Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  “Ever tried drinking that water?” Griffin asked. The girl shook her head.

  “I didn’t dare. Those fish were always too dose for comfort.”

  “Just as well. There’s something in it that increases the surface tension tremendously—so much that a considerable force is necessary to break it. The fish have to climb rocks to dive back in.”

  “I’ve seen things down there,” Frances said somberly. “Huge shadows moving—and lights. The skippers swim in and out of the larger things. Lord knows what they are—ships, maybe, or alive for all I know.”

  The ground dipped, gave on to a shallow slope that led down to the river. Frances hesitated. A number of the voracious fish were humping quickly from the river. She said, “Hurry, Spence. I don’t like the look of that.”

  The two quickened their steps. Even so, a few of the tiny monsters intercepted them, but were easily eluded. Two fish followed them for some distance, and finally a queer premonition of danger made Griffin turn. A few feet away was one of the creatures, staring at him balefully.

  THE skipper seemed in distress. It was gasping and whistling; in the distance its companion was hastening back to the water. Suddenly one of the flexible pectoral fins curved, tugging at a long spine that erected itself from the black, glistening back.

  Frances said, “Look out!”

  The horrible little creature’s gaze swung to her. It seemed to hesitate, then jerked the thorn out of its back and threw it. Javelin-like, the spine arched through the air, and Griffin jerked aside just in time to avoid it.

  “So that’s the idea!” he said grimly. “Well, I’ll soon settle your hash.” He picked up a stone.

  The skipper gasped, writhed, and lay quiescent. Griffin flung the rock with accuracy. From the crushed creature’s gaping mouth emerged a swarm of tiny, ameba-like organisms that oozed in a horde down the slope, back to the water. Frances shuddered; her slim fingers gripped Griffin’s arm.

  “Ugh! What on earth are those things?”

  “I think—ever hear of the wood-roach?”

  “Yes. What—”

  “They eat wood. But they can’t digest it directly, so they have in their alimentary tract a lot of protozoa that digest it for them. Maybe those fish can’t digest their food, and keep a batch of protozoa, or something like them, to do the job. I dunno—it’s just a guess.”

  “Ugh!” Frances said again, looking slightly green. “Come on. There’s a cannon-flower near here.”

  It was gigantic—as large as a small room. But it grew in the shadow of a tree that dwarfed it, and was parasitic on the larger plant. The great bell-like mouth of the flower was fully twelve feet in depth, and much wider. Within it was the seed, a rod as thick as a man’s body and ten feet long, with two stiff planes, vaguely reminiscent of a glider’s wings, on the sides. At the base was a coil that served the purpose of a powerful spring.

  “I think I get it,” Griffin said. “When the seed’s large enough, its weight trips the spring and it’s shot out. You’re right; a lot of Terrestrial plants use this trick. It may get us off Titan.”

  Frances stared at him. “Across space? You’re crazy!”

  “Well, not directly. Here’s the idea.” Swiftly he outlined his plan. The girl nodded dubiously.

  “It’s pretty dangerous. I’m not sure—”

  “It’s our only chance. If you’d rather stay here on Titan and dodge the skippers, okay.”

  “Lord, no! I’ll do it, Spence—though you’re the one who’ll be taking the chances.”

  Griffin shrugged. The only part of the scheme he didn’t like was the necessity for Frances returning to the lifeboat unarmed. But it was the only way.

  First of all, Griffin opened his clasp-knife and tied it securely around his neck. It was necessary to search for strong, tough vines, but luckily there were plenty of these in the vicinity.

  Griffin made a harness of the vines and tied it securely around his body. Then, after carefully measuring the distance, he climbed the tree that was the parasite’s host and tied an end of a strong liana about one limb. The other end was knotted to his harness.

  BENEATH him was the huge cup of the great flower. The seed pointed up at a slight angle—the “bullet” of the cannon-plant. A bullet that would soon be shot out to race through the thick atmosphere of Titan—with a human being riding upon it, as a man rides a glider-plane above Earth. Griffin let himself down hand over hand along the dangling liana. Presently he felt the spongy, pliant substance of the flower’s rim beneath his feet. The plant bent slightly under Griffin’s weight.

  Very carefully he lowered himself further. Now he was within the flower’s cup, the great rod of the seed spearing up beside him. The most difficult part of the task was yet to come. Griffin must bind himself securely to the seed without permitting his weight to press it down far enough to release the spring.

  Without the liana Griffin would have failed, but the improvised rope held him suspended while he made himself fast to the monster seed.

  At last he was ready.

  “All set, Fran,” he called. The girl was invisible to him now, but her anxious voice floated up.

  “I’ll hurry. Can you see all right?”

  Griffin looked up at the sombrely dark sky, with Saturn low on the horizon. “Yeah. Good luck.”

  The girl raced away, carrying Griffin’s rocket. The revolver was strapped securely to the man’s thigh, and he settled himself to wait.

  Yet when the signal came it startled him. He made a swift involuntary movement, and felt the seed stir ominously beneath him. He froze. Above him the signal rocket fled up, a blaze of red fire, a glowing path stretching down to the ground.

  Would the Selenites heed it? Griffin thought they would, that their gambling-fever would make them anxious to learn the outcome of the game.

  And a few minutes later the gleaming bulk of the spaceship swung into sight . . .

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Human Projectile

  GRIFFIN drew a deep breath, braced himself, and cut the vine-rope that held him suspended within the flower-cup. Simultaneously came a thunderous, deafening boom and a frightful shock of sudden acceleration that drove the blood from his head. Agony tore at every nerve. He fought to remain conscious.

  But it was not easy—no! Griffin was, in effect, tied fast to a shell fired from a huge cannon. The shock was sickeningly intense. For a brief eternity the man felt nothing but black, horrible giddiness.

  The great seed tore up through the air, at a steep angle. The stiff planes that grew from it, and the density of the air envelope, saved Griffin’s life, keeping the seed from dropping too swiftly in spite of the man’s additional weight.

  He fought his way back to awareness. Air screamed in his ears; he caught a dizzy glimpse of the valley spread beneath him, a dim map of sulphur-colored forest, with a gleaming thread winding through it. Far in the distance Griffin caught the sheen of a broad, level expanse—a sea on this alien world? But he was never to know what lay beyond those enigmatical cliffs. For the glider dipped, fled down, and far to his left he saw the Selenite spaceship.

  Griffin was bound tightly to the seed; he flung his weight desperately to one side. The weird craft swayed beneath him, arced in a long curve. There would be no means of climbing to regain lost altitude; he must gauge his distance accurately or fail. Somehow Griffin managed it, straining every muscle, sweating with the exertion Long years of experience battling air currents helped him.

  The spaceship was below him now, and dead ahead. The seed would sweep over it, with ten feet or so to spare. Somehow Griffin must free himself from his harness and jump to the ship’s hull—and there could be no second chance. Failure would mean certain death.

  Swiftly Griffin cut most of the vines that bound him, made ready to slash the others.

  The moment came; a desperate slicing of tough lianas, and he drew his knees up under him, preparing to jump. Death waited four hundred feet below. But the slight displacement of
his weight brought the glider’s nose lower; it dipped and raced over the ship with scarcely five feet to spare. Griffin leaped.

  He slipped, fell on his side, clutching frantically at frail photo-magnetic cells, at metal rough and pitted with the heat of innumerable swift flights through atmospheres. The cells were countersunk into the hull, and on a new ship he would have inevitably slipped and fallen, but one hand slid into a hollow pocket, one foot found a niche, and he swayed and clung on the vessel’s steep curve, weak with reaction.

  He knew that his task had just begun. One thing was in his favor; the Selenites would not expect attack from above. If he could find and open a port . . . his calloused fingers touched the gun-butt.

  The two ports on the ship’s upper surface were locked. Griffin’s face was grim. There was nothing to do, then, except wait until the vessel left Titan for the airless depths of space—or else jump to destruction. The bullets would not open the doors; the locks were on the inside.

  VERY slowly the ship was grounding—something Griffin had not anticipated. It dropped down toward the summit of the bluff. He could make out the tiny form of Frances near the lifeboat’s wreck, but soon the curve of the hull hid her from view. He hesitated, glanced around, striving to remember the positions of the side ports.

  With a jar the vessel came to rest.

  Crouching, Griffin waited. Frances was visible now; once her gaze flicked up to him, and then she lowered her eyes. But she moved aside several feet.

  Telling him the location of the port? Griffin moved with her. Would the Selenites be curious enough to investigate?

  Lang had said there were only two men in the ship, aside from Thurm and Elander. Five bullets were in the barrel of Griffin’s revolver.

  The back of a man’s head, then his shoulders and torso, came into sight. Griffin recognized Elander’s slender, feathered form. He slid down the hull’s curve, trying to move silently. But the rough metal was treacherous. He dug his foot into a hollow and became motionless as his heel grated harshly, loud in the silence.

  Elander had paused, staring around. One more break like that and—! Griffin forced his mind from the thought. Then he saw Jimmy.

  The furry little creature was standing in the port of the wrecked lifeboat, watching him. Would the thing’s stare betray him to Elander? Griffin half lifted his gun, eyes intent on the Selenite’s back.

  “Phonk!”

  Perhaps Jimmy was more intelligent than Griffin had thought. Perhaps he was merely using his natural defence mechanism in the presence of danger. His bulbous nose swelled, obscuring the small wedge-shaped head, and the boneless hands swung up.

  A bellowing thunder of boomings blasted out on the humid air. Jimmy was pounding his gourd-like proboscis like mad, emitting loud, whooping phonks as he drummed. With a deep breath of relief Griffin slid down the hull, the slight noise he made lost in the resounding clamor of Jimmy.

  Cloth ripped from the man’s back: agonizing pain knifed through him. He braced himself, fell through empty air, and dropped with a shock that brought him to his knees. But immediately he was up, facing Elander.

  THE SELENITE had a needle gun. A deadly charge splintered on the hull beside Griffin as the revolver blasted. Lead, sent by a trained aim, smashed into Elander’s face, blotting the faceted eyes and silvery scales with a mask of red. Before the Selenite fell Griffin wheeled and plunged into the ship.

  Something burst on his chest; he held his breath as the first whiff of poisonous gas sent probing fingers into his nostrils. Fat Thurm was crouching behind a heap of cushions, a long tube leveled. Through another door came one of the crew; the faint rush of feet sounded in the distance.

  Griffin leaped forward, free of the concentrated cloud of gas. With cold, deadly accuracy he shot the worker Selenite, traded bullets with Thurm and felt chill wind of death touch him as a pellet burst near his head and spattered him with flame-hot acid.

  Only three more bullets.

  One of them drove Thurm back against the wall, blood gushing from a gaping hole in the silvery throat, staining the varicolored plumage. The last Selenite squeezed the trigger of his weapon a half-second after Griffin’s finger contracted, and the delay meant his death.

  Had there been one more opponent, Griffin would have failed—that he knew. He stood swaying, the wind chilling his damp face, cheek and shoulder smarting with the pain of the acid-pellet.

  Outside the ship Jimmy’s drumming had died. Griffin stumbled to the door. “Okay. Fran,” he said shakily. “Come on in.”

  She was at his side: “Spence! They’re dead?”

  “All of them. Yes.”

  The girl tried to smile. “I was afraid—look, down the slope. The skippers—”

  From the river a black tide was crawling up. A dozen great tapering cylinders, with rows of whitely-shining discs along their sides, were beached on the sand. The fish were coming in a horde, thousands of them, converging on the ship.

  With an inquiring phonk Jimmy hopped into the cabin. Griffin picked up a needle gun and, Frances at his heels, made a hasty examination of the ship. But it was empty now.

  They retraced their steps. Behind them Jimmy phonked warningly.

  “Wonder where the Lifestone is?” Griffin said. “Locked up safely, I guess. Here—”

  They paused on the threshold of the room where the dead Selenites lay. The girl cried out softly. Griffin’s hand flashed to his belt, froze as a cold voice murmured,

  “Hold it, Mister! Careful!”

  Felix Lang stood just within the port, smiling crookedly, the Lifestone a blaze of emerald flame in one hand. In the other he held a needle gun.

  He said gently, “Before you can draw, I’ll puncture you.”

  “You forgot—I’m a damn’ clever little fellow. I waited my chance. I came in here, got the Lifestone from Thurm’s body, and found his gun. I’ll give you your choice. Do you want to die now, or shall I leave you here on Titan? Eh?”

  Behind Lang Griffin saw movement outside the port. He hesitated, puzzled, and then realized what it was. Sheer reflex action made him shout:

  “Look out—Lang! Behind you—”

  HIS cry came too late. Lang caught his breath, cried out and whirled. The ground outside the ship was carpeted with a living blanket of the skippers. One leaped up, tried to squirm over the threshold. Lang kicked it back and slid the door shut; then he bent to extract a long, needle-like thorn from his leg.

  His face was chalk-white. “Thanks,” he said. “My mistake, Mister. I should have closed the port when I came in. They can’t get through beryllium.”

  Lang dropped the gun, laid the Lifestone gently on a table. His fingers touched a key on the instrument panel, and the ship drove up with a shriek of cleft air.

  He looked at the sharp, black spine. “Poisoned. It works quickly. I saw those little devils try it on some animal by the river, and death came in half a minute.”

  Griffin looked around, searching for medical supplies. “An antidote—permanganate—”

  “No time. And you don’t know what the venom is. Probably a neuropoison—” A shudder racked Lang’s slight frame. He fell into a pile of cushions, and his hand went out to touch the green splendor of the Lifestone.

  Griffin bent over him, vainly searching his memory for some remedy. Lang’s arm dropped to his side. His lips were cyanosed and swollen.

  “A smart chap like me . . . Suddenly the lurking devil flared up in the dulled brown eyes. The man’s wry smile had in it the soul of rakehell madness that had sent Lang into the spaceways as an outlaw.

  “Don’t forget, Mister . . . the Venusians . . . have . . . a proverb . . .”

  That was all. His dead stare was fixed on the Lifestone that gleamed with green fires of hell.

  Griffin straightened, and his glance through a porthole showed the globe of Titan dropping away, already a tiny disk against a great Saturn.

  The Sun swung into view, and Griffin headed the ship toward it. Frances came to stand b
eside him.

  Out there, somewhere hidden in the icy splendor of the stars, was Mars, where the Desert Nations waited for their fetich. They would not have long to wait. For the Lifestone was going home.

  WHEN NEW YORK VANISHED

  Madness rules when the world’s greatest city is catapulted into another dimension while civilization ponders the enigma of a lost metropolis!

  CHAPTER I

  Scooper Without a Scoop

  MIKE POWELL gazed down at the Mojave Desert. It was an actual pleasure to look at anything—even the blank, barren, monotonous sands below—anything at all, so long as it wasn’t his pilot’s back.

  For, when Powell accidentally looked at his pilot, a Martian Redlander with a head that resembled a battered muff, he sighed. Two hundred years ago, the sight of a Martian would have been unbelievable to an Earthman. But it was now many decades since the first rocket ship had reached Mars and returned, like Columbus, with native exhibits.

  Powell’s pilot, like all Martians, had lots of hair. It protected him from the sandstorms of the red planet. But why in hell this particular Redlander refused to shave, or even get a haircut, Powell could never understand.

  “Hector,” he said disgustedly, “you look like a weeping willow. How about getting that rubbish at least trimmed?”

  Surprisingly, the Martian turned his head completely around on what evidently was a universal-jointed vertebra. Seen from this vantage point, his face was even less attractive. A tangled wilderness of blue-black hair confronted Mike Powell. The ace cameraman shuddered.

  “Soon, yah,” said Hector in a squeaky voice. He bounced the plane through an air pocket and giggled with happy satisfaction.

  Powell sighed again. “Soon—yeah!” was what Hector might have meant if he’d been capable of irony. Agreement or irony, he wouldn’t get a haircut.