Star Science Fiction 6 - [Anthology] Read online

  The lieutenant looked closely at Gordon, then decided that he had no right to give orders to a civilian. He said, “I can’t stop you. The colonel won’t like it—but it’s your neck.”

  Gordon got out of the truck, and the officer drove off. He watched the vehicle drive out of sight with its carrier trailer almost flowing behind it, gyro stabilized for smooth riding.

  * * * *

  III

  Jill saw the candy in the store window. It looked so pretty and good! There were nuts and lollipops, and peppermint sticks and marshmallows. And those chocolates, how good they looked!

  Determination invaded her mind. She was going to have the candies—all of them. Or as many as she could carry. She tucked the dolls under her arms, reached up and squeezed the latch with her hand. The door was too big and too heavy for her to open with the dolls under her arms. She thought a moment and decided that she had one doll too many, so she put one down on the sidewalk. Then she managed to open the latch. The door squeaked ever so slightly as it swung open. Jill went in and saw that this store, like all the other stores she had seen, had no people in it. Therefore she would have to help herself.

  She walked to the window and reached in for some of the candy from the displays. Some of the chocolate melted in her hand. She wiped the hand on her dress, feeling a little guilty. Dr. Prann wouldn’t like that. Her mouth was so full that saliva dribbled from the corners of her mouth and down her chin. In a few minutes she had eaten more candy than she really wanted, and eating it was becoming an increasingly difficult chore. Soon she stopped altogether. But she had foresight enough to think of tomorrow, so she stuffed all she could into her little dress pocket. She hesitated, then decided that that would not be enough. She got a paper bag from the counter as she had seen some of the store people do one time and filled it with the nicest looking of the candies in the trays behind the counter. She would eat them later when she got hungry.

  Right now she was getting sleepy. She was tired from walking and flying all day. She guessed that she ought to lie down and get some sleep, but there was no bed. It occurred to her that there might be one in the back of the store. She rounded the counter once again and walked through the doorway behind it. There was a long shelf there with boxes of candy on it, and several more shelves, one above the other, on which many boxes of candy were neatly wrapped. She looked around the little room but saw no bed, not even a couch. Disappointed, she walked toward the store entrance. Outside, she retrieved her other doll but found that she still could not carry all the dolls and the candy too. So she kept the prettiest and biggest of the dolls as well as the bag of candy and left the other doll lying on the sidewalk.

  Jill walked down the street until she caught a glimpse of a store that had some beds right in the window. She crossed the street to try the door. It wouldn’t open, even when she put the candy and the dolls down and tried with both hands. She tried even harder this time, but the door still wouldn’t open. She began to get angry at it. Rage mounted within her quickly as she failed again. She muttered a child’s invective at the door and at her futility at not being able to open it. She stood back to use all the power she had. The sigh power, Dr. Prann called it, though she didn’t know why.

  Jill gathered the forces in her mind that she had learned to recognize, and let them build up. Then she let them loose.

  “Oh, oh!” she said to herself, and she felt a little abashed. She had done it a little too much; Dr. Prann wouldn’t like that if he saw it. The door did not simply break off and fly away as she had really intended it should, but it splintered and flung itself inward with such a force that parts of the walls and the ceiling went with it, breaking the big windows at the same time. The remains left a path of broken furniture clear up to the wall into which it smashed. A bell started ringing loudly and Jill jumped, scared by the sudden sound.

  She looked around, half expecting to find Dr. Prann there to reprimand her. No one was near. Dr. Prann would be angry when he found out she used so much sigh power. He was always cautioning her to control her thoughts and the power.

  Oh, well, she thought. She had the door open. But the bed was in the window. She wouldn’t dream of sleeping in a bed in a window—even if there were no people around. Suddenly she saw other beds in the store. She went through the tattered doorway and into the large room. She gave a gurgle of delight. There were many bedrooms! All along the walls were little bedrooms! Delightedly she ran from one to the other, oh-ohing at the prettiness of the beds and the covers and how nice everything looked. Finally she came to the last one and decided that that was the one she wanted to sleep in. It was the prettiest. And she was so tired.

  Jill placed her bag of candy carefully on the bureau and took off her shoes. Then she placed a doll on each side of her after pulling the spread down, and crawled under the blanket. She was a little disappointed because there were no sheets, and she felt a little guilty about getting in bed with her clothes on.

  But Jill fell asleep, neither the bell nor her child’s problem, bothering her at all.

  Gordon was walking in the direction where the sergeant had last seen the child. The night had definitely settled on the town, and there were few lights on. The street lights had come on automatically—some of them—and a few lights had been left on by the fleeing townspeople. He walked slowly, carefully down the street, staying for some reason close to the buildings. He thought he heard the sound of a car in the distance but he couldn’t be sure. But he did hear the hooting of a train horn far away, and the sound brought with it the odor of smoke. He sniffed and the odor disappeared. His imagination, he thought. An imagination could work full blast here.

  Somewhere in one of the buildings he heard a telephone ringing. The ringing became fainter as Gordon got farther down the street, then abruptly stopped. He heard an air conditioner start up. He smelled the odor of burned potatoes that someone must have left cooking on some stove during the excitement of leaving. Passing by an alley, sudden screams pierced the quiet and Gordon jumped, frightened, then cursed himself aloud as he recognized the screeching of a pair of cats giving vent to their passion.

  There was a sound coming from one of the buildings down the street. He stopped and listened, trying to identify it. Then he cautiously went toward it. It was a voice. Like a shadow he slid toward the store it came from. He tried the door; it was unlocked. There was no one in sight. He eased the door open and slipped inside. He shut the door quietly and looked around, then said aloud, gruffly, “Oh, hell!”

  There was a radio on a counter and a news commentator was talking. Someone had left it going in his haste to leave.

  “... and that’s the latest international news up to this minute. Locally, a recovery party has gone into the evacuated town of Silverton, as reported earlier, to get the bomb that was dropped on that town this afternoon. An Air Force bomber accidentally dropped the bomb while on a routine training mission, and the authorities from the nearby Air Base claim that the bomb dropped was a practice bomb containing radioactive dust. It is a scatter-type bomb which is equipped with a delayed-action fuse set to explode the bomb sometime by midnight. The bomb is said to contain a non-tamper device and an anti-disturbance unit also. These circuits are supposedly foolproof, and it has been wondered just how the Air Forces plans to remove the bomb from the community. At any rate, if the bomb cannot be taken away by the removal team, the team will be forced to abandon the bomb and leave the town. The bomb on exploding will scatter the short half-life dust in all directions, and if there is any wind, it will be carried to other parts of the town. The active life period of the dust is only about six hours, and the townspeople may return to their normal pursuits by morning at the latest. The evacuation of the town was orderly and rapid, aided by the nearby Air Base vehicles and the State National Guard. The National Guard has been given the task of guarding the town. All railroad service to the town has been temporarily discontinued. The hospital, fortunately, lies well outside the town, and evacuation of the
patients and staff was not necessary.”

  There was more, but Gordon did not pay any attention to it. He had stepped outside the building and was standing on the walk thinking of the puzzling situation when he heard the roar of a car. He looked up. The command car was pulling up to the curb alongside him. Its brilliant spotlight blazed upon his face.

  A door from the vehicle burst open and he heard the colonel shout, “Gordon! What the hell are you doing here? I told you to stay with Lieutenant Jory!”

  “I came along for a story, Colonel. Chasing down looters makes a better story than the removal of a harmless bomb.”

  The colonel’s eyes narrowed. His voice became nasty. “Gordon, you are under my direct command while you are in this town. When we get this mess straightened out here, I am personally going to see that you are punished. Consider yourself under arrest. And don’t leave this group for any reason!”

  So, Gordon thought? The Coloneldid know the bomb was a plant.

  Stiffly and furiously, the officer got back in the car. The back door opened and Gordon climbed in silently. He sat down beside the two civilians. They said nothing to him, just turned their heads away as though embarrassed. The car jerked from the curb and drove slowly up the street.

  Turning to one of the two civilians, the colonel asked, “How much farther do you think?”

  “It’s really difficult to say,” the tall man said. He was Dr. Prann, Gordon remembered from a brief introduction at the beginning of the trip. “It’s non-directional.”

  “What’s non-directional?” asked Gordon determined to get something out of this even if he had to bully everyone to get it.

  No one answered him. Presently the other civilian— Forbes—said, “Stop!”

  The car stopped. Forbes got out and ran to a store, then stood listening and looking in the distance. He turned and picked up something. A doll. The colonel, Prann, and Gordon hopped out of the vehicle and ran to Forbes. They stopped and listened as Forbes had done, and heard the distant clanging of an alarm bell. The colonel flashed a light and he and Forbes examined the doll. Gordon could see smudges on the outside of the doll but could not recognize what they were until Forbes said: “Chocolate!”

  Gordon noticed that they were outside a candy store, its door wide open.

  “She must be near here somewhere,” the colonel said. He started to go in the store.

  “Careful!” shouted Prann. “Let me go—I know her better!” But the colonel was already inside, Forbes on his heels.

  Gordon turned to Prann who was standing there as if trying to make up his mind what to do. “Dr. Prann, what’s going on here? What did the colonel mean by ‘she’?”

  “I—I—You’ll have to ask Dr. Forbes,” the man said, stumbling through the words.

  The colonel and Forbes returned with the doll. The colonel said to Prann, “She’s been in there. Candy spilled on the floor, and some taken. There’s chocolate smeared on the doll. And it looks like finger marks made by small hands.”

  Gordon made the connection immediately. He said, “Afraid of a little girl raiding the town, Colonel?”

  The officer glared at Gordon. “You don’t know what we are talking about, Gordon. Mind your own business.” He turned to Prann. “Any ideas?”

  Dr. Prann shook his head. Then, hesitantly, he said, “Maybe. She’s asleep now, but there’s a residual memory of what appears to be a bedroom. Only it is incomplete with one wall out. There are a number of similar rooms.”

  “A hotel, perhaps?” said the colonel.

  “Not likely,” said Prann. “Not with three-walled rooms.”

  “How about a furniture store?” suggested Forbes.

  “That alarm—” started Colonel Battin.

  * * * *

  IV

  Jill slept poorly. The strange surroundings made her restless. She dreamed and tossed and turned, aware that she was not in her own bed for the first time in a long time. Only utter fatigue made her sleep at all. She dreamed of walking down a crooked path. There were trees and high bushes on each side, and the noises of strange animals came from the bushes. She became afraid. Suddenly it was black night. The terror in her mounted as the animal noises became loud and threatening, and the noises kept pace with her frantic and futile running. Abruptly the light returned; she came to a clearing and stopped short. There, in the center of the clearing, was a fire-breathing dragon, smoke rippling from its mouth. She tried to scream but no sound came from her throat. She tried to run back up the dark path, but she couldn’t make her legs move. She tried to gather her sigh forces but they would not gather. The fire-breathing dragon kept coming closer and closer. Then—

  Jill woke up.

  She sat up wildly in bed clutching her dolls to her, for a moment even more terrified by her waking surroundings than by the dream. She looked up and there was a monster coming toward her. The smoke was coming from its mouth, and it took a claw and threw a bit of it at her. It opened its mouth to devour her.

  This time her gathered sigh forces worked. The creature disappeared. Suddenly Jill realized she had been having a dream. She wondered briefly what the monster had been doing out of a dream, and if Dr. Prann would be mad if he knew she had sent the dragon away through distance, and wondered if the creature would come out ofdistance in a juicy, drippy ball the way Stinky had done a long time ago. It had made Dr. Prann make the awfullest face, and he told her never to send anything through distance again unless he told her she could. Jill thought about it a little more, then hid her head in the pillow. Maybe she shouldn’t have done it

  The terror began to come back as the dream returned, only this time she was in a frightfully crowded room with all kinds of people around her. And there was one who kept looking at her. She discovered that it was a funny looking man, and she knew the way he kept following her that he was after her. Slowly she gathered the sigh forces. This time the monster would not be able to return. She waited for it to reappear. She woke up a minute later waiting, expecting, waiting.

  And there it was coming at her from around the side of the wall.

  The loud clanging of the burglar alarm led them to the store. The demolished front of the store made it easy to discover the place even in the bad light. The command car was parked some distance from the store, and the men walked silently toward the entrance. Gordon wondered, more and more, just what the real story behind all this was.

  In front of the store, the colonel said to Dr. Forbes, “Let me go in first. Maybe I can talk to her.”

  “Better not, Colonel,” objected Prann. “Dr. Forbes better go. He knows her.”

  How, wondered Gordon, could Dr. Forbes know her?

  The colonel paid no attention to Dr. Prann. He lit a fresh cigar, inhaled deeply, then cautiously entered the building.

  Gordon tried to see inside the damaged store. He wondered if the little girl had anything to do with the damage —then immediately dismissed the thought as ridiculous.

  “How about it?” said Forbes impatiently to Prann after a few minutes waiting.

  Prann stood white-faced. Then he stiffened and leaned weakly against the vehicle, with Gordon, Forbes and the driver looking at him strangely.

  “What is it, Prann?” said Forbes in a voice filled with tension.

  Before the man could answer,something plopped out of the darkness on the concrete near them. All the men looked down. The driver was the first to recognize the mixture of blood and flesh and torn blue uniform. He dropped to his knees, livid.

  “It’s the colonel!” he managed to stammer. Then he was noisily sick.

  Gordon and Forbes stared at Prann. The scientist still leaned weakly against the vehicle, his eyes fastened on the destroyed mass before them.

  “What happened, Prann!” whispered Forbes. “For God’s sake, tell us!”

  “It’s Colonel Battin,” Prann said wearily. He managed to straighten himself up. He took his eyes away from the shapeless, bleeding thing on the concrete and said, “She woke up. She
was terrified from a dream. She didn’t know the colonel, and in the half-dark—” He went no further with his explanation.

  “What’s going in here, Forbes?What is all this?” Gordon asked harshly, grabbing Forbes by the arm.

  The driver was spreading his coat over the remains of the colonel. The night air was chilly, but the men were perspiring.

  “It’s Prann,” Dr. Forbes said. “He’s telepathic.”

  Gordon took his hand off the man’s arm, staring at Prann. “Telepathic? But—” Prann walked over to Forbes. “She was half asleep when she did it. She thinks now it was a dream. She’s asleep again. What do you think?”

  “Let’s try our original plan,” said Forbes. “We’ll both go in. You keep a few steps behind me and try to conceal yourself. Watch her reaction. If you get a chance; do something—anything to get her attention.”

  Prann nodded, not at all confidently. Both men knew the little girl well. There should be no trouble. Still, thought Prann, these were unusual conditions in unusual surroundings. There was no telling really just how the child would react.