by H. L. Gold
IX
Summersby was losing the sense of being apart, of having no problems nomatter what happened. These people had drawn him into their troubleagainst his will; the situation was so bad that he could no longer tellhimself he didn't give a damn. So he had a bad heart! He couldn't turnhis back on these poor devils because of that. It was stupid andselfish. He felt sorry for them. He was uncomfortable with them, as healways was with standard-sized people, and he would still repel anyattempt on their part to get close to him; but he was a little chastenedby what he had been through. He recognized that.
It was all very well to say he didn't care where he died, but it wouldbe a hell of a lot more dignified to accomplish it as a free man, ratherthan as a harried rabbit. Even if he were killed trying to escape, itwould be endurable. But if his heart gave out while he was, say,trundling up and down the nursery in that ridiculous little auto thing,he knew his last breath would be a bitter one.
Adam had just said, "I laid a rod across the sill there." Summersbywalked to the wall, which appeared to be closed as usual. Just as hecame to it, he caught the sheen of metal in a thin line up the corner,and knew that he was seeing part of one of the machines in the nursery.The dowel had held the door.
Something moved outside; he could hear the dull slap of immense flatfeet. They were going to be fed. He strolled away from the corner,saying quietly, "It worked, Adam. Don't check it now, though."
The small panel opened and one of the garishly hued platters was put in,loaded with a wriggling, seething mass of grubs and half-dead locusts.
"Supper?" cried Villa. "This is supper? Do they think we are a lot ofAfrican natives?"
"Well," said Adam, "I guess they were fooled by me." It was the firsttime he had made any sort of joke about his color. Possibly, thoughtSummersby, he's becoming one of the group, as I am. God knows the kidhas as much reason to be bitter about people as I have; or more reason.It's put him on the defensive.
Summersby felt more chastened than ever.
No one cared to sample the insects. They walked away from the platterand hoped aloud that their captors would see the refusal and give themsomething else, but nothing was pushed in. After a quarter of an hourWatkins said, "Think it's safe to have a try at the door?"
"No," said Summersby.
Watkins jumped to his feet. "Listen, I've had all I can stomach of you!"he yelled. "If you don't want to help, okay, but keep your nose--"
"I was going to say that they'll be pumping in the sleep gas prettysoon, and we don't know whether they do it from outside the nursery oroutside this box."
"That's right," said Calvin Full.
Watkins eyed him a moment. "I'm sorry, Summersby," he said then. "I shotoff my mouth too quick."
"They filled the nursery with it once," went on Summersby, "but it seemslogical to think they could also let it into this room alone. Maybe itworks on them, maybe not; if it does, then they wouldn't flood thenursery with it every night, because the adults have to come in andclean the place up."
"A clever thought, Mr. Summersby," said the woman.
"Not particularly. At any rate, I'm going to stand by the crack and tryto get enough air to stay awake; then when I think the coast's clear,I'll shove the door open and scout around. If I find a way out, I'llcome back and drag you into the nursery and wake you."
"Why are you doing this?" asked Villa suspiciously. "No, Mr. Big Man, Idon't like you going out alone. I think you wouldn't come back. Youdon't like us."
Watkins, evidently on edge from his mauling by the children, whirled onthe Mexican. "Oh, shut your yap! The guy's doing you a favor." Then hesaid to Summersby, "I'll come along."
Summersby grinned wryly.
"I'm not saying you'd run out on us, man." Watkins made the motions ofgoing through his pockets for a cigarette, which some of them still didoccasionally out of hopeful habit. "I know locks and I might be able tohelp if you ran into trouble."
"Come on along, then." He put an eye to the thin slit. "Here comes oneof them. It's the head scientist." He grinned. "Or the kid who owns us,who lives in this house and invites his little pals in every day to playwith his toys and his pets."
The monster disappeared. Presently Watkins said, "It's in. I'm sleepy."
Summersby stretched as tall as he could and put his mouth to the crack,trying to breathe only what air came through from the nursery. He sawthe enormous child pass on its way to the door, and shortly the sound ofits heavy feet stopped. He felt drowsy, his eyelids flickered. He beathis hands together, sucking in air from the opening. Villa started tosnore.
Watkins said, "I'm about done, Summersby." He was kneeling at the crackbelow Summersby, and his voice was sluggish. In a few seconds he rolledover on the straw.
When did the adults come in to clean up? Summersby didn't dare wait muchlonger. He was fighting sleep with all his vigor. Possibly they wouldn'tcome till morning.
He had to chance it. He forced his fingers into the gap and heaved. Thewall didn't move. Holding his breath, he propped one foot against theadjoining wall, dug his hands as far into the breach as possible, andhurled himself backward. The big door jolted an inch, hung, then slidback a couple of feet. He swung around and jammed himself through theaperture and the wall moved silently back into place; this time thedowel was not there, and when the wall stopped, there was no crack atthe corner. Summersby must have kicked the dowel aside when he slidthrough. Watkins was inside, asleep.
He breathed deeply, and the effects of the sleep gas died, so that hewas wide awake and felt very excited and eager. To analyze the reasonsfor his eagerness would have killed it, and besides he was in a hurry.He ran to the great door of the playroom, whose lintel towered twentyfeet from the floor. Hastily he tossed apparatus, boxes, toy blocks,until he had made a pile five feet high.
Scrambling up this, the things sliding under his feet, he waved an armabove his head in the place where he believed the electric eye beam tobe. Then the pile collapsed, and he fell into it, giving one knee aterrific crack and skinning his knuckles. The door glided open.
The next room was deserted, and the soft bluish light was dimmer herethan in the nursery. This place was far less cluttered, containing nomore than a big yellow machine, a gigantic table, and two six-leggedchairs. There was a picture on the wall, the size of a barn's side,which he did not stop to look at.
The opposite door was open. The third room was a dining hall, with twotables and a number of chairs, these of metal with eight legs each.Luckily, there was no one in it.
In the next room--all four were in a straight line, and he thought,Either it's a long narrow house, or else it's as big as RockefellerCenter--there were a number of gadgets, colorful and complex like thechildren's toys, but of different construction. He glanced at them butdid not pause until he came to the next door.
It was closed. He presumed its opener beam would be in the same place asthat of the playroom, and looked around for something to stand on.
There seemed to be nothing small enough to move. He shoved at a coupleof things, but they wouldn't budge. The only slim possibility was a bigsquare brown box, set twelve feet off the floor on one of their mammothtables. It was of a size to accommodate half a dozen cows, but looked asthough it might be of flimsy enough materials, plastic probably, to pushoff the edge, from which it would fall exactly where he needed it.
He dragged a chair over, climbed up on its seat and then onto the table.He saw at once that the box would be immovable. There was an affair thatmight be a dynamotor attached to one side, various objects sticking outof the other, and four stacks of thick coils on top. He was turningaway, hoping to find another door in one of the first rooms, when hiseye was attracted to a square plate among the things on the right sideof the box. The plate was glass, for its surface shone under the bluelight, and he thought he saw the pin-point twinkling of stars in it.
On a hunch, he walked over to it. He knew quite a lot of astronomy andif this happened to be a telescope, he might be able to determin
e theirlocation.
The field of the plate was full of stars, but in patterns he had neverseen. He could not understand it. It was not a painting, for the starstwinkled. Where the blazes was the thing focused?
A huge dial beside the plate had a pointer and scores of notches, eachlabeled with a couple of squiggly characters. He turned the pointerexperimentally. The screen blurred, showed a planet with rings: Saturn.
"Neat," he said to himself, and turned the pointer another notch. He gota view of a landscape, trees of olive green and crimson, seen fromabove. He tried other notches.
Finally, just as he had reminded himself that he had to hurry, he saw afamiliar globe swim onto the glass. It was Earth, with the two Americasclearly defined.
What in hell...?
He pushed the pointer on, and was given another landscape, this time ofprosaic hue, a meadow with a cow in it. He clicked the thing anothernotch and got a constellation pattern again. He pushed it back to thecow.
He felt his heart thudding fast, too fast; and he hoped with all hisfaculties that he wouldn't conk out before he had solved this riddle.There were other dials, other pointers, a little behind the first. Heturned one slowly.
The cow grew larger until it almost filled the screen. Only when hecould see nothing but its broad placid back did he realize that he waslooking at this scene, as at the others, from _above_.
He tried a third pointer. The land whipped by beneath his gaze. He cameto a city, the buildings reaching up to him in a wonderful illusion ofdepth.
Then it dawned on him what the machine was, and he gasped.
There was no use in looking for the outer door. He had found the answerto their last problem, and he had to get back to the box with thatanswer and thrash it out with all of them. There might be a salvationfor them and there might not.
Leaving the screen showing the city, he jumped down off the table, racedback through the room and into the next, the dining hall. Still therewere no signs of any of the giants. He had crossed the threshold of thethird room when he heard a door open on his right. There was no time togape around; he covered thirty feet in five strides, dodged under thehanging shelf of the strange yellow machine, like a low desk coveredwith cogwheels, and ran along beneath it till he came to the extreme endof the contrivance.
A pair of feet, either of which would have outweighed a draft horse,went past him; he dared not lean forward to see the rest of the brute,but it was undoubtedly an adult. It went into the playroom.
After twenty or twenty-five minutes, during which Summersby thought overthe problem and agreed with himself that he couldn't find the solutionalone, the giant came out of the playroom, crossed near his hidingplace, and went out through a door beside the huge picture. It was notin a hurry, so he decided it had not noticed his absence from the box.
He dragged an easy chair over to the nursery door. It was just fourtimes the size of Summersby's Morris chair at home, and about eighttimes as heavy. As he was crawling up the leg to the seat, he recalledthat he had a bad heart. If he hadn't been clinging to the plastic withboth arms, he would have shrugged.
He intercepted the beam and opened the door. Having no more than half aminute to get through before it shut, he had to leave the chair where itwas. He hoped none of the adults would realize that its position hadchanged.
The playroom was clean and neat. Likely it would remain unvisitedthrough the night. He went to the box and only then remembered it wasshut tight. What did the kids do when they opened it during the day? Hehad seen them at it twice. They laid their hands on top of the box,there on the left.
Hauling over enough junk to make a pair of steps, he got onto the roofof the box. There was a bar, set into the coaming. He pressed it, leanedover, and saw the wall slide back. A second push returned it to its shutposition. He opened it again, swung his legs over the edge, pressed thebar once more and dropped. Snatching up a green dowel from the floor, hejumped into the box as the door was closing. He had just time to lay therod across the threshold, as Adam had done, before the wall reached itand was held.
Trying not to breathe, Summersby picked up Watkins and slung him overhis shoulder. He forced his fingers into the crack and heaved. Again hethrew his weight against the wall.
Then he was buckling at the knees, trying desperately to bring his mouthnext to the opening, but not quite making it.
* * * * *
"Describe it again," said Watkins. "Give me all the details you canthink of."
As Summersby went over what he remembered of the brown machine, Watkinstried to envisage it. A tough job, and he might not be able to handleit. To reverse a thing like that--when there'd be at least one or twoprinciples he'd never heard of--well, that would be the job of alifetime.
"How do you know that it's the instrument that brought us here?" heasked.
"It must be." Summersby looked intent, almost eager. "It has those dialsthat focus it almost pin-point on any planet they want; at least, I sawquite a few planets, from a distance and close up. I saw a cow and acity on Earth. Then there's the big brown box. It's hollow--the door washalf open. If they bring things, living things, from other planets, theyneed a receiving station large enough to take 'em. The box. It'slogical."
"It sure is." Adam whistled. "So we're on another planet. That wasplain, if we'd thought about it seriously. No place on Earth could hidea race like this. Not with all the factories they must have to producethe toys and what you saw out there."
"Why couldn't we be inside the Earth?" asked Mrs. Full stridently.
Watkins said, "He looked _down_ on Earth. That argues another planet."
"But how did they get us here? In two days?"
Watkins scratched his bristled chin and thought aloud. "It must havebeen instantaneous. Remember, we went through a quarantine and werehealed of just about everything that was wrong with us. That must havetaken a while."
"The octopus was still wet," said Adam, "and the grubs and locusts werestill kicking. They must focus that rig on Earth and push a button andhere it is, like that. Instant transmission of matter." He smiledweakly, as though he were proud of the phrase. He looked veryfrightened, thought Watkins, and unhappy.
Tom Watkins was scared, too, but not especially unhappy. For the firsttime in almost twenty years, he was free of worry about the bulls, thelaw. He only wished he knew what had happened to his loot.
"The planet," said Cal, "whatever its name is, must have the samegravity and atmosphere as Earth. Same water, too."
"That's right. So it's produced a race of critters with plenty of humancharacteristics," said Watkins.
"Have they done this before?" asked Mrs. Full. "I mean do you thinkwe're the first to be snatched up?"
"No, I don't," said Watkins, surprised that she was talking directly tohim. "People disappear all the time. Look at the famous ones: JudgeCrater, Ambrose Bierce--"
"Somebody mention the _Marie Celeste_," growled Summersby.
* * * * *
The wall began to open.
"Here's the plan, quick," said Watkins. "I've got to get out and findthe machine, and see if I can gimmick it so it'll work backward, send ushome. The rest of you create a diversion, keep the kids' minds off me."
"What kind of a diversion?" asked Villa. His abstracted face showedplainly that he was thinking of his chili stand and what he would say tothe idiot relief man about conditions he would doubtless find therein.
"If you were a kid with pets, intelligent ones, what would you watchthem do for hours? Something unordinary--something you'd never imaginethey'd do." He looked at his chronograph. "It's just ten. I never sawthe gadget I couldn't figure out in two hours; if I'm not back by noon,you'd better come out, Summersby."
"What if it's four-dimensional?" asked Adam.
"It's possible I can cook up a way to reverse its action anyway. Thereare some principles of electricity and mechanics that must beuniversal."
"Shall we run the machines fo
r them?" asked Mrs. Full. "To distract thechildren?"
"They're used to that," said Watkins. "They bore easy. Suppose you're akid with a normal regard for pets. You've had cats and dogs and rabbitsand now you have monkeys. The monkeys are a lot smarter and moreversatile, but they have their limits too. You get jaded with 'em. Butone day they--" he snapped his fingers--"they start playing soldiers!They drill, stage mock battles, die and come to life, scrimmage--hell,you go nuts! You can't take your eyes off 'em!"
"That's it," said Villa promptly. "The children have gorillas, cows,they have never seen anything like war."
"Maybe they don't know what war is," said Adam. "It might just look asif we were fighting. None of their toys show a sign of war being everwaged by this race, like our own kids' toys do."
"The toys of any people reflect their civilization in an unreliable anddistorted way," said Cal Full rather stuffily. "A visitor from Mars inone of our playrooms would conclude that we already have spaceships andray guns, and that our usual clothing is chaps, sombreros, andspacesuits."
"They'll get the idea," Watkins said impatiently. The giant childrenoutside were bawling the word that meant "Come!" He was in a hurry.These fools were always arguing. "Let's go," he said. "The four of youline up over there, catch the kids' eyes, and High-pockets can boost meup to the beam. Then he'll join you."
* * * * *
Watkins grinned tightly, slapped Adam on the shoulder, poked Villa inthe belly, and dived behind the nearest many-colored pile of gear themoment he saw the children weren't watching him. As he went toward thedoor, he heard Villa saying, "My fourth cousin Pancho was a great manfor war, so I will be general. Spread out in the thin line and be readyto march when I command."
Summersby followed Watkins, and they came to the door. Watkins managedto get up on the big man's shoulders, and waved a hand above his head.Nothing happened.
"Stand on them," said Summersby.
He struggled to do so. "_Un_, _dos_, _tres_," roared the Mexican downthe hall. "Begin!"
This time Watkins found the beam. The door glided aside. He dropped offSummersby's shoulders, jumped into the next room. A quick look showedhim it was empty. As the door closed he heard Villa shouting hoarsely.
"Make bang noises for the guns. Fall dead, spring to life. We aremountain fighters of great skill. Climb on machines, drop off withbullets in your head, play you are--"
The door cut him off. Watkins chuckled. "What a ham," he said. Hestarted for the opposite door.