The Human Zero- The Science Fiction Stories Of Erle Stanley Gardner

by Matin Greenberg

  The possibility that ^the man who had fired that rifle shot would be a friend and ally became more remote as Phil reconstructed the scene of the shooting.

  The drummer had been standing before the drum, in the very act of beating the resonant hide. Then had come the shot, and the force of the bullet had hurled him to one side, sprawled him in the position in which he now lay.

  But how about the other shots?

  Obviously this man had been taken completely by surprise. That meant that he had not received any warning of the presence of his slayer until the bullet had crashed him down into death.

  He must, then, have been killed with the first shot.

  Phil looked around, and suddenly recoiled with horror.

  He had found the mark of those other bullets!

  She was a slip of a girl, hardly more than nineteen or twenty, slim formed, delicate of limb, shapely of body. She, too, was attired in nothing save a loin cloth, and even in death the beauty of her figure was apparent. Sprawled as she was upon the leaves of the forest, her body disfigured by two bullet holes, she remained beautiful with that grace which is the property of youth alone.

  She had been running, Phil decided, when the shots had brought her down. The first shot had dropped her, the second had finished the gruesome task.

  Evidently she had been standing beside the man when he had been beating the drum. The first shot had killed the man, sent her into headlong flight. And Phil, reconstructing the scene, remembered the short interval between the first shot and the following shots, realized that she had covered quite a bit of space in that brief interval.

  She had evidently flashed into flight with the speed and grace of a deer, only to be brought down as ruthlessly as though she had, in fact, been a fleeing denizen of the forest.

  A sudden rage possessed Phil Bregg. Whether these people were hostile or not, the man who had fired those shots, be he native, American or European, was a coward and a murderer.

  By picking the angles of the bullets from the positions of the bodies, Phil was able to determine almost exactly the spot from which the shots must have been fired.

  It was a little ridge, some fifty yards away, to which there was a cleared path in the jungle. It was obvious that the man who did the shooting must have been on this ridge, equally obvious that he was not there any longer, or, if there, that he was making no display of hostility, since Phil had been in plain sight of the point when he had walked up to the body of the drummer.

  Phil concluded the man had moved away, and he walked boldly along the cleared space, straight to the ridge. He found that he had been correct in his surmise. There was no one in sight when he arrived at the ridge, although there remained ample evidence that a man had been there.

  There was a burned match, the glittering gleam of three empty rifle shells, lying where the ejector of the repeating rifle had thrown them. There was, on a closer inspection, a little pile of dark ash which smelled strongly of stale tobacco. The man evidently smoked a pipe, and had scraped out the bowl of its dead residue before refilling it with fresh tobacco.

  Phil consulted the trail, and found the track of feet that were covered with shoes, made after the fashion of civilized footwear. He got to hands and knees and surveyed the ground. He found a few grains of fresh brown tobacco, still pleasantly fragrant and moist.

  The man had evidently refilled his pipe after the shooting, and the burned match indicated that he had lit his pipe. Phil was armed only with a bow and arrow, a rude, home-made spear. He sensed that this man would be hostile, that he was a cold-blooded murderer. The deaths of the savages had shown his utter ruthlessness, the fact that he had filled and lit his pipe indicated some of the callousness of his nature.

  But Phil knew that the island swarmed with savages, and he realized that he could expect short shrift should he fall into the hands of these savages. Undoubtedly the ruthless slaying of the man at the drum, and the young girl who had been with him, would stir the savages to a rage against all intruders upon their island, even had they been friendly in the first place. And Phil, reflecting upon the attitude of the man he had seen stalking him with such deadly ferocity, knew that there had been no opportunity for friendly relations.

  There remained, then, his predicament, between the devil and the deep sea. There was a man somewhere ahead who was a murderer. But, at least, he might be prevailed upon to give shelter to his own kind, and he evidently possessed but little fear as to his own safety.

  He had killed the natives and then moved away, doing the whole thing as casually as a hunter might shoot a rabbit.

  Phil took up the trail, moving cautiously.

  The ground was too hard to leave him any footprints other than an occasional heel mark. Apparently the man he sought had walked calmly and serenely straight down the trail.

  Phil sniffed the air.

  He thought he detected the odor of tobacco smoke, and pushed forward more rapidly. If his man was smoking it would be easy to tell when he was within some distance of Phil.

  The odor of burning tobacco became stronger, held the unmistakable tang of a pipe about it. The trail Phil followed grew broader, another trail intersected it, and Phil became conscious of a blue cloud of smoke drifting through the branches of some trees a hundred yards away.

  He moved cautiously, convinced himself the smoke came from pipe tobacco, burning fragrantly. Its very volume caused Phil some misgivings. But, he reflected, the man might well be smoking some gourd pipe which held an enormous quantity of tobacco.

  He worked his way cautiously toward the eddies of smoke which filtered through the trees.

  He left the trail, moved through the forest like a wild animal, keeping to the open spaces so as to avoid rustling branches or breaking twigs. He had learned the art of stalking from Indians, and had learned his lessons well. His progress through the forest was as that of a drifting shadow.

  He pushed through a light tangle of bush, paused behind the trunk of a tree, saw that the poisoned arrow was on the string of the bow, and then slipped out into the open.

  He noticed the eddying blue of the tobacco smoke, and knew at once that he had been trapped.

  For the smoke eddied from no pipe held in the lips of a man, but came instead from a rock where a little pile of tobacco had been stacked so that the burning base sent wisps of smoke from the grains of tobacco that had been piled on top of the red-hot grains underneath.

  The man he hunted had, then, cunningly arranged this trap, so that any one trailing would come sneaking up on the smoke. Phil knew the answer at once, even before a cracked laugh grated on his ears.

  He looked up, in the direction of that laugh.

  He saw gleaming eyes, loose lips, teeth that were stained, a face that was covered with stubble, the shoulders and left sleeve of a coat that had once been white, and the black muzzle of a rifle, the latter trained directly upon his heart.

  “Well, well,” cackled the man, “look what walked into my little trap!”

  Phil stepped forward, boldly.

  “I hoped I’d find you. You seem to have means of taking care of yourself, and I seem to be on a hostile island.”

  He determined that he would say nothing whatever about the presence of his companions. He felt that it would be far better if this man knew nothing of the fact that a young, attractive white woman was. on the island.

  The rifle covered him.

  “I wouldn’t come no farther, and I think I’d drop that bow!” said the man.

  Phil relaxed his grip, let the bow drop to the ground, shook the quiver from his shoulder, let it clatter to the ground, and then gave the man with/ the beady eyes his best grin.

  “Captured it from a native,” said Phil, trying to speak easily, frankly, as though he had no question of the ultimate friendship between himself and this man. “The chap was stalking me, so I dropped down on his shoulders and took his weapons.”

  The man with the rifle laughed.

  “That tobacco sure smel
ls good,” went on Phil, “got any more of it?”

  And he took a step forward, making it a point to walk casually, as though he expected to be invited to sit down and join the other in a social pipe.

  “That’s far enough,” rasped the voice. “Get back there! Get back there, damn you, or I’ll shoot you just as I would a native!”

  The eyes glittered, the loose lips lost their grin, and the face became a mask of menace. Phil realized the fact that the man’s trigger finger was about to tighten, and he jumped back.

  For a second or two there was a stark hatred, the desire to murder, a red blood lust in the eyes of the man. Then the face slowly relaxed.

  “Come alone to the island?” asked the man.

  Phil nodded casually.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I got shipwrecked.”

  He was trying to place the man’s nationality, decided that for all his ready use of the language, he was not an American, nor was he English. He was, perhaps, a racial mixture.

  The man laughed again.

  “Don’t lie,” he said. “I know everything that goes on here on the island. There’s three in your party, and one of ’em’s a damned pretty woman. I want that woman.”

  Phil felt the red blood of rage mounting his forehead. He forgot discretion, forgot the fact that the other held him covered.

  “Well, you’re frank about it,” he said. “That’s about the way I had you figured, at that. Now try and find her, you cowardly murderer!”

  But the words seemed to have no effect other than to arouse a certain amusement in the man who held the rifle.

  He chuckled, and the chuckle was rasping, as unclean as his face and the sleeve of the garment that had once been white.

  “Heh, heh, heh,” he chuckled, “gettin’ independent, ain’t you? Well now, my friend, let me tell you something. I can control these natives because they fear me. I’ve held the

  whip hand over ’em all the time, and I’m ruthless.

  “I’ve got a house around the corner of the trail that’s a regular castle. I built it before the natives got hostile. Afterwards they got independent, and I had to kill off a couple. That brought about a showdown. They tried to attack me.

  “When I got finished with ’em they were good dogs. I’ve kept other white men off this island, and there isn’t a firearm on it except what I’ve got. I’ve got plenty.

  “That’s the way I keep the natives in line. They can’t reach me, but I can kill them off whenever I want to, and I give ’em orders, rule ’em with an iron hand. That’s the only way to rule if you’re goin’ to rule.

  “I told ’em not to beat that drum down there. It disturbs my sleep when I’m taking a nap. They laid off for a while, but today they violated my orders, so I went down there and put a little of the fear of God into ’em.

  “And I figured some of them might come trailing me, so I set a little trap for ’em. I hadn’t figured you’d walk into it. That’s the way to deal with these natives, kill off a couple of ’em every so often, then they get all worked up and start after me, I set a little trap and kill off a couple more. Then I go and live in my castle for a while until they come to their senses.”

  Phil held his face expressionless.

  “Well,” he said, “how about us, what are you going to do with us, give us shelter?”

  The man laughed.

  “I’ll give you shelter, in a savage’s belly! I’m the one that encouraged ’em in cannibalism. They did it on the sly until I came here. I got ’em in the belief that it was a good thing, to come right out in the open and do it. They never bother in here, the government, although they’ve got the place listed on the map.

  “But I keep out the traders. It’s a good system. That leaves me king of the island. I should kill you right now, but I’d rather leave you to wander around and play hide and seek with the natives. That’ll keep their mind off of me for a while, and they need something like that to divert their attention from the little disciplining I gave them.

  “Well, I’ll be moving on. Don’t let ’em capture you alive if you know what’s good for you. They’ve got pleasant little methods of torture. They say the flesh tastes better when it’s about half cooked while a man’s still alive. I don’t know. I’m virtuous. I ain’t never tried it. But I hear their screams every once in a while on a still night. The natives have a ceremonial feast every time after there’s a battle with any of ’em on the other island.

  “Put up the best fight you can. They’ll get you in the long run, but while you’re running around in the bush playing hide and seek they won’t be after me, and I can get in some sleep.

  “They’ll get you finally. They always do get ’em. There was a ship came ashore here a couple of months ago. Funny weather. Funny the last couple of days, too. The damned island settled a bit, or the ocean raised, I don’t know which it was, big tidal waves and everything. Guess that was what brought you in.

  “Must have been a hole in the sea down here to the south somewhere. The ocean boiled past at ninety miles an hour, judging from the roar of it. Oh, well, it’s a high island, and it’s been here for a while, and it’ll be here for a while again.

  “The natives’ll turn over the woman to me. I’ve got ’em sold on the idea it’s bad medicine to eat a white woman—clever, eh?”

  And the man got to his feet, disclosing a giant figure, unkempt, dirty, yet radiating ruthless power and brute strength.

  “You stay right here for five minutes. You move up on this ridge before then, and I’ll save the savages a job. After that five minutes is up you can go anywhere you damned please.

  “Watch out for their arrows. They’re tipped with a funny kind o’ poison. It’ll numb the nerves and paralyze you for a while, but it won’t kill you. You’ll come to after a hour or two —ready to be cooked on the hoof. They say it makes the meat taste a lot different.

  “They’ve got a big bed o’ coals, and they truss you up and broil you a bit at a time over the slow fire. Don’t know where so many men get the idea cannibals boil ’em in a kettle. They don’t. They broil ’em. That’s the only way human meat is any good.

  “So long!”

  And the man abruptly stepped down from back of the ridge.

  CHAPTER 8

  Captives

  Phil failed to heed the warning about remaining where he was, but he knew better than to charge up the ridge. Instead, he tried to estimate the probable direction in which the man was traveling, and struck off into the forest, making a wide semicircle.

  He fought his way through thick growth, came to a more open ridge, and streaked up it with the best speed he could command. He gasped for breath, but he knew he must hurry if he stood any chance.

  In the end he missed out by a matter of a few seconds.

  He felt that the tall man would turn frequently to watch his back trail, that this would slow down his progress, and that there was a chance to ambush him by leaping from the bush on the side of the trail.

  But he saw the shadow of the other’s long-limbed progress slipping by up the ridge while he was still ten feet away, and he knew that it would be sheer suicide to charge through the tangled shrubbery. The man could snap the rifle into position before Phil would have a chance.

  So he remained motionless, watched the other stride by on the trail above. Then Phil slipped up to the trail.

  The man was covering the ground with great strides, moving at a rate of speed which was faster than a smaller man could have traveled at less than a jog trot.

  Phil watched him travel; saw, almost at once, his destination. It was a castle which had been built on a ridge of rock, a castle which was impregnable to anything except an attack by artillery.

  The construction was of a cobbled concrete that made the structure gleam white in the sunlight. It was built on the top of the ridge, at the very apex of a massive outcropping of native rock.

  There was but one place by which the castle could be reached and that place had a barred gate wi
th a huge lock which stood out even at the distance from which Phil was observing it.

  A wall ran around the castle, a wall that was surmounted with jagged coral and broken glass. The rock dropped away on all sides in a sheer slope that was smoothed over by the aid of concrete so that its sides were as glass. The trail ran up the winding zigzag, passed under the barred gate, and came to another gate, a mere opening in the wall.

  Gunpowder might have reduced the fortress, but as far as the simple savages were concerned, armed as they were only with crude weapons, it represented an absolutely impregnable retreat in which one man could live unmolested.

  Now that Phil knew the truth about the people who inhabited the island, he realized the gravity of the position in which he had left his companions, knew that it was vitally necessary that they be warned, given the real facts of the situation without delay.

  He slid down the slope of the ridge, picked up the landmarks which gave him the location of the shelf of rock where he had left Stella Ranson and Professor Parker, and plunged into the dense shrubbery.

  He was afraid to follow any man-made trails, and the forest growth was too thick to penetrate without losing too much time in forcing his way through the tangled mass of creepers and vines, to say nothing of the noise that would be made by such a means of progress.

  But the place was cut up with trails made by hogs, trails which led in zigzags or ran directly through tangles of brush. Phil dropped to all fours and followed those trails, trusting to his sense of direction to carry him to his ultimate goal.

  Twice he disturbed bands of hogs that were resting in the thickets, and they tore away with great gruntings, startled squeals, their short legs rattling and clumping over rock and down timber.

  Aside from those, he encountered no sign of life, either man or beast, and finally arrived at the bottom of the ridge where he had left his party. He gave a low whistle.

  There was no answer.