The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  It was a huge three-dimensional reproduction of the whole damned war! That’s what I guessed it to be on the swift glimpse I caught in that half second of time before the artillery began popping.

  The big brass were there, I could bet my dog tag on that. And dispatchers and confidential secretaries and skilled guardsmen. Generals. Scientists. The enemy’s top radar technicians.

  My hand froze as I reached toward lever number twenty. Around that big green lighted table, manipulating the gadgets of their big three-dimensional instruments were scores of the enemy’s most important people, including—

  Including no one I knew!

  “Kill the enemy! Kill them all! Strike lever number twenty. Hurry! Hit it, then get out. QUICK! THEY’VE DISCOVERED YOU! THEY’VE TURNED THEIR GUNS ON YOU. THIS IS YOUR LAST MOMENT OF LIFE UNLESS YOU . . .

  My hand unfroze and I struck lever number twenty.

  “Zeeeeng!” The explosion of the egg somewhere off to the west was the trigger that operated the two levers, ten and twenty. The big rock-cutting tank made another forward lunge up over the floor of the big cavern, and at the same time a big recoilless gun somewhere within the machine’s framework fired a shell. The “Zeeeeng!” was swallowed up in a terrific thunder.

  The echoes rattled from the walls.

  My eyes, blinded from the fire, tried to take in the scene. Again the sounds of battle came.

  Fire ripped across the cavern in a straight line of instant death. Fire sprayed up through the wires that overhung the cavern walls. Flashes of electricity jumped from instruments in every corner of the room. Showers of rocks came tumbling down. Flame. Men and uniforms and weapons were thrown about in mangled heaps in all directions.

  The third blast went wild. The jump of the howling hatchet had sent the gunfire in an indiscriminate direction. A tank of gasoline must have been struck. The yellow flames boiled out and ran in streaks, illuminating the room. Smoke billowed out, and I could see the figures of uniformed men chasing across in front of it.

  They were coming toward me.

  “Why didn’t you get out!” Those words were roaring through my head again. “You’ve missed your chance!”

  “I couldn’t leave!” Was it the thought of Hank’s body, back there in the bunk, that had held me here? A senseless thought, perhaps, in the light of what was happening. But he was still a friend, still with me, still giving me moral support, somehow, even though he was dead.

  “Hank has played his part. You’ve got to leave him. Get out if you can. No—it’s too late now. They’re coming in on you. You’re too late, Bill Barth!”

  “Get out of my head, you damned roar—how can I think what to do? This is all new to me. I’m only a war correspondent. I wasn’t meant for this. I ought to be back at my typewriter. This was a mistake, putting me in here.”

  “All right, Bill Barth,” the voice seemed to say.

  “What do you mean, all right?”

  “I’m through trying to tell you what to do. Anyway, it doesn’t make too much difference now. You’ve crippled their nerve center. That’s the important tiling.”

  “Yes,” I thought. “That’s the important thing.”

  “You’ve done it, Bill Barth. Hank and I have seen our purpose accomplished through you. It’s all right now. Only, don’t you think you ought to try to save your own life?”

  “Zeeeeng-BRRRROOOM!”

  The fire was still synchronized. The eggs were still going off at regular intervals. And that meant that all this fury of conversation had taken place in my head in a matter of seconds.

  They were coming toward me across the room. But the new blast of death caught the front of their line. The foremost man, running in a circular path, escaped the blast of fire. The next six or seven must have got their everlasting. Another dozen or more bolted off in another direction toward a gleaming piece of artillery.

  As I had guessed, the artillery that guarded the many entrances to this Underquarters was trained on directions determined by the hoax explosions. My appearance by way of the cavern floor had caught everyone off guard. It was a suicidal attack, that fact was bearing down upon me with every vibration of the howling hatchet’s motors.

  Now I wished the voice would come back and tell me what to do. I looked for something across the room that might serve as a shield—something they would not want to destroy—something I could take refuge behind to avoid being blown to hell by the big guns.

  A heavy shell suddenly smashed across the upper side of the hatchet’s cylindrical frame.

  “Hold it!” Someone screamed, “Give me a chance! I’ll get him.”

  It was the shout of the one man who had outraced my last shell. He was somewhere around the hatchet, trying to break in.

  Another Zeeeeng! And another blast of my own artillery, smashing across the fiery way to catch a row of jeeps racing down into the circus of destruction. Wheels flew in all directions, and a section of stone wall came ripping down with clouds of smoke and dust.

  At the same time another blaze of fire struck out from one of their guns. The shell struck hard, and the big steel framework around me jumped and staggered. My head was struck as I fell back sidewise. I clutched at my helmet.

  “Help me get out of this damned— help me! It’s smashing my damned brain! Help—Ugh! Who are you?”

  I was talking in a daze for a minute. I had the impression that the side door had flown open and an enemy soldier was standing there pointing a pistol at me.

  “Who are you? Or are you just something I’m seeing?”

  That last hard jolt had fairly knocked the seams out of this steel monster. And now it was all up, I saw. The flames threw light across the edge of the open door, and clinging to it was this soldier’s hard hand, the knuckles white. His eyes glittered in the glare of the light. I thought he must be breathing smoke.

  I couldn’t move, I was too dazed. The pistol was aimed squarely at me. If I could have dodged back three inches I might have had a chance to shoot it out with him. But my head was just clear enough to know that if I moved a fraction of an inch he would shoot.

  Yet he didn’t shoot, and this made me think he wanted something from me. Did he think he could capture this hulk of steel? It was little more than a wreck now.

  I began to count. In another second, surely, there would be one more explosion up yonder, and this steel boat would give another jump. Or had the last one already happened?

  One, two, three, four. No explosion. It was all over. My howling hatchet had made its last automatic jump. And all I would have to do to enter another world would be to try to reach for lever number ten.

  “All right, you’ve got me. Do you want me dead or alive?”

  I doubted whether he could understand my language, but it was worth a chance.

  “If you think I can reveal the secrets of this machine, you’re all wrong. Well, what are you waiting for?”

  He didn’t blink an eyelash.

  On a bold impulse I reached for the handle that would swing the door closed. He didn’t shoot. I touched the door handle, the door moved an inch, and he fell forward. As he fell I saw that the back of his head was shot off. That last shell from his own comrades had caught him, and he’d frozen in his tracks against the door.

  I tried lever ten, then, and the jolted, shaken hulk of steel slowly moved into action. I set it to make a wide circular swing around the big room, and I got out and ran for the shadows.

  My one and only chance to make a getaway was to go back the way I had come.

  It may sound slightly bloodthirsty for me to admit that during the next twenty minutes I killed more than twenty men. I look back upon that deal as the most exhausting and nerve- wracking twenty minutes of my life. And I only wonder that I had the good fortune to come out alive.

  As I see it now, my nerve to kill the enemy would have given out, and I would have lost my last slender grip chi life if one particular person had confronted me. For the tenuous hold on life which was mine in t
hose twenty minutes was simply the will to keep on killing, nothing else but that.

  The one direction I looked for, through all the smoke and flame and flurry, was down. I remember dashing across from one shadow to another,. ducking back whenever a new light flared up, and at last spotting the pit in the floor where the tank, had brought me up.

  The fireworks were still going hot and heavy. The tank was limping around a wide circle, and every few yards, responding to the automatic mechanisms that I had left turned on, it fired another shell. Seven or eight more blasts must have burst from its inner guns before the flow of ammunition ran out, and by that time I had won my first and easiest battle. In a quick contest of fists, I knocked out someone who blundered into my path.

  He fell with a grunt of surprise, and I pounced on him. He was in no shape to argue, and whatever it was he muttered, I paid no attention. All I wanted from him was part of his uniform, for whatever protection it might offer. A moment later I donned his coat and borrowed his pistol and went on my way.

  The next step might have been right down in the pit, but my eye caught sight of something on the floor that I needed badly—a flashlight.

  Luck was with me, no doubt about it. Someone’s scream from across the room was my warning to duck another shell. The artillery was getting into gear in reality, at last, and the poor old howling hatchet, sturdy as it had been through miles of earth-cutting, was at last in for an awful beating. The enemy nest was already a complete shambles, and from then on it was up to everyone to look out for his own life. Those flying shells were no respecters of anyone.

  I rolled over the floor under a spreading cloud of smoke. I snatched the flashlight, and rolled again.

  I climbed down into the pit with care. It presented an inclined surface, and I might have bounded down if it hadn’t been pitch dark. Then a streak of fire came running across toward me and I saw the way clearly. Right up to the surface the big machine had laid its smoothly plastered walls, a neat cylinder, large enough to drive a small tank through.

  “Fire! Fire! Fire!” The wail rang through the room. If any of those chasing, frenzied soldiers still believed I was in the tank, the shout dispelled the illusion. Rifles began to crackle.

  I was down in the depths, sprinting.

  Until the shadowy cylindrical walls curved away from the light, I sprinted.

  I paused long enough to glance back at the emptiness. I flashed on the light for an instant, caught a glimpse of the wide open path ahead, and ran as hard as I could go.

  They would follow me, I hadn’t the slightest doubt of that. I thought ahead to one point of safety. All I could hope for was to make my way up the long fishhook curve to the spur where the tank had cut a path and backed away.

  Racing up the grade, I heard the sputter of jeeps. They were coming after me on the tear. My moments were numbered, unless—

  The path curved, then curved back. I almost missed the spot I was looking for, it was so well concealed. A quick flash of light revealed it—the spur that led off the upward route. I darted into it. With a pistol in each hand I waited.

  The first jeep that came swinging up through the curve had two occupants. I aimed carefully and with two shots I put an end to both of them. I held my breath for a tense moment waiting to see whether the jeep would come coasting back down the grade. Luck was with me. It rolled on ahead, over the hump. There would be no dead men coasting back down the path to warn of my hiding place.

  Two more jeeps followed over the same course and I took care of both before the soldiers on foot followed up the path. The game was a tense one now. One slip could be fatal. The roar of my pistols must have echoed down through the tunnel. But there the roar from below was still booming through the hollow passages.

  About a half hour later the pathway had grown quiet enough so that I ventured out, stepping carefully over the men I had had to shoot down. Ahead, blasts had broken the floor of the tunnel. The jeeps had fallen through.

  Through the darkness I plodded for what seemed miles before I got away from the smoke-filled air. The fumes must have circulated like compressed gas. I was gagging for a breath of fresh air when at last I came to the place where Hank had been murdered.

  I paused, standing in the darkness, listening, breathing. What a luxury to breathe clear air.

  I wondered where the narrow natural cave might lead, but I knew I dare not take a chance. My one way back to home territory was by the route I had come. I trudged on.

  At length I reached the descent that was filled with water from the river. I flashed my light around, hoping against hope that there might be some break in the ceiling that I could climb through.

  I rested for several minutes, then stripped down to my shorts. The one way back home was through the tunnel. The one way through the tunnel at this point was to swim about a hundred feet under water and find my way up into the river.

  Maybe I tried it the hard way. I plunged in and pawed through the watery blackness until my lungs grew tight, and then turned back. I reached my starting point, and crawled back up onto the dry surface, panting hard. Something told me it was a longer underwater swim than I would ever make. I had estimated more than fifty feet of forward progress, and my open eyes had failed to see any hint of light ahead through the clear water.

  It was more than an hour before I tried again. I tried to estimate how much time had passed during the battle at the Underquarters. Perhaps it was night outside. If I dared to sleep for a few hours, would my next trial find daylight?

  The low muffled sound of a motor brought me up with a start. Were they coming? Placing my ear down on the surface of the tunnel I could hear the steady hum.

  I rolled my clothing and possessions into a ball and hid them in the only possible place—under the edge of the water where the tunnel inclined downward. And again I dived in to try the swim Tor freedom.

  I swam with the roar of motors in my ears, and when I had gone until my lungs were bursting—when I thought this was surely the last moment of life—my hands caught onto an object that was moving through the water under me.

  It took me back to the side I had come from. I clung tight. I was dragged up onto the inclined tunnel floor more dead than alive.

  I heard the voices of men as they clambered out of a rubber-enclosed tank. They pumped water out of me and soon had me breathing in good style.

  “Stevie!”

  “What on earth were you doing in that water trap, Stevie?”

  “Stevie, don’t you remember me? I helped you and Banalog build that cave-cutting go-cart. Lemme shake your hand, boy. You’ve put the deal over.”

  They helped me dress and got me into the rubber-sealed underwater tank and we went through the water and up to the dry tunnel entrance on the other side of the river.

  As we motored back through the smoothly banked tube, they talked in satisfied terms. The Underquarters of the enemy had been blasted to hell.

  I said, “You’ve got the wrong man in me, fellows. I don’t happen to be Stevie. The fellow Stevie you’ve got me mixed up with must be back in the hospital.”

  One of the soldiers looked at me and nodded. “I think so. Would you like to go back and see him?”

  That’s where they took me. From then on for a couple of days a doctor had me in charge. He had me go over my story several times. Each time he would mention one particular detail.

  “You didn’t come in contact with Banalog, did you?”

  And I would always ask, “What’s Banalog? I don’t think I ever heard of it.”’

  “I told you yesterday, it’s a person. It was the partner of Steven Sanders— his fellow inventor. Banalog happened to be on the other side in this war, and it would have been Stevie’s painful job to kill him if they had met.”

  “I killed several men.”

  “But you didn’t kill Banalog.”

  “I don’t know Banalog. I never heard of Banalog. I wouldn’t know whether I killed him or not.”

  That was the way our
conversation ran until late the second day, when the doctor added, “I’m sure you didn’t, kill Banalog, because he’s been taken prisoner. He’s alive. He’ll remain a prisoner until the end of the war. Which means he won’t be harmed.”

  Something inside me let go, then, and I began to sob like a child.

  “You’re going to be all right now,” the doctor said. “Our minds can play tricks on us sometimes.”

  I listened, and what he said seemed to dislodge a lot of darkness from somewhere in the front of my brain.

  “You see, the cruelties of war sometimes give us jobs to do that are simply too painful to be faced. And when two men have been very close friends and have high admiration for each other, their minds might choose a devious path of escape from reality— even a mental blackout—rather than admit that they can kill each other. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “I—I think so.”

  “Good,” the doctor said gently. “You’re going to be all right. And just who are you, if you don’t mind telling me?”

  I drew a quiet breath of deep relief, swabbed the tears of distress and shock from my eyes, and said what I knew to be true, “I’m Steven Thomas Sanders, the inventor—Banalog’s best friend.”

  THE MAN NOBODY KNEW

  First published in Fantastic Adventures, June 1952

  Ronnie worshipped Ballinger, and would have gone through hell for him. And it looked now as if he had been forced to do just that!

  CHAPTER I

  When the gunshots became audible, Ronnie Conwell was slogging along in a river of loose, slimy purple mud. It had grown steadily deeper, but he was still wading, with the gentle flow of mud up to his armpits. He held his pistol up in the air. He was keeping a sharp lookout for attacks by the big monster water slitters that were known to infest Venus swamps.

  He had lost his way in his search for a certain Venus city. Clayton, his partner, had turned back—and met a tragic end. But Ronnie Conwell had plodded on, naked, through the sea of warm mud because he had faith. Faith in his boss back on Earth. Ballinger the Magnificent.