The Frank Belknap Long Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: 20 Classic Science Fiction Tales

by Frank Belknap Long

  The robot was advancing across the lawn toward the cottage, its long arms swinging, its shredded head against the sky.

  Denham was aware of a warm, reassuring stir of movement behind him. Everything he’d have died to protect made itself felt in that stir, steeling his muscles, steadying his aim.

  He waited until the robot’s dark bulk blotted out the red moon. He waited until it became edged with a dull glow that brought all its angular contours into stark relief.

  Then, and only then, he blasted.

  The redness which came from his weapon matched the redness which spilled out from the robot’s body as the blast ripped through it. For the barest instant the heat of the blast fanned the air about it into violent motion. Then the smoke of the blast swirled over it, blotting it from view.

  When the smoke cleared there rested on the lawn a smoking, stationary metal torso, a half giant with its legs shot away, its globular body box flush with the grass.

  And behind Denham, in the warm shadows Johnny was yelling: “He’s shrinking, Pop! He’s getting small again.”

  The lawn seemed to tilt then and everything beyond the window spun dizzily. The robot shrunk in erratic jerks. For an instant it seemed to expand as well as shrink, so that parts of it became very large while the rest of it shriveled.

  But after a moment even the larger parts began to shrink. Smaller and smaller it became, until it was no longer a half giant, but a small metal shape which was all too familiar.

  But Wulkins did not remain merely small. He did not remain even a shattered, blackened parody of his antique shop self. He continued to shrink as Denham stared, a cold prickling running up his spine.

  The lawn had ceased to gyrate and the glimmering beyond the window had subsided. But Wulkins continued to shrink. Smaller he became and smaller. He became tiny so quickly that the grass around him seemed to grow up about him, so that he resembled for an instant an inch-high luminous elf shape sparkling in the middle of the lawn, half buried in the long, upsweeping blades.

  But it was only an illusion, for Denham could see that the grass wasn’t really moving. Only Wulkins was moving, and suddenly Wulkins was gone. A firefly enmeshed in the grass, its lantern sparking out, would have looked no different from Wulkins vanishing. A tiny pinpoint of light in the middle of the lawn glowing brightly and then—nothing, nothing at all. Not even Wulkins, not ever again, Wulkins.

  When Denham sank into a chair by the fireplace he was so shaken that his voice sounded like a cracked record jarringly enunciating harsh syllables from a broken down sound track.

  “He vibrated the cottage back! We’re back, Molly, kids. We’re back in our own world. We’re back—we’re back!”

  Both arms of Denham’s chair were instantly occupied by his children. At almost the same instant there was a heaviness on his lap, and he was holding Molly tightly and smoothing her hair while his voice, like a cracked record, droned raucously on: “I know we are—because the vault’s gone. I could just see it from the window and it’s not there. We’re back.”

  Johnny had no difficulty with his voice. He was trembling a little and he started off pale, but when the questions came tumbling from his lips, thick and fast, the color flooded back into his face. “What d’you suppose happened, Pop? What made Wulkins shrink? Why didn’t he stop?”

  “There are two possible explanations,” Denham managed to say. “You can take your pick.” He was still having trouble with his voice, but he found to his relief that he could enunciate less harshly now. “Either the atomic blast set his dimension-warp mechanism in motion erratically, so that he was powerless to control it.”

  Denham wet his dry lips. “Or he deliberately chose to destroy himself. His way of committing suicide may have been to go into a still smaller dimension, and vibrate right out of our space too. If that’s what happened, we can thank our lucky stars his power to warp the cottage stopped when he became as small as he was when we bought him.”

  “But why should he want to kill himself, Daddy?” Betty Anne asked.

  “There was something in the vault with him,” Denham told her. “His maker, perhaps. All desiccated, shriveled up, as dead as a doornail. When he came back and found the human—” Denham gagged a little over the word. “When he found the equivalent of a human being in his world lying dead, despair may have overwhelmed him, and then, when I blasted away his legs, he realized that his number was up!”

  “Gee, you really think that’s what happened, Pop?” Johnny asked.

  “I said you could take your pick,” Denham reminded him. “Now that he’s gone, it doesn’t really matter.”

  He straightened as he spoke, gently elevating Molly until she was sitting on his knee, facing him.

  “It’s an ungodly hour for your children to be up!” he reminded her. “I’ve got a few films I’d like to examine, but I can’t concentrate when I’m on the witness stand!”

  Molly’s eyes widened. “Films?”

  “Films, Pop?” Johnny said.

  “I’d rather have that than a nightcap,” Denham said. “Both the kids, tucked in for the night!”

  Molly smiled and kissed him. “All right,” she said.

  An hour later Denham and Molly stood in the upper hallway, staring into a shadowed room at the tousled head of their son.

  “And Johnny’s back in his own little bed again!” Molly whispered.

  She shut the door almost reverently. “He’s a good boy! He’s never made any trouble for us.”

  “As good as they come!” Denham said.

  The instant the door closed Johnny sat up straight in bed. “He’ll never know if you don’t tell him!” he whispered.

  In the bed opposite the sheets heaved up. “Go to sleep,” Betty Anne murmured drowsily. “I’m not a tattletale! Besides—I helped you, didn’t I?”

  Back in their own bedroom, Denham turned to face his wife. “The projector wouldn’t take those films,” he said. “The perforations were all out of alignment.”

  “Then you didn’t—”

  “Don’t worry,” Denham said. “I examined them. But I had to project them as stills. It was a tedious process, but there’s something to be said for stills. Animation would have turned my hair white.”

  “What did you find out?”

  Denham was silent for a moment. “You’ll have to make an imaginative effort to understand,” he said, at last. “A very resolute effort. You see, life in a completely alien world would be—completely alien!”

  “Well, that makes sense,” Molly said. “But it’s a little obvious, isn’t it?”

  “No, it isn’t! Nothing’s obvious when all analogies break down.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “There’s one analogy that might apply,” Denham said, as though it were being dragged out of him. “The cobwebby old legend of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice!”

  “The Sorcerer’s—”

  “Cells,” Denham said. “Monastic-like stone cells, scattered throughout that ghastly dimension. Each cell occupied by a sorcerer and his apprentice. They’re not really that, but I can’t think of a better analogy.”

  “Well…go on!”

  “Each cell a focus of intense intellectual activity. Each sorcerer and his apprentice exploring the mysteries of time and space, of other worlds and other dimensions, spurred on by curiosity, seeking to extend the boundaries of non-human knowledge.”

  Molly blinked and thought that over for a minute or two. “Go on!”

  “That’s the picture I got from the films,” Denham told her. “Wulkins occupied one of those cells, with the cicada-like shape. The sorcerer and his robot apprentice. Both distinctly on the malign side.”

  “Then you were right!” Molly exclaimed excitedly. “You said that when Wulkins came back and found the
sorcerer dead, his maker dead, he succumbed to despair.”

  “Exactly,” Denham said. “Only Wulkins didn’t find the sorcerer dead!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dimension travel,” Denham said. “A robot might be able to travel in a space warp, but it would be easier for a trained intellect. That intellect occupied a body so highly functional, so perfectly adjusted to its world, that it looked mechanical to us. If that intellect made certain adjustments in its body—”

  Molly’s eyes were so wide now they seemed to fill her face. “You mean—”

  “Exactly!” Denham said. “The cicada-like shape was the robot apprentice. Wulkins was—the sorcerer himself!”

  THE MISSISSIPPI SAUCER

  Originally published in Weird Tales, March 1951.

  Jimmy watched the Natchez Belle draw near, a shining eagerness in his stare. He stood on the deck of the shantyboat, his toes sticking out of his socks, his heart knocking against his ribs. Straight down the river the big packet boat came, purpling the water with its shadow, its smokestacks belching soot.

  Jimmy had a wild talent for collecting things. He knew exactly how to infuriate the captains without sticking out his neck. Up and down the Father of Waters, from the bayous of Louisiana to the Great Sandy other little shantyboat boys envied Jimmy and tried hard to imitate him.

  But Jimmy had a very special gift, a genius for pantomime. He’d wait until there was a glimmer of red flame on the river and small objects stood out with a startling clarity. Then he’d go into his act.

  Nothing upset the captains quite so much as Jimmy’s habit of holding a big, croaking bullfrog up by its legs as the riverboats went steaming past. It was a surefire way of reminding the captains that men and frogs were brothers under the skin. The puffed-out throat of the frog told the captains exactly what Jimmy thought of their cheek.

  Jimmy refrained from making faces, or sticking out his tongue at the grinning roustabouts. It was the frog that did the trick.

  In the still dawn things came sailing Jimmy’s way, hurled by captains with a twinkle of repressed merriment dancing in eyes that were kindlier and more tolerant than Jimmy dreamed.

  Just because shantyboat folk had no right to insult the riverboats Jimmy had collected forty empty tobacco tins, a down-at-heels shoe, a Sears Roebuck catalogue and—more rolled up newspapers than Jimmy could ever read.

  Jimmy could read, of course. No matter how badly Uncle Al needed a new pair of shoes, Jimmy’s education came first. So Jimmy had spent six winters ashore in a first-class grammar school, his books paid for out of Uncle Al’s “New Orleans” money.

  Uncle Al, blowing on a vinegar jug and making sweet music, the holes in his socks much bigger than the holes in Jimmy’s socks. Uncle Al shaking his head and saying sadly, “Some day, young fella, I ain’t gonna sit here harmonizing. No siree! I’m gonna buy myself a brand new store suit, trade in this here jig jug for a big round banjo, and hie myself off to the Mardi Gras. Ain’t too old thataway to git a little fun out of life, young fella!”

  Poor old Uncle Al. The money he’d saved up for the Mardi Gras never seemed to stretch far enough. There was enough kindness in him to stretch like a rainbow over the bayous and the river forests of sweet, rustling pine for as far as the eye could see. Enough kindness to wrap all of Jimmy’s life in a glow, and the life of Jimmy’s sister as well.

  Jimmy’s parents had died of winter pneumonia too soon to appreciate Uncle Al. But up and down the river everyone knew that Uncle Al was a great man.

  * * * *

  Enemies? Well, sure, all great men made enemies, didn’t they?

  The Harmon brothers were downright sinful about carrying their feuding meanness right up to the doorstep of Uncle Al, if it could be said that a man living in a shantyboat had a doorstep.

  Uncle Al made big catches and the Harmon brothers never seemed to have any luck. So, long before Jimmy was old enough to understand how corrosive envy could be the Harmon brothers had started feuding with Uncle Al.

  “Jimmy, here comes the Natchez Belle! Uncle Al says for you to get him a newspaper. The newspaper you got him yesterday he couldn’t read no-ways. It was soaking wet!”

  Jimmy turned to glower at his sister. Up and down the river Pigtail Anne was known as a tomboy, but she wasn’t—no-ways. She was Jimmy’s little sister. That meant Jimmy was the man in the family, and wore the pants, and nothing Pigtail said or did could change that for one minute.

  “Don’t yell at me!” Jimmy complained. “How can I get Captain Simmons mad if you get me mad first? Have a heart, will you?”

  But Pigtail Anne refused to budge. Even when the Natchez Belle loomed so close to the shantyboat that it blotted out the sky she continued to crowd her brother, preventing him from holding up the frog and making Captain Simmons squirm.

  But Jimmy got the newspaper anyway. Captain Simmons had a keen insight into tomboy psychology, and from the bridge of the Natchez Belle he could see that Pigtail was making life miserable for Jimmy.

  True—Jimmy had no respect for packet boats and deserved a good trouncing. But what a scrapper the lad was! Never let it be said that in a struggle between the sexes the men of the river did not stand shoulder to shoulder.

  The paper came sailing over the shining brown water like a white-bellied buffalo cat shot from a sling.

  Pigtail grabbed it before Jimmy could give her a shove. Calmly she unwrapped it, her chin tilted in bellicose defiance.

  As the Natchez Belle dwindled around a lazy, cypress-shadowed bend Pigtail Anne became a superior being, wrapped in a cosmopolitan aura. A wide-eyed little girl on a swaying deck, the great outside world rushing straight toward her from all directions.

  Pigtail could take that world in her stride. She liked the fashion page best, but she was not above clicking her tongue at everything in the paper.

  “Kidnap plot linked to airliner crash killing fifty,” she read. “Red Sox blank Yanks! Congress sits today, vowing vengeance! Million dollar heiress elopes with a clerk! Court lets dog pick owner! Girl of eight kills her brother in accidental shooting!”

  “I ought to push your face right down in the mud,” Jimmy muttered.

  “Don’t you dare! I’ve a right to see what’s going on in the world!”

  “You said the paper was for Uncle Al!”

  “It is—when I get finished with it.”

  Jimmy started to take hold of his sister’s wrist and pry the paper from her clasp. Only started—for as Pigtail wriggled back sunlight fell on a shadowed part of the paper which drew Jimmy’s gaze as sunlight draws dew.

  Exciting wasn’t the word for the headline. It seemed to blaze out of the page at Jimmy as he stared, his chin nudging Pigtail’s shoulder.

  NEW FLYING MONSTER REPORTED BLAZING GULF STATE SKIES

  Jimmy snatched the paper and backed away from Pigtail, his eyes glued to the headline.

  * * * *

  He was kind to his sister, however. He read the news item aloud, if an account so startling could be called an item. To Jimmy it seemed more like a dazzling burst of light in the sky.

  “A New Orleans resident reported today that he saw a big bright object ‘roundish like a disk’ flying north, against the wind. ‘It was all lighted up from inside!’ the observer stated. ‘As far as I could tell there were no signs of life aboard the thing. It was much bigger than any of the flying saucers previously reported!’”

  “People keep seeing them!” Jimmy muttered, after a pause. “Nobody knows where they come from! Saucers flying through the sky, high up at night. In the daytime, too! Maybe we’re being watched, Pigtail!”

  “Watched? Jimmy, what do you mean? What you talking about?”

  Jimmy stared at his sister, the paper jiggling in his clasp. “It’s way over your head, Pigtail!” he said sympa
thetically. “I’ll prove it! What’s a planet?”

  “A star in the sky, you dope!” Pigtail almost screamed. “Wait’ll Uncle Al hears what a meanie you are. If I wasn’t your sister you wouldn’t dare grab a paper that doesn’t belong to you.”

  Jimmy refused to be enraged. “A planet’s not a star, Pigtail,” he said patiently. “A star’s a big ball of fire like the sun. A planet is small and cool, like the Earth. Some of the planets may even have people on them. Not people like us, but people all the same. Maybe we’re just frogs to them!”

  “You’re crazy, Jimmy! Crazy, crazy, you hear?”

  Jimmy started to reply, then shut his mouth tight. Big waves were nothing new in the wake of steamboats, but the shantyboat wasn’t just riding a swell. It was swaying and rocking like a floating barrel in the kind of blow Shantyboaters dreaded worse than the thought of dying.

  Jimmy knew that a big blow could come up fast. Straight down from the sky in gusts, from all directions, banging against the boat like a drunken roustabout, slamming doors, tearing away mooring planks.

  * * * *

  The river could rise fast too. Under the lashing of a hurricane blowing up from the gulf the river could lift a shantyboat right out of the water, and smash it to smithereens against a tree.

  But now the blow was coming from just one part of the sky. A funnel of wind was churning the river into a white froth and raising big swells directly offshore. But the river wasn’t rising and the sun was shining in a clear sky.

  Jimmy knew a dangerous floodwater storm when he saw one. The sky had to be dark with rain, and you had to feel scared, in fear of drowning.

  Jimmy was scared, all right. That part of it rang true. But a hollow, sick feeling in his chest couldn’t mean anything by itself, he told himself fiercely.

  Pigtail Anne saw the disk before Jimmy did. She screamed and pointed skyward, her twin braids standing straight out in the wind like the ropes on a bale of cotton, when smokestacks collapse and a savage howling sends the river ghosts scurrying for cover.