Collected Short Fiction, page 502
Narrowly watching the young man’s boyish, open face, Claypool suddenly realized how far Ironsmith had been trusted. A sick panic took hold of him. He had met the patient, deadly cunning of the Triplanet agents, fanatic with their dark ideology of guile and terror. A sudden wild fear of this smooth-faced youthful man narrowed Clay pool’s eyes, and tightened his voice.
“All right—who is she?”
“I never saw—” Ironsmith glimpsed the drooping weeds, clutched in Clay pool’s hand, and started slightly. “She had those!” he whispered. “I saw her pick them, outside the fence.”
Claypool searched his pink bewildered face, and handed him the gray card. He read it, and shook his sandy head.
He looked up with widening eyes at the tall steel fence and the guards in the corner towers. “I can’t imagine—” He caught his breath, and returned the card. “But I’ll go with you to Dragonrock Light.” Armstrong protested instantly: “That’s for the Security Police. Our job is here—not playing games with Triplanet spies!” A sudden apprehension shook his voice. “Sir, you wouldn’t think of going?” Claypool was a man of science. He prided himself on the clear logic of his mind, and felt only scorn for intuition. It surprised him, now, that he yielded to a reckless impulse.
“I’m going,” he said.
Dodge tried to dissuade him, with obvious common sense.
“If this White had any honest purpose, he could contact you in some ordinary way. I don’t like the look of all this funny business, sir, and your life is too valuable to risk. I say call the police.”
But the project, after all, was a military force, and Claypool held command. He listened carefully to every objection, but still he wanted to know how that little girl had come and gone. If strangers could enter that guarded vault at will, personal risk no longer mattered. He gave his soft-voiced orders, and Armstrong and Dodge began loading a gray-painted official car with an arsenal of portable weapons.
“Stand by, at the launching station,” he instructed the rest of the staff. “Two off and two on. Watch the printers for a Red Alert. If these people are Triplanet spies—we may have to smash their planets first!”
The car was ready, when Claypool remembered a promise to eat lunch with Ruth. Still only lightly touched with time and disappointments, still tall and proud and chaining, Ruth had tried to accept his secret mistress cheerfully, and she tried to fill her empty days.
She had taken over the financial management of the observatory with a cool, brisk efficiency; and he called her at the main office, now, to say that he had no time for lunch. He tried to sound casual, and Project Thunderbolt had parted them a hundred times before, but she must have heard the anxious tension in his voice.
“Darling!” she broke in sharply. “What’s the trouble?”
“Nothing, dear,” he lied uneasily. “Nothing at all.”
And he hurried back to the men in the car.
They stopped for Ironsmith. No trained fighter, the mathematician would probably be useless in a trap—Claypool simply wanted to keep an eye on him. He couldn’t understand Ironsmith’s part in the picture, or forget his sick suspicion that Ironsmith had been trusted too far.
Sergeant Stone saluted respectfully. and Claypool paused to question him again. But years in the service had taught him the protective value of ignorance, and he couldn’t recall anything unusual about the little girl.
Tense at the wheel, Claypool drove down the twisting road to the desert, and westward over the coastal range. Beyond the mountains, they came down through a wall of chill gray fog, to the salt smell and the dull roaring of the sea. Somberly wistful with stray thoughts of the Crater Supernova and his broken honeymoon, Claypool turned south on the coast road.
The round stone tower of the old Dragonrock Light loomed up at last, dim and lonely in the mist. It stood on a drowned ridge of ancient granite, which stabbed like a broken spear into the sea. Years of storms had shattered the old causeway from the mainland, and Claypool parked against a yellow-painted barrier set up to stop unwary motorists from driving off into the sea.
He got stiffly from under the wheel, already shivering from the damp west wind. Ironsmith joined him, opening a fresh packet of chewing gum and passing it amiably. His clean-shaven face had a look of casual bright expectancy, and he didn’t seem to feel the chilly wind.
“Better take pistols, sir,” suggested Armstrong.
But Claypool shook his head. If they needed any weapons, pistols wouldn’t be enough. And he didn’t much want to arm Ironsmith—who seemed far too calm and cheery.
“Give us an hour.” His voice was flat and taut. “Keep your rockets ready. If this is a trap, they’ll try to get away. If you see a boat or plane attempting to leave, tire without warning. And if we’re not back in one hour, exactly I want you to blow that tower oil the rock!”
“Yes, sir.” Armstrong looked at his watch, and began loading bright projectiles into a portable launcher. Dodge was wrestling a tripod into place, in a ditch beyond the road. Claypool gave those two hard and able men a little smile of confidence, and then looked sharply at Ironsmith.
Waiting for him, that idle young man was casually absorbed in the view of ragged black cliffs and surging white water. He folded the stick of gum into his mouth and tossed away the paper wrapper. Annoyed at his easy calm, Claypool curtly told him to come along.
Grinning pleasantly, Ironsmith stepped briskly ahead to lead the way down a wet uncertain path, along the granite spine where the old causeway had been. Before them, the ruined tower stood dark in the fog. The breakers crashed into lifting plumes of foam, on fangs of rock a hundred feet below.
Claypool shivered from the damp wind. He paused to sigh, when he came in view of the narrow beach where he and Ruth had first seen the new star, and then stumbled on breathlessly to overtake the striding younger man. He looked back once but the car was already dim and remote in the mist behind.
They came along that slippery path to a kind of gigantic stair, formed by the remaining stones of the old causeway. The steps were two feet high, leading up to the old round tower on the headland. Ironsmith ran up them, too easily, and Claypool began to regret his impulsive decision.
He began to think of what might happen, if this should be a Triplanet trap. Armstrong and Dodge would be too far behind to help. Ironsmith would be useless—if not an enemy.
A light motor craft could shove off safely behind the tower, with one or two prisoners aboard, and vanish in the fog. Before that hour was ended, the bleak thought struck him, he might be safe aboard some daring Triplanet space raider, waiting under the water off the coast.
“Come on, come on!”
The child’s voice came down through the fog, thin and small as some plaintive bird-call above the whine of the wind and the mutter of the sea, and then he saw her standing at the top of that great, rough stair. She was tiny and alone. The mist-laden wind whipped her thin yellow dress, and her skinny knees were blue and shaking with the cold.
IV.
Claypool climbed on, breathless and uneasy.
“Please be careful!” came the child’s warning treble. “The rocks are slick and wet.” The gusty wind blew her tiny voice away, and then he heard again: “. . . waiting for you. Mr. White says he’s very glad you came.”
Ahead of him, young Ironsmith ran up the spray-drenched rocks to the little girl. He grinned at her, his smooth face pink and shining from the cold spray, and murmured something, and gave her a stick of chewing gum. She thanked him gravely, and Claypool thought they seemed too friendly.
He didn’t like the look of things, but he toiled on upward, tight-lipped and grim. Ironsmith turned back, amused at his labored breath, to help him up the last high step, and he tried to suspend his harsh suspicion.
Dawn Hall greeted him with a timid nod. Trustfully, then, she offered Ironsmith her grimy little paw, and led them toward an open archway in the base of the old tower.
“Oh, Mr. White!” she piped eagerly. “Here they are!”
A huge man came stalking out of that dark doorway. He towered a whole head above Claypool, and he had a kind of vagabond splendor. His flowing hair and magnificent beard were a fiery red. The angular planes of his ruddy face showed a stubborn, massive strength.
“I knew you’d be along.” His soft low voice was deep as the booming of the surf. “We need you both, very badly, and we have news which will disturb you.” He nodded majestically at the dark archway. “Come and meet my associates.” Ironsmith was amiably shaking the big man’s offered hand, commenting like a delighted tourist on the bleak grandeur of the spot. But Claypool stepped back warily—his narrowed eyes looking for a Triplanet agent.
“Hold on, here!” The fabric and the cut of White’s threadbare, silver-colored cloak, he saw, belonged to an unfamiliar fashion, and White’s soft accent was not quite native. “First thing—I want to see your papers, Mr. White.”
“Sorry, Claypool.” The big man shook his shaggy, flaming head. “But we’re all traveling light. I have no papers.”
Cold suspicion caught hold of him again, and Claypool shivered.
“You’ve got to have papers, Mr. White.” His nervous voice came too thin and high. “You know, that. Every citizen is required to carry a passport from the Security Police. If you’re a foreigner—and I think you are—you aren’t allowed off the spaceport without a visa.” White looked at him with intense, expressionless, bright-blue eyes.
“I’m not a citizen,” that soft drawl came. “But I didn’t arrive by ship.”
“Then, how—”
Claypool caught his breath, and stepped backward dazedly. He looked down at the child. She was digging a small bright shell from her pocket. She presented it shyly to Ironsmith, and he accepted with a grave bow of thanks. Claypool thought him much too easy with these suspect individuals.
He blinked at the red-bearded man, demanding:
“How did that child get into Starmont?”
White made a low booming chuckle, and the little girl turned from Ironsmith to smile up at him with a shining adoration on her starved blue face.
“Dawn,” he murmured, “has a remarkable accomplishment.”
“See here, Mr. White!” A bewildered resentment sharpened Claypool’s voice. “I don’t like these queer hints—or your peculiar method of luring us out here. I want to know what you’re up to.”
“You are fenced in with red tape.” White smiled at him gently, drawling that disarming explanation. “Dawn avoided it, to reach you in the only way we could. I assure you that we are not Triplanet agents—and we’ll send you safely back before your men decide to open fire.”
Startled, Claypool peered back toward the mainland. The gray official car beyond the yellow barrier was vague in the fog. He couldn’t see the two men waiting behind it. Certainly he couldn’t see their weapons.
“I call myself a philosopher.”
Beneath, that deep, lazy voice, Claypool could hear a hard undertone of savage vehemence. “But that’s only a tag—useful when the unsuspecting police of some doomed nation want to know my business—but not completely accurate.”
“Just what is your business, Mr. White?”
“I’m a soldier, actually,” murmured the giant. “I’m fighting a ruthless war, against a vicious, secret enemy. I arrived here quite alone, a few days ago, to gather my desperate little force for this final stand.”
White gestured gently at the old stone tower.
“Here’s my fortress,” he boomed softly. “And here is my little army—three men and a brilliant child. We have our weapons, even if you don’t see them. We are training for a bold assault—for only the utmost daring can hope to snatch the victory from our dark and overwhelming enemy. But now we have bad news.”
The huge man paused, staring forebodingly into the mist.
“We’ve met reverses,” he rumbled solemnly. “This brave little force is not enough, and our weapons are inadequate. Now it develops that we can’t hope to win, without the help of one or two first-rank rhodomagnetic engineers.” Claypool shuddered to an icy dismay, for the whole science of rhodomagnetics was still classified top secret. Even Ironsmith, whose computing section had established so much of the theory, had never been informed of its frightful applications. Trying to cover his consternation. he demanded bitterly:
“By what authority—?”
White’s slow smile stopped him.
“My only authority is the fact that I have met this insidious enemy,” the big man said. “Nations and planets have fallen, but I know the danger and I have found a weapon. I stand alone—unless you choose to join me.”
“Don’t talk riddles!” Claypool blinked, annoyed. “Who is this enemy, so-called?”
“You will meet them soon,” White promised softly, “and I think you will call them so. They are ruthless and intelligent and nearly invincible—because they come in a guise of utmost benevolence. I’m going to tell you all about them, Claypool—I’ve a sad and dreadful warning for you. But first I want you to meet the rest of my bold little band.”
He gestured urgently at the black archway. The little girl took Ironsmith’s hand again, and the young mathematician went with her cheerfully into the darkness of the old tower. White stood aside, waiting for Claypool to follow.
Glancing uneasily at the big man, Claypool felt a tremor of awe. White moved with a light-footed, silent, grace. Wide of shoulder and lean of hip, he looked to have a lazy, limitless, feline sort of strength. The set of his massive head and the glint of his hard blue eyes showed an equal power of purpose. A queer philosopher, Claypool thought, and a very singular soldier.
Reluctantly, Claypool entered the archway. The chill wind came after him. Shivering, he felt the closing of a trap. But the bait still drew him—the unaccountable riddle of that small girl, chattering now to Ironsmith about her handful of colored shells. The bearded giant stalked in behind him.
The tower room was round and vaulted, dimly lit from narrow slits of windows. The damp, crumbling stones of the massive walls were black with ancient smoke, scratched with the names of visiting vandals. Claypool blinked against the gloom, and saw three men.
They were squatting around a small open fire in the middle of the stone floor. One stirred a battered pot set on three black stones, and Claypool met a staggering reek of garlic. Ironsmith was sniffing appreciatively, and the three made room for him and the child to sit on driftwood blocks by the fire. The little girl leaned to warm her hands; and Ironsmith, ruddy in the firelight, smiled amiably at the three.
But Claypool had paused in the doorway, incredulous. He saw no weapons, and the three bold soldiers were only ragged vagrants, in need of soap and barbering. He frowned in uneasy annoyance as Ironsmith passed around a packet of chewing gum, but the three seemed innocent of Claypool’s prejudice against that common habit, and they helped themselves.
White presented his soldiers. The gaunt man stirring the pot was named Graystone. He rose stiffly, a gaunt and awkward scarecrow in rusty black. His angular face was stubbled and cadaverous. He had dark sunken eyes and a very red nose. He bowed with a solemn dignity.
“Graystone the Great.” He amplified the introduction, in a hollow, rasping voice. “Formerly a noted stage magician and professional telepath. My act was quite successful until the untutored populace lost its interest in the treasures of the mind. We shall be honored if the two of you decide to join our noble cause.”
Lucky Ford was a small man, bald as Claypool, crouching close behind the fire. He looked cold. His dark face was seamed and wizened, and darker pouches sagged under his narrow shrewd eyes. He squinted up at Claypool, and nodded silently.
“Ford was a professional gambler,” White explained.
Claypool watched, fascinated. The little man had peeled the chewing gum and tossed the wrapper into the fire. Now, still watching the guests, he absently started rolling dice against a stick of drying driftwood. He didn’t seem to notice what he was doing, but the dice always came sevens.
He met Clay pool’s astonishment with a thin-lipped grin.
“Telekinesis.” His voice had a hard nasal twang. “Mr. White taught me the word, but I could always roll the bones.”
The dice danced away from the driftwood, and made another, seven. “The thing is not so profitable as you might expect,” Ford added cynically. “Because every gambler has something of the skill—and calls it luck. When you win, the suckers always think you cheated. And the law ain’t friendly. Mr. White got me out of a county jail.”
Ash Overstreet was a short heavy man, who sat on a rock in stolid immobility. He looked sallow and unhealthy. His thick hair was prematurely white. Massive lenses seemed to magnify his dull, myopic eyes.
“A clairvoyant,” White said. “Extratemporal.”
“We used to call it just a nose for news, when I was in the newspaper game.” Overstreet scarcely moved, and he spoke in a dull, hoarse whisper. “But I got to seeing too much, before Mr. White taught me to control the perception. That’s why I started taking drugs. Mr. White found me locked up in a laughing academy.”
Claypool shook his head uneasily. All such phenomena of the mind belonged to a disreputable borderland of science, where the truth was always obscured by superstition and trickery. Even in cases where the facts seemed above question, it was unfashionable to take them seriously.
Something made him look around for the little girl in yellow—and he saw that her place was empty. He blinked at the fire, shivering uncomfortably. She had been there, he was certain, just a moment before, chattering to Ironsmith. But now she was certainly gone.
“Where—” he gasped blankly.
Ironsmith turned to the narrow doorway, watching with a calm bright interest, and the child came running in again. She handed Ironsmith some small metal object, and sat down again by the fire.
“Please, Mr. Graystone!” She watched the simmering stew, with enormous eager eyes. “I’m awful hungry.”
“You’ve met Dawn Hall,” the big man was drawling softly. “Her great accomplishment is teleportation.”
