Then and Now : A Collection of SF

by Raymond Z. Gallun

  Still hazy-minded with sleep, Envers looked in unbelief at the gigantic Surf Man looming there, beside the little collapsible metal stand which held his toilet articles.

  There was no light in the room, except that which came through the small window. It was the shine of the Veil, which, in its slightly sunward orbit, peeped around the bulk of Karud, planet of Ree-Jaar-Env’s worshippers.

  Richard Envers, real self of the god, began to think very swiftly. There was nothing that he could do to save himself. Retreat through the doorway was effectively blocked. And it would take a wrench and minutes of work, to unscrew the fastenings of that massive window, built to resist even the impacts of small meteors—even if there was time to get the vacuum armor out of its locker against the wall, and don it.

  But before a huge flipper-hand descended upon Envers with crushing force, he almost had the answer to the question of how this giant, so recently congealed and still, could be grimly animated again, now. Envers’ association with this solar system had been too brief for him to have grasped even all of its simpler phenomena.

  Now, however, he understood something previously unguessed. The Veil, and the planet of the Surf Men—they traveled around that Titanic blue star in tremendous orbits that were still only five million miles apart. And the Veil was huge in extent—

  Richard Envers died with a bubbling gasp that followed a dull, ghoulish thud.

  HIS KILLER staggered from the room. He was dizzy from his recent exposure in space. His muscles ached from the effects of expansion in the voidal vacuum, and from the freezing and thawing of his flesh. But he did not think his revival wonderful. To him it was the natural thing. The great, coarse cells of his cold-blooded flesh were made to endure such treatment. Life is a stubborn wonder, that struggles, always, to adapt itself to environment, however unfavorable the latter may be. The condition of sudden airlessness had been new to Grud, in a way—but not too new. For when winter came to his tropic world, it was a winter of terrible dark—and cold that froze even much of the atmosphere. There was only volcanic heat to combat that cold, and it was far from sufficient.

  “Loodah!” Grud roared in the corridor. “Loodah!” Freedom! And the sound echoed in ringing, eerie triumph through the chambers of that suspended, man-made vessel.

  So, in frightened anger, he shuffled back to the pilot compartment. His massive cudgel rose and fell. Glass splintered. Metal crumpled and tore. Robot mechanisms tried to take control of the ship’s wavering tumble. But they were smashed in their boxes before they could send the proper guiding impulses to rocket motors and gravity screens,

  The craft nosed down toward a sea of cloud, white under the soft, slanting rays of Leedaav, the Veil. Grud shuddered, gripped by the sickening sensation of free fall. His flat, webbed fingers reached out to clutch a stanchion for useless support. He sensed his own end, yet in the shrieking clamor of disordered machines he read, too, the end of a black dominion.

  The Veil. Again, as in the past, its shadow would come, blocking sunshine and warmth, turning a verdant world into a white, silent tomb. But Grud’s people would sleep, then, in their caves, and they would awaken with the other life, when the shadow had gone by.

  Grud knew nothing of the conditioning influences of evolution. He had never discussed suspended animation with a biologist. He thought of it only as a different kind of sleep.

  Yet the lives of Surf People are long, and Grud was not too young to remember the most recent winter. The many days of gradually advancing twilight, the slow, inexorably strengthening chill. And the sensations of numbness and strangling pain that one tried to fight off, just before the slumber. Somewhat the same as the experience of that flight up into the sky—though much more gradual, and perhaps more dangerous.

  “Leedaav!” Grud growled reverently. “Leedaav!”

  The orbits of the Veil, and of Karud, the planet, were in the same plane. Their annual periods were not far from identical, and they moved in the same direction. Usually the two were far removed from each other, but at intervals they traveled side by side, like horses running neck to neck on a racetrack. Then the world of the Surf Men was in the dense shadow of an eclipse that did not pass away for more than one protracted year—

  The End

  ********************************************

  Guardian Angel,

  by Raymond Z. Gallun,

  Super Science Stories May 1940

  Short Story - 5651 words

  It was an ugly, twisted, malevolent-looking black doll—

  but it was as beautiful as the sunrise to Humpty Collins.

  For, with the Guardian Angel’s help, he could realize

  his dream of becoming the world's Number One dare-devil!

  Another reporter, hey? And you want the straight stuff about me and the Guardian Angel? Sure, pal, sit down nice and comfortable. My drink is Scotch.

  It's a sorrowful tale. Lots of times I feel like a damn fool, thinkin' about all the chances I missed, bein' too doggone reckless....

  I was low the day it started. Gasket Lengrin, that wet-rag boss of mine, said I looked so blue you could use me for paint. To be frank, woman-trouble was what it was. And hurt pride. Daisy Katz, the cute Blonde down the line from the Eureka-Superb Reconditioned-Car Lot, which is our establishment, had gone an' got terrible mad at me.

  She was kind of broad with her words: "You are not a death-defyin' hero after all, Humpty Collins!" she has told me. "You are just a gosh-awful dumb tangle-foot who will try any crazy thing not once but again and again, and come out on the short end every time! Not only have you stepped on my feet dancin', but I have heard stories from different people. Of course I could see before that you ain't handsome. You are fat as a hippopotamus. Not even countin' the scars, you got a face that would make the bottom-side of an old barrel look pretty. I might be willin' to disregard these facts, but not when I find out you are a terrific braggin' wind-bag, an’ so clumsy that it's just the stiffness of your knees that keeps your legs from tyin' themselves into knots when you walk!"

  Ouch! Daisy was sore enough to eat tacks, all right! Her mean words hit me so hard, it didn't do no good, even, to remind myself that I am a smart guy, in spite of what anybody says. Oh, you don't have to take my word for it! Ask my most conscientious critics. There ain't a man in this town that can make a weary old automobile perk up and sing, as quick or as good as Humpty Collins!

  Well, I go to our little corrugated-iron office on the car-lot, hoping Gasket will cheer me up. But he just laughs and wise-cracks. As I'm leaving again, he hollers after me:

  "On your way to the River, don't forget to stop at Randy's Place, Humpty!"

  This is real good advice. Gasket knows that two sniffs of a cork are generally about enough to make me happy, no matter what. Which is not a thing to be ashamed of, but genuine efficiency.

  I DON'T get to Randy's though. I just drive and think. It is a most gorgeous Spring day.

  Out in the country I see a flash of fire in the sky, an' hear a sound like a circle-saw cuttin' through an old oak fencepost full of nails. Then there is a big puff of dust in a fresh-harrowed field near the road, as if somebody threw a big stone, and it landed there. After that first puff, though, a funny thing happens. A few seconds later there is a smaller puff, and then another and another and another, as if a extra-fast rubber ball is bouncing to a stop.

  I am very much interested. I park my old jalopy in somebody's driveway, and I climb over the fence. I run forward to see what it is.

  I have a hunch I know what has happened. A lot of meteors have been fallin' from the sky lately. Accordin' to the papers this is because Morrison's Comet has come about as close to the Earth as it is gonna get, an' there is a lot of loose rocks an' stuff sorta taggin' after it.

  But I see, too, that this ain't no regular meteor that has made these puffs of dust and dirt, which have now stopped. I ain't never seen the common kind of fallin' star bounce along like this.

  I keep running real fast.
Pretty soon I come to the place where the first bounce has occurred. It is an ordinary hole in the loose ground, and it is not very deep. A little ways on, there is a second hole, not so large. Then there is a third and a fourth. Maybe ten altogether, strung out in a row.

  At last, practically lyin' right on the surface, with almost no hole around it at all, I find the thing! It is a most curious object, and it ain't half burnt up like the other meteors. To tell the truth, it is not damaged a bit. Because I am very excited, I pick it up quick, and afterwards I am extremely surprised that it is not hot enough to scorch my fingers. It is just a little warm.

  I examine it careful. By now, of course, I have entirely forgot to be sad about the blonde, because what I have discovered is extraordinarily fascinating. It is black, like old crankcase drainings. And what do you think this remarkable object has turned out to be?

  It is a doll. Yep, that's a fact! A doll like maybe I'd give my little cousin, Bernadine, for Christmas. Only this would not be good taste, because she'd think it was deformed, and it might scare her awful. Besides, it has stiff joints more like a statue to put on a shelf. It has six arms, and each arm had two elbows. But it has a pair of nearly ordinary legs. It is maybe eight inches high, and its face is real sharp and cruel-lookin'. It has long, pointed ears, and its eyes is red and shiny, being either rubies or dime-store glass jewels, I don't know which.

  That is all you can see about this doll or statue. But then I began to feel something which is most unusual. Holding what I have found in my hand, I seem to have lost plenty of my two hundred and forty pounds weight. It has gone down to I think about fifty pounds.

  On account of that I have so much less to carry along with me when I walk, I am indescribably pleased. I want to tell Gasket Lengrin about my good-fortune right away. So I start to run again, back toward where I have left the car. My feet fly along, light as a fairy's. Everything is okay until I have my legs across the barb-wire fence. Then, in my haste, I lose my balance. Wup I go, down into the bushes on the other side.

  IMMEDIATELY I am sure I have gone and torn my new ice-cream trousers again. But when I take steps to learn the extent of the disaster, I am happy to find that there is nothing wrong with my pants, except that there is a lot of field-dirt in the cuffs. I shake the dirt out, and I consider even more interesting facts.

  I am not bruised by my fall. The bushes I have landed in are wild roses, but I have not been pricked by the thorns. And I remember that when I hit the ground, I did not feel any jolt at all. I have come down right on my head, but there is no bump on it. It has seemed that there is a lot of invisible rubber protecting my cranium.

  I sit there, ponderin' an' ponderin', and after a while I get an idea. I have always believed that I am a round peg in a square hole. In the past I have been very ambitious, an' now I am almost sure that I am going to be famous before long.

  I arise. I put this peculiar-looking doll or image I have discovered, in the inside pocket of my coat, just to get it out of my hands. I peer around. Nearby, along the fence, there is a red granite boulder.

  I go over close to that big rock. I double up my fist and get myself set. I swing back hard to pick up power. Then I let my arm shoot out and down toward the rock. Every bit of my strength is back of that drive, and I am a very strong person.

  It is remarkable indeed what takes place. I don't break any bones like I would ordinarily expect. My knuckles don't even touch the granite. Because there is something in between, that I can't see.

  I try again. It is like I have a big boxing glove on my hand, only much softer. My fist bounces off the rock as though it was made of rubber. And the bounce is so powerful I am knocked over backwards. I fall down into the ditch along the road.

  But again I am not hurt at all!

  So, as I climb to my feet, I am fairly flabbergasted. But it is all pure joyfulness. Because I am just a very good ordinary mechanic, and do not understand Einstein, I realize now that while I have this funny doll on my person I cannot be injured no matter what I try.

  This fact gives me many pleasant thoughts about how I am going to become great, like the parachute jumpers at the Pottsville Fair. And when opportunity knocks, I am not slow to take advantage.

  Double-quick I get into my car and drive like hell in the direction of town. On the way I run over some chickens and lose a front fender grazing an arterial-stop sign, but I don't give a damn. All the time I am in ecstasy, cooking up better and better stunts to experiment with, now that I am a superman.

  Before I am halfway to town, I think of a stunt that is a real peach. I figure immediately that it will make any magician's eyes pop. It is real gruesome and scary—a regular thriller. But of course I am sure, the way things are, there ain't even a bit of harm in it. It ain't like smoking next to a gasoline can, for instance.

  I GO to Mrs. Schroeder's house, where Gasket an' I live. Out of the clothes closet in our room, I take my deer rifle, which is a monstrous old Krag. With this gun and a soft-nose, high-speed bullet, I have once shot a skunk, and have left nothing but the tail and an awful smell in the air.

  I open up the breech, just to be certain I won't pull no boners. Nope! Not a chance! Right there in the ejector-claw, I see the brass of a fresh cartridge gleamin'. It has a soft-lead slug that is hollow at the tip to make it splay out better, and tear a lot more effective, when it hits whatever tries to stop it. It looks extra ugly and purposeful. This gun of mine is loaded sure as thunder.

  I already have decided that Gasket Lengrin is a fine audience to try my stunt on for the first occasion. So I drive to the car-lot. I find Gasket still in the office. Being in charge of the sales-an'-general business-departments of our firm, he is working over the books. He glances up as I enter, and right away I notice he is slightly worried. Me carrying that Krag, and being real happy in spite of no liquor and no Daisy Katz, sorta gets him.

  But this, I know, is swell psychology. It is a good deal like the psychology the barkers in the sideshows use when they are buildin' up horror and interest in the wonders of the world. I figure then that after I am great too, and have my different acts perfected, I am going to use it all the time on people, maybe in Madison Square Garden, which is a wonderful place where all the big things are pulled off.

  So Gasket is my guinea-pig now. I advance on him, grinning nonchalant, and hold the Krag toward him, stock first, to let him see the danger is all mine.

  "Shoot me, Gasket," I orders real calm. Anybody can tell that I am dead-serious, and am not foolin' a bit.

  The result of them words demonstrates that I have employed the correct tactics to arouse interest on the part of the audience. Gasket don't say—"You oughta been shot long ago, Humpty"—like he would of done if he was bored. He don't grunt "Huh?" or nothing. He just stares. His eyes stick out like hard-boiled eggs on the half shell. His face, which is thin and red, kinda wilts and turns pale. His mouth opens as though he was setting a trap for flies. Gasket is so darned interested that he can't help himself nohow.

  For that matter, I am quite convinced that he thinks I have gone nuts, and may change my mind and assassinate him.

  However, he finally gets up out of his chair. The fact that he tips it over doing this, shows he ain't got adequate control of his muscles.

  "Now you take it easy, Humpty," he says, his voice gentle but hissin' through his teeth because he is breathin' so hard. "There ain't ever been a woman worth enough to commit suicide over, let alone asking a pal to become your own murderer—"

  "Shoot me, Gasket," I repeat, cutting in on him, and ignoring his arguments.

  He talks and stalls some more, getting nervouser and nervouser. So I make believe I am disgusted with his brand of friendship, which balks at doin’ a favor. He is so upset he don't even take the gun out of my hands, which I have the same as asked him to do, anyway.

  "Okay, chump," I tell him. "I shall do the shootin’ personally."

  THIS is the tensest, most super-grand moment of the act. Before Gasket can try to
stop me, I set the stock of the Krag on the floor. I bend over so that the muzzle is just maybe five inches from the center of my chest. I don't want the distance to be too short, because that might cause the gun to blow up, and it is expensive.

  I lean over and press the trigger with my thumb. Just then I am a little uncertain, myself, thinking that I am possibly too hasty concluding that I am safe. But now it is already too late, for I have pressed real hard.

  I am not reassured immediately, for when the rifle goes "Whang!" the sound is kinda far off, like I am shot through the heart and am actually dying. Just for a teeny moment there is something greenish and thin and hazy all around me. Under my arm, where the image which I have picked up in the harrowed field is reposing in my inside pocket, there is a sort of click. But I hear a whistling snarling buzz sailing off into the corner. The slug that old Krag has coughed up has glanced right off me and torn a great big piece out of the door of the broom closet.

  But I am completely intact, as I expected to be in the first place. I feel sort of cooled down, though; and the way poor old Gasket has taken it all—being now rather whoozy with confusion, thinking I should be down on the floor with a hole in the middle of me that you could drive a truck through, though possibly still kicking horrible-like—makes me feel sorry for him. So I spoil the final part of my stunt, which is to keep the mystery hid.

  Instead I drag the image out, and show it to Gasket, and tell just how it has come into my possession, and what has taken place since.

  He listens, and in some respects he is relieved; but in others he seems more excited than ever. He starts to swear, calling me anything but a gentleman, partly, I am sure, because he has swallowed my gag fishpole and fisherman.