The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “Oh,” I said. Not much of a comment, but I managed to choke on it.

  “You don’t seem to share my enthusiasm. Have your man bring us another drink and I’ll tell you my plans for the execution.”

  I groaned and mumbled. I knew that the captain’s victim was hearing every word, and I found myself trying to talk about the weather when there wasn’t any weather, the time of day when there wasn’t any day. Meanwhile the captain bore down on me with his execution plans—a big event, as he visualized it, to climax the voyage.

  Fred brought in more drinks, as calm as a plumber in a flooded bathroom. Somehow I managed not to turn over my glass.

  Fred, bless his heart, placed a damp cloth over the back of my neck before he went out. The pleasant chill sent an inspiration to my brain.

  “Where,” I murmured weakly, “is this murderer hiding?”

  “That,” said the captain, with a strange gleam in his eye, “is my own little secret. . . But don’t worry Senator, you’ll get your share of credit. You’re the one who will identify him.”

  “O-o-oh!” I groaned.

  “Are you sick?”

  “No, I just had a very happy thought. If we want to reap the most votes—er—I mean publicity—”

  “Yes?”

  “We should have an audience of ten thousand for this little occasion.”

  The captain frowned. “We have less than a thousand on board, crew and all.”

  “Then we must wait till we land. There’ll be thousands at the dedication of the new hotel—Americans and Martians both. We can run our show in right afterward—the first Martian execution for an Earth crime.”

  The captain scowled and sauntered to the door. “I don’t know about that, Senator. I’ll think it over.” He turned to Fred, who had stepped up to open the door. “It would be a little risky. Don’t you think so?”

  CHAPTER VII

  Footsteps Outside

  That was one awful argument I got into one noon down in the rathskeller. One certain elderly lady with a talent for speaking her mind made me sore when she said that all Martians should be lined up and shot. I quarreled with her over that word all. “You’re an extremist,” I said. “Maybe that’s why I never got to be a senator,” she snapped back. Then the battle was on.

  I may occasionally lose an argument during the argument, but when I tell about it afterward I always win. I relayed this one to the Musical Bells and found they were intensely interested.

  Bobby wanted to know what the woman looked like, and Betty asked what she had on, and they both asked about her manners.

  “She’s in high society—but in the most obnoxious sense of the term,” I said. “She probably attends the charity balls, but I’ll bet a dollar she cheats her chauffeurs and maids.”

  “Drop in sometime, Senator,” said Betty, giving Bobby a wink, “and meet my stepmother.”

  Then I got it. Yes, that’s who she was. Money, arrogance, a sharp tongue, a gift for trying to run other people’s affairs—I should have known she was none other than Sarah Windblow Weeks.

  The amazing thing was that Betty and Bobby were tickled pink to know that we had clashed and that I was on their side. Their vibraharp program that day was a classic of high spirits. And afterward, over coffee cups, they told me everything.

  There was a sizable inheritance that should have fallen to Betty two years before. She and Bobby had twice postponed their wedding date in an effort to please this imperious old guardian of the cash.

  However, Betty had finally discovered that said cash was nowhere in sight. It was gone—invested by her stepmother in a get-rich-quick land deal.

  “What land?” I asked.

  “Some Martian territory beyond the spaceport of Marshington.”

  “H-m-m. That might turn out to be an okay investment,” I suggested. “The government is pouring a heap of funds through space that ought to land somewhere.”

  Bobby shrugged. “We didn’t care about the money. We wanted to get married.”

  “If you couldn’t please the old dame anyway,” I said, “why didn’t you go ahead and marry secretly?”

  “Confidentially,” said Betty, “we were going to. We intended to make this Mars trip an elopement. But she got onto our plans—”

  “And she came along to keep us apart,” Bobby groaned.

  “In short,” said Betty, “she’s ruining our lives. I don’t wish her any bad luck, but if there is a professional murderer on board—”

  “Betty!” Bobby’s gesture stopped her before she could say it. “I know you don’t mean it, but if anyone heard you breathe such a thing and then it happened—whooie!—where would we be?”

  “I take it all back,” said Betty, “but I wish she’d buy a one-way ticket to Jupiter.”

  About thirty-six hours before we were to land on Mars, the eager captain decided he wouldn’t hold off the execution of the criminal stowaway. It was our show, he said, and he wasn’t going to see it subordinated to any hotel dedications. The man would be executed here and now.

  His stewards roped off a section of the observation deck and fastened several thicknesses of sheet steel to the wall.

  This served as a background for bullets. Five guards spent an hour at drill, marching an imaginary prisoner to the wall and shooting him down.

  The affair was scheduled for “noon” just twenty-four hours later. Sleeping hours went unobserved. The passengers crowded to bars, drinking and laughing with such excitement that even the sanest of souls were caught off balance.

  No person could have maintained any greater calmness than Patchy Black. He was ready to wait on me whenever I came in. His hand was steady. Yet he was fully aware of what was going on.

  “I’ve kept an ear to the door,” he said quietly. “There are guards walking back and forth through the length of this corridor. They’re closing in on me gradually.”

  “I can’t understand that damned captain,” I said. “Every time he comes in and talks about the murder, I figure he’s going to pull a gun and say, ‘All right, Patchy, off with that false nose!’ ”

  “He scarcely even looks at me,” said Patchy.

  “No wonder—after giving you that line about protecting me—then discovering—or has he discovered?”

  “He’s closing in on me,” said Patchy. “Listen!”

  We could hear the slow swishing footsteps of the guard passing through the corridor. I opened the door and looked out.

  “Good afternoon, Senator,” the guard said, looking back over his uniformed shoulder. “Better keep your door locked. The captain says this hallway is a danger spot.”

  “Do you know exactly where the man’s hiding?”

  “Confidentially,” said the guard, “the captain’s orders were to watch everything. In a few hours we’ll smoke him out.”

  Where the guards worked the curious crowds followed. Patchy and I drank black coffee back in the breakfast nook where we couldn’t hear them.

  “Why don’t you call the captain and tell him you’re onto me?” Patchy asked. “Get yourself in the clear.”

  “Well—” I considered the matter. “If he ever finds out you’ve known all along—

  “I wish I didn’t know.”

  Indecision held me in its grasp through those awful hours. I could imagine what a big moment it would be for Captain MacMurray when he jerked the false nose and mustache off Patchy and turned to me. I would be expected to jump up and bark, “That’s him! That’s the murderer!”

  A knock sounded, the solid, rap of authority. I followed Patchy to the door. It was the captain.

  “All right, Senator.”

  “All right what?”

  “The time has come. I’m ready for your identification of the criminal.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  Martian Defiance

  I turned to look at Patchy Black.

  He was as pale as chalk. He stepped back, plunging his hand into his hand into his coat pocket. I held my breath.

&
nbsp; “Our prisoner,” the captain said, not noticing, “is in suite 77. The Martians are hiding him—”

  “The Martians!” I echoed.

  “Don’t ask me why,” said the captain. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. But this we know. A lot of extra food goes into that suite every day. They must be feeding a hungry stowaway. When I checked back I found that Vedo brought some mysterious baggage aboard that she wouldn’t allow anyone to tamper with. So—”

  “I—I can’t believe it.”

  “We’re all set to raid the suite,” said the captain. “Come along.”

  My valet spoke in a husky voice. “Shall I come too?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said the captain. “We have plenty of guards.” Then Patchy Black murmured, “Thanks,” and made for a chair as if ready to faint. I drew the door closed and followed the captain down the corridor.

  Three guards with pistols ready fell in behind the captain. At the door of suite 77 we halted.

  Vedo answered the knock.

  “You’re the one I want to see,” said the captain. “We want your stowaway. Tell him to come out or we’ll come in after him.”

  Vedo’s butterfly eyelids fluttered like a bird’s wings.

  “What man?”

  “No stalling.” The captain’s patience was on a ragged edge. “You know what I’m talking about. Bring him out!”

  “I call Vorumuff,” said Vedo. She ran back, jabbering like a phonograph in reverse, and for the next few minutes she was out of our sight, for we were now face to face with her husband.

  Vorumuff blocked our way inside the first room. Tall and muscular, he stood with his huge fists on his hips, his eyes blazing defiance.

  “Hold it, Captain,” I snapped. “You’re all wrong. Don’t antagonize these Martians.”

  “Get back, Senator. I’ll handle this. Now, Vorumuff, where is he?

  “We have no earth man.”

  “You lie! As captain of this ship I demand—”

  “Stop it, captain,” I yelled. It may or may not have been my constitutional right, but I grabbed his arm and whirled him around to face me. He didn’t like it. He swung a fist, and in that split second I knew a skyful of stars and comets were comets my way.

  But his blow never landed. An invisible force hurled him off his feet—him, his three guards, and me. We all went crashing against the wall like potatoes out of a chute.

  Mashed potatoes, that’s what we were, with a shot of lead for pepper. One of the guns went off in that invisible cyclone, and one guard got it in the hip. It took us a couple of minutes to untangle ourselves and get some of the bewildered passengers to come and cart the wounded man off to the doctor.

  All the while Vorumuff stood tall and straight above us, his eyes scowling steadily. The captain wanted to blame it all on Vorumuff, but he couldn’t. He simply didn’t know what had happened.

  “It is a Martian warning not to come closer to Vedo,” Vorumuff stated, folding his brawny bare arms. His blue eyelashes blinked a trifle faster than usual. The captain should have taken warning.

  “Out of our way, Martian! Straight ahead, guards!”

  The guards, five of them now, with pistols ready for trouble, marched a few obedient steps, when catastrophe struck in two directions. The Martian thrust his arms out to bar their way—mind you, he didn’t strike or seize anyone, but simply hindered them.

  Two of them struck at his arm with their pistols; two others started shooting. Catastrophe number one: Vorumuff fell forward, shot through.

  As he fell, twisting and writhing with fury suddenly unleashed, he struck the captain and knocked him against the wall fifteen feet to my left. It must have been a powerful blow, for in that some instant catastrophe number two came on the rest of us, and we all went crashing toward the right wall.

  But this time we crashed much harder, and two of the guards failed to stop at the wall. They struck near the corner, spun around it and out of sight. Then I could hear part of our thudding and tumbling echo along the corridor from the farther end of the suite.

  “The rikit!” I groaned. “It’s drawing us.”

  No one heard me amid all the clatter. No one would have known what I meant. The danger couldn’t be seen by anyone who hadn’t turned the corner.

  And it couldn’t be controlled by anyone except Vedo.

  Did she cause the rikit to cease its awful magnetic action upon us? How could she? Vorumuff was her only thought now.

  Vorumuff lay dying.

  The dazed captain, with swollen eye and bleeding face, gathered himself up to see what the score was. He rose, he stared, he muttered ugly words.

  He saw Vorumuff lying on the floor, his huge bare chest punctured with bullet holes. Vorumuff’s wide blue eyelids gave a final flutter and became stilled.

  “The Martian’s dead,” the captain said through his clenched teeth. Then he called, “Guards! Guards! Where are you?”

  He stared at me, clinging to the study table. He stared at the three guards beside me, struggling to push themselves away from the wall through which the weird magnetism was acting.

  Finally he saw Vedo standing statue-like above him, a pathetic defiance in her attitude.

  She was gazing down at her fallen mate. Her eyelids moved slowly, her lips mumbled some strange incantation that must have helped her to endure what she saw.

  Then the invisible force caught Captain MacMurray and flung him toward its vortex.

  I heard several passengers screech their astonishment. A score or more were thronging into the suite.

  “Stand back,” I cried, “or you’ll all get it!”

  The captain struck his knees on the door frame and was whirling like a top when he disappeared into the room beyond. The rikit’s room!

  Terrified human outcries sounded from that direction. And could that other sound be the crunching of huge teeth? My blood froze.

  Suddenly Vedo broke out of her seemingly petrified state to utter a sharp command at the beast we couldn’t see. We were all scared sick.

  Immediately the force ceased to act upon me. I arose. I turned to the crowd in the corridor doorway. There was Bobby. I needed him.

  “Bobby Bell,” I said, “do you have a strong stomach? Go with me . . . No, you stay out, Betty. I’m afraid there’s a gruesome sight waiting.”

  CHAPTER IX

  Vedo Under Guard

  Patchy black, alias Fred, opened the door for me when I returned to 25.

  “Good grief, man, you look like a wrecked freight ship,” he said. “You and the captain must have dropped your man-hunt and gone after tigers.”

  “Truer than you think, Patchy,” I said. “Get me a drink and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “I heard shooting. Don’t tell me they picked up another murder trail on board.”

  “They went on a rampage the captain’s going to regret—if he lives—which I doubt. He’s lost a shoulder and arm, and his throat is ripped up with teeth marks—teeth the size of bananas.”

  I gave Patchy the full account, then, of the mysterious but highly potent action of Vedo’s pet rikit, able to reach out with its invisible drawing power and gather in Vedo’s potential enemies.

  I told, then, of Vorumuff’s defiance and the quick, inexcusable tragedy that befell him. “They shot him!”

  Fred stiffened. “Go on.”

  “Then the rikit exerted its force out through the walls a second time,” I said, “to catch those that were near enough. Two guards sailed into its reach. One escaped its clutches. The other—”

  “Dead?”

  “His whole head was bitten off. A single stroke of the jaws, apparently. That beast is a regular power house . . .”

  So there you have it. Two men wounded, one by gunfire, the other by dragon teeth. One Martian and one earth man killed—and again, one by bullets, the other by teeth.”

  “It would seem,” said Patchy, “that the rikit proved itself as destructive as our firearms. Did they kill
it?”

  I laughed cynically. “Hardly. The guards were only too glad to get out of its reach. That rikit-pull is death, I tell you.”

  Whatever might be said of Patchy Fred as a law-breaker and a man of violence, he did possess a conscience and a capacity for remorse. All this terrifying news weighed down upon him.

  “In a way, I’m responsible,” he said. “Nothing of the sort.”

  “If I could have walked in and given myself up it wouldn’t have happened. But dammit, Senator, I couldn’t. I want to live to see some good come of that job I did. But now—”

  “Yes, I know. We’re in a helluva hole without Vorumuff. He was America’s best Martian friend.”

  “And poor Vedo,” said Patchy.

  He was to say that many times in the awful hours that followed, although he hardly knew Vedo. It was a conscientious murderer’s horror, to know his own promised fate had befallen an innocent man.

  I tried to reason his remorse away. Why had the captain blundered so? What was back of his insistence that the Martians were guilty of harboring the stowaway? Nothing less than his own subterranean hatred of the Martians.

  “I tried to turn him back, Patchy,” I said, “but he plunged ahead like a goat.”

  The phone rang. It was Bobby Bell calling from the Martian suite. He and Betty, who had been friendly with Vedo in the past, were now standing by her in her grief.

  “Have you heard,” said Bobby, “that Captain MacMurray is dead?”

  “I didn’t see how he could live.”

  “They just telephoned us from his quarters,” said Bobby. “This Martian suite is to be kept under guard.”

  “From the outside or the inside?”

  “Both. Whoever has taken over the running of the ship intends to make Vedo stand trial for the works of her rikit.”

  “Ye gods! What a pretty kettle of fish—just when we’re trying to build up Martian good will.”

  “But Vedo has her own ideas about that. She has the rikit on the alert for any intruders. So if you come over be sure to call beforehand.”

  “I’ll go to the captain’s quarters at once,” I said, “and prevail upon the mate to call off this ugly business. See you later.”