20 Million Miles to Earth

by Henry Slesar

  “What do you think, Bob?” The General’s voice was unsteady. “Will the hand grenades force the creature out of the water?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell what the thing will do or when it will do it. All I know now is that they’re blasting the Tiber straight through the city.”

  Signore Contino, his gray face showing the strain of the past hours, joined them.

  “We are deploying tanks and artillery about the city,” he said. “We are protecting our citizens in every way we can.”

  “How about casualties ?”

  “Twelve we know about,” Calder replied tightly. “Eight men and four women. But we’re ready for the beast now. As soon as it tries to leave the water—”

  The staccato of exploding grenades increased.

  Emilio Ferrara, a big sandy-haired soldier with a happy face, laughed suddenly. His companion, Guido, looked at him as if the big fellow had gone mad.

  “What is so funny?”

  Emilio looked over the side of the bridge of Ponte St. Angelo and grinned.

  “This bombing of the water. I feet like a schoolboy again, throwing rocks into the lake. What good do they think this can do?”

  “I do not know,” Guido grumbled. He reached into his belt and lifted out another hand grenade. He pulled out the pin and looped the weapon into the water. Both men ducked behind the bridge wall as the grenade exploded, sending a white spray over their heads.

  “It is a game,” Emilio chuckled. “They say there is some kind of demon swimming in the river. A thing from the sky. It seems like a waste of good powder.”

  “Throw your grenade,” Guido said sourly. “Leave the orders to the commander. If they wish us to bomb the Tiber, we bomb it. That is the Army.”

  “So be it,” Emilio shrugged. He took a grenade from his belt, yanked out the pin with his teeth, and then threw it casually into the water. “Here, my monster friend. A little plum to chew on.”

  He ducked just in time to avoid a burst of water in his face. Then he stood up and looked over the edge.

  “Mother of God!”

  “What is it, Emilio?”

  Guido stood up and came beside him.

  Out of the river, the water shining on its scaly hide, -rose something out of a childish nightmare, a demon from the seas of medieval history.

  “The beast!” Guido said. “Run, Emilio—”

  But the sandy-haired man was fascinated. He yanked at his belt and produced his service pistol. He fired five shots into the ugly head without effect. Then the beast, 108 with a roar, ducked beneath the bridge and disappeared.

  “Come, Emilio!” his friend shouted. “We must tell the others—”

  “He is beneath us,” Emilio said. “Quick—more grenades !”

  They reached for the weapons and ran to the other side of the bridge. But the creature was no longer to be seen. Another soldier, carrying a walkie-talkie, came running in their direction. They shouted at him.

  “The monster! We have found the monster!”

  “Where?”

  “Beneath the bridge,” Emilio said excitedly. “I fired upon him, but he did not die. He is a devil!”

  Just as the soldier put the walkie-talkie to his mouth, they heard the cracking sound beneath their feet. They stared in disbelief as very concrete of the bridge split and widened and snapped, the ground rising into the air. The three men were toppled off their feet, and the head of the creature from outer space appeared over the wall.

  Wildly, they fired their guns into the gleaming eyes as the center section of the bridge broke apart. The man with the walkie-talkie shouted desperately into the mouthpiece.

  “Ponte St. Angelo, calling H.Q.! Ponte St. Angelo, calling H.Q.!”

  Again, the monster’s great bulk heaved against the concrete, and two of the Italian infantrymen were flung into the water.

  In an Army car racing to the scene, Colonel Calder, the General, and Signore Contino listened grimly to the frantic message crackling from the car radio.

  “Destruction—” the voice was saying. “Indescribable destruction at Ponte St. Angelo—”

  “Faster!” Calder told the driver, who shrugged his shoulders and pushed harder on the accelerator.

  “Banyon,” the General muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing. But every time a man dies at the hands of that creature, I keep thinking of Banyon’s face.”

  “Why think of him?” Calder said. “The Senator’s rocking on his front porch. He can’t bother us now.”

  “Maybe he can, Bob. He’s here—here in Rome now.”

  “What?”

  “He says he was in Europe on other business, but I don’t believe him. I think he’s readying his case now against the second Venus expedition. He’s out to stop the flight before it begins. The monster’s going to be his biggest argument. That’s why we must stop the beast—fast!”

  “This is it,” Signore Contino said.

  The car stopped, and they looked out of the windshield with pained eyes.

  “Terrible,” Contino whispered, looking at the demolished bridge and the row of dead bodies.

  They scrambled out of the vehicle, and Calder headed for the squad of soldiers at the entrance to the bridge. One of them handed him a walkie-talkie, and said:

  “There is still one alive on the bridge. The man who broadcast to us. You can speak to him.”

  Calder grabbed for the instrument.

  “Hello! This is Colonel Calder, U. S. Where is the creature now?”

  The voice croaked back. “It has left the water. It is heading towards the Colosseum area. The beast is heading for the—”

  “All right,” Calder snapped. “Stay where you are and we’ll get help to you.”

  He handed back the walkie-talkie and spoke to General McIntosh.

  “Deploy all forces to the Colosseum area. The beast is on his way.”

  CHAPTER X Of Death and Love

  PEPE, stiff and awkward in the new suit which Verrico had insisted upon him purchasing, as befitting to a boy of such great wealth, stood in front of the village general store.

  He twisted a forelock of his dark hair and looked up at the row of cowboy hats from Taixas that hung on wooden pegs outside. He looked thoughtful, deliberating.

  “Well, my little friend!”

  Pietro, the shopkeeper, beamed at him from the doorway, twisting his moustaches in anticipation. The tale of Pepe’s fortune had changed the boy’s status in Pietro’s eyes.

  “And what can I do for the great Pepe today ? Another cowboy hat from Taixas, perhaps? A good cowboy cannot have too many hats!”

  “No,” Pepe said.

  “Ah, but then you must have the fine cowboy suit from Taixas. Straight from Roma! The woolly pants and spurs for the horse. The big shiny guns, with the real imitation leather holsters!”

  “No,” Pepe said.

  “No?”

  “No,” said Pepe stubbornly.

  Pietro clucked. “And what happened to the great cowboy from Taixas? Are you not buying the big white horse to ride the great plains ?”

  “No, Signore Pietro. I would like instead the big spaceman hat. The fine space suit. You have these things?”

  Pietro’s face fell. “No, little one. I do not carry such foolishness ! Do you no longer wish to be a great cowboy?”

  Pepe sneered.

  “The cowboy games, they are for children! I am going to be a spaceman, and I shall travel to the moon. To the planet Mars! To Venus!”

  Pietro scratched his head, and Pepe looked upwards as the first star of evening twinkled in the Sicilian sky.

  Then he walked away, his narrow shoulders thrown back in pride.

  Verrico walked along the beach in the approaching twilight, his face mournful, carrying the cloth thing in his hand.

  The mightiest beasts of two planets meet in combat.

  * * *

  “Hey, Verrico!”

  Mondello came lumbering towards
his companion on his short, stubby legs.

  “What is that you have?”

  Verrico lifted it in his hand. “It is a jacket I found in the cave by the beach, where little Pepe hid the American cylinder. It is from the great aircraft that sank in the sea.”

  Mondello looked at it.

  “USAF,” he said, reading the letters stenciled across the back. “What does this mean ?”

  “It is the name of the American flyers, that sent the big ship into the sky. It is the jacket of one of the men who went down to his death.”

  “It is sad,” Mondello said, shaking his head. “These men, they must have been very brave to have done such a thing."

  “Si,” Verrico replied, looking at the jacket. “Tell me, Mondello, are your arms tired from hauling on the nets? Or is there strength yet in your body?”

  Mondello threw out his chest.

  “I am as strong as ever!”

  “Then come with me, Mondello, and we will speak to

  Father Antonio. We will ask his permission to dig a resting place behind the church for this flying jacket. We will dedicate the grave to all the good men who died in our waters.”

  Mondello hesitated at the thought of graveyards. But then he said:

  “Si, Verrico. And it is 1 who will dig the grave. You look tired.”

  At the American Embassy in Rome, Dr. Leonardo patted his granddaughter’s hand and said:

  “You must not be upset, Marisa. Soon, they will find the beast and destroy it.”

  “It isn’t that, grandfather.” She turned her lovely sea-green eyes aside.

  “Oh? Then what troubles lie heavy on your pretty head? Soon you will be returning to America to complete your education, to be a fine' doctor of medicine as you have always dreamed. Soon you will be able to forget all of this nightmare . . .”

  Still his granddaughter looked unhappy, and the old man shook his head in understanding.

  “Ah, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking of the Colonel Calder. Am I right, Marisa?”

  She nodded somberly.

  “You are fond of Colonel Calder. And you wonder, perhaps, if he—” He put his arm around her shoulders. “I have lived a long time, mi cara. I have seen men’s eyes say many things. And what I have seen in the Colonel’s eyes when he looks at you tells me but one thing. He, too, is fond of you, Marisa.”

  She looked up at him.

  “But can a man have two loves, grandfather?”

  “What do you mean ?”

  “This space voyage, this traveling to the planets and the stars . , . this is his real love, grandfather. There isn’t room in his life for anything else.”

  “No, you’re wrong, Marisa. A man can have two loves. Sometimes, a man must have two loves to be happy—his life’s work, and his life’s mate. I love this foolish science of mine, Marisa, this study of the birds and animals that God has placed on our world. And yet I loved your grandmother, too, mi cara. In heaven she waits for me, and our love will bloom again, the way spring returns to the earth.”

  He stroked her hair gently.

  “Do you understand, Marisa?”

  Her eyes were shining when she looked up again.

  “Oh, yes, grandfather. I do!”

  The door of the office opened, and a brisk young Italian Major put his head in the doorway. When he saw the room’s occupants, he nodded briefly and started out again, but Dr. Leonardo called to him.

  “Major! Is there any word of the creature?”

  “Yes, Doctore. They are closing in upon the animal now. It has left the Tiber.”

  “Where is it?” Marisa said, jumping to her feet.

  “Yes,” Dr. Leonardo said, with an amused smile. “Where is Ac?”

  The Major looked confused by what they were saying, but then replied:

  “It is heading for the Colosseum.”

  The ancient Romans, who had erected the Temple of Saturn in tribute to their Gods, never knew what unworldly blasphemy would invade its graceful columns. Time had done enough damage to the structure, and it seemed as if the creature from an alien world had come to complete the task.

  In the rubble surrounding the great ruins, Italian infantrymen moved in swiftly with ready carbines, trying for a shot at the creature’s brain as it moved behind the columns. From the street, a tank appeared, carrying a flamethrower on its surface.

  A boyish Lieutenant, his face eager and excited by his first combat mission, directed the movements of the men. When he spied the creature in the ruins of the Temple, he motioned wildly for the tank to move up.

  “Fire when you see him!” he cried.

  The snout of the flamethrower turned. The creature looked its way, as if recalling the episode on the mountain-top, and roared out in warning.

  “Fire now!”

  The flames spat forth, blackening the columns of the Temple, and making the beast cry out in agony and rage. Its huge tail lashed out and thundered against the weak stone monument; its great body bulled its way to the other end of the edifice. Columns crumpled under its attack, and more rubble crashed into the street.

  “Look out!” the Lieutenant cried, as the old stones tumbled towards them, showering the infantrymen, raining crushing death at their heads. 114

  With a final roar, the creature left the Temple of Saturn, and lumbered off to seek a more solid hiding place.

  In the staff car, Colonel Calder looked at the General sharply as the voice on the car radio broadcast staccato reports of the beast’s movements.

  “The Colosseum,” he whispered. “If we can get it trapped in there—”

  “Trapped,” the General repeated wryly. “We’ve had the damn thing trapped a dozen times.”

  They drove through the streets until the vast bowl of the ancient Roman amphitheatre came into view.

  “There it is!”

  They had arrived just in time to see the creature from Venus, its back to the concrete walls of the stadium, hiss and growl at its tormentors. Then it turned its back to them and attempted to scale the structure in an effort to escape.

  “He’s getting away again,” McIntosh said. “The thing’s got a charmed life—”

  “Maybe his luck’s run out,” Calder said. “Let’s go.”

  They climbed out of the car, and an Italian Captain, whose beribboned uniform told of many campaigns, came

  to greet them. He saluted wearily, and said:

  “It has climbed inside the Colosseum, General. My men could not prevent it.”

  “Just as well,” McIntosh said. “If he’s in there, we’ll see that he doesn’t get away. Let’s get troops and tanks deployed completely around the stadium, not more than a few yards apart. We don’t want any mistakes this time. And Captain—”

  “Yes, General?”

  “With your permission, I’d like Colonel Calder here to take charge of your troops. He’s had a lot of experience with the creature; I think he’ll be useful.”

  The Captain looked relieved. “Gladly, sir.” He walked beside the Colonel, talking eagerly. “I have fought many battles, Colonel, but never against an enemy like this. I fought with the American Army at Salerno. I was wounded twice, Colonel, and decorated by General—”

  “Later,” Calder said. “We’ll talk about it later, Captain. Let’s get those men with the bazookas inside. Get them in positions all around the arena. Remember—tell them to scatter!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Calder looked up anxiously at the sky. The daylight was almost gone, and he knew that night was on the side of the creature.

  When the Captain had gathered his forces, Colonel Calder headed for an entrance of the great monument to the ancient Roman way of life.

  He couldn’t help the awed look as he gazed around the vast ellipsoid that had once been the playground of the Emperors of the mightiest empire in all history. He looked at the seats that had once held some forty to fifty thousand shouting, gesticulating Roman citizens, out for a day of bloodthirsty sport and games . .
.

  Now there was a new kind of sport on the field of the Colosseum. But where was it?

  A roar came from the north side of the arena.

  Calder turned swiftly in the direction of the sound. From the seats, at a high vantage point some fifty yards from the Colonel, a bazooka launched a missile in the same direction. Masonry exploded, and the creature roared out again in frustrated madness.

  “Let’s go!” Calder cried.

  From all parts of the stands, the soldiers began moving cautiously forward, heading for the site where the creature had been fired upon.

  “Watch out!” someone shouted as the thing came into view. It hissed and growled and seemed larger than ever.

  “Keep moving in,” Calder said. “He’s got no place to go . . . keep moving forward.”

  But the beast was defiant still. With an ugly spreading of its jaws, it reached its taloned hands down and picked up a huge boulder of masonry. It lifted the object high over its head, and then hurled the massive bit of debris at the oncoming soldiers. One was knocked flat by the impact, his bazooka flying from his hand. Quickly, Calder leaped to grab the fallen weapon.

  Now they were marching forward inexorably, and the beast, with its back to the high wall, roared at them all the louder, its claws raking the air, like some fearsome gladiator.

  Calder lifted the bazooka to his shoulder. He took his time about sighting, and then fired.

  The shot struck the creature’s shoulder, and it spun about, screaming. Then it

  moved backwards again, until its scaly hide was against the Colosseum wall.

  “Hurry!” the Colonel urged, racing after it.

  But the creature was displaying a skill and tenacity that they never knew it possessed. Despite the time-worn smoothness of the concrete, despite the height of the wall, it put out its claws and gripped the old stones. It clung desperately, and began to move upwards. Before another bazooka missile could be launched, it had scaled the wall and was hoisting itself over.

  But this time, the escape route wasn’t clear.

  Outside the amphitheatre, a ring of weapons were awaiting the beast from Venus, ready to fire.

  “There it is!” McIntosh cried, as the ugly dragon’s head appeared over the rim of the arena.