“So long, captain. So long, Gus. So long, Halloway.”
Berman’s running down-alley with an easy, long-muscled stride. I hear him yelling high and clear, even though he’s getting far away.
Here comes an automobile!
Berman! Ahh! It hit him! He’s fallen!
Berman, get up, get up!
“Stay here, Halloway, it’s not your turn yet.”
My turn? What do you mean? Someone’s gotta help Berman.
“Halloway, come back! Oh, man, I don’t want to see this!”
LIFT up my legs, put them down, breathe out, breathe in, swing arms, swing legs, chew my tongue, blink my eyes, Berman, here I come, gee, things are crazy-funny, here comes an ice-wagon trundling along, its coming right at me! I can’t see to get around it, it’s coming so fast, I’ll jump inside it, jump, jump, cool, ice, ice-pick, chikk-chikk-chikk, I hear the captain screaming off a million hot miles gone, chikk-chikk-chikk around the ice perimeter, the ice wagon is thundering, rioting, jouncing, shaking, rolling on big rusty iron wheels, smelling of sour ammonia, bouncing on a corduroy dirt and brick alley-road, the rear end of it seems to be snapping shut with many ice-prongs, I feel intense pain in my left leg, chikk-chikk-chikk-chikk! piece of ice, cold square, cold cube, a shuddering and convulsing, a temblor, the wagon wheels stop rolling, I jump down and run away from the wrecked wagon, did the wagon roll over Berman, I hope not, a fence here, I’ll jump over it, another popcorn machine, very warm, very hot, all flame and red fire and burning metal knobs…
Oops, I didn’t mean to strike the popcorn man down, hello, Berman, what’re you doing in my arms, how’d you get here, did I pick you up, and why? an obstacle race at the high-school? you’re heavy, I’m tired, dogs nipping at my heels, how far am I supposed to carry you? I hear the captain screaming me on, for why, for why? Here comes the big bad truant officer with a club in his hand to take me back to school, he looks mean and broad…
I kicked the truant officer’s shins and kicked him in the face… Mama won’t like that… yes, mommy… no mommy… that’s unfair… that’s not ethical fighting… something went squish… hmm… let’s forget about it, shall we?
Breathing hard. Here comes the gang after me, all the rough, bristly Irishmen and scarred Norwegians and stubborn Italians… hit, kick, wrestle… here comes a swift car, fast, fast! I hope I can duck, with you, Berman… here comes another car from the opposite way!… if I work things right… uh… stop screaming, Berman!
The cars crashed into each other.
The cars still roll, tumbling, like two animals tearing at each other’s throats.
Not far to go now, Berman, to the end of the alley. Just ahead. I’ll sleep for forty years when this is over… where’d I get this flashlight in my hand? From one of those guys I knocked down? from the popcorn man? I’ll poke it in front of me… people run away… maybe they don’t like its light in their eyes… The end of the alley! There’s the green valley and my house, and there’s Mom and Pop waiting! Hey, let’s sing, let’s dance, we’re going home!
“Halloway, you so-and-so, you did it!”
Dark. Sleep. Wake up slow. Listen.
“—and Halloway ran down that amphitheatre nonchalant as a high-school kid jumping hurdles. A big saffron Martian beast with a mouth so damn big it looked like the rear end of a delivery truck, lunged forward square at Halloway—”
“What’d Halloway do?”
“Halloway jumped right inside the monster’s mouth—right inside!”
“What happened then?”
“The animal looked dumbfounded. It tried to spit out. Then, to top it all, what did Halloway do, I ask you, I ask you, what did he do? He drew forth his boy-scout blade and went chikk-chikk-chikk all around the bloody interior, pretending like he’s holed up in an ice-wagon, chipping himself off pieces of ice.”
“No?”
“On my honor! The monster, after taking a bit of this chikk-chikk-chikk business, leaped around, cavorting, floundering, rocking, tossing, and then, with a spout of blood, out popped Halloway, grinning like a kid, and on he ran, dodging spears and pretending they were pebbles, leaping a line of crouched warriors and saying they’re a picket fence. Then he lifted Berman and trotted with him until he met a three hundred pound Martian wrestler. Halloway supposed that it was the truant officer and promptly kicked him in the face. Then he knocked down another guy working furiously at the buttons of a paralysis machine which looked, to Halloway, like a pop-corn wagon! After which two gigantic black Martian leopards attacked, resembling to him nothing more than two very bad drivers in dark automobiles. Halloway sidestepped. The two ‘cars’ crashed and tore each other apart, fighting. Halloway pumped on, shooting people with his ‘flashlight’ which he retrieved from the ‘popcorn’ man. Pointing the flash at people, he was amazed when they vanished and—oh, oh, Halloway’s waking up, I saw his eyelids flicker. Quiet, everyone. Halloway, you awake?”
Yeah. I been listening to you talk for five minutes. I still don’t understand. Nothing happened at all. How long I been asleep?
“Two days. Nothing happened, eh? Nothing, except you got the Martians kowtowing, that’s all, brother. You’re spectacular performance impressed people. The enemy suddenly decided that if one earth-man could do what you did, what would happen if a million more came?”
Everybody keeps on with this joking, this lying about Mars. Stop it. Where am I?
“Aboard the rocket, about to take off.” Leave Earth? No, no, I don’t want to leave Earth, good green Earth! Let go! I’m afraid! Let go of me! Stop the ship!
“Halloway, this is Mars—we’re going back to Earth.”
Liars, all of you! I don’t want to go to Mars, I want to stay here, on Earth!
“Holy cow, here we go again. Hold him down, Gus. Hey, doctor, on the double! Come help Halloway change his mind back, willya!”
Liars! You can’t do this! Liars! Liars!
Lorelei of the Red Mist
Planet Stories (1946)
He died—and then awakened in a new body. He found himself on a world of bizarre loveliness, a powerful, rich man. He took pleasure in his turn of good luck… until he discovered that his new body was hated by all on this strange planet, that his soul was owned by Rann, devil-goddess of Falga, who was using him for her own gain.
The Company dicks were good. They were plenty good. Hugh Starke began to think maybe this time he wasn’t going to get away with it.
His small stringy body hunched over the control bank, nursing the last ounce of power out of the Kallman. The hot night sky of Venus fled past the ports in tattered veils of indigo. Starke wasn’t sure where he was any more. Venus was a frontier planet, and still mostly a big X, except to the Venusians—who weren’t sending out any maps. He did know that he was getting dangerously close to the Mountains of White Cloud. The backbone of the planet, towering far into the stratosphere, magnetic trap, with God knew what beyond. Maybe even God wasn’t sure.
But it looked like over the mountains or out. Death under the guns of the Terro-Venus Mines, Incorporated, Special Police, or back to the Luna cell blocks for life as a habitual felon.
Starke decided he would go over.
Whatever happened, he’d pulled off the biggest lone-wolf caper in history. The T-V Mines payroll ship, for close to a million credits. He cuddled the metal strongbox between his feet and grinned. It would be a long time before anybody equaled that.
His mass indicators began to jitter. Vaguely, a dim purple shadow in the sky ahead, the Mountains of White Cloud, stood like a wall against him. Starke checked the positions of the pursuing ships. There was no way through them. He said flatly, “All right, damn you,” and sent the Kallman angling up into the thick blue sky.
He had no very clear memories after that. Crazy magnetic vagaries, always a hazard on Venus, made his instruments useless. He flew by the seat of his pants and he got over, and the T-V men didn’t. He was free, with a million credits in his kick.
Far below in the virgin darkness he saw a sullen crimson smear on the night, as though someone had rubbed it with a bloody thumb. The Kallman dipped toward it. The control bank flickered with blue flame, the jet timers blew, and then there was just the screaming of air against the falling hull.
Hugh Starke sat still and waited…
He knew, before he opened his eyes, that he was dying. He didn’t feel any pain; he didn’t feel anything, but he knew just the same. Part of him was cut loose. He was still there, but not attached anymore.
He raised his eyelids. There was a ceiling. It was a long way off. It was black stone veined with smoky reds and ambers. He had never seen it before.
His head was tilted toward the right. He let his gaze move down that way. There were dim tapestries, more of the black stone, and three tall archways giving onto a balcony. Beyond the balcony was a sky veiled and clouded with red mist. Under the mist, spreading away from a murky line of cliffs, was an ocean. It wasn’t water and it didn’t have any waves on it, but there was nothing else to call it. It burned, deep down inside itself, breathing up the red fog. Little angry bursts of flame coiled up under the flat surface, sending circles of sparks flaring out like ripples from a dropped
