by Various
He might have relaxed then, but it moved. One of its arms unfolded, swung outward holding something metallic. Simon yelled. He grabbed the shot-gun, shoved the door catch down, threw his weight sideways. He landed on his shoulder and kept on rolling. He reached the other side of the road, straightened up, and saw the roof of the car fly off with a roar. He fired then, from a crouching position and without taking aim. A lucky shot that hit the end of the weapon arm and shattered it. Then he ran, and the Assassin followed.
He ran in the direction he'd been heading, and gave himself up to terror. He was primaeval man fleeing from sabre-tooth. He was living a nightmare. His brain reeled, air burnt his lungs, and his pounding heart echoed in his temples. Then he was running into a blaze of light, between headlights that enfolded him like a mother's arms, and he was clinging to a radiator cap. Dimly he heard the crash of high powered rifles about him. A black figure came into his haven of light, began to loosen his tie.
"Get out of the light," he gasped. "It doesn't like the light."
"Who invited you?" grunted Andrews. He put Simon's arm round his neck, and half carried him round to the side of the car, pushed him into the front seat.
"I'll be all right in a minute," said Simon.
"Yeah," said Andrews, and left him.
After a little while the trembling in his limbs began to subside, breathing became easier. He leaned forward and watched a strange battle. The Assassin was about seventy yards ahead, moving slowly nearer. Two men stood on the right hand side of the car, pumping bullets into the grey, indistinct mass. Andrews stood watching with his hands in his jacket pockets. Suddenly he said, "All right, let go. You're only wasting bullets."
Simon looked at him in alarm. "Hey, you're not just going to stand there. It doesn't like the light, but light can't kill it."
"Lie down on the floor," said Andrews dourly, without looking at him.
"Eh?"
Andrews ignored him, stepped two paces forward. The Assassin was about twenty yards away now, seeming to have to fight against the stream of light. Andrews took his hands from his pockets. Simon saw what he was holding, and dived for the floor. He clasped his hands over the back of his neck as the night exploded with a gigantic crash.
When his ears had stopped screaming he got up. Andrews, an elbow on the window ledge, was watching him expressionlessly.
"You might have left me something to dissect," complained Simon. "Somebody's got to, you know."
"I'll mop you up a sponge full," said Andrews.
"Oh, no, you won't. You and your men stay back here. It's probably crawling with alien bacteria."
Actually, quite a lot of the Assassin was left, but decomposition was very rapid. Simon did the best he could with a magnifying glass and a penknife. He found that the body was almost entirely composed of bone and flesh in a honey-comb like structure. The bone being highly flexible, and the cavities filled with grey flesh. Flesh which quickly liquified and drained away from the bone. There was no blood, and Simon could find no trace of internal organs.
While he worked two more cars drove up, and gave him a little more light, but soon he had to give up. As he walked slowly back a spotlight sprang suddenly to life, and a pleasant authoritative voice spoke.
"Will you stay where you are, please, Doctor Cartwright."
Simon obeyed. Hell, he thought wearily. Officialdom has arrived. He shaded his eyes against the light, but he could see nothing.
"Who's that?" he asked.
"Commanding officer in charge of operations in this emergency. You've made an examination?"
"As far as I could. There's complete decomposition now."
"Oh, I see." A slight pause, then; "Perhaps I'd better put you in the picture. This is armed aggression, Doctor Cartwright. In any language it says war. Do you understand? We're at war, now.
"We found the vessel your friend came in several days ago. It was in the sea, twenty miles from here. Its discovery was kept secret because we weren't sure of its point of origin. Our people are engaged in finding the method of propulsion. They say it will give us the ability to travel in space. They also say that they can find the approximate position of its home planet. All that is top priority, of course, but in the meanwhile we must have an emergency line of defence against these things. We want to know how to find them and how to destroy them with the least possible expenditure of life and material. You understand?"
"Yes. I've got an idea about light waves. I fired a shot at it back there. The bone structure--"
"Don't tell me," interrupted the voice sharply. "Remember it. You realize, Doctor Cartwright, that you are just about the most important man alive. You know how fast it can move. You have fought it, you have examined it. So you can be sure that very good care will be taken of you."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm sorry, but you must see that you have to go into strict quarantine now. We dare not risk a plague. After quarantine you will go to work with our people. Now will you please get into the car at the extreme right, and follow the police."
"Where am I going?"
"Please hurry. There is a team of incendiaries waiting to clear the area."
"Oh, damnation," sighed The Most Important Man Alive, and walked towards the waiting car.
* * * * *
When the ruler consulted the prognosticator again, after the Assassin's failure had been recorded, he found that a qualification had been added. The prophecy was now being fulfilled. He considered this dispassionately. He visualised the complex pattern of implication almost with pleasure. Was the machine alive? Certainly it could contemplate itself. It had calculated the effect of its existence, and had used the knowledge to destroy them. Or had they condemned themselves? By losing the ability to question. For the information on which the prophecy was based could have been available to them. Or was the machine only obeying a greater Fate? A Decree, stating that any life-form that surrendered itself to the dictates of a machine was doomed.
One thing alone was left to him. A choice. Without haste he began the preliminaries to thinking himself to death.
* * *
Contents
THE SALESMAN
By Waldo T. Boyd
SALESMAN'S GUIDE, RULE 2: The modern 1995 customer who enters Tracy's Department Store is not always right, but as far as you are concerned, he is.
The little green cue light blinked three times. Trevor Anson arranged his tie at just the nattily precise angle, waved his hand before a hidden lighting-effect switch in the smooth marble pillar at the entrance to the display room, and faced the elevator. This would be a "green light" customer--a first-time prospect, and three blinks indicated a very difficult individual. Anson quickly practiced his most beguiling smile.
"Welcome to Tracy's Roboid Department," he said, enthusiastically, as the elevator doors slid open. His practiced smile was just right.
He quickly noted the man's conservative dress, the flaming red tie. Aggressive type, Anson decided. A shock of red hair that didn't want to lie down hinted that he was stubborn as well.
"Heard you've got a sale on robots," Red-tie said, challengingly, as he stepped aside for his wife.
The woman who stepped off the elevator smiled, showing a lovely dimple, and Anson beamed on her. The tiny flake of a hat perched atop her auburn hair reminded Anson of the comb on a Rhode Island Red.
"Not robots, sir," Anson corrected diplomatically. "The Plasti-Cast Roboid is not exactly a robot."
"Well, anyhow, trot one out, and let's see what it looks like. Millicent will never be satisfied until she's seen one of the things." He glared dramatically in the general direction of his wife, who pretended not to notice.
Anson led them into the Gray Room. He mentally went over the applicable rule: Rule 23; Always introduce the marked-down merchandise first. It may provide the customer with an incentive for buying something better.
"These are last year's models," he said, with just the right flavor of distaste in his voice. "Of cour
se, you may expect a slight reduction ... a small percentage...."
Red-tie was muttering. "Damned mechanical things, full of wheels and wires. What's to keep 'em from running amok and killing us all!"
"But dear, they don't have wheels anymore," protested the woman, timidly. Her face was pretty, Anson decided, but it was obvious that the man would be the deciding factor in this sale.
He made a mental note: Rule 31: Pick the individual of a family group who seems to hold the deciding voice, and SELL! He remembered a portion of a sales talk he had memorized a few days before, and took it up, almost chanting:
"... our Roboids are grown, much as crystals are grown, in great vats in New Chicago. A Plasti-Cast Roboid is guaranteed...."
"A fat chance we'd have of collecting the guarantee if we were chopped into mincemeat," Red-tie interrupted, shuddering slightly as the implication of his own words hit him.
Anson felt a moment of panic as he failed to remember an applicable rule from the Salesman's Guide, but it formed in his mind at the last moment: Rule 18: Never argue with a customer--change the subject.
"Why don't you come with me to the Green Room?" he asked. "The very latest models are on display." He walked slowly at first, then more quickly as the couple allowed themselves to be led. He slid his hand near a hidden switch in the archway, and floodlights came on just as they entered.
The woman uttered a little squeal of delight at the sight of a very handsome figure dressed in a cutaway, standing in an attitude of service.
"Oh!" she breathed dreamily. "He would make such a wonderful butler."
"Well, wind him up and let's see what he'll do," growled the man, his face florid in the colored light of the Green Room.
"I'm so very sorry," Anson said, slightly flustered, remembering that this was always the crucial moment in a sale. "The Roboid cannot be activated for demonstration purposes."
"What?" roared Red-tie, incredulously. "Do you mean to say you want me to buy the damned thing without knowing whether it ticks or not?"
Anson tried desperately to remember the best rule for such an answer, but failed. He plunged desperately into his own explanation.
"You see, our Roboids are matched to your family personality at the time of purchase, and activated then. We cannot erase a personality once it has been transferred to their sensitive minds." He saw the disbelieving smirk on the man's mouth and felt that the sale was indeed lost. But he plunged on, desperately.
"They're very economical. They don't require any upkeep, like food. When they become tired they will sit or lie down near an electric outlet and plug in a power cord, and in a few minutes they are as rested and tireless as...."
"Bosh!" Red-tie retorted. "I've heard enough. Come, Millicent, we still have time to try Bonn's new Helio-rotor. At least they'll give us a demonstration."
Anson escorted them to the Magna-lift. He felt better as he recalled the last rule in the Guide, the one that seemed to cover the situation so well: Rule 50: If they balk because of the no-demonstration rule, let them go. They will be back when they have seen one of their friends with a Plasti-Cast Roboid.
"Good-bye, Sir; Madam," Anson said wearily, as the Magna-lift doors closed. "Come again soon."
He breathed a sigh of relief as the elevator cage dropped them from sight. A salesman, who had been standing by, spoke to Anson.
"People are such dears at times, aren't they?" he said. "However, it's time for your rest period. I'll take over now."
"Thank you so much," Anson replied tiredly.
He walked to a tiny room at the far end of the great showroom and closed the door. He stretched wearily out on a low, folding cot, the only piece of furniture, and reached for a tiny black power cord hanging nearby.
Deftly he plugged it into the socket under his armpit, and breathed deeply, relaxedly.
"Yes," he chanted softly, drifting off to sleep, "people are such dears sometimes."
* * *
Contents
BRIDE OF THE DARK ONE
By Florence Verbell Brown
The outcasts; the hunted of all the brighter worlds, crowded onto Yaroto. But even here was there salvation for Ransome, the jinx-scarred acolyte, when tonight was the night of Bani-tai ... the night of expiation by the photo-memoried priests of dark Darion?
The last light in the Galaxy was a torch. High in the rafters of Mytor's Cafe Yaroto it burned, and its red glare illuminated a gallery of the damned. Hands that were never far from blaster or knife; eyes that picked a hundred private hells out of the swirling smoke where a woman danced.
She was good to look at, moving in time to the savage rhythm of the music. The single garment she wore bared her supple body, and thighs and breasts and a cloud of dark hair wove a pattern of desire in the close room.
Fat Mytor watched, and his little crafty eyes gleamed. The Earth-girl danced like a she-devil tonight. The tables were crowded with the outcast and the hunted of all the brighter worlds. The woman's warm body, moving in the torchlight, would stir memories that men had thought they left light years behind. Gold coins would shower into Mytor's palm for bad wine, for stupor and forgetfulness.
Mytor sipped his imported amber kali, and the black eyes moved with seeming casualness, penetrating the deep shadows where the tables were, resting briefly on each drunken, greedy or fear-ridden face.
It was an old process with Mytor, nearly automatic. A glance told him enough, the state of a man's mind and senses and wallet. This trembling wreck, staring at the woman and nursing a glass of the cheapest green Yarotian wine, had spent his last silver. Mytor would have him thrown out. Another, head down and muttering over a tumbler of raw whiskey, would pass out before the night was over, and wake in an alley blocks away, with his gold in Mytor's pocket. A third wanted a woman, and Mytor knew what kind of a woman.
When the dance was nearly over Mytor heaved out of his chair, drew the rich folds of his native Venusian tarab about his bulk, and padded softly to a corner of the room, where the shadows lay deepest. Smiling, he rested a moist, jeweled paw on the table at which Ransome, the Earthman, sat alone.
Blue eyes looked up coldly out of a weary, lean face. The voice was bored.
"I've paid for my bottle and I have nothing left for you to steal. We have nothing in common, no business together. Now, if you don't mind, you're in my line of vision, and I'd like to watch the finish of the dance."
The fat Venusian's smile only broadened.
"May I sit down, Mr. Ransome?" he persisted. "Here, out of your line of vision?"
"The chair belongs to you," Ransome observed flatly.
"Thank you."
Covertly, as he had done for hours now, Mytor studied the gaunt, pale Earthman in the worn space harness. Ransome had apparently dismissed the Venusian renegade already, and his cold blue eyes followed the woman's every movement with fixed intensity.
The music swept on toward its climax and the woman's body was a storm of golden flesh and tossing black hair. Mytor saw the Earthman's pale lips twist in the faint suggestion of a bitter smile, saw the long fingers tighten around the glass.
Every man had his price on Yaroto, and Ransome would not be the first Mytor had bought with a woman. For a moment, Mytor watched the desire brighten in Ransome's eyes, studied the smile that some men wear on the way to death, in the last moment when life is most precious.
* * * * *
In this moment Ransome was for sale. And Mytor had a proposition.
"You were not surprised that I knew your name, Mr. Ransome?"
"Let's say that I wasn't interested."
Mytor flushed but Ransome was looking past him at the woman. The Venusian wiped his forehead with a soiled handkerchief, drummed fat fingers on the table for a moment, tried a different tack.
"Her name is Irene. She's lovely, isn't she, Mr. Ransome? Surely the inner worlds showed you nothing like her. The eyes, the red mouth, the breasts like--"
"Shut up," Ransome grated, and the glass shattered between h
is clenched fingers.
"Very well, Mr. Ransome." Whiskey trickled from the edge of the table in slow, thick drops, staining Mytor's white tarab. Ice was in the Venusian's voice. "Get out of my place--now. Leave the whiskey, and the woman. I have no traffic with fools."
Ransome sighed.
"I've told you, Mytor that you're wasting your time. But make your pitch, if you must."
"Ah, Mr. Ransome, you do not care to go out into the starless night. Perhaps there are those who wait for you, eh? With very long knives?"
Reflex brought Ransome's hand up in a lightning arc to the blaster bolstered under his arm, but Mytor's damp hand was on his wrist, and Mytor's purr was in his ear, the words coming quickly.
"You would die where you sit, you fool. You would not live even to know the sharpness of the long knives, the sacred knives of Darion, with the incantations inscribed upon their blades against blasphemers of the Temple."
Ransome shuddered and was silent. He saw Mytor's guards, vigilant in the shadows, and his hand fell away from the blaster.
When the dance was ended, and the blood was running hot and strong in him, he turned to face Mytor. His voice was impatient now, but his meaning was shrouded in irony.
"Are you trying to sell me a lucky charm, Mytor?"
The Venusian laughed.
"Would you call a space ship a lucky charm, Mr. Ransome?"
"No," Ransome said grimly. "If it were berthed across the street I'd be dead before I got halfway to it."
"Not if I provided you with a guard of my men."
"Maybe not. But I wouldn't have picked you for a philanthropist, Mytor."
"There are no philanthropists on Yaroto, Mr. Ransome. I offer you escape, it is true; you will have guessed that I expect some service in return."
"Get to the point." Ransome's eyes were weary now that the woman's dancing no longer held them. And there was little hope in his voice.