by Don Wilcox
Newscaster’s comments? There were none. Voluntary censorship, if you want to call it that. Pressure from Wurzelle would be more accurate. The fifty million who had been ushered off with all the proofs and assurances that they would return in two years—three at the latest—f-would have groaned a groan that would have shaken down all the mountains if they had seen that little IF wedging into their fate.
Strange to say the public accustomed itself to the uncertainty.
A few voices like that of Verle Marble roared ominous overtones that berated the people for their fickleness. What was the meaning of that IF?
Simply this, said Verle Marble: Wurzelle was cajoling the nation into doubting the return so he could slide out from under his promise of bettering the nation during their absence.
But gradually the country, suffering with heartaches, began to doubt whether the promises of temporary death would ever be fulfilled.
As for bettering the nation the Council of Twelve “forgot.”
And now to return to those personal bolts of lightning. In the very first week after the Exodus they came blasting down through the fog to knock all the social props out from under me and throw me back into the arms of Lord Temp.
It began forty-eight hours after Bobby left us.
A hospital orderly brought me a telephone and said it was my girl friend.
“Jim,” came Sally’s voice full of tears, “do you hate me terribly?”
“Hate you. I love you more than anything in the world. If I’ve neglected to mention it, it’s because my identity has been a trifle shady—”
“Stop, Jim. Have you seen the papers? Do you know what they’re saying? It was all my fault, Jim. I tried to tell father just how it happened—Bobby’s sudden leap into temporary death. I forgot the reporters were listening in, picking up everything.”
“I don’t understand. What’s upset you?”
“Father is raving with grief. And he thinks you were to blame. Honest, I didn’t mean it that way.”
I began to see daylight. Yes, my words had tipped the scales for Bobby. If I hadn’t sworn that these people would return—
“Father’s in a terrible state, Jim. He’s all torn up. That’s why I’m warning you. And the reporters—they’ll be after you. I hope you can tell them something that will comfort father. It’s all so terrible. You know how Dad and I distrust SABA. Really, we can’t believe that Bobby will ever come back.”
“SABA be damned,” I muttered. “You’ve got to believe me, anyhow.”
“And your job, Jim . . . Please remember me as a friend, Jim . . . I’m so sorry. . . Goodbye.”
That was that. From the sound of that goodbye my relations with Prescott Barnes and family were about over. Bobby was gone, my job was gone, Sally was going!
CHAPTER XX
Vultures at Work
No sleep for me that night.
I had prevailed upon the hospital to ward off the reporters with the statement that I was too sick to talk with anyone, that the loss of Bobby had cost me a relapse.
“A relapse it is, Mr. Flinders,” the doctor said, studying me through serious eyes. “No communications or visitors.”
“And if the Honorable Barnes sends notice that I’ve been fired, I’ll be in no condition to receive it for at least a week.”
“As you will,” the doctor smiled. My whole new world had caved in. At midnight I was tossing about in a fever. At one I got up and dressed. The night was murky outside my window. I paced the floor. I heard the far off bell that some Public Service Minister must have ordered to help steer a friend.
“I’ll take a walk,” I said to the orderly. “I need a little night air.”
I strolled west. A fine drizzle filled the night’s blackness. The moisture felt good against my face; my vigor was returning. I stopped for three or four coffees along Victory Boulevard. My steps kept taking me west.
By two in the morning I was climbing the slopes of the red crags. I took semi-shelter from the drizzle under an aspen. The city lights spread before me were dimmed out by the weather.
“I’m seeing my own fade-out,” I said to myself, and for the first time I made a great admission. “I need Lord Temp” A ball of luminous gray steam circled through the black fog and approached me, taking on the shape of four white horses drawing a chariot. Hoofs clattered to a stop on the rocky slope, then pounded off into the blackness.
“Not a fit night out for flesh or bones,” said the skeleton as he sauntered up to me, his metatarsals clacking with each step. “Flinders, I’ve missed you. Too bad your were laid up for the big show.”
“You know everything, don’t you?” I shook hands with him. The sprinkling of sparks lighted his grinning yellow skull and the fine raindrops clinging to his red robe.
“Yes, I get around,” said Lord Temp. The great march had filled him with an exultant spirit and he was eager to talk about his success. For him America had really come through.
“SABA really carried the ball for you,” I commented. “Vetto was the man you needed, all right. Not me.”
“Yes and no,” said Lord Temp. “I know you think your heart isn’t in this deal. I’ve overheard some of your delirious mumblings in the hospital. Oh, yes, I’ve dropped in frequently—without my robes, of course.”
“And you heard me mumbling?”
“Don’t be troubled about it. You’ve been a worthwhile experiment. As for this SABA magician—”
The slight hum of vibrating bones told me that Lord Temp had shuddered at the thought of Vetto.
“A very hard man to work with,” he went on. “I never knew any top ranking financier to be quite so stingy. Not satisfied to coin millions on my power. He wants all the credit too. Come, let’s drop over and see what he’s cooking up.”
“There was something I wanted to ask you, Lord Temp. I’m on a spot—”
“Later, Flinders.”
The chariot came along and conveyed us to the top of the SABA mansion. The horses chased away, and we crawled along the tiled roof till we reached the inset tower. The skeleton hooked one arm over the crenelated edge and the other around me and let me down so that the purple light was in my face. Cautiously I slid the window open a few inches.
Voices welled up through the tower from the conference table below. Loudest was the Mussolini-snarl of Gravelli Vetto.
“Full power? Most certainly I possess the full power. Who else but me? For thousands of years SABA has awaited a man of superhuman strength. I am that man. I am the Mahdi of SABA. Is there any power I don’t possess?”
It was Wurzelle who answered. I could see that the two of them were alone. From this angle Wurzelle’s pine-sliver hair and eager shoulders were an almost perfect enlargement of a miniature I had once seen in a rectangle of black glass.
“It’s high time you cut me in on this, Gravelli. You sing sweet, all right, and the people fall for it. But I’m a practical man. I’ve proved that already.”
“SABA sees all, believes all, Mr. Wurzelle.”
“You can drop your purple accents, pal. There’s something SABA hasn’t seen yet.”
“What could that be?”
“It could be a scheme in my head that would earn SABA more millions than you’ve ever counted.”
“SABA believes all,” said Gravelli Vetto in a voice that made the window tremble. “Your scheme?”
“You’re going to decipher a volume of ancient SABA writings,” said Wurzelle, “that contains a lot of new and important predictions. Get your helpers on the job right away.”
“Doing what?”
“Manufacturing said volume of secrets five thousand years old.”
Wurzelle produced some papers and Vetto became absorbed in them.
The blood was rushing to my head by this time and the ground was a long way down. The guy who invented the word eaves-dropping had most likely fallen from a spot like this.
“I’m getting sick, Lord Temp,” I whispered. “Pull me back.”
&n
bsp; “Sure thing—but that gives you a rough idea how these vultures are working.”
We crawled the tile roof again and signaled to the approaching horses to make a soft landing. Again the best of taxi service; he took me all the way back to the hospital and we pulled up short on the rain-soaked parking beside the ambulance drive. (The gardener would mutter oaths over those mysterious hoof-tracks for days afterward).
“See you later, Flinders. Keep your temperature down.”
“Lord Temp, have you forgotten? I came to you tonight to ask you a favor.”
“What’ll it be? More redbacks? That’s easy.”
“I want you to bring someone back to life for me,” I said. “Reach into your realm of temporary death and get my friend Bobby Hammock.”
“Hammock? Why does he want to come back?”
“He’s not asking it. I’m asking it.”
“He won’t be ready,” said Lord Temp. “I’d figured to hold these folks two years at least.”
“Ask him to get ready, as a favor to me. If you want someone to take his place I’ll go. Or if that doesn’t pay the bill you can even rub me out if you need to. But bring him back.”
Lord Temp’s jaws slowly fell apart as I made my plea. Then he snapped them shut and tossed his skull cockily.
“No exchange necessary. But this is irregular. It won’t happen often.”
I was on the verge of asking for the starry-eyed girl friend, but Lord Temp cracked his whip and charioted away.
By the following noon the news was already all over the country.
Bobby Hammock had reappeared. He was at his father’s house, safe and sound.
CHAPTER XXI
Romance in the Dog House
What caused Bobby Hammock to come back to life?
The answer to that mystery came to Sally and Mr. Barnes straight from Bobby’s own lips. It was an answer which, luckily for me, never reached the newspapers.
“Jim Flinders did it for me.”
When I heard that I knew Bobby had thought his honesty would be a favor to me. Plenty swell of him. When Mr. Barnes finally got through to me at the hospital to phone me all the good news I was sure my stock was going up like your thermometer in a summer sun.
“How’s Bobby feeling? Any worse for the wear and tear?” I asked.
There was a note of uncertainty in Prescott Barnes’ tone. “He’ll all right, I think. Pretty solemn, though. He’ll talk with you later, he says . . . No, he won’t say a word about what he’s been through. The reporters gave up asking him. He’s very silent.”
“Everyone’s glad to have him back, I’m sure,” I said, adding significantly, “Sally and everyone.”
“Of course, of course. And again, Mr. Flinders, my heartiest thank-you until you’re better paid.”
I tried to hold on to that telephone conversation. I wanted to get my job back. I wanted to talk with Bobby. Most of all I wanted to know that everything had been squared with Sally.
Another bolt of lightning was being forged with my name on it. But as yet I simply didn’t realize what I’d done.
When the doctor sent me merrily on my way two days later I spent a sunshiny hour watching traffic spin around the plaza and then drifted over to the Bureau of Biographical Records. I was curious to see what could be found on Bobby “Hammock” Barnes, and how he had gotten away with an incognito.
I was out of luck. The files were overcrowded. Reporters and professional SABA researchers and others were fairly snatching for dope on both Bobby “Hammock” and his former self, Robert Barnes. Yes, there were cumulative records on the lives of each of his names but until this event the Bureau had kept secret the identity of these two.
All perfectly legal, of course. Bobby had long ago been granted “anonymity rights,” as many persons were who were justified in escaping something from their past. It might be a father’s spotlight, as in Bobby’s case; or a criminal past that had been outgrown; or even one’s own famous name that made it impossible for him to get around peacefully.
Before leaving I decided to take another look at the materials on my own past that I’d never examined closely. What events of my career, I wondered, had anyone bothered to record?
“Those boxes have been checked out, sir,” said the librarian.
“Oh-oh.” My instinct told me to beat a quick retreat. I was too slow. A voice captured me on the spot.
“Jim. Jim Flinders. You’re just the one I wanted to see.”
“Sally! It’s a small world. I was just leaving. I have an appointment.”
“With a cup of coffee, I suppose.” Sally caught me by the hand. “Come back to our library booth, Jim. I want to ask you some questions.”
As I took a seat I noticed that her her slender fingers were tapping nervously on the study table. She was looking across at me with Sally Hart’s accusing gray eyes, the steady inquiring look that had found guilt or nearguilt in me back in the days of my awful youth.
Sally began to talk and she was darned sweet, considering what she had to say. She was a trifle more tactful than her great-great-great-great grandmother would have been, and less stubborn. But the whole deal was a bitter pill for her as well as me, that was plain.
“I’m afraid, Jim, that when I know all the truth about you I’m not going to like it one bit. But I can’t go on being a friend to you till I know.”
Sometimes she was biting her lips to hold back tears, I was sure; but she went after the truth as if her faith in life itself depended on it.
She thanked me with all her heart for turning her back from the death tunnel that time she had tried to catch Bobby.
And she thanked me for somehow bringing Bobby back. But now her face grew grave.
“What are you, Jim Flinders, that you could do this?”
“I’m not a SABA magician, if that’s what you mean.”
“What are you that you seem to have come through a century and a half—to have known Sally Hart long ago—to have come into my life almost miraculously, to haunt me—”
“Do I haunt you, Sally? If I make life unpleasant for you, tell me and I’ll—”
“I didn’t say that, Jim. I’ve liked you—you must know that—I’ve liked you a lot. But Sally Hart—I can’t help thinking of her—I know she loved you too—”
“Did you say too?”
“I mean—she must have built all her aircastles around you just as—as anyone under those circumstances might do. And then—” Sally shook her head slowly. “Are you what my superstitious old grandmother thought? A wandering spirit? A spirit of evil that drops in to do mischief and then soars away? Are you? . . . I’ve got to know.”
If ever in my life I tried to be scrupulously truthful that was the moment: “I wish I knew, Sally, believe me. I wish I could tell you all the answers. All I know is that I once got lifted off an experimental space ship and tossed through time to be dropped into this age. It wasn’t any thing I planned. I didn’t ask for it.”
“You were the victim of some evil power?”
“The victim of an experiment by the Lord of Temporary Death. Whoever he is, he’s timeless. He comes and goes through the ages. And now he has come to this age to try his great plan—”
“What hold does he have on you?”
“That’s hard to answer. Probably a stronger grip than I’ve ever had on myself. You see we’ve knocked around together quite a little since I took off in 1950. I’ve talked his plans over with him.”
“Don’t you realize what evil he must represent, upsetting the whole nation this way? Can’t you see it’s your duty to break away from him?”
I couldn’t answer. This was the very confusion of purposes that had haunted me from the first. Lord Temp was an agreeable sort of fellow; and for all his upsetting the nation and bringing heartaches to a lot of people and headaches to everyone, how did I know but what he might have something? It was like he said: up to now there has just been birth, life, and death. But maybe this temporary death, coming in t
o break the drabness of some lives, would prove to be a useful thing.
I expressed this uncertainty to Sally. “We can’t know until his experiment has had a chance.”
“You don’t want to break away from him!” Sally said, and her lips quivered and her eyes seemed to look through me. I felt cold chills race to my fingertips.
“I don’t know whether I could,” I replied. “And even if I could—I don’t know—maybe I wouldn’t want to unless I was sure—”
My “unless” was lost for the dam of Sally’s emotions burst and she was in tears. What she said to me as I followed her down the winding staircase and through the library hallway added up to walking papers for me, no further translation necessary.
“I’m going away, Jim, and you needn’t try ever to see me again,” she sobbed. And then as we paused between the marble pillars at the entrance she brushed the tears away and tried to speak in her frank friendly manner. “I didn’t want to take the trip with father. He’s going abroad soon—he and Leon. But I’ll have to go now. Goodbye, Jim.”
“Sally—wait. There’s something I want to give you. I’ve been carrying it all this time. It’s an old snapshot of Sally Hart.”
I took it from my billfold and handed it to her.
“Thank you, Jim . . . Oh!” She was looking at something else in my billfold. “So you have it. Yes, that’s it—the missing card from that beautiful pack Sally Hart left. May I?”
Her slim fingers reached to draw the card from my open billfold. She gave a little gasp of surprise. This card was slightly different. Into the picture of Sally Hart was blended that other picture, the chariot, the four white horses, Lord Temp.
And Sally Barnes was asking me to give it to her!
“No, no, no, my dear young lady,” came a reply from someone much quicker on the trigger than I. A swirl of red appeared from behind the pillar at Sally’s left, and up stepped the gleaming yellow skeleton, a highly polished and brilliant figure indeed in broad daylight. His rattly voice frightened Sally—or maybe it was the shock of seeing him face to face for the first time.
