Short Fiction Fritz Leiber (free e books to read .txt) 📖

Naturally I had asked why didn’t the voice teach me to fly the plane so that I could maneuver in case of attack, and naturally the voice had told me it was out of the question⁠—much too difficult and besides they wanted us on a known course so they could plan better for the drop and recovery. (I think maybe the voice would have given me some hints⁠—and maybe even told me more about the steel cubes too and how much danger we were in from them⁠—if it hadn’t been for the second voice, which presumably had issued from a being who was keeping watch to make sure among other things that the first voice didn’t get softhearted.)

So there I was being a front gunner. Actually a part of me was getting a big bang out of it⁠—from antique Banker’s Special to needle cannon (or whatever it was)⁠—but at the same time another part of me was disgusted with the idea of acting like I belonged to a live culture (even a smart, unqueer one) and working in a war (even just so as to get out of it fast), while a third part of me⁠—one that I normally keep down⁠—was very simply horrified.

Pop was back by the door with the box and ’chute, ready to make the drop.

Alice had no duties for the moment, but she’d suddenly started gathering up food cans and packing them in one bag⁠—I couldn’t figure out at first what she had in mind. Orderly housewife wouldn’t be exactly my description of her occupational personality.

Then of course everything had to happen at once.

The voice said, “Make the drop!”

Alice crossed to Pop and thrust out the bag of cans toward him, writhing her lips in silent “talk” to tell him something. She had a knife in her burnt hand too.

But I didn’t have time to do any lipreading, because just then a glittering pink asterisk showed up in the darkening haze ahead⁠—a whole half dozen straight lines spreading out from a blank central spot, as if a super-fast gigantic spider had laid in the first strands of its web.

Wind whistled as the door of the plane started to open.

I fought to center my sight on the blank central spot, which drifted toward the left.

One of the straight lines grew dazzlingly bright.

I heard Alice whisper fiercely, “Drop these!” and the part of my mind that couldn’t be applied to gunnery instantly deduced that she’d had some last-minute inspiration about dropping a bunch of cans instead of the steel cubes.

I got the sight centered and held down the firing combo. The thought flashed to me: it’s a city you’re firing at, not a plane, and I flinched.

The dazzlingly pink line dipped down toward me.

Behind me, the sound of a struggle. Alice snarling and Pop giving a grunt.

Then all at once a scream from Alice, a big whoosh of wind, a flash way ahead (where I’d aimed), a spatter of hot metal inside the cabin, a blinding spot in the middle of the World Screen, a searing beam inches from my neck, an electric shock that lifted me from my seat and ripped at my consciousness!

When I came to (if I really ever was out⁠—seconds later, at most) there were no more pink lines. The haze was just its disgustingly tawny evening self with black spots that were only afterimages. The cabin stunk of ozone, but wind funneling through a hole in the onetime World Screen was blowing it out fast enough⁠—Savannah had gotten in one lick, all right. And we were falling, the plane was swinging down like a crippled bird⁠—I could feel it and there was no use kidding myself.

But staring at the control panel wouldn’t keep us from crashing if that was in the cards. I looked around and there were Pop and Alice glaring at each other across the closing door. He looked mean. She looked agonized and was pressing her burnt hand into her side with her elbow as if he’d stamped on the hand, maybe. I didn’t see any blood though. I didn’t see the box and ’chute either, though I did see Alice’s bag of groceries. I guessed Pop had made the drop.

Now, it occurred to me, was a bully time for Voice Two to melt the plane⁠—if he hadn’t already tried. My first thought had been that the spatter of hot metal had come from the Savannah craft spitting us, but there was no way to be sure.

I looked around at the viewport in time to see rocks and stunted trees jump out of the haze. Good old Ray, I thought, always in at the death. But just then the plane took a sickening bounce, as if its antigravity had only started to operate within yards of the ground. Another lurching fall and another bounce, less violent. A couple of repetitions of that, each one a little gentler, and then we were sort of bumping along on an even keel with the rocks and such sliding past fast about a hundred feet below, I judged. We’d been spoiled for altitude work, it seemed, but we could still cripple along in some sort of low-power repulsion field.

I looked at the North America screen and the buttons, wondering if I should start us back west again or leave us set on Atla-Hi and see what the hell happened⁠—at the moment I hardly cared what else Savannah did to us. I needn’t have wasted the mental energy. The decision was made for me. As I watched, the Atla-Hi button jumped up by itself and the button for the cracking plant went down and there was some extra bumping as we swung around.

Also, the violet patch of Atla-Hi went real dim and the button for it no longer had a violet nimbus. The Los Alamos blue went dull too. The cracking-plant dot glowed a brighter green⁠—that was all.

All except for one thing. As the violet dimmed I thought I