* * * * *
The grotesque arm of one of the figures in the milky globe was moving out slowly, loafing along, aimed at the head of the other. Slowly the other twisted his body aside, but too slowly. The fist finally touched the head, still moving slowly forward, the body following as slowly. The head of the creature twisted, bent backward, and the body toppled back in a leisurely manner.
"What does White say?... Can't you get a statement of some sort from him? Won't he talk at all? A hell of a fine reporter you are--can't even get a man to open his mouth. Ask him about Henry Woods. Get a human-interest slant on Woods walking into the light. Ask him how long this is going to last. Damn it all, man, do something, and don't bother me again until you have a real story--yes, I said a real story--are you hard of hearing? For God's sake, do something!"
The editor slammed the receiver on the hook.
"Brooks," he snapped, "get the War Department at Washington. Ask them if they're going to back up White. Go on, go on. Get busy.... How will you get them? I don't know. Just get them, that's all. Get them!"
Typewriters gibbered like chuckling morons through the roaring tumult of the editorial rooms. Copy boys rushed about, white sheets clutched in their grimy hands. Telephones jangled and strident voices blared through the haze that arose from the pipes and cigarettes of perspiring writers who feverishly transferred to paper the startling events that were rocking the world.
The editor, his necktie off, his shirt open, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, drummed his fingers on the desk. It had been a hectic twenty-four hours and he had stayed at the desk every minute of the time. He was dead tired. When the moment of relaxation came, when the tension snapped, he knew he would fall into an exhausted stupor of sleep, but the excitement was keeping him on his feet. There was work to do. There was news such as the world had never known before. Each new story meant a new front make-up, another extra. Even now the presses were thundering, even now papers with the ink hardly dry upon them were being snatched by the avid public from the hands of screaming newsboys.
* * * * *
A man raced toward the city desk, waving a sheet of paper in his hand. Sensing something unusual the others in the room crowded about as he laid the sheet before the editor.
"Just came in," the man gasped.
The paper was a wire dispatch. It read:
"Rome--The Black Horror is in full retreat. Although still apparently immune to the weapons being used against it, it is lifting the siege of this city. The cause is unknown."
The editor ran his eye down the sheet. There was another dateline:
"Madrid--The Black Horror, which has enclosed this city in a ring of dark terror for the last two days, is fleeing, rapidly disappearing...."
The editor pressed a button. There was an answering buzz.
"Composing room," he shouted, "get ready for a new front! Yes, another extra. This will knock their eyes out!"
A telephone jangled furiously. The editor seized it.
"Yes. What was that?... White says he must have help. I see. Woods and the others are weakening. Being badly beaten, eh?... More men needed to go out to the other plane. Wants reinforcements. Yes. I see. Well, tell him that he'll have them. If he can wait half an hour we'll have them walking by thousands into that light. I'll be damned if we won't! Just tell White to hang on! We'll have the whole nation coming to the rescue!"
He jabbed up the receiver.
"Richards," he said, "write a streamer, 'Help Needed,' 'Reinforcements Called'--something of that sort, you know. Make it scream. Tell the foreman to dig out the biggest type he has. A foot high. If we ever needed big type, we need it now!"
He turned to the telephone.
"Operator," he said, "get me the Secretary of War at Washington. The secretary in person, you understand. No one else will do."
He turned again to the reporters who stood about the desk.
"In two hours," he explained, banging the desk top for emphasis, "we'll have the United States Army marching into that light Woods walked into!"
* * * * *
The bloody sun was touching the edge of the weird world, seeming to hesitate before taking the final plunge behind the towering black crags that hung above the ink-pot shadows at their base. The purple sky had darkened until it was almost the color of soft, black velvet. Great stars were blazing out.
Ouglat loomed large in the gathering twilight, a horrible misshapen ogre of an outer world. He had grown taller, broader, greater. Mal Shaff's head now was on a level with the other's chest; his huge arms seemed toylike in comparison with those of Ouglat, his legs mere pipestems.
Time and time again he had barely escaped as the clutching hands of Ouglat reached out to grasp him. Once within those hands he would be torn apart.
The battle had become a game of hide and seek, a game of cat and mouse, with Mal Shaff the mouse.
Slowly the sun sank and the world became darker. His brain working feverishly, Mal Shaff waited for the darkness. Adroitly he worked the battle nearer and nearer to the Stygian darkness that lay at the foot of the mighty crags. In the darkness he might escape. He could no longer continue this unequal fight. Only escape was left.
The sun was gone now. Blackness was dropping swiftly over the land, like a great blanket, creating the illusion of the glowering sky descending to the ground. Only a few feet away lay the total blackness under the cliffs.
Like a flash Mal Shaff darted into the blackness, was completely swallowed in it. Roaring, Ouglat followed.
His shoulders almost touching the great rock wall that shot straight up hundreds of feet above him, Mal Shaff ran swiftly, fear lending speed to his shivering legs. Behind him he heard the bellowing of his enemy. Ouglat was searching for him, a hopeless search in that total darkness. He would never find him. Mal Shaff felt sure.
Fagged and out of breath, he dropped panting at the foot of the wall. Blood pounded through his head and his strength seemed to be gone. He lay still and stared out into the less dark moor that stretched before him.
For some time he lay there, resting. Aimlessly he looked out over the moor, and then he suddenly noted, some distance to his right, a hill rising from the moor. The hill was vaguely familiar. He remembered it dimly as being of great importance.
A sudden inexplicable restlessness filled him. Far behind him he heard the enraged bellowing of Ouglat, but that he scarcely noticed. So long as darkness lay upon the land he knew he was safe from his enemy.
The hill had made him restless. He must reach the top. He could think of no logical reason for doing so. Obviously he was safer here at the base of the cliff, but a voice seemed to be calling, a friendly voice from the hilltop.
* * * * *
He rose on aching legs and forged ahead. Every fiber of his being cried out in protest, but resolutely he placed one foot ahead of the other, walking mechanically.
Opposite the hill he disregarded the strange call that pulsed down upon him, long enough to rest his tortured body. He must build up his strength for the climb.
He realized that danger lay ahead. Once he quitted the blackness of the cliff's base, Ouglat, even in the darkness that lay over the land, might see him. That would be disastrous. Once over the top of the hill he would be safe.
Suddenly the landscape was bathed in light, a soft green radiance. One moment it had been pitch dark, the next it was light, as if a giant search-light had been snapped on.
In terror, Mal Shaff looked for the source of the light. Just above the horizon hung a great green orb, which moved up the ladder of the sky even as he watched.
A moon! A huge green satellite hurtling swiftly around this cursed world!
A great, overwhelming fear sat upon Mal Shaff and with a high, shrill scream of anger he raced forward, forgetful of aching body and outraged lungs.
His scream was answered from far off, and out of the shadows of the cliffs toward the far end of the moor a black figure hurled itself. Ouglat was on the trail!
M
al Shaff tore madly up the slope, topped the crest, and threw himself flat on the ground, almost exhausted.
* * * * *
A queer feeling stole over him, a queer feeling of well-being. New strength was flowing into him, the old thrill of battle was pounding through his blood once more.
Not only were queer things happening to his body, but also to his brain. The world about him looked queer, held a sort of an intangible mystery he could not understand. A half question formed in the back of his brain. Who and what was he? Queer thoughts to be thinking! He was Mal Shaff, but had he always been Mal Shaff?
He remembered a brittle column of light, creatures with bodies unlike his body, walking into it. He had been one of those creatures. There was something about dimensions, about different planes, a plan for one plane to attack another!
He scrambled to his bowed legs and beat his great chest with mighty, long-nailed hands. He flung back his head and from his throat broke a sound to curdle the blood of even the bravest.
On the moor below Ouglat heard the cry and answered it with one equally ferocious.
Mal Shaff took a step forward, then stopped stock-still. Through his brain went a sharp command to return to the spot where he had stood, to wait there until attacked. He stepped back, shifting his feet impatiently.
He was growing larger; every second fresh vitality was pouring into him. Before his eyes danced a red curtain of hate and his tongue roared forth a series of insulting challenges to the figure that was even now approaching the foot of the hill.
As Ouglat climbed the hill, the night became an insane bedlam. The challenging roars beat like surf against the black cliffs.
Ouglat's lips were flecked with foam, his red eyes were mere slits, his mouth worked convulsively.
They were only a few feet apart when Ouglat charged.
* * * * *
Mal Shaff was ready for him. There was no longer any difference in their size and they met like the two forward walls of contending football teams.
Mal Shaff felt the soft throat of the other under his fingers and his grip tightened. Maddened, Ouglat shot terrific blow after terrific blow into Mal Shaff's body.
Try as he might, however, he could not shake the other's grip.
It was silent now. The night seemed brooding, watching the struggle on the hilltop.
Larger and larger grew Mal Shaff, until he overtopped Ouglat like a giant.
Then he loosened his grip and, as Ouglat tried to scuttle away, reached down to grasp him by the nape of his neck.
High above his head he lifted his enemy and dashed him to the ground. With a leap he was on the prostrate figure, trampling it apart, smashing it into the ground. With wild cries he stamped the earth, treading out the last of Ouglat, the Black Horror.
When no trace of the thing that had been Ouglat remained, he moved away and viewed the trampled ground.
Then, for the first time he noticed that the crest of the hill was crowded with other monstrous figures. He glared at them, half in surprise, half in anger. He had not noticed their silent approach.
"It is Mal Shaff!" cried one.
"Yes, I am Mal Shaff. What do you want?"
"But, Mal Shaff, Ouglat destroyed you once long ago!"
"And I, just now," replied Mal Shaff, "have destroyed Ouglat."
The figures were silent, shifting uneasily. Then one stepped forward.
"Mal Shaff," it said, "we thought you were dead. Apparently it was not so. We welcome you to our land again. Ouglat, who once tried to kill you and apparently failed, you have killed, which is right and proper. Come and live with us again in peace. We welcome you."
Mal Shaff bowed.
Gone was all thought of the third dimension. Through Mal Shaff's mind raced strange, haunting memories of a red desert scattered with scarlet boulders, of silver cliffs of gleaming metallic stone, of huge seas battering against towering headlands. There were other things, too. Great palaces of shining jewels, and weird nights of inhuman joy where hellish flames lit deep, black caverns.
He bowed again.
"I thank you, Bathazar," he said.
Without a backward look he shambled down the hill with the others.
* * * * *
"Yes?" said the editor. "What's that you say? Doctor White is dead! A suicide! Yeah, I understand. Worry, hey! Here, Roberts, take this story."
He handed over the phone.
"When you write it," he said, "play up the fact he was worried about not being able to bring the men back to the third dimension. Give him plenty of praise for ending the Black Horror. It's a big story."
"Sure," said Roberts, then spoke into the phone: "All right, Bill, shoot the works."
* * *
CONTENTS
PROJECT MASTODON
By Clifford D. Simak
The chief of protocol said, "Mr. Hudson of--ah--Mastodonia."
The secretary of state held out his hand. "I'm glad to see you, Mr. Hudson. I understand you've been here several times."
"That's right," said Hudson. "I had a hard time making your people believe I was in earnest."
"And are you, Mr. Hudson?"
"Believe me, sir, I would not try to fool you."
"And this Mastodonia," said the secretary, reaching down to tap the document upon the desk. "You will pardon me, but I've never heard of it."
"It's a new nation," Hudson explained, "but quite legitimate. We have a constitution, a democratic form of government, duly elected officials, and a code of laws. We are a free, peace-loving people and we are possessed of a vast amount of natural resources and--"
"Please tell me, sir," interrupted the secretary, "just where are you located?"
"Technically, you are our nearest neighbors."
"But that is ridiculous!" exploded Protocol.
"Not at all," insisted Hudson. "If you will give me a moment, Mr. Secretary, I have considerable evidence."
He brushed the fingers of Protocol off his sleeve and stepped forward to the desk, laying down the portfolio he carried.
"Go ahead, Mr. Hudson," said the secretary. "Why don't we all sit down and be comfortable while we talk this over?"
"You have my credentials, I see. Now here is a propos--"
"I have a document signed by a certain Wesley Adams."
"He's our first president," said Hudson. "Our George Washington, you might say."
"What is the purpose of this visit, Mr. Hudson?"
"We'd like to establish diplomatic relations. We think it would be to our mutual benefit. After all, we are a sister republic in perfect sympathy with your policies and aims. We'd like to negotiate trade agreements and we'd be grateful for some Point Four aid."
The secretary smiled. "Naturally. Who doesn't?"
"We're prepared to offer something in return," Hudson told him stiffly. "For one thing, we could offer sanctuary."
"Sanctuary!"
"I understand," said Hudson, "that in the present state of international tensions, a foolproof sanctuary is not something to be sneezed at."
The secretary turned stone cold. "I'm an extremely busy man."
Protocol took Hudson firmly by the arm. "Out you go."
General Leslie Bowers put in a call to State and got the secretary.
"I don't like to bother you, Herb," he said, "but there's something I want to check. Maybe you can help me."
"Glad to help you if I can."
"There's a fellow hanging around out here at the Pentagon, trying to get in to see me. Said I was the only one he'd talk to, but you know how it is."
"I certainly do."
"Name of Huston or Hudson or something like that."
"He was here just an hour or so ago," said the secretary. "Crackpot sort of fellow."
"He's gone now?"
"Yes. I don't think he'll be back."
"Did he say where you could reach him?"
"No, I don't believe he did."
"How did he strike you? I mean what kind of impression did you
get of him?"
"I told you. A crackpot."
"I suppose he is. He said something to one of the colonels that got me worrying. Can't pass up anything, you know--not in the Dirty Tricks Department. Even if it's crackpot, these days you got to have a look at it."
"He offered sanctuary," said the secretary indignantly. "Can you imagine that!"
"He's been making the rounds, I guess," the general said. "He was over at AEC. Told them some sort of tale about knowing where there were vast uranium deposits. It was the AEC that told me he was heading your way."
"We get them all the time. Usually we can ease them out. This Hudson was just a little better than the most of them. He got in to see me."
"He told the colonel something about having a plan that would enable us to establish secret bases anywhere we wished, even in the territory of potential enemies. I know it sounds crazy...."
"Forget it, Les."
"You're probably right," said the general, "but this idea sends me. Can you imagine the look on their Iron Curtain faces?"
The scared little government clerk, darting conspiratorial glances all about him, brought the portfolio to the FBI.
"I found it in a bar down the street," he told the man who took him in tow. "Been going there for years. And I found this portfolio laying in the booth. I saw the man who must have left it there and I tried to find him later, but I couldn't."
"How do you know he left it there?"
"I just figured he did. He left the booth just as I came in and it was sort of dark in there and it took a minute to see this thing laying there. You see, I always take the same booth every day and Joe sees me come in and he brings me the usual and--"
"You saw this man leave the booth you usually sit in?"
"That's right."
"Then you saw the portfolio."
"Yes, sir."
"You tried to find the man, thinking it must have been his."
"That's exactly what I did."
"But by the time you went to look for him, he had disappeared."
"That's the way it was."
"Now tell me--why did you bring it here? Why didn't you turn it in to the management so the man could come back and claim it?"
The Best of Clifford D. Simak Page 19
