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

by Various

  Pigtail didn't resist, either. She simply stopped thrashing in Uncle Al's arms, as though a great wonder had come upon her.

  Slowly Uncle Al and Pigtail were drawn into the disk. Jimmy could see Uncle Al reclining in the web, with Pigtail in the crook of his arm, his long, angular body as quiet as a butterfly in its deep winter sleep inside a swaying glass cocoon.

  Uncle Al and Pigtail, being drawn together into the disk as Jimmy stared, a dull pounding in his chest. After a moment the pounding subsided and a silence settled down over the river.

  Jimmy sucked in his breath. The voices began quietly, as though they had been waiting for a long time to speak to Jimmy deep inside his head, and didn't want to frighten him in any way.

  "Take it easy, Jimmy! Stay where you are. We're just going to have a friendly little talk with Uncle Al."

  "A t-talk?" Jimmy heard himself stammering.

  "We knew we'd find you where life flows simply and serenely, Jimmy. Your parents took care of that before they left you with Uncle Al.

  "You see, Jimmy, we wanted you to study the Earth people on a great, wide flowing river, far from the cruel, twisted places. To grow up with them, Jimmy--and to understand them. Especially the Uncle Als. For Uncle Al is unspoiled, Jimmy. If there's any hope at all for Earth as we guide and watch it, that hope burns most brightly in the Uncle Als!"

  The voice paused, then went on quickly. "You see, Jimmy, you're not human in the same way that your sister is human--or Uncle Al. But you're still young enough to feel human, and we want you to feel human, Jimmy."

  "W--Who are you?" Jimmy gasped.

  "We are the Shining Ones, Jimmy! For wide wastes of years we have cruised Earth's skies, almost unnoticed by the Earth people. When darkness wraps the Earth in a great, spinning shroud we hide our ships close to the cities, and glide through the silent streets in search of our young. You see, Jimmy, we must watch and protect the young of our race until sturdiness comes upon them, and they are ready for the Great Change."

  * * * * *

  For an instant there was a strange, humming sound deep inside Jimmy's head, like the drowsy murmur of bees in a dew-drenched clover patch. Then the voice droned on. "The Earth people are frightened by our ships now, for their cruel wars have put a great fear of death in their hearts. They watch the skies with sharper eyes, and their minds have groped closer to the truth.

  "To the Earth people our ships are no longer the fireballs of mysterious legend, haunted will-o'-the-wisps, marsh flickerings and the even more illusive distortions of the sick in mind. It is a long bold step from fireballs to flying saucers, Jimmy. A day will come when the Earth people will be wise enough to put aside fear. Then we can show ourselves to them as we really are, and help them openly."

  The voice seemed to take more complete possession of Jimmy's thoughts then, growing louder and more eager, echoing through his mind with the persuasiveness of muted chimes.

  "Jimmy, close your eyes tight. We're going to take you across wide gulfs of space to the bright and shining land of your birth."

  Jimmy obeyed.

  It was a city, and yet it wasn't like New York or Chicago or any of the other cities Jimmy had seen illustrations of in the newspapers and picture magazines.

  The buildings were white and domed and shining, and they seemed to tower straight up into the sky. There were streets, too, weaving in and out between the domes like rainbow-colored spider webs in a forest of mushrooms.

  * * * * *

  There were no people in the city, but down the aerial streets shining objects swirled with the swift easy gliding of flat stones skimming an edge of running water.

  Then as Jimmy stared into the depths of the strange glow behind his eyelids the city dwindled and fell away, and he saw a huge circular disk looming in a wilderness of shadows. Straight toward the disk a shining object moved, bearing aloft on filaments of flame a much smaller object that struggled and mewed and reached out little white arms.

  Closer and closer the shining object came, until Jimmy could see that it was carrying a human infant that stared straight at Jimmy out of wide, dark eyes. But before he could get a really good look at the shining object it pierced the shadows and passed into the disk.

  There was a sudden, blinding burst of light, and the disk was gone.

  Jimmy opened his eyes.

  "You were once like that baby, Jimmy!" the voice said. "You were carried by your parents into a waiting ship, and then out across wide gulfs of space to Earth.

  "You see, Jimmy, our race was once entirely human. But as we grew to maturity we left the warm little worlds where our infancy was spent, and boldly sought the stars, shedding our humanness as sunlight sheds the dew, or a bright, soaring moth of the night its ugly pupa case.

  "We grew great and wise, Jimmy, but not quite wise enough to shed our human heritage of love and joy and heartbreak. In our childhood we must return to the scenes of our past, to take root again in familiar soil, to grow in power and wisdom slowly and sturdily, like a seed dropped back into the loam which nourished the great flowering mother plant.

  "Or like the eel of Earth's seas, Jimmy, that must be spawned in the depths of the great cold ocean, and swim slowly back to the bright highlands and the shining rivers of Earth. Young eels do not resemble their parents, Jimmy. They're white and thin and transparent and have to struggle hard to survive and grow up.

  "Jimmy, you were planted here by your parents to grow wise and strong. Deep in your mind you knew that we had come to seek you out, for we are all born human, and are bound one to another by that knowledge, and that secret trust.

  "You knew that we would watch over you and see that no harm would come to you. You called out to us, Jimmy, with all the strength of your mind and heart. Your Uncle Al was in danger and you sensed our nearness.

  "It was partly your knowledge that saved him, Jimmy. But it took courage too, and a willingness to believe that you were more than human, and armed with the great proud strength and wisdom of the Shining Ones."

  * * * * *

  The voice grew suddenly gentle, like a caressing wind.

  "You're not old enough yet to go home, Jimmy! Or wise enough. We'll take you home when the time comes. Now we just want to have a talk with Uncle Al, to find out how you're getting along."

  Jimmy looked down into the river and then up into the sky. Deep down under the dark, swirling water he could see life taking shape in a thousand forms. Caddis flies building bright, shining new nests, and dragonfly nymphs crawling up toward the sunlight, and pollywogs growing sturdy hindlimbs to conquer the land.

  But there were cottonmouths down there too, with death behind their fangs, and no love for the life that was crawling upward. When Jimmy looked up into the sky he could see all the blazing stars of space, with cottonmouths on every planet of every sun.

  Uncle Al was like a bright caddis fly building a fine new nest, thatched with kindness, denying himself bright little Mardi Gras pleasures so that Jimmy could go to school and grow wiser than Uncle Al.

  "That's right, Jimmy. You're growing up--we can see that! Uncle Al says he told you to bide from the cottonmouths. But you were ready to give your life for your sister and Uncle Al."

  "Shucks, it was nothing!" Jimmy heard himself protesting.

  "Uncle Al doesn't think so. And neither do we!"

  * * * * *

  A long silence while the river mists seemed to weave a bright cocoon of radiance about Jimmy clinging to the bank, and the great circular disk that had swallowed up Uncle Al.

  Then the voices began again. "No reason why Uncle Al shouldn't have a little fun out of life, Jimmy. Gold's easy to make and we'll make some right now. A big lump of gold in Uncle Al's hand won't hurt him in any way."

  "Whenever he gets any spending money he gives it away!" Jimmy gulped.

  "I know, Jimmy. But he'll listen to you. Tell him you want to go to New Orleans, too!"

  Jimmy looked up quickly then. In his heart was something of the wonder he'd
felt when he'd seen his first riverboat and waited for he knew not what. Something of the wonder that must have come to men seeking magic in the sky, the rainmakers of ancient tribes and of days long vanished.

  Only to Jimmy the wonder came now with a white burst of remembrance and recognition.

  It was as though he could sense something of himself in the two towering spheres that rose straight up out of the water behind the disk. Still and white and beautiful they were, like bubbles floating on a rainbow sea with all the stars of space behind them.

  Staring at them, Jimmy saw himself as he would be, and knew himself for what he was. It was not a glory to be long endured.

  "Now you must forget again, Jimmy! Forget as Uncle Al will forget--until we come for you. Be a little shantyboat boy! You are safe on the wide bosom of the Father of Waters. Your parents planted you in a rich and kindly loam, and in all the finite universes you will find no cosier nook, for life flows here with a diversity that is infinite and--Pigtail! She gets on your nerves at times, doesn't she, Jimmy?"

  "She sure does," Jimmy admitted.

  "Be patient with her, Jimmy. She's the only human sister you'll ever have on Earth."

  "I--I'll try!" Jimmy muttered.

  * * * * *

  Uncle Al and Pigtail came out of the disk in an amazingly simple way. They just seemed to float out, in the glimmering web. Then, suddenly, there wasn't any disk on the river at all--just a dull flickering where the sky had opened like a great, blazing furnace to swallow it up.

  "I was just swimmin' along with Pigtail, not worryin' too much, 'cause there's no sense in worryin' when death is starin' you in the face," Uncle Al muttered, a few minutes later.

  Uncle Al sat on the riverbank beside Jimmy, staring down at his palm, his vision misted a little by a furious blinking.

  "It's gold, Uncle Al!" Pigtail shrilled. "A big lump of solid gold--"

  "I just felt my hand get heavy and there it was, young fella, nestling there in my palm!"

  Jimmy didn't seem to be able to say anything.

  "High school books don't cost no more than grammar school books, young fella," Uncle Al said, his face a sudden shining. "Next winter you'll be a-goin' to high school, sure as I'm a-sittin' here!"

  For a moment the sunlight seemed to blaze so brightly about Uncle Al that Jimmy couldn't even see the holes in his socks.

  Then Uncle Al made a wry face. "Someday, young fella, when your books are all paid for, I'm gonna buy myself a brand new store suit, and hie myself off to the Mardi Gras. Ain't too old thataway to git a little fun out of life, young fella!"

  * * *

  Contents

  THE SKY TRAP

  By Frank Belknap Long

  Lawton enjoyed a good fight. He stood happily trading blows with Slashaway Tommy, his lean-fleshed torso gleaming with sweat. He preferred to work the pugnacity out of himself slowly, to savor it as it ebbed.

  "Better luck next time, Slashaway," he said, and unlimbered a left hook that thudded against his opponent's jaw with such violence that the big, hairy ape crumpled to the resin and rolled over on his back.

  Lawton brushed a lock of rust-colored hair back from his brow and stared down at the limp figure lying on the descending stratoship's slightly tilted athletic deck.

  "Good work, Slashaway," he said. "You're primitive and beetle-browed, but you've got what it takes."

  Lawton flattered himself that he was the opposite of primitive. High in the sky he had predicted the weather for eight days running, with far more accuracy than he could have put into a punch.

  They'd flash his report all over Earth in a couple of minutes now. From New York to London to Singapore and back. In half an hour he'd be donning street clothes and stepping out feeling darned good.

  He had fulfilled his weekly obligation to society by manipulating meteorological instruments for forty-five minutes, high in the warm, upper stratosphere and worked off his pugnacity by knocking down a professional gym slugger. He would have a full, glorious week now to work off all his other drives.

  The stratoship's commander, Captain Forrester, had come up, and was staring at him reproachfully. "Dave, I don't hold with the reforming Johnnies who want to re-make human nature from the ground up. But you've got to admit our generation knows how to keep things humming with a minimum of stress. We don't have world wars now because we work off our pugnacity by sailing into gym sluggers eight or ten times a week. And since our romantic emotions can be taken care of by tactile television we're not at the mercy of every brainless bit of fluff's calculated ankle appeal."

  Lawton turned, and regarded him quizzically. "Don't you suppose I realize that? You'd think I just blew in from Mars."

  "All right. We have the outlets, the safety valves. They are supposed to keep us civilized. But you don't derive any benefit from them."

  "The heck I don't. I exchange blows with Slashaway every time I board the Perseus. And as for women--well, there's just one woman in the world for me, and I wouldn't exchange her for all the Turkish images in the tactile broadcasts from Stamboul."

  "Yes, I know. But you work off your primitive emotions with too much gusto. Even a cast-iron gym slugger can bruise. That last blow was--brutal. Just because Slashaway gets thumped and thudded all over by the medical staff twice a week doesn't mean he can take--"

  The stratoship lurched suddenly. The deck heaved up under Lawton's feet, hurling him against Captain Forrester and spinning both men around so that they seemed to be waltzing together across the ship. The still limp gym slugger slid downward, colliding with a corrugated metal bulkhead and sloshing back and forth like a wet mackerel.

  A full minute passed before Lawton could put a stop to that. Even while careening he had been alive to Slashaway's peril, and had tried to leap to his aid. But the ship's steadily increasing gyrations had hurled him away from the skipper and against a massive vaulting horse, barking the flesh from his shins and spilling him with violence onto the deck.

  He crawled now toward the prone gym slugger on his hands and knees, his temples thudding. The gyrations ceased an instant before he reached Slashaway's side. With an effort he lifted the big man up, propped him against the bulkhead and shook him until his teeth rattled. "Slashaway," he muttered. "Slashaway, old fellow."

  Slashaway opened blurred eyes, "Phew!" he muttered. "You sure socked me hard, sir."

  "You went out like a light," explained Lawton gently. "A minute before the ship lurched."

  "The ship lurched, sir?"

  "Something's very wrong, Slashaway. The ship isn't moving. There are no vibrations and--Slashaway, are you hurt? Your skull thumped against that bulkhead so hard I was afraid--"

  "Naw, I'm okay. Whatd'ya mean, the ship ain't moving? How could it stop?"

  Lawton said. "I don't know, Slashaway." Helping the gym slugger to his feet he stared apprehensively about him. Captain Forrester was kneeling on the resin testing his hocks for sprains with splayed fingers, his features twitching.

  "Hurt badly, sir?"

  The Commander shook his head. "I don't think so. Dave, we are twenty thousand feet up, so how in hell could we be stationary in space?"

  "It's all yours, skipper."

  "I must say you're helpful."

  Forrester got painfully to his feet and limped toward the athletic compartment's single quartz port--a small circle of radiance on a level with his eyes. As the port sloped downward at an angle of nearly sixty degrees all he could see was a diffuse glimmer until he wedged his brow in the observation visor and stared downward.

  Lawton heard him suck in his breath sharply. "Well, sir?"

  "There are thin cirrus clouds directly beneath us. They're not moving."

  Lawton gasped, the sense of being in an impossible situation swelling to nightmare proportions within him. What could have happened?

  * * * * *

  Directly behind him, close to a bulkhead chronometer, which was clicking out the seconds with unabashed regularity, was a misty blue visiplate tha
t merely had to be switched on to bring the pilots into view.

  The Commander hobbled toward it, and manipulated a rheostat. The two pilots appeared side by side on the screen, sitting amidst a spidery network of dully gleaming pipe lines and nichrome humidification units. They had unbuttoned their high-altitude coats and their stratosphere helmets were resting on their knees. The Jablochoff candle light which flooded the pilot room accentuated the haggardness of their features, which were a sickly cadaverous hue.

  The captain spoke directly into the visiplate. "What's wrong with the ship?" he demanded. "Why aren't we descending? Dawson, you do the talking!"

  One of the pilots leaned tensely forward, his shoulders jerking. "We don't know, sir. The rotaries went dead when the ship started gyrating. We can't work the emergency torps and the temperature is rising."

  "But--it defies all logic," Forrester muttered. "How could a metal ship weighing tons be suspended in the air like a balloon? It is stationary, but it is not buoyant. We seem in all respects to be frozen in."

  "The explanation may be simpler than you dream," Lawton said. "When we've found the key."

  The Captain swung toward him. "Could you find the key, Dave?"

  "I should like to try. It may be hidden somewhere on the ship, and then again, it may not be. But I should like to go over the ship with a fine-tooth comb, and then I should like to go over outside, thoroughly. Suppose you make me an emergency mate and give me a carte blanche, sir."

  Lawton got his carte blanche. For two hours he did nothing spectacular, but he went over every inch of the ship. He also lined up the crew and pumped them. The men were as completely in the dark as the pilots and the now completely recovered Slashaway, who was following Lawton about like a doting seal.

  "You're a right guy, sir. Another two or three cracks and my noggin would've split wide open."

  "But not like an eggshell, Slashaway. Pig iron develops fissures under terrific pounding but your cranium seems to be more like tempered steel. Slashaway, you won't understand this, but I've got to talk to somebody and the Captain is too busy to listen.