“If he is our friend, why destroy him?” Varsag cried. “I am the only man in the world who could have made this operation and I am the only man in the world who can undo it!” He held himself erect, the lamp making grotesque light and shade patterns of his features, and his eyes shone. “I’ll see this experiment through or die,” he said. “And you’ll see it through or Dexter dies! I swear it!”
I knew he meant it. There was nothing I could do but hope—hope that events would convince Varsag I was right. I had to stay. These men, the strange human-being-animal and the doctor who had made him, were my two best friends.
Montrex came in about dawn. He came in noiselessly. Apparently he had already learned how to open the door without clicking the latch. Varsag and I pretended to be asleep, but we watched him covertly. Fatigue lay heavily on him. His eyes were half-closed, his graceful body sagged. Sleep came quickly to him.
* * * *
The next evening we were ready to follow Montrex when he got up and left. Shortly past midnight he slipped out again.
We followed him in Varsag’s car at a distance of about two hundred yards. At that distance the sensitivity of his vision did not seem to be so effective. He walked rapidly for about ten blocks, until he came to the great Bronx Zoological Gardens, and walked without hesitation toward the zoo—and then he disappeared into what appeared to be the reptile house!
“Arnold!” I said, fiercely, “do you know where he’s going?”
Varsag nodded grimly. We got out of the car and followed Montrex. We did not know then how he had effected an entrance through the iron fence that surrounded the snake-house. I learned later he had stolen a key from the guard during the day. Such an act would be extraordinarily simple for a man of his speed and precision of movement.
There was an almost full moon that evening. It shone through the huge plate windows of the snake-house and illumined the scene slightly.
As we looked on, Montrex appeared, and entered the cage of a solitary cobra, a huge creature of the breed named Sadu. He had stripped to the waist and thrown his clothes carelessly on the limbs of a felled tree lying in the glass house.
The reptile was awake. As Montrex came into the cage it lifted its head, with the great hood spreading out behind it. The moonlight gleamed on scaly sides as the snake coiled swiftly. In the quiet we could hear Montrex’s peculiar high-pitched humming as he moved quickly back and forth in front of the swaying head of the reptile. He was only a foot away from its head—
There was a blur as the cobra struck! Montrex must have eluded the lancing movement, for he resumed his weaving before the snake’s head. The whole movement and recoil had been too swift for us to follow. The flat head whipped forward again, and again Montrex danced aside precisely the right distance.
Sadu struck again and again. Each time Montrex was untouched, coming back to the duel with his expression unchanged. It was impossible to follow the action. All we knew was that when the snake returned to position after striking, there was Montrex, elusive, imperturbable, tantalizing.
A cloud passed from the moon and we got a glimpse of Montrex’s face. It was flatly immobile, but we knew that under the shadow of the brows the beady mongoose eyes were completely alive. His tongue lolled slightly out of his half-open mouth.
The bizarre combat continued. Although it took place without a sound save for Montrex’s humming and a slithering noise from the coils of the snake, the whole zoo somehow sensed a fight was in progress, and mysteriously, the howls of the giant cats and chattering of the monkeys began to be heard. A vast rustling filled the snake house as every reptile in it came alive. It seemed as if the life of an entire jungle were ringed about the combatants in the tiny cell.
The battle in the patch of moonlight was nearing its end. The giant Sadu seemed to be tiring. Its hood dropped slightly and it relaxed its coil for a moment. The moment was enough. When we could make out the action again the snake was away in a corner where Montrex seemed to have kicked it. It was still alive, though apparently exhausted.
I was suddenly aware of Varsag’s hand tightly clutched around my arm, his fingers digging fiercely into my flesh.
Montrex left the cage quickly and disappeared. The noises of the animals in the zoo subsided almost instantly. Varsag and I found the car and sped home, in order to be in bed when Montrex returned.
For a time neither of us said anything. At length as we covered the few blocks to the apartment Varsag said, “You know, Bert, Dexter Montrex is still human.”
“You can still say that after tonight?”
“If he were completely animal,” Varsag said, in a voice that was utterly calm, “he would have killed and eaten that cobra.”
“What little human is left in him,” I said, “is quickly disappearing. In a month… we’ve got to stop—”
“Bert!” Varsag said sharply. “We’ve been over this before. Understand me, now. I’m seeing it through no matter what happens!”
* * * *
And so matters continued as the time of the fight approached. We spent most of our waking hours devising ways to keep Montrex away from the snake-house. Partly by tiring him as much as we could in the daytime so he would not prowl at night, partly by giving him a doped drink before he went to bed whenever we had the opportunity, we managed to avoid further visits to the zoo. On one occasion, however, nothing we did was of any avail, and we were forced to creep out into the night and once more watch Montrex go through his amazing contest with Sadu, the giant cobra. Again he tired it completely, but did not kill it, ending the fight by kicking it into a corner.
We trained Montrex strictly for this fight, although there was no more need of it than there was for any of the other battles. Even the power and strength of Big Bo Porter would be useless against Montrex. We only went through the routine so that he would be too tired at night to indulge his monstrous passion for those bouts with Sadu.
On the evening of the battle with Big Bo Porter it was of course impossible to dope Montrex or tire him out, since he had to fight a battle for the heavyweight championship of the world.
But as night drew on he became more and more restless. It was only by watching him continually and exercising almost main force that we could get him into the stadium, dress him in his fighting trunks and put the protective bandages on his hands. And then he stopped speaking to us. He continued pacing about the dressing room.
Upstairs a noisy crowd waited for the fight it had paid from fifteen to fifty dollars to see, thousands of people who had made “The Human Cobra” a 10-1 favorite in the betting to win the heavyweight championship of the world. A great shouting warned that the last preliminary was over and that the championship fight was next on the program.
Varsag and I observed Montrex closely. His face was absolutely impassive.
A boy stuck his head in the door and called, “Ready!”
Varsag and I each moved to grasp one of Montrex’s arms, but he evaded us easily and stepped out the door. We followed him down the aisle of the huge boxing arena. As Montrex appeared, the crowd cheered deafeningly. “Come on, Cobra!” someone screamed.
Montrex did not respond with any sign, but walked quickly up to the ring and stepped through the ropes. A muscle twitched violently in his cheek. He did not utter a word during the referee’s instructions.
Big Bo Porter flexed his long, lithe arms, grinning nervously. His white teeth shone. He was a superb creature. I knew that probably he could outfight any human being in the world with his fists, but he should never have been in the same ring with Dexter Montrex. The men separated and went back to their corners. Montrex’s eyes darted wildly about.
The bell rang, and suddenly Montrex had leaped out from the corner and darted at Porter. With an overwhelming fury he lashed at the Negro, catching him squarely on the back of the neck. It looked as he had struck the champion three or four times. In reality he m
ust have hit him twenty or thirty crushing blows at the base of the skull.
It was the back of the head attack of the Mongoose!
Porter slumped suddenly. When he hit the canvas, his head was twisted at a peculiar angle. I saw Montrex bare his teeth and look at the fallen man.
The crowd was strangely silent. The referee never began his count. He just stood there with a hand upraised, but that hand didn’t come down. He could have counted to a million: Porter was dead.
In that vast and awesome silence, just as the first groan of the mob was beginning, a groan that would burst into the horrible cries of thousands, Montrex suddenly leaped from the ring. With fantastic speed he was down the aisle and out of the arena before anyone could have realized what he was doing, or raised a hand to stop him.
He had shouted only one word, just before he leaped from the ring.
“Sadu!”
And in a moment, like some huge animal awakening, the crowd was surging to life. In the midst of that overwhelming noise and confusion, with thousands streaming down to the arena, and the whole place a choked, single mass of people, we fought our way through them to the door. We knew where Montrex had gone.
It took our taxi forty minutes through heavy traffic to get to the Zoological Gardens. Through the din in the streets, and the growing shrieks of sirens, I heard Varsag, sitting beside me, cursing and moaning. The man seemed to have lost control of himself, partly from a terrible rage, more from a great feeling of frustration…
There was Montrex! Through the yellow gleam of one of the park lights, we saw him running ahead of us, straight toward the snake-house.
“Dexter! Stop!” I shouted, sprinting vainly behind him. It was impossible to catch him. He left me far behind, and ran the rest of the distance to the snake-house. With Varsag running grimly behind me, we kept going.
We just caught a glimpse of Montrex as he slipped through the gate, and in his hurry, he left it open. The bandages from his hands had been unwound, and they lay on the ground like white serpents.
We ran through the gate toward the snake-house… and a high-pitched, frenzied humming came to us. Again the sound was picked up by a hundred confined animals. Then the faint crescent of the new moon broke through the clouds, and we saw Montrex standing inside the snake-house, standing there in nothing but his short boxing trunks. A great screaming, full of wild cries, had filled the night air, yet over it all we heard him humming—watched him begin his weaving toward that great, coiled scaly body of the cobra, shining in the moonlight. Montrex, his short hair plainly on end, crouching, moving toward the glistening scales—
Suddenly the moon was shining on two scaly bodies!
Another cobra had been put into Sadu’s cage! The two hoods ballooned. Frantically I shouted, “Dexter—there’s another!” He didn’t hear me. It was as if he were not of our world. The hood behind him danced, played an instant, then shot forward until its flat head had smashed into Montrex’s back.
For a moment the moonlight was full on his face. His expression softened, and he spun around, accidentally facing us. A look of childish surprise came to his little eyes. Soft lines sprang up around his mouth. The humming had stopped, and now something like a sad smile flitted over his face, and it became completely placid. Then he sank down limply into the shadows. He never knew that the great cobras had hit more than once.
Then, before I could realize what was happening, Varsag, sobbing hysterically, had flung himself around the snake-house and inside through the door, tearing at the heads that spit at the quiet body on the floor.
I heard him scream once, horribly. The hoods whipped about his body…
* * * *
Today I went to the funeral of Dr. Arnold Varsag and Dexter Montrex.
I have just destroyed all of our notes, and the remains of our experiment. It was a small, vicious satisfaction to kill the ratty animals, and I took it. What will happen to me now, I don’t know.
I’ve told this story because I think it should be known. I cannot carry the whole secret within me, nor do I think it wise. I have asked the editors of this magazine to publish my story for me, because it seemed to me that within these pages, and here alone, might I find the audience for which I sought; people who might comprehend the meaning of an experiment, and not be too harsh when I tried to give a scientific justification.
For it is men like Arnold Varsag was, who make our world move. To the average person, it might have sounded fiendish. Only the men who understand such men as Varsag and, in his own way, Montrex, can sympathize with me.
Perhaps it is better that way.
PUBLIC SAFETY, by Matthew Johnson
Officier de la Paix Louverture folded Quartidi’s Père Duchesne into thirds, fanning himself against the Thermidor heat. The news inside was all bad, anyway: another theater had closed, leaving the Comedie Francaise the only one open in Nouvelle-Orleans. At least the Duchesne could be counted on to report only what the Corps told them to, that the Figaro had closed for repairs, and not the truth—which was that audiences, frightened by the increasing number of fires and other mishaps at the theaters, had stopped coming. The Minerve was harder to control, but the theater-owners had been persuaded not to talk to their reporters, to avoid a public panic. No matter that these were all clearly accidents: even now, in the year 122, reason was often just a thin layer of ice concealing a pre-Revolutionary sea of irrationality.
On the table in front of him sat his plate of beignets, untouched. He had wanted them when he had sat down, but the arrival of the group of gardiens stagieres to the cafe made him lose his appetite. He told himself it was just his cynicism that caused him to react this way, his desire to mock their pride in their spotless uniforms and caps, and not the way they looked insolently in his direction as they ordered their cafes au lait. Not for the first time Louverture wondered if he should have stayed in Saint-Domingue.
The gardiens stagieres gave a cry as another of their number entered the café, but instead of heading for their table he approached Louverture. As he neared, Louverture recognized him: Pelletier, a runner, who despite being younger than the just-graduated bunch across the room had already seen a great deal more than they.
“Excuse me, sir,” Pelletier said. Though it was early, sweat had already drawn a thick line across the band of his cap: he must have run all the way from the Cabildo. “Commandant Trudeau needs to see you right away.”
Louverture nodded, glanced at his watch: it was three eighty-five, almost time to start work anyway. “Thank you, Pelletier,” he said; the young man’s face brightened at the use of his name. “My coffee and beignets just arrived, and it seems I won’t have time to enjoy them; why don’t you take a moment to rest?” He reached into his pocket, dropped four deci-francs in a careful pile on the table.
“Thank you, sir,” Pelletier said; he took off his cap, revealing a thick bristle of sweat-soaked blond hair.
Louverture tapped his own cap in reply, headed for the west exit of the Café du Monde; he lingered there for a moment, just out of sight, watched as Pelletier struggled to decide whether to sit at the table he had just vacated or join the group of young gardiens who were, assuming that out of sight meant out of hearing, now making sniggering comments about café au lait and creole rice. When Pelletier chose the empty table Louverture smiled to himself, stepped out onto Danton Street.
It had grown hotter, appreciably, in the time since he had arrived at the café; such people as were about clung to the shade like lizards, loitering under the awnings of the building where the Pasteur Brewery made its tasteless beer. Louverture crossed the street at a run, dodging the constant flow of velocipedes, and braced himself for the sun-bleached walk across Descartes Square. He walked past the statue of the Goddess of Reason, with her torch of inquiry and book of truth; the shadow of her torch reached out to the edge of the square, where stenciled numbers marked the ten hours of the da
y. He doffed his cap to her as always, then gratefully reached the shadows of the colonnade that fronted the Cabildo, under the inscription that read RATIO SUPER FERVEO.
“Commandant Trudeau wishes to see you, sir,” the gardien at the desk said. The stern portrait of Jacques Hébert on the wall behind glowered down at them.
Louverture nodded, went up the stairs to Trudeau’s office. Inside he saw Trudeau at his desk, looking over a piece of paper; Officier de la Paix Principal Clouthier was standing nearby.
“Louverture, good to see you,” Trudeau said. His sharp features and high forehead reminded those who met him of Julius Caesar; modestly, Trudeau underlined the resemblance by placing a bust of the Roman emperor on his desk. “I’m sorry to call you in early, but an important case has come up, something I wanted you to handle personally.”
“Of course, sir. What is it?”
Trudeau passed the paper to him. “What do you make of this?” It was a sheet of A4 paper, on which were written the words Elle meurt la treizième.
“‘She dies on the thirteenth,’” Louverture read. “This is a photo-stat. There is very little else I can say about it.”
“Physical Sciences has the original,” Clouthier put in. His round face was redder than usual, with the heat; where Trudeau let his hair grow in long waves, Clouthier kept his cut short to the skull, like a man afraid of lice. “They barely consented to making two copies, one for us and one for the Graphologist.”
“And Physical Sciences will tell you it is a sheet of paper such as can be bought at any stationer’s,” Louverture said, “and the ink is everyday ink, and the envelope—if they remember to examine the envelope—was sealed with ordinary glue. They will not tell you what the letter smells like, or the force with which the envelope was sealed, because these things cannot be measured.”
“Which is why we need you,” Trudeau said. “Concentrate on the text for the moment: the other parts will fall into place in time.”
The Mad Scientist Megapack Page 38
