The 22nd Golden Age of Science Fiction Read online

  * * * *

  Retch, gripping his seat with both hands, yelled. “We’re falling!”

  “It’s not news to me,” Parker answered, jerking open the door to the compartment at the rear. Inside that compartment was a mass of synthetic fabric. Tossed to the surface of the sea, inflated by the self-contained flask of gas under pressure, it would make a rubber raft.

  “You’ve left the controls!” Retch barked. “Do something to stop us. We’re going to fall.” The man’s face was wild with fear as he twisted his head around to see what Parker was doing.

  “You damned right I’ve left the controls!” Parker answered. “We’ve lost the equivalent of a wing in an ordinary plane. If you know any way to stop a plane from falling you tell me.” Working with deft, sure hands, he pulled the mass of synthetic fabric out of its compartment.

  “But we’ve got to get to that island. We’ve found it. We’ve got to get there while—”

  “If we get there, we’ll have to swim,” Parker answered. “Personally, I’ll consider myself lucky to get there by swimming. Here we go.”

  The last was spoken as the helicopter began its final plunge to the surface of the blue water below them.

  Parker, with the mass of fabric clutched firmly in both hands, threw himself flat on the floor.

  The ’copter hit with a terrific thud. An instant later, Parker was on his feet. The life raft was under one hand. With the other hand, he was reaching for the handle that opened the cabin door.

  “We’ve got to get out of here. This ship will go the bottom like a rock.”

  Behind him, Mercedes and Retch were struggling to their feet. Parker yanked on the handle that opened the cabin door.

  The handle did not budge.

  The heavy jolt the craft had taken when it struck the surface had twisted the whole frame.

  “Get that door open!” Retch moaned. “We’ll be drowned like rats.”

  “Hell, I’m trying!” Parker answered. He yanked upward with all his strength.

  The door still did not budge.

  Outside Parker could see the green water rising around the cabin.

  He backed away, ducked his head, threw himself with all his strength against the door.

  Under the driving impact of his body, the door was knocked open. The mass of synthetic fabric in his arms, Parker catapulted through the opening and into the sea. He hit with a terrific splash. Mercedes followed him. Parker, treading water and working with the valve that would release the gas and inflate the raft, saw that Retch was still standing in the door of the ’copter.

  “What am I going to do?” Retch screamed.

  “Jump.”

  “But I can’t swim.”

  “Then wait until I get this goddamned raft inflated. Ugh!” Parker’s voice went into silence as arms came up out of the water and closed around his neck with a grip of death.

  Mercedes, in a panic that often comes to people catapulted suddenly and unexpectedly into the water, was grabbing the nearest source of potential safety.

  “Let go!” Even as he spoke, Parker felt her arms close even tighter around his neck. He knew then that she was not going to let go. She was pulling him under with her.

  Giving one final jerk at the valve of the gas container, Parker found himself pulled under water.

  The arms around his neck seemed to grip like iron. He caught them in both hands, yanked at them. His hands slipped. He grabbed again. She was behind him, on his back, so he could not slug her. Meanwhile each passing second was sending both of them deeper into the sea. He yanked at her arms again. This time his fingers held. Her grip was broken.

  Twisting, he grabbed her hair. Then he began to fight his way to the surface.

  His head broke water. As he gulped air, he realized the blessed sight before his eyes.

  The rubber raft! His last jerk at the valve before Mercedes dragged him under had opened it.

  From the door of the sinking helicopter Retch was staring at the raft. At the same instant in final desperation, he jumped. His clutching fingers caught the edge of the rubber raft. Like a frightened river rat, he pulled himself out of the water.

  * * * *

  Treading water, Parker dragged Mercedes to the edge of the raft. Retch leaned over and lifted her in. For an instant, Parker remained in the water, his fingers firm on the raft, letting it support him while he gasped air into his lungs. Behind him, with a gurgle and a rumble, the helicopter sank. He swung himself into the raft. Mercedes, her masculine garb clinging to her, was sitting up.

  “I am sorry, Beel,” she said. “I get the scare up and I grab at you. I not know for sure what I am doing. You will forgive me, no?”

  “Think nothing of it,” Parker answered. “Anybody can get scared under these circumstances.”

  “That I know,” she answered. “But you saved my life. And that I will remember.”

  “Forget it,” Parker said. “I did what had to be done, nothing more.”

  “But I will remember it,” she calmly repeated.

  Parker was silent. Under her hardness for the first time he glimpsed something deeper, finer. She was the type who meant what she said. She was a woman who paid her debts. Under other circumstances.… Parker put the thought out of his mind.

  Now he set about doing what had to be done—paddling to the island. He turned his eyes toward it.

  The island was gone. Calm, serene, the level face of the sea stretched away to the horizon.

  Fear, dark, sudden, and overwhelming, arose in Bill Parker. The fear did not come up just because the face of the sea was level and calm, the island not visible, but because of something else, something that he had forgotten, something that he had put out of his mind and out of his life. Could it be possible that—

  He caught himself. In that direction lay madness. Words exploded out of him. “Hey, what the hell? Am I nuts? What became of that island? I saw it!”

  “I told you we had to hurry to get there when we saw it.” Retch was hesitant. “It’s—it’s not always there.”

  “But it’s got to be there! I saw it!”

  “There is a trick about that island,” Retch said. “I—it—I—you don’t always see it. Something funny.”

  Parker was across the shaking, unsteady raft. His impulse was to take Retch by the throat, to shake words out of him. “What do you mean?” He was restraining himself with difficulty.

  Retch spread his hands. “I’m sorry, I can’t explain. That’s all I know. Believe me.”

  Retch was telling the truth Parker decided. The big pilot swung his gaze in every direction, searching for land. Somewhere in the far distance was the peninsula of Lower California. But it was beyond range of his eyes. As far as he could see, was barren water.

  Setting his course by the small compass that was included as part of the standard equipment on the life raft, Parker paddled toward the south. The clumsy raft made little progress. Parker hardly noticed, hardly cared. Deep in his mind was a lurking thought he was trying to keep below his consciousness.

  In the front of the raft, Retch sat with his back to Parker. From Retch’s motions, Parker knew the man was cleaning his gun. Parker made no comment. When Retch had finished and had turned back to him, Parker spoke. “I want to know a little more about that island. How does it happen we can’t see it?”

  “I’m not certain,” Retch answered. “I think it’s a lot like the mirages you see on the desert. This island is something like that, only in reverse. In a mirage, you see something that doesn’t exist. In the case of this island, you don’t see something that does exist.”

  “Um,” Parker said, then was silent. The explanation sounded reasonable enough, as far as it went. The trouble was it didn’t go far enough, not nearly far enough to quiet the thought lurking deep in the big pilot’s mind. He worked with the paddle. “When yo
u hired me to fly you down here, you told me that you knew where this island was located but you didn’t tell me it had a bad habit of vanishing.”

  “I didn’t believe it myself,” Retch answered. “So far as I was concerned, it was just a wild rumor.”

  “Um,” Parker said again. As he spoke, part of the thought that he had been keeping buried in his mind came blasting to the surface. “She said it was a mirage too!” he blurted out the words. “And that goddamned Dr. Yammer—” He caught himself. Into his mind had come a vision of a woman he had once known, and a psychiatrist called Dr. Yammer. Pain crossed his face.

  “What?” Retch asked. “Who are you talking about?”

  “Nobody,” Parker answered. “Just a woman I once knew.”

  Her name had been Effra. Effra of the Green Eyes, he had called her. Rigidly he forced the thought of her from his mind, forced himself to think of what Retch had said. But it was no good. His mind kept going back to Effra and Yammer.

  “She is caught, trapped in a net of delusion and hallucination that is as solid as a block of steel,” Dr. Yammer had once said, his voice precise with authoritarian certainty. “I cannot get her out of this steel block unless I hospitalize her, perhaps operate. There is no other choice, no other decision that can be made. Putting it bluntly—she is insane. A delicate thing, insanity. We still work in the dark with things of the mind.”

  * * * *

  At the memory of Yammer’s words, Parker twisted uncomfortably. He used the paddle much more vigorously than was necessary. It was as if Yammer’s face showed in the water into which he thrust the paddle.

  Mercedes was studying Parker. “About this woman—”

  “She was just a woman I once knew.”

  “You loved her, yes?”

  “Well—” Parker was silent.

  “Tell me what ’appened.”

  “Nothing,” Parker said. “Oh, hell—all right. Up in LA three years ago I knew Effra. She was a pilot too, and we got to running around together. She liked to fly out over the Pacific all by herself. I don’t know why; she just liked to flirt with danger, maybe. One time she came in a couple of hours over-due. Figuring she was down in the drink, I was about to rouse out the Navy to hunt for her when she came in.” He paused.

  Mercedes was silent. In the front of the raft, Retch said nothing. His eyes were still searching the skyline.

  “She was wildly excited,” Parker went on. “She said she had made a forced landing on an island somewhere off the coast of Southern Cal. She also said there were a lot of strange people living on the island.” He shook his head. There was a feeling in him he did not like.

  His eyes came to focus on a ripple in the water. A shark. It made him think of Dr. Yammer.

  “What ’appened then?” Mercedes asked softly.

  “I helped her look for the island,” Parker said. “We spent months looking in our spare time. We flew over more ocean than I ever knew existed. But we didn’t find it.”

  “No?”

  “That island was awfully important to her. She thought something wonderful was there, what it was, she could not tell me, just that it was there. When we could not find it, she began to doubt herself, to think perhaps she had not seen it, that she had not landed there. She reached the conclusion then—well, she went to see one of these fancy mental specialists who know everything about nothing and nothing about anything.”

  Under the water, he could see the eyes of the shark. They reminded him of the expression in Dr. Yammer’s eyes, except that the shark’s eyes looked more honest.

  “And then?” Mercedes said, very softly.

  “She—vanished,” Parker said. “Yammer was going to stick her into a hospital, use something that he called ‘shock’ on her, maybe operate. She ran away.”

  “Did you try to find her, Beel?”

  “For asking that question, Mercedes, I ought to choke you!” Parker said hotly. “I hunted high and low. All we knew for certain was that her plane was missing. I think she decided she would simply fly out to the sea she loved, and never come back.” Again his voice sank to a whisper as he visualized Effra of the Green Eyes flying out over this wilderness of waters.

  “I am sorry, Beel,” Mercedes said gently. “Will you remember one thing, Beel?”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  “You saved my life back there. I will not forget it. If the time ever comes, I will pay my debt.”

  “Thank you,” Parker said. “But there is no debt.”

  “You think this island we are hunting might be the same island your girl claimed she found?” Retch spoke from the front end of the boat.

  “And if it is the same island?” Mercedes said.

  Anger came boiling up in Parker. “If it is that island, and if I ever get back to Los Angeles, I am going to hunt up a psychiatrist by the name of Yammer and take care of him!” Parker dug the water savagely. Gradually, his anger subsided. “Where did you run into the rumor about this island?”

  Retch shrugged. “It was just one of those things you hear.” He studied the landscape. “We should spot a boat soon.”

  “We are not exactly on the well-traveled ocean lanes,” Parker pointed out. “Does it happen that there are any other little things about this island that you forgot to tell me when you chartered my ship to fly you down here?”

  Retch flushed. “Such as—”

  “Such as how it happened that my ’copter threw a vane just after we sighted the place?”

  Retch did not answer.

  “Seemed as though somebody shot at us.”

  “Oh hell no! The loss of the vane was accidental.”

  “Accidents like that can happen but they usually don’t. I checked the ship before we took off.” Parker turned silent. There was no proof that the wrecking of the ’copter had been anything but an accident. “What do you expect to find on this island?”

  “I told you—”

  “Just before the ’copter started down, Miss Valdar was yakking about how we were all going to be rich,” Parker interrupted.

  The glance Retch gave Mercedes had no love in it. “Sometimes she’s got her mouth open when she ought to have it shut.”

  * * * *

  Mercedes was silent. “I see,” Parker said. “When you chartered my ship, you told me you were a scientist and that you wanted to investigate certain phenomena on this island. You said your investigation would take only a few hours. I was to fly you here and wait for you. You said you might want me to fly you back to the mainland, or might not, depending on what you found here. Is this correct?”

  “Certainly,” Retch answered. “I’m sorry you lost your ship but the insurance will take care of it.”

  “Insurance will take care of the ’copter but not of my neck. Are you a scientist?”

  “Of course. Didn’t I tell you—”

  “What kind of a scientist are you?”

  “I—ah—What do you mean?”

  “What’s your specialty? Are you a biologist, a physicist, or what?”

  “I—”

  “I don’t believe you are a scientist at all. You don’t talk like one.”

  “Damn it, I told you what I am and that’s what I am!” Retch’s face showed sullen and his hand moved toward the gun. Parker tensed. Retch stopped the movement of his hand. He glared at the big pilot.

  “Okay,” Parker said. “It doesn’t make any difference anyhow.” He resumed paddling.

  The sun slid down the western sky. Retch and Mercedes huddled in the front end of the raft and whispered to each other. From time to time, the woman glanced at Parker. He paid no attention to her.

  The sea was calm. In the distance, a school of flying fish skittered over the surface. A dozen gulls played near the surface. A high-riding fin cut the water. Shark, sensing food.

  The sun reached
the horizon and wallowed in the sea like a fat, round shining pig on fire.

  Mercedes screamed, pointed, jerked a terror-stricken face toward Parker. “Beel! Beel!” She scuttled across the raft, threw herself into his arms. “Look, Beel, look!”

  Terror and panic almost beyond understanding were in her words.

  Parker looked where she was pointing. His heart climbed up into his mouth and threatened to choke him. He had thought he was shock-proof, that nothing could jar him. But here was something that made his mind reel.

  Walking across the water toward the raft were three men.

  Clad in knee-length breeches, wearing cloaks, the three men looked as if they had just stepped out of the 17th century. Two wore big, broad-brimmed hats, the third had a handkerchief wrapped around his head. He also had a wooden leg and he stalked across the surface of the sea with all the sureness he might have had with concrete under him. He carried a curved cutlass in one hand. The other two men were armed with swords, in scabbards. In addition, heavy, clumsy-looking pistols were thrust into sashes at their belts.

  They looked like men out of a nightmare—or like pirates out of the olden days; swash-buckling buccaneers who had somehow managed to survive their proper period in history and to live into the 20th century.

  “Ghosts!” Mercedes screamed. “Devils! They’ve come up out of hell because of our sins!” She wrapped her arms around Parker’s neck. “Save me, Beel, save me!”

  Parker caught her wrists, jerked her arms loose from his neck, and rose quickly to his feet. He hoped fervidly that his eyes had been deceiving him and that standing up would cause this mirage to disappear.

  His eyes continued to deceive him. The three men did not disappear. They continued to walk across the water toward the raft. They moved with the sureness of men who know where they are going.

  Behind them, suddenly outlined against the fat sun that was wallowing in the sea, rocky, grim, and forbidding, the mysterious island was now visible. It had reappeared. They had found it.

  Three men coming from it had found them.

  The shark found the three men.

  Parker saw the triangular fin cut through the water toward them. Like a speed boat taking off on a race, the fin gathered momentum.