The table glided. The walls swung over him and by him, the music played. You are dead, you are logically dead.
I am Usher, I am the Maelstrom, I am the MS Found In A Bottle, I am the Pit and I am the Pendulum, I am the Telltale Heart, I am the Raven nevermore, nevermore.
"Yes," said McClure, as they walked softly. "I know."
"I am in the catacomb," cried Lantry.
"Yes, the catacomb," said the walking man over him.
"I am being chained to a wall, and there is no bottle of Amontillado here!" cried Lantry weakly, eyes closed.
"Yes," someone said.
There was movement. The flame door opened.
"Now someone is mortaring up the cell, closing me in!"
"Yes, I know." A whisper.
The golden box slid into the flame lock.
"I"m being walled in! A very good joke indeed! Let us be gone!" A wild scream and much laughter.
"We know, we understand..."
The inner flame lock opened. The golden coffin shot forth into flame."For the love of G.o.d, Montresor! For the love of G.o.d!"
This story is in this book because one of the editor"s father read it aloud to him when he was just a kid. Greg didn"t remember the t.i.tle or the author, but he never forgot the story. It took years to track the story down, but we think you"ll find it just as creepy today as it was when it was first published in 1953. Besides science fiction, Joe L. Hensley has written several acclaimed suspense novels.
And Not Quite Human.
JOE L. HENSLEY.
They won of course. One ship against a world, but they won easily.
The Regents would be pleased. Another planet for colonization-even a few specimens for the labs. Earthmen, who had incredibly lived through the attack.
Forward, in a part of the great ship where the complex control panels whirred and clicked, two of the Arcturians conferred together.
"How are the Earth specimens, Doctor?" the older one asked, his voice indifferent. He touched his splendid purple pants, straightening the already precise creases.
"They stare at the walls, Captain. They do not eat what we give them. They seem to look through the guards, say very little and use their bodies feebly. I do not think that all of them will live through the trip."
"They are weak. It only shows the laboratories are wrong. Our people are not related to them-despite the similarity in appearance. No, we are cast in a stronger mold than that." He drummed his desk with impatient fingers. "Well-we can"t let them die. Force-feed them if necessary. Our scientists demand specimens; we are lucky that some of them lived through the attack. I don"t see now it was possible-it was such a splendid attack."
"They have no real sickness, not even a radiation burn in the lot of them," the doctor said. "But they are weak and morose."
"Keep them alive and well, Doctor."
The doctor searched the captain"s metallic face. "Captain, do you ever have dreams?"
"Eh-dreams?" It took the captain a moment to comprehend. "Dreams are forbidden by the Regents! They show instability."
"The men. Sir... some of the crew have been complaining."
"Complaining! Complaining"s expressly forbidden in the rules. You know that,Doctor. Why haven"t I been informed?"
"It was such a little thing, something psychological, I think. I"ve had a few in who"ve had nightmares." The doctor made a deprecatory gesture. "s.p.a.ce fear, I think. Most of the men complaining were first trippers."
"Make a list of the names and submit it to me. We have to eliminate such types, as you should know."
"Yes, Sir." The doctor got up to leave.
"Uh-Doctor-did they tell you what the dreams were about?"
"Blood, Sir." The doctor shook his head and clenched his antiseptic, scoured hands. "Skulls and bats and old women around a bubbling pot; bony shadows that trapped them when they ran."
"Rot."
"Yes, Sir."
The doctor walked down the gleaming pa.s.sageway, seeing the men like well oiled machines; the talented men, each in his own technical job, each uniform precisely the same, the teeth, clean and white, each face and body cut from the same matrix, even the boots alike, dark shiny mirrors. Unlined faces-young, unlike the skeleton faces in the hold.
The first guard brought hand to forehead in a snappy salute. "Yes, Sir?"
"Prisoner inspection."
The door whined open and the doctor started through.
"Sir!" The urgency in the guard"s voice detained him.
"Yes?" He remembered the man as one of the ones who had been at sick call that morning.
"May I be relieved? I feel ill. I"ve been sick since*since last sleep period."
The doctor looked impa.s.sively at the too-white eyes. Better not let it start, he thought.
"Stand your duty. I can"t have you relieved. You know the rules."
"But, Sir!"
"Report to sickbay after you are relieved. For psychoa.n.a.lysis-and I mean after you are regularly relieved!" The doctor again looked into the frightened eyes and considered making an exception this one time. No, there"ll be more then, he thought.
The automatic salute rea.s.sured him. "Yes, Sir."
"Your name?" He wrote it in his prescription book and walked on.
First cell, second cell, the fifteenth; all the same. The listless faces, the hungry deadmen"s eyes watching him. Eyes cut from coffins. Twenty-two cells-two to acell, women segregated as they should be. Forty-four prisoners in all.
Eighty-eight eyes watching him. He shivered inwardly.
How many were there? he thought. Forty-four individuals left out of a billion or two?
He read the guards" notebooks. "Man in cell fourteen, Name: Alexander Green.
Was observed drawing strange patterns on the deck with chalk. Chalk taken away from Kim. No resistance."
"Woman in cell three, Name: Elizabeth Gout. Talking to herself and to the walls.
Was quieted by her cellmate, Meg Newcomb, on orders of Corporal of the Guard."
The shadows were thick in the prisoners" hold; the lights dim, the only sounds were the thrum of the rhythmic atomic engines and the click of the guards" heels as each one came to attention and presented his book for inspection.
The Corporal of the Guard walked silently behind him and took the orders down at the end of the cell block.
"Force-feed them. Brine the vitamin lights down here. Give them injections." The doctor paused and stared coldly. "The guard at cell four was inept in his salute.
Place him on report."
"Yes, Sir."
"Anything else to report, Corporal?"
The man hesitated; then said, "Some of the guards are jumpy."
"And the prisoners?" the doctor asked caustically.
The corporal was fl.u.s.tered. "They seem stronger. Sir."
"They"re getting acclimated to the conditions of the trip."
"They still haven"t eaten anything."
"I said-in case you misunderstood me, Corporal*that they are getting acclimated to the trip. You may consider yourself on report too." The doctor enunciated each word savagely.
The corporal clicked his heels and the doctor went quickly back up the line of cells. He averted his head, not looking into the cells. An electronic device scanned him and opened the door as it read his ident.i.ty.
He went through the hatch, felt it close quickly behind him, and disregarded the guard who had wanted to be relieved. He went on to his own office in the small, efficient sickbay. He slumped over his desk exhausted.
There was a sound of running feet outside. Then the door to his office was almost torn from its hinges as a soundless blast of energy struck it. The doctor leaped to his feet and flung open the metal door.
The sick guard stood there, weaving drunkenly on boneless legs. "Stand back,Doctor. I see one over by the wall. See it over there?" the man screamed. "It"s coming for me. Can"t get away-can"t." He raised the pistol as the doctor watched.
"Stop-You d.a.m.ned fool!"
The man lay on the floor, gun pointed at his own shapeless body, his torso a ma.s.s of torn, charred tissue. His eyes were still open and they stared sightlessly at the small porthole, beyond which the luminous stars reeled.
The sight was not revolting to the doctor, but the implications were. He had seen too many dead, both of his own race and others, to care particularly about one more. It was what this death might mean to him personally that worried him-what the Regents might say.
He called the guard on watch and gave orders automatically until the task of examining and disposing was done. There were necessary papers to fill out and sign, the personal effects to be inventoried-and the report to the captain. And all the time he was engaged in the routine, his mind flashed the question: I wonder what it will mean to me when we get back? The Regents will want to examine me. They"ll say it was my fault. He felt the panic begin to rise, but his body made the necessary responses and his face was imperturbable.
He went to the captain"s office.
"Why did he do it, Doctor?" The captain was more perplexed than angry.
The doctor stonily replied, "We"re in s.p.a.ce."
"We have a hundred million men in s.p.a.ce!" the captain exclaimed. "Few of them ever commit suicide. It"s been bred out of the race. It just doesn"t happen." He pounded his hand against his plastic desk, the almost muted sound incongruous with the angry gesture. "I want to know why. It"s against the rules-you know that."
The doctor did not flinch. "He was a first tripper. First time away from home. A guard? No-a farmboy in uniform, that"s what he was." The doctor found himself almost homicidally angry at the dead guard. What right does he have to cause me all this trouble?
The captain watched him strangely. "That"s what most of our men are-men from farms. I"m from a farm myself." The captain eyed him dubiously while the insidious sounds of the machines rocked and jolted around them. "You"re tired, Doctor. You need some rest."
The doctor ignored the remark. "Maybe it"s the prisoners. All the guards who have complained have been standing prisoner watches."
"I"ve seen the prisoners." The barking voice was contemptuous.
Have you seen them? Have you seen the way they look at you? the doctor thought, but aloud he said, through regulated teeth: "Yes, Sir."
"Find out what"s wrong.""Yes, Sir. I"ll do my best." Spit and polish and everything according to the rules.
"Report to me on everything."
"Of course, Captain."
"Do an autopsy-look at his brain."
"I did, Sir." He fought to keep his voice rational. "We kept his head. We always do in a case like this."
"Do it again." The captain stared penetratingly at him. "Find out what was wrong with his head, so that we can eliminate it from the race. Something was wrong with his head-that was it. Find out!"
"Yes, Sir!" Feet together, salute, turn-keep your back straight. Be a soldier, be a s.p.a.ceman, be an Arcturian, be strong-be a conqueror.
The doctor went back to his own office and sat down shakily at his plastic desk.
Then he fought his way upright again and looked in the room"s small mirror.