"But how did they get us here? In two days?"
Watkins scratched his bristled chin and thought aloud. "It must have
been instantaneous. Remember, we went through a quarantine and were
healed of just about everything that was wrong with us. That must have
taken a while."
"The octopus was still wet," said Adam, "and the grubs and locusts were
still kicking. They must focus that rig on Earth and push a button and
here it is, like that. Instant transmission of matter." He smiled
weakly, as though he were proud of the phrase. He looked very
frightened, thought Watkins, and unhappy.
Tom Watkins was scared, too, but not especially unhappy. For the first
time in almost twenty years, he was free of worry about the bulls, the
law. He only wished he knew what had happened to his loot.
"The planet," said Cal, "whatever its name is, must have the same
gravity and atmosphere as Earth. Same water, too."
"That's right. So it's produced a race of critters with plenty of human
characteristics," said Watkins.
"Have they done this before?" asked Mrs. Full. "I mean do you think
we're the first to be snatched up?"
"No, I don't," said Watkins, surprised that she was talking directly to
him. "People disappear all the time. Look at the famous ones: Judge
Crater, Ambrose Bierce--"
"Somebody mention the _Marie Celeste_," growled Summersby.
* * * * *
The wall began to open.
"Here's the plan, quick," said Watkins. "I've got to get out and find
the machine, and see if I can gimmick it so it'll work backward, send us
home. The rest of you create a diversion, keep the kids' minds off me."
"What kind of a diversion?" asked Villa. His abstracted face showed
plainly that he was thinking of his chili stand and what he would say to
the idiot relief man about conditions he would doubtless find therein.
"If you were a kid with pets, intelligent ones, what would you watch
them do for hours? Something unordinary--something you'd never imagine
they'd do." He looked at his chronograph. "It's just ten. I never saw
the gadget I couldn't figure out in two hours; if I'm not back by noon,
you'd better come out, Summersby."
"What if it's four-dimensional?" asked Adam.
"It's possible I can cook up a way to reverse its action anyway. There
are some principles of electricity and mechanics that must be
universal."
"Shall we run the machines for them?" asked Mrs. Full. "To distract the
children?"
"They're used to that," said Watkins. "They bore easy. Suppose you're a
kid with a normal regard for pets. You've had cats and dogs and rabbits
and now you have monkeys. The monkeys are a lot smarter and more
versatile, but they have their limits too. You get jaded with 'em. But
one day they--" he snapped his fingers--"they start playing soldiers!
They drill, stage mock battles, die and come to life, scrimmage--hell,
you go nuts! You can't take your eyes off 'em!"
"That's it," said Villa promptly. "The children have gorillas, cows,
they have never seen anything like war."
"Maybe they don't know what war is," said Adam. "It might just look as
if we were fighting. None of their toys show a sign of war being ever
waged by this race, like our own kids' toys do."
"The toys of any people reflect their civilization in an unreliable and
distorted way," said Cal Full rather stuffily. "A visitor from Mars in
one of our playrooms would conclude that we already have spaceships and
ray guns, and that our usual clothing is chaps, sombreros, and
spacesuits."
"They'll get the idea," Watkins said impatiently. The giant children
outside were bawling the word that meant "Come!" He was in a hurry.
These fools were always arguing. "Let's go," he said. "The four of you
line up over there, catch the kids' eyes, and High-pockets can boost me
up to the beam. Then he'll join you."
* * * * *
Watkins grinned tightly, slapped Adam on the shoulder, poked Villa in
the belly, and dived behind the nearest many-colored pile of gear the
moment he saw the children weren't watching him. As he went toward the
door, he heard Villa saying, "My fourth cousin Pancho was a great man
for war, so I will be general. Spread out in the thin line and be ready
to march when I command."
Summersby followed Watkins, and they came to the door. Watkins managed
to get up on the big man's shoulders, and waved a hand above his head.
Nothing happened.
"Stand on them," said Summersby.
He struggled to do so. "_Un_, _dos_, _tres_," roared the Mexican down
the hall. "Begin!"
This time Watkins found the beam. The door glided aside. He dropped off
Summersby's shoulders, jumped into the next room. A quick look showed
him it was empty. As the door closed he heard Villa shouting hoarsely.
"Make bang noises for the guns. Fall dead, spring to life. We are
mountain fighters of great skill. Climb on machines, drop off with
bullets in your head, play you are--"
The door cut him off. Watkins chuckled. "What a ham," he said. He
started for the opposite door.
X
It was ten minutes to twelve. Summersby was panting like a spent hound.
He had not exercised in months, not since the doctors had told him his
heart was just about gone, and he was surprised that he hadn't keeled
over before now. Dashing around playing guerrilla like some
six-year-old! It had been a damn good idea, though. The giant
children--there were two of them today--were still enthralled, lying on
their bellies with their furry watermelon heads propped in fantastic
two-thumbed hands.
Leaning against a pink plastic maze wall, puffing, he thought, I've
almost grown to like them. Why?
Because for the first time since he was sixteen, John Summersby had to
bend his neck back to look up at someone. These grotesque humanoidal
beings were the only living things which did not make him feel
overgrown, uncouthly out of proportion, a hulking lout. If a chair was
too narrow for him, it would be like the head of a pin to one of these
kids: if a fork felt uncomfortably small in his own hand, it would be a
minikin indeed in one of those vast paws.
In their shadows, Summersby was a very small man. It was an unwonted
sensation, the most satisfying he had ever experienced.
He looked at them out there, as they lay watching Mrs. Full and Adam
mowing down Cal and Villa with imaginary Brownings. He grinned, felt his
lips curve in the unaccustomed grimace, and thought with no particular
bitterness that he was getting mellow in his last days. "Hello,
High-pockets," he said softly to the kid that owned him. "How's the
weather up there?"
At five to noon the door opened. Summersby, seeing its silent motion,
left off the mimic gunplay and started for the wall, where he could
intercept Watkins and find out whether he'd been successful. But the
safe-cracker came running down the middle of the room, yelling.
"Come on, everybody!"
"Come on?"
The two giant children were on their feet, uncertain of what was
happening. Obviously they didn't realize Watkins had been out of the
room at all.
"The adults spotted me!" roared the blond man, swinging his briefcase
wildly; where had he found that? "They're after me!"
Summersby let out an involuntary grunt when through the twenty-foot door
came an eighteen-foot creature, a thing so mind-shakingly huge that even
the ranger's size complex wasn't pleased by it. This was an adult:
leaner in the body, broader of hand and thicker of limb, wearing
trouserlike garments and a flaring jacket of royal purple caught by a
ruby bar, it advanced calmly into the hall, clumping flat-footed in
three yard strides. From its heavy-lipped gash of a mouth came noises
like a whole orchestra badly in need of tuning.
"Hwhrangg!" it cried, waving its hands in the air. "Breemingg!" It
appeared to be soothing the children, telling them that Daddy was here.
* * * * *
Mrs. Full, on the control platform, screamed. Her husband ran to her,
Summersby stepped out irresolute, Adam stood stunned. But Porfirio
Villa, afire with the heady make-believe carnage of the afternoon, was
as quick to act as his fourth cousin Pancho could have been. A dozen
waddling leaps, a swift swing of his legs over the side, and the Mexican
landed in the little red vehicle with the vast control board, the car
that only he had been able to master. Pressing buttons, pulling
plungers, sliding levers, he whirled it around and sent it at the
towering adult.
The beast skipped out of his way, blaring anger; he came about sharply,
gunned his "motor"--if it was that--and rammed the gigantean enemy on
the leg. There was the clear sharp snap of bone breaking. As Villa's car
overturned, the creature fell at full length, with a crash like an
elephant dropping out of a tree. It contracted its body and gripped its
ankle with both hands, honking dismally.
Summersby was running. He skidded up to the groveling Villa, yanked him
to his feet and shoved him out of range of the injured beast. The two
children had broken into the barks that were their equivalent of
weeping, one drawing its goading rod. Summersby crouched, went toward
it, hoping to bring it down before it stunned him. As he came within
diving range, though, the orange airship streaked over his head and
jammed its nose into the child's belly. It folded over with a whoosh,
grabbing its middle, as the toy wobbled off in eccentric flight.
Mrs. Full, the expert at flying the miniature vessel, was hectically
jamming her blocks along their metal rods; something had gone wrong with
the mechanism at the crash. Her husband hauled her off the seat and
rushed her toward the door.
The remaining child stood in the middle of the floor, staring at its
groaning, breathless playmate and at the maimed adult, honking a little
frightened song to itself. Skirting it, the humans made for the door as
fast as they could go.
Summersby overtook Watkins. "I found it okay," panted the crook.
"Can you work it?" They were through the door now, the two of them in
the lead, running across the first of the rooms.
"There were other adults," said Watkins. "Three or four saw me. I don't
know where they went."
"_Can you work it?_"
"The matter transmitter?" He grinned briefly. "Sure. There's two
principles I don't get, but--"
The doorway before them was crowded by several of the giants. They came
through, not hurrying, talking rather placidly; their movements had the
swiftness of the children's without their jerkiness. In their hands were
green goads. They pointed and came down upon the humans.
"Scatter!" yelled Summersby, and dodged under the shelf of the machine
where he had taken cover last night. He went to the end. In seconds they
would be peering under the shelf, spotting him, thrusting in their
shockers and laying him out. And, damn it all, he cared! He didn't want
to be stopped when so much of the fight was won. His heart might stop,
he couldn't help that, but till it did he wanted to go on fighting.
Balling his fists, he started to leave the sanctuary. Then he heard Adam
Pierce begin to sing.
He had a high tenor voice, mellow with a sweet touch of huskiness in it,
and he was singing "Drink to Me Only" at the top of his lungs.
He hadn't gone crazy! Summersby remembered the punishments they had
endured for making harmonious noises on the musical toy, the slap Adam
got for singing, the agonies the kids had gone through at Earth-type
melody. Adam had thought of the only weapon they could use--_song_.
"Or leave a kiss within the cup," roared Summersby, and without further
thought walked into the room. Watkins had chimed in now, breathless but
true of pitch.
Three eighteen-foot brutes were standing there. Vast hands were pressed
to bulbous heads, and agonized croaks came from gaping mouths. Whatever
a tune did to them, it wasn't pleasant. What weird auricular structure
could cringe so from a simple song? It did, and that was enough.
[Illustration]
Mrs. Full clutched his arm. "One of them struck Calvin with his prod,"
she wailed.
"Where is he?"
"Near that door."
Beginning to sing again, Summersby pelted for the prone milk inspector.
He picked him up and slung him, limp as a dead doe, over his left
shoulder. The others were gathering. He motioned them forward, and, as
Watkins joined him, ran on.
"Where'd you find your case?"
"On a table. Hope the dough is all in there." He glanced back. "They're
coming. We're racking 'em but they're game."
The woman, Adam and Villa were right behind them. As they reached the
midpoint of the third room, the dining hall, one of the beings staggered
through the door behind them. It had lost its goad and was flattening
its hands on its skull as Adam and Mrs. Full swung into "Dixie." It came
at them like a drunk, unable to navigate a straight course but
determined to reach them. It'll stamp on us, thought Summersby, easing
Full back a little on his arm. It only has to come down once or twice
with that Cadillac-sized foot and we're squashed ants. He sang.
"To live and die in...."
The second brute appeared, lurched over and fell on the table, caught up
a flat trencher and skimmed it at them. It was as big as a bathtub.
"Drop!" cried Summersby, went to one knee, felt the wind of the
trencher's passing ruffle his hair.
The next door was closed. Summersby slammed himself flat against the
wall and Adam, cat-lithe and fast, scrambled up over him, stood on his
shoulders and broke the controlling beam. The aliens came down the room
like two epileptic furies. "Sing!" said Watkins. "Everybody!" The door
slid aside with maddening slowness.
"Try a fast one," said Mrs. Full. "'Blow the Man Down.'" It was a funny
suggestion, coming from her. Summersby actually chuckled as he started
to sing.
"As I was a-walkin' down Paradise Street...."
* * * * *
The third monster entered the dining hall, caught the full blast of
their five voices (Calvin Full was still out, but Villa was giving a
rum-tum-tum accompaniment), and sank to its knees, shaking its head as
though it had been sapped. One of the others made a desperate leap at
them, landing prone within a yard of Summersby. Melodies affect its
organ of equilibrium, he thought; poor thing's in agony. "I says to her,
Lollie, and how d'ye do...."
They were through the doorway now. The only pursuer still on its feet
was reeling after them, green rod still held in one shaking hand. Its
rust-red eyes were bulging out from their deep pits, and a thin trickle
of violet ichor came from its nostril. It made guttural, creaking
noises.
"Down at the end," said Watkins. "The brown box."
"Did you gimmick it?" asked Summersby.
"I think so. We have to take a chance. The main idea is easy. I guessed
at a few things, but I think it'll work. Unless one of our big pals
checked on it and mucked up my improvements."
It was twenty yards away; but so was the last of the monsters. Summersby
changed Full to his other arm and added his voice to the general clamor
for a bar or so, then asked Watkins the question that had been nagging
at him. "Can we all go? Or does somebody have to send the others?"
"I'll send you. I'm not too sure I can get through. The dials and
focusing lenses are on the outside, you know."
"I'll work it, then." They were at the table; he dropped Full and helped
Adam shove a chair to the table. The woman and Villa were singing
"Quiereme Mucho" in Spanish, their voices a trifle hoarse by now.
"You will like hell. It'd take me ten minutes to teach you how to work
the transmitter. Think we have ten minutes?"
The giant was standing still, weaving, pawing the air. It would not give
in to its pain and dizziness. If it fell now it might hit them. It was
that close.
"You've _got_ to show me. I have a bad heart. I'm due to die in a month
or two," said Summersby urgently.
Watkins stared at him. "Do you think you went through the past hours
with a rotten ticker? Don't make me laugh."
"It's true. I'm just waiting to die. You're no more than thirty-eight or
forty, and you've got twenty-two thousand dollars there," he said,
gesturing at the briefcase. "I don't give a damn about the morals of the
case. You're a decent fellow and you ought to have this break."
Watkins snarled, as he gave the valiantly singing Mrs. Full a hand up to
the chair seat, "You think I have a martyr complex? You think I _want_
to stay here? I'm elected, that's all! It's me stays or it's everybody!
I haven't the time to teach you to work it!" He hit Summersby a hard
blow on the chest. "Your heart's fixed up the same as Adam's eyes and
Cal's sinus. These gentry could turn your lungs upside down without
opening you up, they're that good. Go back to your woods. You're okay."
"No," said Summersby with stubborn rage. "I'm sick of waiting to die.
That's why I took the coaster ride in the first place. That's why I
wanted--"
"You're nuts. You have a heart to match your frame, Highpockets, if
you'd admit it. Hand up old Cal."
The monster took two wobbling steps toward them. They were all on the
chair, then clambering onto the table. Watkins swung open the door of
the brown box. "Fast," he said urgently, "fast!"
Adam had Cal by the armpits; he lugged him into the dark interior. Villa
jumped in, Mrs. Full following. Summersby confronted the safe-cracker.
"Show me how to work the machine. I don't believe they could mend a bad
heart."
Watkins handed him the briefcase with so unexpected a motion that
Summersby took it automatically. "Send it to Roscoe & Bates, if I don't
turn up. I guess I can't use it here." He put a hand under his coat. "Go
on, Highpockets."
"No!"
Watkins drew a gun, a small steel-blue thing that looked as wicked as a
rattler. Summersby had had no idea that he was carrying it. "Hop in,
tall man," said Watkins, grinning. "You're holding up the works."
Reluctantly Summersby backed away, stood in the door of the box. He
could jump Watkins, but if the mechanism were so complex, he would only
doom them all. "You're out of your head," he said.
"Sure."
Abruptly above the safe-cracker towered the fantastic form of their
forgotten enemy, reaching for them, one hand still to its head.
Summersby inflated his lungs.
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot," he roared tunefully, "and never
brought to mind!"
Everyone joined him. It was a startling cataclysm of sound, even to
Summersby. The alien tottered, hand outstretched; its mouth fell open,
its eyes popped, the violet blood coursed from its nostril; with a
shudder it clawed the air, honked grotesquely, and pitched forward, half
on and half off the table, where it lay gurgling. A spot on the side of
its skull, about the width of a gallon jug, on which the hair grew
sparse and gray, pulsed as though there were no bone beneath the skin,
as though a bellows within was puffing it in and out, in and out. Its
ear, thought Summersby. Probably we've wrecked it for good. Maybe the
thing will die. Then Watkins is a gone goose, if he stays. He was about
to lunge at the steady gun-hand when Adam and Villa yanked him backward
into the box. Adam was crying.
"Try and come too, Mr. Watkins, try and come too," he said.
Watkins laughed. "I'll make out okay, son. I like my hide pretty well."
He waved with the gun. "Be seeing you." Then he tossed the dark weapon
into the box and slammed the door.