Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4 (5 page)

BOOK: Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4
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The group of people were close to fifty meters from me, and when they
heard my racket, they scattered, leaving me behind, motionless on the
beach.

I vacillated, then ran to the fallen body. Closer, and in the dim
moonlight I could see it was the boy.

Standing next to him, I could see he was bleeding.

And kneeling, I knew he was dead.

A boy.

I panted, my breath shuddering.

A boy.

I'm not sure exactly what I felt at the moment. Shock, anger, sorrow.
Anger, I suppose, the greatest of these. Not so much for the shadows who
had killed him, but for the ruse he had perpetrated on us all. Callously I
stared at his bloodied face and thought: you tricked me. Damnit, you
tricked me.

Slowly I rose. I brushed the sand from my knees and walked swiftly back to
the hotel. Just before I stepped into the lobby, I saw the whirling red
light on a squad car, and I was glad I wasn't the one who had made the
call.

The fourth floor, like the lobby and elevator, was deserted. I walked to
the end of the hall and knocked on the Carrutherses' door. When there was
no answer, I knocked again and turned the knob. The door opened to a
darkened room, and I stepped in.

The man and woman were sitting motionless in identical chairs facing the
room's only window.

"Mr. Carruthers?" I didn't expect an answer, and I received none.

I moved closer and gathered what nerve I had left to reach down and touch
the woman's cheek, poised to snap my hand back should she flinch. The skin
was cold. She didn't move, didn't react. She and the man stared directly
into the moonlight without blinking. Carefully I rolled up her sleeve, and
though the light was dim, I found the markings easily. There was no need
to do the same to the man.

I was still standing there when the lights flicked on and Harrington
lumbered in, followed by a covey of police photographers and fingerprint
men. The detective waited until my eyes adjusted to the bright light, then
pulled me to one side, away from the strangely silent activities. It was
as if they were investigating a morgue. Harrington watched for a while,
pulling out his handkerchief and again wiping his hands. I never did learn
how he'd picked up that habit, but at that particular time it seemed more
than apropos.

"You, uh, saw the boy, I take it?" he said.

I nodded dumbly.

"Didn't happen to see who did it, I suppose."

"Only some shadows, Harrington. They were gone before I got close enough
to identify them. Any of them."

One of the men coughed and immediately apologized.

"Would it be too much to ask who called you?" I said.

"What call? I was coming over here to question the kid." He pulled a slip
of wrinkled paper from his jacket pocket and squinted at some writing. "I
checked on the, uh, parents, just for the hell of it, just to keep those
people off my back. Seems he was fairly well off—the kid, I mean. He
is, was, eighteen, and from the time he was six was shunted back and forth
between aunts and uncles like a busted ping-pong ball." He shook his head
and pointed a stubby finger at some line on the paper. "When he reached
majority and claimed his money, he bought himself some guardians. Parents,
I guess they were supposed to be. According to some relative of his, this
was the first place he brought them. Trial run." He shoved the paper back
into his pocket as though it were filth. "I'm surprised nobody noticed."

I had nothing to say. And Harrington didn't stop me when I left.

My people.

He had deliberately exposed the false identification on his arm and had
never once looked me straight in the eye. It was all there, but who would
have thought to look for it? He had been challenging me and everyone else,
using the simulacra to strike back at the world. Maybe he wanted to be
exposed; maybe he was looking for someone as real as I to stop the charade
and give him a flesh-and-blood hand to shake. Maybe—but when I think
of going back to a city filled with androids and angry people, I get
afraid.

And worse … my own so-called liberal, humanitarian,
live-and-let-live armor had been stripped away, and I don't like what I
see. As much as I feel sorry for the boy, I hate him for what he's done to
me.

That crowd of shadows could have easily held one more.

The End

© 1976 by Charles L. Grant. First published in
The Magazine of
Fantasy and Science Fiction,
June 1976.

God's Hooks!

Howard Waldrop

They were in the End of the World Tavern at the bottom of Great Auk
Street.

The place was crowded, noisy. As patrons came in, they paused to kick
their boots on the floor and shake the cinders from their rough clothes.

The air smelled of wood smoke, singed hair, heated and melted glass.

"Ho!" yelled a man at one of the noisiest tables to his companions, who
were dressed more finely than the workmen around them. "Here's old Izaak
now, come up from Staffordshire."

A man in his seventies, dressed in brown with a wide white collar, bagged
pants, and cavalier boots, stood in the doorway. He took off his
high-brimmed hat and shook it against his pants leg.

"Good evening, Charles, Percy, Mr. Marburton," he said, his grey eyes
showing merry above his full white mustache and Vandyke beard.

"Father Izaak," said Charles Cotton, rising and embracing the older man.
Cotton was wearing a new-style wig, whose curls and ringlets flowed onto
his shoulders.

"Mr. Peale, if you please, sherry all around," yelled Cotton to the
innkeeper. The older man seated himself.

"Sherry's dear," said the innkeeper, "though our enemy the King of France
is sending two ships' consignments this fortnight. The Great Fire has
worked wonders."

"What matters the price when there's good fellowship?" asked Cotton.

"Price is all," said Marburton, a melancholy round man.

"Well, Father Izaak," said Charles, turning to his friend, "how looks the
house on Chancery Lane?"

"Praise to God, Charles, the fire burnt but the top floor. Enough remains
to rebuild, if decent timbers can be found. Why, the lumbermen are selling
green wood most expensive, and finding ready buyers."

"Their woodchoppers are working day and night in the north, since good
King Charles gave them leave to cut his woods down," said Percy, and
drained his glass.

"They'll not stop till all England's flat and level as Dutchman's land,"
said Marburton.

"If they're not careful they'll play hob with the rivers," said Cotton.

"And the streams," said Izaak.

"And the ponds," said Percy.

"Oh, the fish!" said Marburton.

All four sighed.

"Ah, but come!" said Izaak. "No joylessness here! I'm the only one to
suffer from the Fire at this table. We'll have no long faces till April!
Why, there's tench and dace to be had, and pickerel! What matters the
salmon's in his Neptunian rookery? Who cares that trout burrow in the mud,
and bite not from coat of soot and cinders? We've the roach and the
gudgeon!"

"I suffered from the Fire," said Percy.

"What? Your house lies to east," said Izaak.

"My book was at bindery at the Office of Stationers. A neighbor brought me
a scorched and singed bundle of title pages. They fell sixteen miles west
o'town, like snow, I suppose."

Izaak winked at Cotton. "Well, Percy, that can be set aright soon as the
Stationers reopen. What you need is something right good to eat." He waved
to the barkeep, who nodded and went outside to the kitchen. "I was in
early and prevailed on Mr. Peale to fix a supper to cheer the dourest
disposition. What with shortages, it might not pass for kings, but we are
not so high. Ah, here it comes!"

Mr. Peale returned with a huge round platter. High and thick, it smelled
of fresh-baked dough, meat and savories. It looked like a cooked pond. In
a line around the outside, halves of whole pilchards stuck out, looking up
at them with wide eyes, as if they had been struggling to escape being
cooked.

"Oh, Izaak!" said Percy, tears of joy springing to his eyes. "A star-gazey
pie!"

Peale beamed with pleasure. "It may not be the best," he said, "but it's
the End o' the World!" He put a finger alongside his nose, and laughed. He
took great pleasure in puns.

The four men at the table fell to, elbows and pewter forks flying.

 

They sat back from the table, full. They said nothing for a few minutes,
and stared out the great bow window of the tavern. The shop across the way
blocked the view. They could not see the ruins of London, which stretched,
charred, black and still smoking, from the Tower to the Temple. Only the
waterfront in that great length had been spared.

On the fourth day of that Great Fire, the King had given orders to blast
with gunpowder all houses in the way of the flames. It had been done,
creating the breaks that, with a dying wind, had brought it under control
and saved the city.

"What the city has gone through this past year," said Percy. "It's lucky,
Izaak, that you live down country, and have not suffered till now."

"They say the fire didn't touch the worst of the plague districts," said
Marburton. "I would imagine that such large crowds milling and looking for
shelter will cause another one this winter. Best we should all leave the
city before we drop dead in our steps."

"Since the comet of December year before last, there's been nothing but
talk of doom on everyone's lips," said Cotton.

"Apocalypse talk," said Percy.

"Like as not it's right," said Marburton.

They heard the clanging bell of a crier at the next cross street.

The tavern was filling in the late afternoon light. Carpenters, tradesmen
covered with soot, a few soldiers all soiled came in.

"Why, the whole city seems full of chimneysweeps," said Percy.

The crier's clanging bell sounded, and he stopped before the window of the
tavern.

"New edict from His Majesty Charles II to be posted concerning rebuilding
of the city. New edict from Council of Aldermen on rents and leases, to be
posted. An Act concerning movements of trade and shipping to new quays to
become law. Assize Courts sessions to begin September 27, please God.
Foreign nations to send all manner of aid to the City. Murder on New Ogden
Street, felon apprehended in the act. Portent of Doom, monster fish seen
in Bedford."

As one, the four men leapt from the table, causing a great stir, and ran
outside to the crier.

 

"See to the bill, Charles," said Izaak, handing him some coins. "We'll
meet at nine o' the clock at the Ironmongers' Company yard. I must go see
to my tackle."

"If the man the crier sent us to spoke right, there'll be no other fish
like it in England," said Percy.

"Or the world," said Marburton, whose spirits had lightened considerably.

"I imagine the length of the fish has doubled with each county the tale
passed through," said Izaak.

"It'll take stout tackle," said Percy. "Me for my strongest salmon rod."

"I for my twelve-hair lines," said Marburton.

"And me," said Izaak, "to new and better angles."

 

The Ironmongers' Hall had escaped the fire with only the loss of its roof.
There were a few workmen about, and the company secretary greeted Izaak
cordially.

"Brother Walton," he said, "what brings you to town?" They gave each other
the secret handshake and made The Sign.

"To look to my property on Chancery Lane, and the Row," he said. "But now,
is there a fire in the forge downstairs?"

Below the Company Hall was a large workroom, where the more adventurous of
the ironmongers experimented with new processes and materials.

"Certain there is," said the secretary. "We've been making new nails for
the roof timbers."

"I'll need the forge for an hour or so. Send me down the small black case
from my lockerbox, will you?"

"Oh, Brother Walton," asked the secretary. "Off again to some pellucid
stream?"

"I doubt," said Walton, "but to fish, nonetheless."

 

Walton was in his shirt, sleeves rolled up, standing in the glow of the
forge. A boy brought down the case from the upper floor, and now Izaak
opened it and took out three long grey-black bars.

"Pump away, boy," he said to the young man near the bellows, "and there's
a copper in it for you."

Walton lovingly placed the metal bars, roughened by pounding years before,
into the coals. Soon they began to glow redly as the teenaged boy worked
furiously on the bellows-sack. He and Walton were covered with sweat.

"Lovely color now," said the boy.

"To whom are you prenticed?" asked Walton.

"To the company, sir."

"Ah," said Walton. "Ever seen angles forged?"

"No, sir, mostly hinges and buckles, nails-like. Sir Abram Jones sometimes
puddles his metal here. I have to work most furious when he's here. I
sometimes don't like to see him coming."

Walton winked conspiratorially. "You're right, the metal reaches a likable
ruddy hue. Do you know what this metal is?"

"Cold iron, wasn't it? Ore beaten out?"

"No iron like you've seen, or me much either. I've saved it for nineteen
years. It came from the sky, and was given to me by a great scientific man
at whose feet it nearly fell."

"No!" said the boy. "I heard tell of stones falling from the sky."

"I assure you he assured me it did. And now," said Izaak, gripping the
smallest metal bar with great tongs and taking it to the anvil, "we shall
tease out the fishhook that is hidden away inside."

Sparks and clanging filled the basement.

 

They were eight miles out of northern London before the air began to smell
more of September than of Hell. Two wagons jounced along the road toward
Bedford, one containing the four men, the other laden with tackle,
baggage, and canvas.

BOOK: Sci Fiction Classics Volume 4
12.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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