The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Iv Part 79

It was this hatch or nothing. He thought it was the right one, but couldn't be sure. He could no longer see. His vision had gone completely. The pain was a numb thing now, far away, hardly a part of himself. Maybe Mayhem was absorbing the pain-sensation for him, he thought. Maybe Mayhem took the pain and suffered with it in the shared body so he, Larry, could still think. Maybe-- His blistered fingers were barely able to move within the insulined gloves, Larry fumbled with the hatch.

Ackerman Boone whirled suddenly. He had been intent upon the companionway door and the sounds behind him--which he had heard but not registered as dangerous for several seconds--now made him turn.

The man was peeling off a s.p.a.ce suit. Literally peeling it off in strips from his lobster-red flesh. He blinked at Boone without seeing him. Dazzle-blinded, Boone thought, then realized his own vision was going.

"I'll kill you if you go near that subs.p.a.ce drive!" Boone screamed.

"It's the only chance for all of us and you know it, Boone," the man said quietly. "Don't try to stop me."

Ackerman Boone lifted his N-gun and squinted through the haze of heat and blinding light. He couldn't see! He couldn't see....

Wildly, he fired the N-gun. Wildly, in all directions, spraying the room with it-- Larry dropped blindly forward. Twice he tripped over unconscious men, but climbed to his feet and went on. He could not see Boone, but he could see--vaguely--the muzzle flash of Boone's N-gun. He staggered across the room toward that muzzle-flash and finally embraced it-- And found himself fighting for his life. Boone was crazed now--with the heat and with his own failure. He bit and tore at Larry with strong claw-like fingers and lashed out with his feet. He balled his fists and hammered air like a windmill, arms flailing, striking flesh often enough to batter Larry toward the floor.

Grimly Larry clung to him, pulled himself upright, ducked his head against his chest and struck out with his own fists, feeling nothing, not knowing when they landed and when they did not, hearing nothing but a far off roaring in his ears, a roaring which told him he was losing consciousness and had to act--soon--if he was going to save anyone....

He stood and pounded with his fists.

Pounded--air.

He did not know that Boone had collapsed until his feet trod on the man's inert body and then, quickly, he rushed toward the control board, rushed blindly in its direction, or in the direction he thought it would be, tripped over something, sprawled on the hot, blistering floor, got himself up somehow, crawled forward, pulled himself upright....

There was no sensation in his fingers. He did not know if he had actually reached the control board but abruptly he realized that he had not felt Mayhem's presence in his mind for several minutes. Was Mayhem conserving his energy for a final try, letting Larry absorb the punishment now so he-- Yes, Larry remembered thinking vaguely. It had to be that. For Mayhem knew how to work the controls, and he did not. Now his mind receded into a fog of semi-consciousness, but he was aware that his blistered fingers were fairly flying across the control board, aware then of an inward sigh--whether of relief or triumph, he was never to know--then aware, abruptly and terribly, of a wrenching pain which seemed to strip his skin from his flesh, his flesh from his bones, the marrow from....

"Can you see?" the doctor asked.

"Yes," Larry said as the bandages were removed from his eyes. Three people were in the room with the doctor--Admiral Stapleton, the President--and Sheila. Somehow, Sheila was most important.

"We are now in subs.p.a.ce, thanks to you," the Admiral said. "We all have minor injuries as a result of the transfer, but there were only two fatalities, I'm happy to say. And naturally, the s.h.i.+p is now out of danger."

"What gets me, Grange," the President said, "is how you managed to work those controls. What the devil do you know about sub-s.p.a.ce, my boy?"

"The two fatalities," the Admiral said, "were Ackerman Boone and the man he had killed." Then the Admiral grinned. "Can't you see, Mr. President, that he's not paying any attention to us? I think, at the moment, the hero of the hour only has eyes for Miss Kelly here."

"Begging your pardons, sirs, yes," Larry said happily.

Nodding and smiling, the President of the Galactic Federation and Admiral Stapleton left the dispensary room--with the doctor.

"Well, hero," Sheila said, and smiled.

Larry realized--quite suddenly--that, inside himself, he was alone. Mayhem had done his job--and vanished utterly.

"You know," Sheila said, "it's as if you--well, I hope this doesn't get you sore at me--as if you grew up overnight."

Before he kissed her Larry said: "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'll tell you about it someday. But you'd never believe me."

THE END.

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PIPE OF PEACE.

By James McKimmey, Jr.

There's a song that says "it's later than you think" and it is perhaps lamentable that someone didn't sing it for Henry that beautiful morning....

The farmer refused to work. His wife, a short thin woman with worried eyes, watched him while he sat before the kitchen table. He was thin, too, like his wife, but tall and tough-skinned. His face, with its leather look was immobile.

"Why?" asked his wife.

"Good reasons," the farmer said.

He poured yellow cream into a cup of coffee. He let the cup sit on the table.

"Henry?" said the woman, as though she were really speaking to someone else. She walked around the kitchen in quick aimless bird steps.

"My right," said Henry. He lifted his cup, finally, tasting.

"We'll starve."

"Not likely. Not until everybody else does, anyway."

The woman circled the room and came back to her husband. Her eyes winked, and there were lines between them. Her fingers clutched the edge of the table. "You've gone crazy," she said, as though it were a half-question, a half-p.r.o.nouncement.

The farmer was relaxing now, leaning back in his chair. "Might have. Might have, at that."

"Why?" she asked.

The farmer turned his coffee cup carefully. "Thing to do, is all. Each man in his own turn. This is my turn."

The woman watched him for a long time, then she sat down on a chair beside the table. The quick, nervous movement was gone out of her, and she sat like a frozen sparrow.

The farmer looked up and grinned. "Feels good. Just to sit here. Does well for the back and the arms. Been working too hard."

"Henry," the woman said.

The farmer tasted his coffee again. He put the cup on the table and leaned back, tapping his browned fingers. "Just in time, I'd say. Waited any longer, it wouldn't have done any good. Another few years, a farmer wouldn't mean anything."

The woman watched him, her eyes frightened as though he might suddenly gnash his teeth or leap in the air.

"Pretty soon," the farmer said, "they'd have it all mechanical. Couldn't stop anything. Now," he said, smiling at his wife, "we can stop it all."

"Henry, go out to the fields," the woman said.

"No," Henry said, standing, stretching his thin, hard body. "I won't go out to the fields. Neither will August Brown nor Clyde Briggs nor Alfred Swanson. None of us. Anywhere. Not until the food's been stopped long enough for people to wake up."

The farmer looked out of the kitchen window, beyond his tractor and the cow barn and the windmill. He looked at rows of strong corn, s.h.i.+vering their soft silk in the morning breeze. "We'll stop the corn. Stop the wheat. Stop the cattle, the hogs, the chickens."

"You can't."

"I can't. But all of us together can."

"No sense," the woman said, wagging her head. "No sense."

"It's sense, all right. Best sense we've ever had. Can't use an army with no stomach. Old as the earth. Can't fight without food. Takes food to run a war."

"You'll starve the two of us, that's all you'll do. n.o.body else will stop work."

The farmer turned to his wife. "Yes, they will. Everywhere a farmer is the same. He works the land. He reads the papers. He votes. He listens to the radio. He watches the television. Mostly, he works the land. Alone, with his own thoughts and ideas. He isn't any different in Maine than he is in Oregon. We've all stopped work. Now. This morning."

"How about those across the ocean? Are they stopping, too? They're not going to feed up their soldiers? To kill us if we don't starve first? To--"

"They stopped, too. A farmer is a farmer. Like a leaf on a tree. No matter on what tree in what country on whose land. A leaf is a leaf. A farmer's the same. A farmer is a farmer."

"It won't work," the woman said dully.

"Yes, it will."

"They'll make you work."

"How? It's our own property."

"They'll take it away from you."

"Who'll work it then?"

The woman rocked in her chair, her mouth quivering. "They'll get somebody."

The farmer shook his head. "Too many people doing other things, like making sh.e.l.ls and guns, like sitting in fox-holes or flying planes."

The woman sat rocking, her hands together in her lap. "It won't work," she repeated.

"It'll work," said the farmer. "Right now, it'll work. Yes, we've got milkers and shuckers, and we've got hatchers for the chickens. We've got tractors and combines and thres.h.i.+ng machines. They're all mechanical, all right. But we don't have mechanical farmers, yet. The pumps, the tractors, the milkers don't work by themselves. In time, maybe. Not now. We're still ahead of them on that. It'll work."

"Go out to the fields, Henry," his wife said, her voice like the sound of a worn phonograph record.

"No," the farmer said, taking a pipe from his overalls. "I think instead, I'll just sit in the sun and watch the corn. Watch the birds on top of the barn, maybe. I'll fill my pipe and sit there and smoke and watch. And when I get sleepy, I'll sleep. After a while I might go see August Brown or Clyde Briggs or maybe Alfred Swanson. We'll sit and talk, about pleasant things, peaceful things. We'll wait."

The farmer put the pipe between his teeth and walked to the door. He put on his straw hat, b.u.t.toned the sleeves of his blue s.h.i.+rt and stepped outside.

His wife sat at the table, staring at nothing in the room.

The farmer walked across the barnyard, listening to the sound of the chickens and the sound of the breeze going through the corn. Near the barn, he sat upon an old tree stump and filled his pipe with tobacco. He lit the pipe, cupping his hands, and sat there, smoking, the smoke spiraling up into the bright warm air.

He took his pipe from his teeth and looked at it. "Pipe of peace," he said, laughing inside himself.

The breeze was soft and the sun warm on his back. He sat there, smoking, feeling the quiet of the morning, the peace of the great sky above.

He had no time to stand or to take his pipe from his mouth, when the two men crossed the yard and lifted him up by the arms. He dropped the pipe, while he was dragged past the house, to the road beyond. He had no time to yell or scream, before his hat was swept from his head, the overalls and the blue s.h.i.+rt stripped from his body.

He had not even thought about what it was that had happened, before he was thrust inside a white truck, with strong steel sides and with grilled windows like those of a cell.

He was just sitting there, in the truck, without his clothes, speeding away with August Brown and Clyde Briggs and Alfred Swanson.

Outside, the sun was warm upon the earth. Chickens clucked in their pens, while birds fluttered about the top of the barn. A pig squealed. The corn rustled. And beside the farmhouse, on the ground, lay a pipe, its tobacco spilled, the last of its smoke swirling out of its bowl into the air, disappearing.

The woman sat in the kitchen of the farmhouse and turned her head when the door opened. She widened her eyes and caught at her throat with her hand.

The sun through the doorway shone down on metallic hands and a metallic face, gleaming on the surface which the straw hat and the overalls and the blue s.h.i.+rt didn't hide. The door snapped shut, and there was a sound of heavy metal footsteps against the kitchen floor.

The woman pressed against her chair. "Who are you?" she screamed.

"Henry," said the mechanical thing.

THE END.

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