The Enormous Room Part 16

The giant was standing still, weaving, pawing the air. It would not give in to its pain and dizziness. If it fell now it might hit them. It was that close.

"You've _got_ to show me. I have a bad heart. I'm due to die in a month or two," said Summersby urgently.

Watkins stared at him. "Do you think you went through the past hours with a rotten ticker? Don't make me laugh."

"It's true. I'm just waiting to die. You're no more than thirty-eight or forty, and you've got twenty-two thousand dollars there," he said, gesturing at the briefcase. "I don't give a d.a.m.n about the morals of the case. You're a decent fellow and you ought to have this break."

Watkins snarled, as he gave the valiantly singing Mrs. Full a hand up to the chair seat, "You think I have a martyr complex? You think I _want_ to stay here? I'm elected, that's all! It's me stays or it's everybody!

I haven't the time to teach you to work it!" He hit Summersby a hard blow on the chest. "Your heart's fixed up the same as Adam's eyes and Cal's sinus. These gentry could turn your lungs upside down without opening you up, they're that good. Go back to your woods. You're okay."

"No," said Summersby with stubborn rage. "I'm sick of waiting to die.

That's why I took the coaster ride in the first place. That's why I wanted--"

"You're nuts. You have a heart to match your frame, Highpockets, if you'd admit it. Hand up old Cal."

The monster took two wobbling steps toward them. They were all on the chair, then clambering onto the table. Watkins swung open the door of the brown box. "Fast," he said urgently, "fast!"

Adam had Cal by the armpits; he lugged him into the dark interior. Villa jumped in, Mrs. Full following. Summersby confronted the safe-cracker.

"Show me how to work the machine. I don't believe they could mend a bad heart."

Watkins handed him the briefcase with so unexpected a motion that Summersby took it automatically. "Send it to Roscoe & Bates, if I don't turn up. I guess I can't use it here." He put a hand under his coat. "Go on, Highpockets."

"No!"

Watkins drew a gun, a small steel-blue thing that looked as wicked as a rattler. Summersby had had no idea that he was carrying it. "Hop in, tall man," said Watkins, grinning. "You're holding up the works."

Reluctantly Summersby backed away, stood in the door of the box. He could jump Watkins, but if the mechanism were so complex, he would only doom them all. "You're out of your head," he said.

"Sure."

Abruptly above the safe-cracker towered the fantastic form of their forgotten enemy, reaching for them, one hand still to its head.

Summersby inflated his lungs.

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot," he roared tunefully, "and never brought to mind!"

Everyone joined him. It was a startling cataclysm of sound, even to Summersby. The alien tottered, hand outstretched; its mouth fell open, its eyes popped, the violet blood coursed from its nostril; with a shudder it clawed the air, honked grotesquely, and pitched forward, half on and half off the table, where it lay gurgling. A spot on the side of its skull, about the width of a gallon jug, on which the hair grew spa.r.s.e and gray, pulsed as though there were no bone beneath the skin, as though a bellows within was puffing it in and out, in and out. Its ear, thought Summersby. Probably we've wrecked it for good. Maybe the thing will die. Then Watkins is a gone goose, if he stays. He was about to lunge at the steady gun-hand when Adam and Villa yanked him backward into the box. Adam was crying.

"Try and come too, Mr. Watkins, try and come too," he said.

Watkins laughed. "I'll make out okay, son. I like my hide pretty well."

He waved with the gun. "Be seeing you." Then he tossed the dark weapon into the box and slammed the door.

XI

There was darkness, then bright sun. They stood on a street corner, and Summersby could read the signs as plainly as Watkins must have read them in the focusing lens of the matter transmitter on the unknown planet.

Broadway and 42nd Street. The five of them had clicked into being on the busiest corner of New York.

"That old crook," said Adam, gulping. "He focused us here for a gag."

"I look _awful_," gasped Mrs. Full, and Summersby, glancing at her, agreed. Like all of them, she had lost weight; her skin showed the effects of a week's was.h.i.+ng without soap; and her skirt and blouse were mussed up, to say the least. All the men needed shaves. Calvin Full, recovering gradually from the shock of the goad, and still supported by Villa, looked like a Bowery wino.

"Is he coming?" asked Adam, addressing Summersby. "Will Watkins be along too?"

"I don't know," said Summersby. He stared up at as much of the sky as he could see beyond the block-high ads. "I hope so."

"My chili stand!" shouted Villa, suddenly awakening to the fact of New York about him. "That no-good relief man! I've got to see what he's done to it!" Pus.h.i.+ng Calvin to Adam, who grasped him by an arm, the Mexican waved hurriedly. "Come and see me," he said to all of them. "I'll give you a bowl free." He hastened away into the crowd.

"We've got to see about our clothes at the hotel," said Mrs. Full. She sounded apologetic. "I hope we'll see you again, Adam, and Mr.

Summersby."

"I doubt it," said Summersby. He looked at Full. "Coming out of it?" he asked.

"Thanks," said Cal, nodding. He took his wife's hand. "Gave you my address, didn't I?"

"I have it," said Summersby.

"Well, good-bye," said Mrs. Full.

"You did a fine job up there," said Adam Pierce. "I'm proud to have known you, ma'am."

"Thank you, Adam. Good-bye." They were gone.

"I suppose you'll be going too," said Adam, somewhat wistfully.

"I guess so. You'll go home?"

"I guess so," Adam repeated. "My folks will be sore. They'll never believe such a story. They'll think I ran wild or something."

Summersby, still looking upward, and wondering if he could be staring blindly at the planet which Watkins must be trying to leave even now, put a hand on his heart. "Was he right? They did fix up everyone else."

He laughed. It was the first time he had laughed normally in seven months. "I could get into the rangers again," he said. "Adam, I've got to see a doctor. I've got to find out something."

"Yes, sir," said Adam unhappily. Summersby looked at him. "Really worried about your folks?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll come home and tell them, if you like."

Adam said gratefully, "Mr. Summersby, you're a gentleman."

"No," said Summersby, "no."

"Yes, sir, you are. Can we wait just a minute more? Mr. Watkins might be along any minute now."

"We'll wait."