Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  "Oh, God! Children!" Morgan bellowed. "Call off the dogs!"

  "Not human children."

  * * * * *

  "Call them off!"

  Hanson obeyed reluctantly. A pair of calm-eyed child-things scrambled to their feet and began advancing with the group of adults. The Orenians fanned out and began closing in like the fingers of a giant fist. Morgan shot four of them before the circle closed to hatchet range. He and Hanson stood back to back, slashing out at the ring of fanged faces.

  The attackers were weaponless. They cared nothing for individual bodies. The collectivum swayed, writhed, darted in--and fell in blood. The wounded crawled close to their ankles, barbs protruding from their lips. They roared constantly, "Oren is paradise. Come to Oren."

  A child, who had been rescued from one of the dogs, crawled among the legs of the adults and lunged for Morgan's feet. He was forced to kick it back with a hard heel.

  Suddenly their ranks broke. There were only four of them left standing. They backed away and stopped--three men and a middle-aged woman. "Oren will return." They turned and marched toward the truck.

  "We need the truck," panted Morgan.

  Hanson flung his pitchfork and caught the last one in the center of the back. The others moved on unheeding. Morgan sadly lifted the shotgun.

  When it was over, they went to look at the two child-things. One was unconscious, but not badly wounded. The other had a broken arm. It shot out its fang and circled. With a sick heart, Morgan lashed out and caught it by the hair, before it could sting him.

  "See if there's pliers in the truck," he muttered.

  * * * * *

  Hanson returned with them after a moment's rummaging. They jerked out its fang and let it go. It walked calmly to the north, purpose defeated. They did the same to the other.

  "It's crazy," he was gasping. "Stark crazy. They spend over a dozen Orenians just to get two of us. And they didn't want to kill us at that."

  "Lo'dy, suh! Who is Oren? You know?"

  Morgan shook his head. "He's the collectivum, Han."

  "But suh--he had to come from some place. People weren't like this--"

  "Yeah. I guess he came from space, like they say."

  "Just them little pink brain-gobblers?"

  "Uh-uh! Scientists figure they came in some alien host. The hosts couldn't take Earth conditions. They stung a few humans and died."

  "Anybody ever see 'em?"

  "Not that I know of. Nor found their ships."

  "O Lo'dy, I'm sick, suh."

  "Let's go back to the shanty, Han."

  "Yes, suh. Look on the back o' my neck, will you suh?"

  Morgan looked, then turned slowly away.

  "Is it, suh?"

  Morgan took a deep breath. "I--I--guess--"

  "I stumbled once. I guess he got me then."

  Morgan laid a hand on the old man's arm. There was nothing to say.

  "Mistuh Morgan--would you do me a favo'?"

  Morgan knew what he wanted. "I can't shoot you, Han. I'll leave you the gun, though."

  "No, suh, that ain't it. I was wondering--could you help me catch a painter tonight--before I go?"

  "A panther?" Morgan squeezed his arm and blinked hard. He grinned. "Sure, Han."

  "Guess it'll be two, three days afore it starts happening to me."

  "Yeah. Will you want the gun?"

  "No, suh, don't think much of suicide. I'll just go out and wrestle me a 'gator in the swamp."

  They went back to the house. Shera was sitting on the step.

  "I've made up my mind," she said dully.

  "About what?"

  "I'll do it."

  She got up and walked away. When Morgan tried to follow, she turned and flicked out the barb at him, then laughed coldly. Shivering, he turned away.

  That night the dogs treed a panther, and Hanson died. It happened while he was climbing with pole and rope, angling to get a noose on the lithe beast while Morgan waited with another rope below. The lantern was hung from a branch while Hanson inched out on the limb. When he thrust the noose forward, the panther brushed it aside with a quick slap. It leaped. Hanson lost his balance and crashed to the ground with a howl. The panther slapped a dog spinning and darted away in the night with three dogs following.

  Morgan knelt quickly beside the old man. His back was broken.

  "Please, suh--don't move me. The Lo'd's a-comin' fo' old Han."

  "Hush, fellow," Morgan murmured.

  "Suh, that painter's a she. And they's cubs somewheres."

  "Cubs?"

  "Yes, suh. She's spooky-like. Cubs. You stay with my dawgs. Take care of 'em, suh."

  "Sure, Han."

  "You lemme be now, suh. Lemme be alone." His voice was a faint whisper. "I gotta die by myself. Man oughtn't to have company then."

  Morgan hesitated. He sighed and climbed slowly to his feet. He stumbled away, leaving the lantern hanging overhead. He sat a hundred yards away in the shadow of a gaunt cypress, listening to the baying of the hounds, the moaning of the old man, and the croaking of the swamp. When he returned, the oldster was dead.

  Morgan returned to the shanty at dawn, carrying a pair of whimpering panther cubs and the skin of the mother. He exchanged a dark glance with Shera at the door. She took them silently and fondled them for a moment.

  "Hanson's dead."

  She nodded gravely. "Soon there'll be no one but Oren."

  "The collectivum."

  They went inside and sat facing one another. His eyes moved over the dark slope of her shoulders, the proud set of her breasts, and back to the sweetly sullen face with its narrow eyes.

  "I'm going to join you," he said.

  The eyes widened a little. She shook her head quickly. "In a liaison of two? No. It might spread, get linked up with Oren."

  "Not if it's through these." He stroked one of the cubs. It snarled.

  "It's a chance."

  "We'll take it." He leaned forward to kiss her....

  * * * * *

  A year had passed since the night of Hanson's death. A freight train dragged southward in the twilight, wending its way through pine forest and scrubland. Oren was its crew. It crossed a trestle and moved through a patch of jungle. A sudden shadow flitted from the brush, leaped the ditch, and sprinted along beside the rails. Another followed it, and another. The low-flying shadows slowly overtook the engine. The leader sprang, clung for a moment by its forepaws, and pulled itself aboard. Brakes howled on the rails as Oren stopped the train. Two man-figures leaped from the cab--and into the jaws of a killer-cat.

  Another cat scrambled upon the tender, leaped to the top of a box-car and sped backward along the train to seek the rest of the crew. The bodies were left in the ditches.

  When it was over, the cats collected in a group on the road-bed. They sat licking their forepaws while a dozen shabbily dressed guerrillas moved out of the jungle in a disorderly band.

  "Joe, have your bunch unload the dynamite!" bawled a burly leader. "We'll take the tank-car. Emmert, get the packs on those carts."

  "I wonder," said a voice to a comrade, "who's controlling those animals. You'd think they were Oren. Why don't they sting?"

  "Stingers ripped out, chum. Why ask questions? They're on our side. And we'll win, eventually--if this keeps up."

  * * * * *

  As a group, the panthers looked at the two men as they passed. One of them shuddered.

  "Lordy! I'd swear those cats were grinning!"

  * * *

  Contents

  KNOW THY NEIGHBOR

  By Elisabeth R. Lewis

  It began with the dead cat on the fire escape and ended with the green monster in the incinerator chute, but still, it wouldn't be quite fair to blame it all on the neighborhood....

  The apartment house was in the heart of the district that is known as "The Tenderloin"--that section of San Francisco from Ellis to Market and east from Leavenworth to Mason Street. Not the best section.

  To Ellen
's mind, it was an unsavory neighborhood, but with apartments so hard to get and this one only $38.00 a month and in a regular apartment building with an elevator and all--well, as she often told the girls at the office, you can't be too particular these days.

  Nevertheless, it was an ordeal to walk up the two blocks from Market Street, particularly at night when the noise of juke boxes dinned from the garish bars, when the sidewalks spilled over with soldiers and sailors, with peroxided, blowsy-looking women and the furtive gamblers who haunted the back rooms of the innocent-appearing cigar stores that lined the street. She walked very fast then, never looking to left or right, and her heart would pound when a passing male whistled.

  But once inside the apartment house lobby, she relaxed. In spite of its location, the place seemed very respectable. She seldom met anyone in the lobby or the elevator and, except on rare occasions like last night, the halls were as silent as those in the swanky apartment houses on Nob Hill.

  She knew by sight only two of her neighbors--the short, stocky young man who lived in 410, and Mrs. Moffatt, in 404. Mrs. Moffatt was the essence of lavender and old lace, and the young man--he was all right, really; you couldn't honestly say he was shady-looking.

  * * * * *

  On this particular morning, the man from 410 was waiting for the elevator when Ellen came out to get her paper. He glanced up at the sound of the door and stared. Quickly, she shut the door again. She didn't like the way he looked at her. She was wearing a housecoat over her nightgown, and a scarf wrapped around her head to cover the bobbypins--a costume as unrevealing as a nun's--but she felt as though he had invaded her privacy with his stare, like surprising her in the bathtub.

  She waited until she heard the elevator start down before opening her door again. The boy must have aimed from the stairs; her paper was several yards down the hall, almost in front of 404. She went down to get it.

  Mrs. Moffatt must have heard Ellen's footsteps in the hall. An old lady with a small income (from her late husband, as she had explained to Ellen) and little to do, she was intensely interested in her neighbors. She opened the door of her apartment and peered out. Her thin white hair was done up in tight kid curlers. With her round faded-blue eyes and round wrinkled-apple cheeks, she looked like an inquisitive aged baby.

  "Good morning," said Ellen pleasantly.

  "Good morning, my dear," the old lady answered. "You're up early for a Saturday."

  "Well, I thought I might as well get up and start my house-cleaning. I didn't sleep a wink after four o'clock this morning anyway. Did you hear all that racket in the hall?"

  "Why, no, I didn't." The old lady sounded disappointed. "I don't see how I missed it. I guess because I went to bed so late. My nephews--you've seen them, haven't you?--They're such nice boys. They took me to a movie last night."

  "Well, I'm surprised you didn't hear it," said Ellen. "Thumping and scratching, like somebody was dragging a rake along the floor. I just couldn't get back to sleep."

  The old lady clicked her tongue. "I'll bet somebody came home drunk. Isn't that terrible? I wonder who it was."

  "I don't know," said Ellen, "but it was certainly a disgrace. I was going to call Mrs. Anderson."

  With the door open, the hall seemed filled with the very odd odor of Mrs. Moffatt's apartment--not really unpleasant, but musty, with the smell of antiques. The apartment itself was like a museum. Ellen had been inside once when the old lady invited her in for a cup of tea. Its two rooms were crammed with a bizarre assortment of furniture, bric-a-brac and souvenirs.

  "Oh, how's your bird this morning?" Ellen asked.

  In addition to being a collector, Mrs. Moffatt was an animal fancier. She owned three cats, a pair of love-birds, goldfish, and even a cage of white mice. One of the love-birds, she had informed Ellen yesterday, was ailing.

  "Oh, Buzzy's much better today," she beamed. "The doctor told me to feed him whisky every three hours--with an eyedropper, you know--and you'd be surprised how it helped the little fellow. He even ate some bird-seed this morning."

  "I'm so glad," said Ellen. She picked up her paper and smiled at Mrs. Moffatt. "I'll see you later."

  The old woman closed her door, shutting off the musty smell, and Ellen walked back to her own apartment. She filled the coffee pot with water and four tablespoons of coffee, then dressed herself while the coffee percolated. Standing in front of the medicine cabinet mirror, she took the bobbypins out of her hair. Her reflection looked back at her from the mirror, and she felt that unaccountable depression again. I'm not bad-looking, she thought, and young, and not too dumb. What have other women got that I haven't? She thought of the days and years passing, the meals all alone, and nothing ever happening.

  That kind of thinking gets you nowhere; forget it. She combed her hair back, pinned it securely behind her ears, ran a lipstick over her mouth. Then she went into the kitchenette, turned off the gas flame under the coffee pot, and raised the window shade to let in the sun that was just beginning to show through morning fog.

  A dead cat lay on the fire escape under the window.

  * * * * *

  She stared at it, feeling sick to her stomach. It was an ordinary gray cat, the kind you see in every alley, but its head was twisted back so that its open eyes and open mouth leered at her.

  She pulled the blind down, fast.

  Sit down, light a cigarette. It's nothing, just a dead cat, that's all. But how did it get on the fire escape? Fell, maybe, from the roof? And how did it get on the roof? Besides, I thought cats never got hurt falling. Isn't there something about landing on your feet like a cat? Maybe that's just a legend, like the nonsense about nine lives.

  Well, what do I do, she thought. I can't sit here and drink coffee with that under the window. And God knows I can't take it away myself. She shuddered at the thought. Call the manager.

  She got up and went to the telephone in the foyer. She found the number scribbled on the back of the phone book. Her hand was shaking when she dialed.

  "This is Ellen Tighe in 402. Mrs. Anderson, there's a dead cat on the fire escape outside my window. You'll have to do something about it."

  Mrs. Anderson sounded half-asleep. "What do you mean, a dead cat? Are you sure it's dead? Maybe it's sleeping."

  "Of course I'm sure it's dead! Can't you send Pete up to take it away? It's a horrible thing to have under my window."

  "All right, I'll tell Pete to go up. He's washing down the lobby now. As soon as he's finished, I'll send him up."

  Ellen set the phone back on its stand. She felt a little silly. What a fuss to make over a dead cat. But really, outside one's window--and before breakfast--who could blame me?

  She went back into the kitchenette, carefully not looking toward the window, even though the shade was drawn, and poured herself a cup of coffee. Then she sat at the table in the little nook, drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette and leafing through the paper.

  The front page was all about a flying saucer scare in Marin County. She read the headline, then thumbed on through the paper, stopping to read the movie reviews and the comic page.

  * * * * *

  At the back section, she was attracted by a headline that read: "Liquor Strong These Days--Customer Turns Green, Says Bartender." It was a brief item, consciously cute. "John Martin, 38, a bartender of 152 Mason Street, was arrested early this morning, charged with drunkenness and disturbing the peace, after firing several shots from a .38 revolver on the sidewalk in front of his address. No one was injured. Martin's defense, according to police records, was that he was attempting to apprehend a 'pale-green, claw-handed' customer who fled after eating a live mouse and threatening Martin.

  "Upon questioning, Martin admitted that the unidentified customer had been in the bar for several hours and appeared perfectly normal. But he insisted, 'When I refused to serve him after he ate the mouse, he turned green and threatened to claw me to death.' Martin has a permit to carry the gun and was dismissed with a fifty dollar fine and a warning
by Judge Greely against sampling his own stock too freely."

  Drunken fool, thought Ellen. With fresh indignation, she remembered the disturbance in her own hall this morning. Nothing but drunks and gangsters in this neighborhood. She thought vaguely of looking at the "For Rent" section of the want ads.

  There was a noise on the fire escape. Ellen reached over and lifted up the shade. The janitor was standing there with a big paper sack in his hand.

  Ellen opened the window and asked, "How do you think it got there, Pete?"

  "I dunno. Maybe fall offa the roof. Musta been in a fight."

  "What makes you think so?"

  "Neck's all torn. Big teeth marks. Maybe dog get him."

  "Up here?"

  "Somebody find, maybe throw here--I dunno." Pete scratched his head. "You don't worry any more, though. I take away now. No smell, even."

  He grinned at her and scuttled to the other end of the fire escape where he climbed through the window to the fourth floor corridor.

  Ellen poured herself a second cup of coffee and lighted another cigarette, then turned to the woman's page in the paper. She read the Advice Column and the Psychology and glanced through the "Help Wanted--Women" in the classifieds. That finished the morning's reading. She looked at her watch. Almost ten.

  She carried her coffee cup to the sink, rinsed it out and set it on the drainboard. There was still a cup or more coffee left in the pot. That could be warmed over later, but she took out the filler and dumped the grounds into the paper bag that held garbage. The bag was almost full.

  I'll throw it in the incinerator now, she thought, before I straighten the apartment.

  She emptied the ashtrays--the one beside her bed and the other on the breakfast table--then started down the hall with the garbage bag in her hand.

  * * * * *

  The incinerator chute was at the rear of the hall, next to the service stairs. Ellen could see the door standing slightly open. She hesitated. 410 might be there. It was bad enough to ride in the elevator with him, feeling his eyes on her, but there was something unbearably intimate about standing beside him, emptying garbage.