The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “I came here from the earth for a purpose,” I said. “I came in the guise of a pilot for Ernest Marsch, who is planning some commercial enterprise from this planet. But my real reason for coming was to get you”

  Dr. Hunt placed his fists on his hips. “Why should you want to get me?”

  “Because you’re too useful a scientist to desert the earth. I want to take you back. Your own planet and your own solar system need you.”

  “I’m doing very well here, thank you,” said Hunt. I saw him cast a quick look at Winston before he added, “After all, I’m running the best research laboratory you ever saw. You haven’t convinced me that there’s anything more advanced on the earth.”

  “Granted,” I said. “But maybe I can convince you that you aren’t running this place. You should have heard what I just heard. Dr. Winston and that deep-voiced fellow have just been gloating over the way they’re duping you, Dr. Hunt!”

  My words struck hard. I thought the doctor’s mustaches were going to spike his eyebrows. All four of his hands came up in defense. I went on:

  “They’re planning to turn me into a laboratory skeleton, and they forced that plan into your mind, somehow,” I said. “You were all ready to go through with it, too. You’ve even set up a pedestal for my bones to rest on. But your own good scientific judgment got the better of you and made you wait. You know that I’m more valuable alive than dead. If you can observe me, and watch me function, and prove my usefulness—”

  The doctor was moving toward me slowly, with a wonderful light of curiosity in his fine face.

  “Who did you say is duping me?” he asked slowly.

  “Dr. Winston and some fellow with a voice like a deep cistern.”

  Winston sprang to his feet. “Don’t believe a word of it. That snake is just hissing to hear his own breath.”

  “Is he?” Dr. Hunt scowled deeply. “I’ll keep right on hissing,” I said.

  “I’ll tell you both what I overheard while I was hiding around that chair. The deep-voiced fellow said it wouldn’t be good for the two of them to be found here together.”

  “Very interesting,” said the doctor. “And he tempted Winston to take over your throne.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Stop it!” Winston cried. “I’m your friend, Dr. Hunt, and you know it.”

  “We all know, Dr. Hunt,” I went on, gesturing with my long arm, “that you came here because you were forced to come. Do you admit that, Dr. Hunt?” Hunt was too busy searching Winston’s eyes to answer me. Winston was coming toward him, both hands extended, and he was doing a good job of imploring.

  “I’m your friend, Dr. Hunt,” he was saying. “You know I’m your friend. You’re not going to listen to that—that snake!”

  “He’s a snake by an accident of fate,” Hunt growled. “But if he’s lying, I’ll see that he’s boiled in oil.” He turned to me. “What did this deepvoiced fellow look like?”

  “I didn’t see him,” I said. “I only saw the shadow of a big skull.”

  “How big was he?”

  “I don’t know. It was dark, and after I hid in the chair I couldn’t turn to see, even after the lights went on. But I’d know his voice among ten million voices.”

  “Which way did he go?”

  “Out that door. You had rung, and he said it was time for him to leave.” Winston began to laugh. He mocked my words so thoroughly that he almost shook me loose from the facts I had seen with my own eyes.

  There wasn’t anything more I could do or say. I had played my hand, and I was losing. You see, it wasn’t easy for Dr. Hunt to place any trust in a newcomer like me on such short acquaintance. I had already pulled my share of snaky tricks, and this might be another. I couldn’t reach in a secret pocket and pull out a fistful of credentials that proved the earth scientists had sent me here to bring Hunt back. I didn’t even have a pocket. I only had scales and a pair of deceitful looking eyes and a monstrous form that made men shudder to look at me.

  “If you’ll pardon me,” said Winston, “I think I’ll go take a bath. That slimy thing left me with the creeps.”

  That was all he needed to say. I was a snake. Any warning truths I might offer were just so much hissing.

  “I’ll give you some pointers on the new experiment a little later, Dr. Winston,” Dr. Hunt said with his usual professional manner—and that was enough to convince me that I hadn’t dented the confidence that existed between these two. Dr. Hunt turned to me. “As for you, you may either go forth on your assignment or return quietly to your cage. Which will it be?”

  CHAPTER XVI

  I moved along at a slow, thoughtful crawling pace through the remainder of the night, watching the last of the six moons slide silently through the skies.

  The air was fresh and fragrant, and I was glad to be away from the odors of the mountain fortress. A whiff of blossom scents caused me to turn my course toward the long jagged black line, far down the valley, which I knew to be the crevasse.

  That crevasse, with its river two miles below the surface of the land, had offered me plenty of pain since I had first fallen into this weird world. But it was not like the pain that I suffered now—the pain of not being trusted. Strange to say, I felt a nostalgic attraction for the crevasse again, and half wished that I might return to its rocky walls and bathe again in its warm waters.

  What a mood! I was nursing my injuries. I was sore because Dr. Hunt hadn’t toppled for my first invitation to junk his set-up on Space Island and come back to the earth with me.

  I was sore and disillusioned because Dr. Winston had so quickly collapsed from a fine, wholesome hero with a keen intellect to a sinister, conniving heel.

  Was he that? Somehow I continued to cling to a hope that he wasn’t. If that deep-cistern voice had managed to put a malicious bug in Dr. Hunt’s brain, maybe he had done the same thing for Dr. Winston. Maybe he was duping both of the boys and making suckers out of them.

  I looked back to the road that led to the mountain fortress. Why had I come away before I had got to the bottom of these things? Why hadn’t I stayed at least long enough to see that deep-cistern voice and find out where it lived and what it meant to do.

  Could it have been some sort of animal, like myself, with a heavy human skull—a deep throat—soft swishy feet?

  Then as I lay on the soft grass and closed my eyes to turn my troubles over in a half-sleeping mind, my thoughts returned to the missing Ernest Marsch . . . I wondered . . .

  How long ago it seemed! . . . I was thinking back to our flight . . .

  We had been flying through space only an hour, I recalled, when Flora Hessel first discovered that Marsch had deceived her.

  “Where is my female companion?” Flora had asked.

  The incident came back clearly through the channels of memory.

  “I’d told you there’d be a female companion to travel with you,” Marsch had answered sharply, “and I’ve kept my promise. Now stop your silly worrying.”

  It was Flora Hessel’s first trip away from the earth, and although I was kept busy in the control room, I could hear snatches of their conversation, and I knew that she was uneasy. I dreaded to think that she might be that way all the way from the solar system to Space Island. But she was being reasonable and patient. All she wanted to know, now that we had embarked from the earth, was, who was her female companion and why couldn’t they meet at once and get acquainted?

  Ernest Marsch lighted a cigar and began to pace uneasily. I saw that his mate, Pete Hogan, was getting nervous, watching to see what Marsch meant to do. I knew, and Hogan must have known, that there wasn’t any other lady on board the ship.

  “Your companion’s name is Terry,” said Marsch. “Ma Terry. She’s in the second stateroom having a nap. No use to wake her. She’s a safe enough companion for anyone. She likes people and she has a soft heart, just like you, Miss Hessel. You two ought to get along just fine.”

  I saw Pete Hogan gulp. He didn’t say a word. When
ever Ernest Marsch made a statement, it stood; Hogan was not one to cross him up.

  Marsch came toward the control room, his wide shoulders filling the doorway for a moment. He saw that I was busy, and blowing a puff of smoke in my direction he closed the door on me, so that I wouldn’t notice what happened next.

  But I was curious, so I set the controls and opened the visor that gave me a view of the main room.

  Flora Hessel was getting angry and suspicious. When Marsch tried to divert her from her questions by putting an arm around her, she began to storm. She didn’t want any of his petting. All she wanted was to see Ma Terry.

  I opened the door a crack to hear the conversation, then.

  “Get Ma Terry,” Marsch said to Hogan, champing angrily on his cigar.

  “If you say so.”

  “I said so, didn’t I? Get her.”

  “Miss Hessel may be kinda disappointed,” Pete Hogan said dubiously. “Shut up!”

  Hogan shrugged and went to the second stateroom and opened the door. He whistled. “Come, Terry.”

  Out came a little black-and-white terrier dog.

  “She’s a Mamma Terrier,” Marsch said out of curled lips. “We call her Ma Terry for short. That’s your female companion. I always keep my promises. She’s gentle and soft hearted, just like you. You two ought to get along just fine.”

  Flora Hessel walked up to Marsch, then, and slapped his face. He was red and white and purple, and he came at her with a fist. Hogan gave a gesture as if to stop him, and gulped a scared, “Don’t do it—don’t.”

  But I was the guy who dashed in and put the strongarm on the boss in time to keep Flora from getting her teeth knocked out. One solid sock to his jaw did the trick. He lay in the corner for two hours and no one touched him.

  Flora kept to her room most of the time after that, though she occasionally came into the main room when several of us were gathered there—for lunch, or a game of cards, or a round of sky-study. Marsch must have felt that he’d pulled a pretty crude gag when she refused to warm up to his advances. Evidently he had thought she’d fall into his arms, not because he was so handsome, but because he was the boss and was able to talk in big terms about some nebulous commercial venture he was getting ready to launch from Space Island.

  He kept his temper under control, for the most part; but his savage feelings were right there under the surface, and he saved a choice bit of demonstration for Flora. It happened after Flora had made friends with “Ma Terry” and had got in the habit of feeding the dog right after our lunch, talking as kindly with it as she might have with her own sister. Marsch had watched with growing jealousy and waited for his chance.

  Then it came: the dog got under his feet by mistake, and he gave it a kick. It whimpered, and he kicked it again. Flora asked him to stop, and that was all he needed. In a fit of anger he kicked “Ma Terry” to death.

  After the dog was disposed of, Marsch walked back and forth through the ship, eying any of us who happened to be talking, as if just daring us to criticize his action. It was his expedition, and by god he’d run things as he pleased.

  It was a pretty unhappy trip, after that. He and I were right on the ragged edge of a gun fight once when someone separated us. At another time I was already to walk into him with my fists swinging, when he changed his mind about something that had led to the trouble.

  And so it had been, as we approached Space Island, that he and I were keeping an eye on each other like two suspicious hawks. And then, as we had slowed down and were moving through the atmosphere for a landing, a strange and unaccountable explosion had struck us—BLAMMMM!—and the blinding white light had been the last thing I had remembered . . .

  And the next thing had been the water, deep down in the crevasse, hours and hours later . . . and I had awakened gradually to discover that I had become a serpent . . .

  Now the new day was dawning, and I curled up in the edge of a thicket whose greenish-blue hues would give me a color protection from the eyes of any chance passers-by. The weight of my troubles had made me weary, and I thought I would sleep the forenoon away. And I might have, if a space ship hadn’t come zooming down from the sky.

  BLAMMMM!

  CHAPTER XVII

  The explosive qualities of Space Island were a fact to be reckoned with. Explosions were Space Island’s official welcome, it seemed, for everything that dropped down out of the skies.

  I had gone through it once myself. Later I had seen it happen to a dead space ship that floated in aimlessly. Now I was seeing it for the third time.

  This was a shapely, well-knit ship that was obviously cruising into the valley for a landing. The deadly invisible trap caught it, and suddenly the splinters of wreckage were falling over a range of three or four miles, drifting down like so many feathers. I discerned a few human bodies among the falling objects. They were alive and kicking. Transformed? Well, not yet, at least. But soon!

  Two of the falling men wore starchy blue uniforms, and one of these fell within a quarter of a mile of my hiding place. I sprang to my feet and went into a high-powered snake gallop, using my swiftest crawling muscles to give myself an extra boost from the belly with every leap.

  Within forty yards of the fallen officer I stopped, hid myself, and waited.

  He had struck easily, not like a man falling to the earth, but with the airiness of a balloon. He was sufficiently stunned, however, that he crawled off dizzily on his hands and knees. Should I have helped him up? I might have scared the poor fellow out of his wits. I waited, then slowly followed to keep him in sight.

  Now it was apparent that he might have remained in his human form. But he was crawling toward a pool of water, and as soon as he began to drink, and to bathe his face, it happened.

  It was a sight to watch, and I don’t think I’d have stopped it if he had been my own grandfather.

  His clothing began to fall away from him. He was resting on his hands and knees over the water. Like anyone else, he felt the need of the life-giving fluid after the blast of heat and pain he’d gone through.

  His neck and head began to take on a beast-like shape. His body shortened and his legs contracted into the legs of pigs.

  Legs, feet, ears, snout! He was a wretched, grunting hog!

  He looked back at his clothes and gave a snort of disgust. Then he stood there, quite as dazed as a prizefighter who has taken a knockout. With his front feet in the edge of the pool and his snout burrowing senselessly in the mud, he let his eyes fall closed and went comfortably to sleep.

  It had all happened within a few minutes of the explosion. What a strange landing!

  Later I was to learn from Kipper more of the forces back of such events.

  The force that caused the explosions was a ray which emanated from a horizontal ray-gun imbedded in the mountains somewhere above the scientists’ fortress. It and several others like it guarded the several surrounding valleys from the dangers of falling objects. If giant meteorites fell through space to land here, they, like all other approaching objects, must pass through the plane where the invisible rays would break them into pieces and retard their fall.

  But the ray was not intended to be deadly in its effect upon living creatures. And the ray did not transform. The transformations were produced by certain natural elements—as I shall explain in a moment.

  I looked beyond the sleeping pig, remembering that there were other fallen men to be considered.

  One of them I spied less than a mile away. He had come through with no damage whatever. He was walking slowly toward the low foothills that lay pink in the morning sun. I slipped along cautiously for many yards, then stopped abruptly. His voice? Was he crying for help?

  He was calling. I crawled closer until I caught his words.

  “A messssage for the Massshas!” He was singing it out to the foothills. “A messssage for the Massshas!”

  No, he wasn’t out of his head. He knew exactly what he was doing. He and all the rest of this small party had co
me here with the intention of making contact with the Mashas. And this was the password.

  It worked. Right away a delegation of twelve or fifteen pygmies came running out of the foothills to greet him.

  Why? What was going on here? Another of the newcomers also moved toward the foothills, calling the password.

  Five low, artificial, earthen mounds provided the official entrance to Masha Land, an underground city. An arched opening in the center mound was just large enough for these two wayfarers from the sky to enter—on their hands and knees. The twelve or fifteen Mashas followed them in, and that was that. I was left to wonder what it was all about.

  I can’t say why I crawled back to the sleeping pig at the edge of the pool, unless it was because my appetite was rising. But as I was approaching, I looked back to the fortress mountains to see that the other part of this weird world had also taken notice of the new arrivals.

  A squadron of fifteen planes roared out of the mountain and began to fly up and down the valley. The show was running true to form, I thought. Whoever had come in today’s windfall, the fortress meant to get in on its share of the gleanings. That was how it had happened before: the scientists had sent out a search party to pick up the pieces—and also to reconvert into their human forms any newly formed specimens who weren’t interesting enough in their design to deserve a place in Dr. Hunt’s museum.

  On this search, someone—or rather, something—was soon spotted. I wished I had got there in time to see what sort of monstrosity it was. But one of the planes had already circled down to fly over within a few feet of the surface of a stream of water. Out went a package of yellow powders. Pwoof! A small explosion of dust and steam!

  Flora Hessel should have been here to see, I thought. This was exactly the way it had happened to her.

  When the cloud cleared, the subject walked out in his normal human form—a fine looking specimen of a man.

  The blimp came over, then, and a basket was dropped for the fellow. He finally got in, under protest. I could see that he didn’t want the rescuers to know that he had had other plans. Obviously he had meant to find his way into the camp of the Mashas.