The Science-Fantasy Megapack Page 29

  I admit, I fought down a desire to vomit, not from the bodies alone but because of my own sense of guilt.

  This, in a way, was my responsibility. Be specific, the man had said and I had failed the warning miserably. I had merely asked for protection, never realizing that others might be killed horribly to provide it.

  Inwardly I almost flew into a panic. I wish no more killing in my protection.

  Almost it was a prayer and I hoped to God it worked.

  * * * *

  I estimate that it was at least four hours later before I could sit and think rationally. I am not a religious person bat I literally prayed that the ‘no kill’ wish worked.

  I found out next day and it brought me little consolation. Quite by accident I had struck up a friendship with a local cop. We discovered we shared an interest in foreign stamps and, for reasons unknown, strong bonds build up between philatelists.

  As it happened, he caught me waiting outside the complex while my chauffeur was making desperate efforts to get the Mercedes across a line of traffic to pick me up.

  “Good day, Mr. Ventris, glad I’ve seen you, you had a narrow escape only a few hours ago. I was too far away to help at the time, but I saw it all.”

  I had gone a little cold inside and, candidly, I didn’t want to hear the rest. I knew, by his tone of voice, that whatever he told me was going to be unpleasant.

  “Yes, Mr. Ventris, I saw the whole thing in detail. Later, one of our street cameras got the lot. Ira Mintz had you in his sights and if Mintz got to work on you he would have taken everything you possessed and you would never have known until you tripped. Only then would you discover that he had taken everything including your shoelaces, if you know what I mean, sir. Mintz is one of the best dips—pickpockets—on this continent. It is said that he once won thirty grand on his skill alone. Someone bet him that he couldn’t take the bras off three women without them knowing within an hour and he won. Thirty minutes, he took, so they say.”

  The policeman paused and shook his head. “Won’t do that no more. As he got near you, something happened, I don’t know what. Some medical experts, back at base, think it was some kind of fit but I have never seen anything like it. My wife’s cousin is an epileptic, sir, and I’ve seen a few attacks, but nothing like this. He’ll never walk again—”

  After that it took me at least four hours to think rationally.

  A greater part of my thinking was self-examination, past and present. I was shocked when I forced myself to face facts. The damn thing was taking over my life and, by slow degrees, enslaving me. I was missing several of my favorite musical recitals, visits to the club, things like that. Yes, golf, also, to miss a weekend round before all this had once been unthinkable.

  Again there was the dog; we were missing many of our usual walks. I knew that exercise with Palmer or one of the other servants was not quite the same thing to him.

  I loved the dog, his loyalty and blind devotion—it was not being fair to him. Yet lately, I must confess, he added to my fears. All too often, lately, he would lift his head and stare at something beyond me. Then he’d growl, low and threateningly, deep in his throat.

  I knew what he was growling at, something I was beginning to sense, all too frequently. I can only describe it as a dark and threatening shadow but daily it seemed to draw closer.

  I thanked God my wife was away, taking care of a sick sister on another continent. I didn’t want her involved in this.

  Here, too, I had to be honest with myself, this was not noble or protective. I had been married to Moira for fifteen years but, somewhere along the line, love had died, flaked away into nothing. Those endearing differences of speech and gesture have degenerated to irritating mannerisms. My wife is still a beautiful woman but her beauty does not touch me.

  I wish her no harm, I do not dislike her and we lead our separate lives. To have her here, mixed up in all this business would make things many times worse. Together, she gets on my damn nerves, constantly.

  Even as I sat, forcing myself to face facts, the pressure never stopped.

  Make a wish.

  Wish for something.

  I found it difficult to keep a grip on myself. Mentally, I wanted to shout back, “Leave me alone! Get off my back, blast you!”

  I admit I gave way. Something harmless, innocuous, something which would exert no pressure on anyone.

  How is my sick sister-in-law, Geraldine, doing?

  As is often the case, I was suddenly there, as if mentally transported, seeing it all.

  And Geraldine was doing fine.

  Geraldine was practising high dives in her home’s private swimming pool.

  Where the hell was her loving sister. Moira? “Geraldine is not really well enough to talk but she sends her love.”

  Needless to say I fell into the trap. I wished I knew what my wife was doing.

  I sat in my favorite chair for a long time just staring at nothing but I must admit that I was inwardly grateful that I no longer loved her. Had I done so, the consequences would have been tragic, even so—.

  Moira was kicking a lot of high spots, miles away, at a coastal resort with a boyfriend.

  The cow! The two-faced bitch! All those messages on her sister’s health every evening.

  I had not been hurt emotionally. I acknowledge that, but, hell, my pride had. I was being made to look an idiot. No doubt those who knew were secretly laughing. A top exec’ being taken down by his wife, not so damn smart, is he?

  The worst aspect of the whole business, however, was the boyfriend himself.

  It was Preston Goff, one of our junior executives. I had never liked the man, loud, pushy and overbearing. A man who was forced to address you as ‘sir’ but made it sound contemptuous.

  When he smiled, it could be heard—the thick lips over big uneven teeth.

  Goff could not help his physical characteristics, of course, but they were something that added to my anger.

  Also I knew, damn well, who was paying for these jaunts to the coast—I was. Moira was funding their adultery through the credit card I had given her.

  I sat for a long time fuming, planning revenge and public exposures.

  I would stop the credit card, leave her virtually penniless in a top-flight hotel.

  Gradually, very gradually, I calmed down. Face it, I was a hypocrite if I told myself that all this was about Moira. I felt no pangs of loss whatever; my real resentment was against Goff. I knew, already, he would be boasting, dropping dark hints that he was bedding a top executive’s wife.

  Suddenly I was icy cold and a picture began to form in my mind. At the moment I had almost forgotten about the wishing stone. This was sharp and immediate, I had to cover my back. Therefore no showdowns, no public exposures for Goff or Moira. Such tactics, although inwardly rewarding, were also a public admission of failure. They would only tell the world that this loud mouthed lout had been having my wife behind my back—not good for my position or my business reputation at all.

  It took me five whole days of planning and re-planning before I had an answer. It was not a pleasant answer and, yes, it included the evil already looming over me.

  I had cursed the whole damn situation at first, seeing it as another cruel trick of fate in the midst of my troubles. After a day or so, however, I came to regard it as something of a blessing. My natural anger had stiffened my determination. Possibly I was sticking my damn neck out but I was suddenly determined to fight this damn thing, if possible, on its own terms.

  I am an executive in a position of power, so I took care and I planned everything.

  It wanted wishes so it got wishes but perhaps not the sort it liked.

  I wish to know.

  I wish this point explained—.

  It resented it, its anger licked at me like a remote flame but I was learning and the fundamental truth was that it, too, was bound by rules.

  One, having answered a wish, it could not reverse or alter it.

  Two; it co
uld not go against the natural laws of this world. For example, it could grant me protection but only for my natural lifespan. Immortality, therefore, was out.

  I grabbed at this one, I would begin my defiance with its own power. Immortality might be out but within one’s normal lifetime, that was another thing.

  By the time I had finished, I was immune to everything. I could not be shot, poisoned or stabbed. I was immune to all disease, injected or otherwise. I could have survived a road crash or stepped, unharmed from the wreckage of a plane.

  I rounded the whole lot off with what, I felt, were two body blows.

  I wish that you cannot harm me

  I wish that you cannot harm me, even if wished to do so when in the possession of another.

  This I felt was the decisive wish, and it knew. I sensed the searing flames of resentment, but I was not clear of it yet. I had learned from the first that escape was not a wish that would be granted.

  The only escape was to pass it on to another in the same way as I had been landed with it.

  I had a plan, I could only pray that it would work. I called my mother in Ellsworth—this is an elite kind of resort for the elderly perched right on the coast. Elderly ladies meet there and exchange gossip. Among these gatherings was another lady— Groff’s mother.

  I talked to my mother for a long time. She was an ex-actress of some note, so she would be word and part perfect.

  When Mrs. Goff was in the gathering, my mother would ease her way into the conversation, dropping a sentence here and there.

  She would say, “This last curio of my son’s, it really is a dreadful thing, only a stone but quite repulsive. I really can’t understand why he won’t get rid of it. He thinks no one will take it as a gift, particularly so, as he thinks it quite worthless.”

  “And is it worthless, Mrs. Ventris?”

  “Well, from private enquiries I have made, no. It might be worth a considerable amount of money to the right people.”

  * * * *

  The bait was on the hook; I knew it was only a question of time.

  I had to wait five days and then he caught me in the executives’ common room.

  “Excuse me, sir, may I have a word, please.” He was unnaturally polite oat clearly quite sure of himself. He had taken this high-ranking bastard’s wife. He was now about to milk him of a valuable curio.

  “Heard you didn’t care for it much, sir, also that it is worthless. I’m a bit of collector myself and I wondered if—”

  I invited him home. I hesitated, I humm’d and haa’d. “It is absolutely worthless, you know.”

  I did tell him all about it but I could see he did not believe me. Finally he paid me fifty for it. “Must give you something for it, sir, only fair.”

  He went away gleefully, thinking of rich profits and, yes, once more taking a top executive for a mug. He had had his wife and now he had taken him for a curio of considerable value.

  No, before you ask my conscience is not clear.

  It will probably play hell with me in the coming years.

  On the other hand, I have rid myself of an evil entity into the hands of a man who richly deserves it.

  SOMETHING IN THE AIR, by Gordon Landsborough

  The publisher came in, his form bulking against the rare sunlight angling down through the open doorway. He was smiling, affable, in his usual good humor.

  “Well…mornin’!” He put an inflexion in his voice, so that the last word rose half an octave, giving the intended effect of surprise and delight. Surprise at what? thought Butty, his head sore, his nose streaming with cold. Because the sun was shining? Because he’d made it from Hampstead before ten this morning? Delighted? To see them? Them? Butty said an obscene thing inside this head that only wanted to lie down.

  Some people streamed past the doorway carrying lollypops. Wind-cheatered and jeaned, the uniform of protest. The daily picket. Laughing young voices submerged in sound as a diesel bus coughed through its gears. Butty thought, “A bloody editorial office that steps right off a High Street pavement.” Then he turned his full hatred on the publisher knowing what was coming.

  “And what has my hi-fi, sci-fi editor got to tell me this morning—eh, Butteridge?” Jolly. Just short of being hearty.

  Butty said, “We’ve got the usual load of crap.” He looked across at Dickie Armstrong, bright young face alert, watching the same old morning game and interested to know how far he, Butty, would go in showing the publisher he was a crude, tasteless, insensitive creature. Further than usual, with this blasted cold in his head.

  “Crap?”

  “I’ve dipped into them. Only one that’s good.” The publisher waiting to damn his opinion of good. Butty brooded out through the doorway into the High Street. Let him wait. The High Street. Marks & Sparks protected by St. Michael. Sainsburys protecting their good name. Burton’s next to Woolworth’s next to Tescos next to Barclays next to British Home Stores next to.… Like every other High Street in the land, except that this had problems and the lollypop youngsters were going to sort then out. Or were they against all that money?

  “The good one?” The publisher, prompting, smile pleasant, waiting to annihilate him. Enormous fat wedding ring. Enormous fat, expensive fountain pen. Massive cigarette lighter. Why should a little man want to be big? Butty, trying to find a dry place in a sodden handkerchief.

  “It’s about a long-chain molecule,” Butty began, deliberately obscure, inviting death. The publisher’s round face brightened. This would be an easy one. “Imagine a benzidrene molecule and you hammer it pretty flat and tack on some hydroxyl groupings at odd corners.…”

  Young Armstrong settled back, listening with satisfaction to the cultural warfare. He didn’t know what his editor was talking about, and he was pretty sure Butty was making things up as he went on. His own inventive mind raced parallel with the words Butty was saying, pictures flung into it as they always were when people played with ideas.

  “Okay,” said the publisher, unruffled good humor demonstrated by an indulgent smile. “I’m dead ignorant. You’ve got your long-chain thingumny but I want to know what this story is about. You say it’s good. Is it good enough for our list?”

  Butty knew the answer but insisted that the publisher made it for him. “It could come under the term: hallucinatory drug. Administered, nobody wants for anything because nobody wants anything. It just brings peace.”

  “Peace?” The publisher allowed a frown to mar his sun-tanned forehead. “No fighting? That doesn’t sound much good.”

  “Not a ray gun in the whole story.” Butty lifted the manuscript. It wasn’t very bulky, and it was so neat, the tidiness of a thoughtful mind. “Under the drug people find pleasure in living.” Oh, how difficult it was to explain in simple terms to this sleek and prosperous man the pleasure of mind exploration. “The MS merely tells of a disentangling of minds that have had a few thousand years to snarl them up.” And what shocks and surprises the author had given, disentangling. Inevitable, thought Butty, those conclusions, though women would fight like hell against them.

  The publisher said, “Oh, dear,” then paused to allow another lumbering bus and then a fourteen-wheeled truck to thunder by outside. “You know I have the greatest admiration for your hi-fi sci-fi—” Butty hated him for this old joke. High fidelity SF, indeed! “—but a poor publisher must think of sales. I mean, who wants to read about people’s minds?” He was honestly perplexed. “Action, that’s what people want.”

  Young Armstrong obliged on cue. Butty looked at him suspiciously. Here was a chap with a tumbling, racing, fertile imagination, an intelligent human being, and yet he could be enthusiastic about the publisher’s needs. Butty was quite sure Armstrong wasn’t toadying up to the boss, quite sure there was no thought in that innocent young mind of sabotaging his superior’s editorship. He actually liked bug-eyed monsters. Butty shook his head, he couldn’t reconcile intelligence with that.

  “There’s one good ’un came this morning.”
Dickie flipped back some pages of the MS and found a place. He began to read: “‘Chet stood there, eyes cold glints of steel behind his visor. The savage, sub-moronic Castro came on, murder in those flaming amber eyes. Chet, clean and wholesome beside that vileness, allowed his eyes to flicker for a moment to the helpless Astra. So lovely. Naked save for the tiny kilt that barely covered those wonderful, sweeping thighs—’”

  The publisher said, “That’s great!” Exulting. “That’s your cover pic for you, smart boy!” Something crashed outside and there was a shout distantly heard above the traffic’s rumble. “Go on. What happened?”

  Butty rose and drooped towards the sunlight, blue with exhaust fumes. Butty said, as if reading: “Chet ground his teeth, then swung back his hating eyes on Castro. ‘You’ve come far enough, Castro.’ he said into his Inter-Galactic Mark 1 All Communities Interpreter. ‘One more step and by God I’ll drill you.’

  “Castro makes one more step. He could hardly help it,” Butty said bitterly “Poor sod, he probably has eight legs and what’s one little step among eight legs? So our clean-cut American youth goes for his laser gun and turns old Castro into a pool of jelly. Hurrah for progress! If it’s different kill it.”

  Dickie was indignant. “It doesn’t go like that at all.”

  Butty: “But he goes for his laser gun?”

  “Well, yes.”

  The publisher said kindly, “That sounds much more like the stuff we need for our readers. Not thinking stuff.”

  Someone came in at the doorway.

  “That’s why I handed it over to Dickie,” said Butty. “I knew you’d like it. Crap.”

  The fellow in the doorway was…queer. Vague age, vague man. Old Macintosh buttoned up to his neck. Worn shoes, very dirty sagging trousers that had probably been slept in many times, no hat and a fuzz of an immature beard.

  The chap didn’t seem all there. Looked around as if disappointed.

  “Books?” he said.

  The publisher’s genial smile wiped off. No money in this bum. Don’t waste time. His verbal laser reached out and scalded. “We publish books, we don’t sell to the public. That’s next door.” Harmless sentences, taken by themselves, but somehow offensive, insulting coming from the mouth of the publisher.