_You are the man we need, Ray Berton.
You're a killer, but you're sane and rational.
Those we are fighting are insane, irrational,
and they'll destroy humanity if they are not
stopped. We have power, but we can't use it for
destruction, no matter how great the need. But
we can give you power--then it's up to you!_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Future combined with Science Fiction Stories July-August 1950.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
From an evening tele-audiocast by International Information Service,
New York City, September 8, 1983: Reporter: ... _and now, as a special
dramatic interest story, here's something for the Fortean Society,
though a more scientific diagnosis will certainly be forthcoming._
_At five P.M. today, a man's body materialized out of thin air at an
altitude of over ten thousand feet above Uptown Manhattan. According
to many reliable witnesses, the body plunged down to smash into an
unrecognizable mass on the plasticrete of Tier 19 and Grav-lift 6-H,
Fifth Avenue II._
_The reliable witnesses include twenty passengers of the trans-State
jetliner, all of whom agree that the unknown man did materialize out of
the air very near the liner's position as it circled for a cradle in La
Guardia Field._
_Every witness tells about the same story that the body did appear
suddenly from the atmosphere. There was no other air vessel near. Also
it was reported that another object followed the body out of the air,
according to preliminary reports, a manuscript oddly written on a
scroll of metal._
_Stay visioed to I.I.S. for further reports on this Fortean mystery.
The manuscript, we hope, will contain some kind of explanation which
will be forwarded to you as soon as it reaches our news clearance
scanners...._
* * * * *
It starts for me on Mars. I guess Mars is about the only place it could
have started. Maybe they'll bring the real earth law there someday, and
clean up dives like Jelahn's _krin-krin_ tavern on the North Canal, a
breeding place for crime, and where a man can be goaded into killing.
That night I didn't care much.
The place was crawling with scum, strained through the sieves of
Marsport, and Jokhara and Sanskran where the worst of the asteroid
miners and space bums gather. Earthmen and Martians and half-breeds
whom the Solar cops, said to be the toughest ever to wear a shield,
would have gone at with care.
I was feeling high, with enough _krin-krin_ burning in me to make a
Martian _srith_-dog sit up and talk Esperanto. And by the time I'd been
blotting up _krin-krin_ for a few hours, any space bum thinking to push
me around was crazy. So the big yellow skinned Martian with the green
eyes was crazy for trying to drag this breed tavern girl away from my
table.
Crazy first, then dead. I'd seen plenty of dead men before, and I knew
the look. I knew I'd hit him too hard as soon as he stretched on the
bright green stones of Jelahn's tavern, and didn't try to get up.
Standing there looking down at him, I knew he'd never get up by himself.
The whole tavern had dried up like a scab. The place was so quiet you
could hear the Martian's blood trickling from his mouth onto the floor.
"You certainly lowered that poor, poor Marty," somebody whispered.
I swung around fiercely, but the speaker eased away from me. "What in a
blasted jet's the use of hitting a man, if you don't hit him right?" I
yelled. I was drunk, and I was getting sick; I'd never liked the sight
or smell of dead men.
Nobody said anything. Everybody looked at the dead Marty. The blood
stopped running. I prodded him with my foot. Oh, he had the look all
right, the kind a man only gets once and for always. People stared.
Even on Mars, death isn't so common that it isn't interesting.
I could hear myself breathing in the silence. I was sick. I'd
never been the kind of space tough one of those Martian Colonial
Administrator's women would invite to a Double Moon tea, but just the
same everyone doesn't like to kill.
My record wasn't too bad; brawls, drunks, a few killings in self
defense. Born in the asteroids, father a prospector, me a prospector.
At twenty-three, I'd hit a strike a month ago, and cushioned into the
big port at Sanskran to unload, get more machinery and return to that
meteorite where I'd hit "heavy" beryllium, paired-atom stuff worth
twice its weight in platinum to the Atomician boys on Earth.