Complete Short Fiction, page 83
He stopped. His brain was reeling; there was such a rush of blood to his head that for an instant he could hardly see.
“But,” he managed at last, “it was reported that he ran away with another woman.”
“They always spread a vicious story of some kind,” the old man said; and Fara was silent, stunned.
The other went on: “We finally put a stop to their murders by killing the three men from the top down, excluding the royal family, who gave the order for the particular execution involved. But we do not again want that kind of bloody murder.
“Nor are we interested in any criticism of our toleration of so much that is evil. It is important to understand that we do not interfere in the main stream of human existence. We right wrongs; we act as a barrier between the people and their more ruthless exploiters. Generally speaking, we help only honest men; that is not to say that we do not give assistance to the less scrupulous, but only to the extent of selling them guns—which is a very great aid indeed, and which is one of the reasons why the government is relying almost exclusively for its power on an economic chicanery.
“In the four thousand years since the brilliant genius, Walter S. DeLany invented the vibration process that made the weapon shops possible, and laid down the first principles of weapon shop political philosophy, we have watched the tide of government swing backward and forward between democracy under a limited monarchy to complete tyranny. And we have discovered one thing:
“People always have the kind of government they want. When they want change, they must change it. As always we shall remain an incorruptible core—and I mean that literally; we have a psychological machine that never lies about a man’s character—I repeat, an incorruptible core of human idealism, devoted to relieving the ills that arise inevitably under any form of government.
“But now—your problem. It is very simple, really. You must fight, as all men have fought since the beginning of time for what they valued, for their just rights. As you know the Automatic Repair people removed all your machinery and tools within an hour of foreclosing on your shop. This material was taken to Ferd, and then shipped to a great warehouse on the coast.
“We recovered it, and with out special means of transportation have now replaced the machines in your shop. You will accordingly go there and—”
Fara listened with a gathering grimness to the instructions, nodded finally, his jaw clamped tight.
“You can count on me,” he said curtly. “I’ve been a stubborn man in my time; and though I’ve changed sides, I haven’t changed that.”
Going outside was like returning from life to—death; from hope to—reality.
Fara walked along the quiet streets of Glay at darkest night. For the first time it struck him that the weapon shop Information Center must be halfway around the world, for it had been day, brilliant day.
The picture vanished as if it had never existed, and he grew aware again, preternaturally aware of the village of Glay asleep all around him. Silent, peaceful—yet ugly, he thought, ugly with the ugliness of evil enthroned.
He thought: The right to buy weapons—and, his heart swelled into his throat; the tears came to his eyes.
He wiped his vision clear with the back of his hand, thought of Creel’s long dead father, and strode on, without shame. Tears were good for an angry man.
The shop was the same, but the hard, metal padlock yielded before the tiny, blazing, supernal power of the revolver. One flick of fire; the metal dissolved—and he was inside.
It was dark, too dark to see, but Fara did not turn on the lights immediately. He fumbled across to the window control, turned the windows to darkness vibration, and then clicked on the lights.
He gulped with awful relief. For the machines, his precious tools that he had seen carted away within hours after the bailiff’s arrival, were here again, ready for use.
Shaky from the pressure of his emotion, Fara called Creel on the telestat. It took a little while for her to appear; and she was in her dressing robe. When she saw who it was she turned a dead white.
“Fara, oh, Fara, I thought—”
He cut her off grimly: “Creel, I’ve been to the weapon shop. I want you to do this: go straight to your mother. I’m here at my shop. I’m going to stay here day and night until it’s settled that I stay . . . I shall go home later for some food and clothing, but I want you to be gone by then. Is that clear?”
Color was coming back into her lean, handsome face. She said: “Don’t you bother coming home, Fara. I’ll do everything necessary. I’ll pack all that’s needed into the carplane, including a folding bed. We’ll sleep in the back room at the shop.”
Morning came palely, but it was ten o’clock before a shadow darkened the open door; and Constable Jor came in. He looked shamefaced.
“I’ve got an order here for your arrest,” he said.
“Tell those who sent you,” Fara replied deliberately, “that I resisted arrest—with a gun.”
The deed followed the words with such rapidity that Jor blinked. He stood like that for a moment, a big, sleepy-looking man, staring at that gleaming, magical revolver; then:
“I have a summons here ordering you to appear at the great court of Ferd this afternoon. Will you accept it?”
“Certainly.”
“Then you will be there?”
“I’ll send my lawyer,” said Fara. “Just drop the summons on the floor there. Tell them I took it.”
The weapon shop man had said: “Do not ridicule by word any legal measure of the Imperial authorities. Simply disobey them.”
Jor went out, and seemed relieved. It took an hour before Mayor Mel Dale came pompously through the door.
“See here, Fara Clark,” he bellowed from the doorway. “You can’t get away with this. This is defiance of the law.”
Fara was silent as his honor waddled farther into the building. It was puzzling, almost amazing, that Mayor Dale would risk his plump, treasured body. Puzzlement ended as the mayor said in a low voice:
“Good work, Fara; I knew you had it in you. There’s dozens of us in Glay behind you, so stick it out. I had to yell at you just now, because there’s a crowd outside. Yell back at me, will you? Let’s have a real name calling. But, first, a word of warning: the manager of the Automatic Repair shop is on his way here with his bodyguards, two of them—”
Shakily, Fara watched the mayor go out. The crisis was at hand. He braced himself, thought: “Let them come, let them—”
It was easier than he had thought—for the men who entered the shop turned pale when they saw the holstered revolver. There was a violence of blustering, nevertheless, that narrowed finally down to:
“Look here,” the man said, “we’ve got your note for twelve thousand one hundred credits. You’re not going to deny you owe that money.”
“I’ll buy it back,” said Fara in a stony voice, “for exactly half, not a cent more.”
The strong-jawed young man looked at him for a long time. “We’ll take it,” he said finally, curtly.
Fara said: “I’ve got the agreement here—”
His first customer was old man Miser Lan Harris. Fara stared at the long-faced oldster with a vast surmise, and his first, amazed comprehension came of how the weapon shop must have settled on Harris’ lot—by arrangement.
It was an hour after Harris had gone that Creel’s mother stamped into the shop. She closed the door.
“Well,” she said, “you did it, eh? Good work. I’m sorry if I seemed rough with you when you came to my place, but we weapon-shop supporters can’t afford to take risks for those who are not on our side.
“But never mind that. I’ve come to take Creel home. The important thing is to return everything to normal as quickly as possible.”
It was over; incredibly it was over. Twice, as he walked home that night, Fara stopped in midstride, and wondered if it had not all been a dream. The air was like wine. The little world of Glay spread before him, green and gracious, a peaceful paradise where time had stood still.
THE END.
THE FLIGHT THAT FAILED
A world—two, in fact—depended on whether that plane made the trip, or was shot down. The plane that started never arrived—but a ship got through—
The white crescent of moon flitted from cloud to cloud, as if it, too, was a great, three-engined plane charging high above the night waters of the northern Atlantic.
Twice, when its shape was partly hidden by a woolpack of a cloud, the illusion of another plane with all lights on was so vivid that Squadron Leader Clair stiffened, fingers instinctively reaching for the radio switch, and words quivering on his lips to warn the silly fool out there that this was war, and that, within half an hour, they would enter the danger zone.
Reflections, Clair muttered the second time, damn those reflections of that bright, glowing moon.
In the half light, he turned to Flying Officer Wilson, but, for a moment, so dazzling was the play of moon rays through the domed glass cockpit that—for that prolonged instant—the navigator’s body seemed to shine, as if a million glittering reflections were concentrated on his long, powerful frame.
Clair shook his head to clear his vision, and said: “Never saw the moon so bright. Puts one in mind of the old folk tales about the power of the moonbeams to conjure shapes, to reflect strange things that do not exist—”
His voice trailed. He squinted at the man beside him. With a tiny start, he saw that it was not Wilson, but one of the passengers. The fellow said in a quiet voice:
“How goes it?”
It was not the words themselves, but a suggestive quality in the tone that, for a moment, brought to Clair a pleasant kaleidoscope of memory: his family home on the lower St. Lawrence, his mother, tall and serene, his calm-eyed father, and his younger sister soon to be married.
He shook the picture out of his brain a little irritated; they were private possessions, not to be shared by any chance interrogator. Besides, here was merely some faint heart requiring reassurance about the flight.
“Everything’s fine!” Clair said; and then in a precise voice, he added: “I’m sorry, sir, passengers are not allowed in the cockpit. I must ask you to—”
For a second time, then, he stopped in the middle of a sentence, and stared.
It was hard to see the man’s face; the moon made a dazzling, reflecting fire where it splashed against his skin and body. But what Clair could make out against that surprising glare was finely constructed, a strangely strong, sensitive countenance with gray eyes that smiled a secret smile, and gazed steadily, expectantly, across at him. A tremendously interesting face it was, only—
It was not the face of any one of the passengers.
With a gasp, Clair ran his mind over the passengers, as he had checked them in hours before. Typical, they had been, two dozen of them. A sprinkling of diplomats, a little troop of military men, and a faded group of civil servants, including one government scientist.
He remembered them all, vividly, and this man had not been—Beside him, the stranger said quietly:
“I wish to report my presence aboard your ship!”
“You . . . WHAT?” said Clair; and his amazement was all the more violent because his mind had already led him to the very verge of the truth.
The man made no reply, simply sat there smiling quietly—and the moon, which had momentarily flashed behind a cloud, jerked into sight again, and rode the dark-blue heavens to the south-southwest.
The light shattered into blazing fragments on the cockpit glass, and cascaded like countless tiny jewels, bathing the stranger in a shield of radiance.
Swiftly, Clair drew his mind into a tight acceptance of the situation that was here. His eyes narrowed; his face took on a stern expression. When he finally spoke, it was the squadron leader, commander of men, who said curtly:
“I have no idea why you have chosen to stow yourself on this ship, nor do I desire any details. It is my duty to place you in irons until we land in England.”
With a flick of his hand, he drew his automatic—as the cockpit door opened, and vaguely silhouetted the bulky figure that was Wilson.
“Queerest thing that ever happened to me, Bill,” the flying officer began. “One second I was sitting beside you, the next I was lying in the baggage compartment. I must have walked in my sleep and . . . oh!”
His eyes glinted steely blue in the moonlight, as he sent one swift glance at the gun in Clair’s fingers, then flashed his gaze to the stranger.
“Trouble?” he said, and snatched his own gun.
It was the stranger who shook his head. “No trouble at the moment,” he said. “But there is going to be in a half an hour. They’ve found out about your cargo, and the attack will be in force.”
He finished softly: “You will need me then.”
For a single, appalled moment, Clair blanched. “You know about our cargo!” he said harshly; and then, dismayed by his own admission, snapped:
“Flying Officer Wilson, you will take this man to the baggage room, search him, and put the irons on him. If he goes quietly, keep your gun in your pocket. No use alarming the passengers unnecessarily.”
“I shall go quietly,” said the stranger.
Almost disconcerted by the man’s acquiescence, Clair watched him being led through the moonlit cabin. The affair seemed unsatisfactory—unfinished.
Ten minutes later, the first distant streaks of dawn tinted the long, dark waters to the east; but the crescent moon was still master of the sky. Clair sat at the controls, his forehead twisted into a worried frown. Only occasionally did he glance at the flying shape of light that, for so many hours now, had flooded the night and the sea with its brilliance.
His brow cleared finally. Because—there was nothing to do but carry on. He turned to Wilson to say something to that effect; the navigator’s voice cut off his words:
“Bill!”
With a start, Clair saw that his friend was gazing with a tensed fixedness into the mirror that showed the long, dimly visible passenger cabin. His own gaze flicked up, strained against the quiet gloom that was out there. But there was nothing.
The moon glowed in through the dozen windows, probing at the passengers with soft fingers of light. Some of the men were sleeping, heads nodding low, their faces shadowed by their posture. Others sat talking; and their countenances, too, made patterns of light and shade, that shifted, as they moved, into a thousand subtly different umbral effects.
It was a restful scene, utterly normal. A puzzled question was forming on Clair’s lips, when once more, urgently, Wilson spoke:
“The third seat from the back—the fellow leaning across the aisle talking to Lord Laidlaw, the British diplomatic agent—it’s him.”
Clair saw. Very slowly, he stood up. He had no real sense of abnormal things. “Take the wheel, sir,” he said. “I’ll go see what’s what.”
Wilson said: “I’ll keep an eye on you.”
As Clair squeezed out into the passenger cabin, the stranger looked up. It seemed impossible that the fellow was able to see him, where there were only shadows, where the moonlight did not penetrate, but he must have. He smiled, said something to his lordship, and then stood up.
Clair’s fingers flashed to his gun, then relaxed, as the man turned his back, and, walking to the rear of the aisle, sank into a double seat that was there.
Once more, he looked up, seemingly straight into Clair’s eyes. He beckoned Clair to the vacant seat beside him. The squadron leader approached hesitantly. There was something very strange here, but his mind wouldn’t quite hurdle over the strangeness.
He loomed over the man, then, frowning, sank down beside him. He said curtly:
“How did you break out of those irons?”
There was no immediate answer; and, for the thousandth time in that long night, Clair grew conscious of the intense brilliance of the moon. Crescent-shaped, it raced high in the heavens to the south-southwest; and it did shining things to the broad, dark belly of the sea. The water seemed as near as the night, and, like ridges of glass, set up a shadowed blaze of reflections.
Reflections that caught his eyes, and made it preternaturally hard for him to look intently at the stranger, as the man said:
“I didn’t think you would believe me if I told you that the irons would be useless against me. Accordingly, I am letting the fact speak for itself.”
Clair made an impatient gesture. He felt a genuine irritation at the other for talking nonsense now, when the zone of danger was so incredibly near.
“Look here,” he snapped, “it is within my authority to put a bullet in you if I consider that your presence will endanger this ship. Who are you?”
“Let me understand you,” the man said, and his voice was curiously troubled. “You see nothing unusual in the fact that I have broken out of the irons?”
“Obviously,” said Clair, “you’re one of those people with very small hands.”
“I see.” The man was silent; then: “This is going to be even more difficult than I imagined. I thought that my escaping from your manacles would release you to a small degree from your normal mental inhibitions.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m afraid,” was the strangely sad reply, “I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand. If I could convince you, I would tell you my identity, but your mind is too enthralled by the practical world in which you have your being. By a trick, by means of a moon-ray time reflector machine, I have established my existence in that world, and now you accept me. But I am afraid I shall have to plan my purpose around that limited fact. I had hoped you would free all my enormous strength but—”
He broke off, then finished: “Your friend searched me, and found no weapons; therefore you should not object to letting me sit here till the destroyer planes come—even under the terrible handicap of your reality, I think I can save you then.”
Clair had listened to the unfolding words with the growing, empty conviction that he was talking to a madman. Now, for a moment, he cursed silently the incredibly bad luck that had forced such a situation upon him in this, his most important flight. He began angrily:
