as near to attention as his corpulent forty-five satin-suited years would allow. There was a vacant steel chair beside him in front of the wide, polished, steel desk, but the polished steel gaze of the general 1st class (Operations), Combined European Space Agency, did not invite him to use it. The general, although seated behind the desk, was buttoned very much to attention. He glittered and bristled. Every hair of his grizzled, up-curled, crisp moustache was spiculated straight as a regiment of Potsdam guardsmen on parade. His right eyebrow was cocked to the peak of his gold-braided hat. Short in stature, general 1st class Gluttenburg specialized in keeping taller subordinates to attention. The taller they were, the longer they stood and the very much happier it made him.

  ‘Dummkopf!’ the general shouted.

  ‘It’s not so dumb really, sir. The situation is, I admit, somewhat unexpected; but properly exploited, it can turn out very much to our advantage.’

  ‘I have here the business to run, the space agency to control. I have not the gimmicks to make. A circus it is you wollen daraus machen. Mein lieber Gott! I could have you for this shot. Against a wall. Shot! Shot! Tot geschossen!’

  ‘But sir, you did approve the project before we published. None of us were to know...’

  ‘It is to know for which you are paid, mein Herr! Was wollen Sie? Dass ich mein thinking allein do? Publicize you said! Tell the world! Here we have the Warrior, nicht wahr? Eine Herausforderung! A - a - what you call a challenge, you say. No man will the challenge up-take you say. We throw the gauntlet and wir lachen, nicht? Ha! Ha! Ha! So wir lachen. And was ist nun? There comes this man. He will fight mit our Warrior. A gladiator, nicht wahr? It is to kill one foolish man we build the greatest Warrior on earth? It is for this we shall be loved by alle Nationen der Welt?’

  ‘If you feel that way, sir, it’s not too late to call the whole thing off.’

  ‘It is much too late.’ Larry Hawksworth had hardly noticed the grey figure of Sven Petersen, stiffly erect by the window, looking out onto a skyline dominated by the outline of Icarus II. He should have noticed. Sven was political liaison officer and in his own quiet
way much more dangerous than the general, who bellowed more because it was expected of high-ranking Teutons than because of any built-in bellicosity.

  ‘You think so, sir?’

  ‘I know so. Both the New York and English state governments wish the confrontation to take place. They consider Eddie Kale potentially dangerous and therefore expendable.’

  ‘Well, surely, sir, we shall be doing them a service?’

  ‘The E.S.A. is not an executioner for petty state administrations.’

  ‘Nein, mein Gott!’ the general exploded. ‘We did not the Warrior develop as a kleiner Wachmeister, a terrestrial polizist. When he this man kills, alle governments will want Warriors for themselves. Our technology is not for so petty ends developed.’

  ‘He’s right, of course,’ Larry considered. ‘Even making allowances for the German desire to outdo all other nations in the art either of war or the humanities, the general’s not such a bad old Hun. He just simply doesn’t want anyone killed. Not even this thug Kale.’

  ‘What would you like me to do, then sir?’

  ‘Sit down, Larry,’ the general relented. ‘Setzen Sie sich. You must the challenge arrange to happen as you advertise. Invite the visitors, spectators arrange, wie vorgesehen wurde. The wood, the forest, the Warrior at one end and this Ed Kale the other. But first you speak to Ed Kale. You tell him he cannot against the Warrior triumph. Tell him that wenn auch he lives, the polizei there will be. They will not let him go back.’

  ‘I think, sir, Eddie foresaw that difficulty. He’s taken a hostage. An English diplomat. I am afraid that, should he survive the Warrior, we are committed to take him to Barnard’s Star.’

  ‘Gott, mein Gott!’

  ‘This was a very foolish idea of yours, Larry Hawksworth.’

  ‘Not really, sir. There’s no chance of anyone surviving once the Warrior is told to kill.’

  ‘And the press and the heads of the state government sit around the arena sucking their thumbs whilst the gladiators fight it out? Very edifying. I sometimes think the only outposts of civilization left in Europe are the military establishments. You had better make the arrangements. I will need an article of Eddie Kale’s clothing or some object he has touched to programme the scent. If we let the Warrior loose, he must know exactly which man he has to kill and no other. We can’t have him confusing the spectators with the quarry. Does Kale intend to meet him with or without weapons?’

  ‘Without, I understand, sir.’

  ‘Very well. We’ll play fair with him. If he carries no weapon, the Warrior will not use its armoury. But since it really is invulnerable, I agree with the general. If you can dissuade this curious man, I wish you to do so.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s not a hope, sir. He’s quite made up his mind.’

  ‘Then you must arrange for the contest and a suitable venue next month.’

  * * * *

  A month to the day saw Eddie Kale completing his inspection of the battleground. Open heath, a wood about 500 metres square, a river twenty metres wide and three deep running across the south-western corner. The whole enclosed by a high chain-link fence supported by concrete posts. The fence, he concluded, was more to mark out the area than to confine the contestants. They would be expected to concentrate on the elimination of each other rather than on exploring means of escape. He was impressed with the E.S.A., his first contact with the outside world on its own ground. He had expected some attempt at a double-cross as a matter of course, eminent hostage notwithstanding. But the tall, dapper man with the broad waistcoat, Larry Hawksworth, had done his very best to dissuade him from the contest, had tried to convince him that the Warrior was invulnerable and had finally supplied him with a map of the area. The map, to his astonishment, proved accurate in every detail. The E.S.A. were playing fair with him and even wanted him to withdraw. Their fairness had had the opposite effect to that intended. Suspecting that the state governments themselves and their law-enforcement officers would never have shown the same concern for his well-being and safety, he was more than ever determined to dispose of the Warrior and earn his place as a member of the E.S.A. by right of conquest and insist on his inclusion in the mission to Barnard’s Star.

  The thought of failure never occurred to him. This was the peculiar manifestation of the Z factor directing force. A Prior usually succeeds because he is convinced of success from the outset. There is a massive build-up of psychic force and plasma associated with utter conviction in any man. The psychic force cannot assure success or provide invulnerability in battle; but it goes a long way towards it. The converse is even more true. With utter conviction, you may not succeed but, haunted by the fear of failure, you most patently will not. Eddie Kale allowed himself no further scruple than a twinge of excitement at the thought of the next day’s battle, the disposal of the Warrior and his welcome as a worthy member of the space team.

  The next day dawned and with the dawn, the assembled dignitaries took their seats on the tribunes outside the perimeter fence, the news men unclipped their recording pads and the camera crews, taking advantage of a lead-in framing the rising of an overlarge red sun through a causeway of streaked apocalyptical black clouds, panned down on to the opening of the drama, man against machine.

  Eddie Kale, stripped to the waist, was led in at the western end and the Warrior through a gate in in the east. The Warrior was mean, ugly and black, very light on its four foot long, triple-jointed legs. It had the advantage of the wind in its favour and the sun behind it. Its antennae could pick up the scent of a man at a range of five kilometres under ideal conditions. Today the conditions were ideal. Eddie Kale had only the Z factor and the peculiar psychic other-dimension that differentiates man from machine, not always to the man’s advantage.

  A confrontation in fact between the logical and the supra-logical. Had Eddie Kale possessed the logic of the Warrior and no more than that, he would have realized that the odds were insuperably against him and withdrawn from the contest. So also would any man with an australopithecine X factor in his chromosome. Only the Z factor is utterly indomitable. Eddie Kale began moving swiftly up wind as the Warrior set off in his direction.

  They circled each other for some time, the Warrior relying on the particle detectors in its antennae, the long range of the multi-directional eyes in its head and, periscope fashion, the single optics in its claws, each capable of being raised to a height of eight feet, clearing the scrub and bushes on the heath. Eddie, manoeuvring carefully, kept an eye on his adversary by climbing an occasional tree.

  It was the tree climbing that in the end gave him an idea. He could not continue to evade the Warrior until its batteries ran down. It was unlikely he could master it in open country; but up a tree, the odds should be heavily reversed in his favour. He found himself a long log, light and strong enough for use as a weapon and then, climbing the bole of an oak tree, settled himself in a fork of its branches a good ten feet from the ground to await developments.

  The Warrior was not long in arriving. It stopped twenty feet from the oak tree and began circling it cautiously.

  ‘If I can break its antennae at the first blow,’ Eddie thought. ‘It will have trouble locating me at a distance.’

  The Warrior moved in, extending claws from each of its eight feet. Swinging its forelegs around the trunk, it began to climb. At the same time, as if sensing their vulnerability, it retracted its antennae. As it came within reach, Eddie brought the log down heavily on its head. It hung where it was for a moment, whilst Eddie, wielding his cudgel, continued to pound. A gasp went up from that part of the audience lucky enough to have a view of the right sector, whilst the camera teams came running and driving their vehicles from all sides to be in at what appeared to be imminently the death of one or other of the contestants.

  The Warrior took the pounding silently and without relaxing its grip on the tree. Then it began inching upwards and, at the right moment, struck out with one leg, a blow which Eddie, in the restricted space between
the branches, was only just able to parry. He too began climbing higher. The Warrior struck again and this time Eddie was able to bring his weapon down on its extremity almost certainly shattering one of its peripheral eyes. Apart from this one success, the legend of the Warrior’s invulnerability seemed well founded. The beating on its head had not even dented the metal and it seemed to have had no effect at all on its performance.

  It had one leg hooked now over the first of the lower branches and was pulling itself upwards. Eddie could risk time for one blow only which seemed to flatten the claws slightly before climbing higher out of reach of the next attack.

  ‘Never thought the bastard could climb like this,’ he thought. The idea of taking to the trees had been a bad one. He was now trapped too high above the ground to risk jumping and dislocating a limb or at least spraining an ankle. The Warrior below him was climbing with all its eight legs and watching him with the glow of its eyes behind the slits in its skull-circling grille.