When he returned home again that evening, he was more than a little drunk. He felt furious and reckless. This latter to the extent where he suddenly decided to summon the thing.
“Hey!” he called. “Hey, wherever you are! Come here.”
The air seemed to thicken before his uncertain eyes. It formed an outline, then a darkening transparency, and finally the thing squatted before him.
Bevins sobered a little just from looking at it. He felt a sudden stab of dismay at his temerity.
“Scram!” he ordered quickly.
The thing went unhesitatingly. Bevins smiled slowly, and his narrow chest expanded with a sudden feeling of power.
* * * *
Bevins summoned the thing often in the days that followed. He had lost all fear of it and had accepted the fact of its existence to the extent where he no longer wondered what it was or where it had come from. That it responded docilely to his slightest whim was enough for him. He even spoke to it when he had too much to drink at the club, and it seemed to listen to his monologues of jealousy and frustration with a stolid kind of understanding. It was from this sole quality that Bevins developed a queer affection for the thing. He named, it Fido.
Fido was a silent and unresponsive pet. It appeared and vanished in its mysterious way obediently enough at Bevins commands. But otherwise it squatted in its habitual position on the floor, looking up at him with vacant yellow eyes.
Grange appeared unexpectedly at the club one afternoon with Toby Baugh, his strong-arm man, and demanded to see the books. Bevins nervously produced them and then watched apprehensively while Grange’s cold blue eyes, ran over the columns of figures.
Finally Grange grunted and looked up. He eyed Bevins frigidly.
“Nick, have you been fooling around with these books?” he asked flatly.
Bevins gulped, his voice into action, “Why, no, Mr. Grange,” he lied desperately. “What gave you the idea—”
“I’ll tell you what gave me the idea!” Grange snapped. “I stopped in to see my stockbrokers yesterday, and they told me they heard that you’ve been speculating on the market. You evidently tried to keep it quiet, but it leaked out. Now listen, Nick, where did you get the money?”
Bevins rubbed the palm of his right hand over the back of his left. He stammered. “I…I had some money saved up, Mr. Grange.”
“Don’t give me any of that, Nick!” Grange snarled with an impatient gesture. “I know you well enough to know that you never save a cent. You bought up several thousand dollars’ worth of International Life and Consolidated stock a short time ago. That’s pretty big money, and you could never have afforded it yourself.” Grange paused while his blue eyes, cold and grim as glacial ice, probed into Bevins’ shifting brown ones.
“Nick, where did you get the money?”
Bevins’ eyes darted about the office in panic. He was cold with the chill of approaching doom. He noticed Toby Baugh sidling toward him, and eager grin on this thick lips. Toby Baugh was big and powerful, with the long swinging arms of a gorilla.
“Where did you get the money, Nick?” Grange repeated.
“I…I borrowed it. Honest, Mr. Grange.”
“Borrowed it eh? Where, Nick? From club funds?”
“No, Mr. Grange! You know I wouldn’t do that.”
“No? I know you pretty well, Nick. Now listen. I can’t find anything wrong with these books, but I’m pretty certain you’ve been using club money in your speculating deals. I could call in an accountant to check things over but that would waste time. Tell me—have you been using club money?”
“No, Mr. Grange,” Bevins cried thinly. “Honest—”
Grange’s lips pressed together in a thin line. He raised a beckoning arm. “Toby.”
Baugh’s little eyes lighted and his heavy-features spread, into a leer. He crossed the remaining distance toward Bevins, his long arms swinging up.
Bevins drew back in terror. He knew what Baugh could do to him. He thought desperately of the gun in the desk drawer, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to reach it in time. And then he thought of something else. Fido. He thought of the thing in the same way that a man thinks of a faithful, protecting dog.
As Baugh’s, powerful right hand shot out to grasp him, Bevins yelped, “Fido!” And then Baugh had him. The tough’s hairy, left hand smacked stingingly across his cheek.
“Tell the boss what he wants to know, Nick.”
Bevins’ eyes strained for the thickening of the air which would herald Fido’s appearance. At last it came. And it seemed to Bevins that it came a little faster than usual.
Baugh’s left hand raised again. But it never landed. Silent as death, Fido leaped upon him.
Grange emitted a hoarse cry of surprise and shock. Baugh gasped, “What the—”
But Bevins watched with vengeful eagerness. Strangely, Baugh evinced no effect of weight or overbalance. The tough was horribly conscious of the weird form clinging to him, but he did not seem to feel it. It was as though Fido were somehow insubstantial. And to Bevins, Fido appeared queerly to sink into Baugh.
Gurgling in fear, the tough flailed his long arms in a frenzied effort to dislodge the thing which gripped him. But sound and motion went suddenly out of him, like air from a pricked balloon. His eyes glazed and he slumped slowly to the floor. Fido stepped away from him and settled into its usual squatting position.
Bevins stared at Fido in surprised discovery. The thing had—changed. It looked slightly larger how, and its silvery hair was tinged with blue.
“What is that thing?” Grange whispered. “What did it do to Toby?”
Bevins was breathing fast, and his protruding eyes glittered with exultation. He had learned something tremendously important. Fido was still obedient—but harmless only if he wished it so. It could also be used as a weapon for defense, or—and most significant—as a tool for murder.
In reckless disregard of Fido squatting close by, Grange knelt to examine the prone form of Baugh. Then he looked up, his blue eyes wide with dismay and appall. He seemed suddenly old.
“Toby’s dead,” Grange husked. “He…he’s cold as ice.”
Bevins said nothing. He watched the other with a kind of vindictive speculation.
Grange stood up slowly. He flicked a fearful glance at Fido. “Nick, what is that thing?”
Bevins shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t know, Mr. Grange. But I find Fido a quite useful pet.”
“We’ve got to call a doctor,” Grange said suddenly.
Bevins stepped over to the desk, took out his revolver from the drawer and slid this into a pocket. “I’ll do all the talking, Mr. Grange. Understand?”
Grange nodded slowly. His blue eyes went cold, but the next instant he veiled his gaze.
“Scram, Fido,” Bevins ordered.
Fido vanished silently, and even more rapidly than he had appeared. It seemed to Bevins that the thing had not only changed, but had taken on new energy as well.
Bevins turned to the telephone and put in a call for a doctor in a nearby building. The doctor appeared shortly. He was elderly, bald, and wore a harried expression.
“We found the body there on the floor when we came in this afternoon,” Bevins explained smoothly. “He seems to have been dead for some time.”
The doctor examined Baugh with birdlike rapidity. Then he stood up, brushing at his hands. “Heart failure,” he announced. He seemed vaguely puzzled, but wrote out the death certificate unhesitatingly enough. Later, a mortician’s crew came in with their wicker coffin, and Baugh’s remains were carted out.
Grange turned toward, the door. “I haven’t finished this, Nick,” he reminded grimly.
Bevins held up a hand. “Neither have I, Mr. Grange. Sit down, please.”
“What do you want?”
“This,” Bevins began triumphantly. “Y
ou’re going to call your lawyer here to the office immediately. When he arrives, you’re going to sign the club over to my name.”
“I will not!” Grange snapped.
“Fido,” Bevins called softly.
Grange reached for the telephone.
* * * *
Bevins returned to his apartment that night, drunk with liquor and triumph. He was now the owner of the Variety Club. The crisp rustle of the papers in his coat pocket attested that the transfer was outwardly legal and proper enough. But clear even in his whiskey-sodden mind remained the picture of Grange’s face, white with impotent fury. Bevins wasn’t too drunk to remember that there was something he had to do about that.
He rubbed the palm, of his right hand over the back of his left. “Fido!” he called.
“We aren’t finished with Grange,” Bevins told the thing. “Not by a long shot, Fido, old boy. Think he’s just going to shrug off the transfer and forget about it? I’ll say he won’t.”
“Grange is going to do his damnedest to have me bumped off now. A shot in the back, or a smack over the head and then the river. But we won’t wait for that, will we, Fido, old boy? We’ll beat him to the punch, won’t we?
“Now look, Fido, this is what you’re going to do.” Grange lived in a two-story house in Evanston. Bevins had been there several times, both on business and to parties. Now he gave the thing explicit directions for reaching the house.
“Sic him, Fido!” Bevins finished.
A satisfied smirk spread over Bevins’ face the next afternoon when he read in the papers that Big Steve Grange had died the previous night of a strange heart attack.
* * * *
One of the first things Bevins did in his new independence was to vacate his quarters at the apartment hotel. He moved into a large hotel in the Loop where he now was less than two blocks from the club. The rooms were large and luxurious. Furniture and decorations were all ultra modernistic, glittering in their severely simple perfection.
What pleased Bevins the most about the place was the large, full-length mirror in the hall. This faced the entrance to the rooms, and Bevins never failed to examine himself in it, both when he came in and when he went out.
He adjusted matters at the club entirely to his own liking now, as befitted his role of owner. Then he settled down to enjoy his new life. The only thorn in the side of his contentment was Patsy.
There was something, however, which gave Bevins a little hope. Vic Hendron’s run was due to end in a few days, and he felt, without the handsome band leader in the way, that the girl would gradually change her mind about him.
One night, shortly before show time, he passed Patsy’s dressing room to see the girl standing in the open doorway, looking down at her nervously twisting hands. “What’s the matter, honey?” he asked. “Anything I can do?”
Patsy looked up at him with troubled hazel eyes, “Nick, I’d like to talk to you.”
“Certainly, honey,” Bevins replied promptly. He knew, since he intended to ingratiate himself into her affections, that there was no better time to start than the present. He followed Patsy into the dressing room.
The girl turned to face him. “Nick,” she began, “I hate to do this, but I’m leaving the club.”
Bevins’ world dropped out from under his feet. He was deluged in a sudden downpour of shock and dismay. “Patsy!” he gasped. “You can’t do this!”
“I’m sorry, Nick. You see, I’m going to marry Vic next week, and then I’m going to sing with his band.”
“Patsy—you can’t! Listen, kid, I’m nuts about you—wild about you! I’d die without you! Why, Patsy—”
The girl made a weary gesture. “Oh, Nick! We’ve been through that before. Please try to be sensible. I told you where you stood and, gosh, I just can’t change to make you happy. I love Vic.”
Bevins stared at her in silent bitterness. The perfume of her was in his nostrils, and her loveliness had the aching poignancy of something soon to be lost. He looked at her small face, twisted in an expression of pained sorrow. He saw again her clear skin and the golden lights in her soft hair.
Abruptly, he was violently, furiously angry. He grasped her arms in a frenzied clutch.
“Think you’re going to run out on me, huh?” he shouted. “I’m not good enough for you, eh? Why, I took you in here when you didn’t have two cents to your name. I made a headliner out of you, and now—”
Bevins felt himself suddenly grasped from behind and whirled about. Something smashed sickeningly into his chin and he went staggering backward to crash into a dressing screen. He found himself looking up into Vic Hendron’s indignant white face.
“You skunk!” the band leader snapped. “Get up and I’ll give you another sample of what happens to the guy who tries to manhandle Patsy.”
The girl grasped his arm. “No, Vic,” she interceded. “Let him alone.”
Hendron relaxed a trifle. “I was coming to see you, Patsy,” he explained. “I heard this guy blowing his top off and came in here to see him mauling you. If he hurt you—”
The girl shook her head quickly. “No, Vic, please. It’s all right now.”
“O. K., if you say so.” Hendron looked at Bevins and jerked a thumb toward the door. “Get out, mug,” he growled. “And don’t let me catch you near Patsy again.”
Bevins climbed shakily to his feet. At the door he darted Hendron a final glance of malevolent fury. Then he went out, slowly rubbing the palm of his right hand over the back of his left.
That night Bevins got himself stinkingly, loathsomely drunk. But the plan which he had formed floated like a raft above the liquor with which he flooded himself. No amount of drinking could dim it from his mind. He knew just what he was going to do. When he arrived at his rooms he was going to summon Fido. And then—Bevins chuckled evilly. Fido would take care of Hendron.
Bevins staggered to his hotel. He took the elevator, to his floor, curtly refusing the assistance of several grinning bellboys. He grunted knowingly to himself. He wasn’t as drunk as they thought. He knew just where he was going, and just what he was going to do.
Bevins had some difficulty in getting his key into the lock. But finally he managed it and the door swung open.
The hall was unlit, but illumination from the outer passage flooded in. Bevins started to enter the hall. But at the threshold he stopped rigidly, a thrill of fear racing through him.
There in the hair was another man! Instantly Bevins knew who it must be. Hendron!
“Fido!” Bevins cried. “Get him!”
And then, sobered a little by his fright, he remembered the full-length mirror in the hall. He remembered, too, that Fido implicitly obeyed his every command. The thing wouldn’t be fooled by the mirror as he had been.
But all this came too late.
Full of life energy from Baugh and Grange, Fido appeared in a flash. And before Bevins could shriek out the counter order which would mean continued existence, the thing was upon him.
* * * *
Later, Fido went out to the street by a means which only it knew. It squatted invisibly on the sidewalk, its mind questing for the thoughts which would once more give it direction and impulse. Fido had no mind of its own.
It only sensed in a dim way that it now needed a new master.
The hour was late and the people along the street were few. But Fido waited with stolid patience.
A man swung past on uncertain legs, his thoughts inchoate in a fog of liquor. Then a scrub woman plodded by, her dull mind heavy with weariness. There were others, but Fido remained motionless like a machine that can be started only by the turning of a certain switch.
At last that for which Fido was waiting came. A man strode slowly past, his thoughts volcanic and desperate.
“I won’t be able to pay Farris blackmail much longer,” the man was thinking. “
And then the rat’ll tell Ann about me and Virginia. Ann’ll tell her old man, and that’ll mean my job. Then, Virginia—”
Fido responded to the thoughts mechanically. This man had the qualities which gave it life and sustenance. The thing got up and followed the man.
Fido had found a new master.
ENVIRONMENT
Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, May 1944.
The sun was rising above the towers and spires of the city to the west. It sent questing fingers of brightness through the maze of streets and avenues, wiping away the last, pale shadows of night. But in the ageless splendor of the dawn, the city dreamed on.
The ship came with the dawn, riding down out of the sky on wings of flame, proclaiming its arrival in a voice of muted thunder. It came out of the west, dropping lower and lower, to cruise finally in great, slow circles. It moved over the city like a vast, silver-gray hunting hawk, searching for prey. There was something of eagerness in the leashed thunder of its voice.
Still the city dreamed on. Nothing, it seemed, could disturb its dreaming. Nothing could. It was not a sentient dreaming. It was a part of the city itself, something woven into every flowing line and graceful curve. As long as the city endured, the dream would go on.
The voice of the ship had grown plaintive, filled with an aching disappointment. Its circling was aimless, dispirited. It rose high in the sky, hesitated, then glided down and down. It landed on an expanse of green in what had once been a large and beautiful park.
It rested now on the sward, a great, silver-gray ovoid that had a certain harsh, utilitarian beauty. There was a pause of motionlessness, then a circular lock door opened in its side. Jon Gaynor appeared in the lock and jumped to the ground. He gazed across the park to where the nearest towers of the city leaped and soared, and his gray eyes were narrowed in a frown of mystification.
“Deserted!” he whispered. “Deserted—But why?”
Jon Gaynor turned as Wade Harlan emerged from the lock. The two glanced at each other, then, in mutual perplexity, their eyes turned to the dreaming city. After a long moment, Wade Harlan spoke.
The 38th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK Page 14
