The Second IF Reader of Science Fiction Page 18

  “Ho!” it cried, tossing the lance away. “I won’t need this for such as you! Prepare to defend yourself, Earthling—and know that you face the mightiest warrior of the dead sea bottoms, Tars T ark as of Thark!”

  The girl cried out in terror. Johan Gull gripped her shoulder, trying to will strength and courage into her.

  It was damnably bad luck, he thought, that they should somehow, have taken the wrong turn. Clearly they had blundered into private property and he had a rather good idea of just whose property they had blundered into.

  He stepped forward and said, “Wait! I believe I can settle this to everybody’s satisfaction. It’s true that we don’t have tickets, Tars Tarkas, but you see we were torpedoed in the Sinus Sabaeus and had no opportunity to pass the usual admission gate.”

  “Wretched Earthling!” roared the monster. “If I issue you tickets there is a ten per cent surcharge; I don’t make Barsoomland policy, I only work here. What say you to that?”

  “Done!” cried Gull, and amended it swiftly. “Provided you’ll accept my American Express card—otherwise, you see, I have the devil of a time with the old expense account.”

  The creature bared yellow fangs in a great, silent laugh. But it interposed no objection, and the card was quickly validated by comparison with the Barsoomian’s built-in magnetic file. Tars Tarkas nodded his enormous head, swiftly wrote them out two lavender slips and roared: “Here you are, sir. If you wish to exchange them for regular family-plan tickets at the gate there will be a small refund . . . I am assuming the lady is your wife,” he twinkled. “And now, welcome to Barsoomland. Be sure to visit the Giant Sky Ride from the Twin Towers of Helium, in the base of which are several excellent restaurants where delicious sandwiches and beverages may be obtained at reasonable prices. Farewell!”

  “I think not,” said Gull at once. “Don’t go. We need transportation.”

  “By the hour or contract price?” parried the Martian.

  “Direct to Heliopolis. And no tricks,” warned Gull. “I’ve taken this ride fifty times. I know what the meter should show.”

  Muttering to himself, the creature leaped up on his thoat and allowed them to clamber behind. And they were off.

  The motion of the thoat was vaguely disconcerting to the sense of balance, like a well trained camel or a very clumsy horse. But it ate up the miles. And for a nominal fee Tars Tarkas consented to supply them with food and drink.

  Gull ate quickly, glanced at the girl to make sure she was all right—which she was, though a trifle green and apparently not greatly interested in food—and set to work to question the Thark. “You’ve had some interesting goings-on,” he yelled up toward the enormous head.

  “It is even so, Earthling,” tolled Tars Tarkas’s great voice.

  “Flying saucers and that sort of thing.”

  The bright red eyes regarded him. “Evil things!” roared the Thark somberly. “May Iss bear them away!”

  “Oh, I certainly hope that too,” agreed Gull. He was hanging on to the Barsoomian’s back, his face at about the level of the creature’s lower left-hand armpit, and carrying on a conversation presented difficulties. But he persevered. “Have you seen any of it yourself?” he asked. “Psionics or any of that? UFOs? Little green monsters?”

  “Watch your mouth!” cried the Barsoomian, enraged. “No, no. Little green monsters. Nothing personal.”

  The Thark glared at him with suspicion and hostility for a moment. Then the huge, reptilian face relaxed. The Thark muttered. “Not now. When we get to Heliopolis, go to the—”

  The voice broke off. Tars Tarkas cocked a pointed ear, and stared about.

  With a whirring, whining sound, something appeared over the dunes. The girl cried out and clutched at Gull, who had little comfort to give her. Whatever it was, it was not of this planet—or of any other that Johan Gull had ever seen. It had the shape of a flying saucer. It glittered in the blood-red, lowering sun, arrowing straight toward them. As it drew near they could see the markings on its stem:

  U.F.O. Cumrovin 2nd

  Giant Rock, Earth

  “Blood of Issus!” shouted the Barsoomian. “It’s one of them!”

  Tars Tarkas bellowed animal hatred to the dark Martian sky and raised his lance. Fierce white fires leaped from its tip—struck the alien vessel, clung and dropped away. The craft was unharmed.

  It soured mockingly, tantalizingly overhead for a moment, seeming to dare them to fire on it again. Then a single needle of ruby light darted out of its side, reached down and touched Tars Tarkas between his bright red eyes.

  The Barsoomian seemed to explode.

  The concussion flung them from the thoat. Dazed, stunned, aching in every bone, Johan Gull managed to drag himself to his feet and look around.

  The alien spacecraft was gone. The girl lay stunned and half unconscious at his feet. Yards away Tars Tarkas was a giant mound of gray-green flesh and bright metal parts, writhing faintly.

  Gull staggered over to the creature and cradled the ravaged head in his lap.

  The scarlet eyes stared sightlessly into his. The ruin of a mouth opened.

  “We . . . are property,” whispered Tars Tarkas thickly, and died.

  VI

  Once, when Johan Gull was very young, the newest and least reliable of cogs in Security’s great machine, he had been assigned to Heliopolis to counter a Black Hat ploy. Or not quite that, he admitted; he had been sent to add a quite unimportant bit of information to the already huge store that the agent operating on the scene already had. He had envied that agent, had young Johan Gull. He had looked with jealous eyes about the bright, dizzying scenes of Heliopolis and dreamed of a time when he too might be a senior agent in charge, himself a major piece in The Game, squiring a lovely lady on an errand of great consequence, in the teeth of dreadful danger.

  All the fun of it was in the anticipation, he thought as they rode into Heliopolis lock on their battered thoat, checked it at the Avis office and dismounted. If only Tars Tarkas had survived to tell what he knew!

  But he had not; and Gull was uneasily aware that he knew no more now than when he left Mars port Still, he thought, brightening, this was Heliopolis, the Saigon of Syrtis Major. He might get killed. He might not be able to protect this lovely and loving girl from mischance. He might even fail in his mission. But he was bound to have a hell of a time.

  They found rooms at the Grand and parted to freshen up. Overhead the city’s advertising display flashed on the thin, yellowish clouds of Mars, on, off—on, off:

  HELIOPOLIS

  The Wickedest City in the Worlds

  Liquor * Gambling * Vice

  The Family That Plays Together Stays Together

  And indeed, Gull saw, the pleasure-seekers who thronged the concourses and the lobby of the Grand had often enough brought the kiddies. He watched them sentimentally as the bellthing trundled his luggage toward the elevators. It would be most pleasant to spend a holiday here, he thought, with someone you loved. With Alessandra, perhaps. Perhaps even with Kim, Marie Celeste and little Patty . . .

  But he could not afford thoughts like that; and he quickly showered, shaved, put on a clean white suit and met the girl in the great gleaming cocktail lounge of the Grand.

  “ ’Elio, Meesta Gull,” she said softly, her eyes dark and somehow laughing.

  Gull regarded her thoughtfully. She was a sight worth regarding, for the girl in the cocktail lounge was nothing like the bedraggled, terrified creature in the ochre sands. Her green-blue eyes were smoky with mystery. Her leongsam, deeply slit, revealed the gleam of a bronzed rounded thigh. A whisper of some provocative scent caressed him; but it was not his charms that had him bemused; it was something else. His eyes narrowed. Somewhere, he thought. Some time . . .

  She laughed. “You are thoughtful,” she said. “Will you ’ave a drink with me?”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” he said gallantly.

  “Unless you have other plans?” she inquired. There was
no doubt about it; she was poking fun at him.

  He rose to her mood. “It’s the least I could do, my dear—seeing you saved my life.”

  “Ah! Life.” She glanced wryly at him from the comer of her eye. “What is it, this ‘life’ I ’ave saved? Can one taste it? Can one carry it to bed?”

  Gull grinned. “Perhaps not, but I’m rather attached to mine.” He ordered drinks, watched carefully while they were made, then nodded and raised his glass. “Of course,” he added, “I’ve saved your life too—I guess, let’s see—oh, perhaps three times. From Tars Tarkas.

  From dying by thirst. From the saucer people. So you actually owe me about three to one, lifesaving-wise.”

  “Three to two, deer Meesta Gull,” the girl whispered over the rim of her glass.

  “Two? Oh, I think not. Just the torpedoing, really, and as a matter of fact I’m not sure you should get full credit for that. You were a little tardy there.”

  She shook her head. “Yes, the torpedoing—and something else. ’Ave you forgotten? The old warehouse? The—incident—which caused your sore lip?”

  Gull stared at her, then brought his glass down with a crash. “Got it!” he shouted. “I remember now! Oh, damn it, sorry,” he went on, shaking his head. “It was on the tip of my tongue, but I’ve lost it. Sorry.”

  He stared at her moodily and drained his glass. “No matter. I’ll think of it. I promise you that.”

  The girl laughed softly, then sobered. “Meanwhile,” she said, “we ’ave some more important business ’ere.” And she nodded toward the great crystal pane that opened on the thronged boulevards of Heliopolis.

  Gull followed the direction of her glance and saw at once what she meant. A demonstration was in progress. A hundred straggling, shouting marchers were carrying placards with as many harsh and doctrinaire slogans:

  Let the Space People Save You!

  We Are Property

  Why Is the Air Force Covering

  Up Sightings?

  Gull said abruptly, “Let’s take a look.”

  The girl rose without answering and together they walked out to the terrace. The shouts of the demonstrators smote them like a fist. Gull could barely distinguish the cadenced words in the roar of sound: “Make Mars . . . the tomb of skepticism” over and over in time to their march until it changed to “Welcome UFOs now! Welcome UFOs now!”

  “They take it seriously,” he murmured. Alessandra did not answer; he glanced at her, then followed the direction of her gaze. A man in stained coveralls, eyes fixed on them, was pushing his way in their direction through the crowd. He was tall, and not young. His face was lined with the ineradicable bum of a life spent on the Martian desert.

  Gull stroked his goatee to hide a thrill of excitement that tingled through him. This could be it: The break he was looking for.

  The man stopped just below them, looking up. “Hey, you!” he bawled. “You Gull?”

  Gull shouted carefully, “That’s my name, yes.”

  “Well, where the devil you been? We been waiting for you!” cried the man in irritable tones. He reached up, clutched at a carved projection on the face of the terrace, raised himself and swung to face the crowd. “Hey, everybody!” he shouted. “Meet the fella that thinks UFOs are phony! This way! You! Look here!”

  Heads were beginning to turn. The ragged line of marchers slowed, Gull whispered to the girl, whose presence he could feel shivering beside him: “Careful! I don’t know what he’s going to do. If it looks like trouble—run!”

  But he could not hear her answer, if she made one, for the man was turning back to him again. In the diminished sound of the street his raucous yell sounded clearly: “All right, Gull! You think our supranormal powers’re all a lotta crud, see what you think of this!” And he made a snatching motion at what, as far as Gull could see, was empty air; caught something, squeezed it in his fist; turned toward Gull and threw it There was nothing in the man’s hand.

  But that nothing spun toward Gull like a pinwheeling comet, huge and bright and deadly; it hummed and sang shrilly of hate and destruction; it rocketed up toward him like an onrushing engine of destruction. And something in it snapped his will. He stood frozen, impotent to move.

  Vaguely he felt a stir of motion beside him. Hazily he knew that the girl was thrusting at him, shouting at him, hurling him aside. Too late! The hurtling doom came up and struck him—just a comer brushing against his head as he fell—but enough; worlds crashed; hell-bombs roared in his skull; he dropped, away and away, endlessly down into . . . into . . . he could not see, could not guess what it was; but it was filled with terror and pain and doom.

  But then he was awake again, and the girl was weeping over him; he could feel her teardrops splashing on his face.

  Gull coughed, gasped, clutched at his pounding skull and pushed himself erect. “What—What—”

  “Oh, thank ’Eaven! I was afraid ’Airy ’ad killed you!”

  “Apparently not,” he said dizzily; and then, “Harry who? How do you know who that fellow was?”

  “What does it matter?” she cried. Bright tears hung unshed in her eyes.

  “Well, it kind of matters to me,” said Gull doubtfully, looking around. They were no longer on the terrace. Somehow she had lugged him back into the greater security of the cocktail lounge. A waiter was hanging over them, whirring in a worried key.

  “Harry Rosencranz!” he cried suddenly. The girl nodded. “Sure! And he knew I was coming. Well, that tears it. My cover’s blown for sure.” He glared at the waiter and said, “Don’t just stand there. Bring us a drink.” The thing went away, warbling unhappily to itself. It had not been programmed for this sort of thing.

  Indeed Gull needed a drink. The reality of supranormal powers was a phenomenon of a totally different kind than the contemplation of them at a distance. The tapes about Reik and his partner had been interesting; the reality was terrifying.

  He seized the glass as soon as offered and drained it; and then he turned to Alessandra. “You’ve got some explaining to do,” he said.

  The tears were very near the surface now.

  She waited.

  “How did you know it was Rosencranz?” he demanded. “And the torpedoing—you knew about that And don’t think I’ve forgotten that we’ve met before . . . somewhere . . . don’t worry, I’ll think of where it was.”

  She inclined her head, hiding her face.

  “You’re working for someone, aren’t you?” Her silence was answer enough. “A nice girl like you! How’d you get into this?” He shook his head, mystified.

  “Ah, Meesta Gull,” she said brokenly, “it’s the old, old story. My ’usband—dead. My little ones—’ungry. And what could I do? And now they ’ave me in their power.”

  “Who?”

  “The Black ’Ats, Meesta Gull. Yes, it is true. I am in the employ of your enemy.”

  “But damn it, girl! I mean, you said you loved me!”

  “I do! Truly! Oh, ’ow I do!”

  “Now, wait a minute. You can’t love me and work for them” objected Gull.

  “I can too! I do!”

  “Prove it.”

  She flared, “ ’Appily! ’Ow?”

  Gull signaled for another drink. He smiled at the girl quite fondly. “It’s very simple,” he said. “Just take me to your leader.”

  VII

  It took a bit of doing, but the girl did it. She returned from a series of cryptic telephone conversations and looked at Gull with great, fearful eyes. “I ’ave arranged it,” she said somberly. “You will be allowed in. But to get out again—”

  Gull laughed and patted her hand. He was not worried.

  Still, he admitted to himself a little later, things could get a bit difficult. Security precautions for the Black Hats were in no way less stringent than those of Gull’s own headquarters in Marsport. He allowed himself to be seated in a reclining chair while a gnomelike old dentist drilled a totally unneeded filling into a previously healthy tooth; and
when he rose, the exit through which he left the office brought him to a long, dark tunnel underground.

  The girl was waiting there silently to conduct him to his destination. She placed a finger across her lips and led him away. “Wait a minute,” Gull whispered fiercely, looking about. For there were interesting things here. Off the corridor were smaller chambers and secondary tunnels filled with all sorts of objects shadowy and objects small. Gull wanted very much to get a look at them. Those tiny disjointed doll-shapes! What were they? And the great gleaming disk section beyond?

  But the girl was pleading, and Gull allowed himself to be led away.

  She conducted him to a door. “Be careful,” she whispered. And she was gone, and Gull was face to face with the chief of the Black Hats in Heliopolis.

  He was a tall, saturnine man. He sat at a desk that reflected gold and green lights into his face, from signals that Gull could not see. “Oodgay eveningway,” he said urbanely. “Ah, I see you are perplexed. Perhaps you do not speak Solex Mai.”

  “Afraid not. English, French, Cretan Linear B, Old Ganymedan’s about the lot.”

  “No matter. I am familiar with your tongue as we speak it all the time in Clarion.” He leaned forward suddenly. Gull stiffened; but it was only to hand him a calling card. It glittered with evil silver fires, and it read:

  T. Perlman

  Clarion

  “Clarion’s a planet? I never heard of it.”

  Perlman shrugged. Obviously what Gull had heard of did not matter. He said, “You are a troublemaker, Mr. Gull. We space people do not tolerate troublemakers for long.”

  As to that,” said Gull, stroking his goatee, “it seems to me you had a couple of shots at doing something about it. And I’m still here.”

  Oh, no, Mr. Gull,” said Perlman earnestly. “Those were only warnings. Their purpose was only to point out to you that it is not advisable to cause us any trouble. You have not as yet done so, of course. If you do—” He smiled.

  “You don’t scare me.”

  “No, Mr. Gull?”

  “Well, I mean, not much anyway. I’ve been lots more scared than this.”