The Fifth Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK ®: Lester del Rey. Lester Del Rey
stared at it, and then grinned. He’d picked a monster’s car, apparently—they’d done a neat job of duplicating, but they didn’t need all the safeguards that humans used, and the switch had obviously been a dummy.
He looked at the buttons on the dash, wondering which would make it levitate. But he had no desire to test it, nor to stay in an auto which could probably be traced so easily.
He braked to a halt outside the subway and led Ellen down.
“We’re down to the last hole,” he told her as the train pulled out of the station. “How much money do you have?”
She shook her head, and held up her arm. “I left it, Will.”
They were beyond the last hole, then. He realized now that as long as they’d been in a crowded apartment house, filled with other humans, it had proved a tough nut to crack for the aliens. But on the move.…
“Maybe we have a chance,” he told her. “If humans were after me, it’d be tough—but these things have to avoid the police.”
She looked at him, misery on her face. “There are no aliens, Will. Those men you saw were F. B. I. men. That’s where I reported you.”
“You.…”
He stared at her, but she was serious.
“But there was nothing about me in the papers, Ellen.”
She pointed across the aisle. Spread over two columns on the front page, an older picture of him showed plainly. And even at the distance, the heading was boldly legible.
$100,000 REWARD FOR THIS MAN!
He stared at the figure twice, unbelieving. He was no longer alone against a small group of humans or aliens. Now every living human on the face of the planet would be looking for him!
He could feel their hot breath on his neck, feel eyes staring at him through the papers. Fear began to rise in him, to be halted as the train ground to a new station. Ellen jerked him out, and he moved with her. It wasn’t safe to be too long with one group, until they began to wonder and compare faces!
“But what—”
She shook her head. “Nothing, Will. I don’t know. What can we do?”
He’d been wondering, while they moved quietly through the groups of people, and up the stairs. There was no place left. He had about a dollar in change, and that would be of no use to them. They’d have to dig a hole in the ground and pull it over them.…
It joggled his memory, and he grabbed her hand and jerked open the door of a cab that was waiting for the light. He barked out an address——the corner of Tenth Avenue and one of the streets below Twentieth. The driver got into motion, not bothering to look back. The address was near enough to where Hawkes wanted to be—an old warehouse, with a loading platform. He’d played there as a kid, climbing back under it and digging holes down into the damp, soft earth, as kids have always done. He’d been by there since, and it had remained unchanged.
Sooner or later, the aliens would locate them. But it would give Ellen and him a chance to rest—perhaps long enough for him to waylay someone at night and steal enough for them to leave town. That wouldn’t be much help—but it was all he had left to count on.
He saw trucks loading there, as he paid the cab-driver. His heart sank abruptly, until he studied the way the big trailer was parked. If he watched carefully, he could slip under it from the side, and there was a chance he wouldn’t be seen.
He darted beneath it.
Luck, for once was with him as he drew Ellen under the trailer and the platform. The old opening was covered with rubble, but he scraped it aside, and found an entrance barely big enough for them to wiggle through. Then they were back in a dark pocket under the back of the platform, barely big enough for them to sit upright. The hole had seemed bigger when he was a kid.
Outside, he heard a boy’s voice yelling. “Monster attacks cops! Monster kills five cops! Extra Paper!”
Now he was a monster, to be shot on sight, probably.
“I shouldn’t have brought you into this, Ellen,” he said bitterly. “I should have left you. You don’t even know what’s going on—you haven’t the faintest idea. If it were just humans, as you think.…”
She snuggled against him in the coldness of the little cave. “Shh. I got you into it. I—I ratted on you, Scarface!”
But he couldn’t reply to her attempt at humor. There was no fear now—not even the relief of fear. He’d felt brave for a few minutes, back in the hallway of the apartment. Now the chips were down, and sunk. They were here, in a dank hole, without food, and without a chance, while all the world searched for him to kill him—and while still-unknown aliens with unknown reasons played out their little game with consummate skill that would inevitably locate him.
It might take them a day—they probably would do nothing to him until night came, and the warehouse street was deserted! Ten more hours!
If he only knew what they wanted of him, or why! If he could remember!
He sat there, numbed within himself. Ellen leaned her head forward onto his lap, and he began stroking her hair softly. He’d have liked to have had a chance with her. One night wasn’t enough for a whole life. He reached down to draw her face to his.…
Fear hit him, as something rustled behind him. He tried to turn and look, but his neck refused. The fear grew to panic, and swelled higher as the golden haze began to spread over the little cave. Then his muscles snapped his head around sharply. The slim young man was crawling toward them, holding something that looked like a flashlight. Behind it, he could see the tense lips drawn back over clenched teeth. The man wasn’t smiling now. He opened his mouth, just as the thing like a flashlight sprang into light.
No time seemed to elapse, but suddenly Ellen and the young man were both gone, and he sat in the dark hole, alone. He let out an animal cry, and dashed out, crawling through the opening, and kicking the rubble back as he went. He slipped out, and under the trailer. But there was no sign. They’d taken her, and left him unconscious!
He groaned, trying to figure. He’d always gone back to the same place to hide, since he’d found it. They must expect him back there. They’d take Ellen there and wait for him, drugging her, changing her mind, setting her up to use against him. The first time hadn’t worked, but they’d try it again. It had to be that. If they hadn’t taken her there, he had no way of finding her, and he had to find her.
He began running down the street, forcing himself to believe she was there. Then he slowed. It would do no good to have them all notice him, here on the street. Someone might recognize him then. He turned around, walking back to the bus stop. There were still two dimes and a nickel in his pocket.
* * * *
He hunched down on the seat of the bus that seemed to crawl up Tenth Avenue. But no one noticed him in the almost empty vehicle. He got off at Sixty-Sixth and forced himself to walk to West End, up that to the apartment-house.
Men were drawing up in cars—men with guns in their hands. He made a final dash for the apartment entrance. This must be the real show—for which the other had been only a dress rehearsal to throw him off balance. They could wait.
He fumbled with the lock, until he finally got it open. Then he jumped in, slamming the door shut behind him. Ellen stood there, and the creature that had assaulted him before was pawing at her. But he had no time for the monster.
“Stay there!” he shouted at her. “You can’t risk it outside now! We’ve got to—”
He saw she wasn’t listening to him. He had to get rid of the creature somehow, if he could get it far enough away from her. Then they’d find some way to get outside, without going out through the entrance.
The creature sprang at him awkwardly. His arm darted down to catch one shoulder, and his right hand swung back and up. There was a savage satisfaction