The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “Let us pray that our departed fifty million will come back—and soon. And let us be ready to recognize them for their true worth!”

  There was a blast that should have shattered the whole Wurzelle government like so much thin glass.

  For the awful truth was this: Wurzelle and Gravelli Vetto had fixed things to their own taste. They had arranged that THOSE FIFTY MILLION WOULD NEVER COME BACK.

  Yes, they had taken action to murder those fifty million in cold blood.

  I had seen it happen. With my own eyes I had watched Wurzelle’s men fill the mines with poisonous gas and seal the doors.

  Under more favorable circumstances I would have radioed Prescott Barnes without delay. I would have shouted this atrocious crime to the high heavens. But I could not. For I was now behind bars and under constant guard, a prisoner of the Honorable Wurzelle.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Bombs Over the Goldfish Bowls

  Bobby had been true to his word and had called me. We had trudged out over the snow-filled mountain roads on that February night. Just before the night closed in on us we reached the entrances of the old tungsten mines. Steel doors had been built to close the Necropolis to the public. I tried to peer through the small circular windows. But Bobby assured me they weren’t windows.

  We ducked back out of sight when the eight big autoplane tankers came zooming down out of the dark sky.

  They showered their lights through falling snow and sought out the wide roadway that had been, nearly two years ago, the end of the great Exodus. Soon they leveled off and came down for smooth landings. Each tanker wheeled up to a mine entrance. This apparently had become an efficient routine. The pilots flashed on the spotlights and proceeded to drag some hose from their tankers.

  We weren’t in the most advantageous position to see. They had taken Bobby by surprise by coming so early. As for myself, up to this moment I was still wondering what they were up to.

  I followed Bobby along the edge above the graded road. The mountain climbing was perilous. We should have been below. Suddenly I slipped in the snow and went down the slope, arms forward, and almost hit the edge of a beam of light before I recovered my feet and scrambled for cover.

  Two spotlights leaped across to the nearest knoll. Bobby was on one side of those lights, I on the other. They began to comb back and forth, and I backtracked in a hurry. Bobby must have been making tracks in the other direction or lying low behind a rock. The watchers hadn’t seen him. They were after me. But they must have known there were two of us. Our snow tracks hadn’t had time to fill.

  Now I worked my way back, and for a few breathless minutes was free to see the whole crew at work. Each tanker was forcing compressed gas into a mine entrance. Huge flexible metal hoses had been attached to the valves in the metal doors—those circular glass “windows.”

  What I was seeing and what few hints I’d caught from Bobby added up to a plan of permanent death for fifty million persons.

  This, I knew at once, was the joint inspiration of Vetto and Wurzelle. Would it work? I went sick with horror at the thought. Would any man ever know what a holocaust was taking place within this mountain at this very moment?

  Yes, it was a routine job to these crafty Wurzelle crewmen. They were at it every night, increasing the pressure with every hour of work, to make sure that no recesses within the labyrinth of tunnels escaped the poison.

  Other than the crews at work there were these extra men who couldn’t be anything more nor less than a plainclothes army. They were roving around with flashlights.

  Just as I thought I was safe three of them came upon me with flashlights. I didn’t have time to think of running.

  I did my best to look innocent. I pointed down to the tankers in the roadway.

  “Hi, fellows,” I said. “Gee, didja see what they’re doin’ down there? They must be givin’ the dead ones a change of air.”

  The biggest of the three men nudged the others; they approached casually. They were noticing that I wasn’t armed. I tried to play a gawky tourist who had just come up to see the sights. The big guy barked at me.

  “What happened to the other one? Which way did he go?”

  I hesitated for a moment. “Er—that way. South, ain’t it?”

  They didn’t suppose I had told the truth, so they followed the fast-filling tracks northward; taking me along. “Anything wrong?” I asked.

  “Not a thing,” said the big guy. “Nice night you picked to see sights. But we’ll give you a ride back to town.” They gave me a ride back to town, and put me in a nice warm prison lined with steel bars. If my sense of direction served me, this oversized telephone booth was in the third level below the glass dome of the plaza’s busiest Goldfish Bowl—Wurzelle’s.

  There I removed my sopping wet shoes and socks and wrung them out and baked my feet against the register and wondered if Bobby had got away. When I got thawed out I entertained myself trying to see who came and went through these offices. But they set up an old yellow folding screen in front of my bars, and I saw nothing. I slept.

  With daylight I discovered that the office workers who surrounded Wurzelle weren’t too surprised to learn that the old “chimp cage” was in use. They spoke of me as a Rocky Mountain Tourist, and wondered where I’d be moved next. (It seemed that Wurzelle ran a small jail business on the side and commanded the pick of the nation’s thugs.)

  My prison was not without a certain charm of its own. Three meals a day and a delightful view, thanks to the rotunda-like construction of the building.

  Two walls of mirrors higher up brought me a nice patch of blue sky from somewhere east of the city.

  For several days I was fed and cared for but not questioned. Everyone was so very busy.

  Then came an unusual day.

  At ten o’clock the sun came down to greet me.

  At eleven o’clock the mystery ships—a whole fleet of them—moved into my patch of sky and I knew something was up.

  At twelve o’clock sirens sounded and the office force all sought some lower and supposedly bomb-proof level. I stayed on the third.

  The fleet, I learned at three o’clock in the afternoon, passed squarely over the Glass Capitol. It soared off into space, out of range of the adventurous squadron of volunteer space flivvers that tried to make contact.

  Since no communication had been established whatsoever the lethargic nation was reluctant to condemn these mystery ships as warlike; nevertheless it was thought expedient to sound sirens throughout the whole surrounding countryside.

  From three o’clock on the government plaza was a scene of uproarious tumult such as no capitol in the world since the days of world wars. The whole nation was calling in, radioing, wiring, pouring lobbyists, governors, and ambassadors of great business houses into the roaring vortex. The whole angry country suddenly demanded to know why there was no national defense ready to meet these anonymous trespassers.

  (No one stopped to argue the legal question, how close may space ships come without trespassing?)

  Even the SABA wires grew hot with the mutterings of one Gravelli Vetto, who was supposed to know all the answers, but was losing his temper asking questions. Was the government asleep? Weren’t there any government ships to handle this job?

  “AMERICA,” the headlines screamed, “HAS BEEN CAUGHT WITH HER SPACE SHIPS DOWN!”

  The volunteer flivvers performed one service which quickened the general terror but at least helped to clear the fogs of uncertainty. They returned with some color photographs of the space prowlers, America’s first close-ups of these new creatures. Being uncertain whether they were from Mars, Venus, or some remoter planet, the news reports slapped the name “Sky Bandits” under the picture.

  And so the gasping world took its first amazed look, that evening, at the color reproductions of weird man-like creatures with scarlet faces and black and white checkered scales instead of hair, and muscular bare arms and legs of scarlet. The pictures revealed bravery and intelligence
in those bold-featured faces—faces that gazed down through the transparent floors of doughnut-shaped ships or that remained fixed upon elaborate instrument boards that glinted with the pale sunlight.

  I heard Wurzelle snarling late that night—the sound came to me through a television set in the next room, for Wurzelle had closed himself in his private office on the second level. He was ordering his whole staff to get their heads together and help him counter the thrusts of his most dangerous enemy.

  Yes, Prescott Barnes was making his voice heard from across the Atlantic.

  “Why is the United States not prepared for this impending crisis? Why isn’t it mobilizing its manpower this very minute?”

  And again later that night. “The public is entitled to action from the government at once. The probable destruction which threatens the capitol must be delayed We must make time to build fighting space ships. We must make time for the return of our outcast workers, the fifty million people we thought we didn’t need.”

  For approximately seventy-two hours I sat in my prison cell, all but forgotten, and took in the passing show. Two more days brought two more flights of the space bandits over us. Wurzelle’s headquarters had about as soothing effect on your nerves as brushing your teeth with a buzzsaw.

  With each new wail of the sirens some more offices would move bag and baggage down to lower and safer levels. Government Plaza Guards would hastily survey all the black-glass reflectors at dark to make sure the upper levels of the Goldfish Bowls were cleared. Then the plaza and the whole city would make a frenzied effort to blackout.

  By daylight SABA sent a small fleet of outmoded rocket ships into the air, crates that had done continent-to-continent service ten years ago. All eighteen of them came down to forced landings with all their electrically operated dials “frozen.” The enemy obviously had some tricks that could paralyze us.

  Another morning brought me my personal surprise of the week.

  Whose voice should I hear outside my folding screen but that of Bobby Hammock Barnes!

  “Yes, I heard you had a prisoner. Vetto sent me over to relieve you. Give me three men. I’ll take him in charge. We have plenty of facilities at SABA headquarters.”

  The official must have replied that there were no three men available; SABA would have to furnish its own escort. Then Bobby drew himself up boldly. “All right, I’ll handle him myself. I’ve got a trusty ray gun. Did you ever prove anything on him? . . . No? You haven’t even learned his name. Well, leave him to us. If he knows anything he shouldn’t, SABA will bring it out.”

  Bobby Hammock pushed the screen aside, narrowed his eyes at me, gripped his ray gun, and ordered someone to open the barred door.

  “Keep three paces ahead of me, fellow,” Bobby snapped. “We’re taking a taxi to SABA. All right. Get along.” We taxied deep into the business district and stopped at a newsstand. Bobby turned to me.

  “See you again some time, stranger. Any messages for Gravelli Vetto? . . . Sure I’ve turned SABA. Ask no questions unless you’re prepared to pay the fee.”

  I stood on the curb and watched him taxi away.

  The sudden turn in my fate left me as happy as a schoolboy whose teacher is called away on examination day. I bought all the newspapers I’d missed and hurried to my room, and combed them for news of Sally.

  Here it was, a three column headline:

  BARNES WILL RETURN THIS WEEK.

  Former Council Member Amazed at American Apathy. Declares He Is Ready to Grapple With Problems of National Defense.

  And half way down the column, “He and his daughter Sally will rocket back to the United States Saturday . . .”

  This was Friday. It was more than Friday, it was the night.

  At midnight the first bomb dropped out of the skies. It struck the geometric center of the government plaza—the Goldfish Bowl of the Honorable Wurzelle.

  CHAPTER XXV

  Panic

  The blast shook the city and I’ll never forget what followed.

  At the time I was in my lounging robe with a heap of newspapers on my lap, the television radio on my left, a globe on my right. The discussions of swift diplomatic efforts by Wurzelle had filled the air. He was scraping to get foreign countries to lend their fighting ships. The neighbor nations had snarled, No! And then—

  WHAMMMMMM! Blommmmmmm—broooooffff—blunnnnngg!

  The globe jumped off the table and I caught the radio as it was falling. A moment later I was racing out of the rooming house in bedroom slippers, robe, and topcoat. Down the street I saw the plaza. A blaze of fire was welling up like an angry volcano. Glass was melting and spilling down like paraffin into the inferno.

  Officers yelled at everybody to take cover. Sirens were screaming and the fire was crackling like the Fourth of July.

  The plaza, actually a broad turtle-back roof over innumerable government offices, had been struck squarely through one of its Goldfish Bowls. The bomb had plummeted deep.

  The firemen must have been on their job below as well as above. The blazes were surrounded and within a few minutes the inferno was transformed into smoking black ruins.

  Elbowing through the excited throngs I ambled to my rooming house, stopping here and there to recover a lost bedroom slipper. Amid the loud talking I picked up a detail that struck home.

  “They’re sure good shots,” this fellow yelled. “You know whose Goldfish Bowl they hit? Wurzelle’s!”

  I gulped. There but for the grace of Bobby would I have been.

  Headlines were being shouted through the streets within the hour.

  “CAPITOL ATTACKED. WURZELLE LIVES.”

  It sounded like he’d missed death by a hair. As a matter of fact, two of Wurzelle’s officers were killed and three workers on the lower levels were injured. Wurzelle, busy in the Department of State twenty-seven corridors away, had missed his wings, if any.

  Profuse were the warnings to make ready for further attacks.

  Would Sally Barnes rocket back to America tomorrow with her father? I hoped this would change her plans. She’d be safe in Europe. Or would she—with Leon King there?

  Further reports insisted that Wurzelle was perfectly confident of his ability to meet this crisis. He was sure he could wangle some help from abroad.

  He would need a lot of it. As matters developed in the next few hours a lightning conquest was full upon usl

  At daybreak the second fury of bombs broke over the Glass Capitol.

  Only eight bombs fell. They struck nothing. But we couldn’t rejoice too much over that. They blasted eight holes on the eight corners of the city with such deadly accuracy that the stars in their courses might well take lessons.

  “The pattern of destruction has begun with geometric precision,” came the dire words of a calm announcer.

  And later, “Twelve hours after the first bomb we still have no plan of defense.

  “Several brave pilots organized a volunteer fleet and went forth, valiantly demonstrating the courage of our potential fighters. However, before they could come within range of those massive ‘flying doughnuts’ their instrument boards froze and they came down for perilous landings.

  “Your announcer will ascend with the next party and try to give you a close-up of our enemy.”

  Late that afternoon the announcer went up.

  He soared close enough to give a corroborating description of these seemingly human creatures: They were garbed in cloth and metal garments. Apparently nature had given them crests of checkered black and white scales over their heads and necks instead of hair. Their scarlet faces were alert and expressive; their scarlet arms and legs were muscular.

  “There are females as well as males aboard. Most of them are watching through the transparent floors.

  “I have counted sixty of these great flying doughnuts. Their circular hulls of coppery metal are a hundred yards in diameter that seemingly float along like clouds. The nature of their power and speed is a mystery.”

  The announcer’s
story broke off abruptly. It was completed a few hours later by his pilot who landed at the city port as white as a ghost. The invaders had overtaken his ship in a stratosphere chase. They had taken the announcer captive. The ship and pilot they had sent back to the ground unharmed.

  This incident of mingled ruthlessness and mercy only intensified the capitol’s paralysis of terror. If the invaders wanted human captives, who would be next?

  CHAPTER XXVI

  Saba’s Big Promise

  The great secret society of SABA was quick to rally from the stun of the first attack—to capitalize on it.

  Never had Gravelli Vetto sensed a surer bet than these wild fears of the people.

  By autoplane he rained bright promises over the nation. Watch SABA! A plan of safety will be announced as soon as all SABA officials have met to receive a new store of personal power from their leader.

  I wondered what Bobby would think of that. Would he attend this great meeting? Had he accepted an office, or was he simply an anonymous handy man who arranged the chairs for committee meetings?

  The bells were ringing over the city on that momentous night. I was on a roof as wide as this city block and the leaden bell tones came from three directions to clash in my ears.

  Lord Temp had brought me here, saying, “Your friend Bobby needs your help. He intends to finish what his father started.”

  So Bobby and I were at work up here in the darkness, emptying sacks of powder and mixing them with wooden paddles, distributing bucket loads of the stuff around over the roof. There was no light to guide or to reveal us—the blackout over the Glass Capitol was complete.

  We counted our steps and deposited our potent mixture on nine piles to form a perfect octagon around a center.

  “That’s all for now,” said Bobby. “Come this way. We can hear through the stairs that leads up from the stage.”

  We heard the impassioned speech of Gravelli Vetto, every word of it. The mighty ox was putting over a Mussolini-act that was a classic.