Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930. Various
his fingers working his key.
"Is he – bad?" he asked with a shuddering interest.
"He's dying!" snarled Bell, in a rage because of his helplessness. He had forgotten everything but the fact that a man below decks was facing the most horrible fate that can overtake a man, and facing it with a steadfast gameness that made Bell's heart go out to him.
"They don't die," said the operator. He shuddered. "They don't die of it."
His key stopped. He listened. His key clicked again.
"They only had two packages," he said a moment later. "They don't dare risk the other one. They say the fog ends twenty miles farther on. They're going to land up there and taxi back on the surface of the water. It shouldn't be more than half an hour."
He pushed himself back from the table with an air of finality.
"That's all. They've signed off."
Bell felt rage sweeping over him. The operator grinned crookedly.
"Better go down and tie him up," he said, and licked his lips with the fascinated air of one thinking of a known and terrifying thing. "Better tie him up tight. It'll be half an hour more."
Bell went down the companion-ladder. The promenade was crowded with passengers now, asking questions of each other. Some, frowning portentously, thought the plane an unscheduled ocean flier who had lost his way in the fog.
Paula Canalejas was close to Bell as he shouldered his way through the crowd.
"That was for him?" she asked, without moving her lips.
Bell nodded.
"Tell him," she said quietly, "I – pray for him."
Bell nodded abruptly and went into the saloon. It was nearly empty. He wiped the sweat off his face. It was horrible to have to go down to Ortiz and tell him that at best it would be half an hour more…
Then there was a sudden scream below him, and then a shot. Bell jumped for the stairs, his heart in his throat, and saw Ortiz coming out of his stateroom door. His eyes were wide and agonized. His body…
Even in the incredibly short time before he reached the bottom of the steps, Bell had time to receive the ghastly impression that Ortiz was sane, but that his body had gone mad. Ortiz's face was white and horrified. His hands and arms were writhing savagely, working at the handcuffs on his wrists. His legs were carrying him at a curious, padding trot down the hallway. One of the hands held a glittering revolver. A steward was crouched behind a couch, his face white and filled with stark terror. And Ortiz held his head back, as if struggling to hold back and control his body, which was under the control of a malignant demon.
"Out of the way!" cried Ortiz in a voice of terrible despair. "Get someone to shoot me! Kill me! I cannot – ah, Dios!"
The hands leveled the revolver in spite of him, while he flung his head from side to side in a frantic attempt to disturb their aim.
"Close your eyes!" panted Bell, and hurled himself upon – whom? It was not Ortiz. It was Ortiz's body, gone mad and raging. The manacled arms flailed about frenziedly. The gun went off. Again. Again…
Bell struck. He knocked the Thing that possessed Ortiz's body off its feet. The hands groped for him. They clubbed at him with the revolver. The feet kicked…
"Keep your eyes closed," gasped Bell, struggling to get the gun away from those horrible hands. "It – it can't see when you keep your eyes closed!"
Fighting insanely as the Thing was fighting, he could not identify it with Ortiz himself. One of the hands unclosed from about the revolver and clawed at his throat. It seemed to abandon that effort and attacked Ortiz's face in a frenzy of rage, struggling to claw his eyes open. The other held the weapon fast with maniacal strength.
At the horror of feeling one of his own manacled hands attacking his face savagely as if it were itself a sensate thing, Ortiz opened his eyes. They were wide with despair.
The hand with the revolver made a sudden movement, and Bell flung his weight upon it as the clutching hand pulled the trigger. There was a deafening report…
The body seemed to weaken suddenly in Bell's grip. It fought less and less terribly, though with no lessening of its savagery. He managed to get the revolver away from the hands that shook with unspeakable rage. He flung it away and stood panting.
There was a crowd of people suddenly all about the place. Staring, stunned, incredulous people who regarded Bell with a dawning, damning suspicion.
Ortiz spoke suddenly. His voice was weak, but it was steady, and it was full of a desperate relief.
"I wish to make a statement," he said sharply. "I – I wished to commit suicide for personal reasons. Senor Bell tried to dissuade me. The handcuffs upon my wrists were placed there with my consent. Senor Bell is my friend and has done me no wrong. I shot myself, with intention."
Bell beckoned to the ship's doctor.
"Get him bandaged up," he ordered harshly. "There's no need for him to die."
The body was writhing only feebly, now. Ortiz looked up at him, and managed a smile. Again there was that incredible impression of the body not belonging to Ortiz, or Ortiz as a sane and whole and honorable, admirable man, and the feebly writhing body with its clutching hands as some evil thing that had properly been defeated and killed.
The doctor bent down. It was useless, of course. He made futile movements.
"I wish to speak to my friend, Senor Bell," said Ortiz weakly. "I – I have not long."
Bell knelt beside him.
"The Master's – deputy in Rio," panted Ortiz weakly, almost in a whisper, "is – is Ribiera. In Buenos Aires I – I do not know. There was a man – the one who poisoned me – but I killed him. Secretly. I do not think – the Master knows. I pray that – "
He stopped. He could not speak again. But he smiled, and a few seconds later Bell clenched his hands. Ortiz was gone.
Someone touched his arm. Paula Canalejas. He stared down at her and managed to smile. It was not a very successful smile. He drew a deep breath.
"I would like," said Bell wryly, "to think that, when I die, I will die as well as this man did. But I'm afraid I shan't."
But Paula said:
"The airplane can be heard outside. It seems to be moving on the surface."
And ten minutes later the plane loomed up out of the mist, queerly ungainly on the surface of the water. Its motors roared impatiently as if held in leash. It swung clumsily about, heading off out of sight in the fog to turn. It came back, sliding along the top of the water with its wing-tip floats leaving alternate streaks of white foam behind them. A man stood up in its after cockpit.
Bell crowded to the rail. The man – goggled and masked – held up a package as if to fling it on board. Bell watched grimly. But he saw that the pilot checked himself and looked up at the upper deck. Bell craned his neck. The wireless operator was waving wildly to the seaplane. He writhed his hands, and held his hand to his head is if blowing out his brains, and waved the plane away, frantically.
The pilot of the plane sat down. A moment later its motors roared more thunderously. It is not safe to alight on either land or water when fog hangs low, but there is little danger in taking off.
The seaplane shot away into the mist, its motors bellowing. The sound of its going changed subtly. It seemed to rise, and grow more distant… It died away.
Bell halted at the top of the companion-ladder and saw the wireless operator, with a crooked, nervous grin upon his face.
CHAPTER III
Bell saw what he was looking for, out in the throng of traffic that filled the Avenida do Acre, in Rio. He'd seen it over the heads of the crowd, which was undersized, as most Brazilian