The Human Zero- The Science Fiction Stories Of Erle Stanley Gardner

by Matin Greenberg

  A great sympathy welled within his mind, and it was as though the ape sensed that sympathy. The eyes softened, glowed with an affectionate regard. The ape flung up a hairy arm.

  “They will live! They will live!” shrieked the woman. “They understand!”

  And the squawk of the parrot punctuated the last exclamation.

  It needed but that wordless intonation of the talking bird to snap Phil Nickers back to the world of reality. He suddenly felt his sympathy leaving him. The ape was a beast.

  The parrot was but a bird, trained to mimic sounds, to echo words. The people about him were fanatics. And something in the very idea of men devoting their lives to beasts, almost worshiping a great, white-faced ape, aroused a sense of revulsion within him.

  His eyes were still locked with those of the ape. The hairy arm with open palm was still upraised.

  And a sudden transformation came in those brown eyes. The kind sympathy, the soft affection that had welled within those round orbs vanished; they became instead flinty hard.

  Dimly Phil realized his position, strove mightily to stimulate kindness and sympathetic understanding. It was in vain. The mood had left him.

  The hard eyes of the ape became almost human in their antagonism. The palm that had been raised and opened, closed into a fist. The hairy arm swept downward in a crashing circle. The fist banged against the arm of the chair.

  And it did not need the hoarse croaking of the old crone to tell Phil what that descending arm meant.

  “They die! They die!” shrieked the hag.

  “They die!” echoed the parrot.

  “They die!” roared the natives.

  And the old man sucked in his puckered lips and nodded sagely.

  The natives with knives instantly pricked the prisoners to their feet, marched them from the hall, out into the sunlight. Surrounding them came other natives, and, from the trees, trooped monkeys. The monkeys who had been in the hall remained, perhaps ready to participate in some additional ceremony of judging.

  “Man, you almost got away with it!” whispered Forbes. “Ten seconds more and they’d have accepted us.” There was no regret in his tone, nothing but praise. “I know something of monkey psychology,” he went on, still in a whisper. “It’s hard to move ’em. But you sure had that ape eating out of your hand for a minute or two.”

  “And when I lost my grip, I signed our death warrants,” replied Phil. “It was that damned parrot that spilled the beans.”

  It was apparent that the guards were taking them across the yard to another building.

  “Probably immediate execution,” commented Forbes casually.

  But his guess was wrong. It seemed the monkey tribe was awaiting some other development, for a door opened, the prisoners were escorted into a dark and gloomy corridor, and then taken down a short flight of steps. Dank, damp air assailed their nostrils. A bare room walled with massive square stones opened before them. A barred window grilled the blue sky.

  The natives ran swift hands over their clothes, took from them knives, keys, even pencils and pens. Every object which might have furnished a tool of escape or a weapon of attack was stripped from them. A heavy door clanged shut, and the two men were left to stare at each other.

  “Bum place. Not even a seat,” commented Forbes.

  And Phil Nickers noticed that there were no bed, no blankets. Apparently it was intended to keep the prisoners only for a short time.

  CHAPTER 5

  "Monkey See, Monkey Do"

  Forbes seemed to read his thoughts.

  “Evidently they figure we won’t have any use for a bed,” he said. “Looks like the end of the trail, old chap. Sorry I got you into it.”

  “We’re not dead yet,” muttered Phil, fastening his eyes upon the barred window.

  He tried the bars, found that they were embedded in solid masonry. No slightest chance to work loose a bar. He banged the stone wall with his shoe, trying to ascertain from the sound how thick it was.

  “Must be like a fort; sounds as if it were three or four feet through,” he muttered.

  “They build ’em strong,” agreed Forbes, and laughed. “Wish the beggars hadn’t taken all our matches and cigarettes. It’d help to blow a few smoke rings.”

  Phil walked to the window, surveyed the scenery visible.

  There was no glass over the opening. The bars were sufficiently close to keep one from getting even a shoulder out into the air.

  Through the window appeared a section of the landing field, a distant view of a comer of the other buildings, and a stretch of tree fronds where the heavy timber crept up to the clearing.

  “This place has been here for some time,” announced Forbes, who had been inspecting the walls. “Notice how the mortar has crumbled. See, you can even pick it out in pieces. Chance to work out quite a bit of it. They’ve had other prisoners before who had the idea. See where some one worked all the way around the stone on this inner wall. He worked out all the mortar he could with his finger, and then had to stop. Just back an inch or two, and the rock’s probably a foot thick. But the mortar’s badly shot.”

  Phil turned with a smile.

  “That’s why they took away our knives and keys. They know the mortar could be picked out. But we’re just as helpless as the other poor chap that wore out his finger getting the mortar worked loose. Say, I guess we’re going to have a visitor. Unless that’s Murasingh coming down in a plane, I’m a poor judge of aviation.”

  Forbes joined him at the window.

  Together they watched the speck in the sky grow to a great man-bird, side-slip, circle, straighten and land.

  Several of the natives ran eagerly to the plane. Murasingh arose from the cockpit, loosed his helmet, swept back goggles, and engaged in rapid conversation with the natives.

  “Bet they’ve a lot of chatter to hand each other,” chuckled Nickers.

  The monkeys came trooping in from the trees, gathered about the plane in an attentive circle. For some ten minutes the little group remained unchanged. Murasingh talking with the natives, the monkeys sitting in attentive silence.

  Then one of the natives moved forward. Murasingh stooped, picked up a shapeless bundle from the bottom of the cockpit, heaved the bundle gently over the side. The eager hands of reaching natives stretched up.

  And, at that moment, the bundle assumed shape, straightened so that the men who watched from the prison dungeon could see what it was.

  “Good Heavens, a girl!” exclaimed Phil.

  “Jean Crayson—in her night-clothes,” agreed Forbes, his lips white. “He drugged her, hid her in the plane. Remember what I said about her having eyes like Audrey Kent’s? They’re rounder than most eyes.”

  Each stared at the white, drawn face of the other. Nickers gasped.

  “To think of a white girl—bride of an ape-man—here!”

  Suddenly a great bitterness filled Phil’s soul. He might face death himself as merely a part of the game, but this kidnaping of attractive women, the hideous fate that was in store for them, the menace of the whole organization of the priests of Hanuman, caused his very soul to revolt.

  “Look here, Forbes,” he said, turning a white, strained face away from the light, regarding the four walls of the gloomy dungeon. “I’m not going to stand for this. I’m going to get out of here, put a stop to the whole thing.”

  Forbes extended a cold, white hand.

  “I’m with you, old chap. But how we’re going to do it is another thing.”

  “If I get my hands on that smooth, polished, educated devil of a Murasingh I’ll leave a vacancy in the world,” promised Phil.

  And, as though his words had been heard, the door of the cell swung back and Murasingh grinned from the threshold.

  “Gentlemen, good morning! You arrived a little sooner than I did. I trust you’ve been made comfortable.”

  His eyes glowed with dancing mockery.

  “I thought you were just taking a casual joy-ride in a plane, and
tried to warn you back. You know it’s not healthy for whites to disregard their treaty promises and invade certain sections of India.”

  Phil crouched, moved slowly toward him.

  Murasingh whipped an ugly automatic from his pocket, covered the men. His eyes were as hard as black flints.

  “Don’t try it, boys. I’d hate to have to kill you, but I can. And if you so much as threatened me, your death wouldn’t be pleasant. As it is, I think I can promise you a reasonably swift death. But there are other ways that might not be so pleasant. There was one poor devil that went through it. You might be able to imagine what happened. He was tied hand and foot. One of the men ran to him, pinched off a bit of flesh and ran away laughing, as though it was some new game. Another and another did the same thing. The monkeys were watching from the trees. The new game appealed to them. After all, you know, they’re little men, actuated by all the cruelties of a savage, yet containing all of the possibilities of development of a man himself.

  “I know how you boys feel. But you’ve cut in on this game. No one asked you to do a damn thing except mind your own business. But you had to come prying and snooping. There’s a work going on here that’s bigger than you and bigger than me, and bigger than all of us put together. Don’t think for a moment you can interfere with that work. You must have some conception of it. They tell me one of you almost convinced the judge. In that case/ you’d have been allowed to come in as one of the priests—after you’d gone through a sufficient course of training.

  “I dropped in to tell you chaps good-by. You’ll be here until midnight. The wedding takes place at one o’clock. You won’t be here for the wedding—a double wedding with the rising of the old moon. Good-by.”

  The door clanged. There was the rasp of a lock shooting bars into the solid wall of squared rock.

  “And that’s that,” muttered Phil, his hands slimed with cold perspiration.

  “That’s that,” agreed Forbes, and tried to grin.

  “We couldn’t have rushed the automatic, and we’ve got until midnight.”

  Phil broke off to stare meditatively at Forbes.

  “He must have drugged her, sneaked into her room, loaded her into the plane, tied her down. That’s why we didn’t see anything of her when the planes were doing their stuff. Of course he’s a fanatic, like all the rest. Sincerely believes in all this stuff. As far as he’s concerned we’re just fellows who butted in and asked for what we got.”

  There descended a silence. Each man was wrapped in his own thoughts.

  Phil Nickers fell to pacing the floor.

  “There’s a way. There must be a way. Somehow, somewhere. Good Lord! A situation like this can’t exist—”

  He stopped, mid-stride, to stare at the window.

  A monkey sat in the window, propped between the bars, regarding him gravely. A shadow moved across the ground, and another monkey thrust an eager, curious face over the other’s shoulder.

  “Think of how they train ’em,” muttered Forbes. “Of course, it’s natural for the monkeys to imitate people. They work on that. How awful it must have been to teach them that tearing a human being to pieces was a game. Their fingers are as strong as steel nippers.”

  The monkeys regarded him in moist-eyed gravity.

  Phil suddenly dropped to all fours, scampered around the floor, chattering like a monkey, running, cavorting, crawling, leaping.

  Forbes regarded him with startled, wide eyes. “Steady, old chap, steady. Death comes to us all. Take it easy. Don’t let the damn beasts get on your nerves.”

  But Phil continued to run around.

  “Start chasing me,” he hissed. “Get started after me. Run.”

  “What in thunder?”

  “Don’t argue. Get down while we’ve got their attention. Start running. Chase me around.”

  Forbes dropped doubtfully to hands and knees, crawled clumsily.

  Phil chattered shrilly.

  The monkeys became excited, stirred uneasily, chattered to themselves. Other shadows came across the yard, blotted light from the window. Monkey after monkey came to see the cause of the excitement.

  Phil ran on hands and feet, avoided Forbes’s reaching hand, stopped before the joint between two of the square stones on an inner wall, picked out a bit of mortar, threw it at Forbes.

  Then the Englishman got the idea.

  “Great stuff, old chap! It may work!”

  And he, chattering shrilly, ran to the same place, picked out a bit of mortar, hurled it.

  Back and forth the two men went, cavorting like huge dogs, running, jumping, and every few minutes pausing to pick a bit of mortar from the same place between the rocks and hurl the soft, crumbing white pebble at the other.

  The monkeys in the window chattered shrill glee.

  Suddenly one of them dropped, swung from his tail that was looped around the bars, then leaped lightly to the floor. In a mad scamper he went to the exact point in the wall where Phil had been getting mortar, picked out a bit with his wire-strong fingers, and hurled it at one of the monkeys in the window.

  Almost on the instant there came a furry flood of dark animals pouring through the window. In a mad kaleidoscope of action they chased each other, stopping to grab mortar from the chink and fling it at each other.

  More monkeys came. The men withdrew from the race, leaned back against the wall, panting for air, watching the scampering monkeys.

  Phil’s palms were bleeding, his knees raw, but a slow smile of content swept his face.

  The monkeys had pulled out all of the mortar that could have been reached by human fingers. Now they were plunging their slender, sinewy arms in between the rocks, picking out little chunks of mortar, flinging them wildly, chattering, scrambling, scampering. And they enjoyed the game.

  A monkey snatched a bit of mortar from a different place, getting it where it was more accessible. Phil made a swift kick at the animal. The monkey avoided the kick, stopped to chatter his rage and surprise. But the others continued the game.

  Then the chase slowed. The monkeys became interested in prying into the wall. Minutes lengthened into an hour, and still the monkeys worked, exploring, chattering, pulling out mortar. Bit by bit they loosened the mortar all the way around the stone. The mortar became harder as it went deeper into the wall, but the tough little fingers made short work of pinching out bits, dragging it to the floor.

  Finally they wearied of the game. One of the monkeys jumped for the window, paused, hesitated a bit, saw the green tops of waving trees, and scampered for the cool forest. Another joined him, and soon the cell was deserted save for the human occupants.

  * * *

  Phil stooped to the floor, began picking up the fine chunks of mortar*

  “This comes first,” he said. “We can’t let the guards get suspicious.”

  For more than an hour they labored frantically, getting the mortar picked up, throwing it through the bars. At length they had the cell well cleaned, and Phil was able to turn his attention to the stone which had been partially loosened.

  He placed his hands against the face of the stone, heaved, grunted, twisted, withdrew his hands and shook his head. There were two red blobs upon the rock where his bleeding palms had strained.

  “Still solid. Can’t loosen it a bit, but there’s a lot of mortar gone. I’ll keep tugging, first one direction, then the other. Then you can try it for a while.”

  He inserted fingers in the crack in the wall, tugged at the stone, then placed palms against it again and pushed. Alternately he tugged and pushed, pushed and tugged. When he was exhausted Forbes tried it for a while.

  “No use, old chap,” remarked Forbes, after a bit of last, straining effort, during which they had crowded their grimed, perspiring faces together to both pull and tug at the stone in unison. “It’s too heavy and it’s still anchored too well. The thing must be two feet square, and no knowing how far back it goes. The mortar gets stronger as it gets back where it’s protected from the air. I h
ave a hunch we’re on a wrong tack.”

  The men slipped to the floor, sat slumped against the wall, surveying each other dispiritedly. It had been their one chance and they seemed to have lost.

  The sun swung away from the window. The heat became more pronounced. Flies droned lazily. Phil noticed that Forbes was nodding, dozing. His own eyes felt leaden. The lids closed, opened, blinked, and fluttered closed again.

  Phil Nickers slept, a fitful sleep of dreams, of irritated slaps at crawling flies that clung to his greasy skin. His eyes opened at length, sleep swollen and bloodshot. His temples throbbed and pounded.

  But his first, automatic concern was for that which had awakened him. A single glance told him all he needed to know. A monkey, holding some glittering object in its paw, was racing around the cell. Behind him came half a dozen other monkeys in mad pursuit. The animals paid no attention to the motionless forms of the sleepers. It was the brushing of a furry body against his shoulder that had awakened Phil.

  The monkey who held the coveted prize wheeled and dodged, but Phil’s hand, snapping out, caught the animal by the tail.

  With a shrill squeak of rage, he turned, and flashed glittering teeth. But that which he had been holding dropped from his paw.

  Phil made a grab for it, not realizing what it was, hardly knowing why he had interfered in the chase. He let go the monkey’s tail as he grasped the glittering object. The monkey jumped for the bars, stood in the window, jabbering monkey-curses. The other animals followed him, remained grouped just without the bars.

  Phil gasped as he saw what he had secured. It was a diamond ring, set after the fashion of an engagement ring,* and it was engraved with Sanskrit characters on the inner circle.

  The size of the stone alone was enough to command attention. It was a crystal-clear diamond of the finest water, and light radiated in snapping scintillations from its facets. It was larger than any diamond Phil had ever seen, and more brilliant.