CHAPTER II
Unexpected Journey
I yelled, "Get some water, Hank! And some brandy!"
I carried her to the studio lounge. Hank came back with two glasses. I gulped the brandy swiftly, and held the water to her lips. Pretty soon she spluttered, pushed the glass away, and opened her eyes.
"Oh, Jim! The most dreadful thing has happened to daddy. We--_You_!"
Hank swallowed convulsively and essayed a grin.
"'Lo, Helen."
Helen MacDowell's fingers made motions like shears on a rampage. Her eyes roved. She asked thoughtfully,
"Jim, where's that paperknife you used to have? The long one? I'm going to stab somebody in the back!"
"Look, sugar," I pleaded, "Hank's come to help us. We have more important things to worry about now than your injured ego. After we've cleared up this trouble, you can have him alone in a dark room for ten minutes--"
"Is that," she demanded fretfully, "a promise?"
But her bitterness subsided; anxiety rekindled in her eyes. That, and the recollection of a shocking moment.
"Daddy disappeared, Jim! Right from the middle of a group. He was standing at my side; his shoulder was almost touching mine. Then all of a sudden--he was gone! Like that!"
Under any other circumstances, I would have guessed that the old wind-bag had finally blown up and drifted away. But there was precedent now for his Houdini act. One with sinister overtones. Three men and an animated gumshoe detective had vanished.
But I said, in a voice that I hoped wouldn't sound too much like a dish of unchilled tapioca,
"Now, don't worry, Helen. Everything's going to be all right. There must be a logical explanation for this. Hank's just the man to--"
And then--there it was again!
A blinding flash of light. A weird vibrancy tingling my body, drawing taut the tiny hairs of my forearms and neck. Light motes dancing giddily before my eyes, coalescing to form the figure of a man. A wavering, mobile figure, from the uppermost nebulosity of which emanated a piteous, hollow voice.
"_Skleeva! Skleeva_--"
Then a swift, dulled paling of the light. Burning white tarnished into red-ochre, red-ochre brazened, the green palpitated to a deep blue-indigo. The figure before my eyes took on form and substance. I saw with a sense of stark disbelief it was tall and lanky as Hank himself, that it wore a uniform of some sort, that its eyes were not unfriendly but haggard and despairing. And then,
"_Ombiggs!_" wailed our impossible visitor. "_Ombiggs! Skleeva?_"
And vanished!
I stood still. Very, very still It was not courage. It was rivets in the soles of my feet. My brain clamored,
"Go, boys, go!" But my knees were clattering and banging like the fenders of a T-model Ford.
* * * * *
Helen wasn't much better off. Her eyes looked like a pair of sealed-beam headlights, and the most intelligent sound she could summon was a faint, plaintive,
"Oooooh!"
Only Hank retained an iota of self-control. And to tell the truth, his comment was far from enlightening.
"Well!" he said. "So _that's_ it!"
"What's what?" I asked him shakily. My paralysis was slipping away, and I prepared to do ditto. "Friends, did you see what I saw? Or has the little brown jug finally done what the Temperance Society told me it would do some day?"
Hank said, "Now, Jim! It ain't like you to act so. 'Specially when we've reached what you might call a crooshul moment. Hmm! Now, lemme see. You folks seen him most plain when he was what color? Blue?"
"Sort of. Bluish-green."
Helen said, "Greenish-blue."
"That's near enough," mused Hank. "That'd be--Hmmm!--'bout .0005 millimetres. I'll tell him that when he comes back--"
"_When he comes back?_"
"Why sure!" Hank stared at me amiably. "He'll be back any minute now. He done a lot better this time than the first, don't you think? Next time he'll probably get what he wants."
"And," I faltered, "and I suppose you know what that is?"
"Reckon I do," said Hank complacently. "He wants _me_."
I gave up trying. My brain was in a muddle, anyway.
I said, "All right, Hank. You win. Now get down to straight facts. Who _is_ he, _where_ did he come from, _why_ does he want you, _how_ do you know he does, and _what_ is this all about?"
Hank shifted uncomfortably.
"Well, now, Jim, that's a powerful lot of questions at one lump. Dunno's I can answer 'em all--yet. Hafta talk to him first, o' course, but as near as I can figger, here's the set-up.
"That guy ain't from our time. He's from some time which ain't come yet. The future, so to speak. I don't know his name, 'cause he didn't speak very clear, but I know who he wants 'cause he said me."
Helen said dazedly, "He _said_--"
"'Where's Cleaver?'" explained Hank. "Oh, it wasn't very clear. He was all excited. But that's what he meant, I reckon."
I swallowed hard and wished the goose pimples would get off my hide.
"You mean," I said, "he's coming back out of future time to talk to you?"
"Seems as if. More like, he'll want to take me with him," Hank said calmly.
"What! But, Hank, that would be awful! You mustn't allow anything like that--"
Hank said bluntly, "You want I should find out where Helen's old man is, don't you? And them two puffessors? Way I figger, Jim, there must be somethin' awful drastic goin' on there in the future. Somethin' so bad, it's got 'em all upset an' they're back-draggin' the past for me. By accident, they musta got Hallowell an' Tomkins an' Helen's pop. I've got to get over there an' find out what's the trouble--Here it is!"
* * * * *
For an instant there had flickered again that ray of light. Hank warned hastily,
"You two stand back out o' the way! Keep calm an' don't worry. I'll be back directly."
He stepped into the middle of the room as the bright, golden light suddenly flamed anew. He lifted his voice.
"Point oh-oh-oh-five, friend. Or thereabout--"
And the light changed. Slid swiftly down the wavelengths again to that hue most favorable. The figure appeared, this time firm, unwavering. It was the face and figure of a man remarkably like Hank Cleaver himself; a young man, serious-eyed, hopeful of voice.
"Cleaver?" he cried. "You Cleaver?"
Hank nodded. "Mmm-hmm. I'm him."
"Come!" said the young man. "Come, Hank Cleaver."
He held out his hand. And Hank stepped forward into the blaze of pallid, green-blue light.
Which was just one too many for Helen MacDowell. A tiny groan escaped her lips. She tottered, pitched forward to Hank's shoulder. Hank turned worried eyes to me.
"Grab her, Jim! Get her back before--"
And I, too, leaped forward. I got my hands on Helen, started to pull her from that color-field. I was aware of the distant throbbing of some unknown machine, then of a swift, sudden shock. Great forces wrenched at my body. I felt as if I were being racked in a titanic tug-o'-war. There was an instant of frightful cold, another of giddy nausea, a sensation of wild, hurtling motion.
Then blackness, soft, warm and impenetrable....
No, not impenetrable. For there was a light in my eyes, and my head was no longer swimming, and I was lying on something comfortable, and a friendly voice was saying,
"Here you are, Buster. Drink this!"
So why look a gift drink in the bottle? I drank it, and immediately felt warmer inside. And more confident, too. Until I lifted my head and looked about me. Then I let loose a howl that stretched from here to there, with reverberations.
"Great galloping saints, where am I? No, don't say it! Let me guess. World's Fair?"
My young companion looked puzzled. He was a decent-looking chap, except for that wild costume he was wearing. A sort of uniform, but it reminded me painfully of a Buck Rogers serial. Loose tunic and slacks, sky-blue, with a Sam Browne belt and a gun holster into which was jammed a weird-appearing weapon, all knobs and studs and buttons.
"How?" he said.
I said, "My--my friends? Where are they?"
"They're up and around. You're the only fader."
He grinned. "You must be allergic to electricity, huh?"
I was still staring about me. The room was a humdinger. All metal and plastic and glass; a small cubicle about six by ten, with a single bunk (that on which I now sat, poised for flight) a desk, chair, porthole--
Porthole!
"So that's it!" I yipped. "Shanghaied!"
* * * * *
I made a dive for the porthole, pressed my nose to it, hoping that across the bounding blue I might see at least one faint ribbon of good old terra firma.
But there was no land. There was no bounding blue. There weren't even any clouds or sky! There was--just gray. Wan, dismal gray that seemed to stretch into infinity!
It was plain that I needed either one less drink or one more. I settled for the latter. A long, straight one. It snapped me hurriedly out of my speechlessness.
"Not that it's any of my business," I said, "but it looks to me like there's nothing outside that porthole but a lot of gray emptiness."
My companion nodded dolefully.
"Yeah," he said, "I know. I've looked--and looked."
"Where I come from, space usually has things stuffed inside it. So apparently I'm not there. Which being the case, would you mind telling me where the hell I _am_?" I demanded.
He shook his head. "That's just it, Buster. We don't know."
"You," I told him, "are a big help. Pass the bottle. Do you happen to know your own name?"
"Yeah," he said. "Mud. It used to be Bert Donovan. I'm the radio operator aboard this ship."
"Ship?" He was beginning to talk sense now.
"Lugger, I should say. This is the _Saturn_, friend. IPS freight lugger, operating on the Earth-Mars shuttle. Or, anyhow, we _used_ to. _Till_ he got monkeying around with that new power drive of his--"
"IPS?" I strangled. "Earth-Mars? _He?_"
"Take it easy, friend. IPS--interplanetary space ship. Earth-Mars--round-trip route, originally. Navigator, Lancelot Biggs, the first mate.[3] Didn't you know--"
[Footnote 3: Author Nelson S. Bond first introduced Lancelot Biggs, space navigator and jack-of-all-trades, in the November, 1939 issue of FANTASTIC ADVENTURES, our companion magazine, under the title "F.O.B. Venus." The second mate aboard the _Saturn_, space freighter plying between Earth and other colonized planets under the somewhat bilious leadership of Cap Hanson, Lancelot Biggs got himself promoted to first mate after getting the space freighter out of a bad fix. Author Bond, now one of the top-notchers in popular fiction, has in this story combined two of his best-liked scientifictional characters--Lancelot Biggs and Horse-sense Hank.--Ed.]
"Omigod!" I bleated. "Don't tell me, but I--we--all of us are in the _future_!"
Donovan caught me as I was about to collapse and clapped me heartily on the back. I think it did more harm than good, but at least it brought me out of the fog.
"Correct," he said unhappily. "We're off in the future--hmm--maybe two-three hundred years. Myself, I don't understand how the hell it happened, but--"
At that moment a bell sounded. We turned to a hunk of square glass set in a side wall. It lighted, and a crusty-looking face scowled down on us, eyed me appraisingly.
"Ah, so you've recovered, young man? Fine! Your friends are waiting here in the control turret. Sparks, come along up here. Mr. Biggs has called a general conference."
The light dimmed. Sparks grinned at me languidly.
"That's the Old Man. Cap Hanson. Well, let's go, Buster. The fireworks are about to begin."
"The name," I told him, "is Blakeson. And how come the fireworks? Me no savvy."
"You heard him say L. Biggs was in the control turret, no? That's the tip-off, Bust--"
"Blakeson!" I said firmly.
"Blakeson," he corrected. "Okay. Buster. Come on!"