“Weapons made by such as you, Wister. My words were far stronger. So you get an F for today. If your daily classwork is a bad average, you know, of course, that even a perfect, INFLUENCED, final examination won’t save you. And if you flunk this course, Wister, you won’t get your diploma and then nobody will listen to you and you’ll never get that coveted job of blowing up this planet. Small as it is, I do my bit for the cause, Wister. Good afternoon.” And she stalked off.
Heller sat down.
And how pleased I was! Miss Simmons had him stalled. What a marvelous, brilliant woman! Her straight hair and glasses hid the fact that she was also quite good looking. And even though she obviously hated men, I felt a great tenderness for her, a longing to hug her and tell her what a truly magnificent person she was!
My ally! At last I had found one to give me hope in my sea of chaos!
Oh, it did me good to see Heller just sitting there, staring at the grass.
The fate of empires lay in the delicate and beautiful hands of a woman. But this was not the first time in the age-long histories of planets. I prayed to the Gods that her grip on fate would remain tenacious and strong.
PART NINETEEN
Chapter 6
Heller glanced at his watch and it winked 3:00 PM. He glanced at the sky: there was a pattern of cloud to the north and a stir of wind.
He got up and, at a fast trot, began to cover the long blocks home.
Suddenly he stopped. Something had caught his eye up ahead. Miss Simmons was just disappearing down a subway stairs, way up ahead.
Heller glanced up and down the street. It was Sunday afternoon and there wasn’t anyone about. The usual midtown Sunday desertion. He trotted on. He seemed to be heading for the stairs. It came to me in a flash that maybe he was going to murder Miss Simmons! That is the first plan that would have occurred to me. Apparatus training is always uppermost.
But he passed on by the stairs.
A sharp voice from the bowels of the station! “No! Go away!”
Heller sprang over the rail and dropped onto the steps. He went down six at a time. He burst out onto the platform.
Miss Simmons was standing there, on the other side of the turnstile. A ragged wino was reeling back and forth in front of her. “Gimme a buck and I’ll go away!”
She raised her cane to strike at him. He easily grasped it and yanked it out of her hand. He threw it aside.
Heller yelled, “You, there!”
The drunk looked around. He stumbled and scrambled for a more distant exit stair and went through a steel revolving gate.
Heller fished out a token and went through the turnstile. He walked over to the cane and picked it up. He came back and handed it to Miss Simmons.
“Things are pretty deserted on Sunday,” he said. “It isn’t safe for you.”
“Wister,” said Miss Simmons with loathing.
“Maybe I should see you home,” said the insufferably polite and courteous Royal officer.
“I am perfectly safe, Wister,” said Miss Simmons, acidly. “All week I work cooped up. All week I am mobbed with students. Today the class was finished early and it is the first time in MONTHS I have a chance for a quiet walk alone. And who turns up? YOU!”
“I’m sorry,” said Heller. “I just don’t think it’s very safe for a woman to be walking around by herself in this city. Particularly today when there are so few people about. That man just now—”
“I have lived in New York for years, Wister. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Nothing will ever happen to me!”
“You ever walk around alone much?” said Heller.
“I don’t get a chance to, Wister. There are always students. Please leave me alone, Wister. I am going to have my walk in spite of you or anybody else. Go away somewhere and play with your atom bombs!”
A train roared up, the doors opened. She turned her back upon him pointedly and entered a car.
Wister trotted down the train a few cars and, steadying an automatic door before it could close, got aboard. The train sped along.
I was trying to figure out what his angle was. He lived only a couple blocks away from the station they had just left. She was definitely in his road on his way to a diploma. It would be greatly to his benefit if she were disposed of. The Apparatus textbook handling would be to do just that. Had I found a real ally only to lose her?
The shuttle train pulled into Grand Central. Heller had his eye on Miss Simmons, seen through intervening car doors. She got out of the train.
Heller also went out of the door.
Miss Simmons probably did not see him. She was following directions which took her to the Lexington Avenue line. Heller followed at a distance.
She got to the Lexington Avenue IRT uptown platform. Then she walked way on up the platform to where the front end of the train would stop.
She stood there, leaning on her cane, waiting for the next express.
A young man in a red beret walked toward her. Heller started to move forward and then stopped. The young man was a clean-looking youth. He had on a white T-shirt and it said Volunteer Guard Patrol on it.
He spoke to Miss Simmons. “Miss,” he said politely, “you shouldn’t be riding the front cars or the back cars of a train, especially on Sunday. Ride in the center where there are more people. The gangs and muggers are out real heavy today.”
Miss Simmons turned her back on him. “Leave me alone!”
The volunteer guard drifted down the platform. He must have sensed Heller had seen the interplay. He said to Heller as he passed, “Rapes by the trainful and they never learn.”
An express roared in and came to a hissing halt with a roar and clang of doors opening. Miss Simmons got into the first car. Heller stepped in to the middle of the train. The doors slammed shut and they roared away, lurching and banging at high speed.
A tough-looking drunk sized up Heller. Heller took his engineer gloves out of his haversack and put them on. It was an effective gesture. The tough one promptly staggered down the swaying train to the next car back.
White tiles of stations flashed by, one after another. They rode and rode and rode, all at very high speed through the dark tunnels, the sound a pounding roar. At each infrequent stop, Heller would half rise to see if Miss Simmons was alighting, would see that she was not and would then sink back.
After a very long time, the signs on the tunnel poles said:
Woodlawn
Miss Simmons got out. Heller waited until the last moment and then got out. Miss Simmons had vanished up a stairs.
Shortly, Heller emerged into daylight. Miss Simmons was striding along northward. He waited a bit. He looked at the sky. It was overcast. Wind was whipping stray bits of paper along roadways.
It was then I realized what he must be doing: he had probably read one of the G-2 manuals, the one about how to tail a Russian spy. He was simply practicing. He had not read any Apparatus manuals and so he would not be well enough trained to know that he should simply murder Miss Simmons. Having accounted for his actions, I felt much easier. Miss Simmons would be quite safe after all and I still had an ally.
Several picnickers were evidently going home, their hair blown about by the wind. Otherwise there was no traffic.
At least two hundred yards behind Miss Simmons, Heller followed along.
She went some distance. A sign pointed:
Van Cortlandt Park
She turned in that direction, striding along in her heavy laced boots, swinging her cane, the perfect picture of a fashionable hiker in the European style.
She made some more turns. They were well into a kind of wilderness interlaced with infrequent bridle paths.
The wind was rising and trees were bowing. Some belated picnickers fled toward civilization. After that it was a deserted expanse of thickets and trees.
Heller was closer to her now but still thirty yards or more behind. Due to the twists and turns of the trail, he was usually masked from her. She was not l
ooking back.
Ahead was a vale. The path went down into a long hollow and then turned up at the far end. It was a totally hidden area, surrounded by large trees.
Miss Simmons got a third of the way up the far slope. Heller stepped forward to go down the path.
Abruptly, from the undergrowth around her, six men sprang up!
One leaped agilely into the trail in front of her, a ragged white youth.
A black jumped into the trail behind her!
Two Hispanics and two more whites blocked her way to right and left!
Heller started to go down the trail toward them.
A harsh, cold voice said, “Hold it, sonny!”
Heller looked back to his left.
Emerged from a tree but still behind it stood an old gray-faced, unshaven bum. He was holding a double-barreled shotgun trained on Heller. He was twenty feet away.
Another voice! “Just stop right there, kid!”
Heller looked back and to his right. Another man, a black, was standing there with a revolver pointed at him, thirty feet away. “We been waitin’ all afternoon for a setup like this, kid, so don’t make any sudden moves.”
The man with the shotgun said, “This is one time, sonny, when you don’t get a piece all to yourself. You can have some later, if there’s any left.”
Excited laughter was coming from the men around Miss Simmons. They were jumping up and down.
She struck at them with her stick!
A black grabbed it and yanked it out of her hand!
The others screeched with laughter and the one with the stick started to dance with it, waving it. The others started to dance around Miss Simmons.
Heller shouted in a strong voice, “Please don’t do this!”
The man with the shotgun said, “Take it easy, sonny. It’s just a gang rape. Some fun for a Sunday. Me and Joe is a little too (bleeped) out to do more than watch, so you just get smart and be like us and maybe we won’t have to kill you.”
“What kind of beasts are you on this planet?” shouted Heller.
“You got any money?” said the man with the revolver. “The big H comes high these days.”
The crowd around Miss Simmons was dashing in at her and dancing back. They were herding her into a flatter place more masked by trees. She was shouting at them to leave her alone.
Heller reached toward his haversack. “Hold it, sonny. Keep your hands in sight. This is a twelve-gauge and both barrels loaded in front of hair triggers. We can get his money later, Joe. Jesus,” he said indulgently, “look at those young devils.”
“Only the raving insane do things like that!” said Heller.
“What do you mean, insane?” challenged the man with the revolver. “Pete there taught ’em himself. He really knows his psychology. And every one of those kids got Grade A in psychology. How could they be insane? Jesus, would you look at how hard their (bleepers) are! Great stuff, hey, Pete?”
“Jesus, look at ’em,” chortled Pete.
Heller was backing up, I suddenly realized. Inch by slow inch he had been backing up. He was going to use a standard solution. He was going to run away! He was smarter than I thought.
The half-dozen whooping young men, getting wilder and wilder with excitement, had herded Miss Simmons into the flatter area. A Hispanic leaped in and grabbed off her hat!
Another leaped past her and hit at her hair. It came loose and showered around her shoulders.
“Yippee!” screamed a black. “Don’t she look wild!”
“Killing a bunch of hoodlums isn’t part of my job!” Heller said. Then he shouted, “Please quit this and get away while you still can!”
“The only ones likely to be killed is you and that (bleepch),” said Pete. He shouted down, “Jesus! Start stripping her! Show me some skin! Oh, man, does this beat Sunday TV.”
Two of them seized her coat, one from either side, and yanked it off her, danced away and threw it aside.
Two more dashed in past her flailing arms and tore at her shirt!
Heller was backing up, inch by inch.
“Blackie!” howled Joe down into the vale, “get behind her and get that bra off!”
“Ah,” sighed Pete in ecstasy.
“Pedrito!” howled Joe. “Get the skirt! The skirt, man! Yank it off her!”
As if in ultra-slow motion, Heller moved back further.
“Heat her up! Heat her up!” shouted Joe. “Grab her from behind and heat her up!”
“Get her down! Get her down!” howled Pete.
Miss Simmons’ foot lashed out at a man. He grabbed her shoe with a surging wrench, and tore it off her foot, laces and all. There was a crack.
Miss Simmons’ face contorted in agony. “My ankle!”
Pete said, “Oh, Jesus, I like it when they scream!”
Inch by inch, imperceptibly, Heller was backing up. The angle made by two tree trunks was closing. He was getting out of the shotgun’s field of fire. In a moment he would be able to escape. Smart.
Joe yelled, “Get her down! Get her on her back!”
Pete shouted, “Strip her total like I taught you!”
Joe let out a sigh. “Oh, wow! Look at that boy paw her!”
Miss Simmons’ voice rose to the tops of the trees. “Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me!”
A Hispanic was watching avidly as Miss Simmons cried, “My ankle is broken!”
Joe licked his lips as Miss Simmons’ scream lanced through the glade.
A wild-eyed white heard Pete’s shouted order, “Get her begging for it!” He darted forward.
Pete yelled, “Grab her legs!”
Joe jerked as Miss Simmons’ scream tore up from below.
“Let Whitey go first!” howled Pete. “The rest of you have got the (bleep)! Whitey first!”
Heller suddenly dived to the ground!
The shotgun blasted with a roar!
Heller was rolling to his left in a blur of motion.
A revolver shot racketed.
The man with the shotgun was trying to get around the tree which now blocked his aim. He pulled back.
Another revolver shot sounded and a spurt of dirt leaped near Heller’s head.
Heller was rolling further.
A sudden glimpse of a tree. The shotgun man lunged!
Heller’s hands shot out and grabbed the shotgun.
The man screamed, flailing back a broken hand.
Bark leaped from the tree! The racket of a revolver shot!
A sight down the shotgun barrel at the revolver man!
The buck of the shotgun!
The revolver man’s chest spurted red and he flew backwards.
The shotgun man trying to get up!
The swinging blur of the stock. The crack as the stock shattered. The shotgun man didn’t have a face! Just red flesh and bone splinters!
Heller sprang out into the path.
The group around the girl were spread out, facing up the path, crouched and alert.
A white youth yelled, “It’s just one guy! Kill him!”
A black and a Hispanic rushed forward.
A switchblade flashed.
The other four spread out so they could encircle.
Heller’s foot struck the switchblade hand. The knife flew. The man screamed!
A man seen between two others. He had a gun.
Heller’s foot extended like a battering ram. The man’s gun arm crumpled!
A whirl. Another knife! A foot up against the hand. The knife flew into the air!
Heller spun on one foot, the other extended like a scythe. The flat of the foot tore the man’s whole face off!
Gods! Spikes! This was why Heller was wearing spikes!
A knife blade glittering. It slashed down on Heller’s arm and bit.
A foot up toward the wielder. A down kick! The whole chest of the knife wielder ripped open!
Arms seizing Heller from behind. A darting back of Heller’s head, his own arms rising and casting off the grip.
He spun!
Spikes stamped against a thigh and, ripping downward, that foot hit the ground. The other foot coming upward.
The whole throat of the man torn out!
A blur of three men trying to get at Heller.
A woolly head. A spiked foot driving at it. The grind of steel into bones!
A Hispanic face. The blur of a foot kick. The whole side of the head coming off.
A man’s heels. He was running, trying to get away.
A rush. A horizontal thrust of two spiked feet. They hit the man in the back. He went down in a skid of leaves. Heller landed upright. Man’s head two feet below the spikes. Down came Heller. The soles were held in a V. They stripped the skin, ears and two huge slabs of skull off the head.
Silence.
Heller started checking them. Five were dead, ripped to pieces. The sixth had his whole chest open. Veins and arteries were pumping.
The man came to. He screamed. He collapsed. The body went into the final twitches of the death agonies.
Heller went up the hill. Both Pete and Joe were very dead.
He walked back down, surveying the scene. It looked like a slaughterhouse. Blood was all over and leaves were churned into red mud.
I was terrified. I had never had an inkling as to why he was wearing spikes. But I knew now. In a primitive land where other weapons were not legal, he had been walking around on his! Supposing I had not known this! I myself might have been a target! Oh, I would stay a long distance away from this Heller if I ever had to talk to him. He was dangerous!
Miss Simmons, clothes torn, was lying there where they had left her at the first shot.
She was propped on an elbow. She was staring at Heller with wide, round eyes.
He went over to her. He tried to get her to lie back. It must have moved her leg. She screamed in agony! She passed out.
Heller examined her leg. The ankle was a compound fracture with a splinter of bone extending from it.
He got a knife out of his haversack, picked up a broken tree branch and quickly made a splint. He padded the ankle with wads of Kleenex he took from her purse and then taped the splints on with engineer tape.
He tried to get her torn clothes together. He got her into her coat. She was still out cold. He found her glasses and put them in her purse and then tied the purse around her neck.
Mission Earth Volume 2: Black Genesis Page 40
