Collected Short Fiction, page 236
Hendriks advanced, looking for an opening. The roars of the crowd were deafening. He swung the net tentatively, readying himself for the cast. Tired muscles throbbed in his arms and thighs.
The swordsman retreated deftly, smiling. He looked confident. Hendriks began the cast.
Suddenly the sword flashed again. It was a lightning-fast attack. Hendriks managed to get the trident up to protect himself; the impact sent pain coursing up his arm, and, numbed, he dropped the threepronged weapon. Laughing jovially, his opponent kicked the trident far across the stadium and advanced with the sword.
Hendriks knew what he had to do. He dropped to his knees before the advancing swordsman and gestured toward the audience.
The swordsman nodded. He lifted the sword, held it over Hendriks’ head, and looked up at the grand dais. Hendriks looked up as well.
The thumbs were down. Emphatically so.
The sword began to descend—
“THE FOURTH ILLUSION,” said the voice.
He was racing madly down the Indianapolis Speedway, bobbing along at nearly 150 miles an hour in a flimsy-looking little racing auto. Blurs whizzed by on all sides.
Ahead of him he saw a car suddenly swerve into the embankment and burst into a mass of flames. With desperate urgency he yanked on the wheel, tried to avoid the pileup—
And failed. He felt his car going end over end into the air, and shut his eyes, waiting for the explosion that would follow.
“THE FIFTH ILLUSION,” the voice said.
He was in a prehistoric jungle; strange stumpy trees were all around, lush vegetation. A slow-moving beast of immense size was thundering away from him, its tiny head close to the ground snapping up vegetation without cease. Overhead a leather-winged flying reptile moved through the air in jerky swoops.
There was sudden thunder behind him. He turned.
Through a haze of giant mosquitoes he saw a mountain of a beast advancing toward him, tiny forepaws clutching the air, vast head opening to reveal foot-long teeth.
He started to run, but even as he did so he knew it was fruitless. In the steamy jungle sweat poured down him like summer rain. The hot breath of the tyrannosaur was only feet behind him.
Hendriks turned, looked up. The mighty jaws were opening; the knife-like teeth beckoned.
“No!” he screamed “No!”
Suddenly all went blank.
HE SAT IN NUMBED silence for an instant, realizing he was back in the theater.
The voice in his ear said, “There will be a brief intermission before proceeding with the remaining half of the program. Please remain in your seats to avoid confusion. Thank you.”
Hendriks shook his head wearily; he was dizzy, utterly exhausted. His stiff white shirt had lost all its starch. He was bathed in sweat. His hands shook. His fingernails, he noticed, had been chewed to the quick. He felt as if he had been to hell and back.
He finally mustered enough strength to look over at his wife. She was sitting back in her plush chair, utterly beaten. He glanced around the theater. The other first-nighters were sitting in attitudes ranging from glassy-eyed exhaustion to complete nervous breakdown.
“The second part of the program will begin in three minutes,” the pleasant voice said.
“Oh, no it won’t,” Hendriks muttered out loud. His voice sounded like a harsh croak in his ears. He seized his wife by the hand; she felt cold, clammy.
“Let’s go, Dot. Let’s get out of here.”
She came to life and nodded in silent agreement. Weakly they tottered down the vast aisle, past the pretty near-nude usherettes, through the huge vestibule, out into the coolness of the night air and the relative peace of the city.
There were still some people gathered outside.
“How is it? Real nice?”
“Is it over?”
“Hey, you leavin’ so soon?”
Hendriks ignored them. He hailed a jetcab, helped his wife in, staggered in himself. He gave the driver his address.
“You comin’ from the Ultrarama show?” the driver asked.
Hendriks nodded.
“Swell thing, ain’t it? It’s supposed to be real, and I mean real!”
“It sure is,” Hendriks agreed. He leaned back and tried to relax. His nerves were still quivering like overtaut harp strings.
“It’s quite a thing,” he said. “But not for me. I’m going home. I’m going to take a nice calming shower, a sedative, and get in bed. Then I’m going to read a nice quiet book. How about you, Dot?”
She nodded. “That’s real enough for me,” she said.
THE END
Skid Row Pilot
Flunking a physical was the greatest worry a space pilot had. It was the one worry Kendall never bothered about—until he landed on Mars . . .
TED KENDALL WAITED with thinly-concealed impatience in the unheated outer office of Mars’ branch of Space Service, cursing the red tape that kept him anchored on this cold, miserable pebble of a planet. “We’ll have that analysis in just a moment, Pilot Kendall,” came the voice from the inner office. “Please be patient.”
“HI try,” Kendall growled bitterly.
Actually, he thought, it was his own fault. A spacepilot had to have a reflex checkup every six months, to determine whether or not he was still capable of the myriad split-second decisions that had to be made during the course of the Earth-Mars run.
Kendall’s six-month exam had been scheduled to fall due about four days after he left Earth for his present run. A midflight due-date of this sort gave him an option: he could take the test four days early, on Earth, or he could wait till the journey was completed and be tested at the Mars end of the run.
He had chosen Mars, since otherwise he would have had to give up his assignment on the Queen Alexandra and wait to draw another. He was in good health, his reflexes were fine, and he didn’t expect to hit any snags on the Mars end.
Not much, he thought.
He rose and walked toward the door. “How’s that machine of yours coming?”
“We’re still computing your curve, Pilot Kendall. It’ll take just another moment or two.”
Frowning, he took his seat again. He hadn’t looked for this sort of trouble on Mars.
The Martian branch of Space Service didn’t work with the same smooth efficiency as the Earth office. There, you walked in, let the computer run you over, and in ten minutes your license was stamped for another six-month extension. Here things worked differently.
It had taken him two days just to get an appointment—two days in which he wandered through Mars City, lonely and bitter, shuddering in the biting cold and feeling homesick for Earth and Kathy and good warm air with some oxygen in it. Then he had his exam—and, unaccountably, they requested him to return the next day for a re-test.
A re-test? What the devil for? When Kendall had returned, he had been shivering not only with the cold of Mars but with apprehension. He looked at his hands. They seemed to be steady. Were his reflexes wearing out? Was he washed up as a space-pilot? He didn’t know. The machine was going to tell him that soon enough.
The door opened. A white-smocked computer technician wearing the comet-insignia of Space Service came out, frowning uneasily and riffling a sheaf of papers. Kendall stood up.
“It’s about time; I’d like to get going on my return run. Where’s my license?”
The technician stared at him strangely for a moment. “I’m sorry, Mr. Kendall. I can’t give you your license. The computer shows that you’re no longer fit to pilot a spacegoing vessel.”
FOR AN INSTANT Kendall didn’t react. Then it hit him. The technician had called him Mr. Kendall instead of Pilot Kendall. That meant only one thing.
He blinked and shook his head. “You’re kidding. This is some kind of joke. I never felt better in my life.”
“I’m just doing my job, Mr. Kendall. The computer says no—and I can’t argue. I’ll have to refuse you an extension of your certificate.”
“But that means—hell, man, the Alexandra’s due to blast off for Earth tonight! How—”
“We’ve already alerted an off-duty pilot to take your place, Mr. Kendall.”
Numbly he said, “And how do I get back to Earth then? Hitchhike?”
“There’s room on the passenger list of the Queen Alexandra, Mr. Kendall. The fee is—let me see—eight thousand dollars.”
“Eight thous—” He stopped. As a cashiered-out spaceman he was entitled to a fat pension: five thousand a year for the rest of his life. But eight thousand right now would wipe out his savings, would—
No. Sudden rage surged through him.
“Dammit, let me see those papers! This is a fake! Somebody wants me out of the Service, that’s all! Six months ago I had a perfect test!”
The clerk smoothly put the papers behind his back. “I’m sorry, regulations forbid—”
“To hell with regulations! I’m going to be thrown out, do you understand? I want to see those test results!”
“It’s imposs—”
Kendall leaped.
The clerk went wide-eyed in astonishment as the burly spaceman sprang for him. He jumped back, and Kendall landed just before him. Kendall ripped a fist up from his knees and smashed it into the man’s jaw, taking out all his fury and resentment on the harmless clerk. The pale man crumpled and sagged backward, mouthing stunned syllables.
Kendall hit him again and he fell.
“I want those papers!” He jumped forward atop the man, tried to turn him over, get the computer reports still clutched in the technician’s hand. Blind rage swept over him. The clerk, dazed and near unconsciousness, hung on to them grimly.
Kendall felt hands dig into his shoulderblades.
“Get off him,” someone growled.
A knee thudded against his back, sending showers of sparks before his eyes. “Get up!”
He was dragged to his feet. Three powerful-looking Martian policemen stood over him, fingering heavy wooden truncheons ominously.
“What’s the trouble here?” one of them asked. He was a blueskin nearly seven feet tall. He must have weighed three hundred pounds, and it was all muscle.
“Someone’s trying to swindle me—” Kendall began.
“Let him speak, buddy. He works here.”
“This man,” the clerk said, “is a former employee of Space Service. He was just notified of his discharge, and for some reason decided to take it out personally on me.”
“That so? Okay, friend. Come on with us.”
“No.” Kendall snapped. He bolted past the big blueskin and started wildly for the door—but a hand caught him. He was dragged back. An open palm, calloused and horny, crashed into his face. Then another. Then a fist knocked the air out of his stomach. He doubled up.
“Get away from me,” he muttered, lashing out with fists and feet. The three blueskins laughed harshly and closed in. Their blows descended one after another. Kendall spun dizzily, bellowing in anger and pain, and started to topple.
It isn’t fair, he thought in the last dim moment of consciousness. It just isn’t fair.
HE WOKE UP shivering, feeling as if a planet or two had fallen on him.
Those blueskins do a job when they beat a mail up, he thought.
Stiffly he rolled over. The chilling winds of Mars came roaring down to bite at him. He was lying in the gutter outside the Space Service office, sprawled out with one hand lying casually along the sidewalk like any drunk’s. He was numb all over. Numb and cold.
Slowly he began to remember why he was down here in the gutter, and anger began to warm him. He was washed-up. Through. At twenty-seven his career as a spacepilot was over, and he had been booted out of the Space Service office without ceremony.
Worse than that—he was stuck here on Mars with about ten dollars in his pocket. It would cost eight thousand to get back home. Eight thousand—and Kathy with a baby coming, and him with no job now. It was enough to make a man kill himself.
He started to pull himself wearily to his feet, but his aching muscles wouldn’t support him and he sagged into a limp heap on the side of the curb. His head dropped into his hands. A couple of tearless sobs shook him.
A man ought to be better prepared for things like this, he told himself. One minute a top-flight spaceman; then a machine gives you a few tests and you’re nothing but a bum sobbing in the gutter.
A hand touched his shoulder. Instinctively he shrank away. He was in no shape for further fighting.
“Leave me alone,” he said hollowly. “You want my wallet, take it. There’s ten bucks in it.”
“But I don’t want your wallet, Pilot Kendall. I want to help you.”
Slowly Kendall turned his aching neck and looked up. The speaker was a blueskin, tall and broad like all his race. He was looking down, smiling warmly.
“You can’t call me Pilot Kendall. I’m not a pilot any more.”
“That’s only temporary,” the blueskin said. “Come with me to Das Shamra, and perhaps something can be arranged.”
Kendall came awake instantly. He rose to his feet—and his six-three was dwarfed by the blueskin’s towering height. “What the hell is this? Who’s this Das Shamra, and what can he arrange for me?”
“Das Shamra is a wealthy merchant, Pilot Kendall. Wealth has many advantages. Will you come with me?”
Suspiciously, Kendall said, “Where to?”
“The Hotel Cosmos. Das Shamra is very anxious to see you. He is a very generous man.”
Kendall had been long taught never to trust a blueskin. But in his present state of mind, he didn’t give much of a damn. He was numb with cold, and whoever this Das Shamra was, he was indoors. At the moment that was all that mattered.
“Buy me a drink,” Kendall told the Martian. “I need a little pick-me-up. Then you can take me to Das Shamra.”
THE BLUESKIN and Kendall stopped off at a bar at the corner. The Martian ordered a mug of the insipid Mars beer; Kendall smirked at the brownish-green liquid and said to the barkeep, “Give me a double valdoz.”
“Sure thing, friend.”
“You’re really going in for the strong stuff, aren’t you?” the Martian asked, as the drink arrived.
“The way I feel, I need it. Besides, why settle for that sludge you call beer when the drinks are on the house?”
“A good point,” the Martian admitted. “Das Shamra can afford it.” He drained his beer, and as Kendall poured the fiery valdoz down his throat, the blueskin said. “Have another. I’ll pay.”
“No thanks,” Kendall said. “Valdoz isn’t something you swill like beer. And I’d just as soon face Das Shamra sober, thank you. Let’s go.”
The Martian spun a coin and left it on the counter. They went out into the street again—but with the potent brew within him, Kendall felt much happier about having to face the Martian winds.
He was just a little unsteady. The beating had helped, of course, and so had the drink. Normally he wasn’t a drinking man; alcohol played hell with the reflexes, and his reflexes were his most valued property. But not any more, he thought dully. Not now, when he’d been kicked out of the Service.
The blueskin led him down the twisting byways of Mars City, through heaps of filth and dark alleys. Mars was an old planet, cold and and its cities were thousands of years old, its people well skilled in-the arts of evil. It wasn’t the sort of planet an Earthman liked to stay, on for long.
Kendall scowled. The way it looked, he’d be here longer than he was counting on. Hell, it would cost fifty dollars just to radio Earth and tell Kathy what had happened.
But he couldn’t tell her. Not now, when she was about to have the baby. Not when she was so proud of the spaceman she saw only a few weeks out of each year. How could he tell her that he’d flunked the six-month exam?
“In here,” the Martian said. “Das Shamra’s suite is upstairs.”
The Hotel Cosmos looked to Kendall like one of the better establishments on Mars. But even so, it wasn’t very appetizing. Its hallways were dark and narrow: occasionally a groan or a harsh whisper could be heard coming from behind a thick wooden door. He didn’t like the place.
“This is the floor,” the blueskin said.
He opened the door and stepped inside. Moving cautiously, ready to turn tail and get out if something looked wrong, Kendall followed him.
The blueskin knelt. “This is Pilot Kendall.”
“Pleased to meet you, Pilot Kendall,” said an immensely fat Martian humped in an encircling web-work cradle. His small eyes were burned in rings of fat; his slitlike mouth was spread in a broad, unsavory grin. “I am Das Shamra,” he said, in a deep, harsh voice.
Kendall poised himself on the balls of his toes, waiting uncertainly. “Why did you bring me here?”
“All in good time. Sit down, won’t you? Care for a drink?”
He indicated a dark bottle of valdoz by his side. Kendall shook his head immediately.
“No, I don’t want any.”
“Ah, I see. A spacepilot must beware lest he damage the all-important reflexes. Very well, then; I shall drink alone unless you object.”
“Go right ahead,” Kendall said tightly. “And I’m not worried about my reflexes. I just want to keep a clear head while you tell me whatever you want to tell me.”
“You sound as if you don’t trust me,” Das Shamra wheezed. His fat body quivered as the liquor went down. “A most unfortunate attitude.”
Kendall drummed on the edge of his chair impatiently. “You sent your boy out to bring me here.
What for?”
The Martian smiled bleakly at him. “How badly would you like to get back to your native world, Mr. Kendall?”
Kendall was silent for a moment. Then he said, “What the hell do you mean?”
“I mean that I’m aware of your unfortunate run-in with several of the local police this morning. They happened to be in my employ, and they told me your motive for causing a disturbance. I offer my sympathies, Mr. Kendall.”
He’s dropped the Pilot, Kendall thought. Now it’s just plain Mister.
