The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  But I succeeded in letting the cable ride down past a niche in the outer point of the ledge. When three-fourths of it had coasted down like a rope over a pulley, I flew to the side, keeping the cable taut. I circled three times around a sturdy tree trunk. At last my lame left foot was relieved of the weight.

  It took many minutes of rapid-fire pounding with edged rocks to cut the fetter. It was a tense moment when the link finally broke. I was out, breathing hard with excitement. A bird out of a cage—that was me.

  Flanger?

  I followed the taut cable to the edge of the cliff and peered over cautiously.

  He was still sitting on the empty claytung spool at the end of the line, sixty yards below, swinging with dignified complacency. Again his face, halftilted in a streak of late afternoon sun, was hard and wooden.

  The sloping earth was nearly a hundred feet beneath him. The wall of cliff was cut back too deep to be visible from my vantage point. But it was well out of his reach, unless he undertook some risky pendulum swinging. And climbing would be uncertain, to say the least. Flanger was my prisoner.

  I called down. “Wooden, I like the looks of this moon. I’m going to live here. You and I are parting company. But first I’ve got a few things to say.”

  Even as I spoke I caught disturbing sounds from a thickly wooded patch a short distance up the valley—a stamping of hoofs and the guttural snorting of some heavy forest animal.

  Flanger barked up at me, a note of terror in his voice. “Eagle Boy, get me up from here. If you don’t, I’ll—”

  “You’ll do what, Wooden?”

  “The boys will cook you in oil, damn you.”

  I gave a squawking laugh. It was an unnatural sensation to me to see Flanger writhe. He recovered himself quickly, however, now that the tramping noises ceased, though he was still casting about furtively at the ground below him.

  At the same time I looked back over the tree tops to the patches of green meadow four miles away. The space ship had lifted.

  It was a Labazoff convertible, geared for slow airflights, and now it was nosing along like an old-fashioned dirigible. The day was growing late, and the ship’s shadow spread wide as it crawled over the meadow and across the outcropping of rocks. The Labazoff convertible was cruising toward us.

  CHAPTER III

  “What have you got to say?” Flanger snarled up at me.

  “I’m making a vow,” I said. “I’m through with you and your race.”

  Flanger responded with forced laughter. His voice sounded strained, anyway, yelling up at me from so far down.

  “Seventeen years ago you hired some scientists, Wooden.” My voice was edged with hard accusation. “You put them to work making biological freaks, and they turned out me.”

  “What a memory. You even recall the faces of the scientists, no doubt?” Flanger was thrusting ridicule at me.

  Of course I remembered nothing. I knew only what Flanger and others had told me.

  The fact was, my curiosity about my origin had never been satisfied. Bendetti, the friendly magistrate, had never been able to get any information for me. He had always advised that I forget the past and face the present and the future.

  Bendetti, if I have not mentioned it, was my one real friend. He had a sense of justice that made him the most respected of magistrates. It was a tremendous streak of fortune for me when he took an interest in me. Flanger used to let him visit with me for an hour each day, and that was where I acquired my acquaintance with man’s knowledge.

  My thoughts were jolted back to the present. Flanger was yelling up at me, and his arguments shot through me like icy arrows.

  “You’ll die if you stay here on the Blue Moon. You can’t live out in the open like a beast.”

  “You imply that I’m not one? A pretty compliment, Wooden,” I snorted.

  “What will you eat? Rats and sparrows? You won’t have any fire to cook your food.”

  “I’ll eat,” I said.

  “And I suppose you won’t freeze to death? What sweet dreams you’ll have, sleeping in a tree—dreams about those warm red robes you used to curl up against. And that steamheated shelter at the north end of your pen—”

  “I’ll keep warm,” I snapped defensively.

  “You’ll wake up every morning squawking. Where’s your hot cereal drink? Where are Tokel and York? What about your exercises? Who’ll shoot marbles at you for your jumping lessons? . . . Eagle Boy, listen to me. I have a proposition.”

  During our swift exchange of words I had kept an alert eye on the approaching space ship. It had floated up the canyon as slowly as a boat pulls into port. But now it was steering away from us.

  The reason for this was that in my flight with Flanger I had originally coursed toward the cliffs a mile or more to the west.

  Now, fortunately for me, Flanger’s men were off my trail. I breathed easily.

  “Your proposition?” I shouted down to Flanger.

  “How would you like to be a leader?”

  “What sort?”

  “A disciplinarian.”

  “It’s a deal,” I said with a cynical squawk. “Let me discipline Tokel and York with a claytung chain.”

  “I’m talking business,” Flanger snapped, smarting under my sarcasm. “You could be the trainer of other Eagle-Boys.”

  “There aren’t any other Eagle-Boys,” I said. “If there are, you never told me.”

  “What scientists have done, scientists can do,” said Flanger. “You’ve done well, Eagle Boy, in spite of your ugly disposition. If you’re smart, you’ll take my offer. You’ll come back to Karloora and be an officer over other Eagle-Boys. Don’t worry, I can get them. How about it, man-to-man?”

  “You mean man-to-freak,” I said.

  “I mean man-to-investment.” Flanger shot the words up at me coldly. “I’m talking—what are you looking at?” My eyes jerked away from the horizon, guiltily.

  “So!” Flanger said with sharp intuition. “The ship’s coming over.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure, Wooden.” Even as I spoke, the ship sank from sight. Probably it landed. Would the men scour these hillsides yet this evening? The three suns were already lowering. Days and nights on the Blue Moon were known to be short.

  “Think fast, Eagle Boy,” Flanger barked up at me. “You could be the leader of a new race of eagle men—”

  “I’ve heard that myth before,” I said. “I know why you want a thousand like me—or thousands of thousands. You want to train us into fighting animals—to be Karloora’s soldiers, so you can send us out to conquer the planets—”

  “You’ll be national heroes.”

  “I don’t believe it. We’d only be fighting freaks. We’d never be accepted as equals with men.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Magistrate Bendetti told me. What’s more, he told me that Karloora had no business striking out on new conquests. One word from Bendetti counts more than a million from you.” The man at the lower end of the swing must have shuffled uncomfortably, for the cable at my fingertips vibrated restlessly. Flanger was disturbed, I had got some of my long-pent-up venom off my chest.

  “Damn Bendetti,” I heard Flanger mutter to himself.

  “If you get back to Karloora,” I said, “tell Bendetti I won my freedom. Tell him I’m living where I’ll never be troubled by you and your race again. But tell him I’m saving one memento, the gift he gave me.”

  I glanced at my right side. My sole garment was a sturdily woven pair of trunks which bore a brilliant decoration—a big gold button, half as wide as my hand, with a deep-cut engraving of an eagle on it. I wore it just above my right hip-bone.

  Flanger made no response. It was growing dark rapidly and I could no longer see him.

  “I’m keeping it to remember the code that Bendetti taught me,” I said. “Not your code, or York’s, or Tokel’s. But Bendetti’s—the code of fair play . . . Do you hear me, Wooden Face?

  I looked down into the deep blac
kness. Evidently I had talked Flanger into stubborn silence.

  “All right, Wooden,” I said. “I’ll give you a sample of fair play before I go. I’m going to set you down on solid ground . . . But not just yet. I’ve got to look out for myself first. Hold on till I get back.”

  I ran along the cliff and hurled myself into the air, and my veteran wings spread wide to carry me up the valley.

  The last of the triangle of suns had disappeared and only a few minutes of twilight were left. It was time I located a place to spend the night. Flanger could wait.

  My wings ached but my heart was exuberant. I gloated over the words I had shot at Flanger.

  Above all, I was proud of my vow. I repeated it over and over. No more dealings with men.

  I swooped down to a gash in the face of the dark cliff. It was only a shallow concavity, but there was ledge enough to provide me a safe bed. Tomorrow I would explore for a more favorable home. Now to go back and release Flanger—

  What was that noise?

  It was a low moaning sound. It came from down in the blackness under the giant trees. It was a deep, sad, mellow voice—the voice of a man—a voice I had never heard before.

  The call was indistinct. At first I couldn’t understand. But as I drifted closer the strange enunciation became intelligible.

  “Here I am,” the voice moaned. “Here I am . . . Help me.”

  CHAPTER IV

  The pains of strained ligaments through my wings and back were nothing to the fever that rushed through my arteries.

  My vow—my vow—no more dealing with men—

  Impulsively I flew toward the purple sky, circling higher and higher, breathing hard at the thin air. But my eyes kept turning back toward that dense blackness whence the call had come.

  My night’s lodging was down there—but no, I could never close my ears and sleep against those moans of pain.

  I hurled scorn at myself for my weak thoughts. Who was this man? No one I knew. And if I had known him, would he not be another Tokel or a York? What had brought on all this softness of the heart? Were these echoes of Bendetti?

  Fair play!

  I spiralled down swiftly, smiling to myself. Bendetti would have approved my plan. Freedom would still be mine—and fair play too.

  I circled back to the cliff where the cable hung down. I called down into the blackness.

  “Wooden Face! Someone up the valley has been hurt. You’ve got to help him. Then I’ll let you go . . . Do you hear me, Wooden?”

  No answer. I peered down into the blackness and called again. My echoes floated back to me.

  Was this a trick?

  I tugged at the cable, trying to judge whether Flanger was still on it. I couldn’t tell. I was too unaccustomed to the new gravity.

  “Wooden! . . . Are you there?”

  Hot resentment surged through my temples. He was there, of course. This was a scheme. He would sit tight until I pulled the cable up. And the instant I drew him over the cliff, he’d swing his gun on me.

  Or was I mistaken?

  I dropped a handful of tiny stones down the claytung plumb line. They struck with metallic clinks. The claytung spool was empty. Flanger was gone.

  For several minutes I waited, listening, wondering. There was a deathly silence around me. The leaves were as motionless as dabs of black paint on a mural of midnight. There were no sounds of whispering birds. The thudding hoofs of an hour ago now seemed like something out of a dream.

  Utter silence! I shuddered. This was a strange sensation—to be completely alone. The very rustle of my wings startled me.

  Bewildered over Flanger, I began to comb the thick darkness for any live thing that might be lurking about me.

  I felt a wild impulse to fly over the bins to the spaceship. It must be there. Were the men on the search, or on guard, or asleep for the night?

  What would they think if I should suddenly walk in on them? If I should tell them that Flanger had fallen into the jaws of a hungry dragon?

  I flew south along the valley to return to the moaning man. My eagle eyes guided me down through wisps of valley mist, past the black tree trunks. Then I was over the prone form.

  The man’s groans had ceased. He was unconscious, breathing as if in sleep. As nearly as I could judge in the darkness he was a tall, rawboned, elderly man with long unkempt hair. His rough scanty clothing befitted a primitive huntsman. The back of his head was sticky with dried blood. The gash near the base of the skull had clotted within the past hour.

  I tried to talk with him, but his only response was the single word, “Water,” spoken with the same curious enunciation that I had noticed before.

  I picked him up. He was limp but almost weightless in my powerful arms. I carried him along what seemed to be a valley path. I tried to thread my way across the valley, thinking to come upon a stream. But the soggy marshes and the thick underbrush turned me back.

  “Where do I find water?” I asked him repeatedly. But his mumbled answer conveyed no directions to me.

  I bore him on down the valley. Through the ebony night it seemed a trek of many miles. But in time the eastern sky brightened, and a dazzling, gigantic moon came over the horizon of rugged cliffs. It was Karloora.

  By its soft creamy light I found a cool rock-bound spring.

  I bathed the man’s head and hands and the unclad portions of his sinewy old body. He breathed more easily and presently he began to mumble words. Strangely, he did not look at me.

  “You are not Flint Fingers,” he blurted suddenly, feeling of my hands. “Who are you?”

  “A stranger,” I said. “I found you down the trail, calling for help. Do you feel better?”

  “Better,” he murmured. “Has the night-sun come up?”

  This was a strange question. He was referring, of course, to the reflected light of Karloora. It was already shining upon his deep half-open eyes. Was he blind?

  His next words confirmed my guess. “I see nothing. My sight left me when I fell. Are you someone I have seen before?”

  “No.”

  “At least you are a friend,” he said. “You may have heard my name. I am Stone Jaw. Whenever you come to the valley of the Clankolites, you may call Stone Jaw your friend.”

  “A strong name, Stone Jaw,” I remarked.

  “The name was given me for my fight when I became of age. Seven blows against my jaw failed to defeat me. And your name?”

  “My name?” The corners of my hooked beak drew back cautiously. I was aware that this blind creature took me to be a man like himself. Must I tell him that all my life I had been called Eagle Boy?

  “You may call me Fire Jump.”

  CHAPTER V

  “An odd name. How did you earn it?”

  “When I became of age,” I said slowly, “ten men hurled fire at me—but I jumped out of it.”

  “Men hurled fire at you? What kind of fire?”

  “Streams of purple fire that you can barely see. It leaps out of metal tubes and eats everything in its path. But I jumped away from it.”

  “You must be a strong jumper. My daughter can jump to the back of a growser with a single bound, but I do not know whether she could jump away from the streams of purple fire. Where do you live?”

  I put him off. “Tomorrow we’ll talk. Now you must rest. I will care for you until morning.”

  The following day I helped him on his way. He was determined to go, heedless of his blindness. And yet he admitted there was danger of encountering wild beasts and dreaded vultures. So I insisted upon leading him.

  It was a gain, not a loss, to me. Stone Jaw knew this land. I listened to him eagerly. When I described the features of the landscape to him from time to time he assured me we were making good progress toward the village of the Clankolites.

  I would find it a nomadic village, he said, for the Clankolites roved over the face of the planet to take advantage of the best hunting, and to find the best grazing for their domesticated growsers.

&nb
sp; Then he ejaculated a bit of Clankolite profanity. His own cursed growser had run off from him after his fall, instead of standing by as a good beast should.

  “But you came,” he said, “and your kindness will never be forgotten.”

  Appreciation is such a little thing, and yet how little of it I had enjoyed in my seventeen years. Only from Bendetti.

  As the day progressed I became more interested in Strong Jaw. His troubles became mine, and when he told me what an unworthy and hateful Clankolite warrior was in danger of marrying his daughter, I shared his indignation.

  “But Breath of Clover must choose for herself,” he said resignedly, “and she has already given him two faith-gifts.”

  My thoughts drifted. The love life of Breath of Clover was less important to me at the moment than something I saw skimming over the land like a low swift cloud. It was the space ship.

  “We’ve got to hide,” I blurted, jerking at Stone Jaw’s arms.

  “Vultures?” he asked.

  “Vultures,” I repeated. And from the way he responded I knew that he held a strong respect for some mysterious danger that flew the skies.

  “Stealers of women, killers of men,” he muttered, and then fell silent.

  Later I got around to inquiring whether he had ever seen ships from other planets, and he became quite voluble on the subject. Only a few times in his life had the Clankolites been visited by men from outside worlds. But those times were memorable, for the outsiders brought trinkets and curios and plates of wonderful metals that could be made into hatchets and arrows.

  All through the day of walking I was successful in keeping my wings a secret. And all the while I wondered whether it made any difference. To him, deprived of his eyesight, I was a man. My talk and my actions won his fullest approval.

  Why, then, did I feel any guilt over my deception?

  Had I grown to think of myself as inferior?

  Bendetti used to warn me about that. The engraved gold button was an emblem he had picked up as a souvenir from a far-off planet. He had given it to me as a proof that men exalt the eagle.