The Best of Argosy #6 - Minions of Mars Read online

  The two identities, being so near alike, had merged! He had been forced to live his lifetime all over again, up to the point where he again existed as a bodiless entity. That had been a great nuisance and a hideous waste of time.

  The experience had taught him an extreme caution in connection with this special ability. True, he had used it again a few times, when his curiosity had overcome his caution, but each time he had been half frightened to death for fear he might run into himself again.

  And now, after thousands of years of aimless perambulating, the thought of having to repeat himself over again gave him a disembodied fit of ague.

  He would, however, try it once again.

  This process was, if anything, a longer one than the business of trying to match mind patterns. It was a simple thing to place himself in the position the ship had occupied during the storm. And he had the satisfaction of observing Mark’s head strike the ship’s rail a glancing blow as he was washed over. That would teach him to be more careful.

  The fact that Mark almost immediately began to strike out in a firm, distance covering stroke, proved that he was not greatly damaged. But the fact that he didn’t once look around for the ship and try to reach it, also proved that he had no memory of it.

  In the few moments from the time his head struck the rail until he began to swim, he had regained consciousness, devoid of memory!

  And here began Omega’s troubles. He couldn’t speed up the course of events which had happened and were unchangeable. He couldn’t observe them at high speed as one would a moving picture of the same events. He had to watch them as they happened.

  Until Mark had found some spot where Omega could be reasonably sure that he would stay for a few days, he didn’t dare jump back to the present and start a search for him. Mark might in the interim have moved to a distant point.

  Then, just when Omega was satisfied that Mark would very likely remain for a few days in Scarbor, inasmuch as he had followed him as far as the edge of the city and witnessed his capture, events started happening which made him decide he had better watch for a while longer.

  Chapter 3: Iron Bars do not a Prison Make

  MARK gazed around the gloomy interior of his cell. It was devoid of furniture, though it wasn’t entirely un-adorned. In one corner there was a contraption of chains and manacles fastened to the wall. On the floor underneath was a pile of human bones and a jawless skull. Mark gulped. “Hello,” he said to the skull. “Fine day.” But the skull only grinned, with a knowing look to its empty sockets.

  Whenever Mark straightened up, he banged his head on the ceiling. The cell had a foul smell, too. Altogether he was disinclined to stay for any great length of time. His eyes returned to the skull, he leaned over, picked it up, and looked absently into the eyeless sockets. They seemed to look back at him with a prophetic expression. He hastily returned the thing to its place on the top of the heap. No, he wasn’t going to like this place.

  Mark crouched on the chilly floor and tried to remember more about himself.

  He didn’t succeed very well, because every time he was on the track of something, the vision of the lovely lady intruded. And every time he saw her, she became clearer and more desirable, until she was like an ache in his heart.

  Little memories came back.

  Once he saw her breaking twigs and arranging them as if to build a fire. Again she would be swinging along at his side, as they made their way through a dense wood... That woman who was so desirable, was his! There was no doubt of it now. And he must find her. Somewhere in the confused past lay the clue that would lead to her. He must remember!

  He sank deep in thought.

  As the morning sun rose higher in the sky, it became lighter in the cell. Mark was startled out of his reverie by the sight of another row of cells, on the opposite side of the corridor. The one directly across from his contained an unkempt individual who was leaning against the bars of the cell door, regarding Mark with a, quizzical expression. A fiery shock of red hair threatened to cut off his vision, although he evidently could see through it, for he grinned when he realized that Mark saw him.

  MARK grinned back. He thought he should say something, but couldn’t think of anything. Red-head broke the silence. “A new customer,” he observed. “What are you in for?”

  This one spoke in a new dialect, but Mark translated it automatically into the English of his youth.

  “I don’t know,” Mark confessed. “They just grabbed me and hauled me in.”

  “Didn’t they beat you up?”

  “No, just a few blows with their clubs.”

  “You’re lucky. You must have broke curfew, and they usually jump a curfew breaker and beat him up before he knows what’s happening.”

  “Why?”

  “Serious offense,” explained the other. “They’re all so scary in this place that they pass laws to keep everybody off the streets after dark. The only ones who break curfew are thieves and murderers. And the night-watch always beats them up — when they catch them.”

  “I see... But they didn’t catch me after dark. The sun had been up for quite a while.”

  “It’s still curfew time now,” informed the red-head. “The gong rings at about eight at night, and then it doesn’t ring in the morning until about seven. There it goes now!”

  A deep-throated chime filled the air of the cell-room with its throbbing vibration.

  “I’m Murf,” volunteered the red-head. “What’s your name?”

  “Mark.”

  The sound of the gongs had awakened other inmates of the prison.

  In the cell next to Mark’s a man called to Murf. He spoke in a clipped accent, and rolled his r’s. Mark decided he was a Scot, known here as a Mac.

  “Have you thought of anything?” he inquired.

  “No, Oateater, but I will,” said Murf.

  “And what’ll ye use to do it with?” retorted the Scotchman. Then he laughed heartily. “That last one you tried will go down in history. You might not have been sick when you pretended to be, but you surely were afterward. What with the flogging, and all.” He laughed again, and Mark wondered vaguely if there was something the matter with his sense of humor too. But Murf wasn’t laughing either.

  “It would have worked,” maintained Murf, “if the man had been carrying the keys.”

  “You were too busy having a convulsion to look.”

  “All right. All right. Have a good laugh. But when I do get a good scheme, don’t expect me to waste time opening your door.”

  This quieted the Scot. Mark wasn’t sure what was meant by their conversation, and he didn’t get time to figure it out. His attention was distracted by an unholy clamor further down in the cell block. Men were rattling the cell doors and shouting for food.

  Presently the massive door from the courtyard swung open, admitting three men and a flat cart. Two of the men were obviously soldiers. They were armed with swords and daggers, and wore breastplates of lacquered armor. These were two of the four guardsmen he had seen briefly the night before. He was to learn later that these prison guards were soldiers in the service of the city constabulary forces. They were of a slightly higher order than the members of the night-watch, a separate branch of the same force. They were better armed and better paid. Besides their soft berth, as guardsmen, they were occasionally called out for duty in quelling civil disorders beyond the capacity of the night-watch.

  The soldiers took positions at each side of the door while the third man pushed the cart to the center of the corridor, and distributed the wooden plates.

  Mark received his ration and looked at it distastefully. Even if he had wanted food, he certainly wouldn’t have wanted that mess.

  “Murf,” he called, his voice competing with a medley of eating sounds.

  “Umph?” answered the red-head, chewing mightily.

  “It just occurred to me that I’m guilty of the crime of breaking curfew, even though I never heard of it. What’s the penalty?”
<
br />   “Drawin’ and quarterin’,” replied Murf, swallowing a prodigious chunk of meat.

  Drawing and quartering.

  MARK nodded. Then he realized that he didn’t know what drawing and quartering was. He asked Murf. Murf tossed back his hair.

  “Listen! I told you that curfew breakers were either thieves or murderers. Therefore they’re treated as such. Drawn and quartered!”

  “I heard you,” Mark said. “But what is it?”

  “Say, where did you come from? That’s standard punishment all over.”

  “Oh,” said Mark. “Is it?”

  “You’re a funny one,” declared Murf, looking at him sharply. “But if you want to know — they nail you to a wall with spikes through your hands and feet. Then they stick a knife in your belly, reach in and grab one end of the mess that’s in there, and draw it out slowly. That’s the drawing part. It lasts for a while and you don’t die right away if the fellow knows his job.

  “You understand that? Well —

  “Then they cut you in four. That’s the quartering part. I’m against it, myself. And there’s only a slight chance of getting any other sentence. Sometimes the magistrate gets a notion to vary the monotony by having a man burned at the stake, or hung, but it’s usually drawin’ and quarterin’.”

  “Sounds messy,” was all Mark said.

  The redhead went back to his meal with a relish. He finished, wiped his mouth on a sleeve, and skimmed the wooden plate in the direction of the big door. Mark had been inspecting the rusted bars of his cell door, but looked up at the sound of the clattering plate.

  “Are you still hungry?”

  “I’m always hungry,” replied Murf.

  Mark nodded and grasped two adjoining bars of the door. No strain showed in his face, but the sinews of his arms stood out like steel cables and the muscles of his shoulders knotted and threatened to push through his bronzed skin. Slowly the two bars bent. As they did so, the lower ends lifted out of the holes in the bottom of the door.

  No other man could have maintained that terrific pressure even if he could have exerted it. But the radioactive element which supplied Mark’s energy was constant, and built up broken-down cell tissue in an instant.

  Eventually the bars bent so far that they were clear, and Mark jerked them asunder with a savage wrench.

  Then he bent over, picked up his plateful of garbage and calmly stepped through the opening. He handed the dish to a pop-eyed Murf. Murf took it, numbly.

  “Look,” he finally whispered, “I’m not so hungry now. Do you suppose you could do that to my door?”

  Mark nodded. “I don’t see why not.” It didn’t take so long this time, for he had noticed how the bars lifted through the holes. He took his grip further down, and the job was accomplished in half the time. Murf stepped through, the plate of food still in his bands.

  A sort of subdued bedlam arose when the other prisoners saw what had happened. Each prisoner whispered his demand to be released, too. Mark had no intention of taking time to operate on any more cell doors. He was searching for an exit.

  Abruptly the clamor ceased. Mark had found the window, but he turned to see what had happened. He saw Murf with his hands raised for quiet.

  “It’s broad daylight,” he told them. “And if the whole gang breaks out, they’ll nail us right away. But the two of us can make it. There won’t be any trials until after the holidays, so you’re safe for a while. If you’ll swear allegiance to my cause, we’ll come back on the first moonless night and turn you loose. What say?”

  Another hushed murmur, not quite as loud as the last, and Murf darted down the corridor to join Mark. He looked up at the window, about nine feet off the floor. It also was barred. As if the two men had rehearsed the thing for months, they went into action.

  Mark leaped for the bars, grasped them, and Murf moved against the wall, placing his shoulders under Mark’s bare feet. Standing thus, Mark was able to exert pressure. It took a little longer, for the bars were fastened deeply into the stone of the jail wall.

  It was a matter of several minutes before the two fugitives found themselves safely in an alleyway back of the jail. Murf was panting with excitement and exertion, and seemed anxious to get away from the immediate vicinity as quickly as possible. Impatiently he tugged at Mark’s arm, muttering urgently, as he regained his breath.

  “Calm yourself, friend,” admonished Mark. “They don’t even know we’ve escaped, as yet. But if we attract attention by hurrying too much...”

  “You’re a cool one,” Murf said. “Who are you, anyway?”

  “I don’t really know,” Mark admitted. “I’ve got to find out. That’s why I couldn’t stay in there any longer.”

  “Oh, sure. You wasn’t worried about being kilt at all.”

  MURF glanced at the winged helmet, which Mark still retained, and an expression of sly cunning crossed his face for the briefest instant.

  Mark missed the look, for they had reached the end of the alley and he was inspecting the street before them. There were several pedestrians about, and one ox-cart was progressing slowly in their direction. Mark noticed that there seemed to be no uniformity of dress among those on the street.

  There were a few women, apparently of the poorer class, and in the next block he could see two men who were probably soldiers. Across the street was a party of four men, partially intoxicated, whom he took to be sailors returning to their ship after a night of carousing. Except for the fact that all those in sight had more clothing on than he, it was probable that he could pass unnoticed on the city streets.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Murf, at his question. “This is a shipping town, and they’re used to seeing all kinds of people. Even Vikes like you.”

  “Vikes?”

  “You don’t even know that, do you? You’re a Vike. I can tell by the tin hat. But it’s all right. The Brish and the Vikes are at peace right now. Just the same we had better get you some different clothes, because they’ll be looking for a Vike when they find we escaped.”

  “But they didn’t know that when I was captured. They asked me if I was Mic or Mac.”

  “The night-watch is stupid,” Murf explained. “But when they tell the prison captain what you looked like, he’ll know. So we’d better get rid of that hat.”

  Regretfully Mark tossed the winged helmet back into the alley, and they proceeded at a leisurely pace down the street — away from the prison.

  “Where shall we go?” inquired Mark.

  “Leave everything to me,” advised Murf. “I’ve got friends in this city. They’ll take care of us.” Murf spoke in a tone that any twentieth century ward-heeler would have recognized at once.

  Mark decided he might as well go along. He would meet new people, and that would help him remember. Even now his mind was coping with a vagrant memory. It had to do with Murf’s assertion that he was a Vike. Earlier in the day, he had told the night-watch that he was a Yank, and though he didn’t know why he had said it, it had seemed to be right at the time. But now the word Vike seemed to strike a responsive chord. It wasn’t quite right, his memory insisted that the word was “Viking,” and it had an air of familiarity.

  Suddenly bedlam swooped down upon them.

  Around a corner swung an ornate carriage drawn by sleek horses, and flanked on either side by a mounted soldier. Without warning, the horses suddenly reared, kicked at the traces, and dashed madly down the street!

  THE mounted soldiers, taken by surprise, were slow to act, and the carriage had a good start before they thundered in pursuit. Their mounts were swift and they were gradually overtaking the runaways, when an excited shout arose from the people lining the street. Directly ahead of the careening carriage was the ox-cart, effectively blocking the way. The soldiers could never close up the gap in time to prevent the crash.

  Mark caught a fleeting vision, through the window of the carriage, of a terror-stricken girl with an infant clasped to her breast. Abruptly he went into actio
n.

  The nearer horse was opposite him when he made a prodigious leap and landed astride its back. The frightened horse almost went to its knees. Mark made a frantic snatch for the reins of the farther horse as it slewed about, threatening to dash them all against a building. His lightning grasp was sure and in another instant he had brought the heads of both horses back. They came to a stop with several feet of safety short of the impending crash.

  Before Mark could realize that he was really quite a remarkable fellow, an excited crowd had rushed him and raised him aloft, shouting and parading around the carriage.

  Bewildered, Mark began to notice things. This joyous throng seemed to think that he had done an heroic thing. That might mean that the woman in the carriage was a person of great eminence, and beloved to those who were honoring him.

  He noticed on the second time around the carriage that the door was opening and a man, resplendent in a handsome uniform, was getting out. The crowd abruptly stopped and placed him on his feet before the uniformed man, then respectfully stepped back.

  The man held out his hand. Erect, still pale from his experience, he gave an impression of intelligence and culture above that of the others around him. There was a kindliness about his eyes that was at once engaging and yet seemed to hide a certain ever-present sadness.

  “Your name, my friend?” he asked.

  “Mark.” He hesitated. “Should I know yours?”

  Surprise appeared on the man’s face before he could control it. “Perhaps you should,” he replied, smiling. “I am Jon, Duke of Scarbor. And I wish to extend my sincere thanks, on behalf of Her Highness and myself, for your heroic act.”

  Mark nodded, embarrassed and not certain if the customs of this land required him to speak or act in any specified manner toward a man who was obviously one of the ruling class. He liked this man, Jon, and didn’t wish to offend him.