The creature who staggered into Hell’s Oven—the Hottest Little Town on Earth: Population 13—might have been human once. Oveners are used to seeing some pretty grim-looking things wander or crawl or creep in off the Badlands. When I first spotted this guy he was headed into town along the main and only street, which used to be the highway before the town got bypassed with the new Super-speedway. He was lurching and dragging his feet as if he was still ankle-deep in desert sand. Right opposite Doc Strood’s Medical Center and General Store, the stranger pitched forward onto his face, twitched a couple of times, and then lay still.
Everybody in Hell’s Oven knows what to do when some poor guy loses a round to the desert. I limped toward the latest victim as fast as was wise in 117 degrees of heat, trying to focus on him as I came; and considering that I was well hung over for the first time in a year, I didn’t do too badly. Tell you the truth, I didn’t feel so steady myself, what with Jace Denhet’s sour wine churning inside me, and me needing a shot of Doc’s “medicine” so bad. And I still had to explain the hangover to Clare.
Clare is my boss. She owns the only lunchroom in miles and the only clean motel, and me, if she wants me—which she doesn’t seem to. I sometimes feel like telling her that since she saved my life, she has an obligation. Then I look into those deep, steady gray eyes and see the pity in them, and I keep quiet.
Those eyes of hers were the first thing I saw, when I came to on the floor of Clare’s lunchroom the day I lost my bout with Ole Man Desert.
“Feeling better now?” Clare was saying, balancing my head in the crook of her warm, soft arm and holding a glass of cool water to my lips.
When I had drunk, “Where am I?” I said. Original thinker, that’s me every time.
Clare smiled. “You’re in Hell’s Oven.” Then, reassuringly, “Don’t worry. That’s just the name of the place. I found you out on the road.”
It came back to me. I was Bill Wallbridge, and I was just out of two years in a POW camp in Korea and my girl hadn’t waited and neither had my boss, so I just kept going when I got off the plane—drifting, drinking, losing my job, and hitchhiking to a new place . . . walking to the nearest exit till I dropped, apparently.
I remember I tried to tell Clare some of this—my name and the fact that I needed a job where there weren’t many people, when there came a pounding of heavy feet on the porch of the lunchroom and the door slammed open.
So I cringed into a ball right there on the floor. If you have been an uncooperative prisoner and been given the full treatment for two years, it’s automatic to protect as many vital organs as you can when the heavy boots come stamping in. Of course Clare couldn’t have been aware of my reasons. The big hulk in the doorway didn’t care. He just stood there, loose lipped and laughing, with his bold small eyes taking me in, and the girl on the floor beside me.
“Playing games?” he said.
Clare rose hastily. She didn’t wait for me to speak. “This poor fellow crawled in off the desert. Go and get Doc, will you please, Doubles?”
He didn’t answer her for a minute, just stood grinning and watching her till her cheeks got red.
“I asked you to bring the doctor here. This man is ill.”
Doubles kept looking at her for a little longer, then he turned without a glance at me and went out of the lunchroom. I tried to get up. Clare’s eyes were on me, troubled and disappointed. I shrugged. What was the use of trying to explain what two years of the Hole and boots and bamboo canes and magotty food can do to a man? But there was one thing I had to do. Before this doctor came and went through my stuff.
I reached inside my shirt and fumbled for my wallet. It was gone! Clare followed my gesture. She smiled and took something out of the pocket of her crisp white apron.
“Is this what you’re looking for? I found it on the road beside you.”
It was my wallet. When I shed my coat the day before, back there in the desert somewhere, I’d evidently had sense enough to transfer my wallet. Now I waved her hand away. “Use the money as long as it lasts, to pay for my keep. But burn the newspaper clippings, will you? I don’t want anyone to see them. Not even you.”
She frowned a little. I guess she was wondering if I was an escaped criminal. I didn’t want her to read those clippings—it might look like a bid for sympathy, and besides, that “hero” stuff didn’t fit in with the job of crawling I’d done when the guy Doubles stamped in. Anyway, Clare made up her mind. In my favor.
“No one shall see them. I promise. Now relax till Doc comes,” and her firm brown hands were on my arm, gently guiding me to a chair. That’s Clare. The money in my wallet didn’t last any longer than Doc’s first visit—he said I needed shots to kill the pain of the leg the guards broke and didn’t bother to set. He asked me how I got all the scars and why I hadn’t had my leg attended to, but I didn’t say. I wasn’t about to cry on anybody’s shoulder. When Clare saw where my money went, she offered me a job helping around her place. She didn’t like Doc and I think she was afraid of Doubles, but she went against their advice and hired me.
She’s been paying me more than I’m worth to do the cleanup jobs around the lunchroom and the motel. I sweep Doc’s store out and run errands for him, too. He’s got an eye for cheap labor, and besides he wanted to sell me some more shots of that medicine that killed the pain and made me forget. So I got what I wanted when I started drifting—easy work, no need to think, no need to talk to people. I limped around in the clear quiet heat of the little desert town, and kept out of Doubles’ way, and fell in love with a girl who pitied me.
Until lately, I was contented enough. Then Doc began to raise his price for the medicine I was spending my wages on, and without it, I began to lay awake nights with the pain gnawing on my leg. It got so bad that a couple of nights ago I bartered my watch for a jug of Jace Denhet’s home brew. Jace owns the garage where Doubles works. I’d been sleeping it off in a shed behind the garage—having sense enough not to let Clare see me like that. I knew I’d have some explaining to do to Clare, but right now all I wanted was a barrel of water to drink and soak my head in. And right then—as I stood weaving in the hot afternoon sunlight—was when I spotted the character staggering in off the desert.
I thought I knew how the guy felt, having done the same thing myself, so I made my way toward him where he sprawled in the road. He was game, give him credit. As I came up to him, he pulled his face up off the road and began to crawl forward on his hands and knees. Right then, I began to like him. You have to respect a guy who won’t give up.
I bent over to pick him up—and got my first shock. In all that heat, this character had on a fur coat! I shook my head to clear it and only blurred my eyes worse. Maybe he’d bailed out of one of those high-flying experimental jobs. Pilots have to wear some funny-looking suits to protect them from the cold and speeds. It figured. There was a big box like a walkie-talkie on his back. I went on my knee to scoop him up in my arms—he was a little guy. Second shock.
He came up like when you heave on a full barrel and it turns out to be empty. I almost reared over backwards. Then I got a look at his face. Third and worst shock. If I’d seen that mug last night, I’d have sworn off, sure. His skin was a shiny bronze with purple undertones like bruises all over it. It was drawn skull-tight, so tight that the lipless mouth pulled away from his teeth and his nose was two round holes. His eye sockets were perfectly round and sunken.
I closed my own eyes and swayed a little. The motion seemed to revive my passenger. From somewhere inside that barrel chest came a humming sound, aimless, vaguely pleasant; and then—
“Hic!”
“Brother, you’re tight!” I muttered, trying to grin. I sure must have been soaked, for my hallucinations to be drunk!
“What have you got there, Bill?” Doc Strood’s voice cut at me. I hunched my shoulders. I still can’t control that wince. When you’ve been trained to jump or get a rifle butt on the instep, you jump. And Doc’s voice is the coldest thing this side of Nor
th Korea. He comes up so quietly behind you, you never do hear him. Add to that, he owns the only store in two hundred miles and the only drug dispensary—and he believes in making his investments pay. He charges three hundred percent for everything, and dilutes the drugs so the Indians and Mexicans have to mortgage their lives to him when their kids get sick. That’s a picture of Doc Strood, the self-constituted boss of Hell’s Oven.
“Answer me, you bum! I asked you what you’ve got there.”
My hackles rose at the tone of his voice. I straightened up with the frail creature light in my arms. I didn’t say a word—just let him look at what I held.
Strood bent over. His mouth fell open. “Wha-a-” He swallowed. “Goddlemighty,” he whispered. “What is it?”
“Junior here just crawled in from the desert,” I said.
“What in—what’s the matter with him?” Doc backed away.
“Looks like he’s had too much sun. Why don’t you take him into your back room—pardon me, Medical Center—and examine him? It’s probably not catching. If you’re worried about your fee, you can sell his fur coat for enough to cover the bill.”
Doc glanced at me sideways, decided to ignore the impudence, and nodded toward the store. “Get him inside and we’ll see what we’re up against.” He couldn’t bear the thought of losing a fee. Even when it came wrapped in a package like that one.
By the time Doc had finished his examination, we were both feeling queer. Doc poured himself a stiff shot. He didn’t offer me one. I didn’t really want a drink. Maybe it was the smell—faint, acrid, not unpleasing but different—coming from the thing on the cot.
“My God,” Doc wiped his slack lips, “what is it?”
The fur coat was joined on. It was his own hair, large hollow strands with feathery fluff at the ends. It was a magnificent reddish-brown pelt such as I’d never seen on any animal. It grew over his head and down his neck and all over his big-chested body. His hands were long and had four slender, flexible “fingers.” His eyes—well, he hadn’t opened them yet, and I for one was in no hurry for the unveiling.
There was a sort of woven fiber harness around his hips, with a heavy pouch dangling from it. The thing which had been strapped on his back was most interesting. It looked vaguely like a walkie-talkie, with a slender glass rod stuck out a little and a series of glassy tiles like a keyboard along one side. Doc’s nicotine-stained fingers hovered over those keys and then pulled back. He raised his eyes and caught me grinning.
“Might be a bomb, or something,” he snarled. Then, leaning forward to peer at the heavy pouch—“Wonder what’s in that bag?”
“His knitting?” I suggested. I couldn’t understand myself. For nearly a year now I had cringed before Doc, willing to run his errands and take his abuse so I could be sure of getting shots of the dope he sold me as “medicine.” But today, somehow, I felt like spitting in his eye. The sight of his yellow-stained fingers fumbling at the guy’s wallet made me mad—a good, strong, clear-headed anger I hadn’t felt in a long time. “Why don’t you leave the pouch alone, Doc? It might blow up in your face.” I hope, I added in my mind.
Doc favored me with a mean look. “You’re gettin’ mighty cocky for a hobo, ain’t you? You open the thing, if you’re so smart. Maybe it’ll tell us who he is.”
I bent over the unconscious figure and examined the bulging pouch carefully without touching it. The fiber was woven so closely it presented a solid surface. I couldn’t spot any opening. Something made me look up. The disc-shaped eyes were red. They were trained on me as steadily as a gun.
“Hi,” I said, weakly.
There was a strained silence.
“Welcome,” I said, “to our fair city. Hell’s Oven. And from the look of you, you ought to feel right at home.”
“Shut up, you fool!” hissed Doc. “Do you want to get him mad at us?” He moved backward. The red disc eyes left me and followed Doc. It was a relief. I hunkered down beside the cot, partly because I couldn’t stand up. The eyes finished with Doc and came back to me. The lipless mouth opened.
“Hiiiiiiiii,” it breathed.
I grinned and stuck out my hand. “Shake, fella.”
He looked at my hand, then at my face. Slowly, as if it weighed a ton, he lifted his own hand and stretched it out to mine. I clasped it gently. The bones felt very small and soft.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
The red eyes indicated the keyboard box and returned to mine. I lifted the box and held it close to his hands. With an effort, he stretched up his fingers and pressed several keys. There was a scuttling sound and a slam as Doc lit out.
Then the strange thing happened. The guy on the cot pressed down on those glassy keys and inside my head I heard something—or saw something—or felt something, I’m still not quite sure which. First there was a feeling of friendliness. Then the sound Laal, like a name. Over and over.
“Laal,” I repeated. “That’s you, isn’t it? Laal.”
I sensed a feeling of relief as though he were saying, good. Now we can talk. Then a questioning: You?
“My name? I’m nobody—just the town bum.”
Rejection. Question.
“Son of a gun,” I breathed. “What is that gadget, a lie detector? All right, then. I’m William Wallbridge, Bill to you. A returned prodigal from Korea. I sold my birthright to a mess named Strood, and now I have to bake in it—the Oven, I mean. Just a no good junky. Ask anybody.” I was talking too much. I stopped.
“Hi,” said my pal on the cot. “Hi, Beel.”
I liked that guy!
“Where you from, Laal?” I asked softly. He seemed so vulnerable lying there, with Doc and Doubles and Jace hovering around outside like buzzards. I didn’t want them to get him like they got me.
His slender fingers pressed more keys. I didn’t hear a darn thing, but inside my head a picture started moving: a planet smaller than Earth . . . reddish-brown, white capped. A group of people like Laal, gathered in a softly shining circular room without windows, bending anxiously over the bodies of two smaller editions of themselves. The kids were sick, I could see that. They looked even worse than Laal.
“What’s the matter with them?” I whispered.
Discouragement . . . weary noncomprehension . . . then a tentative groping . . . virus? Once there was a cure for such things—a mold from the swamp-scum which healed sickness. But the last of the swamps dried up centuries ago . . . and they had lost the secret of producing the molds artificially.
A search—frantic, planetwide. No luck. More small Laals dying. A desperate, last-ditch effort: an airboat, null-gravity, such as Laal’s people used for their pleasure, hastily fitted with glassy metal plates and shields like armor. Food for a long journey, in the pouch. And in the very heart of the ship, most carefully girdered and cushioned, a huge shining globe filled with the greatest treasure of the planet.
Then Laal, crowding into the improvised spaceship, into the hammock-type seat. An injection. Takeoff. Space. A landing on the next planet, of course on a desert area much like the home world. But the air, different. Full of something which stole Laal’s wits.
“Oxygen,” I said. “You’re on an oxygen bender, boy.”
Now Laal’s fingers flying over the keys, faster, faster. His thoughts beating urgence against my mind.
“Beel, help me. Help my people. Your world rich in swamps. Surely there must be, somewhere, the substance I need. I was hypno-trained from the data in the ancient records, to recognize the molds when I see them. But I must have help. On your world I am weak, slow. Everything is so heavy. If you help me, I will pay you well. In my ship, great treasure, the wealth of my people, hoarded to buy the cure for our children’s sickness. Will you help, Beel?”
I got up and stood over him, gently lifting the heavy brain—impulse—transformer out of his frail arms. “Sure, I’ll try to help you, Laal. But we don’t want your treasure. I’ll get you to a big town, good doctors. They’ll know more about wha
t you need. Sounds to me like one of the sulphas or penicillin, but they’ll know. I’ll drive you there right now!”
As I talked, I got more excited. “I’ll borrow the car from Clare—that’s Miss Evans. She’ll be glad to help. But listen.” I stared down into his glowing eyes. “While I’m gone, play it dumb. Don’t tell Doc or anybody else anything about your treasure. You see, Laal, there are different kinds of people on our world, and some of these characters around here are definitely the wrong kind.”
A big animal laugh boomed out from directly behind me.
“Now, that ain’t very friendly of you, Billyboy. Not a bit friendly.” And two hands like a gorilla’s closed gently around my throat and then began to tighten slowly into a vice and squeezed until the world blacked out. I remember thinking, as I passed out, that Doc hadn’t lost any time rounding up his cronies, Doubles and Jace.
When I came to, I was lying in a corner where, presumably, Doubles had thrown me. The room was dark except for a shaded bulb over the cot, and foul with cigar smoke; but I could still smell the acrid taint of Laal through the reek. Jace Denhet’s smooth deep voice was asking a question. My flesh crawled. Except for the heat, it could have been an interrogation in the prison camp. I shook my head to clear it. It seemed like a long time since I had had a shot of Doc’s nerve medicine! I listened.
“You talked to Bill. Why won’t you talk to us? We overheard Bill telling you not to tell us about your treasure, but you don’t want to pay any heed to him. He’s just a drunken bum who hangs around my garage and Doc’s drugstore, cadging drinks.”
“A most unreliable person,” added Doc, in his best company voice. “Now, be reasonable—uh—sir. Tell us what we want to know and we’ll give you a drink and something to eat.”
“Aw, nuts!” growled Doubles. “Why doncha let me choke him a little, like I did Billyboy? That little thin neck of his is just askin’ to be squeezed.”
“You stupid fool! If you hadn’t choked Bill so hard, we’d have him to talk for us to the freak—however he managed.”
“Sure you could make him tell you what he found out?” It was Jace’s voice.
“It’s been quite a while since I gave him any dope. Now the likker’s worn off, he ought to be crawling to me for a shot any time. And then we’ll find out where this freak cached his treasure.”
“If Billyboy don’t come to soon, I’m game to try a few tricks on Ugly.” Doubles licked his lips.
I drew in a deep breath. The only thing I wanted now was to get out of this shadowed, smoke-filled room, with its cone of light stabbing down on the helpless victim. I might have made it, too. The room was dark and they were all concentrating on the figure on the cot. Laal. The little leathery freak who had learned to say, “Hi, Beel,” and shaken my hand. He’d said, “Help me.” And I had answered, “yes.”
And now Doc and Doubles and Jace were gathered around Laal and I knew them . . . knew the depths of cruelty they were capable of.
Maybe I was confusing them with some other men in a shadowed room with a bright light beating down. I struggled to my feet groggily.
“You’ll never get anything from Laal,” I said. “I’ve told him what nasty men you are, and that he isn’t to play with you. I’m his legal guardian and keeper. You know—finders keepers. As in treasure.”
They had turned and were staring at me in the light of the shaded bulb. If I could have willed myself dead in that moment, I would have. On the three faces were dawning wolfish smiles I had seen before. Doubles advanced on me through the smoke.
“Well, if it ain’t Billyboy, come back to life. I got a bone to pick with you. One of yours, that is.” His guffaw boomed out.
“Don’t touch him till I tell you!” snapped Doc. “What good is he if you keep knocking him out?”
“Bring him over here in the light, Doubles,” said Jace gently. “Doc, go get him a shot of your ‘medicine’.”
On the way out, Doc turned on another light. I pushed past Doubles, grinding my heel over his toes as I went. The pain jolted an oath out of him and he swung toward me. I jabbed my elbow into his middle. He came at me, clawing, his eyes popping.
“Hold it!” Jace cautioned him. “Let him alone till Doc gets back.”
The big bruiser literally shook with fury. Behind his teeth was a spate of searing rage, but he held it after one glance at Jace; held it and grew quiet. Too quiet.
Well, I’d successfully diverted their attention from Laal. Why? I sneaked a glance at the weird little alien, met the unflinching stare of the red disc eyes. He was counting on me to pull something out of the bag to help him. Suddenly—whether it was the hangover, or the lack of dope, or the crazy impossible situation—I felt like laughing. Why did I care about this screwy little Martian monkey?
“Not your shining hair, Dear. Not your eyes of blue—no, red—” I paraphrased an old song. Jace cursed softly . . .
“He’s gone completely off the beam.”
Doubles regarded me doubtfully. “Doc musta put too much dope in the dope—”
They stared at me, frowning. I grinned back at them foolishly. Nothing seemed to matter. Clare was the only decent thing in my world, and God knew I wasn’t fit to touch her. So why not go to bat for the little man from wherever? I called Doubles a nasty name, and laughed to see his face. Then nausea swept me, and dizziness like a black whirling cloud. I swayed on my feet.
“Catch him,” said Jace.
“—way ahead of you,” muttered Doubles, hands huge and tight on my arms. The big fingers pressed tighter . . .
“Put him down, Doubles,” ordered Jace. “You’ll get your chance.”
“Damn right,” said Doubles and led me to a chair beside Laal’s cot.
Doc bustled in with a hypo filled with something cloudy. My nerves jumped. I could feel the jab and then the flame along my nerves and then the peace . . . As though they belonged to somebody else, I saw my hands stretching out, trembling, toward the hypo. I hadn’t even realized that I had moved. I pulled my arms back to my sides, but their faces told me they had seen the gesture.
“The whole thing’s for you, Bill. Just the moment you tell us where the little freak’s treasure is.” Doc waved the hypo toward me; his eyes behind their glasses seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. The hypo, too—bigger . . . more desirable . . . I was reaching out—
Doubles chuckled. “I sure wish Miss Clare could see him now. Her prize reformed bum, crawlin’ for a shot of Doc’s dope.”
A second time my arms fell to my sides. I managed a shaky grin. “Thanks, Doubles. Doc nearly made it that time.”
Doc snarled at Doubles. Jace had to step between them. Doc glared at them both. “Can’t you keep that blood-hungry moron quiet? Get him out of here!”
“We might need him, if Bill’s going to be stubborn,” said Jace gently. Doubles smiled like a hyena. One huge fist slapped into the other palm.
“Any time, Boss. Any time.”
And then Laal spoke. Really spoke, with his own reedy breathless voice. None of us understood him, but we sure tried hard. At the end, he gestured toward the talk-box and back to himself, urgently. There was no mistaking his meaning.
“No, Laal! No! They’ll take your treasure and—”
Doubles’ big hand was across my mouth, pulling my head against his shoulder, the other hand gripping my body. Doc hurried to lift the box and place it on the cot beside Laal. Thin alien fingers flickered on the glassy keys. A soundless throbbing pressed against my eardrums, filled my head. The others, open-mouthed, were straining to catch that silent speech.
Inside my head I began to picture the desert just outside Hell’s Oven. It was like a movie unrolling in front of your eyes. It made me dizzy. I closed my eyelids but the picture went on unreeling against the back of them. Across the desert. It seemed a long way. Topping a dune finally, we seemed to stare down into a curiously rounded hollow. At the base of the depression squatted a shining ball. Laal’s ship. A round dark ope
ning yawned in one side.
“That is my ship,” confirmed Laal’s thought. “Within it, great wealth. The rarest treasures of my planet, yours in exchange for the cure of our children. Do you have this mold-medicine, Being-known-as-Doc? It is a golden mold from which can be distilled a healing fluid.”
Doc was staring hypnotized at the red disc eyes. Laal stared back at him, waiting for an answer. Doc took a step forward, raised his voice as though talking to a deaf man. He said eagerly, “Yes! Yes! I have the medicine you want. Let us go at once and collect the treasure!”
“First, the cure.” You could hear the sternness of Laal’s thought echoing hollow inside your ears. I wrenched convulsively at the vise gripped around my chest. Doubles only held tighter, grinding his palm so my mouth bled against my teeth.
“What sickness have they got?” Doc was breathing like a man who’s run a long way. Maybe he’d seen further into Laal’s ship than I had, estimated the value of the spoils of a world; he was shaking with excitement.
Laal pressed the keys rapidly. Another picture formed behind my eyes—this time a close-up of a tiny figure, disc eyes covered by a whitish membrane, swollen lumps on either side of the thin neck. Doc drew back a little, frowning. He pursed his lips.
“The way I see it, from what you—uh—tell me, it looks like mumps,” he muttered. Then he put on a greasy smile. “Yessir, mumps is all that’s the matter with your kiddies. And it just so happens I have the very cure for that, right here in the dispensary. I’ll make you up a couple of jugs of it right away.”
The red eyes went from Doc to me and back again. Laal’s next thought held stern anxiety: “From the mind of Beel, my friend, I sense strong doubt of your good faith and ability to help me.”
“Aureomycin!” crowed Doc, his glasses twinkling in triumph as he looked from one to the other of us. “That yellow mold stuff he was talking—thinking about, rang a bell with me. ’Member all that Aureomycin I laid in when the Cantala family and those Indians got the spotted fever? They couldn’t pay for it so I still got most of it. Rocky Mountain spotted fever’s a virus, ain’t it? And so’s mumps. What’s good for one ought to be good for the other.”
“That’s weeks ago,” I protested mentally. “Laal, make dead sure the stuff’s still active—or whatever.”
Laal’s thought challenged Doc as the little alien pressed the keyboard. “Let me see this golden medicine from a mold. I would know, from my conditioning, whether it is the thing we are seeking.”
Doc was fairly dancing with excitement. “I’ve got a fair plenty of the stuff. You can dilute it down and make enough to cure everybody!” His smile widened. “Doubles, here’s the key to the shed. Get me a couple of five-gallon cans. Jace, bring over your work jeep and we’ll load the medicine and drive our friend back to his ship. I’ll be making up the mixture while you’re gone.”
I tried to think. Laal had said a golden mold. I’d heard of Aureomycin—who hadn’t? But was it a cure for what ailed the Martian children? And surely dilution would ruin it. Or would it? My indecision let the moment pass. Doubles was pulling me toward the door.
“What’ll I do with Billyboy? Wring his neck? We don’t need him anymore.”
“Of course, you’re joking, Doubles.” Doc’s eyes shifted warningly in Laal’s direction. “We’d never harm any of our—servants, no matter how willful or unreliable they are. Just take him out and put him in the shed.” He shot a venomous glance at me. “You might make sure he’s comfortable before you leave him.”
Doubles was overcome by the humor of this. “I’ll tuck him in, Doc. Real comfortable.” He threw his massive arm around my shoulders and pulled me out the door.
Jace followed us into the darkness. “I’ll bring the jeep to the back door,” he whispered. “We don’t want anyone seeing the freak and getting ideas. And it’ll be easier to load Doc’s cans of medicine.”
“What’s he going to give the freak? What is the cure for mumps, anyways?”
“There isn’t any, so far’s I’ve ever heard. And I wouldn’t bet on any diagnosis of Doc’s, myself.” Jace shrugged. “What do you care? If the freak comes back mad, he’ll take it out on Doc, not us. We didn’t say it was mumps—we didn’t guarantee any sure cures. And in the meantime, we got our share of the loot stashed away—” He interrupted himself, “Wait a minute! I got an idea . . .” His voice lowered cautiously.
“After we get the treasure from the freak and he takes off in his flying saucer or whatever it is, we’ll help Doc load the stuff on the jeep. And then I think Doc better have an accident—a bad one. He’s been cracking the whip pretty hard on poor old Bill, here, lately. Clare and two-three others have mentioned it to me. It’s only natural that a big guy like Bill won’t take that kind of pushing around forever—especially when he gets a few under his belt.” His soft insinuating voice paused. “If he had a gun—”
Doubles took up the plan joyfully. “So tonight Billyboy objects. He steals a gun somewhere. And we find him standing over the body of poor, harmless old Doc with the murder weapon in his fist. Naturally, I shoot him down before he can finish the rest of us.” He shook his head admiringly. “I got to hand it to you, Jace.”
“Think you can handle it?”
“It’s my pleasure,” grinned Doubles. “Where’s the gun?”
Jace passed him something. “Here’s Doc’s. I just happened to pick it up a while ago, inside.”
Doubles stuffed it in his coat pocket. “Should I put Billyboy out of his misery now?”
Jace hesitated. I held my breath. Then he said, “Better not. Someone might come to investigate the shooting. I don’t want witnesses to any of this. And I don’t want to give Doc any ideas. Or disturb the freak. He seems to have taken quite a shine to Bill.”
“Freaks of a feather—” said Doubles with a snort of laughter. “Speaking of our friend Bill, what’s with him? He’s been awful quiet.” He shook me roughly. I swayed, letting my muscles relax. He pulled me erect.
“Naw, there ain’t no fight in him. What with that rotgut we sold him and the dope Doc’s been pumping into him, it’s a wonder he’s still with us. Must’ve been made of iron to take it for this long.”
Jace wasn’t interested. “He’s just a wreck—a drifter. We’re wasting time. Sure you know what you’ve got to do? After the stuff is loaded in the jeep. We might as well have help with it. First, Doc. Then Bill.”
“Got it,” said Doubles.
“Now take Doc his five-gallon cans or he’ll be out here looking for them.” Jace moved away noiselessly in the darkness.
Doubles shifted his grip to a carrying position under my shoulder. I let him drag me through the sand and rubbish toward the rear of the store. Doc had a large locked shed out there, where he kept everything he couldn’t sell or use. Doubles propped me roughly against the shed wall as he fumbled with the padlock. I sucked in a careful, noiseless breath. This had to be good the first time. I didn’t have more than one punch in me. I shuffled my feet to get a firm stance in the gritty soil, and I let that first breath out easy and took another. The night air was sharp and pungent with sage.
Doubles was bent over, peering and muttering over the padlock. I brought my hand down on his neck in a chopping cut that had everything I had left in it.
He slumped to the ground. I bent over him, fumbling for the gun, and nearly fell on my face as I got it. I thrust it between my skin and the cord that held up my pants, pulling my shirt out over it to hide it. I leaned against the dry, splintery wood of the shed for a moment, hauling in another breath; then, shaking and sweating, I bent and finished opening the padlock.
It took me a couple of minutes to get Doubles dragged inside the shed. It was dark in there, sour-smelling and unbelievably hot. I bruised my hands on sharp corners and ragged edges I couldn’t see, as I pulled at boxes and crates to make a clear space behind them. I got Doubles into that and piled some empty oil cans on top of him.
I staggered out the door into th
e dim light of the rising moon. It took a lot of fumbling to get the padlock back after Doubles’ rough surgery, but at last it was locked into place. I threw the key as far away as I could, then I leaned against the shed and gulped in the air and tried to control the deep shuddering convulsions of my stomach muscles.
The back door came open a little, spilling a streak of yellow light across the sand like a finger pointing at me. Doc’s mean little frame was silhouetted black in the doorway, his head thrust forward into the night.
“Doubles!” came his sharp whisper. “What’s keeping you? Get those cans in here!”
I lurched toward him, pulling out the gun as I came. I was nearly at the door before he saw who I was. He fell back, mouthing something. Then he turned and darted away.
I let him go. Hanging in the doorway, I didn’t have strength to run after him. I had to get the little alien away from here and out to civilization where he could tell his story and get real help for his people. I went over to the cot. Laal’s eyes were closed. He looked worse than ever, if that was possible. I shook him as gently as I could. His fur was soft and pleasant to the touch. His eyes opened. I swear I saw something like friendly recognition in that grotesque mask. I put the thought-transformer beside him and lifted his fingers to the keys. He pressed them obediently.
“I’ve got to talk to you, Laal. These men are bad. They want the treasure you’ve got in your ship. I’m going to try to get you to a place where good men will try honestly to find a cure for your children. But you’ve got to help yourself a little. I don’t think I can carry you—”
Laal was pressing a single key. Negative.
“You mean you can’t travel?”
His thought came: “I need not go from this place. The medicine I seek is here. The Being-called-Doc has said it.”
I sagged against the cot. Now what did I do? In a few minutes Doc would be back, with Jace, probably, and a gun. I began to shake with anger at my own weakness and Laal’s stubborn idiocy. Even though I knew he was reading my thoughts, I shouted at him, “Look, you dope, can’t you understand? Those guys haven’t got a cure! Or if they have, there isn’t enough of it! I know Doc. He'll water it down to look like plenty, and that'll ruin it! They're going to trick you and take your treasure and kill me—” I stopped. Laal’s eyes had closed. His fingers slipped from the keys. He just wasn’t interested in anything I had to say.
I rubbed my shaking fingers across the dirty stubble of beard on my scarred face. I had to admit I wasn’t a very convincing figure. So why not just forget the whole crusade? Search for some of Doc’s medicine and shoot myself so full of it that I wouldn’t come to for a week. My body, craving the peace of the drug, urged me toward the cluttered dispensary. But something held me. I looked down at the thing on the cot. It was alien and completely ugly. It had rejected me and my offers of help and my advice. I stared at my hands. They were bleeding a little. I tried to think.
Clare! Maybe she could convince Laal. She’d tried hard enough to help me, and I wasn’t much better looking than Laal. And she had a car. I staggered out the door and started off for Clare’s lunchroom. I kept to the shadow of the buildings. No need to risk running into Jace or Doc in the dark. When I got to Clare’s, light was streaming from the windows. I pushed open the door and nearly fell into the room.
“Bill!” Clare’s voice, troubled and—afraid. Of me? I focused my eyes with an effort. Beside Clare stood Doc and Jace, waiting for me to speak. My throat and mouth were dry. I stood there, gaping. Doc came forward, light glowing on his glasses so I couldn’t see the eyes behind them.
“You see, Clare?” Oh that oily voice! “It’s like I said. He got hold of some drink somewhere and he’s gone over the line. You’d better let Jace and me handle him.” He shook his head in mock pity, the hypocritical old buzzard. “I think it’d be kinder if we take him to the city tonight. I’ve tried to help him, but I can’t do much for his kind, here.” He sighed.
Unctuous rotten devil! I worked my mouth. “Clare!” It came out a choking gasp. “I’ve got to tell you—tell—”
“Yes, Bill?” So soft her voice, so kind. And her clear eyes troubled as they usually were when they rested on me. “What are you trying to tell us, Bill?”
So what could I say? I looked from one to the other of them—Clare anxious, Doc smiling, Jace imperturbable. Could I say, “There’s a Martian in the back of Doc’s drugstore . . . and Doc is selling him ten gallons of sheep dip as a cure for mumps . . . and the little man is going to give Doc a world’s ransom in return.” Well, could I? Just about then, Clare would join Doc in a call for the boys in the white coats.
I had to try. I don’t know why, I just had to. But first I wanted a drink of water. I’d need to talk fast and smooth, once I started, and this strangled gasping wouldn’t take me far. So I tried again.
“Drink—something to drink—”
It was the wrong thing to say. I knew that as soon as I caught the pain in Clare’s eyes, and the beginning of a reluctant belief—and the gleam of triumph on Doc’s face.
“You see, my dear? He’s quite hopeless—”
So it was up to me alone. I pulled Doc’s gun out of my belt. “Gun you gave Doubles to kill Doc ’n’ me, Jace,” I croaked. “Loaded. Let’s go Martian. You too, Clare. Witness.”
Reluctantly they went ahead of me down the dark, deserted street. I think the men knew I’d be happy to kill them both. Clare was at my elbow. Once when a wave of dizziness threatened to sweep me out into the dark, her hand came up, strong and steady, under my arm. I only needed it for a minute. Then the curtain lifted and I could see again. Doc and Jace had stopped walking and were peering back at us.
“Move!” I croaked. They obeyed. I was right behind them with the gun jammed tight into Jace’s back as we entered Doc’s store.
Someone was moving around in the lighted dispensary. We headed that way. Doc and Jace went first, then me, with Clare following. I heard her quick indrawn breath. Laal did look like something unholy as he crouched on the floor, the single dangling bulb reflecting red from his fur, his lean leathery arms scrabbling a bunch of cardboard cartons into a pile in the center of the cheap cot blanket. His red eyes burned up at us. His hands flashed to the keyboard. His thought came to us all, clearly.
“I have found the substance I need. It was here, as Doc said, a culture from a mold, even as also our ancient writings described. Now you must help me to my ship with your vehicle. My time is short and your gravity defeats me.”
“Get the jeep, Clare. I’ll hold these babies till you come back.”
“You can’t go like that!” shrilled Doc, stepping forward. “You’ve taken all my Aureomycin and the sulphas . . . You can’t go away without paying!”
Laal turned red eyes on him. “I will leave the treasure on the sand beside my ship as I promised,” came his thought. “Bill can bring them back to you.”
“Like hell he will,” snarled Jace. “He’ll run out with the works. Why should he split with us?”
Laal looked at him wearily. “What do I know of your quarrels?” his fingers pressed the keys. “I have the cure; I give you my treasure. Divide it among you. There is no more.”
Doc whimpered and Jace fixed me with dark hating eyes. “How did you get Doubles?”
I didn’t answer. We waited. How long would it take Clare to bring up the jeep? The deep uncontrollable trembling was starting up again inside me; nausea was sour in my throat. I noticed Doc’s eyes on me, greedily searching for signs of collapse. I tightened my grip on the gun.
“If I feel myself going, I’ll shoot Jace first and then you,” I promised him. Nobody answered me. In the silence we heard the jeep pull up beside the back door. Clare came in.
“Give Laal a hand out to the jeep,” I told her.
He wouldn’t let go of his bundle of medicine, so Clare half-carried him outside. Doc swayed forward as they disappeared. I swung the gun on him and he froze. I guess my face would have been enough to s
top him. More than anything in this world except helping Laal, I craved a chance to shoot him. Jace had ordered my death—but Doc had kept me in a living hell of craving for the drug that degraded me more that the “corrections” of the prisoner of war camp had been able to do . . .
I backed toward the door. Now their eyes were following me, watching for a misstep, a stumble . . . I had to laugh. The sound of it, ringing out crazily, sobered me. Just a little longer, long enough to help Laal on his way to the stars and see Clare safe—and then I’d come back and kill them both.
A message from Laal, fainter than any I’d received: “My time grows short! Hurry!”
I heard the jeep’s engine as I backed out the door. I was at the end of my strength. I couldn’t risk trying to tie Doc and Jace up . . . they were advancing slowly after me . . . they’d be on me the moment I turned my back. I stretched out my left hand and caught the doorknob.
“I’ll shoot the first one who comes through this door,” I said, and slammed it in their faces. For good measure I sent one shot crashing through the panel.
In a second I was falling into the jeep. Clare almost swung it out from under me as she whirled toward the road. I can’t remember much about that ride. I sat hunched and swaying in the seat beside Clare. Behind me on the floor Laal huddled over his precious bundle of drugs. Dully I hoped he wouldn’t get anything broken by the jolting, as the jeep bumped and rocked over the dunes, heading out into the desert in the light of the full moon.
Clare stared straight ahead of her, guided like an automaton by Laal’s mind. It seemed like a long trip, and then the jeep was laboring up the side of a big dune, topping it, and rolling down into a bowl-shaped depression which looked familiar. At the very center was a shining ovoid. Laal’s ship.
Between us, Clare and I got him out of the jeep and over to the opening. He kept his stranglehold on the cot blanket full of drugs, every second. I can’t say I blame him; he’d come a long way to get them. There was a shimmering curtain of some sort over the entrance port. Laal focused his box and pressed the key. There was a high whine and the curtain dissolved. Clare, being smaller, helped Laal through the dark opening. As I stood there, watching, I heard a droning roar. A car—coming across the desert at a spine-jarring speed. Doc and Jace hadn’t wasted any time.
I felt for the gun. Somewhere during the ride I had lost it.
What would they do to Clare? I staggered over the fused sand to the ship’s port. “Clare! See if Laal will take you up and drop you off near a city.” It sounded silly even as I was saying it. Clare appeared in the opening, a small box under her arm. She stepped out, turned, waved back at Laal, then came toward me. Her eyes were alight with a happiness I’d never seen in them.
“He—explained things to me, Bill. About you—things he’d read in your mind. He thinks very highly of you. And he wants to say goodbye.”
“Clare,” I groaned, “hear that car? It’s Doc and Jace. I don’t think they’ll let either of us out of this alive . . . Get going, Laal!” I yelled.
As though in answer, a humming came from within the ovoid and a pale blue radiance began to glow in the air around it. That was all we needed—to put up a neon sign advertising the whereabouts of Laal’s ship! As I bent to go through the port, the powerful spot beam on Jace Denhet’s tow truck was lighting up the rim of the bowl like a dreadful sunrise.
I went on in. Laal was strapped into a hammock-sling of woven fibers. Pulsing in front of him was a globe of bluish light. Off in the shadows loomed a couple of machines larger than Laal’s talk-box with many rows of glassy keys. Laal was holding out a tiny box to me. It was made of the same shining substance as the ship. In the bluish light it shone like mother-of-pearl.
“This is for you, Beel,” his thought came warmly. “Because your heart is kind and your words are honest. I have been glad to know you, man of another world.”
What could I say? “Me, too, Laal,” I managed. “I hope your kids get better.”
There was a tangle of voices outside. Doc’s weasel face thrust inside the port. He had a gun in his fist.
“Where’s the treasure you promised me?”
Laal touched the keys. Into our minds came the image of a shining sphere behind us. Doc and I turned to look. Sure enough, there it was—a huge globe of shining metal carefully cradled in a net of tough fiber.
“It is our world’s greatest treasure. All my people—and we are many hundred—denied themselves for a year to collect this as a payment for the cure. Take it; roll it from the ship now, Being-called-Doc. I have but waited for your arrival; my ship must take off within a hand’s count of time.” The hum grew louder; the blue light brightened. As we looked, the port irised open wide enough to permit the removal of the shining globe.
Doc called Jace. Between them they jostled and rolled the globe out onto the desert sands and away from the ship. It seemed very heavy. Doc ran and poked his head inside the ship again. “Is that all you’ve got?”
Laal’s reply came: “That is my world’s wealth. Our rarest treasure. Be content. Beel, use wisely the gift I gave you. It is time for you to come out of the shadows of the past and live in the light again. May the Great Ones watch over you, my friend! Farewell.”
The port was slowly closing. I got out just in time. Clare caught my arm and pulled me away from the ship. It rose on a shaft of bright blue flame—flame without heat. Our skins tingled. We moved further back. Laal’s ship dwindled skyward. Then, like a pinwheel, blue flame swept around it in a flaring circle and the ship flashed out of sight.
I sat down on the sand. I couldn’t have stood up any longer. Clare sank down beside me, rested her head on my shoulder. It felt right. I looked at Doc and Jace. They were glaring at each other.
“I’m rich! I’m the richest man in the world!” crowed Doc. He was still holding the gun.
“There’s plenty for both of us,” said Jace. “Give me the gun. I’ll take the boxes he gave Clare and Bill.”
“I’ll hold the gun,” Doc spoke with enormous good humor, “you get the stuff from them.”
Jace came toward us cautiously. “How’d you like to buy your lives? Just give us what the alien gave you, and we’ll let you go.”
Clare didn’t say anything. She just leaned against me, cradling her box and looking off into the moonlit desert as though this were some ordinary evening and we were an ordinary pair of sweethearts. Jace came a little closer, stooped over us, hands out. There was a sharp crack. Jace straightened a little, then toppled into my lap. I eased him over onto the sand.
Doc was laughing. “Thought I’d forget you planned to gun me down, you and Doubles! Thought you’d share my treasure, did you?” A drool of saliva from his mouth threaded silver in the moonlight. I guess he was crazy. “All mine,” he crooned. “I just have to shoot you two and this treasure is all mine.”
I was too tired to be scared any more. I looked at the queerly smiling face. “How you going to get the stuff back to Hell’s Oven?” I asked. “It’s too heavy for you to lift into the truck.”
He stopped smiling and his face quivered like a child’s—an evil child’s. “That’s so . . . but you’ll help me . . . you and Clare . . . Maybe I won’t kill Clare if you help me.”
It took both Clare and me to get the globe on the truck. We finally had to roll it to the top of the dune, chocking it on the way with our bodies. Then we brought the truck up under it. It was a terrible job, but we did it and then I helped Clare into the driver’s seat, just as though I expected her to go safely back to town with Doc. I turned. He was staring at me, glasses shining in the moonlight like smaller moons. He was just three steps away.
“It has to be now,” he smiled. The gun swung up.
“Get going, Clare!” I yelled and ducked and rolled under the truck. As I got to my feet on the far side, I heard the crack of his shot. It must have pierced the globe. I had to see too. I don’t believe anybody could have helped going to look—gun or no gun. The wealth
of a world—dripping away before our eyes into the thirsty sand. Doc scrambled up onto the truck.
Whimpering, Doc tried to hold his hand over the jagged hole. Then he bent, put his mouth to it, tasted—spat.
“Water!” he yelled. A wilder cry never rang across the desert. “Water!” and he crumpled down beside the treasure of Mars, weeping.
We got him to a hospital. They tell us he’ll never recover. He’s very quiet except when they try to get him to take a bath or a drink of water. Then he gets really violent.
As for the contents of my box, we took it to the government scientists to be analyzed. It seems it contains a very unusual crystal which is revealing strange magnetic properties under the careful experimenting of the scientists. They’re talking about a cure for cancer, maybe even regeneration of cells. It seems the crystal controls and regulates cell growth.
Clare’s box? Well, we’re saving that. It held a pair of what look like baby bootees, in gold mesh intricately worked with jewels. A gift from the children of Mars. The government says we’re to keep them. You never can tell when a family will need a pair of baby bootees. Especially a happy family like Clare and me.
Ugly Earthling