The Monster Maker - (2)

"Smile when you say that, Irish."
    "Sure, and ain't I always smilin'? Ah, Click boy, are them tears in your sweet grey eyes?"
    "Damn," swore the photographer, embarrassedly. "Why don't they put window-wipers in these helmets?"
    "I'll take it up with the Board, lad."
    "Forget it. I was so blamed glad to see your homely carcass in one hunk, I couldn't help--Look, now, about Gunther. Those animals are part of his set-up. Explorers who land here inadvertently, are chased back into their ships, forced to take off. Tourists and the like. Nothing suspicious about animals. And if the tourists don't leave, the animals kill them."
    "Shaw, now. Those animals can't kill."
    "Think not, Mr. Marnagan? As long as we believed in them they could have frightened us to death, forced us, maybe, to commit suicide. If that isn't being dangerous--"
    The Irishman whistled.
    "But, we've got to move, Irish. We've got twenty minutes of oxygen. In that time we've got to trace those monsters to their source, Gunther's Base, fight our way in, and get fresh oxy-cannisters." Click attached his camera to his mid-belt. "Gunther probably thinks we're dead by now. Everyone else's been fooled by his playmates; they never had a chance to disbelieve them."
    "If it hadn't been for you taking them pictures, Click--"
    "Coupled with your damned stubborn attitude about the accident--" Click stopped and felt his insides turning to water. He shook his head and felt a film slip down over his eyes. He spread his legs out to steady himself, and swayed. "I--I don't think my oxygen is as full as yours. This excitement had me double-breathing and I feel sick."
    Marnagan's homely face grimaced in sympathy. "Hold tight, Click. The guy that invented these fish-bowls didn't provide for a sick stomach."
    "Hold tight, hell, let's move. We've got to find where those animals came from! And the only way to do that is to get the animals to come back!"
    "Come back? How?"
    "They're waiting, just outside the aura of our thoughts, and if we believe in them again, they'll return."
    Marnagan didn't like it. "Won't--won't they kill us--if they come--if we believe in 'em?"
    Hathaway shook a head that was tons heavy and weary. "Not if we believe in them to a certain point. Psychologically they can both be seen and felt. We only want to see them coming at us again."
    "Do we, now?"
    "With twenty minutes left, maybe less--"
    "All right, Click, let's bring 'em back. How do we do it?"
    Hathaway fought against the mist in his eyes. "Just think--I will see the monsters again. I will see them again and I will not feel them. Think it over and over."
    Marnagan's hulk stirred uneasily. "And--what if I forget to remember all that? What if I get excited...?"
    Hathaway didn't answer. But his eyes told the story by just looking at Irish.
    Marnagan cursed. "All right, lad. Let's have at it!"
    The monsters returned.
    *       *       *       *       *
    A soundless deluge of them, pouring over the rubbled horizon, swarming in malevolent anticipation about the two men.
    "This way, Irish. They come from this way! There's a focal point, a sending station for these telepathic brutes. Come on!"
    Hathaway sludged into the pressing tide of color, mouths, contorted faces, silvery fat bodies misting as he plowed through them.
    Marnagan was making good progress ahead of Hathaway. But he stopped and raised his gun and made quick moves with it. "Click! This one here! It's real!" He fell back and something struck him down. His immense frame slammed against rock, noiselessly.
    Hathaway darted forward, flung his body over Marnagan's, covered the helmet glass with his hands, shouting:
    "Marnagan! Get a grip, dammit! It's not real--don't let it force into your mind! It's not real, I tell you!"
    "Click--" Marnagan's face was a bitter, tortured movement behind glass. "Click--" He was fighting hard. "I--I--sure now. Sure--" He smiled. "It--it's only a shanty fake!"
    "Keep saying it, Irish. Keep it up."
    Marnagan's thick lips opened. "It's only a fake," he said. And then, irritated, "Get the hell off me, Hathaway. Let me up to my feet!"
    Hathaway got up, shakily. The air in his helmet smelled stale, and little bubbles danced in his eyes. "Irish, you forget the monsters. Let me handle them, I know how. They might fool you again, you might forget."
    Marnagan showed his teeth. "Gah! Let a flea have all the fun? And besides, Click, I like to look at them. They're pretty."
    The outpour of animals came from a low lying mound a mile farther on. Evidently the telepathic source lay there. They approached it warily.
    "We'll be taking our chances on guard," hissed Irish. "I'll go ahead, draw their attention, maybe get captured. Then, you show up with your gun...."
    "I haven't got one."
    "We'll chance it, then. You stick here until I see what's ahead. They probably got scanners out. Let them see me--"
    And before Hathaway could object, Marnagan walked off. He walked about five hundred yards, bent down, applied his fingers to something, heaved up, and there was a door opening in the rock.
    His voice came back across the distance, into Click's earphones. "A door, an air-lock, Click. A tunnel leading down inside!"
    Then, Marnagan dropped into the tunnel, disappearing. Click heard the thud of his feet hitting the metal flooring.
    Click sucked in his breath, hard and fast.
    "All right, put 'em up!" a new harsh voice cried over a different radio. One of Gunther's guards.
    Three shots sizzled out, and Marnagan bellowed.
    The strange harsh voice said, "That's better. Don't try and pick that gun up now. Oh, so it's you. I thought Gunther had finished you off. How'd you get past the animals?"
    Click started running. He switched off his sending audio, kept his receiving on. Marnagan, weaponless. One guard. Click gasped. Things were getting dark. Had to have air. Air. Air. He ran and kept running and listening to Marnagan's lying voice:
    "I tied them pink elephants of Gunther's in neat alphabetical bundles and stacked them up to dry, ya louse!" Marnagan said. "But, damn you, they killed my partner before he had a chance!"
    The guard laughed.
    *       *       *       *       *
    The air-lock door was still wide open when Click reached it, his head swimming darkly, his lungs crammed with pain-fire and hell-rockets. He let himself down in, quiet and soft. He didn't have a weapon. He didn't have a weapon. Oh, damn, damn!
    A tunnel curved, ending in light, and two men silhouetted in that yellow glare. Marnagan, backed against a wall, his helmet cracked, air hissing slowly out of it, his face turning blue. And the guard, a proton gun extended stiffly before him, also in a vac-suit. The guard had his profile toward Hathaway, his lips twisting: "I think I'll let you stand right there and die," he said quietly. "That what Gunther wanted, anway. A nice sordid death."
    Hathaway took three strides, his hands out in front of him.
    "Don't move!" he snapped. "I've got a weapon stronger than yours. One twitch and I'll blast you and the whole damned wall out from behind you! Freeze!"
    The guard whirled. He widened his sharp eyes, and reluctantly, dropped his gun to the floor.
    "Get his gun, Irish."
    Marnagan made as if to move, crumpled clumsily forward.
    Hathaway ran in, snatched up the gun, smirked at the guard. "Thanks for posing," he said. "That shot will go down in film history for candid acting."
    "What!"
    "Ah: ah! Keep your place. I've got a real gun now. Where's the door leading into the Base?"
    The guard moved his head sullenly over his left shoulder.
    Click was afraid he would show his weak dizziness. He needed air. "Okay. Drag Marnagan with you, open the door and we'll have air. Double time! Double!"
    Ten minutes later, Marnagan and Hathaway, fresh tanks of oxygen on their backs, Marnagan in a fresh bulger and helmet, trussed the guard, hid him in a huge trash receptacle. "Where he belongs," observed Irish tersely.
    They found themselves in a complete inner world; an asteroid nothing more than a honey-comb fortress sliding through the void unchallenged. Perfect front for a raider who had little equipment and was short-handed of men. Gunther simply waited for specific cargo ships to rocket by, pulled them or knocked them down and swarmed over them for cargo. The animals served simply to insure against suspicion and the swarms of tourists that filled the void these days. Small fry weren't wanted. They were scared off.
    The telepathic sending station for the animals was a great bank of intricate, glittering machine, through which strips of colored film with images slid into slots and machine mouths that translated them into thought-emanations. A damned neat piece of genius.
    "So here we are, still not much better off than we were," growled Irish. "We haven't a ship or a space-radio, and more guards'll turn up any moment. You think we could refocus this doohingey, project the monsters inside the asteroid to fool the pirates themselves?"
    "What good would that do?" Hathaway gnawed his lip. "They wouldn't fool the engineers who created them, you nut."
    Marnagan exhaled disgustedly. "Ah, if only the U.S. Cavalry would come riding over the hill--"
    *       *       *       *       *
    "Irish!" Hathaway snapped that, his face lighting up. "Irish. The U.S. Cavalry it is!" His eyes darted over the machines. "Here. Help me. We'll stage everything on the most colossal raid of the century."
    Marnagan winced. "You breathing oxygen or whiskey?"
    "There's only one stipulation I make, Irish. I want a complete picture of Marnagan capturing Raider's Base. I want a picture of Gunther's face when you do it. Snap it, now, we've got rush work to do. How good an actor are you?"
    "That's a silly question."
    "You only have to do three things. Walk with your gun out in front of you, firing. That's number one. Number two is to clutch at your heart and fall down dead. Number three is to clutch at your side, fall down and twitch on the ground. Is that clear?"
    "Clear as the Coal Sack Nebula...."
    An hour later Hathaway trudged down a passageway that led out into a sort of city street inside the asteroid. There were about six streets, lined with cube houses in yellow metal, ending near Hathaway in a wide, green-lawned Plaza.
    Hathaway, weaponless, idly carrying his camera in one hand, walked across the Plaza as if he owned it. He was heading for a building that was pretentious enough to be Gunther's quarters.
    He got halfway there when he felt a gun in his back.
    He didn't resist. They took him straight ahead to his destination and pushed him into a room where Gunther sat.
    Hathaway looked at him. "So you're Gunther?" he said, calmly. The pirate was incredibly old, his bulging forehead stood out over sunken, questioningly dark eyes, and his scrawny body was lost in folds of metal-link cloth. He glanced up from a paper-file, surprised. Before he could speak, Hathaway said:
    "Everything's over with, Mr. Gunther. The Patrol is in the city now and we're capturing your Base. Don't try to fight. We've a thousand men against your eighty-five."
    Gunther sat there, blinking at Hathaway, not moving. His thin hands twitched in his lap. "You are bluffing," he said, finally, with a firm directness. "A ship hasn't landed here for an hour. Your ship was the last. Two people were on it. The last I saw of them they were being pursued to the death by the Beasts. One of you escaped, it seemed."
    "Both. The other guy went after the Patrol."
    "Impossible!"
    "I can't respect your opinion, Mr. Gunther."
    A shouting rose from the Plaza. About fifty of Gunther's men, lounging on carved benches during their time-off, stirred to their feet and started yelling. Gunther turned slowly to the huge window in one side of his office. He stared, hard.
    The Patrol was coming!
    Across the Plaza, marching quietly and decisively, came the Patrol. Five hundred Patrolmen in one long, incredible line, carrying paralysis guns with them in their tight hands.
    Gunther babbled like a child, his voice a shrill dagger in the air. "Get out there, you men! Throw them back! We're outnumbered!"
    Guns flared. But the Patrol came on. Gunther's men didn't run, Hathaway had to credit them on that. They took it, standing.
    Hathaway chuckled inside, deep. What a sweet, sweet shot this was. His camera whirred, clicked and whirred again. Nobody stopped him from filming it. Everything was too wild, hot and angry. Gunther was throwing a fit, still seated at his desk, unable to move because of his fragile, bony legs and their atrophied state.
    Some of the Patrol were killed. Hathaway chuckled again as he saw three of the Patrolmen clutch at their hearts, crumple, lie on the ground and twitch. God, what photography!
    Gunther raged, and swept a small pistol from his linked corselet. He fired wildly until Hathaway hit him over the head with a paper-weight. Then Hathaway took a picture of Gunther slumped at his desk, the chaos taking place immediately outside his window.
    The pirates broke and fled, those that were left. A mere handful. And out of the chaos came Marnagan's voice, "Here!"
    *       *       *       *       *
    One of the Patrolmen stopped firing, and ran toward Click and the Building. He got inside. "Did you see them run, Click boy? What an idea. How did we do?"
    "Fine, Irish. Fine!"
    "So here's Gunther, the spalpeen! Gunther, the little dried up pirate, eh?" Marnagan whacked Hathaway on the back. "I'll have to hand it to you, this is the best plan o' battle ever laid out. And proud I was to fight with such splendid men as these--" He gestured toward the Plaza.
    Click laughed with him. "You should be proud. Five hundred Patrolmen with hair like red banners flying, with thick Irish brogues and broad shoulders and freckles and blue eyes and a body as tall as your stories!"
    Marnagan roared. "I always said, I said--if ever there could be an army of Marnagans, we could lick the whole damn uneeverse! Did you photograph it, Click?"
    "I did." Hathaway tapped his camera happily.
    "Ah, then, won't that be a scoop for you, boy? Money from the Patrol so they can use the film as instruction in Classes and money from Cosmic Films for the news-reel headlines! And what a scene, and what acting! Five hundred duplicates of Steve Marnagan, broadcast telepathically into the minds of the pirates, walking across a Plaza, capturing the whole she-bang! How did you like my death-scenes?"
    "You're a ham. And anyway--five hundred duplicates, nothing!" said Click. He ripped the film-spool from the camera, spread it in the air to develop, inserted it in the micro-viewer. "Have a look--"
    Marnagan looked. "Ah, now. Ah, now," he said over and over. "There's the Plaza, and there's Gunther's men fighting and then they're turning and running. And what are they running from? One man! Me. Irish Marnagan! Walking all by myself across the lawn, paralyzing them. One against a hundred, and the cowards running from me!
    "Sure, Click, this is better than I thought. I forgot that the film wouldn't register telepathic emanations, them other Marnagans. It makes it look like I'm a mighty brave man, does it not? It does. Ah, look--look at me, Hathaway, I'm enjoying every minute of it, I am."
    *       *       *       *       *
    Hathaway swatted him on his back-side. "Look here, you egocentric son of Erin, there's more work to be done. More pirates to be captured. The Patrol is still marching around and someone might be suspicious if they looked too close and saw all that red hair."
    "All right, Click, we'll clean up the rest of them now. We're a combination, we two, we are. I take it all back about your pictures, Click, if you hadn't thought of taking pictures of me and inserting it into those telepath machines we'd be dead ducks now. Well--here I go...."
    Hathaway stopped him. "Hold it. Until I load my camera again."
    Irish grinned. "Hurry it up. Here come three guards. They're unarmed. I think I'll handle them with me fists for a change. The gentle art of uppercuts. Are you ready, Hathaway?"
    "Ready."
    Marnagan lifted his big ham-fists.
    The camera whirred. Hathaway chuckled, to himself.
    What a sweet fade-out this was!