The 22nd Golden Age of Science Fiction Read online

  Red Ambrose sighed. “Looking at us, you wouldn’t think that three days ago we—” He gestured toward the horizon.

  “Don’t mention it,” Harden said. “I don’t want to ever hear of the place again.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t going to mention it out loud,” the engineer said. He raked a horny thumb across the head of a match, applied the light to the end of his cigar. Soon clouds of fragrant smoke were drifting through the thin air.

  “Where are you going from here, Harden?” Red Ambrose asked at last. “With that hunk of stuff we found piled up in Keogh’s hangout, all put into packing cases and everything, we got enough bucks to do what we please for the rest of our lives. What are you going to do with yours?”

  The packing cases that Harden had seen in Keogh’s place the first time he had been there had yielded a rich reward. Keogh had already managed to loot a vast hoard of treasure from the temple. He had carefully packed it ready for shipment. Harden and Red Ambrose felt they were logical heirs to it.

  “What am I going to do?” Harden mused. “I’m going to visit Earth. I’ve never been there, you know, and I kind of want to see what the place is like.”

  There was yearning in his voice, and something of sadness. The green hills of Earth called to him across the depths of space. He would see them, see the whole planet. There was pleasure in the thought. But there was another thought in his mind, and it brought sadness.

  Red Ambrose sensed what his companion was thinking. It was something the engineer would never mention. Harden had come here looking for a girl. And had not found her.

  “Ah, well—” Ambrose said. “Ah, well—” He looked up. Then rose hastily to his feet.

  Marion Gray had come out on the terrace. Harden drew out a chair for her and she sat down. She lit a cigarette, looked silently out over the city to the desert.

  “I suppose,” she said at last, “you will soon be leaving for Earth?”

  “Yes, yes,” Harden answered. “That is my plan.”

  He liked this girl, he liked her better than any girl he had ever known, except one. He liked her for what she was. He liked her in spite of the fact that she had never chosen to explain what she was really doing here, why she had gone to Keogh in the first place. It was a delicate subject, one on which he did not feel justified in asking questions. If she chose to tell him, all right. If she chose to keep silent, all right.

  “I don’t suppose I could interest you in staying on Mars a little longer?” she suddenly asked.

  “You might,” Harden answered. “This is not exactly a healthy place for me, but you might interest me in staying a little longer, if you are good at persuading.”

  * * * *

  He spoke lightly, his voice a slow drawl in the gathering dusk. Leaning back in his chair, he took a slow drag at his cigarette, watched the girl from eyes that were careful not to let her know he was watching her.

  She smoked in silence. “I’ve got a job to do here,” she said at last.

  “A job?”

  “Yes.” She snubbed the cigarette in the tray. “A job. I need someone to help me do it:” She looked straight at Harden. “Not just anyone can help. The man I need to help me must be trustworthy, and strong, and able to keep his mouth shut.”

  Red Ambrose, listening, rumbled in his throat, but said nothing. Harden kept silent, too. It was coming now. She was going to talk. She was going to tell him what she was doing here. He wanted to know. Knowing this was desperately important to him.

  “I want a guide,” she said suddenly. “That was one reason why I went to Keogh, because I wanted a guide.”

  “A guide?” Harden choked. “A guide?”

  “Yes. A guide who will take me into the land of serenity!” Harden sat up in his chair, his eyes darting around the terrace, to see if anyone had overheard her. Red Ambrose dropped his cigar and his hand dived into his pocket. There were certain things you did not mention on Mars. The land of serenity was one of them. And you never under any circumstances expressed a desire to go there.

  “Why,” Harden whispered, “why, if I may ask, do you want to go there?”

  It was the last place on Mars where anyone in his senses would want to go.

  “I want to find someone who is there,” the girl imperturbably answered.

  “Someone who is there!”

  “Yes”.

  “And who,” Harden tried desperately to keep his voice calm, “and who is this person you are seeking?”

  “A man,” the girl answered. “A man by the name of Turner.”

  Red Ambrose almost swallowed his cigar. “By gad, Turner! By gad, Harden. By the Lord Harry, Harden! Can it be possible? Can it be possible?” He was pounding on the table with his fist.

  “I want you to guide me into—you know where—and help me find Jimmy Turner,” the girl continued. “Will you do it?”

  Harden forced himself to control his voice. “Marion Gray,” he whispered. “Marion Gray. By gad, it fits! I wonder, I wonder, Miss Gray, if you were ever known by the name of Marcia Groner? The initials are the same and—”

  Startled surprise showed in the girl’s eyes. “Why, yes,” she said. “But how—I escaped from the—from you know where myself. That’s why I came back here, to find the man I love. The business about the Ph.D. was all fake. I was really, trying to—but how—how—how did you know my name?”

  Harden’s fingers went along his cheek, feeling of the scar, wondering how much that had changed his appearance. And he wondered if blonde hair could not be dyed red, and if freckles could not be removed?

  “It won’t be necessary for you ever to go into the—you know where, Marcia. Not now. Not ever. I’m Jimmy Turner, and I came back to Mars to try to rescue you, just as you came back to try to rescue me.”

  There was wonder in her eyes. The wonder grew and grew. Harden would always remember the wonder in her eyes, and the bounding flip-flop of his heart as she came into his arms.

  Red Ambrose looked at them. And grinned and grinned. And then stole quietly away.

  1Derjin—a drug of Mars. Importation to earth was forbidden. —Editor

  BRIDGE OF LIFE

  Amazing Stories, May 1946.

  Crouched on the bunk in the back of the prison cell, Dick Vey looked like a forlorn, frightened puppy. When the guard opened the grilled door and let me in, there was something frantically desperate in the way he grabbed at my hand.

  “Jim! I was afraid you wouldn’t get my message. When I—when they brought me here, I naturally thought of you. You’ve got to get me out of here, Jim.”

  “That’s what lawyers are for, Dick,” I answered. There was a blotch of a bruise over his right eye, his face was covered with stubble, and his cheeks were sunken. Looking at him, you would never guess he was one of the most brilliant of the younger generation of mathematical physicists who have followed in the footsteps of Eddington, Dirac, Minkowski, and others, that he was—or had been—the personally selected star assistant of Dr. Samuel Benson, whose mathematical development of the unified field theory had set the scientific world buzzing. He didn’t look like the mathematical wizard I had known in college. He looked a drunken stumble-bum who has been caught in a police dragnet.

  “You’ve got to get me out of here, Jim. You’ve got to get me out of here right away. Tonight!”

  “Um. Tomorrow maybe, within a week for sure.”

  “Tomorrow is too late. It’s got to be by tonight.”

  “I’ll do what I can. But what’s the big hurry, if I may ask?”

  “I’ve got to find Dr. Benson!”

  “Uh!” I gasped. His effrontery startled even me. “Damn it, Dick, don’t you realize you’re in here because neither the police—nor anybody else—can find Benson, that you’re accused of abducting him? And since he stacks up right behind Einstein and the district attorney is ge
tting plenty of publicity out of holding you in the jug on a charge of abducting Benson, springing you out of this can—so you can find him—is going to take some doing!”

  “Above him, Jim.”

  “What?”

  “Benson stacks up above Einstein. His unified field theory takes up where Einstein stopped—”

  I groaned. “Skip it, Dick, skip it. I know you think Benson is some kind of a god, but I don’t want to start any arguments with you on the relative merits of Benson and Einstein. You mathematicians can fight that out. My job is to get you out of jail. Tell me your side of the story. All I know is what I’ve read in the newspapers. What actually happened the night Benson vanished?”

  A worried, harried, fretful look crossed his face. The expression in his eyes changed. He seemed to be looking at something far away.

  “I don’t know,” he said at last.

  “You mean you don’t know what happened to Benson?”

  “That’s it. I don’t know, and I’m afraid to guess.”

  The expression on his face was odd, a mixing of terrible fear and of terrible longing. His face was the face of a kneeling priest gazing upward at the crucifix. It was the face of a man feeling the noose of the hangman knot around his neck seconds before the trapdoor of the gallows drops from beneath his feet. A mixed expression, fear and hope, terror and longing. It was the strangest, oddest, most incredible expression I have ever seen on the face of any man. He began to speak.

  “We were working on what we called the bridge of life,” he said and his voice was the voice that goes through dreams. “We have been working on this development for almost three years—”

  “Bridge of life?” I interrupted.

  “That’s what we call it,” he answered. “Of course the words don’t mean anything, really. We could have called the investigation Assurbanapal and heliotropis and said as much, but we sort of liked the words ‘bridge of life’ and we liked to think of ourselves as exploring this bridge. We could see the bridge all right; we know it exists. But we never could see the two shores it connects. You know, a bridge over a river connects the two banks of the river with each other, so people can get from one side to the other without swimming. We’ve been able to see the bridge of life all right and we know that it exists but we have never been able to see the two shores it connects—”

  He sounded fretful and impatient but his voice was still a voice that goes in dreams.

  “If you look at life on Earth, Jim,” he continued, “you begin to wonder about the purpose back of it. Why should life be? Why should the carbon atom have the peculiar ability of building up into complex molecules, into the organic compounds that are alive? Everywhere you look you see different forms of living creatures—elephants and ants—ostriches and gnats—whales and sunfish—birds and turtles—monkeys and men—hundreds of thousands of different types of creatures, billions of different individuals crowding the planet, all of them alike in one characteristic—they are alive! Somewhere inside of each and every one of them, inside the elephant and the ant, the man and the monkey, there is a magic spark, a vital glow—life!”

  There was a glow on his face now, a magic glow.

  “You get the impression that life is perhaps alien to this Earth, that is, was marooned here long, long ago. Ever since it was marooned it has been building a bridge across both time and space from here to somewhere else. The building blocks are our bodies—the insect and the elephant, the monkeys and men—with the magic glow being passed down the generations from parents to children. Through the medium of these million and one individuals, these thousands of different species, life is building a bridge across eternity. The source from which life sprang I can’t begin to guess. What is at the far end of the bridge? I haven’t the haziest idea. All I know is that I can see all around me a multitude of different life forms all working furiously at a single task—building a bridge for life. To the investigation of this bridge Dr. Benson and I were devoting our lives.”

  His voice ran into silence. Little cold winds blew up my back. Madman or genius? Intellectual giant a thousand years ahead of his time? Or fool playing with words? I didn’t know the answer but I knew the questions he was asking were as old as the human race. What is the purpose of life. The men who carved the Sphinx and set it in the valley of the Nile as an eternal question mark for all coming ages were really asking that same question. The prophets of the old testament “—The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork—” were only using the words at their command to express one fundamental idea—the majesty and the glory and the mystery of creation, were only asking, “What am I, that I can see these things but can’t understand them?” What is the purpose of life? When they answer that question, I want to be around. It’s the sixty-four dollar question all right and I want to hear the answer.

  “The mathematics and related electronic mechanics were what Dr. Benson and I were investigating when he disappeared,” he ended. “We were exploring—or were trying to explore—the bridge.”

  There was magic in his words and magic in the thinking that was back of the words. Unfortunately the district attorney was not the type to be impressed by magic. If I was going to get Dick Vey out of this jail, I would have to use hard, cold legal logic—or political pressure.

  I changed the subject.

  “All I know about this case is what I’ve read in the papers. They arrested you this morning. Benson must have disappeared last night. You are charged with abducting, kidnapping—possibly even with killing him. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  * * * *

  He told me. He and Benson had been working in the latter’s laboratory, a large building of reinforced concrete situated down at the edge of the factory district. It was late at night. Vey had gone from the lab to a small supply building on the same lot to obtain—and this seemed odd—a compact but very powerful walkie-talkie radio set stored there. Benson had sent him for the radio equipment. He had left the scientist in the lab. When he returned, Benson was gone. There were only two keys to the expensive and intricate lock on the door. He had one key and Benson had had the other.

  He had searched the laboratory without finding the scientist, had searched the building, had gone outside and searched the lot. He had run around the neighborhood calling Benson’s name. Finally he had called the police. The cops had listened to his story. Then they had tossed him into the jug on the suspected-of-kidnapping charge.

  Justice in this great democracy is sometimes slightly cockeyed.

  I was indignant. The police had no evidence on which to hold Vey. There was no real evidence he had kidnapped Benson, and most important of all, there was no motive for such an act. On the contrary, Vey had worshipped the scientist.

  “They can’t do that to you, Dick. I’ll see the DA immediately.”

  His face gleamed. “Good, Jim. But remember it’s got to be quick. Every hour is important now.”

  * * * *

  John Bockner was the district attorney. He was in his office. “Sure, Rush, I’ll release him—on proper bond.”

  “Good. How big a bond do you want?”

  “Fifty thousand dollars.”

  “What?”

  Bockner was fat, addicted to expensive suits, and expansive smiles. He leaned back in his swivel chair and gave me the benefit of one of those smiles. “Rush, I like you. You’re a fine fellow and an ornament to the bar. But if you want Vey released on bond, the figure is fifty thousand dollars.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I heatedly protested. “You can’t hold Vey on a bond like that. You don’t have any proof that he abducted Benson. Most of all, there is no possible motive for such an act.

  Bockner grinned. “No motive, eh?”

  “No.”

  “No motive at all—except three life insurance policies naming Vey as beneficiary totalling sixty thousand dollars
. No motive except Benson’s will naming Vey as sole heir to over a quarter of a million dollars. No, we don’t have any motive, Rush, except a quarter of a million dollars that Vey will gain if Benson dies or disappears. Under the circumstances, Rush—because you’re a good fellow and because I like you—I think I’m being very generous in not demanding more than fifty thousand dollars as a bond before releasing Vey. Very generous indeed.”

  “A quarter of a million— Uh! Bockner, I didn’t know about this, but I can’t see that it alters the case any.”

  He shook his head. “I’d help you if I could, but my duty to the public demands that I keep Vey restrained. Sorry, Rush, but there’s nothing I can do.”

  * * * *

  Back in the cell, I told Dick Vey the bad news.

  “I’ve got to get out, Jim,” he repeated. “I’ve got to!”

  “It’ll take two or three days to raise a bond of that size,” I told him.

  “But I can’t wait two or three days!” he blazed. “I’ve got to get out of here tonight!”

  “Why tonight?”

  He shut up tight as a clam at the question. He was holding something back; he knew more than he was telling.

  “I’ll do the best I can to get you out tomorrow,” I promised as I left.

  * * * *

  It turned out, my best wasn’t good enough. When the first editions of the morning papers hit the streets at nine o’clock that night, the headlines read:

  SUSPECTED KIDNAPPER ESCAPES

  Richard Vey, suspected of kidnapping the eminent scientist Samuel Benson, escaped from the city jail in a daring and successful try for freedom at eight o’clock last night. Vey pretended illness and succeeded in overpowering the guard who entered the cell to help him. Donning the guard’s clothes, he made a clean escape. Police are already on his trail and the district attorney promises an early arrest.

  I groaned. If the darned fool had only waited, I could have scraped up a bond for him. I could have made a deal with Bockner or brought enough political pressure to bear to make him change his mind. It might have taken two or three days, but two or three days in jail wouldn’t have killed Dick. Or would it? He had said he couldn’t wait.