The 35th Golden Age of Science Fiction: Keith Laumer

by Keith Laumer

  “But these were matters of importance; not the kinds of thing that simply slip one’s mind.”

  “I can see how you’d want to believe the book had something to do with your past, Mr. Foster,” I said. “It must be a hard thing, not knowing your own life story. But you’re on the wrong track. Maybe the book is a story you started to write—in code, so nobody would accidentally read the stuff and kid you about it.”

  “Legion, what was it you planned to do when you got to Miami?”

  The question caught me a little off-guard. “Well, I don’t know,” I hedged. “I wanted to get south, where it’s warm. I used to know a few people—”

  “In other words, nothing,” Foster said. “Legion, I’ll pay you well to stay with me and see this thing through.”

  I shook my head. “Not me, Mr. Foster. The whole thing sounds—well, the kindest word I can think of is ‘nutty.’”

  “Legion,” Foster said, “do you really believe I’m insane?”

  “Let’s just say this all seems a little screwy to me, Mr. Foster.”

  “I’m not asking you just to work for me,” Foster said. “I’m asking for your help.”

  “You might as well look for your fortune in tea leaves,” I said, irritated. “There’s nothing in what you’ve told me.”

  “There’s more, Legion. Much more. I’ve recently made an important discovery. When I know you’re with me, I’ll tell you. You know enough now to accept the fact that this isn’t entirely a figment of my imagination.”

  “I don’t know anything,” I said. “So far it’s all talk.”

  “If you’re concerned about payment—”

  “No, damn it,” I barked. “Where are the papers you keep talking about? I ought to have my head examined for sitting here humoring you. I’ve got troubles enough—” I stopped talking and rubbed my hands over my scalp. “I’m sorry, Mr. Foster,” I said. “I guess what’s really griping me is that you’ve got everything I think I want—and you’re not content with it. It bothers me to see you off chasing fairies. If a man with his health and plenty of money can’t enjoy life, what the hell is there for anybody?”

  Foster looked at me thoughtfully. “Legion, if you could have anything in life you wanted, what would you ask for?”

  “Anything? I’ve wanted a lot of different things. Once I wanted to be a hero. Later, I wanted to be smart, know all the answers. Then I had the idea that a chance to do an honest job, one that needed doing, was the big thing. I never found that job. I never got smart either, or figured out how to tell a hero from a coward, without a program.”

  “In other words,” Foster said, “you were looking for an abstraction to believe in—in this case, Justice. But you won’t find justice in nature. It’s a thing that only man expects or acknowledges.”

  “There are some good things in life; I’d like to get a piece of them.”

  “Don’t lose your capacity for dreaming, in the process.”

  “Dreams?” I said. “Oh, I’ve got those. I want an island somewhere in the sun, where I can spend my time fishing and watching the sea.”

  “You’re speaking cynically—but you’re still attempting to concretize an abstraction,” Foster said. “But no matter—materialism is simply another form of idealism.”

  I looked at Foster. “But I know I’ll never have those things—or that Justice you were talking about, either. Once you really know you’ll never make it.…”

  “Perhaps unattainability is an essential element of any dream,” Foster said. “But hold onto your dream, whatever it is—don’t ever give it up.”

  “So much for philosophy,” I said. “Where is it getting us?”

  “You’d like to see the papers,” Foster said. He fished a key ring from an inner pocket. “If you don’t mind going out to the car,” he said, “and perhaps getting your hands dirty, there’s a strong-box welded to the frame. I keep photostats of everything there, along with my passport, emergency funds and so on. I’ve learned to be ready to travel on very short notice. Lift the floorboards; you’ll see the box.”

  “It’s not all that urgent,” I said. “I’ll take a look in the morning—after I’ve caught up on some sleep. But don’t get the wrong idea—it’s just my knot-headed curiosity.”

  “Very well,” Foster said. He lay back, sighed. “I’m tired, Legion,” he said. “My mind is tired.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “so is mine—not to mention other portions of my anatomy.”

  “Get some sleep,” Foster said. “We’ll talk again in the morning.”

  * * * *

  I pushed back the light blanket and slid out of bed. Underfoot, the rug was as thick and soft as a working girl’s mink. I went across to the closet and pushed the button that made the door slide aside. My old clothes were still lying on the floor where I had left them, but I had the clean ones Foster had lent me. He wouldn’t mind if I borrowed them for a while longer—it would be cheaper for him in the long run. Foster was as looney as a six-day bike racer, but there was no point in my waiting around to tell him so.

  The borrowed outfit didn’t include a coat. I thought of putting my old jacket on but it was warm outside and a grey pin-stripe with grease spots wouldn’t help the picture any. I transferred my personal belongings from the grimy clothes on the floor, and eased the door open.

  Downstairs, the curtains were drawn in the living room. I could vaguely make out the outline of the bar. It wouldn’t hurt to take along a bite to eat. I groped my way behind the bar, felt along the shelves, found a stack of small cans that rattled softly. Nuts, probably. I reached to put a can on the bar and it clattered against something I couldn’t see. I swore silently, felt over the obstruction. It was bulky, with the cold smoothness of metal, and there were small projections with sharp corners. It felt for all the world like—

  I leaned over it and squinted. With the faint gleam of moonlight from a chink in the heavy curtains falling just so, I could almost make out the shape; I crouched a little lower, and caught the glint of light along the perforated jacket of a .30 calibre machine gun. My eye followed the barrel, made out the darker square of the entrance hall, and the tiny reflection of light off the polished brass doorknob at the far end.

  I stepped back, flattened against the wall, with a hollow feeling inside. If I had tried to walk through that door.…

  Foster was crazy enough for two ordinary nuts. My eyes flicked around the room. I had to get out quickly before he jumped out and said Boo! and I died of heart failure. The windows, maybe. I came around the end of the bar, got down and crawled under the barrel of the gun and over to the heavy drapes, pushing them aside. Pale light glowed beyond the glass. Not the soft light of the moon, but a milky, churning glow that reminded me of the phosphorescence of sea water.…

  I dropped the curtain, ducked back under the gun into the hall, and pushed through a swinging door into the kitchen. There was a faint glow from the luminous handle of the refrigerator. I yanked it open, spilling light on the floor, and looked around. Plenty of gleaming white fixtures—but no door out. There was a window, almost obscured by leaves. I eased it open and almost broke my fist on a wrought-iron trellis.

  Back in the hall, I tried two more doors, both locked. A third opened, and I found myself looking down the cellar stairs. They were steep and dark as cellar stairs always seem to be, but they might be the way out. I felt for a light switch, flipped it on. A weak illumination showed me a patch of damp-looking floor at the foot of the steps. It still wasn’t inviting, but I went down.

  There was an oil furnace in the center of the room, with dusty duct-work spidering out across the ceiling; some heavy packing cases of rough wood were stacked along one wall, and at the far side of the room, there was a boarded-up coal bin—but no cellar door.

  I turned to go back up. Then I heard a sound and froze. Somewhere a cockroach scuttled briefly. Then I
heard the sound again, a faint grinding of stone against stone. I peered through the cobwebbed shadows, my mouth suddenly dry. There was nothing.

  The thing for me to do was to get up the stairs fast, batter the iron trellis out of the kitchen window, and run like hell. The trouble was, I had to move to do it, and the sound of my own steps was so loud it was paralyzing. Compared to this, the shock of stumbling over the gun was just a mild kick, like finding a whistle in your Cracker-jacks. Ordinarily I didn’t believe in things that went bump in the night, but this time I was hearing the bumps myself, and all I could think about was Edgar Allen Poe and his cheery tales about people who got themselves buried before they were thoroughly dead.

  There was another sound, then a sharp snap, and I saw light spring up from a crack that opened across the floor in the shadowy corner. That was enough for me. I jumped for the stairs, took them three at a time, and banged through the kitchen door. I grabbed up a chair, swung it around and slammed it against the trellis. It bounced back and cracked me across the mouth. I dropped it, tasting blood. Maybe that was what I needed. The panic faded before a stronger emotion—anger. I turned and barged along the dark hall to the living room—and lights suddenly went on. I whirled and saw Foster standing in the hall doorway, fully dressed.

  “OK, Foster!” I yelled. “Just show me the way out of here.”

  Foster held my eyes, his face tense. “Calm yourself, Mr. Legion,” he said softly. “What’s happened here?”

  “Get over there to that gun,” I snapped, nodding toward the .30 calibre on the bar. “Disarm it, and then get the front door open. I’m leaving.”

  Foster’s eyes flicked over the clothes I was wearing.

  “So I see,” he said. He looked me in the face again. “What is it that’s frightened you, Legion?”

  “Don’t act so innocent,” I said. “Or am I supposed to get the idea the brownies set up that booby trap while you were asleep?”

  His eyes went to the gun and his expression tightened. “It’s mine,” he said. “It’s an automatic arrangement. Something’s activated it—and without sounding my alarm. You haven’t been outside, have you?”

  “How could I—”

  “This is important, Legion,” Foster rapped. “It would take more than the sight of a machine gun to panic you. What have you seen?”

  “I was looking for a back door,” I said. “I went down to the cellar. I didn’t like it down there so I came back up.”

  “What did you see in the cellar?” Foster’s face looked strained, colorless.

  “It looked like…” I hesitated. “There was a crack in the floor, noises, lights.…”

  “The floor,” Foster said. “Certainly. That’s the weak point.” He seemed to be talking to himself.

  I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “Something funny going on outside your windows, too.”

  Foster looked toward the heavy hangings. “Listen carefully, Legion,” he said. “We are in grave danger—both of us. It’s fortunate you arose when you did. This house, as you must have guessed by now, is something of a fortress. At this moment, it is under attack. The walls are protected by some rather formidable defenses. I can’t say as much for the cellar floor; it’s merely three feet of ferro-concrete. We’ll have to go now—very swiftly, and very quietly.”

  “OK—show me,” I said. Foster turned and went back along the hall to one of the locked doors where he pressed something. The door opened and I followed him inside a small room. He crossed to a blank wall, pressed against it. A panel slid aside—and Foster jumped back.

  “God’s wounds!” he gasped. He threw himself at the wall and the panel closed. I stood stock still; from somewhere there was a smell like sulphur.

  “What the hell goes on?” I said. My voice cracked, as it always does when I’m scared.

  “That odor,” Foster said. “Quickly—the other way!”

  I stepped back and Foster pushed past me and ran along the hall, with me at his heels. I didn’t look back to see what was at my own heels. Foster took the stairs three at a time, pulled up short on the landing. He went to his knees, shoved back an Isfahan rug as supple as sable, and gripped a steel ring set in the floor. He looked at me, his face white.

  “Invoke thy gods,” he said hoarsely, and heaved at the ring. A section of floor swung up, showing the first step of a flight leading down into a black hole. Foster didn’t hesitate; he dropped his feet in, scrambled down. I followed. The stairs went down about ten feet, ending on a stone floor. There was the sound of a latch turning, and we stepped out into a larger room. I saw moonlight through a row of high windows, and smelled the fragrance of fresh night air.

  “We’re in the garage,” Foster whispered. “Go around to the other side of the car and get in—quietly.” I touched the smooth flank of the rakish cabriolet, felt my way around it, and eased the door open. I slipped into the seat and closed the door gently. Beside me, Foster touched a button and a green light glowed on the dash.

  “Ready?” he said.

  “Sure.”

  The starter whined half a turn and the engine caught. Without waiting, Foster gunned it, let in the clutch. The car leaped for the closed doors, and I ducked, and then saw the doors snap aside as the low-slung car roared out into the night. We took the first turn in the drive at forty, and rounded onto the highway at sixty, tires screaming. I took a look back and caught a glimpse of the house, its stately façade white in the moonlight—and then we were out of sight over a rise.

  “What’s it all about?” I called over the rush of air. The needle touched ninety, kept going.

  “Later,” Foster barked. I didn’t feel like arguing. I watched in the mirror for a few minutes, wondering where all the cops were tonight. Then I settled down in the padded seat and watched the speedometer eat up the miles.

  CHAPTER III

  It was nearly four-thirty and a tentative grey streak showed through the palm fronds to the east before I broke the silence.

  “By the way,” I said. “What was the routine with the steel shutters, and the bullet-proof glass in the kitchen, and the handy home-model machine gun covering the front door? Mice bad around the place, are they?”

  “Those things were necessary—and more.”

  “Now that the short hairs along my spine have relaxed,” I said, “the whole thing looks pretty silly. We’ve run far enough now to be able to stop and turn around and stick our tongues out.”

  “Not yet—not for a long while yet.”

  “Why don’t we just go back home,” I went on, “and—”

  “No!” Foster said sharply. “I want your word on that, Legion. No matter what—don’t ever go near that house again.”

  “It’ll be daylight soon,” I said. “We’ll feel pretty asinine about this little trip after the sun comes up, but don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody—”

  “We’ve got to keep moving,” Foster said. “At the next town, I’ll telephone for seats on a flight out of Miami.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “You’re raving. What about your house? We didn’t even stick around long enough to make sure the TV was turned off. And what about passports, and money, and luggage? And what makes you think I’m going with you?”

  “I’ve kept myself in readiness for this emergency,” Foster said. “There are disposition instructions for the house on file with a legal firm in Jacksonville. There is nothing to connect me with my former life, once I’ve changed my name and disappeared. As for the rest—we can buy luggage in the morning. My passport is in the car; perhaps we’d better go first to Puerto Rico, until we can arrange for one for you.”

  “Look,” I said. “I got spooked in the dark, that’s all. Why not just admit we made fools of ourselves?”

  Foster shook his head. “The inherent inertia of the human mind,” he said. “How it fights to resist new ideas.”

  “The
kind of new ideas you’re talking about could get both of us locked up in the chuckle ward,” I said.

  “Legion,” Foster said, “I think you’d better write down what I’m going to tell you. It’s important—vitally important. I won’t waste time with preliminaries. The notebook I showed you—it’s in my jacket. You must read the English portion of it. Afterwards, what I’m about to say may make more sense.”

  “I hope you don’t feel your last will and testament coming on, Mr. Foster,” I said. “Not before you tell me what that was we were both so eager to get away from.”

  “I’ll be frank with you,” Foster said flatly. “I don’t know.”

  * * * *

  Foster wheeled into the dark drive of a silent service station, eased to a stop, set the brake and slumped back in the seat.

  “Do you mind driving for a while, Legion?” he said. “I’m not feeling very well.”

  “Sure I’ll drive,” I said. I opened the door and got out and went around to his side. Foster sat limply, eyes closed, his face drawn and strained. He looked older than he had last night—years older. The night’s experiences hadn’t taken anything off my age, either.

  Foster opened his eyes, looked at me blankly. He seemed to gather himself with an effort. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not myself.”

  He moved over and I got in the driver’s seat. “If you’re sick,” I said, “we’d better find a doctor.”

  “No, it’s all right,” he said blurrily. “Just keep going.…”

  “We’re a hundred and fifty miles from Mayport now,” I said.

  Foster turned to me, started to say something—and slumped in a dead faint. I grabbed for his pulse; it was strong and steady. I rolled up an eyelid and a dilated pupil stared sightlessly. He was all right—I hoped. But the thing to do was get him in bed and call a doctor. We were at the edge of a small town. I let the brake off and drove slowly into town, swung around a corner and pulled up in front of the sagging marquee of a run-down hotel. Foster stirred as I cut the engine.