Keith Laumer - Future Imperfect

Keith Laumer

A DISCOVERY OF MAMMOTH PROPORTIONS

The dying man stared at me with glass eyes in a skull face. "Listen," he croaked, "you think I'm raving, but I know what I'm saying. Get clear of this town now. Got no time to explain. Just move out."

I grabbed his shoulder, not gently. "Spit it out! Who are you? Why was he after you? Why did he shoot at me? Who was he?"

"All right," he was gasping. His face was that of a mummy who had died in agony. "I'll tell you. But you won't believe me."

"When the first quakes hit," he said, "they flew me in to Washington. Hell of a sight. The Washington Monument sticking up out of twenty feet of water, the Capitol dome down, a baby volcano building up where Mount Vernon used to be"

"I know all that. Who was the man I shot?"

He ignored me. "Admiral Hayle came up with a plan. The South Polar ice cap was causing the crust of the Earth to slip. Send an expedition to the Pole, loaded with nuclear generator plant gear. We made our landfall. Lost men scaling the ice cliffs. Never even found the bodies.

"We reached our site, set up a base camp, and started in. We were sinking our shafts at the rate of about two hundred feet a day. On the thirty-first day, I had a hurry-up call from Station Four. They'd spotted dark shapes down in the ice. I went down to see for myself.

"They had widened out a chamber down there, thirty feet wide, pumps whining, the stink of decay. They'd smoothed off a flat place, like a picture window. They put the big lights on it. Then I saw what the excitement was all about. Rocks, tufts of grass, twigs. Looked as if they were floating in water. And way back you could see other thingsbigger things."

"What kind of things?" I asked him, but he did not see me any longer.

"About forty feet away, a creature slumped sideways as though he'd leaned against a wall for a rest. Looked like the old elephant they had in the zoo at home, when I was a kid, except he had a coat of two-foot-long hair, reddish-black, plastered to his body."

"I know what a mammoth looks like," I said. "So you found one frozen; it's happened before. What makes it important?"

He moved his eyes to look at me. "Not like this one, they haven't. He was buckled into a harness like a circus pony...."

from Catastrophe Planet

He came to five minutes later, made a couple of convulsive flops, steadied down when I touched his side with the razor-sharp spear point.

"Where is she?"

He looked at the garment in my hand. His face worked like fudge about to come to a boil.

"I cannot tell you."

"Too bad." I rammed the spear medium hard; blood started from the cut. He jerked away and I prodded him again.

"You used up all your good will with me when you put your thumb in my neck," I told him. "Get her here or I'll pin you to the mattress and go looking for her myself."

"You must not kill me," he chirped. He seemed very serious about this. "I must not be touched, damaged, or caused pain."

"That's understandablebut life is full of disappointments. I can give you five minutes."

"I will give you other womenas many as you like"

"Just the one, thanks."

"I need this woman," he insisted.

"For what? Why did you bring her here?"

"I require a mistressmany mistresses"

"All the way from Miami?"

"She caught my eye; I desired her."

"Let's have the truth. It's less taxing on the brain."

"I have told you"

I poked him; he jumped, made a half-hearted grab for the pistol. I shifted position, caught him on the hand with the point. He gave a squeal like a stepped-on rat, rammed the hand in his mouth and made sucking sounds.

"Call one of your boys and have her brought here; then tell them to go away. You know just how to do itnice and easy."

He made gobbling noises, pointed to a large button set in the carved headboard.

"I must use this," he choked out.

"Go ahead. You know the rules."

I watched while he thumbed the call button; faint crackling sounds started up. "Yes," a voice said from across the room. I looked across at a small tri-D screen from which a face was staring.

"He cannot see us," the fat man whispered in a hoarse yelp.

The man on the screen said something in a strange, staccato language. My host replied in kind. I kept a little pressure on the spear point to remind him of our arrangement. The face went away and the screen winked off. Fatty whined and flopped his hands on the bed. There was quite a bit of blackish blood spattered around on the sheets now from the punctures in his hide. I must have been pushing harder than I thought.

"When the woman is brought here, you must go away," he piped.

"Get her here; I'll take it from there."

He lay on the bed, looking at me. From time to time his chest heaved in a shuddery sob. I checked my watch. It had been five minutes since the call.

Suddenly, there were footsteps in the outer room. I moved back against the wall.

"Just the girl," I whispered through my teeth. Fatty chirped orders. There were sounds of a scuffle; then Ricia stumbled through the doorway. She was dressed in a shapeless gray sack, bare-footed. There was a small cut on her forehead. Her hands were trussed behind her. She looked at the man on the bed with an expression of mild distaste, and said something haughty in the same language she had used on me. He flopped his hands, pointed at me. Ricia took a step forward, saw me and stiffenedthen smiled like the sun breaking through clouds.

"Akmal!" She took a step my way, then faltered, looked at the fat man. He spoke to her in what sounded like her own tongue.

"Tell her I'm getting her out of here," I snapped. Then, to her: "It's all right now, Ricia. We're leaving." I went to her, cut the tough cords binding her wrists. There were deep red marks where they had been. The fat man was talkingspeaking persuasively, waving his hands.

"That's enough," I cut him off. "Let's go, Ricia." I took her hand. She hung back, spoke sharply to the fat man. He answered. She snapped an order at him. He rolled the bugged eyes at me.

"You will be caught," he said. "They will kill you. The woman commands me to say this to you."

"Sure." I looked into Ricia's face. She smiled again, tentatively. "It's good to see you again, kid," I told her. "Let's travel." I went to the head of Fatty's bed, used the spear point to dig the call button out of the wood and poke the connecting wires back in out of reach.

"I need one more thing of you," I told him. "A diving outfit for the girl."

"I know nothing"

"Better try." Another jaba hearty one. He yelped.

"Perhapsat the lock. YesI remember it now. It has been many years"

"Where's the nearest exit?"

"There." He pointed at the locked door beside the wardrobe, "Follow the passage. The lock is there."

"Where's the key?"

"Press the head of the carved dragon."

I tried it. The door slid back; I looked in at wet floor stretching off into darkness. Ricia was beside me.

"Malno walk. Bad," she said.

"I don't like it too well myself, but if we don't find the lock I'll come back and cut him a new mouth under those chins." I gave Fatty a last smile to show him my morale was up, took Ricia's hand, and stepped through. We had gone about ten feet when the light narrowed down, went out. My dive for the closing door was a yard short and a second late.

"Mal!" Ricia's voice was a gasp.

"I'm all right, just stupid. I guess Tubby had a button I missed." I got to my feet, groped my way to her, put an arm around her shoulders. She shivered, clung to me. My hand light was still clipped to my belt; I flashed it over the door. The inner side was smooth, with no nice dragon heads to push. I leaned on it; it was like leaning against the First National Bank.