The COMPLEAT Collected Short SFF Stories

by Sterling E. Lanier

  For me, life went on like a crazy dream, being really bad only after Ellen-Sue got tired of propositioning Leo and Goldy and turned her efforts on me. I decided I would drown myself the day she began to look halfway acceptable. Meanwhile the peons buzzed about, serving as help, gardeners, and what all. And I continued to lose at gin, which might have been bad luck.

  After three months of this weird, but no-so-bad existence, all at once the shit hit the fan.

  Sally appeared unexpectedly at dinner one evening and announced we were all going on a little drive later in the night. I only hoped the drive would not end with free catering for the island's large population of sharks, which I had many opportunities to eyeball whilst fishing for nicer things. But he even took time to pat me on the back and tell me I'd been doing a great job on Motley. I felt confused, but this was nothing new.

  So after the food, terminated by good brandy and better coffee as usual, we call crammed into a parade of jeeps and drove off in a cloud of bugs. One thing no one had been able to do was kill the hundred billion local mosquitoes, or even discourage them slightly. And they were a very greedy kind, which I can rate, being a sometime resident of south Jersey.

  After fifteen minutes of swatting mosquitoes or spitting them out, a blaze of light appeared ahead of us, and we zipped down a tunnel on a concrete ramp into the underground, while enormous steel doors clanged shut behind us. We came to a stop in a huge cave with concrete all about us and lights like kliegs overhead. But none of us were looking at lights.

  In front of us, in the middle of this king-sized air-raid shelter, sat an oversized version of Motley's steel box. Where his had been maybe six feet high, this job was fifty if it was an inch. The round door was three feet thick, as well as being open, and inside you could put perhaps two school busses and a possible four cars as well. The biggest cables I ever saw, like a foot thick, ran out of it and into steel plates on the wall. Now I knew what that mother of a generator was for.

  Sally lines us all up and, so help me, picked up an electric bullhorn, like they use on boats.

  "OK," he boomed, while the gray walls echoed, "I'm going to let you in on a little secret. We here are not really government men. In fact, this whole deal is strictly free enterprise."

  I smiled sourly to myself. Even Motley and Ellen-Sue had figured that out a long time ago.

  "What we have here," he went on, "due to many talents present, but chiefly Professor van D'Alliance," and he gave him a big wave, "is a thing which will enable many persons which like privacy to have it, free from care and types who want to prosecute, I mean to persecute them." He covered this slight error of the tongue quickly and went on.

  "This here time gimmick means anyone with access to the right ticket can go into the past and disappear!" He looked solemn, as if at a buddy's funeral, many of which he had no doubt both attended and arranged as well. At this point I noticed "Jones" and "Williams" had appeared behind us. Leo and Goldy had never left, as usual.

  "With my chum, Mr. Barnstaffel here," he continued, as Bushveldt beamed, "I have designed a luxurious hotel in the past, friends, like many millions of years ago. All comforts are there or rather will be provided, at cost or maybe just a teentsy bit higher." Like eight million percent higher, said the Doakes brain.

  "We haven't actually built anything yet, but the planning is all done, the materials are here ready to go. We are going to run a few tests first, and then we're all set. Now, I will let that great genius who concepted the whole scene, brain-wise, explain what we've done and what comes next. Professor van D'Alliance?" He now starts clapping, as so, of course, does everyone else.

  Motley looked much the same as when I first met him, which was scared, although a little cleaner and with a shave. But he ambled forward and borrowed the bullhorn with a feeble grin.

  "Well," he said, "the van D'Alliance Chronocron, or time shuttle, is here in front of you all. And it works. We have been able to get to certain points in the past on repeated occasions, that is the same points, which is vital. These points all fall within a period of about eighty-five to two hundred million years ago, give or take a few. There have been many problems to overcome. Professor, er, Jones and I have found certain, well, anomalies which we simply cannot resolve, in some cases. For instance, why are we limited to this one segment of time? Why can we go neither beyond it or closer to the present? We don't know, but Krug's recent work on magnetic fluxes may well ..." Here a loud rasping cough from Sally shut him up. No Krug fluxes need apply. Stick to business!

  "Ah, yes, well," he went on, "then we had to find ways of probing what the shuttle emerged into. Obviously coming out into solid rock, earth or even underwater, would not only be useless but highly dangerous as well. But that problem we solved also, and we can safely predict that the shuttle will only exit safely onto dry land and in the same place, always, if the proper controls are used." He looked down at the floor before going on, and, I realized late, he must have been summoning up his small supply of nerve to go on, because what he said next took some guts. His voice suddenly got louder.

  "I am not satisfied with the matter displacement problem, however. Large and unpredictable objects may reappear anywhere on this globe, since the larger the mass sent back, the further the point of rediffusion into the present seems to occur. What I mean is ..." But Sally had now grabbed the bullhorn back, having finally got the idea that he was not listening to a hymn of thanksgiving any longer. He shoved Motley away in a sweeping motion and the poor bastard's one feeble attempt to be honest was over.

  "So like the professor said, folks," Sally resumed, "practically all the problems been worked out. And, now, the volunteers which has been named to take a first look at our future site will be given their equipment and sent back into the past to survey around the site of the lovely retreat we will build!"

  Two guys appeared from through a side door, pushing a dolly loaded with sun helmets, rifles, khaki clothes, and other gear of the Tarzan-epic variety, but I hardly gave them a glance, because I was looking around for the volunteers.

  And found everyone looking at me. Or rather at me and Bushveldt Barnstaffel. Meet the "volunteers". I thought of those rotting bones that Motley had found in his driveway and shuddered.

  Bushveldt was blubbering helplessly about hotels and how he was needed to run and plan them, but meanwhile he was being dressed, forcibly, by the dolly crew and other rough types who had filed in behind us. They advanced on me, too, but I glared and pushed my way through them. I'm no hero, but I was fucked if I'd be dressed up like a baby.

  I was interrupted by a wild howling noise and looked up to see two amazon bull-dyke types appearing to seize Ellen-Sue and dress her as well. I looked over at Motley and now found him grinning broadly. He must have made his own deal, the little rat. So much for his courage, the scummy creep. She was a mess, but nobody sends a woman, let alone a wife, into something like this. Then I got another surprise.

  "Look, boss," said Leo, stepping forward, "this is a test, right? Now Doakes here is the only one with half an ounce of guts or brains either. They could all three fall down a hole and you wouldn't learn nothing. For a small bonus, me and Goldy will go along and ride shotgun, right, Goldy?" I felt kind of flattered, I must say.

  Goldy looked surprised and not very pleased, either, but he was used to following Leo's lead and grunted an assent.

  Sally was really surprised because professional hoods don't volunteer any more than career army sergeants, but Leo led him aside, and after a spirited discussion in whispers, he agreed. The discussion must have been about the size of the bonus.

  Ellen-Sue finally stopped yelling and got dressed the same as us four, in long-sleeved khaki shirts and long pants, with high boots and sun helmets. Sally took one look at her face and told Leo the guns would be given only to him and Goldy, until after we were through the machine and out the other side. But she managed to get close to her helpmeet and spit in his face. No one tried to stop her. Barnstaffel was dead-white
and muttering in Dutch.

  We all got into the big lighted chamber, and the enormous round port slammed shut behind us. We could hear all the lugs and clamps being applied, and then there was a silence as we all looked at each other. It lasted maybe a minute and then there came a deep soft humming, more like a vibration that went all through us, as if we were inside some whopper of a microwave oven. It didn't actually hurt, but your skin pringled all over, the way static electricity makes it.

  This went on for a bit and I moved over to look at the heap of weapons, more to stop thinking than anything else. I was glad to see an old friend, an M-l Garand from World War II days, which I could still handle, I thought. There was also a bazooka and a lot of big shells for it, plus two .45 automatics and a .38 police-type revolver; also a couple of army auto-load shotguns and buckshot shells for them. At least we wouldn't be completely defenseless, which was some comfort. We divvied them up and I got a .45 and the Garand .30 rifle. Ellen-Sue got a revolver and oddly enough could handle it. Watching her spin the cylinder, I wondered what her background had been. Goldy took the bazooka and Leo a .45 and one shotgun. Bushveldt got the other, but his hand trembled so, I made a vow to stick well back behind his fat butt.

  The humming vibration finally died away, and Leo, who seemed to know all about it, moved to the opposite end of the chamber from where we had come in. There was an identical door, but all the huge lugs and locking bars were on the inside, our side. This made practical sense, because this way nothing could get back through and out the way we had come in. In theory, that is.

  Leo positioned Goldy in the center, Ellen-Sue behind him, his bazooka aimed at the port, with Barnstaffel on one side and me on the other, also aiming. Then he began to free the bars, one by one, until all were dogged open. He looked around to see we were in line and pushed hard against the great steel circle, which opened slowly outward. Then he jumped back to one side.

  A blaze of red light poured in, along with a gush of warm tropical air. We heard a crowing sound, like a rooster but much larger, in the distance. A thing like a huge oversized wasp, buzzed past the opening. We were looking into a sunset and down to a long sloping beach, with the blue sea lapping gently on it, about a hundred yards away. Strange pungent smells came in through the opening, the sea mixed with plant odors that really tickled the nose. The crowing thing let go again in the distance, but nothing moved in the circle of light.

  "OK," said Leo, peering around the door, "here's how it goes. Doakes, Barnstaffel and me go out first. Goldy, as back-up, you stay within ten feet of the door. Ellen-Sue, you stay with him. We'll go maybe a hundred feet, no more, and look around; then I'll have some idea what to do next. And listen, you," he added to Bushveldt, "if that shotgun goes off aimed at one of us, I'm going to personally blow your lard-ass off, see!"

  We moved slowly out, stepping over the high rim of the port, and, once we were twenty feet outside, took a look around and back.

  The big box now sat on level ground above the quiet sea, crushing down an acre of low, knee-high palmettos or something. Bigger palms, with fat trunks, loomed in the background and, beyond them, much taller trees still, but with pointed stems like pine trees and deep shadows under them. I did not really like the shadows and decided to keep an eye peeled to the rear. Bugs of all kinds buzzed around us, but nothing tried to bite us. I guess we smelted wrong to bugs which had never tasted a human before. There was a nice breeze moving down through the trees, but it was very quiet in a funny way, and I finally figured out why. There were no birds singing. Jeez, pre-bird world! Somehow this hit me harder than anything else to date!

  "This is supposed to be an island, about the same size as the one we left," said Leo to me. "It isn't in the exact same place, though, according to the eggheads, and I don't think they know why, any more than I do. Jones thinks it may be in the South Pacific or what was the South Pacific way back then. Anyway, it's supposed to be as safe as anything around in this period. So let's push a little further away and see the sights. Stay well away from the water, though. They told me that much."

  The sea looked the safest place around to me, barring running back into the time shuttle, but if that was the word, then I would not venture to argue.

  We went real slow, angling down the slope to the left, so we stayed midway between the sand of the beach and the higher stuff further up. And I noticed something else funny. This was a green, humid, tropical set-up that could have used Dorothy Lamour to advantage, but it was all green, or greeny-yellow. There was no other color, no flowers of any kind, any more than there were birds! Underfoot, there was just scrub or nothing, except some moss in the shady bits. But no grass of any kind. What a nutty place!

  About a hundred yards from the shuttle entrance, trouble appeared. In front of us was a kind of shallow gully, choked with taller brush, which led down direct to the sea through a little rocky gulch. I could hear water trickling down from up to the left, but it was only visible at the sea edge where a little stream ran over some shallow rocks.

  There was a cracking noise of trampled brush and out of the gully came a head. The mud-colored head had a big turtle beak and a huge horn like a rhino's, but much bigger and straighter. Behind the horn were two yellow eyes and a skull flaring back into a rim of black spikes two feet long, pointing up and rearwards. The whole skull apparatus was perhaps six feet wide.

  The yellow eyes looked us over and decided to vote "no". There was a grunt, and two really gross front legs and a notched back, like a large hippo's in size, began to come up out of the gully. How in hell it was hidden in the first place, I don't know, unless it was asleep and lying down.

  "Run," yelled Leo, unnecessarily, while loosing off a blast of buckshot at the head. He might as well have blown a soda straw, for all the impression it made. The whole enormous body had heaved up now, and it was bigger than any elephant, with a long, heavy tail to match.

  I was running my ass off toward the shuttle, and Barnstaffel was too. Leo, who was lighter and younger, plus in better shape, soon caught up and led the way. Ahead, I could see Goldy pointing the bazooka at my face, and I gave him A-plus for guts, as well as praying he knew how to aim. Personally, I'd have slammed the door on what was grunting and lumbering along behind us.

  I sneaked a quick peek back and was appalled. The thing could make better time smashing through the scrub than we could, and that chomping beak was only twenty feet behind my tail! I let out a yowl and proceeded to trip on a flat palmetto trunk, falling down smoosh on my face. With my mouth full of scratchy brush, I froze, not even thinking "this is the end".

  Goldy kept his nerve, God bless him, and that bazooka sent one shell zipping over my back from about forty feet in front. There was a Christ-almighty bang and a shower of sloppy wet things fell on me. I scrambled up and looked back.

  The bazooka was designed for knocking out tanks, but it had effectively removed most of the beaked head in front of the shoulders. Only fragments remained, both red meat and shattered white bone, and blood was spraying all over the place in fountains. We watched, all of us stupefied, because the whole colossal hulk was still staggering around, tearing up the ground in chunks, while gobs of raw flesh splattered all around us.

  Then it tripped, and as we stood petrified into position, the headless dinosaur rolled and tumbled down the slope and went over and over the sand into the calm water of the sea with a twenty-ton splash, leaving a trail of blood and shredded unmentionables in its rear.

  It thrashed feebly in the shallows, the gushing red stain coloring the water around it, and then rolled into deeper water, where it floated upside down, but still kicking. Not for long, however.

  Out of the sea came a head like a huge snake, but with long needle fangs on the jaws. This was on a neck like a giraffe, only twice as long, and two more joined in. They began to tear the headless one in chunks, and we could see the huge tan bodies and flippers that went with the necks, while they fought and battered at the dying dinosaur, plus each other as we
ll.

  Suddenly, all three tried to leave, paddling desperately away and sending bloody waves washing way up the beach. Two of them made it, but the third suddenly rose out of the water held by a shark head that must have been ten feet wide, which promptly bit the giant body in half! The bitten things screamed so our ears hurt.

  More showers appeared of blood and meat, more snapping and grinding and more red, foaming waves poured ashore. By this time we had all backed into the time shuttle, without even noticing what we were doing.

  Still watching this incredible scene in the water, Leo pulled shut the big port and with shaky hands, set the locking bars, and dogged them shut. Silence now fell, broken first by friend Goldy.

  "This is going to be a resort?" he said, rather in a mild way, I thought.

  "I declare," said Ellen-Sue, carefully checking out her revolver, "I think I'm gonna have a few words to say to Motley and that dirty stinkin' Mr. Saul, sendin' a lady off to a place like a crazy zoo with no cages!"

  Goldy reached over nimbly and whipped the gun out of her mitts. "You got a point there, lady," he admitted, "but I think Leo and me will keep the artillery while we go back to normal. Ante up, boys."

  I'd forgotten I was clutching the unfired M-l to my bloody breast. Looking down, I almost blew my dinner. I was sticky-tight with lizard gore and a few bits of solider gorp mixed in for effect. And the smell! I handed over my unused arsenal and so did Bushveldt. He was still mumbling in High Dutch.

  "If you're hungry, baby, try my shirt," I told him.

  He took a good look at it and went over and was violently sick in a far corner, which almost made it all worth it. When I turned around, Goldy started gagging. The back, it appeared, was much worse and I was glad I couldn't see it. Leo shook his head at me in a reproving way, but he was grinning, if wolves can grin.

  Then we sat in the quiet of the big box for sometime, and I began to wonder if we were going to stay there permanently. Leo did his usual mind-reading act.