Short Fiction

Diomed of Argos, son of Tydeus, drew his sword with a shout and rushed forward to finish off his Trojan opponent before help could arrive. Suddenly he stopped and threw up a shielding arm before his eyes. When he could see again, one who could only have been Aphrodite, Goddess of love and beauty stood between him and the unconscious enemy. She was dressed as though for the bridal room, her Goddess body, breathtakingly beautiful, revealed through the transparent robe she wore. She was attired for love, but held a short sword in her hand.

Aphrodite smiled at him in derision. “Now, then, Prince of Argos, would you fight the Gods?” She advanced the sword, half mockingly.

But the Greek was mad with bloodlust, half crazed with his day’s victories; he snatched up his spear, muttering, “Pallas Athene aids me,” and rushed her.

Her eyes widened, fear flashing in them, and she began to rise from the ground. The barbaric spear flashed out and ripped her arm; blood flowed and she dropped the sword, screaming.

Diomed heard a voice call urgently, “Go back! Go back immediately to⁠—” And the Goddess Aphrodite disappeared.

The phone rang and Ed Kerry wasn’t doing anything so he picked it up and said, “Yeah?”

He said yeah a few more times, his eyes widening infinitesimally each time, and finally wound up with, “Okay, Bunny.”

He hung up and said, “That was Bunny, up in Oneonta. She says a guy is coming in from Luna with a kid for emergency hospitalization, radiation burns or something.”

Jake was sitting back in his swivel chair, his feet on the desk and his hands clasped behind his head. He growled, “That’s the trouble with women in this game; they’ve got no story sense. She phones all the way from Oneonta on a story that’s been run a hundred times. Every time somebody gets good and sick up on Luna they bring ’em to Earth for treatment.” He shrugged. “Okay, so it’s a kid this time. Do up about a stick of it, Kerry, and we’ll put it on page three if you can work it into a tearjerker.”

Ed Kerry said, “You didn’t let me finish, Jake. Something’s wrong with this guy’s radio.”

Somebody on the rewrite desk said, “Something wrong with his radio? He’s gotta have his radio or he can’t come in.”

Jake took his feet from the desk and sat up. “What’d’ ya mean, something’s wrong with his radio?”

To everyone in the Solar System I was a big shot, understand? Everyone but two⁠—the two that counted most. One of the two was Suzi, and the other was me. The difference was that Suzi made no bones about telling me I was a fake; in my own mind the knowledge was there but more or less subconscious.

On this particular occasion Suzi was standing in the center of the half acre living room of my new penthouse on top the two hundred story Spacenter Building in Neuve Los Angeles. She had her hands on her hips and was glaring around at the furniture, the pictures, the statuary.

She said bitingly, “Jak, you’re a phony.”

“A what?” I complained. “Listen, Suzi, don’t start calling me those prehistoric names again.”

“A phony,” she said, “a humbug, a four flusher, a quack, a faker.⁠ ⁠…”

She’d finally got to a word I knew. “Hey,” I protested, “what’s this all about?”

First on the scene were Larry Dermott and Tim Casey of the State Highway Patrol. They assumed they were witnessing the crash of a new type of Air Force plane and slipped and skidded desperately across the field to within thirty feet of the strange craft, only to discover that the landing had been made without accident.

Patrolman Dermott shook his head. “They’re gettin’ queerer looking every year. Get a load of it⁠—no wheels, no propeller, no cockpit.”

They left the car and made their way toward the strange egg-shaped vessel.

Tim Casey loosened his .38 in its holster and said, “Sure, and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s one of ours. No insignia and⁠—”

A circular door slid open at that point and Dameri Tass stepped out, yawning. He spotted them, smiled and said, “Glork.”

They gaped at him.

“Glork is right,” Dermott swallowed.

Tim Casey closed his mouth with an effort. “Do you mind the color of his face?” he blurted.

“How could I help it?”

Dameri Tass rubbed a blue-nailed pink hand down his purplish countenance and yawned again. “Gorra manigan horp soratium,” he said.

Patrolman Dermott and Patrolman Casey shot stares at each other. “ ’Tis double talk he’s after givin’ us,” Casey said.

Joe Prantera called softly, “Al.” The pleasurable, comfortable, warm feeling began spreading over him, the way it always did.

The older man stopped and squinted, but not suspiciously, even now.

The evening was dark, it was unlikely that the other even saw the circle of steel that was the mouth of the shotgun barrel, now resting on the car’s window ledge.

“Who’s it?” he growled.

Joe Prantera said softly, “Big Louis sent me, Al.”

And he pressed the trigger.

And at that moment, the universe caved inward upon Joseph Marie Prantera.

There was nausea and nausea upon nausea.

There was a falling through all space and through all time. There was doubling and twisting and twitching of every muscle and nerve.

There was pain, horror and tumultuous fear.

And he came out of it as quickly and completely as he’d gone in.

He was in, he thought, a hospital and his first reaction was to think, This here California. Everything different. Then his second thought was Something went wrong. Big Louis, he ain’t going to like this.

He brought his thinking to the present. So far as he could remember, he hadn’t completely pulled the trigger. That at least meant that whatever the rap was it wouldn’t be too tough. With luck, the syndicate would get him off with a couple of years at Quentin.