But somehow he kept his head-somehow, dizzily, he was gripping his gun in his upflung hand-somehow, incredibly, crossing the narrow room with averted face,groping for Smith"s shoulder. There was a moment of blind rumbling in emptiness, and then he found it, and gripped the leather that was slimy and dreadful and wet-and simultaneously he felt something loop gently about his ankle and a shock of repulsive pleasure went through him, and then another coil, and another, wound about his feet...
Yarol set his teeth and gripped the shoulder hard, and his hand shuddered of itself, for the feel of that leather was slimy as the worms about his ankles, and a faint tingle of obscene delight went through him from the contact.
That caressive pressure on his legs was all he could feel, and the voice in his brain drowned out all other sounds, and his body obeyed him reluctantly-but somehow he gave one heave of tremendous effort and swung Smith, stumbling, out of that nest of horror. The twining tendrils ripped loose with a little sucking sound, and the whole ma.s.s quivered and reached after, and then Yarol forgot his friend utterly and turned his whole being to the hopeless task of freeing himself. For only a part of him was fighting, now-only a part of him struggled against the twining obscenities, and in his innermost brain the sweet, seductive murmur sounded, and his body clamored to surrender...
Shar! Shar y"danis... Shar mor"la-rol-" prayed Yarol, gasping and half unconscious that he spoke, boy"s prayers that he had forgotten years ago, and with his back half turned to the central ma.s.s he kicked desperately with his heavy boots at the red, writhing worms about him. They gave back before him, quivering and curling themselves out of reach, and though he knew that more were reaching for his throat from behind, at least he could go on struggling until he was forced to meet those eyes...
He stamped and kicked and stamped again, and for one instant he was free of the slimy grip as the bruised worms curled back from his heavy feet, and he lurched away dizzily, sick with revulsion and despair as he fought off the coils, and then he lifted his eyes and saw the cracked mirror on the wall. Dimly in its reflection he could see the writhing scarlet horror behind him, cat face peering out with its demure girl-smile, dreadfully human, and all the red tendrils reaching after him. And remembrance of something he had read long ago swept incongruously over him, and the gasp of relief and hope that he gave shook for a moment the grip of the command in his brain.
Without pausing for a breath he swung the gun over his shoulder, the reflected barrel in line with the reflected horror in the mirror, and flicked the catch.
In the mirror he saw its blue flame leap in a dazzling spate across the dimness, full into the midst of that squirming, reaching ma.s.s behind him. There was a hiss and a blaze and a high, thin scream of inhuman malice and despair-the flame cut a wide arc and went out as the gun fell from his hand, and Yarol pitched forward to the floor.
Northwest Smith opened his eyes to Martian sunlight streaming thinly through thedingy window. Something wet and cold was slapping his face, and the familiar fiery sting of segir-whisky burnt his throat.
"Smith!" Yarol"s voice was saying from far away. "N. W.! Wake up, d.a.m.n you!
Wake up!"
"I"m-awake," Smith managed to articulate thickly. "Wha"s the matter?"
Then a cup-rim was thrust against his teeth and Yarol said irritably, "Drink it, you fool!"
Smith swallowed obediently and more of the fire-hot segir flowed down his grateful throat. It spread a warmth through his body that awakened him from the numbness that had gripped him until now, and helped a little toward driving out the all-devouring weakness he was becoming aware of slowly. He lay still for a few minutes while the warmth of the whisky went through him, and memory sluggishly began to permeate his brain with the spread of the segir. Nightmare memories...
sweet and terrible... memories of- "G.o.d!" gasped Smith suddenly, and tried to sit up. Weakness smote him like a blow, and for an instant the room wheeled as he fell back against something firm and warm-Yarol"s shoulder. The Venusian"s arm supported him while the room steadied, and after a while he twisted a little and stared into the other"s black gaze.
Yarol was holding him with one arm and finishing the mug of segir himself, and the black eyes met his over the rim and crinkled into sudden laughter, half hysterical after that terror that was pa.s.sed.
"By Pharol!" gasped Yarol, choking into his mug. "By Pharol, N. W.! I"m never gonna let you forget this! Next time you have to drag me out of a mess I"ll say-"
"Let it go," said Smith. "What"s been going on? How-"
"Shambleau." Yard"s laughter died. "Shambleau! What were you doing with a thing like that?"
"What was it?" Smith asked soberly.
"Mean to say you didn"t know? But where"d you find it? How-"
"Suppose you tell me first what you know," said Smith firmly. "And another swig of that segir, too, please. I need it."
"Can you hold the mug now? Feel better?"
"Yeah-some. I can hold it-thanks. Now go on."
"Well-I don"t know just where to start. They call them Shambleau-"
"Good G.o.d, is there more than one?"
"It"s a-a sort of race, I think, one of the very oldest. Where they come from n.o.body knows. The name sounds a little French, doesn"t it? But it goes back beyond the start of history. There have always been Shambleau."
"I never heard of "em.""Not many people have. And those who know don"t care to talk about it much."
"Well, half this town knows. I hadn"t any idea what they were talking about, then.
And I still don"t understand, but-"
"Yes, it happens like this, sometimes. They"ll appear, and the news will spread and the town will get together and hunt them down, and after that-well, the story doesn"t get around very far. It"s too-too unbelievable."
"But-my G.o.d, Yarol!-what was it? Where"d it come from? How-"
"n.o.body knows just where they come from. Another planet-maybe some undiscovered one. Some say Venus-I know there are some rather awful legends of them handed down in our family-that"s how I"ve heard about it. And the minute I opened that door, awhile back-I-I think I knew that smell..."
"But-what are they?"
"G.o.d knows. Not human, though they have the human form. Or that may be only an illusion... or maybe I"m crazy. I don"t know. They"re a species of the vampire*or maybe the vampire is a species of-of them. Their normal form must be that-that ma.s.s, and in that form they draw nourishment from the-I suppose the life-forces of men. And they take some form-usually a woman form, I think, and key you up to the highest pitch of emotion before they-begin. That"s to work the life-force up to intensity so it"ll be easier... And they give, always, that horrible, foul pleasure as they-feed. There are some men who, if they survive the first experience, take to it like a drug-can"t give it up-keep the thing with them all their lives-which isn"t long-feeding it for that ghastly satisfaction. Worse than smoking ming or*or "praying to Pharol.
"Yes," said Smith. "I"m beginning to understand why that crowd was so surprised and-and disgusted when I said-well, never mind. Go on."
"Did you get to talk to-to it?" asked Yarol.
"I tried to. It couldn"t speak very well. I asked it where it came from and it said-"from far away and long ago"*something like that."
"I wonder. Possibly some unknown planet-but I think not. You know there are so many wild stories with some basis of fact to start from, that I"ve sometimes wondered*mightn"t there be a lot more of even worse and wilder superst.i.tions we"ve never even heard of? Things like this, blasphemous and foul, that those who know have to keep still about? Awful, fantastic things running around loose that we never hear rumors of at all!
"These things-they"ve been in existence for countless ages. No one Knows when or where they first appeared. Those who"ve seen them, as we saw this one, don"t talk about it. It"s just one of those vague, misty rumors you find half hinted at in old books sometimes... I believe they are an older race than man, sp.a.w.ned from ancient seed in times before ours, perhaps on planets that have gone to dust, and so horrible to man that when they are discovered the discoverers keep still about it-forget them again as quickly as they can."And they go back to time immemorial. I suppose you recognized the legend of Medusa? There isn"t any question that the ancient Greeks knew of them. Does it mean that there have been civilizations before yours that set out from Earth and explored other planets? Or did one of the Shambleau somehow make its way into Greece three thousand years ago? If you think about it long enough you"ll go off your head! I wonder how many other legends are based on things like this-things we don"t suspect, things we"ll never know.
"The Gorgon, Medusa, a beautiful woman with-with snakes for hair, and a gaze that turned men to stone, and Perseus finally killed her*I remembered this just by accident, N. W., and it saved your life and mine*Perseus killed her by using a mirror as he fought to reflect what he dared not look at directly. I wonder what the old Greek who first started that legend would have thought if he"d known that three thousand years later his story would save the lives of two men on another planet. I wonder what that Greek"s own story was, and how he met the thing, and what happened...
"Well, there"s a lot we"ll never know. Wouldn"t the records of that race of-of things, whatever they are, be worth reading! Records of other planets and other ages and all the beginnings of mankind! But I don"t suppose they"ve kept any records. I don"t suppose they"ve even any place to keep them-from what little I know, or anyone knows about it, they"re like the Wandering Jew, just bobbing up here and there at long intervals, and where they stay in the meantime I"d give my eyes to know! But I don"t believe that terribly hypnotic power they have indicates any superhuman intelligence. It"s their means of getting food-just like a frog"s long tongue or a carnivorous flower"s odor. Those are physical because the frog and the flower eat physical food. The Shambleau uses a-a mental reach to get mental food.
I don"t quite know how to put it. And just as a beast that eats the bodies of other animals acquires with each meal greater power over the bodies of the rest, so the Shambleau, stoking itself up with the life-forces of men, increases its power over the minds and the souls of other men. But I"m talking about things I can"t define-things I"m not sure exist.
"I only know that when I felt-when those tentacles closed around my legs-I didn"t want to pull loose, I felt sensations that-that-oh, I"m fouled and filthy to the very deepest part of me by that-pleasure-and yet-"
"I know," said Smith slowly. The effect of the segir was beginning to wear off, and weakness was washing back over him in waves, and when he spoke he was half meditating in a low voice, scarcely realizing that Yarol listened. "I know it-much better than you do-and there"s something so indescribably awful that the thing emanates, something so utterly at odds with everything human-there aren"t any words to say it. For a while I was a part of it, literally, sharing its thoughts and memories and emotions and hungers, and-well, it"s over now and I don"t remember very clearly, but the only part left free was that part of me that was but insane from the*the obscenity of the thing. And yet it was a pleasure so sweet-I think there must be some nucleus of utter evil in me-in everyone-that needs only the proper stimulus to get complete control; because even while I was sick all through from thetouch of those-things-there was something in me that was-was simply gibbering with delight... Because of that I saw things-and knew things-horrible, wild things I can"t quite remember*visited unbelievable places, looked backward through the memory of that-creature-I was one with, and saw*G.o.d, I wish I could remember!"
"You ought to thank your G.o.d you can"t," said Yarol soberly.
His voice roused Smith from the half-trance he had fallen into, and he rose on his elbow, swaying a little from weakness. The room was wavering before him, and he closed his eyes, not to see it, but he asked, "You say they-they don"t turn up again? No way of finding*another?"
Yarol did not answer for a moment. He laid his hands on the other man"s shoulders and pressed him back, and then sat staring down into the dark, ravaged face with a new, strange, undefinable look upon it that he had never seen there before-whose meaning he knew, too well.
"Smith," he said finally, and his black eyes for once were steady and serious, and the little grinning devil had vanished from behind them, "Smith, I"ve never asked your word on anything before, but I"ve-I"ve earned the right to do it now, and I"m asking you to promise me one thing."
Smith"s colorless eyes met the black gaze unsteadily. Irresolution was in them, and a little fear of what that promise might be. And for just a moment Yarol was looking, not into his friend"s familiar eyes, but into a wide gray blankness that held all horror and delight-a pale sea with unspeakable pleasures sunk beneath it. Then the wide stare focused again and Smith"s eyes met his squarely and Smith"s voice said, "Go ahead. I"ll promise."
"That if you ever should meet a Shambleau again*ever, anywhere-you"ll draw your gun and burn it to h.e.l.l the instant you realize what it is. Will you promise me that?"
There was a long silence. Yarol"s somber black eyes bored relentlessly into the colorless ones of Smith, not wavering. And the veins stood out on Smith"s tanned forehead. He never broke his word-he had given it perhaps half a dozen times in his life, but once he had given it, he was incapable of breaking it. And once more the gray seas flooded in a dim tide of memories, sweet and horrible beyond dreams.
Once more Yarol was staring into blankness that hid nameless things. The room was very still.
The gray tide ebbed. Smith"s eyes, pale and resolute as steel, met Yarol"s levelly.
"I"ll-try," he said. And his voice wavered.
Originally published under a pseudonym (as were many other stories in this volume-are serious SF writers embarra.s.sed to be playing in the fields ofsupernatural fantasy?), Roger Zelazny, master of allusion, did indeed claim this delightful meditation for his own. Robots and androids are made in our image- why shouldn"t they have inherited our nightmares?
The Stainless Steel Leech.
ROGER ZELAZNY.
They"re really afraid of this place.
During the day they"ll clank around the headstones, if they"re ordered to, but even Central can"t make them search at night, despite the ultras and the infras-and they"ll never enter a mausoleum.
Which makes things nice for me.
They"re superst.i.tious; it"s a part of the circuitry. They were designed to serve man, and during his brief time on earth, awe and devotion, as well as dread, were automatic things. Even the last man, dead Kennington, commanded every robot in existence while he lived. His person was a thing of veneration, and all his orders were obeyed.
Ana a man is a man, alive or dead-which is why the graveyards are a combination of h.e.l.l, heaven, and strange feedback, and will remain apart from the cities so long as the earth endures.
But even as I mock them they are looking behind the stones and peering into the gullies. They are searching for-and afraid they might find-me.
I, the unjunked, am legend. Once out of a million a.s.semblies a defective such as I might appear and go undetected, until too late.
At will, I could cut the circuit that connected me with Central Control, and be a free "bot, and master of my own movements. I liked to visit the cemeteries, because they were quiet and different from the maddening stamp-stamp of the presses and the clanking of the crowds; I liked to look at the green and red and yellow and blue things that grew about the graves. And I did not fear these places, for that circuit, too, was defective. So when I was discovered they removed my vite-box and threw me on the junk heap.
But the next day I was gone, and their fear was great.
I no longer possess a self-contained power unit, but the freak coils within my chest act as storage batteries. They require frequent recharging, however, and there is only one way to do that.
The werebot is the most frightful legend whispered among the gleaming steel towers, when the night wind sighs with its burden of fears out of the past, from days when non-metal beings walked the earth. The half-lifes; the preyers upon order, still cry darkness within the vite-box of every "bot.I, the discontent, the unjunked, live here in Rosewood Park, among the dogwood and myrtle, the headstones and broken angels, with Fritz-another legend-in our deep and peaceful mausoleum.
Fritz is a vampire, which is a terrible and tragic thing. He is so undernourished that he can no longer move about, but he cannot die either, so he lies in his casket and dreams of times gone by. One day, he will ask me to carry him outside into the sunlight, and I will watch him shrivel and dim into peace and nothingness and dust. I hope he does not ask me soon.
We talk. At night, when the moon is full and he feels strong enough, he tells me of his better days, in places called Austria and Hungary, where he, too, was feared and hunted.
"... But only a stainless steel leech can get blood out of a stone-or a robot," he said last night. "It is a proud and lonely thing to be a stainless steel leech-you are possibly the only one of your kind in existence. Live up to your reputation! Hound them! Drain them! Leave your mark on a thousand steel throats!"
And he was right. He is always right. And he knows more about these things than I.
"Kennington!" his thin, bloodless lips smiled. "Oh, what a duel we fought! He was the last man on earth, and I the last vampire. For ten years I tried to drain him. I got at him twice, but he was from the Old Country and knew what precautions to take. Once he learned of my existence, he issued a wooden stake to every robot*but I had forty-two graves in those days and they never found me. They did come close, though...
"But at night, ah, at night!" he chuckled. "Then things were reversed! I was the hunter and he the prey!
"I remember his frantic questing after the last few sprays of garlic and wolfsbane on earth, the crucifix a.s.sembly lines he kept in operation around the clock*irreligious soul that he was! I was genuinely sorry when he died, in peace.
Not so much because I hadn"t gotten to drain him properly, but because he was a worthy opponent and a suitable antagonist. What a game we played!"
His husky voice weakened.
"He sleeps a scant three hundred paces from here, bleaching and dry. His is the great marble tomb by the gate... Please gather roses tomorrow and place them upon it."
I agreed that I would, for there is a closer kinship between the two of us than between myself and any "bot, despite the dictates of resemblance. And I must keep my word, before this day pa.s.ses into evening and although there are searchers above, for such is the law of my nature.
"d.a.m.n them! (He taught me that word.) d.a.m.n them!" I say. "I"m coming up!
Beware, gentle "bots! I shall walk among you and you shall not know me. I shall joinin the search, and you will think I am one of you. I shall gather the red flowers for dead Kennington, rubbing shoulders with you, and Fritz will smile at the joke."
I climb the cracked and hollow steps, the east already spilling twilight, and the sun half-lidded in the west.
I emerge.
The roses live on the wall across the road. From great twisting tubes of vine, with heads brighter than any rust, they burn like danger lights on a control panel, but moistly.
One, two, three roses for Kennington. Four, five...
"What are you doing, "bot?"
"Gathering roses."
"You are supposed to be searching for the werebot. Has something damaged you?"
"No, I"m all right," I say, and I fix him where he stands, by b.u.mping against his shoulder. The circuit completed, I drain his vite-box until I am filled.
"You are the werebot!" he intones weakly.
He falls with a crash.
... Six, seven, eight roses for Kennington, dead Kennington, dead as the "bot at my feet-more dead-for he once lived a full, organic life, nearer to Fritz"s or my own than to theirs.
What happened here, "bot?"
"He is stopped, and I am picking roses," I tell them.