Islands in the Sky

by Manly Wade Wellman

  Gramp entered the conversation.

  “You see, Blackie, I’m not just a hungry old coot. Nobody bothers about me, but I can get around. I can study a man like you—strong, smart, dissatisfied, with special knowledge—and figure a way to use him.”

  “Special knowledge?” repeated Peyton. “You mean atomic energy? I know only a little about it.”

  “That little is more than we know,” Bengali said.

  “But I just wrestled the machines. Of course I know how to handle it, in those containers made of inerton—”

  “Inerton!” exclaimed Bengali. “That leadlike metal mined way down below? r It’s the first I ever heard—ah, now I see why our mechanice are on the right track, making motors that can use the atomic! You’re wrong, Peyton. You can help us a lot. The prison is run by the most faithful jackals the Airmen have. No news ever comes out of it, about atomic or anything else.”

  In other words, Peyton summed up in his mind, his own limited knowledge and the considerable labored guesswork of Bengali’s companions might add up to something. His earlier intuition was right. He would be fortunate to know and observe two powers lining up for conflict. He could choose, in good time, the winner. Perhaps he could sway to that winning side the few people he liked in this insane world—Gramp, Willie, even Thora.

  Among other things, the Flying Island would belong to the victor. To go there, high above Earth, and close to the sun and stars, forget the bustle and the strangeness—

  “Are you in with us, Peyton?” Bengali was asking.

  “Of course.” Peyton smiled Cheerfully, his mouth corners up instead of down for a change. “If I’d said no, what would have happened to me?”

  Neither man made a verbal reply, but Gramp shut a big claspknife with a loud snap. Peyton turned and looked.

  “I didn’t see that toad-sticker.”

  “Sure you didn’t,” agreed Gramp. “I was holding it behind your back, with the point about an inch from the place where your shoulders come together. Just one little shove and you’d never have got out to Tony’s bar to finish the drinks you paid for.”

  VII

  AT A central point on the vast roof-level, apart from the parks and pleasure grounds, were assembled great ranks and formations of open troughs and tubs. Each was kept filled with water, which trickled in through pipes at a rate that exactly balanced evaporation. Other pipes brought in carefully measured solutions of various mineral salts. The troughs and tubs were covered with coarse wire screens, which supported the close-set stems of tomatoes, green corn, beans, peas. This was New York’s truck garden.

  Farming thus intensively and artificially, agricultural experts produced large and edible, if not exactly flavorful specimens enough for the millions. A tank, a few bucketfuls of proper chemicals, produced a volume of vegetables that once needed acres. “Bathtub farming,” half a joke in 1940, was a bountiful enterprise in 1980.

  Many came to look. None bothered about the Flying Island that came overhead, with one exception.

  Blackie Peyton sat among flowering shrubs at the edge of the chemical garden, leaning back with his face turned up. His skin was becoming faintly ruddy and he could see without his dark spectacles. The clothes he wore were expensive and well cut. Only his thoughts set him aside from the regiments of strolling Upper Towners in the parks, gardens and malls of New York’s rooftop.

  The Flying Island! Peyton, seeing it block away the sun, remembered again the vision he had seen so briefly of gleaming towers and rainbow chambers. That and the face and figure of Marshal Torridge were new and thrilling. Everyone else was used to the Flying Island, though nobody ever took it for granted. That symbol of power, he knew, was an influence on every life from which it blocked out the noonday sun.

  He remembered what Bengali had said to him in that little denlike office behind the bar in the prop-forest of New York’s lowest level. The Airmen had the world by the neck and the seat of the pants. Ground people, here and in other places, did the work, the producing. The Airmen governed ably, so that the people would prosper and be profitable.

  Though few in number, the Airmen had all the weapons and held all the strings. Normally, even if all New York’s millions rebelled in a chunk, there wouldn’t be a chance of victory against guns and bombs and atomic planes overhead.

  Bengali’s hope was in the struggle between Argyle and Torridge. Torridge commanded, but he was tired and aging. Argyle was ambitious, shrewd, influential. A division of the Airmen might give Bengali’s crowd—he called it a committee, but there seemed to be thousands of them—a chance to pull off something, especially since neither Argyle nor Torridge had any idea of a possible uprising.

  But what if Peyton told? There probably was some way to get word to Torridge of what was up. He might even be called up yonder to give information. Surely the boss Airman, in possession of the facts, could put an end to both Argyle and Bengali. And there would be Peyton, up on the Flying Island, circling the world, one of the right-hand men of Marshal Torridge!

  “It isn’t my fight, either way,” he told himself. “I was put in jail by a world that doesn’t exist. All this business happened without me. I can treat myself honestly, do what’s best for me, because I owe nobody anything. Shakespeare or somebody said you ought to be true to yourself.”

  BUT his nature was not one that admired betrayal. And as to being friendless and debtless, he couldn’t cross off Gramp or Willie. No, nor Thora, even if her kindly conversation was strictly business—but was it?

  As if evoked by the thought, her voice reached him.

  “Imagine meeting like this, Mr. Peyton! You’re getting a wonderful outdoor color.”

  She sat down beside him on the bench. She wore slacks and a metallically gleaming sweater, in the prevailing mode among smart women.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Just you stay fair.”

  “I think white skin’s becoming to a blonde,” she replied carelessly. “Almost all women try to tan. I thought I’d do the opposite and be a standout.”

  “You’d always be a standout, Thora, in any crowd.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She smiled.

  The Flying Island slid over and away from the sun. Both of them gazed after it.

  “I wonder what that place is like,” mused Peyton. “Ever been up there, Thora?”

  “I? No. Women aren’t allowed. Not even the Airmen’s wives, and they always marry into the families of rich or influential ground people. But the Airwomen—some call them that—live here in the rich levels, or sometimes on resorts at the edge of the cultivated part. Marshal Torridge doesn’t want any women up there.”

  “I suppose,” he said, “that you’ve had plenty of chances to marry Airmen.”

  “Not me.” She laughed it away. “I have no money. They feel that they should get as close to the ground aristocracy as possible.”

  “Is it that,” asked Peyton, “or do they want members of those important families for hostages in case of trouble?”

  “You ask dangerous questions, Mr. Peyton. What gives you the idea there might be trouble?”

  He saw that he had made a near-error and strove to change the subject.

  “I don’t let Willie Burgoyne mister me. Don’t you do it, either. My name to my friends is Blackie.”

  “Thank you.” Thora smiled again. “I do want you to be a friend of mine. But Blackie sounds so—so deadly. What’s your real name?”

  “Pierce.”

  “It sounds sharp.” She turned to him on the bench, her face grave. “Pierce, I want to warn you. Don’t question the Airmen, or block them. You’ll be destroyed utterly and I’d hate to see that.”

  “That’s very nice to hear, coming from you. I figured you were practically one of them.”

  Again she shook her blonde head.

  “I only work for them. General Argyle, being in a line of endeavor that demands show and notice, values me as a good ornament for certain uses. Naturally I have loyalty to my employers, but I was born
poor, here in New York. I belong on the ground. Probably I’ll stay on the ground. And I’m not trying to frighten you with my warning. I only want to help you.”

  “I believe that.” Peyton smiled with his mouth corners up. “You know, I said that not much pleased me here. That doesn’t include you, Thora.”

  “Thank you,” she told him once more. “Shall we walk around? People will be interested in seeing you. It’s good publicity for the next show.”

  WILLIE BURGOYNE and Peyton were working out in the gymnasium. Only Gramp was present to watch. Armorless, with shields and blunted swords, the two gladiators fenced and foiled enthusiastically. Once Willie yelled as Peyton’s blunt edge struck him on the elbow. Finally Gramp called time and they stood back from each other, panting a little. Willie put down his shield and sword.

  “You’re too good for me, Mister Blackie.”

  “Stop that mister and don’t razz me. You’re pulling your punches.”

  “It’s you who pulls punches. You’re not in earnest.”

  “Nobody can be in dead earnest unless it’s a real fight, for blood,” Peyton declared.

  The three went out of the gymnasium and down a corridor toward their living quarters. As they passed one of the stadium offices, the door opened. Out came an Airman wearing a holstered pistol and a police badge. By the arm he led a seedy, gray man with a hooked nose. The captive turned his face away quickly from the three, but Gramp started and cursed behind the curtain of his beard. As they strode in the opposite direction from the Airman and his charge, Gramp whispered to Peyton, so Willie couldn’t hear.

  “You know that old guy, Blackie—the one with the Airman?”

  “Why should I know him? I meet people all the time and can’t remember ten per cent of them.”

  “It was the sailor. You know, the man we drank with at the bar.”

  “That so?”

  Peyton started to turn and look at the departing pair, but decided not to show his face. He went with Willie and Gramp to a shower room. While Willie was scrubbing himself, he drew Gramp aside. “You act as if you don’t trust Willie.” Gramp wagged his head. “It ain’t that. He’d be too well known to have in with us. I asked you in while you’re still unknown. We hope to do something quickly.”

  “You bet it’ll have to be quick,” Peyton declared. “If that sailor has been singing any sea songs to the Airmen, you and I are probably in a jam.”

  Gramp’s eyes grew hard and serious. “I don’t worry about myself. I’m too old, a bum, kind of easy for people to forget. But they can do things to you, Blackie, kill you just like that!” He snapped his fingers.

  “They tried to kill Willie once,” reminded Peyton. “He sounds healthy, though.”

  Willie was singing in the shower. He had a rich bass voice and his song was an old, mournful ballad about a Birmingham jail. He came out, gleaming like a living statue of polished basalt.

  “What are you two so glum about?” he asked. “You look like somebody you knew up and died on you.”

  “Willie,” said Gramp, “I hope you ain’t turned soothsayer all of a sudden.”

  VIII

  THE hubbub from the thronged stadium penetrated even to the dressing rooms, where Peyton and Willie, in richly worked half-armor, were headed after a particularly dazzling parade. Both of them were in high spirits.

  “Who you fighting, Mister Blackie?”

  “I don’t know. Surprise opponent. And how many times do I have to tell you not to call me—”

  “I’m fighting a surprise opponent, too,” interrupted Willie. “But I think I can guess what they are.”

  “They?”

  “You remember those new animal shipments? We saw them this morning.”

  “I saw some pigs,” Peyton said slowly.

  “Gray and black pigs, not awful big, and lean and mean-eyed, with wet-looking, pink noses? Come from South America, those pigs do. They call them peccary.”

  “Peccary? Never heard about them. What’s their specialty?”

  “Nothing, except they’re mighty nasty in a fight.” Willie was grinning with relish. “I hear they drag down men, horses, even bears or panthers.”

  “You don’t sound worried, Willie.”

  “Why should I be? They’ll rush me in a bunch. I’ll be all set and jump clear over them. Before they can turn, I’ll finish two or three. They’ll rush again, I’ll jump over and do it again. And so on.”

  They came to the door of their dressing room.

  An Airman was standing there.

  “Dress down the corridor,” he told Willie.

  “But my stuff’s in with Mister Blackie’s,” Willie protested.

  “It’s been moved. General Argyle wants to speak to Peyton alone.”

  Willie grabbed Peyton’s hand and wished him luck, then walked on. Peyton opened the door and entered.

  Argyle and Thora sat in chairs. Thora smiled, Argyle nodded. Peyton tried not to look or sound disturbed as he said:

  “Glad to see you two. What’s on your minds?”

  Argyle took the cigarette holder out of his mouth.

  “Do you know a man named Bengali, a so-called poet?”

  The truth was best, for the present.

  “Of course I know him, General. Why?”

  “I’m asking the questions. I hear that you and he are cooking up some sort of monkey business. Tell me everything, quick!”

  Peyton smiled invertedly, turned to the dressing table. Sparring for time, he picked up several pieces of armor.

  “Where’s Gramp Hooker? He ought to be here to help me get ready.”

  “You’re refusing to answer,” accused Argyle.

  He stooped, buckled on a thigh piece, a greave, an iron shoe, made the joinings fast. He had an inspiration by then. “You’re suspicious of me for some reason, General. I can’t be sure what. I could deny things now, but you wouldn’t believe me. Hadn’t we better wait, cool down, see what charges are being made? Let’s talk it out after the show.”

  “There may be no after-the-show for you,” said Argyle.

  Peyton put on more leg armor.

  “Gladiators take that chance. I have my mind on the show and what may happen to me.”

  “Let me talk to him, General,” Thora said.

  Argyle nodded stiffly and walked out.

  PEYTON faced Thora, trying to read her face.

  “Pierce,” she said, “you can trust me. Please tell me everything. You’re in a jam, but I’ll try to help you out.”

  He wished he could trust her, knew he had to say something.

  “It wouldn’t help me if I confirmed Argyle’s suspicions,” he temporized.

  Thora came close and put a hand on his armored shoulder.

  “The Airmen have evidence that you’re mixed up in something called the Committee against the Airmen, which plans to make some sort of rebellion. If you’re really in it, you’ll be dangerous because of your knowledge of atomic power.”

  He realized that she spoke the truth. Reduce things to their simplest terms and atomic power was what made the Airmen fly, set them above the ground people. Bengali had spoken of experimental motors. Peyton’s bits of knowledge would round out such work. Again he temporized:

  “You and they believe that I’m mixed up in a thing like that, right after coming out of stir?”

  “They’re fairly sure, and I know it,” she said flatly. You gave it away when you spoke to me in the park about the Airmen’s wives being hostages in case of trouble.’ I told you then that you spoke dangerously, but I didn’t know how deeply you were involved. Argyle and the Airmen take the talk of an uprising very seriously.”

  “You make me feel important,” he answered as casually as he could. “But if they’re so sure I’m in it, why don’t they go to work on me without any questions?”

  “Because,” said Thora, “they want information from you. It will help convict the others in the movement.” Peyton’s inverted smile came back into view. He took a helm
et, plumed and visored, from the dressing table, but did not put it on. He made a last effort to bluff it out.

  “I ought to thank the Airmen for the high opinion they have of me. But if—mind you, I say if—I were mixed up in the committee, or whatever it is, and if I ratted on my friends, where would I be then? I’d be as guilty as ever and worse off, because I’d have given the information and would be of no use. Go tell that to General Argyle.”

  Thora went to the door, put her hand out to open it. She paused and turned back.

  “Can’t you see that I want to save you, Pierce?”

  “You’re holding up the circus, lady. I’ve got a show to put on. People are expecting me to give them a treat.”

  “That’s part of it!” she cried. “Right now Argyle has given up any hope of getting information from you. He’ll have passed on some orders that he had all ready. They’ll send in opponents that you can’t hope to kill—opponents that will destroy you very showily, with all the stadium howling in delight!”

  “I heard of something like that being tried on Willie Burgoyne and not working.” He breathed deeply. “I think you’re wasting time in being nice to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Shall I tell you the story of my life, Thora? I was born wretched. My folks died when I was a kid. I got mixed up with some crooks and by hard luck was sent up for murder. I was an incorrigible convict. They put me down in the Pit. You know what that is, I see.”

  SHE stared. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you jumped when you heard the name. In the Pit, you smash atoms for this power the Airmen use. It’s hard work, dirty, killing. Mostly you crack up or go crazy, or get a bad heart and die. I didn’t do any of those. I shook off twenty long, hard years. And then, because I saved some guard’s life, they let me go. I’m only an ex-convict, Thora. Get that into your head.”

  “Pierce,” she said, “there’s a light switch over your dressing table. Go to it.”