The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “I know where I can get some food,” he said, “without being seen . . . And if there’s a chance to listen in at a phone—”

  “Just food,” said Beatrice. “You won’t want to hear what they’re saying by now.”

  CHAPTER XII

  Bill backtracked over his old trail to the barred window of his prison cell. He called in a whisper. Windy Muff’s voice answered him.

  “Darned if I didn’t think you were hissin’ over the phone,” said Windy. “Why don’t you come around to the door an’ walk in? It’s wide open.”

  “How come?”

  “Vinson’s been here ’n’ gone. He came to turn us loose an’ give us a free tour of the city. But he found you gone, an’ I told him I wouldn’t budge from this spot till you came back.” While Bill entered by the door and gathered up the food Windy had saved for him, the latter poured forth the exciting news as fast as he could jabber.

  Vin’s eyes had blazed cold fire, Windy said, to learn that Bill had broken out and gone to find Bea. Vin had said it was a deadly thing to do, and bad judgment.

  “So you told him everything,” said Bill heatedly,

  “Yep. I’ve always said my reputation for bein’ a liar wasn’t deserved. Well, he went on his way, sayin’ we should both report to him as soon as possible.”

  “Go and report to him,” said Bill sharply. “But tell him not to look for me.”

  Bill started off, but Windy blocked his path at the door. “Vin was right, was he? You ran into trouble?”

  “Plenty of it,” Bill admitted. In a few words he related what had happened at the west end of the sea cavern. He concluded by stating his doubts whether Yellow Z was still a friend, after what he’d done. “Anyway, they’ll be after me—and Bea too—and she’s got to pick up a bit of strength before we can make a break for the top . . . So long, Windy.”

  “Good luck, Bill.”

  Back along the shadowed wall trail Bill sprinted. By now the protective shadows were familiar. In a few moments he was crawling the high narrow ridge that arched above the river out of reach of the lights.

  Bea was not sleeping, he had hoped. She had crawled several yards beyond the sheltered spot where he had left her. She was crowding close to the overhanging edge, listening.

  Her eyes flicked at Bill as he approached, inviting him to come join her. She was listening to the clattering voices rising from the excited spiny-man city.

  “The tension’s drum-head tight already, Bill,” she whispered. “They’re stirred up on both sides of the river. And have you seen the ascent?”

  She pointed to the zig-zag trail to the upper-world. Bill could see groups of spiny-men stationed near the top. Still further up was a cluster of horse-fish.

  “We’re not going to get out, Bill. They’ll see to that.”

  “By this time they all know what happened to the eggs, I suppose?”

  “Yes. Yellow Z and some others dragged the cylinder back into the horse-fish city only a few minutes ago.”

  “How’d the horse-fish take it?”

  “It’s a good thing they can’t cry out loud,” said Bea. “Look. Those columns swimming in figures and circles at the west side of the river are expressing their anguish and grief.”

  “Some are crossing the river,” Bill observed.

  “And there have been minor fights with spiny-men. It’s times like these that bring up all old animosities. All my life down here I’ve watched it. These two cities live forever on the verge of war.”

  Bea ate and slept while Bill kept vigil.

  Toward night a great mass meeting came together on the east bank of the river. It was formally opened by the ruler of the spiny-men himself. Bea gasped to see the aged, sharp backed old creature totter down the path from the triple-domed mud palace.

  “That’s a rare sight,” Bea said. “They don’t see him except on the most important occasions.”

  “What are they going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I never saw the horse-fish and spiny-men mass together before.”

  “Do the horse-fish have a king too?” Bea shook her head. That was one great reason for the constant trouble with the green sea-creatures. They weren’t emotionally stable. One of their number might be in favor as a leader for a time—but if he chanced to stab his spine into the back of a spiny-man—or a native islander of the upper-world—he’d absorb a new temperament.

  “You can’t have rulers or followers among folks that are always changing their natures,” Bea said. “So there’s just the one king—that old whitehaired spiny-man.”

  Bill listened. In a quaking voice that spoke the tongue of an aged English sea captain the spiny-man king called the mass meeting to order. The hundreds of horse-fish, ranged along the river’s edge, were listening attentively. Closer around the mud dais were the clusters of spiny-men, women, and children.

  The king, thought Bill, was little more than a figure-head. He recited a remarkable legend from memory—a fanciful tale of the shipwreck of centuries ago, and the ravages of a volcano and a tidal wave that left a band of English explorers imprisoned here.

  Then his archaic sing-song recitation hinted that there was an amazing fusion of two kinds of animal life—man and horse-fish—the strange nature of which only the gods might explain. But the ancient English explorers need not be ashamed of that amazing fusion, for nothing less could have won the victory of survival.

  This brought the king’s recitation down to the present century when the new and wonderful race of spiny-men emerged. It was the triumphant blend of the best qualities of men and horse-fish.

  And at last, so the king’s story went, trade and commerce had been established with the upper-world, so that sealocks and pumps and electrical miracles had been procured.

  Then with a stereotyped promise that the spiny-men were destined to become the great earth-dwelling race of the future, the king bowed low, turned, and tottered back to his tripled-domed mud palace at the foot of the ascent.

  Now Thork, the hard-bitten lieutenant, took charge. The real business of the day began.

  “No one denies that the horse-fish have their rights,” he began, and with his opening gun the spines of the horse-fish began to bristle. “Many’s the time the spiny-men have been too liberal with the rights of you horse-fish. You are asking me for examples? Don’t be absurd . . .”

  Bill saw the implication. The horse-fish who were wearing the portable telephones were asking questions, no doubt. For the phones made their thoughts transport to Thork, who was likewise wearing a phone. As fast as he spoke he was picking up their mental reactions. He came back at them angrily.

  “Whenever some upper-world innocent blunders into one of your sacred cylinders, and messes up some eggs just before hatching season, what do you do? You horse-fish kill him. And we spiny-men don’t raise a hand, because we’ve got in a habit of pampering you and your rights . . .”

  Bill whispered, “Is that bird getting ready to take our sides?”

  Bea doubted it. “I never knew him to champion any outsider,” she said, never taking her eyes off the crowd below her.

  Thork’s challenge continued. “This time it happens you’ve dragged a spiny-girl into your egg-training business. And you’ve had a disaster. Well, let me warn you. This side of the river is waiting to welcome that girl. We’ve been waiting a long time for her to come back.”

  Some of the horse-fish were removing their head-phones by this time, and that, Bill knew, meant they didn’t want their thoughts to be conveyed.

  “In fact,” Thork went on, “this spiny-girl is someone I’ve been particularly waiting for, ever since we let her go away to be educated . . . And if she’s within earshot of my voice, I want her to know that she’s not going to pay for the broken eggs. She’s our own. There’ll be war in camp if you horse-fish make one move to harm a hair of her head!”

  The challenge ended on the harsh note of “Knock a chip off my shoulder if you dare!”

  Suddenly
the whole riverbank of green seemed to fold in slowly toward the spiny-men. Not with a rush. Just a slow turtle-paced movement. The green bags some were carrying, Bea whispered, contained deadly scorpion-fish, their favorite weapons.

  “Stand where you are, horse-fish!” The full-voiced command rang from the throat of George Vinson. He sprang to the dais. “Thork isn’t the only voice in this city. Listen to me, horse-fish!” The wave of slowly advancing horse-fish stopped. The ranks of the spiny-men, bristling for trouble, suddenly quieted. It was plain that the blackhaired little mediator was respected by both sides of the underground world. At once he launched a feverish plea for peace and harmony.

  The girl was also his friend, he said; and so was the man who had broken jail and gone to find her. But there were stouter reasons than these for keeping peace. There was the vision of great destiny which the spiny-men held.

  “And this vision, as I have told you so many times,” George Vinson pleaded, “must have the cooperation of the most highly developed upper-world men and the most highly developed horse-fish. The biological contributions of both are indispensable.”

  Bill gasped, “Biological!” He looked to Bea for an answer.

  “That’s George Vinson’s big idea,” she whispered. She drew closer to Bill and answered his questions.

  Yes, she had expected to marry an upper-world man—that expectation had been the terror of her childhood. But a mixing of spiny-folk with upper-world folk, she had been taught, was the only way this superior underground race would breed out the damning marks which their crossing with horse-fish had left on them—webbed hands and feet, and a row of more or less conspicuous spines over the backbone. So, as a child Bea had been doomed to marry one of the upper-world guests.

  Yes, there were many such guests—perhaps two or three a year. It was George Vinson’s difficult task to go to the upper-world and spread the gospel of a finer race and to bring converts back with him. The finest corals and pearls from the nearby seas were spent to make him a wealthy and respected missionary. Many of his converts now lived here; others died through misfortunate dealings with the horse-fish; and some fled.

  “You say you were to have married an upperworld man?” Bill asked.

  “They decreed otherwise as soon as they saw I was becoming a young woman—without spines or webs. Then they decided I should go to the upper-world for an education,” Bea sighed, “because I would not be conspicuous. When I came back a suitable match would be made for me here.”

  Bill scowled. “When had you intended coming back?”

  “Never,” said Bea. “I loved the upper-world. I hated all this—even Vin with his fine theories. That’s why I’ve almost hated myself. Because at heart I know I’m a traitor.”

  Bill slipped his arm around her, patting her shoulder gently. She was trembling. That, he knew, was what Thork’s speech had done for her; for the lieutenant’s hint of marriage had had the twang of a threat.

  “I’m going to see that you marry an upper-world man as soon as I can get you out of here.” Bill looked down into her clear eyes. He whispered hoarsely, “I don’t know about these spiny-men theories! And all this vision business that Vin used to try to pound into my head—it went right over me. But I’ve got my own vision, Bea. It begins right here, with me telling you I love you—and you telling me the same . . . Say it, won’t you, Bea?”

  “You make it sound so easy, Bill,” she whispered. Her face lifted slightly toward his. He crushed her lips in the warmth of his kisses.

  The speeches continued to well up from somewhere below the ledge, but Bill ceased to hear them. The ocean’s high tide began to spill down through the cavern in rhythmic gushes. But Bill was oblivious to roaring waterfalls. He heard nothing but the pounding of Bea’s heart, and his own, and the enchanting whispers from the lips he loved to kiss.

  “You’ve got to promise you’ll marry me, Bea. If you will, all spiny-men and horse-fish together couldn’t keep us down here . . . Say it, won’t you?”

  “I do love you, Bill,” she breathed. “I can’t deny it . . . But I’ll never marry you. Don’t look so crushed, Bill. Can’t you see—it wouldn’t be fair to you—or to our children—because—because I’m a spiny-woman—and you—you belong to the wonderful world up there!”

  CHAPTER XIII

  Vibrant words were still ringing from the river’s bank below them. Bill, breathing heavily, began to hear them in spite of himself. Dazed and shattered, his attention returned to the weird meeting.

  “Have you a chance to become the masters of the world?”

  It was the scientist, Jean Maribeau, wrapping the heterogeneous audience into a magic spell. George Vinson had called upon him, as an authority from the outside world, to express the opinions he had formed in his recent hours of observation.

  “That’s Vin’s supreme strategy for keeping peace,” Bea said in a low voice, straining at the cliff’s edge to catch every word. “Vin must have given this man a curtain lecture . . . nevertheless—”

  Bill glanced sharply at her, surprised to see how her interest had quickened. The words of an upper-world scientist might strike a new responsive chord—“As a scientist I say that no creatures ever lived who have a better chance to inherit the earth than you spiny-men . . . I do not overlook the contributions from both of your lines of ancestors. This instantaneous absorption of knowledge—an ability that is being bred into your race through your kinship with the horse-fish—is destined to make the earth’s new man superior to the old.”

  Many horse-fish were nodding their agreement, holding their heads proudly.

  “In addition,” Maribeau went on, “it goes without saying that the vast stores of knowledge from the upper-world men will become your birthright . . . But I must be brutally frank. There are not enough of you—spiny-men and horse-fish combined—to so much as conquer the island village over your heads.

  “What does this mean? It means that you, the spiny-men, cannot afford to lose one potential father or mother. If Vin is able to convert upper-world men to this cause, their biological contributions will bend the race toward the ultimate triumph. But let me be frank again, at the risk of being brutal. You creatures, you horse-fish—”

  The scientist hesitated, as if catching warnings from the ranks of the speechless green creatures.

  “You horse-fish must not seek to increase your numbers. Your contributions to the spiny-men have been made. Your flashy intellect has taken root among them. They now have the handicaps of partial spines and webs. But they must not have the handicap of speechlessness. That would be fatal to their progress. So—”

  Horse-fish began to hoist their heads belligerently.

  “So—you sea creatures who have no tongues—and that goes for every purebred horse-fish I’ve observed—you should cease to reproduce! I advise you to destroy your own eggs, and to commit racial suicide!”

  The horse-fish rose up on their hind legs. Dozens of them waved their arms. Some reached into their green bags and seized their deadly scorpion-fish. Still, something held them back. To Bill it seemed that a single battle-cry would have galvanized them into an army plunging forward to attack. But without that battle-cry they were only so many separate clusters of individuals.

  Yet their bluff forced the speaker to a quick conclusion. He ended by reminding them of the immortality that awaited all of them if they could inherit the earth. Evolution, he said, was sympodial. It left many races out on a dead limb. But now it could become a conscious process, an instrument in their own hands. And the present upper-world man would pass out of existence because it had become over-specialized.

  “Don’t forget that human life came forth from the sea,” Maribeau shouted, swinging his fists dramatically. “If a new man evolves, he must receive his fresh impetus from that cradle of all life—the sea.”

  These words were almost more than Bill could digest. It was hard to believe that the horse-fish could catch their significance so readily. But along with their alertness, t
heir emotions were up and down like a thermometer. One moment they were enraged to be told they should commit race suicide. The next they were inflated by thoughts of their wonderful contributions to their descendants.

  Once more they had stopped in their tracks, the whole body of nervous horse-fish, listening, considering.

  “Gad, what a narrow one,” Bill whispered to Bea. “He’s got ’em coming this way again. If they can take it, it puts them and the spiny-men back on an even keel.”

  Bea, her eyes intent upon the scene below, made a surprising answer. “I can take it . . . For the first time I’m getting a glimmer of the big, wonderful thing Vin’s been preaching all these years . . . Do you suppose—”

  “What, Bea?”

  “Do you suppose it would work? . . . Have I been blind?” She was rising slowly, as if in a dream, and the light from below showed an almost fanatical fervor coming into her mysterious eyes. “Would I get rid of this guilty traitor feeling if I’d see it his way?”

  “Who’s way?”

  “Vin’s. If I’d do what he wants me to do—marry him—cast my lot with him and the rest of my people—”

  Bill nodded slowly. A new understanding was soaking into his dizzy brain. Vin . . . his friend . . . the swellest guy that ever lived . . .

  “So that—that’s it, is it, Bea?” All the spirit was gone out of Bill.

  “I believe that’s it—”

  Bill’s arm reached impulsively, tried to draw her back into the shadows. “Wait. Don’t you want to think it over?”

  “I’m going to dive down to the river, Bill, and swim over to them, tell them I’ve come to stay. They need me. Vin deserves—”

  “No, Bea!” Bill leaped up. “For God’s sake, not in that spirit!”

  She ran along the edge of the ledge, stopped directly above the center of the river. For an instant she was the statue of the perfect woman, poised to dive.

  But the sharp voice of Thork rang through the air. The meeting took a weird turn back to violence. In one brief, harsh pronouncement the ugly lieutenant threw overboard all of Vin’s and the scientist’s hard-won gains.