It was a rope. No! It was the rope! In the light of the street lamp the thread of metal running through its center seemed to shine.
The bottom dropped out of his stomach.
When Alford reached home he dashed frantically up the stairs of the porch and clawed his way up on the banister. His fear-bright-eyes sought the junction of the two beams where he had last seen the rope.
There was nothing there!
How had the rope gotten into his pocket?
Was it the rope which had been used to kill Houk? Instinctively he knew that it was.
Terror overwhelmed Alford so that he felt sick and weak. He sank down to the stairs and stared into the night. His thoughts were chaos.
He did not know how long he sat there before he recovered enough strength to go into the house. He gave his wife a diluted explanation of what had delayed him, more to keep her from thinking that he had gone crazy than to keep her from worrying.
* * * *
After the police had given up the investigation as futile and things had settled down to something resembling their normal state, Frank Copeland, the owner of the plant, appointed Nils Ingvarrsen as the new foreman.
Alford was furious. Getting, himself into control as much as possible, he went in to see Copeland.
“Mr. Copeland,” he began, making a puzzled face, “I don’t understand why you’ve appointed Ingvarrsen. You know that I’ve been slated for promotion for years now, but you’ve appointed Houk over me, and now Ingvarrsen. I’ve been with the company longer than either of them, and I know more about the work than they do.”
Copeland looked uncomfortable. “Well, the truth of the matter is I don’t believe you’d do well in that capacity. You’re not the type: I want foremen who are tough and hard, who can keep the men working to their maximum point of efficiency. You—” Copeland trailed off, studying his hands.
“But, Mr. Copeland,” pleaded Alford, “you’ve never given me a chance. Why, I can be as tough as anyone when it’s necessary. And besides, I know the work, understand what has to be done as well as—”
“Too bad, Alford, but it’s too late. I’ve already named Ingvarrsen. Tell you what I’ll do, though. If something, should happen to Ingvarrsen, I promise to give you a chance.”
“Thank you, Mr. Copeland,” muttered Alford. He left the office with the phrase, “If something should happen to Ingvarrsen,” drumming through his head. If something should happen to Ingvarrsen—He had the rope—and the rope had killed Houk.
How had the rope killed Houk?—he wondered as he worked. Could the mysterious stranger have wielded it? But that was impossible. Why should the stranger commit murder for him just because he had saved his life? That the rope had strange properties he already knew. For how else could it have gotten into his pocket yesterday, and again today? Perhaps it had been activated by his concentrated hate. That smacked of magic, spirits, and hobgoblins. But in view of what he already knew about the rope, that seemed logical enough.
Now, if he was to hate Ingvarrsen with all the force that was possible, perhaps—perhaps the rope would kill again.
On the following day, just before the lunch hour, Copeland walked into Ingvarrsen’s office with a sheaf of papers in his hand. Less than one second later there camera blood-chilling yell, and Copeland ran out of the office, his face a sickly green. There were no longer any papers in his hand.
“Ingvarrsen’s dead!” he shrilled. “Choked to death!”
He dashed into his office, scooped up the telephone and stammered out a call for the police.
This time Burdy was brightly interested. He scrutinized all the men, saying softly to himself, “Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Oh, boy!”
The medical examiner looked at Ingvarrsen and announced gravely, “Slow strangulation by means of a rope.” He looked around for the rope, and was not surprised when he did not see it.
Burdy turned to his colleagues. “All right, boys, see if ya can scare up that rope. Go over these guys right down to the hair on their chests. Search the laboratory—benches and storeroom. Search the lockers, too.”
Alford watched the proceeding, hardly daring to breathe. What if the rope was in his pocket? It must have returned there after doing its deadly work on Ingvarrsen—
But, surprisingly enough, the rope was neither in the coat nor in the locker. It was as if it had obligingly remained away until the investigation was over.
At that moment Alford realized that the rope was controlled by his thoughts. “How useful!” he breathed, recalling a phrase of the stranger’s. He no longer envied the power that dictators had.
The fingerprint expert dutifully re-traced his former procedure. He was rather bored by the lack of incriminating prints. The photographer indifferently took pictures. And Burdy began grilling the men. His method, with occasional variations, was the same: “All right, why did ya do it? How did ya do it? Where did ya hide the rope? Come on, come clean!”
Alford felt almost hysterically lighthearted when his turn to be questioned came. The knowledge of the rope’s abilities gave him an overwhelming sense of his immunity. He answered Burdy’s monotonous questions without a tremor.
* * * *
Copeland toyed with a fountain pen before he ventured to look at Alford; His face had grown several new lines since the last murder, and he appeared to have lost some, weight. When he did look at Alford it was only for a clipped second.
“Why, yes,” he said at last, “I do remember my promise.”
“Then you’ll make me foreman?” asked Alford eagerly.
An indefinable something crept into Copeland’s eyes. “Of course, you realize the danger. You know what happened to the other two. I’d hate to lose another man.”
“I’m willing to take the chance, sir.”
“Hm-m-m,” said Copeland. “Well, I suppose you’re familiar enough with the duties of a foreman. Your raise in pay starts immediately.”
“Do you mean that I’m foreman? Oh, thank you, Mr. Copeland!” Alford’s heart was very full. He had at last achieved a lifelong ambition.
Alford left the office patting the slight bulge in his pocket that was the rope. He surveyed the men in the laboratories with a possessive eye. They were his—his to snarl at.
“All right, Novack, come down to earth. You, there, Bartz, what do you think this is? A promenade hall? Get down to work! We’ve lost enough time fooling around with those cops.”
Copeland, catching the sound of Alford’s strident voice, licked his lips. The something which had crept into his eyes had found permanent shelter.
* * * *
For two whole glorious months Alford lorded it over his former associates in the laboratories. And it was a credit to him that operations did not fall off. The men now hated him as wholeheartedly as they had Houk. As for Copeland, he was steadily losing weight over the fact that there was something he wanted to do very badly, but which he feared to do just as badly. Alford worried him.
Copeland began to drink, a thing he had promised his departed wife he would never do. One day, when he was so full of whiskey that he gurgled audibly when he walked, he did what he was not able to do while sober—he fired Alford.
“But, Mr. Copeland, I don’t understand!” cried Alford. “I’ve been managing things as well as Houk and Ingvarrsen ever have. If you ask me, I’ve done better!”
Copeland gazed steadily at the bottle on his desk. He hiccupped thoughtfully. “There’sh nushing to unnerstand. I shed you were fired. Pleash go way from me. Far, far away—”
“You don’t know what you’re doing, sir. You’re not sober. Surely, if you were to give a little thought to the matter—”
“No!” shouted Copeland in a drunken frenzy. “No! I don’ wanna think! Go way—you’re fired.”
Alford unconsciously touched one pocket of his coat. His lips were white from pressure, a
nd his eyes were shiny. “Is this final?” he asked.
Copeland nodded gravely. “Final. Go away.”
Alford stared at Copeland, not seeing him, but the ruins of the paradise in which he had been living. When he did see Copeland, he did not see Copeland’s slack, pale face. He saw a corpse with lolling tongue and bulging eyes. Around the neck of that corpse were the marks of a rope. Abruptly Alford whirled and stalked out.
He did not miss the gloating looks of his former slaves as he went past them on his way to the lockers. He shot at each of them glances so full of feral hate and fury that they dropped their eyes and turned quickly back to their respective duties.
Alford ripped open his locker door so that it flew back with a ringing clatter. He pulled out several stained smocks, two pairs of rubber gloves, a pair of rubber overshoes, and an umbrella. He made an untidy bundle out of these. Then, very savagely, yet quite methodically, he tore out the extra glass apparatus that stood on the shelves and broke them one by one on the floor.
In a corner beer hall Alford drank himself into a condition roughly approximating Copeland’s. It was only when he had vomited twice and lost all hope of holding any more that he started home. A conscientious bartender had seen that he did not forget his bundle.
Alford’s wife was shocked into quivering horror when she saw him, “Why, Denny, what on earth have you been doing?”
“Drinking!” screamed Alford. “I’ve been fired, do you hear? Fired!” He hurled the bundle at her. With her tears and wails echoing behind him, he staggered up the stairs, to his room.
After turning on the light, he pulled the rope from his pocket and laid it on the bed. He sat down near it and watched the subtle play of color in the metal thread which ran through its center. Staring in fascination, he began to croon to it.
“He fired me, little ropey. He fired me—get that? I hate him, hate him, hate him! But you’ll take care of everything for me, won’t you, ropey, old pal? You’ll slide around his neck and choke him slow—oh, so slow!” Alford chuckled sleepily, yet none the less sadistically. “You’ll get him for me; old pal—” He slumped back on the bed. He was sleeping.
* * * *
The noise of an authoritative pounding on his bedroom door awakened Alford the next morning. He glanced automatically at the clock on a small table. The movement sent fierce pains rocketing through his head. It was eleven fifteen.
“All right come on out!” yelled a harsh voice that he recognized as Burdy’s. The police! In a flash everything came back to him. Copeland!
“We got the goods on ya this time,” continued Burdy loudly. “The old gent left a letter behind him. His lawyer gave it ta us. In this letter he says as how he suspected ya, and if anything was ta happen ta him, we was ta nab ya quick. Tha evidence has got ya sewed up tighter than a bug in a rug. Come on out or we bust this door down!”
Over all rose the sound of his wife’s hysterical sobbing.
Alford’s head was suddenly clear. The stringy muscles of his body were tensed. He moistened his lips, and his eyes, shot with a red gleam, darted about the room. The window!
In a wild scurry he was through it, glass and all. He landed in a quivering heap on the kitchen porch, blood oozing from a long gash on one cheek. He streaked down a supporting beam, over the fence, and through the alley.
Behind him, whistles shrilled and voices shouted. There followed the sharp reports of revolver shots. Then there was the slapping of pursuing feet.
Alford ran like a madman. He ran until it seemed everything ran with him. Escape was a poignant desire in his mind, terror an icy hand on his heart.
Everything was noise and confusion. The air seemed to roar and vibrate. Objects whirled crazily before Alford’s eyes. He stumbled and fell repeatedly, until his hands and knees were bloody ruins from the sharp glass and rock fragments of the lot he was crossing.
Panting, exhausted, he reached his sanctuary, an old ruined building which had once been a factory. Alford scrambled through a sagging window in which ho trace of glass remained. Sobbing, he stumbled over the litter which covered the floors. His lungs burned like fire, and outlines were red and hazy before his eyes. He fought his way up decaying stairs, slipping and sliding over broken plaster and rotting lathes.
At last he could go no farther. The stairs had ended. He was in a little room, lighted only by the slanting rays of sunlight which poured in through cracks in the walls and ceiling. He sank gasping to the floor.
Below him, cars ground to a stop. The yelling of excited voices grew in volume. Through it all came Burdy’s harsh bellow:
“Got ya surrounded! Sewed up! Come down with your hands raised or we’ll riddle ya!; I’ll count to ten. One, two, three—”
As he stared unseeingly before him, Alford had a momentary vision of the stranger’s weird green eyes. They were eager. He felt into a pocket of his coat. It was there.
He rose, weak and tottering, and walked across the room to where an open trapdoor gaped in the floor. He looked at it. He swallowed. Then he began searching among the litter on the floor. At last he found it—a thick piece of wood just long enough.
Alford tied one end of the rope to the piece of wood. He knotted the other end around his neck. It was going to be simple. He would be his own hangman. The trapdoor, with the piece of wood thrown across it, made an excellent scaffold.
He got the rope tied securely around his neck and was all prepared when Burdy reached nine. But it was not necessary for him to jump. The rope was obliging—
THE SPHERE OF SLEEP
Originally published in Amazing Stories, December 1942.
“I’ve got to kill you, Big Tim. I’ve just got to kill you! I want Laura—and you’re standing in my way…”
The thought beat urgently and continuously in Brad Nellon’s mind. He was absorbed in it to the extent that the terrible Titanian gale which roared beyond the shelter of his thermalloy suit was forgotten.
Beside him, the object of his deadly thoughts strode unknowing. His large, brown face crinkled in a grin of boyish enjoyment, Tim Austin was fighting his way through the fierce drive of wind and snow. That grin was always there. It was as much a part of him as his thick, tow hair, his gentle brown eyes and giant’s frame. He was big and carefree, and life ran rich and full in his veins.
On Brad Nellon’s face there was no enjoyment in the battle against the storm. There was not even his usual resentment of the bitter cold and the thick, white snow. His grey eyes were covered with a heavy film of thought. He walked in a world where there was no storm save that of his emotions, no reality outside of the imagery constructed by his brain. His stocky, powerful form plodded along mechanically.
They moved in a world of snow and ice and screaming wind. Great pinnacles and ridges, worn into fantastic shapes by the gale, towered on every side. The curtain of snow occasionally lifted to reveal white hills marching upon white hills, huge, glittering ice sheets, yawning chasms. And sometimes, farther in the distance, there would be awesome alien vistas.
The dark thread of Brad Nellon’s thoughts was broken abruptly by the sudden hum of his helmet earphones. He looked up with guilty quickness. Awareness of his companion, of the frigid hell of his Titanian surroundings, rushed back in a flood.
“On the watch, guy,” the voice of Big Tim Austin cautioned. “We’re almost near Tower Point.”
Nellon moved his head in a jerky nod of understanding. His eyes probed momentarily into those of the other, then dropped quickly back to the snow. His earphones hummed again.
“Say, Brad, anything wrong?”
Nellon’s face tautened in sudden panic. Again his eyes flashed to Austin. But he did not find in them the suspicion which he expected. There was only solicitous wonder.
“I’m all right,” Nellon answered. “Just a bit tired, that’s all.” He realized that his voice sounded hoarse and unnatural. With
masked gaze, he tried to learn its effect upon Austin.
But it was the content of his voice, not its tone which had registered upon Big Tim. Nellon was startled by the unexpected flood of vehemence which poured in through his earphones.
“That’s the result of short rations, damn it! I knew it would get us sooner or later. We should’ve been on our way home long ago. The whole expedition has been a mess from beginning to end.
“You shouldn’t have come with me, Brad, when I volunteered to go after old Ryska’s stuff. But I thought it would be all right, because we’re the only real he men among all those runty scientists. They’re good for nothing but theory-spinning. They’ve thrown the expedition off schedule with their mental butterfly chasing, and got the rest of us down on short rations. And now, just as we’re ready to leave at last, one of them has to remember that he left a pile of valuable equipment lying around somewhere in the snow.”
Austin was silent a while. When he spoke again, the old laughter-lights were back twinkling in his eyes.
“Oh, hell, Brad. I guess I’m just sore because I’m being kept away from Laura every second the brain-gang holds us back. I can’t wait to see her again.”
“Yes, I know how it is,” Nellon muttered.
“Swell kid, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” Nellon forced out the answer with difficulty.
“Well, keep your eyes peeled for Tower Point up there. As soon as we’ve got old Ryska’s junk, we’ll all he heading for home.”
Nellon felt a weary sort of satisfaction. No, Big Tim didn’t suspect. Big Tim didn’t know that he was never going home again. Nellon had accompanied him on this final little trip to make sure of that.
They were nearing the lower end of a long ravine. Here, the invisible trail which they followed rose steeply and entered a narrow cleft between two huge slabs of ice. Then it dipped around the base of a great pinnacle, which thrust like an undaunted finger into the rage of the storm. This was the unique landmark which the expedition members had christened Tower Point.
The 38th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK Page 2