The Science-Fantasy Megapack: 25 Classic Tales From Fantasy Adventures

by Philip Harbottle (ed. )

  “Going?” The gambler stared at him as he poised the cards.

  “For a drink.” Ron jerked his head towards the bar. “I’ll be back.”

  The bar was a splintered length of salvaged wood, mottled and ringed with the stains of countless glasses. Ron ordered drinks, lifting the thick, hand-made glass and wrinkling his nose at the odor of the rotgut it contained. It smelled of potato and cabbage, of peelings and garbage, but it was alcohol and strong and it served to ease the inward pain. He gulped the drink, then that of the girl resting untouched on the counter.

  “I understand,” she whispered. “Outside?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you win some more?”

  “Not here. We’ve won too much as it is. Some other place.”

  “Of course.” She shivered. “I’m afraid. There’s danger here. I wish.…”

  “You wish what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes, there is. What’s worrying you?” He stared at her. “Tell me.”

  She didn’t answer and he felt the stirrings of impatient anger. “I can’t read your mind,” he whispered harshly. “I can’t guess what you’re thinking. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s these people.” She bit her lip as she looked at the sweat-stained, hard-eyed, hard-faced crowd. “Their thoughts, they sicken me, like beasts or things worse than beasts.” She gripped his arm. “Let’s go now. We don’t belong here. Let them keep their money. There must be some other way.”

  For a moment he hesitated, feeling the coins in his pocket, knowing that she spoke sense but knowing too that without money he wouldn’t be able to obtain the rotgut that could ease the pains so much. With her help he would be able to win and win and win again. It was so easy, even taking the necessary care he could win enough to buy what he needed.

  “Ron!” He thinned his lips as he remembered that she could read his mind. “I’m afraid! Let’s go now. Please.”

  “I’ll look after you,” he muttered. “You’re safe with me.”

  “Please, Ron.”

  He nodded, turning reluctantly from the bar, thrusting his way through the crowd as he followed her towards the door. Outside it was dark and wet and cold with the thin wind blowing from the north. Here it was warm and gay and comfortable. He thought of his cave, the lair in the rubble, soaking with filtering rain and bleak with loneliness. He thought of the woman, of her warmth and understanding, and for a moment felt quick shame at his selfishness.

  A man grabbed at his arm.

  “You! I’ve been looking for you. Where’s Sam?”

  “Sam?” He blinked at glittering eyes and a stubbled chin. Memory returned as he stared at the man and with memory came a quick and searing terror. “Luke!”

  “Yeah. So you know me. Where’s Sam?”

  “I lost him.” Ron shivered to the cold sweat of fear. “We parted in the ruins, I tried to find him but it was too dark.”’

  “So you left him.” Luke bared broken teeth in a snarl. “I found him. I know where he is, lying out there with his throat slashed and his head caved in. You did that, Mutie.”

  “I’m no Mutie.”

  “No? Then that’s just too damn’ bad—for you.”

  “Wait!” Sweat oozed in great beads from his pallid skin and his stomach seemed to shrivel as he stared at the ring of accusing faces. “You examined me. You know I’m human.”

  “Sam’s dead. That’s enough for me.”

  “He won at the tables,” offered a man. “Kept on winning. Seemed funny to me.”

  “Get the tar,” yelled a man at the rear of the crowd. “Tar and a rope. We’ll burn him as a warning to the rest.”

  “Skin him!” screamed a woman. “Cut his eyes out!”

  “Kick the swine to death!”

  “Soak him in oil and set him alight!”

  “Rip his guts out!”

  One after the other they yelled their suggestions, their eyes lazed and their mouths slack with anticipation.

  “No!” Ron cowered from what he saw. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it I tell you!”

  “It’s lying,” snapped a man. “What you waiting for, Luke?” He thrust forward, hooked fingers outstretched.

  “Wait! I know who did it,” he gasped desperately. “I followed her. She’s the Mutie, not me.” He didn’t stop to think of what he was saying. All he could see was the ring of animal-faces, the naked hate, the gloating anticipation of what was to come Fear clawed at him, panic, sick desperation and utter terror. “She’s to blame I tell you. You can’t hurt me for what she did.”

  “She?”

  “The one that got away. Remember?”

  “Yeah.” Luke sucked at his teeth. “A bitch. I remember.” He narrowed his eyes. “You lying?”

  “No. I swear it!”

  “He came in with a woman,” said the gambler. “They drank together.”

  “I was playing up to her, trying to make sure and hoping that I’d meet up with you.” Ron gulped air into his burning lungs. “She’s got away by now, but I can find her. I spotted her lair.”

  “No need for that.” Luke turned and jerked his head at someone at the rear of the crowd. “Fetch her here.”

  She stood before them, very young in her damp dress, with her long hair streaming to her shoulders and her eyes twin pools of enigmatic darkness. Silently she stared at him, standing very straight and proud, and he writhed to the knowledge of what he must appear to be.

  “She looks all right to me,” said a man dubiously. “I still think he’s lying.”

  “Sure he’s lying,” growled a man. “I’ve seen this girl before.” He spat. “A damn’ Mutie will do anything to save its hide. Get it over with, Luke.”

  For a moment he was tempted. It would be so easy to save her, to admit what he was and let her go free. But if he did that they would kill him. They would gloat over his agony. They.…

  “Search her,” he screamed. “Search her.”

  They found the gun first, the weapon he had taken from Sam and given her for her protection. It was all they needed and Luke grinned as he probed at her skull.

  “By God, he was right! We’ve caught a bitch, boys!”

  “Yes,” she said calmly, and her eyes were steady as she stared at Ron. “We cannot help what we are.”

  “But you can pay for it,” snarled a man.

  Outside it was still raining, a soft, cleansing rain from above, filling the night with gentle murmurs and kind, innocent sounds. Ron walked among the ruins, almost running in his haste, but still he couldn’t move fast enough to miss the screams, the yells, the baying bloodlust and the final, merciful shot from the tavern.

  Silence came then, the velvet silence of nature trying to undo what had been done, but no peace came with the silence, and he knew that for him peace would never come again.

  The cave was as he had left it and he crawled between water soaked brick and oozing concrete to what he called home. Tiredly he threw down the knife and club, the money and cartridges, and throwing himself on the bed stared dully into darkness that to him was not darkness at all.

  He felt empty, too dulled for thought, for regret, for idle dreams of what might have been. Tonight it had been her, tomorrow it could be him, and if not then some other night when hunger drove him to mingle with men.

  Dully he stared at the thin trickles of seeping rain, washing over the mildewed stone and rusted iron.

  He stared at the club and the knife, tools of his trade, and he stared at the scattered coins won with a woman’s help.

  All thirty of them.

  THE GREATER IDEAL, by E. C. Tubb

  On Earth the statue is of bronze, gigantic, imposing, a true work of art. On Mars it is of sandstone polished to an incredible smoothness while the one on Venus was carved from a solid block of crystolite. The materials, like the size, do not matter.

  Whether it is of bronze, sandstone or crystolite, the planetary monument—or one of the countless smaller ones made from every imagi
nable material and set in towns and villages, hung against walls or set in medallions—the image is the same. That of a man, arms extended in welcome, head tilted as if to stare at the stars, a smile on his face and his thin, aesthetic features set in resolute determination. There is an inscription, a simple thing but of six words:

  HE MADE US WHAT WE ARE

  There are those who insist that it is not a true likeness, that the eyes should have been covered by the old-fashioned spectacles he wore. But it is hard to portray spectacles in sculpture, invariably they hide the eyes behind blank windows and the eyes are very important.

  For it was the eyes of Michael Denninson which first saw the Houmi.

  * * * *

  The ship was a leaking old freighter beating around the fifth decant in search of the rich minerals of the Asteroids. It was common of its type, a metal can mostly cargo space, the rest loaded with stores and supplies, some mining tools and explosives, the whole powered by an erratic atomic engine.

  Michael Denninson was the astrogator and one half of the crew. He was a tall man with weak eyes and girlishly slim. Physically he was not strong but, in space, animal strength is not important. He was strong where it counted most and his brain and skill governed the ship. Holden was the captain, a dour, grizzled veteran who drank often and slept much. He was asleep when Michael first caught the flash of reflected sunlight. He awoke as the rockets kicked to life.

  “What is it?”

  “Something bright at two o’clock.” Denninson pointed at the telescreen. “See it?”

  Holden grunted, rubbing his chin. He stepped up the magnification of the screen as the flash was repeated and swore at what he saw.

  “Metal. That thing’s a ship.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Michael adjusted the controls and, in the screen, the flashing object moved to a point directly ahead. “Salvage?”

  “Could be.” Holden was eager now. Salvage was always profitable even though it was nothing but twisted metal. Such metal would be refined and be worth more than any of the common ores. And there might be other pickings. “Better try them on the radio,” he suggested. “They might still be alive in there.”

  The radio brought no reply and neither of them had really expected any. A ship, twisting out of control among the Asteroids, could only be a ship that had been abandoned. The risk of collision with a hunk of cosmic debris was too great for any crew to have willingly run. They would have abandoned ship long ago.

  As they came closer Michael caught the first hint of something unusual.

  “Odd shape,” he mused. “Do you recognize it?”

  Holden didn’t. The vessel was a polyhedron and outside of his experience. Most ships were dumb-bell or torpedo shaped or, as in their own case, a series of spheres united by external struts.

  “An experimental job, perhaps?” His eagerness increased as he thought about it. “And no signs of external damage. We’re in luck.”

  “Maybe.” Michael was working at the controls. “I’ll try them with visual. Their radio could be wrecked but, if there’s anyone alive in there, they’ll see our signals.”

  From a point on their hull a low-powered rocket streamed a trail of fire, exploded in a flaming gush of brilliance, hung glowing in the void for a long moment and then faded in an expanding cloud of luminescence. Again Michael repeated the signal, a third time, then Holden released his breath in a sigh of regret.

  From a point on the polyhedral hull a winking glow replied to their signal.

  The ship still held life.

  What followed was routine and a perfect example of Michael’s skill He played the jets until they had matched both velocity, and revolution, coupled the contact tube to a dark spot that had yawned on the strange hull and flooded it with air. Together, without suits, without weapons, with no thought than that of offering aid to their own kind, the two men entered the other ship.

  And met the Houmi.

  The meeting was momentous, though at first it didn’t appear so. The mind cannot grasp more than a little at a time. First there was the strangeness the thrill of meeting, for the first time in recorded history another intelligent race

  Then there were the questions, the million unanswerable questions, which had to be left for sheer lack of communication. And, finally, there was the problem of what had to be done.

  “Aliens.” Holden shook his head at the wonder of it. Both he and Michael had returned to their own vessel. “Who’d have thought it?”

  “Humanoid,” said Michael. “Man-like in almost every respect.” He moved restlessly about the control room. “Do you realize what this means, Holden? Can you grasp it?”

  “I think so.” Holden was a realist, a practical man undisturbed by self-doubts and self-questioning. “We’ve bumped into something really big. I wonder where they came from?”

  “I’ll find out,” promised Michael. “I’ll find out many things.” His eyes behind their spectacles, gleamed with vision.

  “Think of it, Holden. They have come from outside the system, from another star. Their technology must be far higher than our own.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “They are too much like us to have come from within the system. They breathe the same air, have the same eye-structure, and their ears are pointed but much like our own.” He nodded as though it was already settled as a fact. “Different, of course, but no more different than a black man is from a white man, I’d be willing to bet that they could live comfortably on Earth.”

  “I see what you mean.” Holden was thoughtful. “They must have some form of an interstellar drive.” He stared at the astrogator. “We must get that drive.”

  “We must help them to repair their ship.”

  “The drive comes first.” Holden sucked in his lips. “Think of it, Michael! With an invention like that we could be rich.”

  “Money!” The way Michael said it made it sound like an insult. “Is that all you can think of?”

  “No.” Holden didn’t take offence. He had argued with Michael before and neither of them had ever reached an agreement. Denninson was a peculiar man, which was why he and Holden could operate successfully as a two-man crew. He was much given to reading; old books written by people long dead and spent long hours staring at the majesty of the universe. He was an idealist, a fact Holden knew. That he was also a fanatic was something the captain had yet to find out.

  “Look,” he said patiently. “What have we? A strange ship from somewhere outside. Luckily for us it has been damaged and, luckier still, we found it before it crashed on the rocks. So that makes it ours to do with as we like. Agreed?”

  “No.” Michael was definite. “This ship isn’t salvage.”

  “I’m not talking about salvage,” said Holden. “I’m talking about common sense. We need that interstellar drive, they have it, we have them. Simple.”

  “You talk like a savage,” said Michael. “These people aren’t primitives to be exploited. If we take their ship and drive we will be worse than thieves. We will have stranded them far from home.” He paced the floor again, his magnetic boots sending dull echoes from the hull. “And what if we do get the drive, what then?”

  “We’ll go out to the stars,” said Holden simply. “What else?”

  “And land on new worlds and give birth to more copies of Earth.” Michael shook his head. “It will be the same old story but this time played on a greater scale. The explorers first, then the merchants, then the armies and another race, another people subjugated beneath our heel. It happened the black man. It happened to the red man. It has happened with monotonous regularity all through our history. Do you think that men will change overnight just because they have a new toy?”

  “We need the drive,” said Holden stubbornly. “Words can’t alter that. We need it and we’re going to take it.”

  “No!” It was almost a shout. Michael realized it and lowered his voice. “Listen,” he said urgently, “and try to understand. We’ll get the
drive, yes, but not by stealing it. We’ll receive it as a gift from the Houmi. They’ll give us the drive and all the other secrets of their technology because they will want to. We will be their friends, their brothers in space, and together we will share all that we own.” His eyes were gleaming as he thought about it. “A new start, Holden. Another race to teach and guide us and lead us from the slime from which we sprang. Is it worth losing the greater ideal for the sake of a petty theft?”

  Holden didn’t answer. He sat, his head lowered, staring at the deck plates beneath his feet. He was thinking, not of the greater ideal expounded by the astrogator, but of things of more immediate moment. He was thinking of his life and the poverty that had been his and the riches waiting for him if he were strong enough and brave enough to take them. Michael was an idealist, he knew that, and privately considered the other man a fool. And yet he was a clever fool. He lifted his head.

  “Talk,” he said. “Nice talk, but talk just the same. How do you know how the Houmi will feel about this hand-in-hand stuff? They may not want to help us and we may not want to mingle with them. Just because they look human doesn’t mean that they are human.” He sucked in his breath. “They are alien, never forget that. More alien than bees are to men. Do we ask the permission of a bee before we take its honey?”

  “Sophistry,” said Michael impatiently “Backwoods logic. You should know better.”

  “Maybe I do know better.” Holden was annoyed. He did not like being spoken to as a fool. “So we fix their ship and wave them goodbye and then what? Maybe they’ll never come back or maybe they’ll come back in force. Either way we’ve lost.” He rose to his feet. “Mix with them, yes, but on equal terms. You say that they’ll act like humans, all right. I know humans and how they act, not from books but from life. The strong respect the strong. Both despise the weak.” He reached out towards the radio.

  “What are you doing?” Michael’s voice was high-pitched, strained.