Before it was time to leave the supply closet, Cris Johnson had examined each of the rooms tangent to the one he now occupied. He had consulted each, considered its contents thoroughly.
He pushed the door open and stepped calmly out into the hall. He knew exactly where he was going. And what he had to do. Crouched in the stuffy closet, he had quietly and expertly examined each miniature of himself, observed which clearly etched configuration lay along his inflexible path, the one room of the doll house, the one set out of legions, toward which he was moving.
Anita slipped out of her metal-foil dress, hung it over a hanger, then unfastened her shoes and kicked them under the bed. She was just starting to unclip her bra when the door opened.
She gasped. Soundlessly, calmly, the great golden shape closed the door and bolted it after him.
Anita snatched up her lash-tube from the dressing table. Her hand shook; her whole body was trembling. “What do you want?” she demanded. Her fingers tightened convulsively around the tube. “I’ll kill you.”
The figure regarded her silently, arms folded. It was the first time she had seen Cris Johnson closely. The great dignified face, handsome and impassive. Broad shoulders. The golden mane of hair, golden skin, pelt of radiant fuzz—
“Why?” she demanded breathlessly. Her heart was pounding wildly. “What do you want?”
She could kill him easily. But the lash-tube wavered. Cris Johnson stood without fear; he wasn’t at all afraid. Why not? Didn’t he understand what it was? What the small metal tube could do to him?
“Of course,” she said suddenly, in a choked whisper. “You can see ahead. You know I’m not going to kill you. Or you wouldn’t have come here.”
She flushed, terrified—and embarrassed. He knew exactly what she was going to do; he could see it as easily as she saw the walls of the room, the wall-bed with its covers folded neatly back, her clothes hanging in the closet, her purse and small things on the dressing table.
“All right.” Anita backed away, then abruptly put the tube down on the dressing table. “I won’t kill you. Why should I?” She fumbled in her purse and got out her cigarettes. Shakily, she lit up, her pulse racing. She was scared. And strangely fascinated. “Do you expect to stay here? It won’t do any good. They’ve come through the dorm twice, already. They’ll be back.”
Could he understand her? She saw nothing on his face, only blank dignity. God, he was huge! It wasn’t possible he was only eighteen, a boy, a child. He looked more like some great golden god, come down to earth.
She shook the thought off savagely. He wasn’t a god. He was a beast. The blond beast, come to take the place of man. To drive man from the earth.
Anita snatched up the lash-tube. “Get out of here! You’re an animal! A big stupid animal! You can’t even understand what I’m saying—you don’t even have a language. You’re not human.”
Cris Johnson remained silent. As if he were waiting. Waiting for what? He showed no sign of fear or impatience, even though the corridor outside rang with the sound of men searching, metal against metal, guns and energy tubes being dragged around, shouts and dim rumbles as section after section of the building was searched and sealed off.
“They’ll get you,” Anita said. “You’ll be trapped here. They’ll be searching this wing any moment.” She savagely stubbed out her cigarette. “For God’s sake, what do you expect me to do?”
Cris moved toward her. Anita shrank back. His powerful hands caught hold of her and she gasped in sudden terror. For a moment she struggled blindly, desperately.
“Let go!” She broke away and leaped back from him. His face was expressionless. Calmly, he came toward her, an impassive god advancing to take her. “Get away!” She groped for the lash-tube, trying to get it up. But the tube slipped from her fingers and rolled onto the floor.
Cris bent down and picked it up. He held it out to her, in the open palm of his hand.
“Good God,” Anita whispered. Shakily, she accepted the tube, gripped it hesitantly, then put it down again on the dressing table.
In the half-light of the room, the great golden figure seemed to glow and shimmer, outlined against the darkness. A god—no, not a god. An animal. A great golden beast, without a soul. She was confused. Which was he—or was he both? She shook her head, bewildered. It was late, almost four. She was exhausted and confused.
Cris took her in his arms. Gently, kindly, he lifted her face and kissed her. His powerful hands held her tight. She couldn’t breathe. Darkness, mixed with the shimmering golden haze, swept around her. Around and around it spiraled, carrying her senses away. She sank down into it gratefully. The darkness covered her and dissolved her in a swelling torrent of sheer force that mounted in intensity each moment, until the roar of it beat against her and at last blotted out everything.
Anita blinked. She sat up and automatically pushed her hair into place. Cris was standing before the closet. He was reaching up, getting something down.
He turned toward her and tossed something on the bed. Her heavy metal-foil traveling cape.
Anita gazed down at the cape without comprehension. “What do you want?”
Cris stood by the bed, waiting.
She picked up the cape uncertainly. Cold creepers of fear plucked at her. “You want me to get you out of here,” she said softly. “Past the guards and the CP.”
Cris said nothing.
“They’ll kill you instantly.” She got unsteadily to her feet. “You can’t run past them. Good God, don’t you do anything but run? There must be a better way. Maybe I can appeal to Wisdom. I’m Class A—Director Class. I can go directly to the Full Directorate. I ought to be able to hold them off, keep back the euth indefinitely. The odds are a billion to one against us if we try to break past—”
She broke off.
“But you don’t gamble,” she continued slowly. “You don’t go by odds. You know what’s coming. You’ve seen the cards already.” She studied his face intently. “No, you can’t be cold-decked. It wouldn’t be possible.”
For a moment she stood deep in thought. Then with a quick, decisive motion, she snatched up the cloak and slipped it around her bare shoulders. She fastened the heavy belt, bent down and got her shoes from under the bed, snatched up her purse, and hurried to the door.
“Come on,” she said. She was breathing quickly, cheeks flushed. “Let’s go. While there are still a number of exits to choose from. My car is parked outside, in the lot at the side of the building. We can get to my place in an hour. I have a winter home in Argentina. If worst comes to worst we can fly there. It’s in the back country, away from the cities. Jungle and swamps. Cut off from almost everything.” Eagerly, she started to open the door.
Cris reached out and stopped her. Gently, patiently, he moved in front of her.
He waited a long time, body rigid. Then he turned the knob and stepped boldly out into the corridor.
The corridor was empty. No one was in sight. Anita caught a faint glimpse, the back of a guard hurrying off. If they had come out a second earlier—
Cris started down the corridor. She ran after him. He moved rapidly, effortlessly. The girl had trouble keeping up with him. He seemed to know exactly where to go. Off to the right, down a side hall, a supply passage. Onto an ascent freight-lift. They rose, then abruptly halted.
Cris waited again. Presently he slid the door back and moved out of the lift. Anita followed nervously. She could hear sounds; guns and men, very close.
They were near an exit. A double line of guards stood directly ahead. Twenty men, a solid wall—and a massive heavy-duty robot gun in the center. The men were alert, faces strained and tense. Watching wide-eyed, guns gripped tight. A Civil Police officer was in charge.
“We’ll never get past,” Anita gasped. “We wouldn’t get ten feet.” She pulled back. “They’ll—”
Cris took her by the arm and continued calmly forward. Blind terror leaped inside her. She fought wildly to get away, but his fingers wer
e like steel. She couldn’t pry them loose. Quietly, irresistibly, the great golden creature drew her along beside him, toward the double line of guards.
“There he is!” Guns went up. Men leaped into action. The barrel of the robot cannon swung around. “Get him!”
Anita was paralyzed. She sagged against the powerful body beside her, tugged along helplessly by his inflexible grasp. The lines of guards came nearer, a sheer wall of guns. Anita fought to control her terror. She stumbled, half-fell. Cris supported her effortlessly. She scratched, fought at him, struggled to get loose—
“Don’t shoot!” she screamed.
Guns wavered uncertainly. “Who is she?” The guards were moving around, trying to get a sight on Cris without including her. “Who’s he got there?”
One of them saw the stripe on her sleeve. Red and black. Director Class. Top-level.
“She’s Class A.” Shocked, the guards retreated. “Miss, get out of the way!”
Anita found her voice. “Don’t shoot. He’s—in my custody. You understand? I’m taking him out.”
The wall of guards moved back nervously. “No one’s supposed to pass. Director Wisdom gave orders—”
“I’m not subject to Wisdom’s authority.” She managed to edge her voice with a harsh crispness. “Get out of the way. I’m taking him to the Semantics Agency.”
For a moment nothing happened. There was no reaction. Then slowly, uncertainly, one guard stepped aside.
Cris moved. A blur of speed, away from Anita, past the confused guards, through the breach in the line, out the exit, and onto the street. Bursts of energy flashed wildly after him. Shouting guards milled out. Anita was left behind, forgotten. The guards, the heavy-duty gun, were pouring out into the early morning darkness. Sirens wailed. Patrol cars roared into life.
Anita stood dazed, confused, leaning against the wall, trying to get her breath.
He was gone. He had left her. Good God—what had she done? She shook her head, bewildered, her face buried in her hands. She had been hypnotized. She had lost her will, her common sense. Her reason! The animal, the great golden beast, had tricked her. Taken advantage of her. And now he was gone, escaped into the night.
Miserable, agonized tears trickled through her clenched fingers. She rubbed at them futilely; but they kept on coming.
“He’s gone,” Baines said. “We’ll never get him, now. He’s probably a million miles from here.”
Anita sat huddled in the corner, her face to the wall. A little bent heap, broken and wretched.
Wisdom paced back and forth. “But where can he go? Where can he hide? Nobody’ll hide him! Everybody knows the law about deeves!”
“He’s lived out in the woods most of his life. He’ll hunt—that’s what he’s always done. They wondered what he was up to, off by himself. He was catching game and sleeping under trees.” Baines laughed harshly. “And the first woman he meets will be glad to hide him—as she was.”
He indicated Anita with a jerk of his thumb.
“So all that gold, that mane, that godlike stance, was for something. Not just ornament.” Wisdom’s thick lips twisted. “He doesn’t have just one faculty—he has two. One is new, the newest thing in survival methods. The other is as old as life.” He stopped pacing to glare at the huddled shape in the corner. “Plumage. Bright feathers, combs for the roosters, swans, birds, bright scales for the fish. Gleaming pelts and manes for the animals. An animal isn’t necessarily bestial. Lions aren’t bestial. Or tigers. Or any of the big cats. They’re anything but bestial.”
“He’ll never have to worry,” Baines said. “He’ll get by—as long as human women exist to take care of him. And since he can see ahead, into the future, he already knows he’s sexually irresistible to human females.”
“We’ll get him,” Wisdom muttered, “I’ve had the government declare an emergency. Military and Civil Police will be looking for him. Armies of men—a whole planet of experts, the most advanced machines and equipment. We’ll flush him, sooner or later.”
“By that time it won’t make any difference,” Baines said. He put his hand on Anita’s shoulder and patted her ironically. “You’ll have company, sweetheart. You won’t be the only one. You’re just the first of a long procession.”
“Thanks,” Anita grated.
“The oldest survival method and the newest. Combined to form one perfectly adapted animal. How the hell are we going to stop him? We can put you through a sterilization tank—but we can’t pick them all up, all the women he meets along the way. And if we miss one we’re finished.”
“We’ll have to keep trying,” Wisdom said. “Round up as many as we can. Before they can spawn.” Faint hope glinted in his tired, sagging face. “Maybe his characteristics are recessive. Maybe ours will cancel his out.”
“I wouldn’t lay any money on that,” Baines said. “I think I know already which of the two strains is going to turn up dominant.” He grinned wryly. “I mean, I’m making a good guess. It won’t be us.”
The two previous selections here that dealt with pure telepathy were concerned with the relations and interactions between the gifted individual and the society around him. The hero of “No One Believed Me” was faced with a desperate necessity to make others believe; “Crazy Joey” had an equally urgent motivation to discourage belief.
Mr. Grinnell’s hero, in this new twist on the Morley Roberts classic, “The Anticipator,” is not at all interested in whether anyone will believe it, but is exclusively and determinedly preoccupied with how to dispose of it…
Malice Aforethought by David Grinnell
It was bad enough that people always mistook Allen San Sebastian for the writer, Marvin Dane. It was worse how the society of the literary world kept shoving the two together until, having met at so many parties and people’s homes, they were regarded by the outside world as being friends.
Actually neither liked the other very much—that is always the curse of similarity in competitors. They would have avoided each other if they could, but they couldn’t, not without snubbing too many valuable intermediaries. Both wrote stories for the same magazine, both did their best to toady up to the impossible boor who was its editor.
LeClair B. Smith, who was owner and editor of Grimoire: The Magazine of Spectral Fiction, was a sharp-dealing, coarse-tongued, self-educated businessman who knew nothing about literature, had a Sunday-supplement taste in art, but knew just about everything when it came to squeezing the pennies from the newsdealers and the trusting public. That Grimoire was such a success was due to that grim jest of fate that made Smith capable of enjoying a good horror tale when he read one. Possibly it was a subconscious reflection of the sadism that makes so many successful men scornful of the feelings of others. Certainly his handling of his authors instilled horror in those who had perforce to deal with him.
For it was good business to stay in his favor, as San Sebastian well knew, and when you had to depend on Smith’s checks for your living, it became a matter of life and death.
San Sebastian had left his parental farm, somewhere in the Middle West, after selling several stories, and had made himself live in the intellectual slums of the big city. It was good business; besides, he could concentrate better where there were no infernal roosters to rouse him from bed at half-past four, and he could stay up as late as he pleased with decent conversations and a half-gallon of thick sweet muscatel to sip from. The fly in his ointment was Marvin Dane.
They looked alike, both tall, gaunt, dark-haired. Both had a tendency to squint, both had the same dry sense of humor. But there, insisted San Sebastian, the resemblance ended. He could write and Dane couldn’t. Smith, their god and judge, didn’t share San Sebastian’s opinion. He thought they could both write—and also happened to think that San Sebastian was slipping and Dane coming up.
San Sebastian had begun to realize the horrible truth himself when three stories in a row were rejected as being too similar to material bought just previously. He didn’t kno
w what this material was until two months later when he saw a story of Dane’s in the latest Grimoire that shook him to the core. It was quite identical, plot, writing and all, to one of his stories.
Dane a plagiarist? Hard to see how. San Sebastian, after overcoming his first fit of fury and black anger, found himself lost in a reflex of puzzlement. Nobody, but nobody, saw San Sebastian’s stories until he’d written them out, rewritten them, pecked out a copy painfully on his typewriter and then, after waiting a week or so to reread again, made his further corrections.
Dane couldn’t possibly have seen the stories before; he couldn’t possibly have sneaked into San Sebastian’s rooms to copy his tales; and besides San Sebastian never discussed plots with any of his friends. Yet there it was.
By the time the third similar story of Dane’s had appeared in print and two other tales of San Sebastian’s had been rejected by Smith with the cutting insinuation that San Sebastian must have peeked at Dane’s red-hot typewriter, Allen San Sebastian was in a state bordering on madness. He could, of course, try to sell his rejected tales to a competitor magazine. But besides the fact that he didn’t go over as well with the other editors, they might holler bloody murder when Dane’s duplicates hit the stands first.
San Sebastian finally took a friend into his confidence. A rather older man, Carlton Vanney was more steady in his ways, with a bent for the psychological and the occult. He discussed the matter, showed this friend Dane’s published stories and his own originals. It was, he insisted, not possible for either writer to have seen the other’s work in production.
Vanney, a man of considerable experience, after giving the matter much thought, pointed out that the coincidence of ideas was not precisely new in history. It happened before, it happened often in fact with creative minds that two persons would think of the same thing at the same time. It seems, Vanney said, that the universe moved at a certain pace, and then when conditions were ready for certain ideas, they developed spontaneously to the first minds that bothered to look for them.
Beyond the Barriers of Space and Time Page 14