The Mammoth Book of Golden Age SF

by Martin Greenberg

  Masters and Laurette looked at him strangely.

  Overland looked up from the bed.

  “Lieutenant,” he said, an almost ashamed look on his face, “sometimes I wonder about the human mind. Masters seems to think that now you’ve got the ring, you’re going to be the skeleton.”

  Masters’ nails clicked. “It’s true, isn’t it? The outlaws know about the ring. We know about it. But Crow has the ring, and it’s certain none of us is going to take it.”

  Overland made an exasperated clicking sound.

  “It’s infantile,” he snapped. “Masters, you’re acting like a child, not like a scientist. There’s only one certainty, that one of us is going to be the skeleton. But there’s no certainty which one. And there’s even a possibility that all of us will die.” His face clouded angrily. “And the most infantile viewpoint possible seems to be shared by all of you. You’ve grown superstitious about the ring. Now it’s – a ring of death! Death to him who wears the ring! Pah!”

  He stretched forth an imperative hand.

  “Give it to me, lieutenant! I’ll tell you right now that no subterfuge in the universe will change the fact of my being a skeleton if I am the skeleton; and vice versa.”

  Tony shook his head. “I’ll be keeping it – for a while. And you might as well know that no scientific argument will convince anybody the ring is not a ring of death. For, you see, it is.”

  Overland sank back, lips pursed. “What are you going to do with it?” he charged. When Tony didn’t answer, he said pettishly, “Oh, what’s the use! On the face of it, the whole situation’s impossible.” Then his face lighted. “What did you find out?”

  Tony briefly sketched his conclusions. It would be two or three weeks before they could repair the rocket jets, get the electric transmission system working properly.

  Overland nodded absently. “Strange, isn’t it!” he mused. “All that work DeTosque, Bodley, Morrell, Haley, the Farr brothers and myself have done goes for nothing. Our being here proves the theory they were working on.”

  Laurette smiled lopsidedly at Tony.

  “Lieutenant,” she said, “maybe the skeleton was a woman.”

  “A woman!” Masters’ head snapped around, horror on his face. “Not you, Laurette!”

  “Why not? Women have skeletons, too – or didn’t you know?” She kept her eyes on Tony. “Well, lieutenant? I put a question up to you.”

  Tony kept his face impassive. “The skeleton,” he said, without a tremor, “was that of a man.”

  “Then,” said Laurette Overland, stretching out her palm, cupshaped, “give me the ring.”

  Tony froze, staring. That his lie should have this repercussion was unbelievable. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Overland’s slowly blanching face. On Masters, Laurette’s statement had the most effect.

  “Damn you, Crow!” he said thickly. “This is just a scheme of yours to get rid of the ring!” He lunged forward.

  The action was unexpected. Tony fell backward under the impact of the man’s fist. He sprawled on his back. Masters threw himself at him.

  “Erle, you utter fool!” That was Laurette’s wail.

  Disgust settled on Tony’s face. He heaved, by sheer muscular effort, and threw Masters over his back. His fist came down with a brief but pungent crack. Masters slumped, abruptly lifeless.

  Tony drew himself to his feet, panting. Laurette was on her knees beside Masters, but her dismayed eyes were turned upward to Tony.

  “I’m sorry, lieutenant!” she blurted.

  “What have you got to be sorry about?” he snapped. “Except for being in love with a fool like that one.”

  He was sorry for it the second he said it. He didn’t try to read Laurette’s expression, but turned sullen eyes to Overland.

  “It’s night,” he said abruptly, “and it’s raining. Tomorrow, when the sun comes up, it’ll probably be different. We can figure out the situation then, and start our plans for—” He let the sentence dangle. Plans for what? He concluded, “I suggest we all get some sleep,” and left.

  He arranged some blankets on the floor of the control room, and instantly went to sleep, though there were times when he stirred violently. The skeleton was in his dreams—

  There were five of them at the breakfast table. Laurette serving; Masters beside her, keeping his eyes sullenly on the food; Braker, eating as heartily as his cuffed hands would allow; Yates, picking at his food with disinterest.

  Tony finished his second cup of coffee, and scraped his chair back.

  “I’ll be taking a look around,” he told Laurette in explanation. He turned to the door.

  Braker leaned back in his chair until it was balanced on two legs, and grinned widely.

  “Where you going, Mr. Skeleton?”

  Tony froze.

  “After a while, Braker,” he said, eyes frigid, “the ring will be taken care of.”

  Yates’ fork came down. “If you mean you’re going to try to get rid of it, you know you can’t do it. It’ll come back.” His eyes were challenging.

  Masters looked up, a strange milling series of thoughts in his sullen eyes. Then he returned to his food.

  Tony, wondering what that expression had meant, shrugged and left the room; and shortly the ship, by way of the cavity in the storage bin.

  He wandered away from the ship, walking slowly, abstractedly, allowing impressions to slip his mind without conscious resistance. There was a haunting familiarity in this tumbled plain, though life had no place in the remembrance. There was some animal life, creatures stirring in the dark humus, in long, thick grass, in gnarled tree tops. This was mountain country and off there was a tumbling mountain stream.

  He impelled himself toward it, the tiny, yet phenomenally bright sun throwing a shadow that was only a few inches long. It was high “noon.”

  He stood on the brink of the rocky gorge, spray prismatically alive with color, dashing up into his face. His eyes followed the stream up to the mountain fault where water poured downward to crush at the rocks with the steady, pummeling blow of a giant. He stood there, lost in abstraction, other sounds drowned out.

  All except the grate of a shoe behind him. He tried to whirl; too late! Hands pushed against his back – in the next second, he had tumbled off the brink of the chasm, clutching wildly, vainly, at thick spray. Then, an awful moment of freezing cold, and the waters had enclosed him. He was borne away, choking for air, frantically flailing with his arms.

  He was swept to the surface, caught a chaotic glimpse of sun and clouded sky and rock, and then went under again, with a half lungful of air. He tensed, striving to sweep away engulfing panic. A measure of reason came back. Hands and feet began to work in purposeful unison. The surface broke around him. He stayed on top. But that was only because the stream was flowing darkly, swiftly, evenly. He was powerless to force himself against this current.

  He twisted, savagely looking for some sign of release. A scaly, oily tree limb came at him with a rush. One wild grab, and the limb was bending downstream, straining against the pressure his body was exerting. He dashed hair from his eyes with one trembling hand, winced as he saw the needle-bed of rapids a hundred feet downstream. If that limb hadn’t been there—His mind shuddered away from the thought.

  Weakly, he drew himself hand over hand upward, until the tree trunk was solidly below him. He dropped to the ground, and lay there, panting. Then he remembered the hands on his back. With a vicious motion, he jerked out his key ring. That was the answer – the key to the cuffs was gone, taken during the night, of course! Erle Masters, then, had pulled this prize play, or perhaps one of the outlaws, after Masters released him.

  After a while, he came to his feet, took stock of his surroundings. Off to his left, a cliff side, and scarcely a half-mile distant, the pathetically awry hulk of the ship, on the top of the slope that stretched away.

  The cliff side came into his vision again. A fault in the escarpment touched a hidden spot in his memory. H
e involuntarily started toward it. But he slowed up before he got to the fault – which was really a cave that tapered out to nothingness as its sides rose.

  The cave!

  And this sloping plain, these mountains, composed the surface of Asteroid 1007, millions of years from now.

  Tony dropped emotionlessly to his knees at the mouth of the cave. Not so long ago, he had done the same thing. Then there had been a complete, undisjointed skeleton lying there. Somehow, then, he had known the skeleton existed before the human race – as if it were someone – the skeleton? – that had spoken to him across the unutterable years. The skeleton? That could not be! Yet, whence had come the memory?

  He took the ring from his pocket and put it on his finger. It gleamed.

  He knelt there for minutes, like a man who worships at his own grave, and he was not dead. Not dead! He took the ring from his finger, then, a cold, bleak smile growing on his face.

  He came to his feet, a rising wind whipping at his hair. He took a half dozen running steps toward the river, brought his arm over his shoulder in a throwing gesture.

  Somehow the ring slipped from his fingers and fell.

  He stooped, picked it up. This time, he made it leave his hand. It spun away, twinkling in the faint sunlight. But the gravity had hold of it, and it fell on the brink of the river, plainly visible.

  A dry, all-gone feeling rose in Tony’s throat. Grimly, he went forward, picked it up again. Keeping his eyes on it, he advanced to the brink of the river gorge. He held the ring over the darkly swirling waters, slowly released it.

  It struck the river like a plummet. The waters enclosed it and it was gone. He looked at the spot where it had disappeared, half expecting it to spring back up into his hand. But it was gone. Gone for good!

  He started dazedly back to the ship, moving in an unreal dream. Paradoxical that he had been able to get rid of it. It had dropped from his hand once, fallen short of the river once. The third time it had given up trying!

  When he came up to the ship, Masters was standing at the stern, looking at the broken rocket jets. He turned, and saw Tony, water still dripping from his uniform. He fell back a step, face turned pallid.

  Tony’s lips curled. “Who did it?”

  “D-did what?”

  “You know what I mean,” Tony bit out. He took three quick steps forward.

  Masters saw that, and went reckless. Tony side-stepped him, brought his left arm around in a short arc. Masters went down cursing. Tony knelt, holding Masters down by the throat. He felt through his pockets, unearthed the key to the cuffs. Then he hauled Masters to his feet and shook him. Masters’ teeth clicked.

  “Murderer!” Tony snapped, white with rage.

  Masters broke loose. “I’d do it again,” he said wildly, and swung. He missed. Tony lashed out with the full power of his open palm, caught Masters on the side of the head. Masters went reeling back, slammed against the side of the ship. Tony glared at him, and then turned on his heel.

  He met Laurette Overland coming down the stairs to the upper corridor.

  “Lieutenant!” Her eyes danced with excitement. “I’ve been looking for you. Where in the world have you been?”

  “Ask Masters.” He urged himself down the corridor, jaw set. She fell into step beside him, running to keep up with his long strides.

  “You’re all wet!” she exclaimed. “Can’t you tell me what happened? Did you go swimming?”

  “Involuntarily.” He kept on walking.

  She grabbed his arm, and slowed him to a stop. An ominous glint replaced her excitement.

  “What,” she said, “did you mean when you said I should ask Erle about it? Did he push you in? If he did, I’ll—” She was unable to speak.

  Tony laughed humorlessly. “He admitted it. He stole my key to the handcuffs with the idea that it would be easier to free Braker and Yates that way after I was . . . uh . . . properly prepared to be a skeleton.”

  Her head moved back and forth. “That’s horrible,” she said lowly. “Horrible.”

  He held her eyes. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you about it,” he said, voice faintly acid. “He’s your fiancé, isn’t he?”

  She nodded, imperceptibly, studying him through the half gloom. “Yes. But maybe I’ll change my mind, lieutenant. Maybe I will. But in the meantime, come along with me. Daddy’s discovered something wonderful.”

  Professor Overland’s head was propped up. He had a pencil and paper on his pyramided legs.

  “Oh. Lieutenant! Come in.” His face lighted. “Look here! Gravitons can thrust their way through to the future, giving the ship a thrust into the past. But only if it happened to enter the spherical type of etheric vacuum. This vacuum would be minus everything – electrons, photons, cosmic rays and so forth, except under unusual circumstances. At some one time, in either the past or future, there might be a stream of photons bridging the vacuum. Now, when gravitons are ejected into the past, they grab hold of light photons, and become ordinary negative electrons. Now say the photons are farther away in the past than they are in the future. The gravitons therefore follow the line of least resistance and hook up with photons of the future. The photons in this case were perhaps hundreds of millions of years away in the vacuum. In traveling that time-distance, the gravitons kicked the ship back for a proportionate number of years, burned up our machinery, and wrecked us on this suddenly appearing before-the-asteroid world.”

  Laurette said brightly, “But that isn’t the important part, daddy.”

  “I can find another of those etheric vacuums,” Overland went on, preoccupiedly, pointing out a series of equations. “Same type, same structure. But we have to go to the planet Earth in order to rebuild the reversed constraction machinery. We’ll find the materials we need there.” He glanced up. “But we have to get off this world before it cracks up, lieutenant.”

  Tony started. “Before this world cracks up?”

  “Certainly. Naturally. You can—” His heavy brows came down abruptly. “You didn’t know about that, did you? Hm-m-m.” He stroked his jaw, frowning. “You recall the crescent planet you and Masters saw? Well, he took some readings on that. It’s wonderful, son!” His eyes lighted. “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. Not only do we know now that the asteroid evolved from a broken-up planet, but we also know the manner in which that planet broke up. Collision with a heavy, smaller body.”

  Tony paled. “You mean—” he said huskily. “Good heavens!” Sweat stood out on his forehead. “How soon will that happen?” he said ominously.

  “Well, Erle has the figures. Something over eighteen or nineteen days. It’ll be a crack-up that’ll shake the sun. And we’ll be here to witness it.” He smiled wryly. “I’m more scientist than man, I guess. I never stop to think we might die in the crack-up, and furnish six skeletons instead of one.”

  “There’ll be no skeletons,” Tony said, eyes narrowed. “For one thing, we can repair the ship, though we’ll have to work like mad. For another – I threw the ring into the river. It’s gone.”

  Laurette seemed to pale. “I . . . I don’t see how that could be done,” she stammered. “You couldn’t get rid of it, not really – could you?”

  “It’s gone,” Tony said stubbornly. “For good. And don’t forget it. There’ll be no skeleton. And you might try to impress that on Masters, so he doesn’t try to produce one,” he added significantly.

  He left the room with a nod, a few seconds later stepped into the lounge. Braker and Yates turned around. Both were cuffed.

  Tony took the key from his pocket and the cuffs fell away. In brief, pungent tones, then, he explained the situation, the main theme being that the ship had to be well away from the planet before the crack-up. Yates would go over the wiring system. Braker, Masters and Tony would work with oxyacetylene torches and hammers over the hole in the hull and the rocket jets.

  Then he explained about the ring.

  Yates ran a thin hand through his yellow hair.


  “You don’t do it that easy,” he said in his soft, effortless voice. “There’s a skeleton up there, and it’s got Braker’s ring on its finger. It’s got to be accounted for, don’t it? It’s either me or you or Braker or the girl or her old man or Masters. There ain’t any use trying to avoid it, either.” His voice turned sullen. He looked at Braker, then at Tony. “Anyway, I’m keeping my back turned the right way so there won’t be any dirty work.”

  Braker’s breath sounded. “Why, you dirty rat,” he stated. He took a step toward Yates. “You would think of that. And probably you’d try it on somebody else, too. Well, don’t go pulling it on me, understand.” He scowled. “And you better watch him, too, Crow. He’s pure poison – in case you got the idea we were friends.”

  “Oh, cut it out,” Tony said wearily. He added, “If we get the ship in working order, there’s no reason why all six of us shouldn’t get off – alive.” He turned to the door, waved Braker and Yates after him. Yet he was sickeningly aware that his back was turned to men who admittedly had no conscience to speak of.

  A week passed. The plain rang with sledgehammer strokes directed against the twisted tubes. Three were irreplaceable.

  Tony, haggard, tired, unbelievably grimed from his last trip up the twisted, hopeless-looking main blast tube, was suddenly shocked into alertness by sounds of men’s voices raised in fury outside the ship. He ran for the open air lock, and urged himself toward the ship’s stern. Braker and Yates were tangling it.

  “I’ll kill him!” Braker raged. He had a rock the size of his fist in his hand. He was attempting, apparently, to knock Jawbone Yates’ brains out. Erle Masters stood near, chewing nervously at his upper lip.

  With an oath, Tony wrenched the rock from Braker’s hand, and hauled the man to his feet. Yates scrambled erect, whimpering, mouth bleeding.

  Braker surged wildly toward him. “The dirty –!” he snarled. “Comes up behind me with an oxy torch!”

  Yates shrilled, backing up, “That’s a lie!” He pointed a trembling hand at Braker. “It was him that was going to use the torch on me!”

  “Shut up!” Tony bawled. He whirled on Masters. “You’ve got a nerve to stand there,” he snarled. “But then you want a skeleton! Damned if you’re going to get one! Which one did it?”