The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 17
"If them's your orders, they can come in," he answered surlily. "After you'd gone we took orders from the Martians, and they said to let nobody in after two o'clock."
"Damn!" Alderson snatched a look at his watch. "Keep 'em out, then, until I give you the word."
He looked toward the ship, which now lay gleaming in the sunlight, the canvas of the Big Top and lesser tents forming a heaped pile of grey far beyond it. There seemed to be half a dozen people lying on the grass not far from the Martian vessel.
Rogers came galloping over the turf, a pencil jutting from the perspiration-stained band of his hat. He gesticulated as he ran, came up breathless.
"Say, Jake," he gasped, "this is a hell of a way to treat the Press." He indicated the recumbent forms.
"What's happened?"
"The rumour got around that the space-conquerors were about to skedaddle, and the gentlemen of the Press promptly went frantic. They fought to get into the ship. The Martians popped out with a couple of dinky hand-pumps, doused them like so many mosquitoes. They folded up, went bye-byes, and haven't let out a squeak since."
"Deary me!" remarked Alderson, with no sympathy.
"Hurry up, for goodness' sake," urged McKelpie.
"I'd have got a dose of shoo-fly, too," continued Rogers, as they walked rapidly toward the ship, "only I ducked back to rescue my hat, which the other wolves had knocked off."
"That hat is some use, then?" Alderson commented.
"What d'you think I wear the flaming thing for?" demanded Rogers indignantly.
"A nankerchief," suggested Cy maliciously.
They ceased their wrangling as they found themselves under the Martian vessel's great port. The folding ladder was drawn up, making it impossible for them to reach the circular opening which gaped four feet above their heads. Sarkee stood in the rim, the thick worms of the port door visible behind him. He gazed down upon the aggrieved quartet.
"We are sorry, friends, we must depart."
"Why?" demanded Alderson bluntly.
"The time is still favourable for our return. In a few more days it will not be so. Planetary motions adjust themselves to the convenience of none."
"But the world wishes to welcome you," protested McKelpie. "There is so much for us both to learn. You cannot go now."
"My dear Professor," said Sarkee suavely, "there is nothing whatever to stop us. We have gained our object, learned enough for the present, and can learn more at our leisure."
"You are taking all your books with you?" asked Alderson.
"Certainly! You have received adequate payment, have you not?"
"There's room for more," put in Cy, wistfully.
THE DEPARTURE
SARKEE smiled. He moved aside, made room for Koosan and another. He touched the third person on the shoulder, and said: "This is Mulair, also of Mars."
"Where the devil did he come from?" chorused the quartet.
"He departed from this ship in the early hours of the morning when first we landed. He has since spent his time touring your nearest cities, and making pictorial records of your mode of life."
"Well, I'm a monkey's uncle!" exclaimed Alderson.
"If that doesn't beat everything!" supported Rogers.
"Pray listen to me," pleaded McKelpie. He stopped as Sarkee held up a silencing hand.
"I perceive that we shall have to speak bluntly." He looked enquiringly at his comrades. They nodded. "Our ways are not your ways, neither is our outlook akin to yours. For at least a hundred thousand years we have had no experience of warfare. Our lives are orderly, tranquil, and are not devoted to vain pursuits. From the military viewpoint, we are a weak people, unskilled in the use of weapons."
"What's that got to do with it?" McKelpie pressed.
"We are afraid. We do not like the persistent trend of Earth's history. Intercourse between our worlds means that eventually the secrets of space-travel will be yours to command. Terrestrials will indulge in what is described as peaceful penetration. Our sweet and placid civilisation will be perverted by gin and missionaries. Resentment on our part will bring war."
He looked them straight in the eyes, and repeated: "War! You will make a wilderness—and call it peace."
"Bosh!—you're looking on the darkest side," scoffed the professor.
"I am looking at facts firmly fixed in your past. Earth's history is a long and cruel record of the obliteration of the weak by the strong."
"But we progress," declared Alderson defiantly.
"Progress? What is your progress?" For the first time, the Martian showed ire. "Your progress is simply the development of more spectacular methods of expressing stupidity!"
Koosan and Mulair turned silently, and disappeared inside the ship. Came a loud thump, followed by a rising whine of engines. Sarkee stood on the broad rim of the port, his eyes on the horizon in the direction of Choonattagonni, where industrial haze hung over broad acres that herds of buffalo once had roamed. With a sad gesture, he stepped inside the ship, swung the heavy door half-closed.
"Farewell, my friends. We are seeking a divorce upon grounds of incompatibility."
"Half a minute!" called Alderson.
"Sarkee! Sarkee!" shouted McKelpie, trembling with excess of feeling.
"Farewell!" said the voice inexorably. With a metallic clang the door closed, commenced to revolve slowly along its worm. A card fluttered to the ground. Alderson picked it up, and read: KEEP CLEAR.
The four stepped back hastily. A preliminary warning column of flame and vapour spouted from the ship's rear, scalded the turf, and gushed toward the distant hedge. Crowds in the lane scuttled in all directions.
Came a terrific crash as the stern tubes suddenly belched with maximum power. The I/I-N//-N-/I slid forward like a creeping juggernaut, heaved itself from the turf, plunged skyward with a bellow transcending everything. It became a pencil ... a match-stick ... a pin ... a mere dot. Then it vanished.
The valuable stock of Murdoch's Martians had gone up—beyond reach.
The End
Invisible
Fantastic Story Quarterly – Winter 1951
(aka Shadow Man)
(original in Fantasy #1 – 1938)
HASTILY putting down the green vial "Shorty" Mason flopped upon the settee. His legs twitched, his fingers trembled uncontrollably. The serum from the vial was a veritable hell's brew. He could feel it searing inside, shooting like heated mercury through his tortured veins.
"Highly radioactive," Professor Dainton had said.
It had meant nothing to Mason then but it meant a lot now.
Shorty lay back, sweat beading his forehead, while Pepito, the professor's Mexican hairless dog, made weird noises out in the yard. According to Dainton's estimate the liquid from the vial should take effect in half an hour. It had taken only fifteen minutes to perform its work on the dog.
Agony gave way to a dull listless ache accompanied by sensations of effervescence in the bloodstream. Mason looked at his naked legs, saw no alteration in their appearance. He stretched his nude form full length and pondered while he waited. Shorty Mason was on his uppers but with the means to easy money right at hand—Dainton unwittingly had provided the means.
If Dainton had not got himself run over by a car there would have been no need for Mason to take a chance with the scientist's discovery. But Dainton was dead and it was up to Mason to give the stuff in the vial its first chance to work on a human being. What it did to Pepito it could do to him, he felt certain.
Only the previous Wednesday he and the professor had stood in the backyard and observed Pepito after he had been inoculated with the serum. The dog had scuttled around with its customary joyful genuflexions but neither of them could follow its movements. For the dog had become invisible.
Stealing another look at his legs Mason found them becoming diaphanous, indefinite. He blinked, looked again, smiled grimly as he realized the experiment was going to succeed.
TEN MINUTES later he stood in front of a full-length mirror, stroking a closely shaved head that could not be seen, feeling smooth legs that were not apparent in the glass. Perfect mimicry!
What the chameleon could do in a couple of hours his body could do instantaneously and with complete faithfulness.
His chest reproduced the batik pattern of the wallpaper behind him. His feet and ankles simulated the grained oak skirting board. When he moved the patterns moved in reverse and held their relative positions. The whole thing was incredible, yet true—the truth evident in the empty mirror. He had made himself transparent—invisible to the normal eye.
He had thought Dainton foolish enough when the latter picked him up at the prison gates and gave him a new start as an assistant. He had been certain that Dainton was unbalanced when he found that the scientist's sole object in life was to satisfy his curiosity about chameleons. Looking at the blank mirror he knew that Dainton had been quite mad to devote half a lifetime to the development of something that was of no practical use except to crooks.
The old investigator had talked a lot about his eccentric work. Once he had handed Mason a photograph of a blossom-laden bush.
"Some of those are flowers, others are not," he had said. "They look like blossoms but they aren't."
"What are they then?" Shorty had asked.
"Examples of perfect mimicry," the professor had replied. "They are clusters of plant-sucking Phormnia, insects of the Fulgoridae family. Individually, they look like tiny plume-backed wax-coated porcupines of the insect world and they are found in the Bengal Dooars and the jungles of Assam. Their mimicry is so truthful that even birds, perching on the same branch, can be deceived."
Mason had gaped at the photograph, tried hard to discern which blooms were really blooms and which were insects. It was impossible to tell.
"Countless centuries of evolution moulded that protective ability," the professor had declared, "yet the chameleon can exercise similar powers in a mere couple of hours and adapt the effect to circumstances."
"So what?" had been Mason's query.
"It is a longer jump from a million years to a couple of hours than it is from a couple of hours to a split second." A determined gleam in his eyes, Dainton had added, "What I am seeking is the secret of instantaneous camouflage!"
Then Dainton had plunged into a long involved speech about chameleons employing some glandular substance that could do to the atoms and molecules of the epidermis what adrenalin could do to the heart. He had talked about chameleons speeding up their vibratory rate until they were reflecting those frequencies of the spectrum compatible with their surroundings. He thought the process could be improved, perfected. Mason had dutifully agreed without having the faintest idea of what all the talk was about.
But now he knew that Dainton had found success on the eve of his death. How the formula functioned Mason neither knew nor cared. The effect was what he wanted.
Bending toward the mirror Mason saw the faint outline of himself. It was difficult to discern. He decided that he could see it because he was standing still and his surface was nearer to the glass than was the surface he was imitating.
Taking a hand-mirror he turned around and surveyed his back. It reproduced the batik. All sides of him merged into their respective backgrounds, regardless of the angles from which they were viewed. To all intents and purposes he was an invisible man.
Satisfied, Mason decided that now was the time to collect the John Legattrick Company's payroll and thus turn another scientific achievement to the practical use of crime.
At the front door force of habit drove his hand toward his hat and coat. He resisted the impulse and paused with his fingers on the doorlock. The hall mirror gave him the confidence he required to step into the street stark naked. He set his heavy jaw, opened the door and boldly stepped out.
The street was drab and sullen beneath the hidden sun but the air was warm enough to compensate for Mason's lack of clothes. A fat little man hurried along the sidewalk, his feet pattering on the shadowless concrete.
He headed straight toward Mason, his eyes studying the dull horizon, his mind occupied to the exclusion of all else. Mason dodged him with a thrill of apprehension, rapidly followed by a feeling of intense relief. The fat man trotted on.
FOURTH AVENUE was like a game of tag with a million blindfolded players. Mason had to sneak around standing people, sidestep walkers and jump from the paths of men in a hurry. Several times he narrowly avoided a betraying bump. Once he barely escaped being run over by a taxi.
The clock over the First Federal Bank said two minutes to eleven when Mason reached its doors. He had timed himself beautifully. Within two or three minutes a cashier and an armed guard would arrive to claim the Legattrick weekly payroll of forty thousand dollars.
A glance at the still-clouded sky—then Mason jumped for a compartment in the bank's revolving door, entering close behind an unsuspecting customer. Moving to the farther wall he walked to and fro while he waited. His body was marble against the marble slabs. His constant motion permitted no peculiarity in perspective that might arouse suspicion in the sharp-eyed.
Forty thousand dollars was a nice little sum, he mused. A smart fellow could get around with a wad that size. All he had to do was take it, run like blazes and hide it in a safe spot from which it could be retrieved later. He had marked out such a place a mere three hundred yards away.
Once he'd dumped the money his pursuers—if any—would have nothing visible to pursue. It was the easiest stunt in the whole history of larceny—and the green vial held enough doses for a dozen more similar exploits. Mason ceased his pondering as the bank's door spun at the stroke of eleven.
A man came through the door, a lumpy man with a big leather bag grasped in his right fist. He was followed by a lean lanky fellow whose sharp eyes flickered beneath the visor of his peaked cap and who carried a shoulder holster prominently in view. The first was the John Legattrick Company's cashier—the other his bodyguard.
Both men walked across the floor to the glass holes yawning above the counter. The first man dumped his bag on the mahogany and pushed a paper through a gap in the bulletproof glass. The bodyguard hung around and chewed his fingernails.
Rolls of coinage were shoved across the counter, checked on a slip held by the lumpy man, then placed in his bag. Finally came the paper money in the form of a flat square packet. Legattrick's cashier reached for it—and grasped air.
The bundle clutched in his sweating right hand, Mason raced madly for the door. None could see him but all could see the loot. His imprisoned heart pounded frantically on the bars of his ribs, his ears strained in expectation of shouts and curses. His shoulder muscles cringed in anticipation of impinging tearing bullets.
No warning yells followed him. No missiles slammed into his spine. The silence was worse than an uproar. He guessed, as he reached the door, that his feet had been faster than the onlookers' minds. He was making a successful getaway while they stood dumbfounded by the sight of a packet departing of its own volition.
He raced through the door like a charging bull, left it whirling behind him. Two hundred yards to the corner, another hundred to the junk-filled grating outside the pawnbroker's shop. If no snoopers were hanging around he could cache the money there and wander home at his leisure.
The hullabaloo started when he was within fifty yards of the corner. An excited mob poured out of the bank and saw the payroll bobbing fantastically above the pavement. Howls of "Stop!" roars of "Get him!" were followed by two sharp reports and a whine of lead above Mason's head.
Sprinting for the corner he almost collided with a pedestrian whose eyes bulged at the magically suspended package. Mason swung an unseen but heavy fist to the fellow's jaw, and the man toppled to the ground. Shorty leaped over him and rounded the corner.
Eighty yards—forty—ten—separated him from the grating. He reached it a few seconds before his pursuers got to the comer. There were several people near but none had noticed the package; all were staring towards the junction from which came sounds of thudding feet and angry voices.
Mason bent, rammed the payroll between the side of the grating and the dusty window that ran down into the well. The package crimped, slid down, jammed again, then burst through. It flopped into the months'-old litter at the bottom of the well.
BENEATH the dull but broken sky the hunting pack swirled round the corner a full two hundred strong. They filled the narrow road from wall to wall, their numbers too great to evade.
Grinning to himself Mason raced up the road. A quick burst to the farther corner and he would reach the main avenue and lose the baying hounds for good. The money was safe, he was safe, the world was a wonderful place for guys who knew all the answers. Even Olympic champions didn't get forty thousand dollars for a quarter mile trot. The sun burst through the clouds, beaming in sympathy with his happiness.
Behind, the pack howled. Someone fired a shot and Mason heard the bullet moan across his shoulder. He increased his pace, still grinning. Let the fools shoot at random if it relieved their feelings.
Another shot, nearer this time. A hoarse command to halt. Mason, taking a hasty backward look, saw that the mob was gaining. They had passed the grating now and were less than fifty yards behind him with a uniformed policeman and the Legattrick bodyguard in the lead.
Even as Mason looked the policeman fired again. A hot iron seared the muscles of Mason's left arm and blood crept down to his wrist.
With nothing with which to wipe the blood away, he could only rush panting along, licking his arm as he ran. The corner came nearer—the mob came nearer, too. He was within ten yards of the busy main road when two policemen came running in from the other end. Leaping aside to avoid them, Mason gathered his muscles for the final effort which would carry him into obscurity and leave his pursuers foiled.
The policeman behind yelled something unintelligible, fired and cut a long red flake of brick from the wall at Mason's side.
Both of the policemen in front looked startled, snatched their guns and gestured toward Mason.
