The Scifi & Fantasy Collection

  I was surprised, to say the least. I hadn’t expected a tear gas bomb to kill him. But from the look of the way he was heaving and shuddering, that elephant was halfway to his happy hunting ground already.

  The little torches jammed into his side began to flicker out. The smoke from them drifted around him like a shroud.

  The Numidians had drawn off to the farthest point of the arena. The crowd now took to jeering at them. Two of them advanced as though to prove their metal. The riot gun took care of that.

  “Let me out of here,” I yelled at Nero. “I’m Danny West of Teague County, Texas. And you’d better be careful next time where you get your gladiators. Let me out of here!”

  But Nero Germanicus and his party were not thinking about gladiators. The tear gas had fumed out through the twitching trunk of the elephant. It had wheezed from his scalded lungs to work its way upward and drift into the President’s box. His mother and the ladies of the court had scrambled awkwardly backwards to the walkway above. Nero now stood crying the first and last tears of his merciless life.

  I glanced around the arena. The crowd was plainly scared. And that, my friend, is an accomplishment, for the impressing of a Roman crowd was a thing for which men sold their lives. It began to come over me what I had done.

  I looked around me. That arena looked like a dance hall after the Longshoremen’s Ball. Dead lions and elephants were stacked up like the Chicago stockyards. Numidians, dead, wounded or terrified, were black or red spots on the white sand. Above them the crowd was beginning to surge away from the palisades.

  I could see young Marius and his girl. From the expression on his face, he had ceased to be convinced of the authenticity of necromancy.

  I swelled out my chest and strutted a little bit. Such was my confidence that I missed a second vital fact—when a Roman crowd gets scared, it kills.

  And when a Caesar is offended . . .

  Up until this time I had not paid particular attention to the glittering helmets and shining spears of the household troops which surrounded the box of Nero Germanicus Caesar. They were fine, big Germans. And, though they might have been the ancestors of the Tedeschi we were supposed to fight in Italy, they were very far from bones. Six feet six, most of them, picked for their size and courage. They served Caesar with a fanaticism born of the fact that without Caesar alive they themselves were dead before the Roman mob. So little was Nero Germanicus loved at this time, that he was accustomed to placing large troops about the city.

  So it happened, on this luckless day, that the Tenth Legion with all its panoply and fine training from across the Rhine was home and at hand.

  I saw the courier go, and though I didn’t know his message, I decided not to stay. The stiffening legs of the elephant and his massive body made a sort of a ladder up to the box. Of this I took advantage.

  I know more about mounting horses than elephants, but this one was bottom side up. I scrambled to his belly and then up his leg to grab at the top of the palisade. I was very engrossed in my effort since my equipment was not light and I was carrying that riot gun handy, reloaded. It was only a cheer from the crowd which made me look up.

  I was staring at the points of twenty leveled spears, backed by the blond beards of the household guard.

  Behind them and above them Caesar was smiling. It was his trick. I heaved myself down off that leg and under the protection of the elephant while all twenty of those spears bit meat close behind me. But it was elephant meat, not Texan.

  I stuck my head up again through the small forest and I leveled the riot gun. Three of the bodyguards had already begun to come down the elephant’s leg. They came down all right.

  BOWIE! BOWIE! BOWIE!

  Tedeschi! Well, I’d come to Italy to fight Germans, but I didn’t know that I would find them in the accoutrements of Roman Legionnaires. The riot gun let out a long roar. And the palisade above me was cleared! I reloaded and again stormed the ramparts.

  I don’t know where they came from, but they sure came in a hurry. Plumes, spears and helmets jammed the runway which led outward from the President’s box. The Tenth Legion was on its way.

  The Roman mob was cheering itself into laryngitis. All of a sudden I got mad.

  They’d come to see blood. Well, they were going to get blood. That riot gun blew down the first ranks of the Tenth Legion like a lawnmower. Their armor corselets might as well have been made of papier-mâché. The Numidians had been whipped up till now, but they knew that they would die anyway unless they did something. So I received a rear attack.

  Other companies of the Tenth Legion were flooding down into the arena from the boxes on either side of the President’s box. It was getting hot. I realized that it was certainly no place for Danny West.

  I pulled the pin on the last tear gas bomb and pitched it up into the runway behind the President’s box where it jetted white.

  I dodged about twenty spears and got up on the elephant again. From there I gave ’em a full burst from the riot gun. I reached the palisade and climbed over into the chair that Nero had so recently occupied.

  If the simple act of grabbing a throne would have made me Caesar, then I was Caesar. But I was sure sorry for it. You’ve seen it rain in a hurricane down in Galveston? Well, those big, long slanting drops weren’t anything compared to the number of javelins that were in the air around me then.

  One clanged off my helmet and almost knocked me silly. Some archer got to work and began to stud the woodwork with arrows. Ahead of me I could see the open runway, cleared now.

  I shut my eyes to dash through the tear gas. Then came the main bulk of the Tenth Legion. They blocked that exit like pickets make a fence. I backed up. I turned to see that the crowd itself, with cushions and baskets for weapons, had begun to back up the remaining Legionnaires, household troops and Numidians. All it required now was a pack of wild dogs and another flock of lions to make this a real Roman holiday.

  I let the riot gun go back into that press and then grabbed for the bandolier to reload. There was just one chamberful left. People were behind me and above me, Legionnaires were in front of me and, in short, it was no place for a self-respecting Texan boy to be found.

  Right about then I figured I was just so much lion meat. But I started up the ramp intending to find another way out. Then the impossible happened.

  I fell flat on my face, slipping in the blood which spattered the runway. And before I could regain my feet a bolt of lightning hit the Colosseum.

  It missed Nero, who had probably fled to the Palatine Hill by then. But it sure made hash out of the rest of the crowd.

  I hid my face in my arms but it didn’t come near me. It was a funny kind of lightning. It rolled around the arena in big yellow flashes. The whole crowd either dived under seats or died where they stood.

  The Tenth Legion, versed in all the lore of ancient superstition, saw that lightning and left their spears behind them.

  I scrambled to my feet, but I got up a split second too soon. There was somebody above me. And he was yelling. I couldn’t make out anything in the roar of that arena. This guy came over the side of the runway and lit beside me. But Danny West wasn’t waiting to be detained.

  I let him have a clip alongside of the neck and grabbed at his hands which I figured held a knife. Something came away and then I fell. About ten million volts of lightning went around the place once again.

  That’s all I know until I woke up being kicked in the side. It was raining. It was morning. It was Rome. And from the empty sardine can alongside of me I knew that the army of occupation was at hand.

  “Get out of that, you deserter!” said this stinking captain of ours.

  I looked up and I swear I could almost have kissed the guy, as much as I hated him.

  “Where have you been?” he demanded. “What have you been doing? What do you
mean by dishonoring me and disgracing your company?” And then, without waiting for me to answer any of these questions, he launched into a tirade that would have done credit to a West Pointer.

  He told me that I was guilty, as near as I could gather, of at least twenty-nine of the first thirty articles of war. Not the least of which was pusillanimous conduct in the face of the enemy.

  It seems there had been a riot the night before and I hadn’t been there. Though I tried to convince that stinking captain that I had been in a riot that made his look mighty pale, there wasn’t any talking past that high-grade flow of official redundancy.

  He had two MPs onto me like setter pups after a quail. He took the riot gun away from me and booted me all the way down to the military prison. So here I am, and all I got to show for it is this here fountain pen I took out of that bird’s hand just before the lights went out.

  He held up a small gray object to his cellmate and relapsed, looking glum.

  His cellmate looked at him pensively.

  “Well?” demanded Danny West pugnaciously. “Go ahead and call me a liar.”

  His cellmate regarded the souvenir critically.

  “And where did you have it?” he said.

  Danny West gestured at his boot: “In here. Them damned MPs would take your gold teeth off of you.”

  The cellmate seemed a bit nervous.

  “Let me see it.”

  “Okay, but you’ve got to hand it right back.”

  Danny West extended it to him, nearly dropping it. His cellmate turned white and grabbed it just before it touched pavement. Caressingly he looked it over, wrapped it in his handkerchief and thrust it in his pocket. He stood up.

  “See here,” protested Danny West, “where you going with that?”

  “It happens, regrettably, that it belongs to me,” said his cellmate.

  “You? Now look here, I took that off a guy . . .” A dawning expression came over Danny West. He jumped to his feet and pointed. “Then you—”

  “Yes,” said the cellmate, bowing slightly.

  “But how . . . ?”

  His cellmate deepened the bow and took from his pocket a small metal card not much bigger than a dog tag, but made of some glittering substance of which Danny West had no acquaintance. The Texan read it with growing awe.

  “We didn’t intend to land here,” said the cellmate, “but we were caught without water and, unfortunately, the navigator and the captain chose the middle of the Italian desert in which to find it. We have not been much acquainted with these things for some time so you will excuse our ignorance.

  “I used a certain device of ours to go back to a period when water had been there. But, unfortunately, I got somewhat scrambled in my dates. And your little show in the arena—which, by the way, I wouldn’t have missed for worlds—sidetracked me further into this place.”

  He was moving toward the door as though his mere gesture would open it.

  “But here,” he said, “I won’t be too hard on you. I’m sure if you tell the captain that your part in the riots was well played, proving it by your empty bandoliers, he will be very happy to let you off—particularly since you can make him a present of one of the jewels in these.”

  Saying which, he drew out of his knapsack the gold laurel wreaths which had been worn by Nero Germanicus and his consorts. He handed them to Danny West. And even in that gloom, the roundcut gems gleamed. The gold was so soft you could bend it with a finger.

  “You won them fairly,” said the cellmate. “Anybody but Nero would have considered the show quite good enough, without turning loose the Tenth Legion on you.”

  Danny West was agape. “But look here, how . . . ?”

  “It’s simply that I got to Rome when I should have gone to Carthage,” said his cellmate. “Now, if you’ll give me my identification.”

  Danny West read it again. The rest of his life those words would be engraved on his memory:

  MORTAN, DAGGER B. 116335

  MECHANIC FIRST CLASS, ROCKET TURBINES

  INTER-SYSTEM SPACEWAYS

  INOCULATED 10 JOLY 2595

  BLOOD TYPE O

  Danny West gave it up, numb with awe. His cellmate was applying a small gadget to the lock which dripped in large globules of iron upon the pavement.

  “But wait a minute,” said Danny West, “that lightning . . . That must have been . . .”

  “Yes,” said his cellmate, “this little gadget which you so carelessly supposed to be a fountain pen was the author of that. It’s not very much. The pile cell in it is almost worn out. It’s a sort of obsolete weapon, you see.”

  His cellmate walked through the swinging door, and then seemingly through the solid rock wall.

  A long time after he had gone, Danny West stood, arms hanging limply, still holding the laurel wreaths, his mouth forming the parting words:

  “An obsolete weapon!”

  Glossary

  STORIES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE reflect the words and expressions used in the 1930s and 1940s, adding unique flavor and authenticity to the tales. While a character’s speech may often reflect regional origins, it also can convey attitudes common in the day. So that readers can better grasp such cultural and historical terms, uncommon words or expressions of the era, the following glossary has been provided.

  alihipidile: made-up name for an animal.

  Alpha Centauri: the triple-star system that is closest to the Earth.

  anguis in herba: (Latin) a snake in the grass; a treacherous or harmful thing that is hidden or seemingly harmless.

  aqua vitae: (Latin) literally “water of life”; used in current English to mean a strong distilled alcohol, especially a strong liquor such as whiskey or brandy.

  assegais: slender iron-tipped hardwood spears used chiefly by African peoples.

  Assyria: an ancient empire and civilization of western Asia, at its height between the ninth and seventh centuries BC. The empire extended from the Mediterranean Sea across the Middle East.

  auto-blinded: to have made oneself unable to notice or understand something.

  bandolier: a broad belt worn over the shoulder by soldiers and having a number of small loops or pockets for holding cartridges.

  banshees: (Irish legend) female spirits whose wailing warns of a death in a house.

  beaters: people who drive animals out from cover.

  bellowing: expanding to draw air in and compressing to force the air out.

  billets: lodgings for soldiers.

  blunderbuss: a short musket (gun) with expanded muzzle to scatter shot, bullets or slugs at close range.

  boon: something to be thankful for; blessing; benefit.

  Carthage: an ancient city in northern Africa.

  cat: Caterpillar bulldozer; a heavy engineering vehicle used to push large quantities of soil, sand, rubble, etc., during construction work. It is made by Caterpillar, Inc., and commonly referred to simply as cat.

  cat men: operators of Caterpillar bulldozers.

  Colosseum: an ancient amphitheatre in Rome.

  corselets: body armor, especially breastplates.

  coup: coup de grâce; a finishing stroke.

  crap: a losing throw in the game of craps, where players wager money against the outcome of one roll, or a series of rolls, of two dice.

  dark star: a theoretical star whose gravity is strong enough to trap light; mostly superseded by the concept of “black hole.”

  dint of, by: by vigorous and persistent means.

  docks: any of various weedy plants that have broad leaves and clusters of small greenish or reddish flowers.

  done me dirt: treated me unfairly or reprehensibly.

  faring forth: traveling away from a particular place.

  figger: figure.

 
flashboards: boards fitted at the top of a dam to add to its height and increase the amount of water that can be held back.

  flying squads: trained, mobile groups of police officers capable of moving quickly into action and performing specialized tasks, as during an emergency.

  Franco-Prussian War: (1870–1871) the war between France and Prussia. The conflict was a culmination of years of tension between the two powers, which finally came to a head over the issue of a candidate for the vacant Spanish throne following the deposition of the Queen of Spain. The French had equipped their infantry with the Chassepot, a breech-loading rifle with a maximum effective range of some 750 yards and a rapid reload time. Made famous as the arm of the French forces in this war, the Chassepots were responsible for most of the Prussian and other German casualties during the conflict.

  G: gravity; a unit of acceleration equal to the acceleration of gravity at the Earth’s surface.

  G-2: United States Army Intelligence (a branch of the Army).

  garnishee: to take the money or property of a debtor by legal authority.

  goon: a professional gangster whose work is beating up or terrorizing people.

  Graf Zeppelin: a large dirigible named after the German pioneer of airships, Ferdinand von Zeppelin. It flew for the first time on September 18, 1928 and was the largest airship at that time at 776 feet (262.5 meters) in length.

  Here’s how: used as a toast.

  hole card: the card dealt face down in the first round of a deal in stud poker.

  howitzer: a cannon that has a comparatively short barrel, used especially for firing shells at a high angle of elevation for a short range, as for reaching a target behind cover or in a trench.

  Lady Luck: luck or good fortune represented as a woman.

  leaded ports: portholes with glass impregnated with a small amount of lead to impede radiation.

  link pin: a thin rod that fastens together separate sections of a tread.