The Monster Maker - (1)

"Get Gunther," the official orders read. It was to laugh! For Click and Irish were marooned on the pirate's asteroid--their only weapons a single gun and a news-reel camera.
    Suddenly, it was there. There wasn't time to blink or speak or get scared. Click Hathaway's camera was loaded and he stood there listening to it rack-spin film between his fingers, and he knew he was getting a damned sweet picture of everything that was happening.
    The picture of Marnagan hunched huge over the control-console, wrenching levers, jamming studs with freckled fists. And out in the dark of the fore-part there was space and a star-sprinkling and this meteor coming like blazing fury.
    Click Hathaway felt the ship move under him like a sensitive animal's skin. And then the meteor hit. It made a spiked fist and knocked the rear-jets flat, and the ship spun like a cosmic merry-go-round.
    There was plenty of noise. Too damned much. Hathaway only knew he was picked up and hurled against a lever-bank, and that Marnagan wasn't long in following, swearing loud words. Click remembered hanging on to his camera and gritting to keep holding it. What a sweet shot that had been of the meteor! A sweeter one still of Marnagan beating hell out of the controls and keeping his words to himself until just now.
    It got quiet. It got so quiet you could almost hear the asteroids rushing up, cold, blue and hard. You could hear your heart kicking a tom-tom between your sick stomach and your empty lungs.
    Stars, asteroids revolved. Click grabbed Marnagan because he was the nearest thing, and held on. You came hunting for a space-raider and you ended up cradled in a slab-sized Irishman's arms, diving at a hunk of metal death. What a fade-out!
    "Irish!" he heard himself say. "Is this IT?"
    "Is this what?" yelled Marnagan inside his helmet.
    "Is this where the Big Producer yells CUT!?"
    Marnagan fumed. "I'll die when I'm damned good and ready. And when I'm ready I'll inform you and you can picture me profile for Cosmic Films!"
    They both waited, thrust against the shipside and held by a hand of gravity; listening to each other's breathing hard in the earphones.
    The ship struck, once. Bouncing, it struck again. It turned end over and stopped. Hathaway felt himself grabbed; he and Marnagan rattled around--human dice in a croupier's cup. The shell of the ship burst, air and energy flung out.
    Hathaway screamed the air out of his lungs, but his brain was thinking quick crazy, unimportant things. The best scenes in life never reach film, or an audience. Like this one, dammit! Like this one! His brain spun, racketing like the instantaneous, flicking motions of his camera.
    *       *       *       *       *
    Silence came and engulfed all the noise, ate it up and swallowed it. Hathaway shook his head, instinctively grabbed at the camera locked to his mid-belt. There was nothing but stars, twisted wreckage, cold that pierced through his vac-suit, and silence. He wriggled out of the wreckage into that silence.
    He didn't know what he was doing until he found the camera in his fingers as if it had grown there when he was born. He stood there, thinking "Well, I'll at least have a few good scenes on film. I'll--"
    A hunk of metal teetered, fell with a crash. Marnagan elevated seven feet of bellowing manhood from the wreck.
    "Hold it!" cracked Hathaway's high voice. Marnagan froze. The camera whirred. "Low angle shot; Interplanetary Patrolman emerges unscathed from asteroid crackup. Swell stuff. I'll get a raise for this!"
    "From the toe of me boot!" snarled Marnagan brusquely. Oxen shoulders flexed inside his vac-suit. "I might've died in there, and you nursin' that film-contraption!"
    Hathaway felt funny inside, suddenly. "I never thought of that. Marnagan die? I just took it for granted you'd come through. You always have. Funny, but you don't think about dying. You try not to." Hathaway stared at his gloved hand, but the gloving was so thick and heavy he couldn't tell if it was shaking. Muscles in his bony face went down, pale. "Where are we?"
    "A million miles from nobody."
    They stood in the middle of a pocked, time-eroded meteor plain that stretched off, dipping down into silent indigo and a rash of stars. Overhead, the sun poised; black and stars all around it, making it look sick.
    "If we walk in opposite directions, Click Hathaway, we'd be shaking hands the other side of this rock in two hours." Marnagan shook his mop of dusty red hair. "And I promised the boys at Luna Base this time I'd capture that Gunther lad!"
    His voice stopped and the silence spoke.
    Hathaway felt his heart pumping slow, hot pumps of blood. "I checked my oxygen, Irish. Sixty minutes of breathing left."
    The silence punctuated that sentence, too. Upon the sharp meteoric rocks Hathaway saw the tangled insides of the radio, the food supply mashed and scattered. They were lucky to have escaped. Or was suffocation a better death...? Sixty minutes.
    They stood and looked at one another.
    "Damn that meteor!" said Marnagan, hotly.
    Hathaway got hold of an idea; remembering something. He said it out: "Somebody tossed that meteor, Irish. I took a picture of it, looked it right in the eye when it rolled at us, and it was poker-hot. Space-meteors are never hot and glowing. If it's proof you want, I've got it here, on film."
    Marnagan winced his freckled square of face. "It's not proof we need now, Click. Oxygen. And then food. And then some way back to Earth."
    Hathaway went on saying his thoughts: "This is Gunther's work. He's here somewhere, probably laughing his guts out at the job he did us. Oh, God, this would make great news-release stuff if we ever get back to Earth. I.P.'s Irish Marnagan, temporarily indisposed by a pirate whose dirty face has never been seen, Gunther by name, finally wins through to a triumphant finish. Photographed on the spot, in color, by yours truly, Click Hathaway. Cosmic Films, please notice."
    *       *       *       *       *
    They started walking, fast, over the pocked, rubbled plain toward a bony ridge of metal. They kept their eyes wide and awake. There wasn't much to see, but it was better than standing still, waiting.
    Marnagan said, "We're working on margin, and we got nothin' to sweat with except your suspicions about this not being an accident. We got fifty minutes to prove you're right. After that--right or wrong--you'll be Cosmic Films prettiest unmoving, unbreathin' genius. But talk all you like, Click. It's times like this when we all need words, any words, on our tongues. You got your camera and your scoop. Talk about it. As for me--" he twisted his glossy red face. "Keeping alive is me hobby. And this sort of two-bit death I did not order."
    Click nodded. "Gunther knows how you'd hate dying this way, Irish. It's irony clean through. That's probably why he planned the meteor and the crash this way."
    Marnagan said nothing, but his thick lips went down at the corners, far down, and the green eyes blazed.
    They stopped, together.
    "Oops!" Click said.
    "Hey!" Marnagan blinked. "Did you feel that?"
    Hathaway's body felt feathery, light as a whisper, boneless and limbless, suddenly. "Irish! We lost weight, coming over that ridge!"
    They ran back. "Let's try it again."
    They tried it. They scowled at each other. The same thing happened. "Gravity should not act this way, Click."
    "Are you telling me? It's man-made. Better than that--it's Gunther! No wonder we fell so fast--we were dragged down by a super-gravity set-up! Gunther'd do anything to--did I say anything?"
    Hathaway leaped backward in reaction. His eyes widened and his hand came up, jabbing. Over a hill-ridge swarmed a brew of unbelievable horrors. Progeny from Frankenstein's ARK. Immense crimson beasts with numerous legs and gnashing mandibles, brown-black creatures, some tubular and fat, others like thin white poisonous whips slashing along in the air. Fangs caught starlight white on them.
    Hathaway yelled and ran, Marnagan at his heels, lumbering. Sweat broke cold on his body. The immense things rolled, slithered and squirmed after him. A blast of light. Marnagan, firing his proton-gun. Then, in Click's ears, the Irishman's incredulous bellow. The gun didn't hurt the creatures at all.
    "Irish!" Hathaway flung himself over the ridge, slid down an incline toward the mouth a small cave. "This way, fella!"
    Hathaway made it first, Marnagan bellowing just behind him. "They're too big; they can't get us in here!" Click's voice gasped it out, as Marnagan squeezed his two-hundred-fifty pounds beside him. Instinctively, Hathaway added, "Asteroid monsters! My camera! What a scene!"
    "Damn your damn camera!" yelled Marnagan. "They might come in!"
    "Use your gun."
    "They got impervious hides. No use. Gahh! And that was a pretty chase, eh, Click?"
    "Yeah. Sure. You enjoyed it, every moment of it."
    "I did that." Irish grinned, showing white uneven teeth. "Now, what will we be doing with these uninvited guests at our door?"
    "Let me think--"
    "Lots of time, little man. Forty more minutes of air, to be exact."
    *       *       *       *       *
    They sat, staring at the monsters for about a minute. Hathaway felt funny about something; didn't know what. Something about these monsters and Gunther and--
    "Which one will you be having?" asked Irish, casually. "A red one or a blue one?"
    Hathaway laughed nervously. "A pink one with yellow ruffles--Good God, now you've got me doing it. Joking in the face of death."
    "Me father taught me; keep laughing and you'll have Irish luck."
    That didn't please the photographer. "I'm an Anglo-Swede," he pointed out.
    Marnagan shifted uneasily. "Here, now. You're doing nothing but sitting, looking like a little boy locked in a bedroom closet, so take me a profile shot of the beasties and myself."
    Hathaway petted his camera reluctantly. "What in hell's the use? All this swell film shot. Nobody'll ever see it."
    "Then," retorted Marnagan, "we'll develop it for our own benefit; while waitin' for the U.S. Cavalry to come riding over the hill to our rescue!"
    Hathaway snorted. "U.S. Cavalry."
    Marnagan raised his proton-gun dramatically. "Snap me this pose," he said. "I paid your salary to trot along, photographing, we hoped, my capture of Gunther, now the least you can do is record peace negotiations betwixt me and these pixies."
    Marnagan wasn't fooling anybody. Hathaway knew the superficial palaver for nothing but a covering over the fast, furious thinking running around in that red-cropped skull. Hathaway played the palaver, too, but his mind was whirring faster than his camera as he spun a picture of Marnagan standing there with a useless gun pointed at the animals.
    Montage. Marnagan sitting, chatting at the monsters. Marnagan smiling for the camera. Marnagan in profile. Marnagan looking grim, without much effort, for the camera. And then, a closeup of the thrashing death wall that holed them in. Click took them all, those shots, not saying anything. Nobody fooled nobody with this act. Death was near and they had sweaty faces, dry mouths and frozen guts.
    When Click finished filming, Irish sat down to save oxygen, and used it up arguing about Gunther. Click came back at him:
    "Gunther drew us down here, sure as Ceres! That gravity change we felt back on that ridge, Irish; that proves it. Gunther's short on men. So, what's he do; he builds an asteroid-base, and drags ships down. Space war isn't perfect yet, guns don't prime true in space, trajectory is lousy over long distances. So what's the best weapon, which dispenses with losing valuable, rare ships and a small bunch of men? Super-gravity and a couple of well-tossed meteors. Saves all around. It's a good front, this damned iron pebble. From it, Gunther strikes unseen; ships simply crash, that's all. A subtle hand, with all aces."
    Marnagan rumbled. "Where is the dirty son, then!"
    "He didn't have to appear, Irish. He sent--them." Hathaway nodded at the beasts. "People crashing here die from air-lack, no food, or from wounds caused at the crackup. If they survive all that--the animals tend to them. It all looks like Nature was responsible. See how subtle his attack is? Looks like accidental death instead of murder, if the Patrol happens to land and finds us. No reason for undue investigation, then."
    "I don't see no Base around."
    *       *       *       *       *
    Click shrugged. "Still doubt it? Okay. Look." He tapped his camera and a spool popped out onto his gloved palm. Holding it up, he stripped it out to its full twenty inch length, held it to the light while it developed, smiling. It was one of his best inventions. Self-developing film. The first light struck film-surface, destroyed one chemical, leaving imprints; the second exposure simply hardened, secured the impressions. Quick stuff.
    Inserting the film-tongue into a micro-viewer in the camera's base, Click handed the whole thing over. "Look."
    Marnagan put the viewer up against the helmet glass, squinted. "Ah, Click. Now, now. This is one lousy film you invented."
    "Huh?"
    "It's a strange process'll develop my picture and ignore the asteroid monsters complete."
    "What!"
    Hathaway grabbed the camera, gasped, squinted, and gasped again: Pictures in montage; Marnagan sitting down, chatting conversationally with nothing; Marnagan shooting his gun at nothing; Marnagan pretending to be happy in front of nothing.
    Then, closeup--of--NOTHING!
    The monsters had failed to image the film. Marnagan was there, his hair like a red banner, his freckled face with the blue eyes bright in it. Maybe--
    Hathaway said it, loud: "Irish! Irish! I think I see a way out of this mess! Here--"
    He elucidated it over and over again to the Patrolman. About the film, the beasts, and how the film couldn't be wrong. If the film said the monsters weren't there, they weren't there.
    "Yeah," said Marnagan. "But step outside this cave--"
    "If my theory is correct I'll do it, unafraid," said Click.
    Marnagan scowled. "You sure them beasts don't radiate ultra-violet or infra-red or something that won't come out on film?"
    "Nuts! Any color we see, the camera sees. We've been fooled."
    "Hey, where you going?" Marnagan blocked Hathaway as the smaller man tried pushing past him.
    "Get out of the way," said Hathaway.
    Marnagan put his big fists on his hips. "If anyone is going anywhere, it'll be me does the going."
    "I can't let you do that, Irish."
    "Why not?"
    "You'd be going on my say-so."
    "Ain't your say-so good enough for me?"
    "Yes. Sure. Of course. I guess--"
    "If you say them animals ain't there, that's all I need. Now, stand aside, you film-developing flea, and let an Irishman settle their bones." He took an unnecessary hitch in trousers that didn't exist except under an inch of porous metal plate. "Your express purpose on this voyage, Hathaway, is taking films to be used by the Patrol later for teaching Junior Patrolmen how to act in tough spots. First-hand education. Poke another spool of film in that contraption and give me profile a scan. This is lesson number seven: Daniel Walks Into The Lion's Den."
    "Irish, I--"
    "Shut up and load up."
    Hathaway nervously loaded the film-slot, raised it.
    "Ready, Click?"
    "I--I guess so," said Hathaway. "And remember, think it hard, Irish. Think it hard. There aren't any animals--"
    "Keep me in focus, lad."
    "All the way, Irish."
    "What do they say...? Oh, yeah. Action. Lights. Camera!"
    Marnagan held his gun out in front of him and still smiling took one, two, three, four steps out into the outside world. The monsters were waiting for him at the fifth step. Marnagan kept walking.
    Right out into the middle of them....
    *       *       *       *       *
    That was the sweetest shot Hathaway ever took. Marnagan and the monsters!
    Only now it was only Marnagan.
    No more monsters.
    Marnagan smiled a smile broader than his shoulders. "Hey, Click, look at me! I'm in one piece. Why, hell, the damned things turned tail and ran away!"
    "Ran, hell!" cried Hathaway, rushing out, his face flushed and animated. "They just plain vanished. They were only imaginative figments!"
    "And to think we let them hole us in that way, Click Hathaway, you coward!"