He whirled on me, angry and scared. “What are you tryna do, kill me?”
“I thought you were going to fall,” I said lamely.
“Just keep the hands off the suit, Jack,” he said, “and do like I do. Grab one of the handles. You take the left one. I thought you knew your way around.”
“Sure I do. I just forgot.”
“Forgot? I got to hand it to you, boy, if you can forget an anti-grav ride. Sure your grip’s okay?”
The question made more sense now. I shivered. The eerie whistle coming faintly down the shaft didn’t help any.
“Suppose I miss?” I said.
“Suppose you fall under a bus. You’re dead, that’s all. Don’t miss.”
Portendo swung out and grabbed the handle on the right Concentrating my nerve, I grabbed the left one. I dangled. Portendo started rising. “Squeeze, man!” he said. I squeezed the handle and I started up too, the inverted sad iron drawing me up the shaft. I closed my eyes and hung on.
I have no idea how many minutes later it was when we reached the top and my handle, to which I was now clinging with both hands, clinked against the roof of the shaft.
I watched to see how Portendo did it, then swung myself over to the floor and stepped quickly away from the mile-high abyss.
“I’d just as soon walk the next time,” I said.
Portendo laughed. “You get used to it. You get used to anything.”
* * * *
We turned a corner in the corridor and I shied violently.
The purple monster who had almost run me down smiled apologetically.
“Surbis,” the monster said, showing jagged red-stained teeth in a horrible smile as it brushed past.
“What was that?” I asked, shuddering and looking over my shoulder. Then I looked ahead again quickly, because the monster was also looking over his shoulder. I had to lean against the wall a minute.
“Nobody,” Buddy Portendo said. “Strictly a nobody. An unemployed-actor. You got nothing against the unemployed, have you, Jack?”
I shook my head. “But does he have to wear his make-up when he’s not working?”
“That ain’t make-up,” Buddy said. “That’s his natural skin.” He looked at me, puzzled. “I thought you said you’d been up here before.”
“Sure I have. Lots of times.” I was stretching it. I’d never been higher than the tenth story of the Mile-Hi Building. And I thought the top 518 stories were as empty as my wallet
The halls were cleaner than on the eleventh floor, as if somebody dusted once in a while, and we passed doors with lettering on their frosted glass. A. Zichl, Imported Spirits, one said. All-Planets Films, another said.
“Here we are,” Buddy Portendo said, opening a door. I hadn’t caught the name on it. What I did see was a blue-black glob of a creature covering the top of a desk like a partly deflated balloon.
Portendo said: “This is Okkam. Not much to look at from our point of view, but all mentality. Okkam, meet Jack Norkus. He needs a mind-reading act for tonight, as if you didn’t already know.”
Okkam didn’t say anything, for which I was grateful. It gave me a little more time to get used to him, if I was going to. It would be hard to know where his mouth was, if he had a mouth. Or his head, for that matter. He expanded and contracted his, blue-black mass, as if someone were blowing him up in fits and starts.
Then my head started to tingle as if a dozen spiders were running around inside it and I knew without being told that every thought I ever had was now in the possession of Okkam.
These included such unspoken protests as “When I said a mind-reading act I didn’t mean the real thing” and “I more had in mind somebody who could be on television.”
“I’ve got a tuxedo,” Okkam said. The voice came out of a speaker in the ceiling.
I couldn’t picture him in a tux. He was like Miss Eppie Hogg in the old Toonerville Trolley strip, only without a head, and black, or midnight blue.
I wasn’t getting used to him at all. I tried to keep my feeling of revulsion under control but Okkam was a perceptive one.
“Insults!” Okkam said through the speaker. “Not even the decency of filtration. Take him away, Portendo, before my own filter breaks down.”
* * * *
Portendo pushed me out the door, saying “Surbis, surbis” to the outraged Okkam.
In the hall he said: “I don’t think you been up here before at all, frankly. And frankly, this could get you killed. All Okkam has to do is think straight at you instead of through the speaker and whammo! No more Jack Norkus.”
“All right,” I said, “I admit it. This is my first trip up. But I was desperate, Buddy. I’m broke. If I don’t find a mind-reading act I don’t get the commission and I get turned out of my hotel.”
“Yeah?” Portendo softened up. He always did like a leveler and I guess I should have told him the truth earlier. “Well, you got guts, boy. I have to admire that. You faced up to Okkam and that Aldebaran actor—the purple one—without turning a hair.”
This was a considerable exaggeration, but I was grateful for it “Don’t forget the anti-grav,” I said. “That was even worse. But now that you know I’m a greenhorn and I can stop faking, maybe you’ll tell me what goes on up here? What is it—winter quarters for the freak show?”
Portendo glanced around. “Watch how you talk, son. Everybody up here is perfectly normal. And they’re sensitive. You saw that with Okkam. The only difference between them and us is that they’re normal where they come from—but they ain’t where they come from.”
“And where do they come from?”
“From all over,” he said. “From as all over as you can get.”
“You mean,” I said, “they’re from other planets?”
“Where else? Saskatoon, Saskatchewan?”
I let that sink in awhile, then I asked him: “How did they get here?”
Buddy Portendo looked up and down the hall. “Don’t ask too many questions, is my advice to you. Times ain’t too good and with these people a lot of guys that otherwise wouldn’t be eating are picking up a buck here, a few bucks there. You got to think of them as people, too. Inside of whatever they wear on their outside they got souls, just like you. Pretty decent bunch, all things considered.”
“What are they doing here?”
“Different things. Okkam’s writing a book about Earth for the Little-Known Planets series. That actor you saw—he hires out for low-budget horror pictures. But back home he’s considered pretty handsome. Plays leading men.”
* * * *
We wandered over to a window and I looked out. I could see part of the city far below and a good stretch of Lake Michigan and maybe even part of Indiana. Everything looked peaceful. I wondered how many of them down there had even an inkling of what was going on up here, a mile in the sky, in this crazy tower pointing into outer space.
“Who knows about these—these aliens?” I asked Buddy.
“Aliens-schmaliens,” he said. “You better cut out that Earth-supremacy talk if you want to get along up here. Besides that, just about every one of them is better than you are in one way or another. Remember, they’re the ones who got here to Earth, not vice versa.”
“All right. I’m sorry. But whodoes know about them?”
“Not too many. Mostly just the people they come into contact with in the normal course of things. They’re in research, mostly, studying us, making notes, things like that.”
“Studying us for what? Are they getting ready to take us over?”
“Nuts. What for? You see a guy studying anthills, this means he wants to be king of the ants? Come on; we still got to get you a mind-reading act. We’ll see Mogle. He’s a talent agent”
“Okay,” I said. “I hope he’s prettier than Okkam.”
“Maybe I better prepare you this time, bogle’s a triped. Looks something like an octopus who tangled with too many sharks. He hasn’t got what you’d call a face but he makes it up to look lik
e one—false nose, mustache, hairpiece. Sometimes they fall off or get twisted around. Just make believe you don’t notice.”
Portendo opened Mogle’s door. Mogle, who had been hovering near the ceiling, whipped through the air like a fast blimp and settled himself in a swivel chair behind the desk, two tentacles supporting him, one tentacle twirling the mustache, which was red and pointed.
“Ah, gentlemen,” Mogle said. “At your service.”
Buddy introduced us and we shook hands—my hand and his tentacle, that is. I felt pleased with myself for not shuddering. It really wasn’t any worse than the moist feel of an elephant’s trunk when you feed it peanuts.
* * * *
Mogle spoke a clickety sort of English. “Mr. Portendo,” he said, “do you ever by chance engage in the literary racket? It happens I have a very fine novel here, fresh from Cygnus and ripe for piracy.”
“No interplanetary copyright, of course,” Buddy told me. “I’ll look at it later, Mogle. Right now we got to fix up my friend Jack with a mind-reading act for TV. You got anything in that line?”
“Mind-reading.” Mogle moved his wig around. “Pseudo-mind-reading it would have to look like. And the talent would have to pass for Earthstyle humans, if it’s for TV.”
“No flies on Mogle,” Buddy said admiringly. “Listen to him working on it.”
“Okkam is out,” Mogle said, patting his nose. “Too ugly, by any standards. Have you considered Wallavan? Is he back from Allyria?”
“That tout!” Portendo was angry. “He better not be! Not after what he done to me at Sportsman’s Park. Him and his eight-horse parlay! Him and his blurry visions!”
“I guess Wallavan is out, too,” Mogle said. He checked off names on a list under the glass top of his desk with his free tentacle. “In that case, Mr. Norkus, it doesn’t look as if I’ll be able to help you—unless you’d accept a substitute. I think I could get JorenzO the Magician for you.”
“Take my advice,” Portendo told me, “and don’t take JorenzO. This JorenzO happens to be the real genuine article and his magic is as black as the ace of spades.”
“But he can pass,” Mogle said. “He’sjust the right shape.”
“Sure,” Portendo said, “you put him in whiskers and a cloak and nobody can tell, but don’t tell me you forgot that stink at the Amphitheater when he made the girl disappear? We had to ice practically the whole police force to square things. Now I hear a rumor JorenzO’s got her upstairs in the observatory. You know anything about that, Mogle?”
“I never interfere in the private lives of my clients,” Mogle said. “Surbis, there’s the phone.” He picked up an instrument that didn’t look like anything Illinois Bell had provided and held a conversation consisting of a series of bubbling clicks. Mogle was looking at me when he hung up.
“That was Lopi of All-Planets Films. He’s been cutting his new horror picture, The Earth Monsters Attack, and he needs a re-take.”
“Well, if you’re going to be busy-” Buddy got up.
“Wait,” Mogle said. “Lopi needs a monster for a close-up.”
“An Earth monster, you mean?” Portendo said. “Want me to shanghai you one from West Madison, Street?”
* * * *
Mogle tapped a tentacle on the desk top. “He’s in a hurry. Wants to make the midnight shipment. Ever done any acting, Mr. Norkus?”
“I carried a spear once at the Civic Opera. Aida.”
“Excellent. Lopi’s in his studio right now. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. No lines to learn. Just mess up your hair and snarl a little. No costume. Your street clothes will be alien enough for his audience.”
“Audience where?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter. It’ll never come back to embarrass you, I can promise. It’s not the kind of thing anybody would put English titles on.”
I felt my wallet. Mighty thin.
But Buddy Portendo said, “He won’t do it. Jade came up here a respectable talent scout and I’m not letting him go back a substitute for a Madison Street bum.”
“I’m broke, Buddy,” I reminded him. “What would it pay?”
“Seeing it’s a rush job,” Mogle said, “I think five dollars. I waive my commission, seeing you’re a friend of Buddy.”
Five dollars would take care of me for at least a week, depression-style. “I’ll do it,” I said, “if you think I’ll make a good monster.”
Mogle twirled his mustache right off his face. “Where this footage is going you’ll be perfect.”
“Okay,” I said. “You’ve got yourself an actor. Where’s the studio?”
“You ought to know,” Buddy Portendo said. “You passed that other actor coming out of it. Little did I know this would be the outcome of your first visit to the Mile-Hi Building. Surbis, pal.”
“His first visit?” Mogle said. “Then I’m delighted I got him the job.” He hunched two of his tentacles in a passable shrug. “Just so his visit shouldn’t be a total loss.”
I gave Mogle a big smile. He flew up from his chair to the corner of the ceiling where he’d been when we came in. He lost his nose and wig on the way.
“Surbis,” he apologized. “After all this time I’m still not used to you Earth people. Tell you what you do. Instead of snarling for Lopi’s camera, you smile for him. That ought to scare the tailflaps off his audience.”
<
* * * *
LESTER DEL REY
Fletcher Pratt is fondly remembered for many things, but surely not the least of them was his pepper-and-ginger beard. It may be that science-fiction writers go to beards more than normal humans. It is only necessary to mention Sturgeon’s curly spade, H. L. Gold’s jet-black monster or a score less notable chinpieces. Science-fiction’s newest beard, however, surrounds the imp’s chin of one of our oldest-established writers—the man who wrote Nerves and Helen O’Loy and many, many others—more important, the man who presently entertains and delights us with——
HELPING HAND
Mankind’s first contact with an intelligent alien race didn’t come on some shuddersome foreign planet around a distant star, long after men had built a galactic empire.
Nor did it take place in the backyard of a flying-saucer initiate. No hordes of alien fighting ships plunged into Earth’s skies for plunder and slaves. No primitive Venusians or Martians were discovered ready to worship us. No telepathic monsters took over our minds. There wasn’t even a hassle of misunderstanding while the aliens tried to get through the blue ribbon and red tape of our governments. They made no such attempts.
The event took place on the least likely place for races to meet in the whole galaxy—the lifeless surface of the Moon.
Sam Osheola had no doubt about its being lifeless, and he wasn’t expecting any surprises. The first manned Moon expedition had proved that the satellite was dead and always had been. Sam’s only doubts concerned his being there at all, rubbing elbows with the hundred or so scientists important enough to be included this time. But mostly, he was too busy to think about that. After some of the places he’d worked, even the Moon didn’t seem-too strange.
He was inside the garage dome, swearing a blue streak in the nineteen languages he knew fluently and improvising in a dozen others. In the eighteen hours since landing, the schedule stated, they should have had the tractor tanks out and rolling. But somehow the labor crew had smuggled in a load of rotgut, and now they were locked up in one of the ships, with his two best mechanics passed out too cold for even pure oxygen to revive. That meant he’d have to correct their half-done work and finish it, with whatever help little Commander Larsen could dig up among the ships’ crews and the scientists.
Larsen came back then, snapping off his bowl helmet as he passed through the lock. He stopped to listen admiringly as his labor boss finally ran down into a muttering of Seminole and English.
“I’ve got a bunch of volunteers waiting in the main dome. You can brief ‘em over coffee,” Larsen announced. The
n he grinned. “I always thought you Indians were an unemotional race, Sam. Where’s your heap big stone face?”
“Lay off the plains pidgin!” Sam snapped back. Then he caught a glimpse of his face reflected in one of the tractor bubble-tops and chuckled. Any stone in that face must have been cracked in shipment. His nose was broken from the football he had played to earn his M. E., there was a scar across his forehead from an Arab bullet while he’d been laying oil pipe in Israel, and a network of broken veins from the time his helmet had cracked while working on the first space station.
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