The Science Fiction of Erle Stanley Gardner - The Human Zero

by Matin Greenberg

  “Where is the other man, the Señor Bender?”

  “He has remained behind. Come.”

  We struck the shoulder of the mountain, zigzagged to the plain. The sun came up and tinted us with its reddish rays. Far off in the distance I saw a cloud of dust and knew that it was an automobile.

  I followed the course of the road, figured where we might intersect it, and ran down the sloping plain, shouting at the Mexican to hurry.

  He ran with a heavy-footed pace which covered the ground but slowly. We would have missed it, but the automobile driver saw us and waited while we covered the last half mile. He was a bronzed rancher who was inclined to be suspicious, but he gave us a lift.

  I had taken the things from the pockets of my coat, taken off my coat, and rolled the treasure stuff into a ball within the coat. The rancher looked at it suspiciously, but I offered no explanation. He took us to Gallup, and from there we caught a train to Los Angeles.

  I had purchased a suitcase for my treasure stuff.

  At Los Angeles I secured a car from a friend, and drove the Mexican back to Mexicali.

  I deemed it better to transfer a portion of the gold into money and pay him his half in coin. It amounted to more than twelve thousand dollars at the prices I was able to get. Many of the things were museum pieces, even without an authentic history. And I gave no history.

  But I did not pay him until I had him back in his ’dobe, and was ready to leave. His women folks commented on the wounds on his face, on the scratch marks which stretched from forehead to chin.

  “Where is the evil one?” asked the old woman, when there had been mutually evasive comments on the wounds of the man.

  “He remained behind.”

  She rocked back and forth on her chair and crooned some charm, or perhaps it was a curse. The words were unintelligible.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “He was evil, very evil,” she said at length.

  “He was a devil-man,” said the fat woman.

  The Mexican spoke simply.

  “He made me very sleepy,” he said.

  I made no comments. The children came trooping in and climbed all over me. I gave them a peso apiece. Then, when I was ready to go, I took an envelope from my pocket and handed it to the Mexican.

  "Señor ” I said, “I have the honor to wish you good day, and to express regrets at the parting and appreciation for the association.”

  He muttered some formal courtesy. It was the fat woman who opened the envelope and saw the crisp five-hundred-dollar bills that were in it. I heard her scream as I left the door.

  From the sidewalk I could hear her voice through the open window. She was explaining the amount of the money to the more stolid and ignorant husband. The old woman was keeping up a shrill chattering of words and phrases which had almost no meaning, although once or twice I caught the expression “Devil Man.”

  I have no explanation. I have given you the facts as they happened; but to understand them you must be able to visualize the eyes of the man as I saw them there in that Mexicali dance hall, aluminium-colored eyes that had pupils that were mere pin-points.

  If you had seen those eyes, the story would have seemed but the natural sequence of events, rather than something bizarre. Strange things happen on the border desert; strange whispers seep through the ear-aching silence of the desert spaces.

  But never again have I seen a man with eyes like those— only the once. And that is enough. Emilio Bender lies asleep in a cave of death beneath a mesa in New Mexico. Perhaps, if there is anything in the Buddhist law of reincarnation and repayment, some hypnotist of three hundred years hence will disturb his rest and summon him back to the land of the living.

  Personally, I do not know.

  THE SKY'S THE LIMIT

  CHAPTER 1

  The Mysterious Inclosure

  Click Kendall realized that there was something almost impersonal in the antagonism of the man before him.

  “Do I understand you refuse to make any statement?”

  That question had been effective with many another tough customer. But this man answered it with a single explosive word.

  “Yes.”

  Click Kendall played his trump card. With a happy smile suffusing his features he whipped a notebook from his pocket.

  “Then I shall quote you as saying that!” he exclaimed, and wrote meaningless words rapidly. “I have your permission to quote you as having used those words! Now your further plans are to—”

  But the man at the gate did not weaken. His black, glittering eyes looked directly at Click Kendall, yet seemed focused upon some distant point.

  “You may quote me as having said that you had better withdraw your foot from that gate!”

  The words were a monotone of calm irritation.

  Click Kendall hastily jerked back his foot. The gate slammed shut. The sound of a lock clicking into place terminated the interview with conclusive finality.

  Kendall sighed, turned, walked a few steps, then looked back.

  The sun illuminated an unpainted board fence, ten feet high, surmounted by a triple barrier of barbed wire. What lay behind that fence could only be surmised. It stretched for a hundred yards without so much as a knothole, and the cracks had been covered with strips of batten.

  Climbing into his battered flivver, Kendall gave one last, longing look at the fence, yellow in its unpainted newness, then wrestled with the steering wheel as the car jolted over the dusty highway.

  He had failed, and the editor of the Bugle wouldn’t take kindly to that failure. He had been ordered to find out, and he was returning as ignorant as when he started.

  Professor Wagner was a nut, to be sure, but there was a good story in him and—

  Click snapped to abrupt attention.

  His car, jouncing around a curve in the road, rattled full upon a scene of conflict.

  A low-hung touring car was crowding a roadster to one side of the road. Three pairs of hands, stretched out from the touring car, were literally lifting a struggling figure from behind the steering wheel of the roadster.

  Even as Click gasped his incredulous astonishment, the figure was jerked clear. The roadster careened, skidded, and headed directly toward him. The touring car ripped into a tearing charge that billowed a vortex of swirling dust behind.

  Click dodged the roadster, tried to jerk the wheel in time to avoid a collision with the touring car. Failed. A jar tingled his shoulders. Metal ripped. He was rattled around the inside of his flivver like a bit of popping corn in a popper.

  His swimming eyes saw a kaleidoscope of scenery circulating about him, then steadied as the cars came to a stop.

  The flivver had locked front fenders and hubcaps with the touring car, bringing it to a stop, half twisted about on the road.

  The driver of that car was standing up. The two figures in the back seat were struggling with their captive, and Click saw that that captive was a woman.

  For a swift fraction of a second he watched her kicking legs, fluttering skirts, heard her screams. Then he realized that the arm of the driver was extended, pointing something directly at his body.

  He flung himself down, over the door. There was a flash of fire. The spitting explosion sounded surprisingly inadequate in the unechoing atmosphere of the hot afternoon.

  Click’s surprise gave way to an unreasoning red rage. Kidnap a woman and smash his car, would they? Shoot at him as though he’d been a mad dog, eh? He’d show ’em!

  It never occurred to him that he was tackling three armed men, that they were desperate, that he was unarmed. He only knew that he wasn’t going to stand for such tactics.

  Click swarmed over the door of the touring car.

  Some one cracked him over the head. The heel of the girl’s shoe kicked him in the face. The driver fired again, and a searing pain stung its way the length of Click’s left arm.

  His right fist crashed upward.

  The driver toppled backward under the force of t
hat blow. The edge of the car caught him back of the knees. He flung up his hands in a wild, instinctive effort to regain his balance. The weapon flashed from his hand, whirled in a glittering arc, and landed in the brush. The man tottered for a moment, then plopped into the dust.

  Click jumped in the back of the car.

  One of the men raised an automatic. The girl was frantically beating the other man with a barrage of puny-fisted blows that served only to tire her.

  Click lunged for the automatic, missed, heard the spat of powder, swung, missed, stopped a blow on the jaw, swung again. This time his fist thudded home. The man staggered back. The girl wrenched herself free, vaulted the car, and sprinted.

  Click heard a curse from the driver’s seat.

  Instinctively he ducked, twisting his head as he did so. The dust-covered figure of the driver, one leg crooked over the back of the seat, held a wrench aloft. The wrench descended, and then nauseating darkness engulfed Click.

  There was the sensation of falling endless miles. Hot dust stung his nostrils. He could hear the sound of profanity, repeated with mechanical regularity, an utter lack of tone expression.

  The roar of a speeding motor, a sickening smell of gasoline, and the car was gone, leaving behind it a swirling cloud of dust. Click realized some one was bending over him.

  He struggled, sat up, spat, and tried to speak. The dust gritted in his teeth, clogged his nose.

  “Thanks,” said a feminine voice.

  “Don’t mention it,” muttered Click with an attempt at humor.

  The girl muttered a single explosive word. It sounded remarkably like “damn.”

  “Yea?” prompted Click.

  “We’ve got to get in the brush. They thought I’d kept on running. They’ll be back as soon as they can turn the car. Can you walk?”

  Click rolled to hands and knees, straightened, and gave a wobbly grin.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  Down the road came the roar of a motor, the clash of shifting gears.

  “They’re coming!”

  She half dragged him into the brush.

  From the other direction could be heard the sound of an

  approaching motor. Then the touring car ripped into motion.

  “Another car scared ’em off. Sit still.”

  The girl’s voice was calm, confident, given in the manner of one who is accustomed to command. Abruptly Click became conscious that she was beautiful.

  “Don’t say a word. They’re slowing to look at the wrecks. Keep quiet!”

  Brakes squeaked upon dry drums. The sound of excited voices came to his ears. “How could it have happened?— nobody hurt—roadster must have gone out of control—better take the numbers—couldn’t have been long ago—”

  Click watched the girl’s face.

  She was sitting, as alert as a crouching lion, peering through the screen of the brush. Her lips, slightly parted, were full but nicely shaped. Her eyes a deep violet, nose small, slightly upturned. There was about her something indefinable, the aura of one who is accustomed to take care of herself, who is playing with big events.

  “Can I look?” asked Click.

  She shook her head without even lowering her eyes to his face.

  “Lie still. They’re going. Now, quick. They’ve gone!”

  Click rolled over, found that his strength was returning rapidly, got to his feet.

  The violet eyes regarded his sleeve.

  “You’re hit?”

  He looked at the red-stained cloth.

  “Guess so.”

  She pulled up his coat sleeve.

  “Humph, just a flesh wound, but it’s got to be bound.”

  Click said nothing. Somehow he resented that tone of minimizing disinterest.

  “Think you can walk to the house? It’s not a quarter of a mile.”

  “The Wagner place?”

  “Yes. I’m Professor Wagner’s daughter. You know him?”

  “Just met him. I was sent out from Centerberry to interview him for the Bugle”

  She paused, regarded him with appraising eyes.

  “Do you know, I think I could hate you most cordially. Reporters are snoopers who pry into other people’s business. But I can’t let you bleed to death. I’ve got to take you inside, so come on.”

  “And in reply to your cordial hospitality,” snapped Kendall, “permit me to remind you that I’m a reporter, on official business, and that I’m going to publish any information I can get.”

  “That’s to be expected—of a reporter!” And then she laughed. “Do you know, we’re not behaving in the conventional manner? I should be thanking you for having saved my life; and I really should have developed a sprained ankle or something so you could have carried me to the house. Come on, let’s forget that you’re a reporter and act human. After all, it’s not your fault.”

  As a reply trembled on his lips, Click stopped dead in his tracks, his unbelieving eyes staring at the upper portion of a shed which showed over the top of the board fence.

  That shed disintegrated into scattering lumber. A pointed dome of glittering metal thrust itself above the ripping roof, hesitated for a moment, then shot into the air.

  The glittering dome became the tip of a huge beehive affair, made of some highly polished metal. And that great beehive drifted placidly through the tumbling ruins of the wrecked shed, ascended some forty feet in the air, and hung there, poised, shimmering like some gigantic soap bubble.

  For a space of swift seconds it remained suspended, then dropped swiftly, paused, drifted, and jolted to earth. Only the upper portion remained showing.

  The girl made a few swift, running steps, then paused, turned.

  “Oh, I hate you!” she flared.

  “Hate me?” asked Click, dazed.

  “Yes, hate you! You did have to come right at this time! He’s solved it. I tell you he’s got the thing he’s been working for; and I’ve got to take you in there! That’s what I get for being a woman. If I’d been a man I’d have been better prepared for those thugs. But no, I had to play the part of the poor, helpless damsel in distress; and you had to come along as the rescuing hero, and had to get shot so you require attention; and I’ve got to take you inside.”

  Click Kendall drew himself up. A sudden ringing was in his ears. She seemed rather far away, surrounded by a dark border of flickering darkness.

  “I assure you you won’t need to—to—I can—look out—”

  He noticed that the violet eyes widened in alarm.

  “Don’t faint, don’t faint!”

  And then her arms were around his neck.

  “Please, Mister Man, don’t faint. Oh, I’m sorry! I was rotten selfish. But you can’t understand. Please hold up until we get to the gate. Try. Fight. It’s life and death, more than life and death.”

  And Click, hating himself for the momentary weakness, wishing that he hadn’t been hurt so he could have raised his hat in a very dignified gesture and walked wordlessly away, was forced to lean upon her and fight to keep his consciousness.

  The entire world seemed suddenly a sort of Alice in Wonderland place, where strange beehives floated around in the afternoon skies; where beautiful girls supported him with firm, muscular arms, begged him not to faint, laughed, sobbed, praised his spirit, and then grunted maledictions at an unkind fate that had thrown a helpless man on their hands.

  His feet worked mechanically up and down. But they seemed to cling to the earth with each step. And there was no feeling of contact. It was as though he floated, yet was bogged down in a sticky marsh.

  He saw the outlines of the board fence before him, heard the roar of a motor car behind him. Fancied there was the rattle of shots, and fainted.

  CHAPTER 2

  Attacked

  A thin, reedy voice was piping meaningless figures and formulae. At first the sounds meant nothing to Click Kendall except a source of irritation. Then he gathered that these sounds had meaning, that they were words. The words s
eemed to formulate in his brain, independent of the sound, yet connected in some way with the reedy voice. He tried to open his eyes, but was too weary.

  “Light varies inversely as the square of the distance,” rasped the reedy voice. “Magnetism varies inversely as the square of the distance. Gravitation varies inversely—”

  Click Kendall opened his eyes. The reedy voice snapped to an abrupt termination. A pair of wide, violet eyes were gazing into his. Over the girl’s shoulder was the face of the man who had slammed the gate in his face earlier in the day.

  Click tried a smile.

  “Professor, I was sent out to get an interview. There’s been a rumor floating around Centerberry that you were experimenting with an anti-gravitational contrivance, and were planning an exploration of the moon.”

  The girl’s hand clapped to his mouth.

  “Dad! Mr. Kendall’s a reporter. And he refused to come to a truce. He’s going to publish what he learns.”

  And then she leaned over him, placed a small glass of excellent brandy to his lips.

  “Drink this,” she said kindly, and then added with swift rancor, “and shut up!”

  Click gulped the stinging liquid, felt it coursing down his gullet, leaving a welcome trail of warmth, bringing new strength.

  “When are you leaving?” he asked.

  The professor’s black eyes snapped.

  “Here, drink this,” crooned the girl.

  Mechanically Click opened his lips. Another jolt of fiery liquid shot down his throat. He realized that the girl was deliberately attempting to get him drunk so that he could not utilize the advantage his injury had given him.

  He scowled at that, then smiled. After all it was a pretty good world. A rosy hue permeated his thoughts. Beautiful, violet-eyed young girls, beehives that floated, black eyes, prewar brandy. Oh, it wasn’t so bad! And he had the nucleus of a nice story! He felt better now.

  Click smiled.

  “Do I get another drink, Miss Wagner?”