The Third Science Fiction Megapack Page 19

  “It does sound kinda appealing.”

  “Et felicitas perpetua.”

  “I give up.”

  “It’s from the Latin Mass. Et lux perpetua. It means ‘and light everlasting’ except Celestial Games plugs ‘happiness’ in for ‘light.’”

  “And Happiness Everlasting!” Eddie pronounced.

  “At first, it was just an idea I toyed with secretly, but then I realized the company was spying on me, and I made a kind of game of it, hiding from them. Keeping the key was just my final ‘up yours’ to Adolphus and his cronies.”

  “So, if you don’t give up the key, nobody gets back, and they can’t market the thing?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What about you? What happens when they unplug the computer?”

  “My existence terminates.” And with that he thrust his stick deep into the sand and left it there, poking up in front of him.

  “Don’t you want to go on?”

  The boy turned his head to the side and looked darkly down the beach. “This didn’t work out like I thought it would.” He crossed his arms in the gesture of an old man.

  “Whadaya you mean?”

  “I thought I’d come back and go through this loop a couple of thousand times, maybe more, and I’d get so bored that when the company got pissed off enough to pull the plug I wouldn’t care.”

  “Aren’t you getting bored?”

  “Actually, I’m enjoying myself,” he said grimly. “I think it must be a defect in the program.”

  “What a shame.” Eddie laughed. “But then, maybe that changes things a little.”

  “Maybe it does. You know, I didn’t really have a plan. I just thought I’d live my happiest day over and over for a while and then check out. But, now I find I really do care.” He lifted his arms, palms up. “I’d like it to go on.”

  “Why can’t it?”

  “I didn’t think they would figure out the genetic key, but they did. And by sending you in they’ve forced my hand. They know I won’t leave you stranded in here.” His voice took on a tone of resignation. “And once they get the key there will be no incentive to keep the program running.”

  “I’ll make them! I’ll make it a condition of giving them the key.”

  Charlie smiled. “Thanks, Eddie, but you’re no match for those guys.”

  “I’ll buy the computer. I’ll keep it running myself.”

  Charlie lifted his eyebrows. “That might work, for a while at least.”

  “It’ll work for a long time. I promise.”

  “Move it to another location. Hire another company to monitor it.”

  “You know, Charlie, suddenly, I’m feeling very assertive.”

  Charlie beamed, and then they looked at one another for a long while.

  “You click your heels three times.”

  “No!” grinned Eddie.

  “It was my favorite book,” Charlie said with a little wave of his hand. “And then you say the name of my dog.”

  “Shep?”

  “I loved him,” Charlie said, softly.

  “And that’s the key?”

  The boy grimaced. “That’s all there is.”

  They said nothing for a moment.

  Suddenly, Charlie pulled the stick out of the sand and offered it to Eddie. “Why don’t you come and spear some jellyfish with us?”

  Eddie took the stick, the grin still on his face. But then, “Naw, I’ve got other things on my mind. I’ve gotta twist some corporate arm.” He handed the stick back. “But one more thing: you know, that bit about love?”

  “Don’t start that again. There’s no point.”

  “It’s important, Charlie. We both had trouble with it, and we should have talked. In the long run we had one another all along. We could have worked it out.”

  “Could we?”

  “You know, I’m sorry we can’t get in this thing and just do it all over again. We could be best friends.”

  Charlie laughed. “The ultimate virtual reality.”

  “But even if we can’t, the rest is going to be different, now.”

  Charlie nodded. “You still have some time left.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Me, too, in my own little paradise.”

  “I wish you could come back with me.”

  “Don’t,” cried Charlie. “Don’t make me sorry.”

  “No, no. I don’t mean to.”

  The boy bit his lip. “But you could come and see me.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that.”

  “And don’t forget that someday later, maybe much later, when you’re about to—you know—you could come back and stay.”

  Eddie was quiet. “I’ll have to think about that.”

  “Yeah, it takes some getting used to, and maybe your paradise would be different from this.”

  Eddie’s throat was dry, and his nose started running. “Goodbye, Charlie. I’m really glad I got to see you again,” he said, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “And I’ll come back and spear some jellyfish, I promise.” And then, he knelt in the sand and opened his arms. “Can we…”

  The boy looked at him, a flicker of fear on his face, but then he rushed forward and threw himself into his brother’s arms.

  To Eddie, the little body felt so small, so thin and frail. Eddie cried. The boy squirmed, and Eddie released him. Then he stood up and watched as Charlie turned and ran with his stick toward the ocean, the sand flying from his little feet, his hair blowing in the salt breeze.

  SEEDS OF INVASION, by Philip E. High

  Markham locked the door of his car unhurriedly. There was no great haste the body would not go away.

  He walked through the police cars and ducked under the restraining ribbon. A constable standing in his path, recognized him and saluted.

  “Right by the green shed, sir.” He stepped smartly back.

  “A nasty one, Cole?” He had already noticed that the officer was pale.

  “Well, yes, sir, it is. I’ve seen a few in my time, sir, as you know, but this one—he’s been crucified, sir.”

  Markham passed on, not the first by any means. Two in Africa and some religious madman in Warsaw—Yes, it was not new, he had seen worse.

  He had not.

  Those had just been corpses.

  This one was not. This one was a skeleton.

  Not an old one, brown with age and falling apart but a new one, picked or scraped clean.

  And worse, it was dressed. It wore a flat brown hat with a small peak.

  It wore a brown industrial cover-all such as a man might wear in a trade that was not too messy.

  Beneath it he wore normal everyday clothing.

  He wore boots and they were on.

  Somehow a gold ring was adhering to the bone of his finger.

  Markham noticed that the black boots were polished and neatly tied.

  He was not, strictly speaking, crucified. The position was correct with the arms outspread but no nails held him to the green painted wood of the garden shed.

  He was literally stuck there, held by his clothes by some unknown adhesive.

  A doctor and two paramedics were on the scene, all looking distraught, but Markham knew that only forensics would be able to give him some clue as to the time of death.

  Investigation at the scene took a lot of time. The body was not removed from the shed. The wooden wall was cut round him and taken with him. Just what sort of adhesive had kept him stuck there and why?

  It was fairly obvious, however, who he was. He was the owner of a small rural business dealing in agriculture.

  A business that dealt in seeds, both vegetable and floral. He had had not a little success in business despite its smallness. Some of the hybrids he had produced had won awards.

  An employee gardener arrived who had to be treated for shock before he could give evidence. “I suppose it’s him. How can you tell? It’s his clothes, his pocket watch, his signet ring. No, it don’t look as if he had been robbed. E
ight hundred would be about normal, Monday is a slack day.”

  “Anything unusual strike you before you left yesterday? Anything, man, however trivial or irrelevant it might seem.”

  “Well, sir, there was a funny packet of seeds although I don’t suppose that had much to do with it.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It came with the rest of the post—I suppose. It didn’t have no address and no supplier’s name on it. It just said what seeds were in it out they weren’t printed right either. It said ‘Turrn Nip Seed’.”

  “Have you got the packet?”

  “No, sir, I threw it in the bin but I dare say I could find it; bin ain’t been emptied yet.”

  In the middle of the search, a pale-faced constable came in. “I think I’ve found a dog, sir.”

  The man looked up from his search. “Oh, that would be Charlie, sir. Wondered where he was. Black Retriever, you can’t mistake him.”

  “You bloody can now,” said the constable in a bitter voice.

  He led Markham to an open tool shed at the bottom of the smallholding. The animal was held upright between two forks, one forepaw raised as if about to run. It struck Markham as singularly grotesque that it should have been left in this manner for the dog, like its owner had been stripped clean. The collar still hung round its neck but that was all. There was no fur and no flesh, nothing to suggest how it had died.

  Markham slouched around the garden for some time, hands locked behind his back, deep in thought.

  The smallholding was compact and neatly laid out. Two fair size greenhouses, six wooden sheds and eight divided garden plots. The entire unit was linked by a number of small shingle paths and entirely surrounded by a tall wicker fence.

  Markham took out his pipe and clamped it between his teeth. When he arrived at the main storeroom, his assistant, Detective Wayne, had news from forensics.

  “No doubt about the identity of the skeleton, sir, it was the owner of this place, Aaron Cord. Dental records match exactly, the man broke his leg as a teenager and the mend is visible. We’re lucky enough to have found a clear and recent photograph, taken not long ago at an agricultural dinner.”

  Markham studied the picture carefully, not knowing if the picture would be of much use now. He had, however, a photographic memory and was careful to take in details.

  Cord had been a big man, broad shouldered but slightly bowed forward. Age forty- five, bald, but with a bushy, square cut type of beard.

  Wayne interrupted his thoughts. “Sorry to bring bad news, Chief, but high brass are coming.”

  Who—exactly?”

  “Exactly, I can’t help, Chief, but the whisper I got was a Commander and an Area Superintendent.”

  The Commander turned out to be Hugo Frederics who knew Markam of old and respected him.

  The Area Superintendent was named Haslett and did neither. He was going to learn the hard way.

  “What are going to do about the media, Markham, this is a nasty business to inflict on the public.” Frederics looked worried.

  “Well, sir, I thought it best to compromise. This is not a thing we can cover up forever. I stated that the victim had been crucified but I did not mention the macabre side.”

  “You issued that to the press without consulting higher authority?” the Superintendent sounded shocked.

  “Time was of the essence, the reporters had already sensed that this murder was unusual.”

  The other scowled at him. “That remains to be seen. Oh, and, yes, I am quite sure the Commander can do without that filthy pipe.”

  Commander Frederics sighed; he had put up with the man’s ingratiation long enough. “Detective Markham does not smoke a pipe,” he said, gently. “He never has. It is a clay pipe and he sucks at it because it helps him to concentrate.”

  The Superintendent paled slightly. In his mind he could see a black line being drawn through his chances of promotions. Somehow it was not fair, he had worked hard at trying to impress his superior. It was all Markham’s fault, these bloody hick detective thought they knew everything.

  He was wrong; in this case Markham was up against a brick wall and knew it. He did not know where to look or what to look for. Of one thing, however, he was certain: this was not murder. He had no evidence to support the belief but his instincts and hunches told him it was so. He was far too experienced to ignore them for they had never failed him.

  Soon after the high brass left, he was joined by Winsler from Forensics. “You’ve got some funny stuff with this lot, Ted. I’ve done my best with it but I can’t give you much. For instance, that seed packet, it’s not paper. Candidly I don’t know what it is but I can draw parallels from its construction. It runs very close to a wasp nest, produced in the same sort of way. The badly spelt print saying that it contains turnip seeds is not print at all. It is hundreds of thousands of minute perforations. It only looks like black print.”

  “Anything on the skeleton?”

  Winsler nodded. “It’s bloody horrible, Ted, but I know I’m not alone in this. My whole team feels the same, and as you know they’re an experienced lot.”

  He paused and cleared his throat before going on. “The flesh on the bones was eaten. Chewed and sucked clean and so deeply that it makes vultures look like dirty eaters. Under a microscope, the scraping and indentations are clearly visible.”

  “This seed packet—you still don’t know what it is?”

  “Honestly, no. I only likened it to a wasp nest because the structure follows a similar pattern. We still have no idea what the structure is made of.”

  Markham had the frightened feeling that he was running out of ideas; he had yet to unearth a lead. “How does the substance respond to chemical tests?” he asked.

  “Well, there is only one which seems to touch it. Almost the entire line of corrosive acids left it untouched but, by accident, we discovered it doesn’t like alcohol.”

  “You mean like whisky?”

  “Not exactly, we wouldn’t waste good Scotch on any strange substance although I suppose it would have the same reaction. No, this was industrial alcohol—you can’t drink it.”

  Markham sucked at his empty pipe. “Where would I get a casket or barrel or whatever it comes in?”

  “You’d need a license but, of course, we can get you one. What do you propose doing with it?”

  “I have no idea yet, just a hunch.”

  After Winsler had gone, Markham mooched round the grounds again, aware he was looking for something but not knowing what. He had the vague idea that somewhere here was something that didn’t quite fit.

  After ten minutes more walking he came to a slow stop and said: “Ah!”

  He returned to the main building and found the gardener. “Your help, please; just a question or two.”

  He led the way to his original position. “Those two huts, what are they?”

  “Well, the one on the left is full of tools, forks, spades, things like that. The one on the right is mostly plant food, you mix it with the soil to promote growth.”

  “Anything strike you as odd about that hut?”

  “Not that I can see, sir. You do mean the right hut?”

  “You make a habit here of varnishing just one side of a hut, do you?”

  “Varn—” The gardener’s mouth fell open. “Hell! Sir, you’re right, of course, I can see it now. I never done it—don’t know who did.”

  He made to go forward but Markham stopped him. “We’d rather you didn’t touch it.” He could lie convincingly when he had to. “There might be fingerprints on it.”

  The gardener nodded vigorously. “I do see your point, sir, could have made a mess of things there.” He frowned at the side of the shed. “Damn thick covering for varnish, must be a special kind.”

  Markham put guards on the place for the night. He wanted six but the station would only allow him three. “We haven’t got the men to spare, Markham, you’ll just have to manage.”

  When they arrived, he w
as careful to keep to the facts. “Pick a spot, stay in it for about forty minutes then move on but be alert.”

  “What are we looking for, Chief, exactly?”

  “Candidly, I have no idea. All I can say is, be ready for anything unusual, odd sounds, calls, strange movements and be ready to switch on your torches.”

  When he had gone the men muttered together and swore a lot. “Chasing bloody ghosts by the sound of it.”

  Nonetheless Markham was genuinely liked and they soon fell into the routine of forty-minute patrols.

  It was around three in the morning when constable Didget said: “Mack isn’t responding to the move call.”

  “We’d better go and see.”

  They went round to a small greenhouse, powerful torches flashing before them, and came to a dead stop. Both men were experienced and, fortunately, both quick thinkers.

  Their colleague, Mack, was sitting on a wooden box and half slumped against the wall of one of the huts. His eyes were shut, he was moaning but, all too clearly, he was regaining consciousness.

  Didget eased the unconscious man to an upright sitting position. “Easy, Mack, easy. You must have slipped and fell, knocked yourself out. No, don’t try and sit up, you might have concussion, just take it easy, eh?”

  The other officer was on the ’phone. “Yes, the police. An ambulance fast—understood?”

  The paramedics, when they arrived, were stricken for a few seconds. “My God! How—?”

  “Never mind about that; he’s coming round. We think, when he does, the pain will come with it.”

  They called Markham before the ambulance left. “Nothing we could do, Chief. The medics couldn’t do much for him either except make him as comfortable as possible. Pardon—? No, sir, not a hope. Nothing left, nothing at all. They reckon a complete amputation, just below the knee.”

  He finished his report and turned away feeling slightly sick. Only now had the full implications hit him. Coming on Mack and seeing—The light of his torched had touched a small pile of black fragments, later proved to be the remains of his sock.

  The shoe was intact but the foot within it was not, it had been picked clean to just above the ankle.

  Both men were convinced, that but for the interruption, Mack would have ended up the same way as the unfortunate Aaron Cord.