The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “Wait Are you still there?” Bill called at the keyhole.

  “Yes?”

  “What was this business you mentioned over the thought-phone? Something about eggs?”

  “Oh, that. I’ll tell you when I come back.”

  Bill and Windy listened until the footsteps retreated out of hearing. Then they slipped back to the window.

  “Any last minute instructions, Bill?” Windy asked.

  “Keep your ears to the phone, Windy. If the horse-fish miss me tell ’em I buried myself under the sand for a nap. Or tell ’em nothing.”

  With that Bill hoisted himself to the window, wormed through. He turned back to Windy for a last word.

  “If you don’t hear from me within twenty-four hours, you’ll know Bea and I have sneaked through to the surface. Then you can tell Vin thanks, but we couldn’t use his help.”

  CHAPTER X

  Bill moved with the stealth of a leopard. He picked his course from shadow to shadow.

  He knew the cavern lake could be reached only by a round-about trail. There was hardly a chance he could reach Bea ahead of Thork. He’d hung back like a docile prisoner too long.

  But his blood was boiling now. He cursed himself with every leap and bound for letting Bea stay in the cylinder. Now she’d be grabbed by the spiny-men—the very thing she feared most.

  Why did she abhor them so?

  Bill wasn’t sure. But he had a dozen vague guesses—all of them too horrible to face. He was blind to everything, now, except getting her out of this weird hole.

  Every time Bill dashed past a pink-lighted pole he felt like stopping to see what new talk was flying through the cave. Thork had probably found her—perhaps the whole spiny-man city knew by now.

  And would that city prepare a welcome for her, as Vin had predicted? What was the spiny-men’s city to Bea? The hot blood of an almost insane anguish pounded through Bill’s arteries.

  Bea must belong here!

  But how could she? Her body was the perfect body of a human being. In the thousands of public appearances she had made in her abbreviated diving costume, her splendid physique had never failed to charm the audience. In the graceful lines of her back there wasn’t a hint of spiny-men features. Nor were there any signs of webs between her fingers or toes.

  She couldn’t be a spiny-woman! And yet—

  Bill couldn’t throw the thought out of his mind. Pictures flooded upon him—the views he had caught while studying the spiny-men’s city through the binoculars.

  Yes, he had seen all varieties of spiny-folk. Some had merged indistinguishably with the horse-fish. On the other hand some had looked so much like upper-world men, from his distance, that it had left him wondering about it.

  Now Bill was nearly a mile east of his starting point. The river’s waters, piled deep against the artificial doorways to the sea, were not far ahead. He had followed the trails along the base of the south wall to keep his distance from scattered groups of horse-fish going about their work.

  Bill stopped, slipped into a rocky crevice. A party of horse-fish were approaching. He crowded against the rock.

  The ten or twelve female horse-fish passed without seeing him. They had evidently just returned from the open sea, for they were lugging armloads of fresh seaweed. Bill must be on the right trail.

  He raced on. Wherever scraps of seaweed had dropped he grabbed them up on the run, slapped them over his shoulders for camouflage.

  At last, taking a chance on being seen from the houses on either side of the river, he slipped up a steep pathway to an opening in the vast curtain of lava rock. Dripping seaweeds had been dragged through the narrow A-shaped pass. Ahead was darkness.

  Then his eyes adjusted, he saw the silver edged waters at his feet. This had to be the cavern lake.

  Shaking off the cloak of seaweeds, he plunged in and swam back to the west. He knew the speed he could hold for distance swimming. The unlighted cavern might have been an entrance to the end of the world. The black waters were devoid of dimensions, to Bill’s eyes. Only the dim outlines of mammoth stone icicles, wet from seepage, gave the cavern any form whatsoever.

  Then Bill began to pass big lighted windows. Here again were those ubiquitous signs of the mechanical civilization of upper-world men.

  Here was a series of pumping stations. Both spiny-men and horse-fish were working the big crude waterpower machines.

  Farther on Bill swam past the pink-lighted windows of prison chambers. The rock-walled rooms, though they contained glowing telephones, were empty, for their circular doors stood open. Near the sea-window of one cell an old dry human skull grinned out at Bill—or was it a spiny-man skull?

  In either case, it testified to a tragedy of years ago, perhaps starvation, or a battle to death, or an insane suicide.

  Now Bill swam past the cell he recognized. He caught a brief sight of Windy Muff with his head at the telephone, his eyes blinking up at the walls. Windy was a statue of bewilderment. Whether the thought-phone was alive with strange messages or whether Windy was day dreaming of the stories he would tell if he ever got back, Bill could only wonder.

  Without slackening his strokes Bill sped on.

  Then something was swimming toward him. He surface dived. He put many yards back of him before he crawled back to the surface.

  The swimming form was back of him now, following in his wake.

  Four times he surface-dived, to cut along under the waters at high speed. Then a streak of light cut the race short. The swimming form was Yellow Z.

  Still a friend? With an odd sensation of self-consciousness Bill spoke aloud,

  “If you’re on my side, fellow, take me to that floating cylinder.”

  He hung back as the horse-fish cut ahead of him.

  Yellow Z swam in a wide arc to the right, Bill in his wake. The cavern lake was narrowing. Slits of light through the ceiling hundreds of feet overhead restored Bill’s sense of direction. But those narrow vertical gashes offered no hope of escape.

  Suddenly Yellow Z grabbed Bill by the hand and jerked him into the shadowed waters. Yellow Z crawled up on a ledge of dry rock and peeked over cautiously. Bill followed his example.

  Sounds of splashing and paddling echoed through the lake-filled canyon. At the bend the rush of swimming figures came into view.

  “Thork, again!” Bill muttered under his breath. “And Bull’s-Eye.”

  But those two weren’t all. A gang of horse-fish were on their trail. Thork had got himself into another mess with the horse-fish!

  This time, Bill saw, Thork was avoiding a fight. Or more accurately, Bull’s-Eye was preventing it. The white-dotted horse-fish was darting back and forth, keeping the rest of the gang at bay while Thork swam full speed ahead.

  His course was back toward the cities—over the same waters Bill had just come. And now Bill saw, with immense relief, that the glass-domed cylinder was in full view almost directly below him.

  It was still floating upright, still lighted, still occupied.

  Bea’s uptilted face was chalk-white, her eyes were closed. She was half-reclining, and the slow rhythmic rise and fall of her breasts told that she was sleeping easily. The instruments at her head had not been moved since he last saw her being towed away from the prison window.

  This, then, was where Yellow Z had brought her for safe hiding. And here the lieutenant of the spiny-men had followed.

  But Thork’s visit had just now been foiled by the savage horse-fish. The splashing echoes of that chase were fading. This moment was Bill’s chance.

  “Here goes, Yellow Z!” he said aloud. “We’re going to crack this safe before you can wink your little red eyes.”

  The hand of Yellow Z slapped over Bill’s wrist as Bill was lowering himself over the ledge. But Bill was in no mood to be restrained. He jerked free, slipped into the water, swam once around the cylinder, and began jerking all the valve levers furiously.

  He paid no attention when Yellow Z caught him by the shoulder.
He shook the webbed hand off. For now the valves opened and he knew the way in.

  He caught half a breath, dived into the water-filled aperture at the cylinder’s base. Once he had to kick off Yellow Z’s troublesome grab at his ankle. Then he was free to rise through the valves toward the upper floor.

  “Bea! Bea!” he called, as he climbed upward. “You’ve got to get out of here, Bea. Wake up! The spiny-men know you’re here. They’re laying for you!”

  As he swum up to the level where Bea’s feet rested he was aware that something more than water had drenched his body during his ascent through the series of floors. A syrupy liquid spilled over his shoulders, and with it came a hundred tickling and scratching sensations. As if he’d broken through a wall of eggs.

  The light from the dome of the cylinder blazed down on his dripping body and he saw.

  The mess was broken eggs—dozens of them. Their brittle white shells had crushed at his touch, and spilled their contents.

  Bill couldn’t be bothered. He gave his gooey hands a swipe against the cylinder walls, all the while shouting at Beatrice. He slapped her feet. Then rising to stand beside her, he jerked the instruments off her head.

  Her eyelids lifted heavily, then fell closed.

  “It’s me!” Bill uttered. “You’ve got to wake up, Bea!”

  He slapped her cheeks briskly. Her head dropped forward, her eyes were trying to open. Still, her arms hung so limply that Bill knew this was more than the stupor of sleep. It was exhaustion.

  “Bill,” she whispered faintly. “It’s you?”

  “Bea, you know it is!” Come on. Snap out of it.”

  He tried to take her up in his arms. It was difficult to help her when her body was so limp.

  “Where are we, Bill?”

  “Getting out of here,” Bill puffed as he dragged her down through the mess of broken shells, down into the water-filled valves. “Hold your breath, Bea. Here we go.”

  Then they were out in the cool waters. Bea was swimming listlessly on her back.

  “Hurry, honey,” Bill kept urging. “I’m trying,” she said. “But I’m so weak—hungry—”

  “Poor kid—you might have died in that cylinder.”

  “Cylinder . . . Oh!” she gasped.

  In the diminishing light Bill saw her eyes widen. She changed to a breast stroke, quickening her speed.

  He glanced back. Yellow Z hadn’t followed. Instead the friendly horse-fish had again mounted the ledge, and there he sat as motionless as a moody gargoyle on a cathedral wall.

  For the next twenty minutes Bea swam hard, and Bill knew she had no energy for talking.

  But when they approached the pink lights of the prison windows, she slackened her pace.

  “We’d better cut around,” she said. “If the natives find out I’ve come back—”

  “They already know, Bea,” said Bill.

  “That’s why—”

  “Who knows?”

  “Thork, the king’s lieutenant. He followed to the cylinder, but the horse-fish drove him off.”

  “Oh!”

  Her faint tone conveyed a secret hurt that was too deep for words. Then as if bristling spines were suddenly plunged into her flesh she cried.

  “Bill! How did you get me out?”

  “Through the valves.”

  “I mean, how—without breaking the eggs?” Her voice was wild with terror. “You didn’t—”

  “I busted ’em all over myself,” said Bill. “I didn’t know they were in there. Why?”

  “Oh, Bill!” she was sobbing bitterly. She caught a muffled breath, let her face drop under the surface, and swam on so fast that Bill was left more than a length behind.

  CHAPTER XI

  When they reached the A-shaped pass to the main cavern Bea dropped on the bank utterly exhausted. Bill lifted her up into his arms and carried her.

  But the webs of light along the vast cavern wall opened her languorous eyes.

  “Bill,” she breathed. “We’ve got to hide—quick.”

  “Just from the spiny-men—or the horse-fish too?”

  “Oh, you poor idiot!” she cried angrily. “The maddest spiny-man would never hope to live twenty-four hours if he had crushed a horse-fish’s eggs. It’s fatal.”

  Bill felt the weight of tragedy hovering, about to descend. Every minute of his return swim he’d suspected this was coming, and yet he’d kidded himself with the silly hope it wouldn’t be so serious. “Then they’ll all be set for a capture—”

  “Bill, frankly it would have been a lot easier if you’d just taken poison—and given a dose to me.”

  “To you!” Bill cried. “You didn’t commit the blunder. I was the one. If they think they can catch me and kill me for it, let ’em try. But I’ll clear you, if it’s the last thing I—”

  “Bill, you can’t. I’m the guiltiest, in their eyes,” she whispered hoarsely. “I was charged with giving my thoughts to those embryo horse-fish. I pledged I’d do it. That was my job . . . Don’t look at me so, Bill.”

  “You’re not serious!”

  “You can’t appreciate it,” Bea moaned, “until you’ve lived down here. But there’s a streak of something different in these green sea creatures—an uncanny streak of wisdom that’s not matched anywhere in nature. Not even the smartest upper-world people we know can store up knowledge the way these horse-fish can. The spiny-folk sometimes have a little of it—but not much.”

  “What are you talking about? Is this some ungodly superstition?”

  “It’s a quirk of nature, Bill. These savage horse-fish can inherit men’s thoughts. They’re like sponges or blotters. Even before they hatch out of eggs, they begin to take on their patterns of thought. It’s very strange to you, I suppose—”

  “It’s remarkable—but what kind of thoughts could you possibly transfer to unhatched eggs, cooped up in that cylinder?”

  “Any thoughts that happened to pass through my mind. I just lay there daydreaming and sleeping. Whether I happened to dream about diving exhibitions or sailing back to the States or reading books there were sure to be plenty of elementary ideas mixed in.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, habits of walking and talking, with ability to read the manners of getting along peaceably with other creatures, the feelings of loyalty to your own friends—there are hundreds of such things involved in any situations you happen to think about. When upper-world babies are born they don’t know about these things. They don’t even know they’re going to have to learn a language. But these baby horse-fish come into the world with a fair knowledge of English.”

  Bill frowned darkly. He felt a twinge of something like jealousy or hatred.

  After what he’d seen he couldn’t doubt these weird facts. But he didn’t welcome them. To think that these silent, cruel little water beasts could snap up men’s thought waves with no effort—at no cost—for no good!

  “Why haven’t the spiny-men wiped them out?” he asked. “I can’t, see a thing good about them. They’re more treacherous than poison snakes—”

  “And friendlier than any human beings, and more helpful—after they’ve absorbed the right thought-waves,” said Bea. “These thought-wave phones all through the cavern help keep them friendly. And still, they and the spiny-men are forever clashing.”

  Her eyelids closed. Her voice trailed away.

  “You’ve got to have some food and rest before we can chance a dash out of this place,” Bill whispered. “We’ve got to pick the right moment—”

  “As if it mattered,” she breathed. “We’ll never get past them.”

  He had carried her along a perilous shelf of rock high above the river. There were no foot tracks up here. The beams from the nearest wall lights rarely reached up to this level.

  “I used to climb this trail when I was a little girl,” Bea said. “I would come up here and spy on both cities. I saw so much trouble between the two sides of the river that I grew to hate it all.”

  “
We’ll soon be out of here—for good,” said Bill. “Here’s a shadowed spot. You’ve got to lie down and rest before we go on.”

  “Bill, we’ll never make it,” she sobbed quietly, lying down on the warm rock and folding her arm under her head for a pillow. “There’s not a chance in a thousand that the horse-fish will let us live, after what’s happened. You see, that’s why they took me off the boat in the first place—to care for those eggs”

  Bill sat down near her, folded his arms.

  “Did they know it was you—a native?” he asked.

  “Not at first. They’d simply swum out to capture any upper-world female.”

  “Then they go in for kidnapping as a regular sport,” Bill muttered.

  “They only steal a new upper-world person when they have a need. Usually their captive mothers don’t live many years. Sometimes only a few months.”

  “Bea! You knew this . . . and yet you submitted—”

  “They recognized me as soon as I got down here,” she looked up at Bill guiltily. “They remembered me as a spiny-girl from across the river. You knew, of course, that I am

  “I guessed,” said Bill quietly, avoiding her eyes.

  “They recognized me,” she went on, “as a native who had been away for a few years. So I confided in them—and made a bargain.”

  “Yes?”

  “I admitted I was a runaway. I couldn’t endure living down here. But if they would promise me my freedom afterward, and yours, I would go ahead and be the ‘thought-mother’ to this one batch of eggs. In a few days it would have been over.”

  Bill understood. At first he was not clear as to why the horse-fish had followed their theft of Bea with a similar kidnapping of Windy Muff. But Beatrice explained that that, too, was customary. The horse-fish always tried to furnish their captured females with mates. In this case, Bill understood, they had failed to pull Maribeau the scientist overboard, but had succeeded in getting Windy Muff.

  Bill shuddered as he turned these bizarre customs over in his mind. But practical considerations shook him into action.