6 Great Short Novels of Science Fiction

by Edited by Groff Conklin

  He spread out his notes on the correspondence of locations. Plowed fields near Seventieth Street, Manhattan. The great villa south of the Navy Yard on the Brooklyn shore. What looked like an enormous stretch of hothouses in the Sixties on the East Side. A road leading past the Empire State Building, curving through Altman’s.

  Sam accepted the memorandum. What Dick had said was true enough, but so was what he’d said himself. To wait for action by authority would be sheerest folly. There couldn’t be any more delay. The two of them had to work as private adventurers to try to go to her help. There were plenty of others who needed help too, no doubt. But for speed there would have to be action without hindrance.

  Presently Maltby brought in a sheet of copper foil, neatly rolled. He said wearily:

  “Here it is. It’s just a doorway. You can’t look through it, but somebody can go through.”

  “I’ll go through where Nancy did,” said Dick grimly. “We’ll get a cab and you show me the exact spot, Sam.”

  “All right, but we’ve got to arrange a way to communicate-”

  “In the taxi,” snapped Dick. “Come on!”

  Maltby spoke like a sleepwalker, tonelessly, “We’ll have to hold this thing sideways to the way we’re going.”

  “Right! I’ll carry it. Coming?”

  Sam Todd picked up his burden of weapons in a bag and gun-case. They went downstairs. The street seemed incredibly normal. Dick carried the rolled-up foil. They got into the cab, and it started downtown.

  This was three days after the disappearance of Nancy Holt in the seeming of a pool of quicksilver. Dick Blair knew that if his guesses were right, the disappearances of humans were for their enslavement. Nancy had been a slave for three days. Sam spoke to him, and he nodded, but he hardly heard what Sam was saying.

  At Thirtieth Street, Sam opened his bag and began to pass its contents to Dick. Two automatics, with ammunition. A riot-gun—a sawed-off shotgun with shells loaded with buckshot. Two small objects which were tear-gas bombs. Bars of chocolate. A canteen.

  “There,” said Sam to the taxi driver. “Draw up to the curb, right there.”

  It was a perfectly normal street in downtown New York. There was asphalt pavement, a concrete curb and sidewalk, and a street-light. There was a hydrant. A barbershop and a small stationery store occupied the street-level shops in a building which rose skyward.

  The taxi stopped. The driver turned.

  “We’re not getting out,” said Sam smoothly. He pointed ahead. “Hasn’t that car ahead got a flat?”

  The taxi driver looked front. Sam unrolled the copper foil.

  “Remember how to leave messages for me,” he said crisply.

  Dick Blair touched his pockets, where his weapons and ammunition were. He picked up the sawed-off shotgun. Without a word, he stepped into the two-foot by three-foot sheet of copper-bismuth foil. He stepped down.

  Maltby was asleep, his face lined with exhaustion. He did not see what was happening.

  Dick Blair vanished in a pool of quicksilver.

  ~ * ~

  There was bright sunshine where he found himself. There were gigantic trees, rising apparently to the height of the buildings which had surrounded the taxicab only seconds before. He tumbled down three or four feet and fell on his hands and knees on the ground. There was sparse brushwood here, and when he straightened up he saw a crude wooden platform, built of hewn planks. It had a cage-like structure of beams upon it, with a door now open. The door had a clumsy but effective latch so that it could not possibly be opened from the inside, but could be opened from without by a mere tug on a leather thong. In any case the cage was empty and deserted, but it had been made by men.

  There was music that seemed like bird-song everywhere. The brushwood was green. The particular bush on which he first cast his eyes was not only green, but leafless. It was a mass of slender, branching boughs, each one green as a grass-blade as if its stems had adapted their bark to perform the function of leaves. There was a small, strange flower only inches tall which waved long cilae with remarkable energy, like those marine creatures which fumble endlessly for plankton. But this waved slime-coated threads to catch dust-motes which actually had wings and were insects smaller than gnats.

  Overhead, the sky was blue. Something flew, and it was small and nearby, but its outlines were not those of a bird. Something howled suddenly, making an enormous din, and a feathered creature scuttled into view with a duck-like gait, stopped, made that monstrous tumult fitted to a being many times its size, and waddled on again upon some unguessable errand.

  It went across a wagon-trail that meandered through this forest, curving erratically, avoiding the larger trees. He moved to it, grimly intent, and examined the wheel tracks. They were wide, as of wooden wheels without metal tires. The horse-tracks were of unshod hoofs. And where whitish dust lay in the road, he saw other tracks. They looked like the tracks of dogs, except that no dog was ever so huge. Great Danes might have such monstrous pads, but surely no lesser breed.

  Then a rhythmic squeaking sound came through the music of tiny vocalists. Dick whirled. It sounded like the noise of a squeaky wheel upon a wooden axle. There were thudding hoof-beats, and then a cart came along the trail. It was a wholly ordinary cart, with a wholly ordinary horse in frayed but ordinary harness. A half-naked man, in a loin-cloth only, with hair to his shoulders and an unkempt beard, drove the horse. Behind him a beast like a wolf—only bigger—paced leisurely.

  Dick stepped out into the road with automatic leveled.

  “Hold up, there!” he said coldly. “I want some information!”

  The bearded man gasped.

  “My Gawd! Where’d you come from?”

  He wasn’t afraid. He was amazed. His mouth dropped open and he stared blankly. The horse stopped.

  The beast trotted around the cart and looked at Dick. It was very much like a wolf. It was hairy and sharp-nosed, with pricked-up ears. But no wolf ever had such eyes of such keen intelligence. It looked at Dick estimatingly. It was thinking, in the way in which a man thinks when he comes upon a strange thing.

  The man in the cart said quickly:

  “The critter has savvy like us. Get me?”

  The beast turned its head and looked at the man in the cart. It snarled a little. The sound was bloodcurdling. The man in the cart paled. He seemed to go all to pieces.

  The beast trotted toward Dick without haste and without fear. Its eyes were intent. He swung the pistol upon it. It stopped dead, regarding him. No, not him, the pistol. It was looking at the pistol. It made noises which were partly growlings and partly whines. They sounded oddly like speech. The man in the cart said, shaking, “It—wants to know where you come from.”

  “Never mind,” said Dick harshly. “I want to know where new-caught prisoners are taken! Where?”

  The beast understood. Plainly, impossibly, it understood. It made more noises. The man said, in panic: “No! Please! Y’don’t understand—” He was talking to the beast. The beast turned its head and looked at him. That was all. The man sobbed. He caught the reins around the corner of the cart. He prepared to descend.

  “The devil!” snapped Dick. “I want an answer to my question! Where are new-caught prisoners taken?”

  The man, shaking in every limb, crawled down to the ground. He moved slowly, abjectly, toward Dick.

  “It—it ain’t any use to kill me,” he panted. “I—ain’t done you any harm—”

  Out of the corner of his eye as he watched the man, Dick saw a flashing movement. He whirled and the automatic went off. The beast was in mid-leap and the heavy bullet tore into its chest, checking it in mid-air. It fell, inches short of Dick. It struggled convulsively. “Kill it!” panted the man shrilly. “Before it howls—” The beast essayed to scream, dying as it was. Dick shot again. It stiffened and was still. The man from the cart wrung his hands. He seemed stunned by catastrophe.

  “Migawd!” he said in a thin voice. “Oh, Migawd! That finishes me
! Killin’ it didn’t do no good—”

  “Hold on!” raged Dick. “I tell you I want to know where new-caught prisoners are taken! Answer me!”

  The gun-muzzle bore savagely on the other man. Five minutes ago Dick had been in a taxicab on a street of the most civilized city in the world. But he was not in that city now, nor bound to its code of conduct or its laws.

  “I came here from New York. A girl was brought here three days ago. Where is she?”

  The other man turned to him in incredulous hope.

  “You come from N’York? You weren’t brought? Can you get back? Gawd! Can you get back?”

  “Yes, when I take that girl with me,” rasped Dick. “Where is she?”

  The other man fawned upon him. He scrambled up into the cart. He drove it invitingly close to Dick. His eyes were pleading and hopeful and terrified by turns.

  “Which way, fella? Which way to get back? W-We got to move fast before somebody comes!”

  There was a movement. A second beast came loping around the nearest bend in the trail. Its legs and chest were wet. The man squealed and lashed the horse crazily. It bolted ahead. The beast stopped and regarded Dick with the same intent air of estimation without terror that the other beast had shown. The horse and cart jolted and bounced out of sight down the trail. The beast looked at its dead fellow, and suddenly darted for the underbrush beside the trail. Dick’s pistol crashed. The thing made gurgling noises. It toppled to the ground, kicking in utter silence, then lay still.

  These dead beasts made Dick’s flesh crawl. They had looked at him as men would look. The first beast had given commands to the bearded man—who spoke of his own kind as slaves. The man was subject to the beast. It had commanded him to get out of the wagon and keep Dick’s attention on him, and while Dick looked at the man the beast had sprung. The second beast had deduced from the body of the first that Dick had killed it, and was darting to cover when a bullet stopped it. It had acted exactly as a man would have acted if he heard a shot and raced to see what had caused it, and then found himself facing an armed and unexpected enemy.

  Dick had thought earlier of making a prisoner of some inhabitant of this Other World, and of forcing him to lead the way to where Nancy might be held captive. But if men were subject to beasts, and accompanied everywhere by the beasts their masters...

  Then his mind clicked on the few things it had to work on. He’d seen a man and cart and beast from the top of the Empire State Building. He’d seen a man and cart and beast here. He’d killed the beast and another had come shortly after. That was now dead too. So there might be another man and cart-

  He marched savagely along the trail in the direction from which the second beast had come. Cart-tracks showed that it was a frequented highway. Beast-tracks in occasional patches of dust showed plainly, as well as the hoof-prints of horses. He saw tiny pellets of wetness. They would be drops from the wetted pelt of the second dead beast. Dick found himself hurrying a little.

  Half a mile, between leaves of unknown species and genera, brushwood which had leaves and no leaves, and berries of very improbable color. Something with a preposterous number of legs slithered across the highway. It saw him and squeaked and insanely whirled and went back across the highway and vanished, having exposed itself twice to danger. A furry biped eight inches tall ran behind a tree trunk and peered at him through large blue eyes which were not in the least human. The bird-notes which filled the air kept on in a constant tide of sound.

  Then a stream. It was possibly twenty feet wide and swift-running. The trail led into it and out on the other side. Some thirty feet beyond the water there was a second horse and cart, and a second more than half-naked man. This man sat apathetically in stillness. The horse was still. The man, red-haired and with a monstrous red beard which was utterly untended, waited dully as if in numbed obedience to orders. There was no beast in sight. Dick had killed the beast which should have been here.

  He halted on the near side of the stream and lifted an automatic suggestively.

  “You!” he said coldly. “I’m going to ask some questions! You’ll answer them! Understand?”

  The man raised his eyes. They fixed themselves dully upon Dick. It was seconds before surprise dawned in them. For a time, then, there was merely blank amazement. Then other emotions passed over his features in succession. Hope, and sudden recollected despair, and then a burning fury.

  “Where’d you come from?” demanded the red-beard in a croaking voice. “The ruhks ain’t stripped you. Did you—did you come from some’rs by yourself, or—” Then his voice dulled again. “No ... You just busted outa a cage-trap ...”

  The fury died in him. He drooped.

  “Go on some’rs else,’ he said dully. “I ain’t seen you. The ruhks’ll track you down by smell, an’ they’ll kill you. That’s best anyways. Go on!”

  Dick said evenly:

  “I’ve just killed two beasts that look like wolves. One was wet, as if he’d forded this stream. Are those beasts ruhks?”

  The red-beard’s eyes lighted again, this time in delight.

  “Killed two of ‘em? Good! Swell!” He suddenly cursed in a terrible, gleeful passion. “If only every one was dead there’d be some killin’ around here! Fella! You got guns? I hope you kill plenty of ‘em before they get you! I hope you kill thousan’s of ‘em—” Then he said eagerly, “Did y’break outa a trap-cage, or—”

  He trembled, unable to express a hope so remote that it could not be imagined.

  “I came through a thing one of my friends made,” said Dick. “I was in New York half an hour ago. My friends can get through to here whenever they wish.”

  The red-beard blasphemed in fierce joy.

  “How about other carts and ruhks coming along?” snapped Dick. “Is it safe to stand and talk?”

  The red-beard suddenly grinned. He clucked to his horse. The horse moved forward and went into the stream. It halted in the middle.

  “Wade out an’ climb in,” panted the red-headed man. “They’ll track you by smell to this here stream. Then they’ll hunt for where you come out. You ride with me an’ I’ll put you down miles away, ah’ you can get back to your friends. Tell ‘em to fire the palace with gasoline an’ kill them ruhks. We’ll tend to the rest!”

  When Dick waded out into the stream and then swung into the vehicle, he saw that the red-beard’s back above his filthy breechclout was scarred in an intricate, crisscross pattern as if by long-healed sores which could only have been made by a lash. And there were other scars, which had been made by the teeth of beasts.

  He clucked to the horse again. The animal pulled ahead to shore. Presently they were proceeding at a slow walk along the trail. And the red-headed man, in a hoarse and confidential whisper, spoke of destruction to be wrought upon a palace—which must be the villa on the Brooklyn shore—and then of tortures unspeakable to be inflicted upon overseers.

  It was quite impossible, for the moment, to get from him anything but expressions of his hate.

  After a time, the red-bearded man grew coherent. He was not actually mad. In the seven-mile ride between monster tree trunks, Dick came to understand that there are experiences one can have, after which self-control and a normal manner would be impossible. Yet too great a change from sane behavior would have a penalty on this Other World, where there were penalties for madness as for illness or crippling injuries or a rebellious spirit or anything which made a slave less than wholly useful.

  The picture the red-beard painted was only partly like the pattern Dick had imagined. There were human masters, to be sure. They lived in the palace on the other side of the river. The red-bearded man had been a slave for years, but had never seen a member of the race or family he had been enslaved to serve. He had only rarely seen more than one overseer. Years ago he’d been an electrician in New York, and on his way home one night along Fourth Avenue, he suddenly felt himself falling, and all the world swirled about him and he was in a cage of wooden bars, in a fo
rest like this of monster trees and unfamiliar vegetation. Over his head an object rose, and drew back, and minutes later another man fell into the cage with him. The other man freakishly broke his arm in falling. They did not know where they were, and they did not know what had happened to them. They shouted for help, and some beast snarled horribly, nearby. Then they were silent in terror. And all that night they thought themselves insane, and all night long the beast prowled about outside the cage.

  When dawn came, they saw it. It was one of the wolf-like creatures called ruhks. It regarded them with businesslike, icy, intelligent eyes. Presently, in the dawn light, there came others of the animals—a dozen or more. In their midst marched a man with a spear, and with a pistol in a holster about his waist. He wore a long, knee-length robe rather than garments they would recognize. He looked at the two caged men without interest or mercy. The ruhks made whining, barking noises to each other. Their tone was unmistakably conversational. The robed man stood back, and one of the creatures pulled on a leather thong and the cage-door opened. The two captives shivered in horror. They pleaded with the man among the beasts, but he ignored them. Now they shrank back in the cage and he gestured to them to come out. When they did not, he prodded them out with his spear.