The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “No?” said Bill. “Take a look at our ocean view.”

  The room was partly natural cavern formations, partly artificial walls. But across to the right there was a large glass window. Choppy little waves of gray-green water sloshed against the lower half of it. No skies or horizons were visible. This patch of sea was imprisoned within what appeared to be an endless adjoining cavern. Only the plate glass kept it from pouring into Bill’s and Windy’s rocky cell.

  A horse-fish was padding gently along the surface of the water—Yellow Z. He came up to the window, pressed his nose against it.

  Windy Muff took one look and burst into profanity. He’d never eat or sleep, he declared, if those blinkety-blank critters kept staring at him.

  “As long as you haven’t any bed or food,” Bill chuckled, “you’re not losing anything.” He rose, sauntered over to the window, gazed out at Yellow-Z. “The fellow’s as friendly as a pet dog.”

  “Yeah?” Windy snorted. “Well, get him to lead us outa here . . . Ain’t he the same one that sliced you down the back?”

  “Right . . . And then protected me from another attack. I can’t understand it.”

  “Sounds screwy, but if you say—Bill! Look at these foot tracks!”

  Windy pointed to a confusion of marks in the sand. Bill bent over them. They were human foot tracks. The chamber floor was full of them.

  “So we aren’t the first to drop into this,” Bill muttered. “They’re old tracks, though. Maybe years old.”

  “Maybe we’ll be old before we get out,” Windy rejoined.

  Nothing more was said for some time. Bill explored the cavern chamber. His thoughts were in a whirl. Undoubtedly all these mysteries had their meanings. Here in one corner, for instance, was one of those miniature street lights—a pink globe mounted on a pair of ebony legs. He had noticed several such lights on his way to this jail. The underground city he had glimpsed had been dotted with them.

  Pink street lights that stood not more than four feet high . . . A window opening into another vast cavern halffilled with sea . . . Human foot tracks all over this prison floor . . . And somewhere out in the deep waters Beatrice Riley encased in a metal cylinder with an electrical apparatus clamped to her head. . . And all through the caverns and out in the sea, myriads of horse-fish—strange hybrid creatures that worked like men—and listened to men’s talk—but never spoke.

  What could it all mean?

  Bill paced until he was dripping with perspiration. His confusions only deepened. Windy Muff had fallen asleep by this time, and somehow that seemed the sensible thing to do.

  In one of the natural rock alcoves Bill found a spring of fresh water. He drank his fill, bathed himself. He spliced the scanty shreds of diving suit that clung to his body, managed to convert the torn strips into fairly comfortable trunks. The air was so warm that he felt no need for any more clothing.

  Then he nestled down in a bed of fine sand and treated himself to a sleep.

  A clank of the chamber door awakened him. He sprang up with a start. His dreams had been beset by dangers, and this sudden intrusion found him alert for an attack.

  “Windy, they’re coming in! Wake—” But Windy was no longer sleeping. Bill’s glance swept the room to catch the sailor calmly kneeling beside the ebony legs of the pink light globe. He turned to Bill with a confident wink.

  “They’re bringing us dinner,” said Windy. “Needn’t get excited.”

  “Dinner? How do you know?”

  The circular door had opened and now four horse-fish marched in, each bearing a corner of a tray of food. They set the tray down on a flat shelf of rock, turned and went out. In a moment the circular door clanked closed.

  Windy Muff sauntered over to the tray, picked up a nicely browned fish and began to eat.

  Bill simply glared. “Well, I’ll be damned. Are you in cahoots with this gang of green bellied monsters too?. . . or have they hypnotized you? . . . Don’t eat it, you fool. You’ll be poisoned.”

  Windy Muff grinned and went on munching. “Tastes good to me. Better try some.”

  Bill looked across to the window. Yellow Z was still loafing out there in the water, his red ringed eyes keeping watch.

  “You said you wouldn’t eat as long as the critters watched you,” Bill mocked. “Look at Yellow Z. He’s got the same stupid grin on his face that you’ve got.

  “Maybe he’s had a good dinner too,” said Windy. “Join me?”

  “No,” said Bill. “I’m too smart to take poison.”

  Then he caught a second whiff of the delicious fried fish. He edged closer, nibbled a sample. It was irresistible. He sat down beside the tray and ate like a horse.

  Windy leaned back against a rock, locking his freckled fingers back of his head for a pillow.

  “I’ve discovered something, Bill. Kinda made me feel different toward these beasts.”

  “Well?”

  “Remember what Maribeau said about those foot tracks? They looked like overgrown Surinam toads—”

  “But this was the wrong ocean for animals from Dutch Guiana—”

  “Remember he mentioned that those toads don’t have any tongues? . . . Well, maybe these critters don’t have much in common with the specimens he was talking about, except for their webbed feet and their spiny backs. But I’ve got it figured out that they also don’t have tongues.”

  “Because they don’t talk? said Bill skeptically.

  “Because they do talk in a different way.”

  Windy rose and walked over to the pink light globe. He knelt beside it, thrust his head between the two ebony posts so that one of his ears rested against each.

  “Come try this, Bill, if you ain’t afraid of gettin’ electrocuted.”

  Windy drew back to watch Bill with glowing eyes.

  The ebony posts were cool against Bill’s cheekbones as he wedged his head between them. Whatever the material was, it had enough elasticity to fit snugly against his ears. He listened. At first he heard nothing. Then, a weird flow of communication . . . thought-waves.

  “Have you finished dinner yet? . . . We’ll come for the tray as soon as you’re through . . . You’re prisoners . . . Don’t try to get out . . . We can be severe if necessary . . .”

  The challenge sent a flare of hot temper through Bill’s swimming brain.

  “. . . No use to fly off the handle . . . That won’t get you anywhere . . . You wouldn’t be the first upper-world man we’ve ripped to shreds . . . We turn loose on upper-world men as quick as we do on spiny-men . . . So my words have you guessing, have they? . . . You haven’t heard of spiny-men? . . . Take a look across the river to the other city . . . But don’t get too many ideas about exploring around . . . You’re staying right here as long as we need you . . .”

  Bill jerked his head out of the weird telephone. He was breathing hard, his fingers were quivering.

  “Didja hear voices?” Windy asked eagerly.

  Bill nodded uncertainly. “I got a message, all right—a long, rambling one. But I didn’t hear a thing.”

  “Different, ain’t it?” Windy’s grin froze in an expression of puzzlement. “The first time I listened in I wanted to tear those poles out by the roots and beat myself over the head. X thought I was goin’ nuts, hearin’ things that couldn’t be heard. Then I thought how godawful hungry I was, and they picked it up.”

  “How’d you happen to try in the first place?”

  “Saw some horse-fish doin’ it. Back along our inside wall I found a little barred window that gives a squint of the city. Or rather, both cities—one in each side of the cavern.”

  “My message,” said Bill, “mentioned the other city. And there was a lot of talk about spiny-men. What the devil are they?”

  “Never heard of them,” Windy said in denial.

  “The uncanny thing, though,” said Bill, eyeing the pink light globe suspiciously, “was the way that voice—only it wasn’t a voice—kept answering me. The instant I thought a question, it
answered.”

  Windy waved his hands helplessly. “Don’t be askin’ me how.”

  Bill began pacing again.

  Windy chuckled mirthlessly. “Now I know what made the foottracks all over this place. Whoever was penned up in this joint last went nuts tryin’ to dope out that noiseless phone.”

  “Listen, Windy,” said Bill sharply. “You watched me while I was getting that message a moment ago. Did I ever talk any—out loud, I mean?”

  “Not a word,” said Windy.

  “Then how the devil could that horse-fish chop me off with an answer every time I thought a question?”

  “And how could he talk back to you without a tongue?” Windy shrugged. “Didn’t I tell you they’ve got a different way of talkin’ ? This is it. Come back to the barred window and you can see ’em headin’ into phone booths all over town.”

  But at that instant a flash of green outside the big glass window stopped bill in his tracks. Yellow Z had suddenly fled the waters.

  “Musta forgot an appointment,” Windy cracked.

  Then came wild splashing over the water’s surface. It was a chase. A bronze body swam past so close that his elbow bumped the plate glass. Bill caught sight of the coarse-featured masculine face. The man shot on, swimming fast.

  Close on his heels came five horse-fish. Their little red-lined faces were blazing with fury. Their red slits of gills were working hard. Their steely spines bristled with readiness to slice flesh and bones.

  Water splashed to the top of the window, blurred Bill’s vision. As the glass cleared he saw the chase turn into a deadly fight.

  The bronzed man whirled with the alacrity of a fish, his long black hair slapped over his shoulder, his wide flat hands jerked a short thin knife out of his belt. His back lurched up out of the water just before he struck.

  In that instant Bill caught sight of the row of sharp points—a dozen or more of them—that lined the fellow’s back bone.

  “If we could bust that window,” Windy yelled, “we might save that man’s life.”

  “No.” Bill’s jaw was set hard. “It’s their battle. Besides, he’s not a man. He’s a spiny-man.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  “Whatever he is,” Windy gasped, “he’s committin’ suicide, swimmin’ in amongst those damned green-bellied rippers.”

  “Maybe so. I don’t know—” Bill’s unconscious words gave way to breathless silence. He and Windy both pressed their faces against the plate glass.

  That knife in the webbed fingers of the spiny-man was cutting arcs into the water like a windmill wheel with one blade. A splash of red leaped up from the waves. One of the horse-fish plowed off from the rest of the party, kicking around in a circle of its own, dragging a black mass of spilling entrails behind it.

  Then, ceasing to kick, the knifed horse-fish hung limply in the waves, only five or six feet beyond the window. The waters around it grew discolored, and the red shroud hid it from view.

  “Goodbye, spiny-man!” Windy barked, pointing back to the fight.

  Bill saw. The largest of the attacking horse-fish—a creature with a ring of black circling the white dot on his side—leaped clear of the water, clear of the spiny-man’s head. Simultaneously he whirled belly-up, caught the spinny-man between the shoulders as he shot back to the water. In that split second the horse-fish spines did their damage. They scraped an ugly red line straight down the spiny-man’s horny backbone.

  “A question of who’s the toughest,” Windy muttered. “Only there’s no question about it. That gash’ll lay the fellow low. All they’ve got to do now is rip his guts out.”

  “Watch, Windy!” Bill fairly, shrieked. “There’s the thing I was telling you—”

  The fight was suddenly over. The big horse-fish that had taken the back-to-back slide stopped it. He gave an imperious waggle with his head and the three remaining horse-fish shrank back. When one of them threatened to attack again he darted challengingly. All three of his companions were bluffed out. It was obvious, Bill noted, that these horse-fish held a healthy respect for each other’s spines, no matter how much they disagreed on their motives.

  “I don’t get it,” said Windy Muff blankly, as he watched the hard-faced spiny-man swim off to safety. “That big fellow with the bull’s-eye markings on his sides turned into a friend awful sudden-like.”

  “That’s the very way Yellow Z did when he was fighting me,” said Bill. “At the very moment he had me down and could have killed me, he went softhearted and called the gang off.”

  “I don’t get it,” Windy repeated.

  “I don’t either,” Bill admitted. He lingered at the window until “Bull’s-eye” and the other horse-fish swam away. “What about that barred window you were going to show me?” They followed the wall of their private chamber along the side opposite the sea window. The artificial wall was a patchwork of masonry that filled in between pillars of natural stone. Back in a narrow alcove that reminded Bill of a street car vestibule, bars of light from the larger cavern world seeped in between bars of steel.

  “You’ll need these,” said Windy, unfastening a pair of binoculars from his belt. “Get a focus on that peach-colored haze ’way to your right and you’ll see the other city. I’ll take myself back to the telephone.”

  For the next two hours Bill stayed at the window studying the lay of the land.

  The binoculars brought him a miniature world—or was it two worlds?

  There were two kinds of creatures in it—very different creatures—and yet they had certain pronounced points of resemblance.

  The spiny-men (including the spiny-women and spiny-children) lived among the uplands on the farther side of the river. That was the east side, if Bill’s sense of direction served him. And what he chose to call uplands were, of course, actually beneath the level of the sea. But the main cavern was so vast and its ceiling so lofty that there was room for little hills and valleys, lakes, waterfalls, innumerable ramifying caves, and one river as broad as a boulevard.

  This river appeared to divide the low arched mud huts of the horse-fish, on the west, from the statelier brick and mud homes of the spiny-men, on the east.

  The river widened into a lake at what might be called its mouth. It couldn’t be seen to flow into the sea, for at this depth nothing less than a system of artificial water gates could empty a river into the sea without allowing the sea to backwater into the whole cavern.

  The cavern itself, Bill guessed, had been hollowed out by water during long ages past. Later some caprice of nature, perhaps an overflow of lava from some volcano up above, had spilled the gigantic icicles of rock across the mouth of the cavern. The skyscraper-sized icicles had melted together in a fortress against the sea. And somehow the creatures who had chosen to dwell here had managed to force out the impounded water.

  But the horse-fish, at least, were still water-dwellers. Bill, turning the binoculars on the west bank of the river and its numerous inlets, observed that most of the gray mounds of the horse-fish city had no visible doors. The entrances were under water.

  One matter was continually confusing, however. There were some houses that he could not classify. Worse, there were some creatures he could not classify. For farther up the stream, he noted, there ceased to be any clear-cut division between the city of the horse-fish and that of the spiny-men. The two appeared to be hopelessly merged. And from this distance he could not tell whether those little creatures molding pottery far up the river were horse-fish or spiny-men.

  This was disturbing.

  Bill’s attention returned to the matter of sunlight. The hazy peach-colored light that had sifted through the ceiling far to the right, perhaps two miles distant, had turned to the amber of sunset, and now it melted into twilight gray.

  So this undersea pocket had an outlet to the upper world, thought Bill. The city of the spiny-men had at least a limited daily taste of sunshine, blue sky, clouds.

  As the last of daylight faded, the lines of artificial lights
along the distant wall brought into view a zigzagging trail to the upper world.

  A party of spiny-men was ascending that trail, carrying lanterns. Occasionally Bill thought he could see them waving their arms. Now and again he heard the rolling echoes of high voices that might have been laughter and shouting.

  Then he caught sight of two figures descending the trail from the upper world, slowly moving down the incline toward the party with the lanterns. At once Bill guessed what was happening.

  He chased back to the front of the chamber where Windy was still listening in at the silent phone.

  “Let me have it, Windy!”

  “Sure. Say—there’s a lotta talk about a guy named Vin-Vin. Would that be your pal?”

  “Sure as shootin’ ! Let me hear!”

  “He’s surprisin’ ’em by droppin’ in unexpected. The phones are full of it.”

  Windy accepted the binoculars, trudged off to see what Bill had seen.

  Bill adjusted the ebony posts to his head. In a moment the talk began to come in. It was confused, as if dozens of parties were talking—or rather thinking—to each other over the same connections.

  But the outstanding news was the same throughout: Vin-Vin had returned for his “annual visit” much earlier than expected. There must be some reason. What could it be?

  “Did Vin-Vin bring any converts with him?” many would ask.

  “There’s one guest,” the answer would come.

  Occasionally, however, the messages would vary. There was one other exciting bit of gossip: The horse-fish had acquired some new prisoners.

  “As soon as Vin-Vin is welcomed,” some were saying, “he must be informed that the horse-fish have some upper-world prisoners.”

  The excitement was tremendous. The impact of these events obviously made big talk throughout the spiny-man community. And perhaps the horse-fish community as well. Bill picked up some startling implications.

  For one thing, it was a strange fact that the horse-fish and the spiny-men employed a single interwoven system of communication. The horse-fish had access to the conversations of the spiny-men, and vice-versa.