They told him he hated Earth, beating him
until he nearly died--for he must be convinced!...
It was all part of his indoctrination as a--
Cosmic Saboteur
By Frank M. Robinson
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
February 1955
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
They jumped him when he was walking past an alley, a couple of blocks
from the stockyards on Chicago's brawling South Side.
He had gotten off the "El" two stops down because it was a damn fine
Spring morning and he liked to walk through the Polish section and
watch the city wake up. He was 17 years old and he hadn't grown cynical
with the world yet. He liked the clean, fresh smell of the early
morning and he got a kick out of the sleepy-eyed housewives in their
ratty bathrobes, banging open the front door to bring in the milk and
the morning paper.
He'd pick up the live-stock reports, he thought, hop an "El" back
uptown and maybe he'd be at Amalgamated News Service only a couple of
minutes late. And if they didn't like it, they knew what they could do
about it. His kid brother ran copy at the News and he said they could
use another boy down there.
"_Stan_," Larry had said, "_you're wasting your time at AMS. You won't
get as much dough at the News but you'll learn something._"
Which was something to consider because Larry was one bright cookie and
someday he was really going to be somebody....
It was early morning and nobody had started to work yet--the streets
were deserted. There was a chill in the air and he stopped by an open
alley to light a weed and take the clamminess out of his lungs.
And then he got it.
A handful of knuckles right in the mouth, splintering his teeth and
splitting his lip so he sprayed blood like somebody had squeezed a
sponge. It was hard to get a good look because the shock had filled his
eyes with tears. But there were three of them and they were grown men
and the biggest he had seen outside of a television wrestling match.
He screamed "_Help!_" just once before a hand as big as a typewriter
buried itself wrist deep in his stomach. He doubled up and went limp,
gasping for breath. One of the men caught him by the jacket collar and
pulled him further into the alley, to the back of a restaurant where
there was a small mountain of empty boxes and garbage cans full of
orange peels and eggshells and stale doughnuts.
Nobody said a word.
He was still fighting for his breath and feeling sick when they
stood him up against the refuse pile and started going over him
scientifically, cutting his face and hitting him in the kidneys. He
tried to blink away the blood that kept streaming into his eyes, to
get a good look at them. But they kept working on his face until all
the world was a bloody haze and it was hard to even make out light and
shadow....
He lashed out once and heard a satisfying grunt and then somebody hit
his wrists with a slat of wood, deadening the nerves so he couldn't
close his hands. He tried to scream but he had no wind left and he
realized dimly it wouldn't have done much good. The streets were
deserted and it was the type of neighborhood where nobody went to
anybody else's rescue--least of all, early in the morning.
A fist caught him flush on the side of the jaw and he staggered over
against the garbage cans and fell to the bricks, his face half buried
in the stinking garbage. He played dead dog for a moment, catching his
breath, then scrambled to his knees, clawing handfuls of rotting orange
peels and decayed bones to throw at the three silent men in front of
him.
"_You'll never get away with this! The cops_...."
The toe of a shoe caught him in the groin and he collapsed again. He
didn't even recognize the thin screaming that sounded in his ears as
his own.
* * * * *
A voice from a million miles away said: "_We're not supposed to kill
him!_" and he guessed that the men were from out of town because it was
an accent that he had never heard before. Then two of them were holding
him up, twisting his arms behind him, while the third stuffed garbage
in his mouth, choking him so his screams died away to a dull, muffled
sob.
They let him go for a minute and he tried to run away. They laughed
and tripped him before he had taken three steps. Then they jerked
him to his feet and started hitting him again, working him over
professionally, chopping at him with fists covered by thin, leather
gloves that cut his face and ripped his shirt and jacket.
When he finally slipped limply to the pavement, they let him lay there,
kicking him in the thighs and the buttocks. His cap was a dozen feet
away, the remnants of his jacket not too far from that. His pants were
ripped and his shirt was in shreds, the strips waving like bloody
banners in the slight, morning breeze.
One of the three said "_I guess it's time to go._" Stan could hear
running feet and then there was a long silence. He couldn't tell if it
was a minute or half an hour later when footsteps again sounded across
the bricks and somebody knelt by his side.
"You're hurt, son! Let me help you...."
The voice was soft and full of compassion, like a minister's might be.
The man helped him to his feet and Stan lurched to the street and sat
down on the curbstone. He tried to wipe away the blood with a tattered
shirt sleeve but it still seemed to be running down his cheeks. Then he
realized that he was crying.
"Try this."
He felt something pressed into his hands and wiped at his face with the
handkerchief.
"T-thanks."
"Who were they, son?"
"I don't know. I was just walking past the alley and they ... jumped
me. I don't know why. Honest to God, Mister, I don't know why!"
He felt close to crying again and shut up for a moment to try and
control the convulsive heaving of his chest. Then he looked up at the
man standing next to him.
Black shoes, brand new. Neatly pressed gabardines. Tall and somewhat
thin. Wearing a light, black topcoat like you might imagine a priest
would wear. A tan hat, also brand new. Middle twenties, with the face
of a saint. The face of a man you knew you could trust.
"What's your name, son?"
"Stan. Stanley Martin." He was still close to sobbing and the name came
out with too many syllables.
The man pondered for a moment and Stan thought he looked a little like
a high-school principal trying to guess how bright a student might be.
"We'll have to fix you up, Stan. Then we'll have to take you home." He
helped Stan to his feet and guided him over to a black car a few yards
down the street.
Far away, there was the wail of a siren.
"The cops," Stan said, hanging back. "I gotta tell the cops."
"There'll be time enough for that later," the man said smoothly. There
was the faintest suggestion of haste in his voice.
"I oughtta wait," Stan mumbled, but the man pushed him gently into the
car and Stan didn't argue. He lay down on the back seat, resting his
throbbing head against the cushions and the side of the car. It was
a big car, he thought vaguely. Like a rich man's sedan, with a glass
partition between the driver and the passengers.
He heard a hissing sound from somewhere and the world started to gray
out. And then he suddenly wondered how he could be taken home if the
man didn't know where he lived....
Just before he blacked out altogether, a voice said:
"_I'm your friend, Stan. Say it to yourself and say it over and over.
I'm your friend. I saved your life._"
"You're my friend," Stan repeated dully, his mind slipping slowly into
a pool of throbbing blackness. "You saved my life...."
The last thing he saw was a quick glimpse of the city streets, the
slowly rotting houses, and the bright splashes of green in the front
lawns and the cottonwood trees.
CHAPTER II
His muscles were aching and sore and he felt sick to his stomach.
His eyes wouldn't focus at first and he stayed flat on his mattress
and stared at the hazy outlines of the room. It was a funny kind of
hospital. Nobody had bandaged his cuts--they were still caked with
blood--and he still had on the same torn clothes that smelled of sweat
and dirt.
_Where had the man taken him?_
He shook his head, trying to make out the details of the room, and his
vision cleared a little.
The room didn't even come close to a hospital. It was more like a
jail. There was the cot that he was sitting on and the washbasin and
the flush bowl and the barred door at the entrance. Nothing else. No
windows, no desk, no calendar, nothing. Just a small cell of gray,
featureless metal.
He stood up, holding on to the cot for support, and touched the bars
wonderingly. He hadn't done anything wrong, he thought. Not a damn
thing!
"_Guard! Guard!_"
He'd get a lawyer! Larry had connections and maybe....
There were footsteps outside the cell door and a moment later it swung
open. The man who opened it wasn't a guard--at least he didn't dress
like one, Stan thought. Just a man in a blue suit. Smiling and urbane
and what the ad writers would call dapper.
Except for his eyes. The same kind of cold eyes that an executioner
might have. Eyes that had watched people die--slowly.
Stan shivered.
Death. In a blue serge suit.
"I was wondering when you were going to wake up," the man said
pleasantly. He held out his hand. "My name's Fred Tanner. You...."
Stan didn't take the hand. "I want to know what's coming off here!
Where's the joker who brought me here? Where's...."
"Somebody else can tell you all you want to know," the man said easily.
"Just follow me."
Stan didn't move.
"You coming?"
It wasn't a question, it was a statement. Tanner stood there, his head
half cocked, watching Stan curiously, like somebody might watch an ant
or a bird. Stan started to say something but the words died in his
throat. Tanner was no weakling. He had thick wrists and a bull neck and
a feeling of power that he wore like a suit of clothes.
He was the type, Stan thought coldly, who could break you in two if he
wanted.
He shrugged and followed Tanner down the corridor for a hundred feet
and then into a room about the size of his own cell. There was an oval
shaped desk in one corner and a tubular chair by it, both of the same
metal as the walls and the floor. The whole assembly looked like it had
been punched out of one sheet.
The man behind the desk looked like an ex-football player ten years
later, Stan thought. A husky man, just starting to go to fat, with
thick lips and thinning hair.
Tanner pushed Stan forward. "Here's the boy, Mr. Malcolm."
Stan wet his lips. "I ... I'd like to know what this is all about, sir."
"Fred," the man behind the desk said in a bored voice. "He lacks
manners."
Tanner casually lashed out with the flat of his hand and caught Stan
on the side of the head--hard. Stan staggered against the wall and
half-slid to the floor. He could feel the tears start again.
"Hey! What's the...."
"Again, Fred."
Stan crumpled to the floor, shook his head, and struggled back to his
feet. He was dazed but he knew enough not to say anything.
"What's your name?"
"Stanley Martin. I told...."
"Fred."
The blow rocked him but he managed to keep his feet. His legs felt like
water.
"How many of your family are living, Martin?"
"Just my mother." He licked his cracked lips. "And my brother. That's
all."
"You've lived in Chicago all your life?"
"Yes ... yes, sir."
* * * * *
Mr. Malcolm finally put down the reports he had been reading and looked
up at him. If Tanner's eyes had been cold, Stan thought, then Mr.
Malcolm's eyes were frozen.
"You don't like Chicago, do you?"
"I ... I guess I like it well enough."
"No, you don't," Mr. Malcolm said smoothly. "You told the other copy
boys you hated the city and as soon as you could, you were going to
leave it."
Stan gaped. "How did you know?"
"We know a lot of things." Mr. Malcolm leaned casually back in his
chair, inspecting Stan like he would a butterfly on a pin. "We know
that you hate your mother. And your brother."
"Where do you get that stuff?" Stan bleated, his voice rising. "What
are you trying to prove?"
"Fred. Again."
Tanner had to help Stan up.
"I'm going to be sick," Stan said faintly.
The man behind the desk ignored him. "Your mother used to take a strap
to you when you came home late, Martin. She used to accuse you of
stealing in the stores."
Lies, Stan thought. But he didn't dare talk back.
"Your brother, Larry. He was always your mother's favorite, wasn't he?
She always did a lot of things for him that she never did for you,
didn't she?"
"Larry never...!"
"Fred."
"_I'm sick_," Stan whimpered. "_Honest to God, I'm sick!_"
"You hate the city," Mr. Malcolm repeated coldly. "You hate your
family."
"I think you're crazy," Stan said weakly. "I want a lawyer."
Mr. Malcolm turned back to his reports.
"Take him to the other cell, Fred."
Back to a cell, Stan thought weakly, following Tanner out. Where at
least he could lie down....
But the other cell was too small to lie down in. It measured two feet
square and there was no room to lie down. Or even sit down. The most he
could do was lean.
He touched the wall with his hand and screamed with pain. The walls
were wired for electricity, a thin strip of insulation separating them
from the floor. He couldn't lie down, he thought. He didn't have room
to sit down and he couldn't even lean against the walls. The only thing
he could do was stand up ... and stand still.
They took him out eight hours later, when he was too hoarse to scream
and the electric walls had no effect on his sagging body.
* * * * *
It was a different room, this time. A comfortable room with carpets on
the floor and pictures on the wall and an over-stuffed sofa of some
plastic material along one side.
The man waiting for him was the same young, saintly faced man who had
picked him up on the street.
"This is Mr. Ainsworth," Tanner said in a low voice, and nudged him
forward.
Mr. Ainsworth looked at him, shocked. "My God, son, haven't they taken
care of your cuts?"
Stan just stared at him. Mr. Ainsworth's shocked look faded into one of
grim efficiency.
"We'll have to do something about that, son--and right away!" He
pressed a button and turned to Tanner. "Take this man to the infirmary
immediately, Fred! And don't bring him back here until he's been bathed
and issued new clothes!"
He looked back at Stan, his face a study in sympathy and pity. "Believe
me, I had no idea...."
It was a reprieve from hell.
He was taken to an infirmary where doctors and nurses, their faces
entirely hidden behind gauze masks, bathed him and washed his cuts and
covered them with collodion and gave him a hypodermic shot of something
that relaxed his muscles and banished his pain completely. They
destroyed the rags he had on and in their place he was issued a suit of
blue serge, like the one Tanner wore.
When he went back to the room with the carpets and the sofa, Mr.
Ainsworth had set up a small dinner table. The room was thick with the
fragrance of fried eggs and bacon and hot buttered toast and steaming
coffee.
Stan's stomach knotted and turned and he suddenly was sick.
"Take it easy," Mr. Ainsworth said gently. "Go slow at first."
Stan pulled a chair over to the table. He felt weak. Eggs and bacon and
coffee.... After he had finished, he sat back and took the cigarette
that Mr. Ainsworth offered him.
"What am I doing here, Mr. Ainsworth? Why can't I get a lawyer?"
"I wish I could answer all your questions," the saintly faced man said
thoughtfully. "But you have to understand that I'm just a hired hand
here. There are some things I'm not at liberty to tell you."
"If I'm not in jail, then just where the hell am I?" Stan asked
bitterly.
Mr. Ainsworth held up his hands. "I'm sorry, Stan."
Things weren't adding up, Stan thought, confused. Where was he if he
wasn't in jail? The cell and the slightly curving corridor, all of
metal. And the doctors and the nurses, their faces almost hidden behind
their gauze masks....
"They took me to see a Mr. Malcolm the other day," Stan said in a low
voice. "He told me I hated the city and that I even hated my own mother
and brother. Can you beat that? Honest, this character...."
His voice trailed away. Mr. Ainsworth was staring at the floor, a frown
on his face.
"Everybody builds up resentments against parents who are overly strict,
Stan. And it's not unusual for a mother to favor one of her children
over the others."
Stan stared at him, open-mouthed.
"But you're agreeing with Mr. Malcolm," he whispered. "Honest, you must
be a little crazy, too."
Mr. Ainsworth looked hurt.
"I'm your friend, Stan--I wouldn't lie to you! I didn't save your life
just so I could tell you lies!"
It was crazy, Stan thought. He had been on his way to the stockyards
one morning and the roof had fallen in. He had been kidnapped and
tortured apparently for no other reason than to be told he hated his
family.
It didn't make sense.
He dropped his cigarette on the carpet and ground it out under his
heel. "You're just as bad as the others--you're working right in with
them!"
Mr. Ainsworth looked disappointed and pressed a button on his desk.
Tanner appeared in the doorway, his face as impersonal as ever.
"You'll have to take him back, Fred." He looked at Stan sadly. "We're
trying to be your friends, son, and you won't let us. We're only
telling you the truth!"
Stan started to shake. "You can go to hell," he blurted.
Tanner took him by the arm to lead him out and the very touch of his
hand made Stan tremble even more. He was shaking like a leaf, and he
couldn't stop it. It had been such an odd thing. When he had told Mr.
Ainsworth he was as bad as the others, Mr. Ainsworth had ... flickered.