You’re pretty stupid, mister, and if you use that ‘can’t get away with it’ line, I’ll put a bullet into your left ear and watch it come out your right one.”
Jim Wilson’s fists were doubled. He was again approaching the reckless point. And again it was dulled by the gradually increasing sound of a motor—not in the air, but from the street level to the south.
It was a sane, cheerful sound and was resented instantly by the insane mind of Leroy Davis.
He tightened even to the point that his face grew more pale from the tension. He backed to a window, looked out quickly, and turned back.
“It’s a jeep,” he said. “They’re going by the hotel. If anybody makes a move, or yells, they’ll find four bodies in here and me gone. That’s what I’m telling you and you know I’ll do it.”
They knew he would do it and they stood silent, trying to dredge up the nerve to make a move. The jeep’s motor backfired a couple of times as it approached Madison Street. Each time, Leroy Davis’ nerves reacted sharply and the four people kept their eyes trained on the gun in his hand.
The jeep came to the intersection and slowed down. There was a conference between its two occupants—helmeted soldiers in dark brown battle dress.
Then the jeep moved on up Clark Street toward Lake.
A choked sigh escaped from Nora’s throat. Frank Brooks turned toward her.
“Take it easy,” he said. “We’re not dead yet. I don’t think he wants to kill us.”
The reply came from Minna. She spoke quietly. “I don’t care. I can’t stand any more of this. After all, we aren’t animals. We’re human beings and we have a right to live and die as we please.”
Minna walked toward Leroy Davis. “I’m not afraid of your gun any more.
All you can do with it is kill me. Go ahead and do it.”
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 rein. 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.”
DEADLY CITY 187
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?”
188 THEY CAME FROM OUTER SPACE
“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. Nora 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
189
LaSalle Street Station down the block. The man looked at Nora, then away.
After a while he looked at her again. Nora smiled.
DEADLY CITY
TARGET EARTH Allied Artists 1954
75 minutes. Produced by Herman Cohen; directed by Sherman Rose; screenplay by William Raynor; screen treatment by Wyott Ordung; director of photography, Guy Roe, A.S.C.; art direction by James Sullivan; special effects by the Howard A. Anderson Company; music composed and conducted by Paul Dunlap; production manager, Clarence Eurist; sound by Earl Snyder; set decoration by Morris Hofman; assistant director, Jack Murphy; continuity by Dolores Rubin.
Cast Richard Denning (Frank Brooks), Virginia Grey (Nora King), Richard Reeves (Jim Wilson), Kathleen Crowley (Vicki Harris), Robert Roark (Mr. Davis), Arthur Space (General), Whit Bissel (The Scientist), House Peters, Jr. (A Technician).
THE ALIEN MACHINE
by Raymond F. Jones filmed as
THIS ISLAND EARTH
(Universal-International, 1955 )
Harrowing laser battles in outer space, star systems split in deadly galactic combat, and an evil ruler who governs with an iron hand.
...
Sound familiar? Today’s generation would, of course, be reminded of the all-time box office champ, Star Wars. But a quarter century ago, a different audience sat awestruck watching similar Technicolor thrills in the first interstellar space opera, This Island Earth.
Undoubtedly the most ambitious science fiction film mounted to that
date, the production was said to have cost close to one million dollars
an unheard-of sum at a time when most SF efforts were being shot for about one-tenth that amount. But thanks to investors firmly committed to the project, the special effects men were able to bring “a new reality” to the futuristic visions of author Raymond F. Jones.
A prominent name in the lamented SF pulp magazines of the 1940s and 1950s, Jones first introduced the This Island Earth characters in “The Alien Machine.” Appearing in a 1947 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories, the tale received so much reader acclaim that a pair of sequels were penned over the succeeding two years.
Finally, through an arrangement with a small publishing firm that specialized in fantasy, the three works were brought together and expanded into a spectacular novel that ultimately became the motion picture.
The author, who now lives with his family in the Midwest, recently admitted, “Though they made a few regrettable changes, I was still quite impressed with the remarkable effects. And although I was not consulted after the initial sale, the screenwriters did an admirable job of adapting my work.”
One of the “regrettable changes” obviously refers to the huge eightfoot-tall mutated monster that thankfully did not appear in the novel.
Apparently it was thrown in to appease the “popcorn crowd,” who producers felt couldnt survive without some sort of ravenous creature on the rampage.
Luckily, the rather childish elements were toned down in the editing room, and This Island Earth still emerged a colorful ray of hopeful light in the rather gloomy, black-and-white world of cinematic SF.
“The Alien Machine,” reprinted here for the first time in over thirty years, easily stands alone on its own merits as a first-rate piece of speculative fiction.
THE ALIEN MACHINE by Raymond F. Jones
CHAPTER I
Unit 16
THE OFFICES of Joe Wilson, purchasing agent for Ryberg Instrument Corporation, looked out over the company’s private landing field. He stood there by the window now, wishing that they didn’t, because it was an eternal reminder that he’d once had hopes of becoming an engineer instead of an office flunky.
Through the window he saw the silver test ship of the radio lab level off at bullet speed, circle once and land. That would be Cal Meacham at the controls, Joe thought. Even the company pilots didn’t dare bring a ship in that way. But Cal Meacham was the best man in the radio instrument business and getting canned was a meaningless penalty for him. He could get the same or higher salary from a dozen other places for the asking.
Joe chomped irritably on his cigar and turned away from the window.
Then he picked up a letter from his desk. It was in answer to an order he had placed for condensers for Cal’s hot transmitter job—Cal’s stuff was always hot, Joe thought. He’d already read the letter three times but he started on it for the fourth.
Dear Mr. Wilson:
We were pleased to receive your order of the 8th for samples of our XC-109 condenser. However, we find that our present catalogue lists no such item nor did we ever carry it.
We are, therefore, substituting the AB-619 model, a high-voltage oil-filled transmitting-type condenser. As you specified, it is rated at 10,000 volts with 100% safety factor and has 4 mf. capacity.
We trust these will meet with your approval and that we may look forward to receiving your production order for these items. It is needless, of course, to remind you that we manufacture a complete line of electronic components. We would be glad to furnish samples of any items from our stock which might interest you.
Respectfully yours, A. G. Archnanter Electronic Service—Unit 16.
Joe Wilson put the letter down slowly and picked up the box of beads which had come with it. Complete and resigned disgust occupied his face.
He picked up a bead by one of the leads that stuck out of it. The bead w
as about a quarter of an inch in diameter and there seemed to be a smaller concentric shell inside it. Between the two appeared to be some reddish liquid. Another wire connected to the inner shell but for the life of him Joe couldn’t see how that inner wire came through the outer shell.
There was something funny about it, as if it came directly from the inner without passing through the outer. He knew that was silly but it made him dizzy to try to concentrate on the spot where it came through.
The spot seemed to shift and move.
“Ten thousand volts!” he muttered. “Four mikes!”
He tossed the bead back into the box with disgust. Cal would be hotter than the transmitter job when he saw these.
Joe heard the door of his secretary’s office open and glanced through the glass panel. Cal Meacham was coming in. He burst open the door with a breeze that ruffled the letters on Joe’s desk.
“See that landing I made, Joe? Markus says I ought to be able to get my license to fly that crate in another week.”
“I’ll bet he added ‘if you live that long.”’
“Just because you don’t recognize a hot pilot when you see one—What are you so glum about, anyway? And what’s happened to those condensers we ordered three days ago? This job’s hot.”
Joe held out the letter silently. Cal scanned the page swiftly and flipped it back onto the desk.
“Swell. We’ll try them out. They’re down in receiving, I suppose?
Give me an order- and I’ll pick them up on my way to the lab.”
“They aren’t in receiving. They came in the envelope with the letter.”
“What are you talking about? How could they send sixteen mikes of ten kw condensers in an envelope?”
Joe held up one of the beads by a wire—the one that passed through the outer shell without passing through it.
“This is what they sent. Guaranteed one hundred percent voltage safety factor.”
Cal glanced at it. “Whose leg are you trying to pull?”
“I’m not kidding. That’s what they sent.”
“Well, what screwball’s idea of a joke is this, then? Four mikes! Did you call receiving?”
Joe nodded. “I checked good. These beads are all that came.”
Muttering, Cal grasped one by the lead wire and held it up to the light.
They Came From Outer Space Page 23