Collected Fiction

by Theodore R. Cogswell

  The shining geometrical figure that glowed up from the floor at the paralyzed demon seemed to suck away all his strength, converting his once powerful bulk into a quivering, blubbery mass. He tried twice to speak. When he did his voice skidded out of control into a high falsetto.

  “Who are you? What do you want of me?”

  “You already know,” said the dark man softly, a faint note of compassion in his voice. “If you want to you can remember the time before you were exiled here, the time before you made yourself ugly with your own ugliness. If you want to you can remember us. But that would be painful, and even for you there is no need for needless pain—not any longer.”

  The angel’s voice faded to a sibilant whisper as he let his hunting costume fall to the floor and sprawl out like a broken doll.

  “And so,” he hummed as he resolved himself into the pulsating pentagram of pure energy that was his normal shape, and began to descend over the helpless Krans like a five-sided noose, “now is your time to vanish. But not softly. And not suddenly. And not away.”

  1957

  YOU KNOW WILLIE

  Ted Cogswell, English professor, folksinger and master of light fantasy paradox, turns to a different vein in this short chill tale of terror, in which a horror of today’s civilization meets, justly, an older evil.

  IN THE OLD DAYS, THERE WOUDN’T have been any fuss about Willie McCracken shooting a Negro, but these weren’t the old days. The judge sat sweating, listening to the voice from the state capital that roared through the telephone receiver,

  “But you can’t hang no white man for shooting no nigger!”

  “Who said anything about hanging?” said the voice impatiently. “I want it to look good, that’s all. So don’t make it any half hour job—take two weeks if you have to.”

  The judge obediently took two weeks. There was a long parade of witnesses for the defense and an equally long one for the prosecution, and through it all the jury, having been duly instructed beforehand, sat gravely, happy for a respite from the hot sun and fields—and the cash money that was accruing to each of them at the rate of three dollars a day. A bright young man was down from the capital to oversee all major matters, and as a result, the trial of Willie McCracken was a model of juridical propriety.

  The prosecution made as strong a case against Willie as it could without bringing in such prejudicial evidence as that the little garage the dead man had opened after he came back from Korea had been taking business away from the one Willie ran at an alarming rate, or that it was common knowledge that Willie was the Thrice High Warlock of the local chapter of The Knights of the Flaming Sword and in his official capacity had given the deceased one week to get out of town or else.

  There were two important witnesses. One was very old and very black, the other wasn’t quite as young as she used to be but she was white. The first could technically be classed as a witch—though there was another and more sonorous name for what she was in the forgotten tribal language she used on ritual occasions—but contrary to the ancient injunction, she had not only been permitted to live, but to flourish in a modest fashion. There were few in the courtroom who had not at one time or another made secret use of Aunt Hattie’s services. And although most of the calls had been for relatively harmless love potions or protective amulets, there were enough who had called with darker things in mind to cause her to be treated with unusual respect.

  Aunt Hattie was the town’s oldest inhabitant—legend had it that she was already a grown woman when Lincoln larcenously freed the slaves—and the deceased had been her only living blood relative.

  Having been duly sworn, she testified that the defendant, Willie McCracken, had come to her cabin just as she was getting supper, asked for the deceased, and then shot him between the eyes when he came to the door.

  She was followed by Willie’s wife, a plumpish little blonde in an over-tight dress who was obviously enjoying all the attention she was getting. She in turn swore that Willie had been home in bed with her where he belonged at the time in question. From the expressions on the jurymen’s faces, it was obvious that they were thinking that if he hadn’t been, he was a darned fool.

  There were eight Knights of the Flaming Sword sitting around the table in Willie’s kitchen. Willie pulled a jug from the floor beside him, took a long swallow, and wiped his mouth nervously with the hairy back of his hand. He looked up at the battered alarm clock on the shelf over the sink and then lifted the jug again. When he set it down Pete Martin reached over and grabbed it.

  “Buck up, Willie boy,” he said as he shook the container to see how much was left in it. “Ain’t nobody going to get at you with us here.”

  Willie shivered. “You ain’t seen her squatting out under that cottonwood every night like I have.” He reached out for the jug but Martin laughed and pulled it out of reach.

  “You lay off that corn and you won’t be seeing Aunt Hattie every time you turn around. The way you’ve been hitting the stuff since the trial it’s a wonder you ain’t picking snakes up off the table by now.”

  “I seen her, I tell you,” said Willie sullenly. “Six nights running now I seen her plain as day just sitting out under that tree waiting for the moon to get full.” He reached for the jug again but Martin pushed his hand away.

  “You’ve had enough. Now you just sit there quiet like while I talk some sense. Aunt Hattie’s dead and Jackson’s dead and they’re both safe six foot under. I don’t blame you for getting your wind up after what she yelled in the courtroom afore she keeled over, but just remember that there ain’t no nigger the Knights can’t take care of, dead or alive. Now you go upstairs and get yourself a little shut-eye. You’re plumb beat. I don’t think you’ve had six hours good sleep since the finish of the trial. You don’t notice Winnie Mae losing any rest, do you?”

  Willie kneaded his bald scalp with thick fingers. “Couldn’t sleep,” he said hoarsely. “Not with her out there. She said he’d come back first full moon rise and every night it’s been getting rounder and rounder.”

  “He comes back, we’ll fix him for you, Willie,” said Martin in a soothing voice. “Now you do like I said. Moon won’t be up for a good two hours yet. You go get a little sleep and we’ll call you in plenty of time.”

  Willie hesitated and then got to his feet and lumbered up the stairs. He was so tired he staggered as he walked. When he got into the dark bedroom he pulled off his clothes and threw himself down on the brass bed beside Winnie Mae, He tried to keep awake but he couldn’t. In a moment his heavy snores were blending with her light delicate ones.

  The moonlight was strong and bright in the room when Willie woke. They hadn’t called him! From the kitchen below he heard a rumble of voices and then drunken laughter. Slowly, as if hypnotized, he swung his fat legs over the side of the bed and stumbled to the window. He tried to keep from looking but he couldn’t. She would be there, squatting beneath the old cottonwood, a shriveled little black mummy that waited . . . waited . . . waited . . .

  Willie dug his knuckles suddenly into his eyes, rubbed hard, and then looked again. There was nothing! Nothing where the thick old trunk met the ground but a dusty clump of crab grass. He stood trembling, staring down at the refuse-littered yard as if it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. There was something healing in the calm flood of moonlight. The hard knot he had been carrying inside his head dissolved and he felt strong and young again. He wanted to shout, to caper around the room.

  Winne Mae mumbled in her sleep and he turned to look at her. Her thin cotton nightgown was bunched up under her arms and she lay, legs astraddle, her plump body gleaming whitely in the moonlight. She whimpered as she pulled herself up out of her slumber and then closed her arms around the heavy body that was pressing down on her.

  “Remember me,” he whispered, “I’m Willie. You know Willie.”

  She giggled and pulled him tighter against her. Her breath began to come faster and her fingers made little cat clawings on his back
. As she squirmed under him her hands crept higher, over his shoulders, up his neck . . .

  There was a sudden explosion under him and a caterwauling scream of sheer horror. Willie jerked back as her nails raked across his face, and then he felt a sudden stabbing agony as she jabbed up with her knee. He staggered away from the bed, his hands cupped over his bleeding face.

  His hands! Time slid to a nightmarish stop as his finger tips sent a message pulsing down through nerve endings that his bald scalp had somehow sprouted a thick mop of kinky hair. He jerked Iris hands down and held them cupped before him. The fresh blood was black in the moonlight, and not only the blood. He spun toward the cracked mirror and saw himself for the first time. The flabby body with its sagging belly was gone. In its place was that of a dark-skinned stranger . . . but not a stranger.

  His fingers crept across his forehead looking for the small red bullet hole that was no longer there.

  And then time started to rush forward again. Winnie Mae’s screaming went on and on and there was a rushing of heavy feet up the stairs from the kitchen.

  He tried to explain but there was a new softness to his speech that put the lie to his stumbling words. When the door burst open he stood for a moment, hands stretched out in supplication.

  “No,” he whimpered. “I’m Willie. You know Willie.”

  As they came slowly out of the shadows he broke. He took one slow step backwards, and then two, and then when he felt the low sill press against his calves, turned and dove out the window onto the sloping roof. When he got to the ground he tried again to explain but somebody remembered his gun.

  Willie as he had been would have been run to ground within the mile, but his new lithe body carried him effortlessly through the night. If it hadn’t been for the dogs he might have got away.

  Somebody had a deck of cards and they all drew. Pete Martin was low man so he had to go back after the gasoline.

  ACES LOADED

  Bull stepped forward and put out his hand. “Come on, honey . . .” The redhead’s eyes narrowed, and she fired—a needle beam burned a neat three-inch hole in the bulkhead behind Bull. Bull’s hand and jaw dropped—he had thought the redhead was on his side.

  BULL WHISTLED HAPPILY AS HE sauntered down the Diagonal, the wide thoroughfare that slashed through the sprawling cluster of bars and dance halls ringing the spaceport of Engstrum IV. In his throat was the rasping dryness that comes to a man after months in deep space, and in his billfold a thick sheaf of inter-Galactic credit notes. Tomorrow would be time enough to start shopping around for a used ship and some prospecting tools. Tonight . . . tonight was for catching up on all the things he had missed during fifteen months of piloting a Consolidated Metals scow.

  An oversized sign blinked from a large building backed up against the spaceport fence and he crossed the street and went in. The bar was roaring and a whirring clatter came from the complex gambling devices that lined three sides of the large room. In an alcove at the rear were crowded dice and card tables. He felt the old temptation stirring inside him but he fought it off. This time things were going to be different. This time he had it all figured out. The next time he headed out for the Belt he’d be working for himself.

  He found an empty table and signaled for a drink. When the waitress came up he took one startled look at her and then let out a soft whistle. Heart-shaped face, jade-green eyes that seemed to slant, close-cropped curly red-gold hair—all attached to other noticeable attributes.

  “Evening, spacer,” she said. Her voice was husky. “What would you like?”

  Bull was a believer in direct action, so he told her. She yawned.

  “You couldn’t afford it,” she said. “Someday I wish one of you characters would come up with a variation on that theme. Any variation at all.”

  “Bring me a Double Sun and I’ll see what I can figure out,” he said.

  “You do that.” She flipped off to the bar.

  Every time Bull tried a fresh approach, he tried a fresh drink. At last he gave up temporarily, and somewhat unsteadily wandered to the rear to watch the crap game. Before long he was back at his table, staring with great sadness down into the dregs of his last drink. He stifled a sullen hiccup, and then someone said, “Evening, son. Mind if I sit down?”

  Before he could answer, somebody did, a gnarled man wearing a faded and patched pair of spaceman’s coveralls. A battered chief engineer’s hat a couple of sizes too small perched on steel-grey hair. Beneath deep-set, faded blue eyes jutted a beak of a nose and the points of a lovingly tended handlebar mustache.

  Bull hiccuped again.

  “Best thing for the hiccups is another drink,” said the old man with sympathy. “And since it’s agin nature for a man to sit drinking alone, I’ll join you. Beer for me though, my tubes ain’t what they once was.” He waved a practiced hand in the air.

  When the redhead appeared with the drinks, he looked calmly across the table until Bull grinned, reached in his pocket, and poured a small handful of change out between them. The old man eyed it happily and then stretched out a shaky, blue-veined hand.

  “Johnston’s the name,” he said. “Chief Engineer William Johnston of the Pelican. People who buy me drinks call me Windy.”

  Bull stared at the hand through out-of-focus eyes and then shook it. “Brakney. Bull Brakney.”

  Windy raised his glass in a silent salute and drained half of it off at a single gulp. He said benevolently, “Got troubles, haven’t you, son?”

  Bull nodded morosely.

  “I knew it, knew it the minute I set eyes on you. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was that redhead got you triggered off.” He snorted ferociously. He waved two fingers at the little waitress. His eyes followed her as she went to fill their order. “Always have been partial to redheads,” he said and whinnied like an aged stallion. “Remember once out on Altair—that’s when I was serving a hitch with the Exploration Service. I was down by the hydroponics shed one day when Major Kane’s three redheaded daughters came by. What made it interesting was that they was triplets, identical triplets, and I took it as sort of a personal challenge. Well, sir, there I was . . .”

  The rush of words began to dissolve the alcoholic haze in which Bull had been trying to hide himself. He broke off the old man’s monologue with an impatient gesture.

  “Women I can handle. Dice I can’t.” He gestured bitterly at the busy gambling tables at the rear of the Rotunda. “I sevened when I should have sixed and down the drain went fifteen months of sweat as relief pilot on a Consolidated Metal scow, fifteen months of pinching every penny to get enough of a stake together for a try on my own. I know a rock out in the Belt that’s lousy with high-grade tungsten pockets, but it takes a good ship to get in to it and good equipment to dig it out.”

  With a sweep of his hand he sent die little pile of coins spinning across the table. “That’s all that’s left.”

  The old man made a clucking noise. “Hate to tell you this; but, son, you got took. Nobody gets hot in this place unless Big Head McCall wants them to.”

  Bull’s face hardened. “You leveling with me?”

  Windy nodded.

  The big spaceman slammed his glass down on the table and then lurched to his feet, one hand sliding down to grip the butt of the blaster that hung at his right hip.

  As Bull started purposefully toward the dice tables at the rear of the room the old man jumped up and grabbed him by the arm.

  “Easy does it, boy. You haven’t got a chance. You’ll just get yourself chopped down for nothing.” The urgency in die other’s voice made Bull pause.

  “What do you expect me to do,” he said sullenly, “take this sitting down?”

  “Of course not. But there’s no sense dealing yourself into a strange game unless you know what’s behind it. You already tried that and you see where it got you.” Unwillingly Bull let himself be shoved down into the chair.

  “You got a better idea?”

  Windy nodded. He reached over and
tapped Bull’s tarnished pilot’s wings. “You got papers to back those up, haven’t you?”

  “Sure,” said Bull impatiently. “Why?”

  “Because I haven’t. Mine got canceled a couple of years ago when some quack on die fitness board decided I was too old to handle my own ship.” His voice quivered indignantly. “Me, too old!” With an effort he caught himself. “Anyway I’ve been stranded here ever since. I can’t afford to hire a pilot, and every time I try to talk one into a partnership deal, he takes one good look at me and another at my ship and then busts out laughing.”

  He looked hopefully across the table at Bull. “Neither me or the Pelican is fresh off the production line, but we both got a lot of parsecs left before we’re ready for the scrap heap. You need a ship, I need a pilot. Why don’t we take a flyer at the high grade you mentioned and split the profits?”

  Bull looked at him dubiously. “What about equipment? You can’t strip an asteroid with hand steel and a four-pound hammer. Minimum gear would run us at least five thousand. You got that much stashed away?”

  Windy responded with a wicked grin. “No, but I know how we can raise it in a hurry. And what’s more it would sort of make up for the lumps you took back there tonight.”

  Bull began to look interested. “Go ahead.”

  “Big Head McCall, the guy who owns this place, pulled in here five years ago one jump ahead of the Patrol. He’d been mixed up in a hijacking deal in which a Patrolman got killed. They got his partner, Cash Shirey—he’s serving life on one of the penal planets right now—but Big Head got away with enough loot to buy off the local officials once he got here. As a result the Patrol has never been able to extradite him. He’s safe as long as he stays planetside—the Patrol’s jurisdiction ends at the thousand-mile-limit—so he just sits down here and lets the suckers come to him. Which they do.”

  Bull reddened. “What’s all this got to do with us?” he demanded impatiently.