The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  The drummer’s arms flailed the air with drum sticks, adding catch-beats to the regular rhythmic thump. And then the warriors picked up the chant.

  “BEE-gee-gee-gee-gee-gee-gee-gee!”

  Their shouting seemed to bring the lights on brighter and brighter, so that the face of the drummer appeared in all its mad glory. The tense lines of the mouth, twisting with, every beat, showed rows of white teeth clenched tight. The whiskered face was a nightmare of tension, starved and angry. But the eyes!

  The reflections of those two deep-set, fiery-mad eyes reflected all the way up from the point of the overhead cone to the ceiling. Each mirror-smooth circle, larger and larger and larger all the way up to the ceiling, showed a single pair of mad eyes, larger and larger and larger!

  Eyes above eyes! Scores of mad eyes glittering their madness over the room. The beat of the sea, the flap of the wings, the thump of the drums, the thud of warriors’ feet, the wild cry of voices—and the flash of a hundred pairs of mad eyes—larger and larger and larger—all in rhythm!

  “Sing to the power of the devil!” a leader cried.

  And the rhythm responded, a hurricane of voices.

  “Shout to the power of the devil! Fight to the power of the devil! Kill to the power of the devil!

  “It’s very strange,” Lorna, swaying in my arms, managed to say against all the uproar. “The devil, beating those drums, doesn’t have four nostrils. He has only two!”

  “BEE-gee-gee-gee-gee-gee-gee!!!”

  “I’d know him anywhere,” I told her against the clamor. “He’s B.G. Bennington, the man we’ve come to rescue.”

  I don’t know how long the orgy of rhythm lasted. When such incessant sounds beat into your brain for hours, they don’t cease all at once. The winds may change abruptly and the boom of the sea may quickly end. The ugly sea vulture, flapping the spray off his wings, may suddenly flyaway. The drums may stop, and the shouting, dancing warriors may disappear up the stairs, and the shouting may fade. The lights may melt away and a hundred pairs of eyes, flashing their madness at you may be lost in the darkness. But the rhythm goes right on, for hours after that, roaring sickeningly through your head until you reel from it.

  We were in each other’s arms, Lorna and I. We stared at each other vacantly. We had danced, too. That same insane dance that had seized the warriors had taken possession of us too, and now, exhausted and sick from it all, we were ashamed.

  “We’ve got to come back to our senses, Lorna.”

  “Yes.”

  “We Jet that mania take possession of us.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “But it’s all quiet again now.”

  “It’s still roaring.”

  “It’s all quiet. The sea has stopped. That damned vulture flapped through this cavern as wild as any Wedge-head warrior, but it’s flown away now. Do you remember what we came here for?”

  “We were going to wait for dark and get those guards out of the way—”

  “But the darkness has come and gone! And we’ve found Bennington. We won’t have to pass through the guards. We can go back through the window.”

  Lorna sat bolt upright. “Yes? Where is he?”

  “Somewhere in this room. That much I remember. At the end, he walked away in a daze. No one else was here, then, except—”

  “Except?”

  “The Wedge-head with the red hood—ah, chieftan’s son.”

  “Oh!” Lorna’s eyes widened with fear. “Did he see us?”

  “He tried to dance with you,” I said. The awful scene crowded back into my dizzy mind. “I had to fight him off. I threatened him with my gun. If he hadn’t been so completely intoxicated with the dance rhythm, he’d have—”

  “Yes, I’m beginning to remember. My mind is clearing. His mind will clear, too!”

  “He’ll be back all right.”

  We were suddenly on our feet, aware, that our minutes were numbered. We hurried through the semidarkness, searching the deep shadows for the Earthman whom the Wedge-heads called “Bee-gee.”

  We found him lying on a crude bed only a few yards from the window. That was good. If we could make him understand who we were and what we had come for, our escape could be achieved in a few minutes. It would have to be, or not at all. I leaned out the jagged opening above the cliff and saw that our rope was still hanging. I tested it, then hurried back to the bedside of B.G. Bennington.

  “Wake up! Wake up!” I tried to shake him but of his stupor. He was dead to the world. “Wake up, Bennington!”

  “Lorna scooped up handfuls of water from a little pool that had been tossed in by the sea waves. She dashed it over his face. He tried to turn away.

  As long as I called to him by name, he made no response. But when I began to call, “Bee-gee!” he slowly opened his eyes.

  “Bee-gee, we’ve come to take you back. You don’t belong here. You’re a prisoner here. Get up on your feet!”

  He rose up on one elbow, staring at me. “I don’t know you.”

  “I’m here from Earth. They’ve sent me here to bring you back. The government needs you.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “My name is William Smith if that makes any difference. You used to know me. I helped you make out your reports. We played golf together. I packed your luggage when you took the space ship. Get up. Get up. Quick!”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “Get some more water, Lorna. He’s too groggy to know—” Then, acting on an inspiration, I drew some bills out of my pocket. “Look, Bee-gee. Do you remember what this is? American money. And this—this is a gun.”

  “I don’t know you. I only want to sleep.”

  I pulled him to his feet and shook him. His eyes were glazed with madness. If I relaxed my grip on him he sagged.

  “He’s a lump of lead,” Lorna said. “Can we carry him?”

  “Listen!”

  “They’re coming.”

  “We’ve got to get him out of here. We may never have another chance. Can you climb the rope?”

  “Of course.”

  “And lift his weight?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then go ahead. Get yourself up. Then I’ll tie the rope around his waist and you pull him up. I can stall the mob off that long.”

  “And then—”

  “The rope will still be there for me,” I said.

  “They’ll never let you make it. They’ll knife you the instant you crawl out. You’ve got to shoot them, promise me you’ll shoot them.”

  “Get going!” I snapped.

  A host of footsteps were coming down those stairs. There was the same rhythm, and now the bells on the shoes could be heard. With no drums or sea booming to swallow up the sounds, I could catch the full effect of the maniacal chanting. There was a note of jeering, an exultant note of mad men closing in for a kill.

  Lorna climbed out to the rope. By the time I had lifted the dazed and protesting Bennington to the opening, she was already at the top of the cliff, waiting.

  He was so weightless against my strength and the lightness of gravity, that I had little trouble swinging the loose end of the rope around his waist.

  “We’re doing this for you, Bennington—Bee-gee! We’re your friends. We’re helping you, do you understand? Now, relax. Don’t do a thing. Easy!”

  A straight swift upward pull would have done the trick at the moment—if B.G. Bennington hadn’t taken a stubborn notion to sink his fingers into a niche in the wall and hold on for dear life.

  His fingers, strong as steel from endless hours of beating the devil’s drums, would not let go. Lorna hadn’t a chance against a grip like that.

  My first impulse was to use the disintegration gun against that slice of wall. It couldn’t be done. I tried to find a quick angle, but there was Bennington . . . kicking and struggling against the wall. I couldn’t take the chance.

  I would have crawled out and somehow fought him away from the wall if I had thought the rope
would hold the two of us. But by that time the marching footsteps, with their clinking chorus of bells, were coming too close to be ignored. I moved back from the window and turned, to face the coming attack.

  I reached—not for my gun—but for a pair of bells I had once wrapped and buried in my pockets.

  I hurled two stones across the open space of the room, and while they clattered and echoed I hurled the bells in the same direction. The noises had at least a momentary effect of changing the direction of the approaching squad.

  “This way!” I heard them shout. And the column turned.

  Out of my clothing I drew the black Wedge-head hood I had carried since a previous hand-to-hand encounter. I slipped it on hastily, then made tracks for the center of the room.

  I hurled rocks as I went, making the cavern echo with crashes from several directions. The squad went, into a moment of confusion. Then someone spied me, a shadow, moving, across the open floor, and a series of shouts filled the room.

  I expected the knives to fly on the instant. The only thing that prevented was my head-dress. The black hood made them think they were seeing another Wedge-head. That quick moment of delay gave me time to reach my destination in the center of the room—the drums.

  I leaped into the seat and seized the sticks.

  Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump!

  The mad rhythm was still roaring in my head. How could I possibly fail to reproduce it convincingly on those drumheads? I beat down with all the intensity of a mad Martian devil—and I started the insane dance all over again.

  Out around the trails along the walls of the big room the warriors began to dance. The chieftan’s son in the red hood shouted orders at them to find me. Find me, but leave for him the pleasure of beating a rhythm through my belly with his knife.

  The lights above my head began to come on again—how or why I don’t know, but the beating of the drums and the chanting of the warriors seemed to bring them on. Then suddenly the wild-eyed chieftan’s son was looking across at my face, with the hundred pairs of my eyes towering up the cone.

  “That’s not Bee-gee!”

  “Not Bee-gee!”

  “Not . . . Bee-Gee!”

  “Not Bee-gee!”

  The wild wail filled the room. Above it all, the cry of the chieftan’s son announced that J was the victim he was after. Someone hurled a knife. I seized a drum and used it as a shield. The knife struck through both heads and sliced into my hand.

  Other knives came at me. I hurled back drumsticks, drums and cymbals.

  The mob moved up on me, tramping again in beat, marching toward me for the kill.

  I bolted out of my drummer’s seat and moved backward. My hand held the little white-handled disintegration pistol now. A stream of red blood ran down from the handle. The Wedge-heads advanced, seeming to know that I could not cut them all down before they would charge in on me.

  They came straight over the toppled drums, right across the throne where I had sat a moment before. With clubs, rocks, and knives, they moved up on me.

  Zing! My disintegration gun sent a pencil line of blue fire upward. The arc whipped high above their heads. It cut through the top of the cone of reflectors that hung from the ceiling. The massive ornament fell.

  The room was black. The thunder of the crash echoed through it. I swept it twice with the fine line of blue fire and then I darted. Knives whizzed past me. But by the time I reached the jagged block of light that opened onto the cliff, all the knives must have been thrown. I fairly plunged out through the opening, clung to the rock wall, and looked up to see whether Lorna had succeeded in lifting her burden to the summit.

  “Is he there?” I shouted up at her.

  “No! The bird!” She was pointing down.

  I looked below, and what I saw was the wide wings of the big sea vulture, flapping like the fan of a broken windmill in a storm. The vulture’s talons were all tangled up in the rope. Bennington, still tied, was being carried off.

  The bird started back toward the break in the wall, then seeing me, changed its course seaward. In the fury of the swinging about, however, its dangling burden, Bennington, was stuck against the cliff wall. I wondered whether he was alive or dead.

  As the bird struck outward, once again I chanced the disintegration pistol. I fired, and the blue line of disintegration cut the rope. Bennington went down into the sea.

  Then, before I had time to hesitate, I dived. I was on my way down.

  I cut the water lightly. I swam a few yards out and overtook Bennington. As I slipped my arm, out to catch him, I glanced back at the cliff.

  The slender form of Lorna was poised there. In an instant she was plunging down through the air as gracefully as a bird in flight. She struck the water perfectly, was lost from sight for a moment, then came bobbing up, swimming hand over hand toward me.

  “What did you mean by that?” I demanded. “You could have broken your neck, you know.”

  “Do you think I would let you swim back with him by yourself?” she retorted. “We may have to swim for miles before we’re safely away.”

  And miles it was, but our landing was eventually safe, with a sand bar and a friendly Big Zim party to take us in.

  To our surprise, Bennington, after we shook the water out of him and revived him with coffee, began to talk, like a sane man.

  “There’s much I don’t remember,” he said. “You are speaking of a Martian devil as if I should have known him. I don’t recall any such creature.”

  “It was you!” Lorna cried exultantly. “You and your drums. You gave them the power that brought on this whole attack.”

  “I—I—”

  “You do remember beating on the drums, don’t you?”

  “Drums?” Bennington cocked his head. “Why, once when I was a boy I had a great desire to play the drums. I even practiced a little, and I had wonderful visions of building a special stage—lights—drums—dancing—but my father talked me out of that foolishness. He was sure I would never make a career of it. No, I don’t recall any drums while I was their prisoner. You see, I was thrown into a dark room, and I went mad from the pounding of the sea. I fought to get out and I suffered a severe bump.” He rubbed his head. “Here, right where this swelling is.”

  “That’s bump number two,” I said, “and you can be thankful that vulture gave it to you. It brought you back to your senses.”

  Lorna said wistfully, “The vultures are supposed to possess all knowledge; that’s what the “Wedge-heads believe.

  I wonder what they’ll think now, with their devil-power gone.”

  I noticed that Bennington, amid all this talk, was casting interested glances in the direction of Lorna, and presently he said to me, “I’m remembering many things from the past again, but who is that very attractive young lady?”

  “ ‘That attractive young lady,” I said, loud enough for her to hear, “happens to be my wife.”

  Lorna’s eyes caught mine. “Mr. William Smith, did I hear you correctly?”

  “I hope so.”

  “And just when did the wedding take place?”

  “Just as soon as possible. But from the moment you came to me in the thick of that fight with the chieftan’s son, I’ve known—”

  “I repeat,” B.G. Bennington said, smiling at us, “she’s a very attractive young lady. And please believe me, it’s not the devil speaking.”

  ORPHAN OF SPACE

  First published in Fantastic Story, Fall 1952

  He’d never set foot on any planet—until now!

  To the reporters who tried to dig into his background Joe Malette would say, “I was conceived in space,” adding facetiously, “My mother was a rocket ship and my father was a cosmic ray. They met briefly, I am told—”

  “But seriously, Mr. Malette—”

  “Just Joe.”

  “Is it true, Joe, that you’ve never touched foot on Earth?”

  That was the inevitable question. Through his boyhood Joe had dod
ged the space-riding reporters with fancier footwork than he displayed of late. At eighteen, his growing good manners were becoming a stumbling block over which his childhood arts of evasion frequently tripped up. With a polite smile and a not too obvious struggle for finesse, he glanced away from the direct questions whenever possible.

  “Why should I go to Earth when the best of Earth comes to me?”

  “How many ships have you lived on in your eighteen years of life in space?” Joe could answer that one with more relish. It didn’t hit so close to the great secret fear which he constantly strove to contain.

  “Most of my life has been lived on the sixteen ships on the Earth-Mars run, but altogether I’ve made my home on more than forty different ships—forty- three, to be exact.”

  “And the story is true, is it not, about your being barred from landing on the earth at the age of three months?”

  “So I was told . . . Yes, I’ve examined the records, and the story has been confirmed.”

  “Going from planet to planet, you make all your landings at the skyports, of course, always a few hundred miles out from the planet proper?”

  “Yes.”

  “But of course you have set foot on some planets, haven’t you—even if not on Earth? Or have you?”

  Joe Malette put his glance—grown suddenly icy—upon the reporter. “Does your boss make you ask all these silly questions, or do you get paid to think them up all by yourself?” Joe answered. And although not pleased with himself over his sudden display of edginess that doubtless betrayed his vulnerability, he hurried on in a brusque vein. “I’m just like anyone else. There’s no reason to make a fuss over me just because I happen to have the floor and walls of a space ship around me instead of an office building. I’m a very ordinary human being. My heart is on the left side. Both of my lungs are in place. My esophagus leads down to my stomach. I don’t breathe through gills—just a couple of ordinary nostrils—”

  “Thank you, Mr. Malette—Joe. I didn’t mean to strain your patience.”