The Essential Ellison Part 5

He drew a deep breath.

The ribs slid a fraction of an inch together, their broken ends grinding.

He moaned.

A high-pitched tortured moan that died quickly, but throbbed back and forth inside his head, echoing and building itself into a paean of sheer agony! It forced his tongue out of his mouth, limp in a comer of his lips, moving slightly. The robot rolled forward. He drew his tongue in, clamped his mouth shut, cut off the scream inside his head at its high point!

The robot stopped, rolled back to its duty-niche.

Oh, G.o.d! The pain! The G.o.d G.o.d where are you pain!

Beads of sweat broke out on his body. He could feel their tickle inside his s.p.a.cesuit, inside his jumper, inside the bodys.h.i.+rt, on his skin. The pain of the ribs was suddenly heightened by an irresistible itching of his skin.

He moved infinitesimally within the suit, his outer appearance giving no indication of the movement. The itching did not subside. The more he tried to make it stop, the more he thought about not thinking about it, the worse it became. His armpits, the crooks of his arms, his thighs where the tight service-pants clung-suddenly too tightly-were madness. He had to scratch!

He almost started to make the movement. He stopped before he started. He knew he would never live to enjoy any relief. A laugh bubbled into his head. G.o.d Almighty, and I always laughed at the slobs who suffered with the seven-year itch, the ones who always did a little dance when they were at attention during inspection, the ones who could scratch and sigh contentedly. G.o.d, how I envy them. His thoughts were taking on a wild sound, even to him.

The p.r.i.c.kling did not stop. He twisted faintly. It got worse. He took another deep breath.The ribs sandpapered again.This time, blessedly, he fainted from the pain.

"Well, Terrence, how do you like your first look at a Kyben?"

Ernie Terrence wrinkled his forehead and ran a finger up the side of his face. He looked at his Commander and shrugged. "Fantastic things, aren't they?"

"Why fantastic?" asked Commander Foley.

"Because they're just like us. Except of course the bright yellow pigmentation and the tentacle-fingers. Other than that they're identical to a human being."

The Commander opaqued the examination-casket and drew a cigarette from a silver case, offering the Lieutenant one. He puffed it alight, staring with one eye closed against the smoke. "More than that, I'm afraid. Their insides look like someone had taken them out, liberally mixed them with spare parts from several other species, and jammed them back in any way that fitted conveniently. For the next twenty years we'll be knocking our heads together trying to figure out their metabolic raison d' etre."

Terrence grunted, rolling his unlit cigarette absently between two fingers. "That's the least of it."

"You're right," agreed the Commander. "For the next thousand years we'll be trying to figure out how they think, why they fight, what it takes to get along with them, what motivates them."

If they let us live that long, thought Terrence.

"Why are we at war with the Kyben?" he asked the older man. "I mean really."

"Because the Kyben want to kill every human being they can recognize as a human being."

"What have they got against us?"

"Does it matter? Maybe it's because our skin isn't bright yellow; maybe it's because our fingers aren't silken and flexible; maybe it's because our cities are too noisy for them. Maybe a lot of maybes. But it doesn't matter. Survival never matters until you have to survive."

Terrence nodded. He understood. So did the Kyben. It grinned at him and drew its blaster. It fired point-blank, crimsoning the hull of the Kyben s.h.i.+p.

He swerved to avoid running into his gun's own backlash. The movement of the bucket seat sliding in its tracks, keeping his vision steady while maneuvering, made him dizzy. He closed his eyes for a moment.

When he opened them, the abyss was nearer, and he teetered, his lips whitening as they pressed together under his effort to steady himself. With a headlong gasp he fell sighing into the stomach. His long, silken fingers jointed steely humming clankingly toward the medicine chest ever over the plate behind the bulkhead.

The robot advanced on him grindingly. Small fine bits of metal rubbed together, as.h.i.+ng away into a breeze that came from nowhere as the machine raised lead boots toward his face.

Onward and onward till he had no room to move and then The light came on, bright, brighter than any star Terrence had ever seen, glowing, broiling, flickering, s.h.i.+ning, bobbing a ball of light on the chest of the robot, who staggered, stumbled, stepped.

The robot hissed, hummed and exploded into a million flying, racing fragments, shooting beams of light all over the abyss over which Terrence again teetered, teetering. He flailed his arms wildly trying to escape but at the last moment, before the fall He awoke with a start!

He saved himself only by his unconscious. Even in the h.e.l.l of a nightmare he was aware of the situation. He had not moaned and writhed in his delirium. He had kept motionless and silent.

He knew it was true, because he was still alive.

Only his surprised jerking, as he came back to consciousness, started the monster rolling from its niche. He came fully awake and sat silent, slumped against the wall. The robot retreated.

Thin breath came through his nostrils. Another moment and he would have put an end to the past three days-three days or more now? how long had he been asleep?-days of torture.

He was hungry. Lord how hungry he was. The pain in his side was worse now, a steady throbbing that made even shallow breathing tortuous. He itched maddeningly. He was uncomfortably slouched against a cold steel bulkhead, every rivet having made a burrow for itself in his skin. He wished he was dead.

He didn't wish he was dead. It was all too easy to get his wish.

If he could only disable that robot brain. A total impossibility. If he could only wear Phobos and Deinlos for watch fobs. If he could only shack-up with a silicon-deb from Penares. If he could only use his large colon for a la.s.so.

It would take a thorough destruction of the brain to do it enough damage to stop the appendage before it could roll over and smash Terrence again.

With a steel bulkhead between him and the brain, his chances of success totaled minus zero every time.

He considered which part of his body the robot would smash first. One blow of that tool-hand would kill him if it was used a second time. With the state of his present wounds, even a strong breath might finish him.

Perhaps he could make a break and get through the lock into the decompression chamber...

Worthless. (A) The robot would catch him before he had gotten to his feet, in his present condition. (B) Even allowing a miracle, even if he did get through the lock, the robot would smash the lock port, letting in air, ruining the mechanism. (C) Even allowing a double miracle and it didn't, what the h.e.l.l good would it do him? His helmet and gloves were in the hutch itself, and there was no place to go on the planetoid. The s.h.i.+p was ruined, so no signal could be sent from there.

Doom suddenly compounded itself.

The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that soon the light would flicker out for him.

The light would flicker out.

The light would flicker...

The light...

...light...?

Oh G.o.d, is it possible? Can it be? Have I found an answer? He marveled at the simplicity of it. It had been there for more than three days waiting for him to use it. It was so simple it was magnificent. He could hardly restrain himself from moving, just out of sheer joy.

I'm not brilliant, I'm not a genius, why did this occur to me? For a few minutes the brilliance of the solution staggered him. Would a less intelligent man have solved the problem this easily? Would a more intelligent man have done it? Then he remembered the dream. The light in the dream. He hadn't solved the problem, his unconscious had. The answer had been there all the time, but he was too close to see it. His mind had been forced to devise a way to tell him. Luckily, it had.

And finally, he didn't care how he had uncovered it. His G.o.d, if he had had anything to do with it, had heard him. Terrence was by no means a religious man, but this was miracle enough to make him a believer. It wasn't over yet, but the answer was there-and it was an answer.

He began to save himself.

Slowly, achingly slowly, he moved his right hand, the hand away from the robot's sight, to his belt. On the belt hung the a.s.sorted implements a s.p.a.ceman needs at any moment in his s.h.i.+p. A wrench. A packet of sleep-stavers. A compa.s.s. A geiger counter. A flashlight.

The last was the miracle. Miracle in a tube.

He fingered it almost reverently, then unclipped it in a moment's frenzy, still immobile to the robot's "eyes."

He held it at his side, away from his body by a fraction of an inch, pointing up over the bulge of his s.p.a.cesuited leg.

If the robot looked at him, all it would see would be the motionless bulk of his leg, blocking off any movement on his part. To the machine, he was inert. Motionless.

Now he thought wildly, where is the brain?

If it is behind the relay machines, I'm still dead. If it is near the refrigerator, I'm saved. He could afford to take no chances. He would have to move.

He lifted one leg.

The robot moved toward him. The humming and sparking were more distinct this time. He dropped the leg.

Behind the plates above the refrigerator!

The robot stopped, nearly at his side. Seconds had decided. The robot hummed, sparked, and returned to its niche.

Now he knew!

He pressed the b.u.t.ton. The invisible beam of the flashlight leaped out, speared the bulkhead above the refrigerator. He pressed the b.u.t.ton again and again, the flat circle of light appearing, disappearing, appearing, disappearing on the faceless metal of the life hutch's wall.

The robot sparked and rolled from its niche. It looked once at Terrence. Its rollers changed direction in an instant and the machine ground toward the refrigerator.

The steeled fist swung in a vicious arc, smas.h.i.+ng with a deafening clang! at the spot where the light bubble flickered on and off.

It swung again and again. Again and again till the bulkhead had been gouged and crushed and opened, and the delicate coils and plates and circuits and memorex modules behind it were refuse and rubble. Until the robot froze, with arm half-ready to strike again. Dead. Immobile. Brain and appendage.

Even then Terrence did not stop pressing the flashlight b.u.t.ton. Wildly he thumbed it again and again and again.

Then he realized it was allover.

The robot was dead. He was alive. He would be saved. He had no doubts about that. Now he could cry.

The medicine chest grew large through the s.h.i.+mmering in his eyes. The relay machines smiled at him.

G.o.d bless you, little life hutch, he thought, before he fainted.

S.R.O.

Bart Chester was walking down Broadway when it materialized out of black nothing.

He was giving Eloise the line, with the "No, honest to G.o.d, Eloise, I mean, if you come over to my place, we'll have just one-s'help me, just one-then we'll be off to the show." He was acutely aware there might not be any show that night, chiefly because there was no money that night, but Eloise didn't know that. She was a sweet girl and Bart didn't want to spoil her with luxuries.

Bart was just figuring mentally how many it would take to get Eloise's mind off a show and onto more earthy matters, when the whine began.

Like a thousand generators spinning at top-point efficiency, the sound crawled up the stone walls encasing Times Square, bouncing back and back, reverberating thunderously amid the noise of Broadway, causing heads to turn, eyes to lift.

Bart Chester turned his head, lifted his eyes, and was one of the first to see it s.h.i.+mmer into existence. The air seemed to pinken and waver, like heat lightning far off. Then the air ran like water. It may have been in the eyes, or actually in the air, but the air did run like water.

The sly gleam faded from Bart Chester's eyes, and he never did get that "little one" with Eloise. He turned away from her splendid charms, realizing, knowing, sensing that he had a place in what was coming. Others must have felt the same way, for traffic on the sidewalks was slowing, people turning to stare into the evening darkness.

The coming was rapid. The air quavered a bit more, and a form began to take shape, as a ghost emerging from mist. The shape was long and cylindrical, protuberated and s.h.i.+ning. It materialized over Times Square.

Bart took three rapid steps to the edge of the sidewalk, his eyes searching into the glare of neons, trying to see more of that weird structure. People jostled him and a knot began to form, as though he were a catalyst for some chemical action.

The thing (and Bart Chester had been in show business too long to jump at snap labels) hung there, suspended by hangings of nothing, as if waiting. It stretched up out between the trench of buildings, towering a good ten feet over the tallest one. The structure-whatever it was-appeared to be over nine hundred feet high. It hung above the ground, over the traffic island dividing Broadway and Seventh Avenue, the flickering of a million lights coloring its smooth tube body.

Even as he watched, the seemingly unbroken skin of the structure parted circularly and a flat plate emerged. The plate was dotted with small holes, and in another instant a thousand metallic filaments pushed through the holes. Rigidly, they weaved in the air.

Newspaper stories of the last few years, coupled with a natural childlike credulity, joined. MiG.o.d, thought Chester, and somehow knew his a.s.sumption was correct, they're testing the atmosphere! They're finding out if they can live here! When he had said this to himself, the greater implication struck him: it's a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p! That-that thing came from another planet! Another planet?

It had been many months since the Emery Bros. Circus, in which Bart had sunk all his ready cash, had folded. It had been many months since Bart had paid his rent, and not many less since he'd had three full meals in one twenty-four-hour period. He was desperately looking for an angle. Any angle!

Then, with the innate entrepreneur blood coursing through him beating fiercely, he thought joyously, Good G.o.d, what an attraction this would make!

Concessions. Balloons saying "Souvenir of the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p." Popcorn, peanuts, Cracker Jacks, binoculars, pennants! Food! Hot dogs, candied apples; what a pitch! What a perfect pitch!

If I can get to it first, he added, mentally clicking his fingers.

He hardly saw the wildly gesturing policeman using his call box. He hardly heard the mixed screams and murmurs of the thronging crowds watching the metal filaments weaving their patterns. He elbowed back through the crowd.

Faintly, through the rising crowd noise, he heard Eloise moaning his name. "Sorry, baby," he yelled over his shoulder, putting his elbow into a fat woman's diaphragm, "but I've been hungry too long to pa.s.s up a sweet deal like this!

"Excuse me, ma'am. Pa'rm me, Mac. Excuse me, I'd like to get-uh-through here. Uh! Thanks, Mac," and he was at the drug store door. He adjusted his bow tie for a moment, muttering low to himself, "Ohboyohboyohboy! Just looka this, little Bartie Chester! You're gonna make a millyun bucks! Yessir!"

He scrabbled for change as he slid into the booth. In another few minutes he had placed the long distance call-collect-to Mrs. Charles Chester in Wilmington, Delaware. He heard the phone ringing at the other end, then his mother's voice, "Yes, h.e.l.lo?" and he started to say, "Hey! Ma!" but the operator's voice cut through.

"Will you accept the charges, Mrs. Chester?"

When she had said yes, Bart threw himself into it. "h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo, Ma! How ya?"

"Why, Bart, how wonderful to hear from you. It's been so long! Just those few postcards!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, Ma," he cut her off, "but things have been really jumpin' for me here in New York. Look, Ma, I need some money."

"Well...how much, Bart? I can let you have..."

"I'll need a couple hunnerd, Ma. It's the biggest-so help me G.o.d-the biggest G.o.ddam deal I ever-"