The Edmond Hamilton Megapack: 16 Classic Science Fiction Tales
Page 52
He was not dead, but living. Yet if he let Jack know that, it meant the end of his son’s long-desired opportunity. Jack would have to return the insurance money to the company, wrecking his dreamed-of chance. How could he let him know, then?
He, John Woodford, had already decided that he must remain dead to his wife and therefore to the world. He might as well remain so to his son, also. It was for the best. John Woodford melted away from the cottage into the darkness.
When he reached the street he stood in indecision. A freezing wind had begun to blow, and he felt very cold without an overcoat. Mechanically he turned his coat-collar closer around his neck.
He tried to think what he must do. Neither Helen nor Jack must know that he was living, and that meant that no one in the city must know. He must get out of the town to some other place, take up life under some other name.
But he would need help, money, to do that. Where was he to get them? Barred as he was from calling on his wife or son, to whom could he tum for help without letting his return become generally known?
Howard Norse! The name came at once to Woodford’s lips. Norse had been his employer, head of the firm where Woodford had held a position for many years. Woodford had been one of his oldest employees. Howard Norse would help him to get a position somewhere else, and would keep his reappearance secret.
He knew where Norse’s residence was, several miles out in the country. But he couldn’t walk that far, and he had no taxi or trolley fare. He would have to telephone Norse.
Woodford walked back toward the city’s central section, head bent against the piercing cold wind. He succeeded in finding an all-night lunchroom whose proprietor allowed him to use the telephone. With cold-stiffened lingers he dialed Norse’s number.
Howard Norse’s sleepy voice soon came over the wire. “Mr. Norse, this is Woodford—John Woodford,” he said quickly.
There was an incredulous exclamation from Howard Norse. “You’re crazy! John Woodford’s been dead and buried for a couple of weeks!”
“No, I tell you it’s John Woodford!” insisted Woodford. “I’m not dead at all, I’m as living as you are! If you’ll come into town for me you’ll see for yourself.”
“I’m not likely to drive to town at two in the morning to look at a maniac,” Norse replied acidly. “Whatever your game is, you’re wasting your time on me.”
“But you’ve got to help me!” Woodford cried. “I’ve got to have money, a chance to get out of the city without anyone knowing. I gave your firm my services for years and now you’ve got to give me help!”
“Listen to me, whoever you are,” snapped Norse over the wire. “I was bothered long enough with John Woodford when he was living—he was so inefficient we’d have kicked him out long ago if we hadn’t been sorry for him. But now that he’s dead, you needn’t think you can bother me in his name. Good-night!”
The receiver clicked in Woodford’s unbelieving ear.
He stared at the instrument. So that was what they had really thought of him at the firm—there where he had always thought himself one of the most highly valued of employees!
But there must be someone upon whom he could call for help; someone he could convince that John Woodford was still living; someone who would be glad to think that he might be living.
What about Willis Grann? Grann had been his closest friend next to Curtis Dawes. He had lent money more than once to Woodford in the past, and certainly should be willing to do so now.
Hastily Woodford called Grann’s number. This time he was more careful in his approach, when he heard the other’s voice.
“Willis, I’ve got something to tell you that may sound incredible, but you’ve got to believe, do you hear?” he said.
“Who is this and what in the world are you talking about?” demanded Grann’s startled voice.
“Willis, this is John Woodford. Do you hear, John Woodford! Everyone thinks I’m dead but I’m not, and I’ve got to see you.”
“What?” cried the other’s voice over the telephone. “Why, you must be drunk. I saw Woodford lying in his coffin myself, so I know he’s dead.”
“I tell you, it’s not so, I’m not dead!” Woodford almost screamed. “I’ve got to get some money, though, to get away from here and you must lend it to me! You always lent it to me before, and I need it now worse than ever I did. I’ve got to get away!”
“So that’s it!” said Willis Grann. “Because I used to help Woodford out you think you can get money from me by just calling me up and pretending that you’re he. Why, Woodford himself was the biggest pest in the world with his constant borrowings. I felt almost relieved when he died. And now you try to make me believe that he’s come back from the dead to pester me again!”
“But he never died—I’m John Woodford really—” Woodford protested vainly.
“Sorry, old top,” returned Grann’s mocking voice. “Next time pick a living person to impersonate, not a dead one.”
He hung up. John Woodford slowly replaced the receiver and made his way out to the street.
The wind was blowing harder and now was bringing with it clouds of fine snow that stung against his face like sand. He shivered as he stumbled along the streets of dark shops, his body freezing as his mind was frozen.
There was no one from whom he could get help, he saw. His paramount necessity was still to get out of the city, and to do that he must rely on himself.
The icy blasts of the snow-laden wind penetrated through his thin coat. His hands were shaking with the cold.
A sign caught Woodford’s eye, the illuminated beacon of a relief lodging-house. At once he made his way toward it. He could at least sleep there tonight, get started from the city in the morning.
The shabby men dozing inside in chairs looked queerly at him as he entered. So did the young clerk to whom he made his way.
“I’d—I’d like to stay here tonight,” he said to the clerk.
The clerk stared. “Are you trying to kid me?”
Woodford shook his head. “No, I’m penniless and it’s cold outside. I’ve got to stay somewhere.”
The clerk smiled disdainfully. “Listen, fellow, no one with duds like yours is that hard up. Scram before I call a cop.”
Woodford looked down at his clothes, his frock coat and stiff white shirt and gleaming patent-leather shoes, and understood.
He said desperately to the clerk, “But these clothes don’t mean anything. I tell you, I haven’t a penny!”
“Will you beat it before I have you thrown out of here?” the clerk demanded.
Woodford backed toward the door. He went outside again into the cold. The wind had increased and more snow was falling. The front of Woodford’s coat was soon covered with it as he pushed along.
It came to him as a queer joke that the splendor of his funeral clothes should keep him from getting help now. He couldn’t even beg a passer-by for a dime. Who would give to a panhandler in formal clothes?
Woodford felt his body quivering and his teeth chattering from sheer cold. If he could only get out of the blast of the icy wind! His eyes sought desperately along the street for a hallway where he might shelter himself.
He found a deep doorway and crouched down inside it, out of the wind and driving snow. But hardly had he done so when a heavy step paused in front of him and a nightstick rapped his feet smartly. An authoritative voice ordered him to get up and go home.
Woodford did not try to explain to the policeman that he was not a drunken citizen fallen by the way. He got wearily to his feet and moved on along the street, unable to see more than a few feet ahead for the whirl of snow.
The snow on which he was walking penetrated the thin shoes he wore, and his feet were soon even colder than the rest of his body. He walked with slow, dragging steps, head bent against the storm of white.
He was dully aware that the dark shops beside him had given way to a low stone wall. With a sudden start he recognized it as the wall of the cemetery which he had le
ft but hours before, the cemetery containing the vault from which he had escaped.
The vault! Why hadn’t he thought of it before? he asked himself. The vault would be a shelter from the freezing wind and snow. He could stay there for the night without anyone objecting.
He paused, feeling for a moment a little renewal of his former terrors. Did he dare go back into that place from which he had struggled to escape? Then an extra—strong blast of icy air struck him and decided him—the vault would be shelter and that was what his frozen body craved more than anything else.
Stiffly he climbed over the low stone wall and made his way through the cemetery’s whitened monuments and vaults toward the one from which he had escaped. The driving snow covered his tracks almost as he made them, as he trudged toward the vault.
He reached it and tried its iron doors anxiously. Suppose he had locked them when he left! But to his relief they swung open, and he entered and shut them. It was dark inside, but he was out of the wind and snow now and his numbed body felt a little relief.
Woodford sat down in the corner of the vault. It was a shelter for the night, at least. It seemed rather ironic that he had had to come back here for shelter, but it was something to be thankful for that he had even this. In the morning, when the storm was over, he could leave without anyone seeing and get out of the city.
He sat listening to the wind and snow shriek outside. The stone floor of the vault was very cold, so cold that he felt his limbs stiffening and cramping, and finally he stood up unsteadily and paced to and fro in the vault, chaffing his arms and hands.
If he had only a blanket, or even a heavy coat, to lie upon! He’d freeze there upon the stone floor. Then as he turned in his pacing he bumped into the coffin on the shelf and a new idea was born in his mind.
The coffin! Why, the interior of it was lined deep with silk and satin padding. It would be warm in the coffin. He could sleep in it far better than on the cold stone floor. But did he dare to re-enter it?
Again Woodford felt faintly the former terrors he had experienced when he had awakened in it. But they meant nothing, he told himself. He would not be fastened in, this time, and his frozen flesh yearned for the warmth of the coffin’s lining.
Slowly, carefully, he climbed up and lowered himself into the coffin and stretched out. The silk and padding he sank into had a grateful warmth. He lowered his head upon the soft little pillow with a sigh of relief. This was better.
He experienced an almost luxurious comfort now; but after he had lain for a little while he felt that the top of his body was still cold, where the cold air came into the open coffin’s top. That cold air entering kept him from being completely warm. If the lid above him were just closed to keep out the cold air—
He reached up and got the edge of the heavy metal lid, then let it down upon himself. He was completely in the dark, now, inside the closed coffin. But he was warm, too, for the lid kept out the cold air. And he was getting warmer all the time, as his body warmed up the interior.
Yes, it was far more comfortable with the lid closed. An even, warmth now pervaded his whole being, and the air inside the coffin was still getting warmer and thicker. He felt a little drowsy now, as he breathed that warm air, felt luxuriously sleepy as he lay on the soft silk.
It was getting a little harder to breathe, somehow, as the air became thicker. He ought really to raise the coffin lid and let in some fresh air. But it was so warm now, and the air outside was so cold, and he was more and more sleepy.
Something dim and receding in his fading consciousness told him that he was on the way to suffocation. But what if he was? was his sleepy thought. He was better off in here than back in the world outside. He had been a fool ever to fight so hard before to get out of his warm, comfortable coffin, to get back to that outside world.
No, it was better like this, the darkness and the warmth and the sleep that advanced. Nobody would ever know that he had awakened at all, that he had been away from here at all. Everything would be just as before—just as before. And with that comforting assurance, John Woodford was swept farther and farther down the dark stream of unconsciousness from which this time there would be no returning.
THE SECOND SATELLITE
Norman and Hackett, bulky in their thick flying suits, seemed to fill the little office. Across the room Harding, the field superintendent, contemplated them. Two planes were curving up into the dawn together from the field outside, their motors thunderous as they roared over the building. When their clamor had receded, Harding spoke:
“I don’t know which of you two is crazier,” he said. “You, Norman, to propose a fool trip like this, or you, Hackett, to go with him.”
Hackett grinned, but the long, lean face of Norman was earnest. “No doubt it all sounds a little insane,” he said, “but I’m convinced I’m right.”
The field superintendent shook his head. “Norman, you ought to be writing fiction instead of flying. A second satellite—and Fellows and the others on it—what the devil!”
“What other theory can account for their disappearance?” asked Norman calmly. “You know that since the new X-type planes were introduced, hundreds of fliers all over Earth have been trying for altitude records in them. Twenty-five miles—thirty—thirty-five—the records have been broken every day. But out of the hundreds of fliers who have gone up to those immense heights, four have never come down nor been seen again!
“One vanished over northern Sweden, one over Australia, one over Lower California, and one, Fellows, himself, right here over Long Island. You saw the globe on which I marked those four spots, and you saw that when connected they formed a perfect circle around the Earth. The only explanation is that the four fliers when they reached a forty-mile height were caught up by some body moving round Earth in that circular orbit, some unknown moon circling Earth inside its atmosphere, a second satellite of Earth’s whose existence has until now never been suspected!”
Harding shook his head again. “Norman, your theory would be all right if it were not for the cold fact that no such satellite has ever been glimpsed.”
“Can you glimpse a bullet passing you?” Norman retorted. “The two fliers at Sweden and Lower California vanished within three hours of each other, on opposite sides of the Earth. That means that this second satellite, as I’ve computed, circles Earth once every six hours, and travelling at that terrific speed it is no more visible to us of Earth than a rifle bullet would be.”
“Moving through Earth’s atmosphere at such speed, indeed, one would expect it to burn up by its own friction with the air. But it does not, because its own gravitational power would draw to itself enough air to make a dense little atmosphere for itself that would cling to it and shield it as it speeds through Earth’s upper air. No, I’m certain that this second satellite exists, Harding, and I’m as certain that it’s responsible for the vanishing of those four fliers.”
“And now you and Hackett have figured when it will be passing over here and are going up in an X-type yourselves to look for it,” Harding said musingly.
“Look for it?” echoed Hackett. “We’re not going to climb forty miles just to get a look at the damn thing—we’re going to try landing on it!”
“You’re crazy sure!” the field superintendent exploded. “If Fellows and those others got caught by the thing and never came down again, why in the name of all that’s holy would you two want—” He stopped suddenly. “Oh, I think I see,” he said, awkwardly. “Fellows was rather a buddy of you two, wasn’t he?”
“The best that ever flew a crippled Nieuport against three Fokkers to pull us out of a hole,” said Norman softly. “Weeks he’s been gone, and if it had been Hackett and I he’d be all over the sky looking for us—the damned lunatic. Well, we’re not going to let him down.”
“I see,” Harding repeated. Then—“Well, here comes your mechanic, Norman, so your ship must be ready. I’ll go with you. It’s an event to see two Columbuses starting for another world.”
“Well, all the luck,” Harding told them. “You know I’m pulling for you, but—I suppose it’s useless to say anything about being careful.”
“I seem to have heard the words,” Hackett grinned, as he and Norman shook the field superintendent’s hand.
“It’s all the craziest chance,” Norman told the other. “And if we don’t come down in a reasonable time—well, you’ll know that our theory was right, and you can broadcast it or not as you please.”
“I hope for your sake that you’re dead wrong,” smiled the official. “I’ve told you two to get off the Earth a lot of times, but I never meant it seriously.”
Harding stepped back as the two clambered laboriously into the cramped cabin. Norman took the controls, the door slammed, and as the chocks were jerked back and the motor roared louder the long plane curved up at a dizzy angle from the field into the dawn. Hackett waved a thick arm down toward the diminishing figures on the field below; then turned from the window to peer ahead with his companion.
The plane flew in a narrow ascending spiral upward, at an angle that would have been impossible to any ship save an X-type. Norman’s eyes roved steadily over the instrument as they rose, his ears unconsciously alert for each explosion of the motor. Earth receded swiftly into a great gray concave surface as they climbed higher and higher.
By the time the five-mile height was reached Earth’s surface had changed definitely from concave to convex. The plane was ascending by then in a somewhat wider spiral, but its climb was as steady and sure as ever. Frost begin to form quickly on the cabin’s windows, creeping out from the edges. Norman spoke a word over the motor’s muffled thunder, and Hackett snicked on the electrical radiators. The frost crept back as their warm, clean heat flooded the cabin.