Short Fiction Ray Bradbury (always you kirsty moseley TXT) đ
- Author: Ray Bradbury
Book online «Short Fiction Ray Bradbury (always you kirsty moseley TXT) đ». Author Ray Bradbury
They stopped, together.
âOops!â Click said.
âHey!â Marnagan blinked. âDid you feel that?â
Hathawayâs body felt feathery, light as a whisper, boneless and limbless, suddenly. âIrish! We lost weight, coming over that ridge!â
They ran back. âLetâs try it again.â
They tried it. They scowled at each other. The same thing happened. âGravity should not act this way, Click.â
âAre you telling me? Itâs man-made. Better than thatâ âitâs Gunther! No wonder we fell so fastâ âwe were dragged down by a super-gravity setup! Guntherâd do anything toâ âdid I say anything?â
Hathaway leaped backward in reaction. His eyes widened and his hand came up, jabbing. Over a hill-ridge swarmed a brew of unbelievable horrors. Progeny from Frankensteinâs Ark. Immense crimson beasts with numerous legs and gnashing mandibles, brown-black creatures, some tubular and fat, others like thin white poisonous whips slashing along in the air. Fangs caught starlight white on them.
Hathaway yelled and ran, Marnagan at his heels, lumbering. Sweat broke cold on his body. The immense things rolled, slithered and squirmed after him. A blast of light. Marnagan, firing his proton-gun. Then, in Clickâs ears, the Irishmanâs incredulous bellow. The gun didnât hurt the creatures at all.
âIrish!â Hathaway flung himself over the ridge, slid down an incline toward the mouth a small cave. âThis way, fella!â
Hathaway made it first, Marnagan bellowing just behind him. âTheyâre too big; they canât get us in here!â Clickâs voice gasped it out, as Marnagan squeezed his two-hundred-fifty pounds beside him. Instinctively, Hathaway added, âAsteroid monsters! My camera! What a scene!â
âDamn your damn camera!â yelled Marnagan. âThey might come in!â
âUse your gun.â
âThey got impervious hides. No use. Gahh! And that was a pretty chase, eh, Click?â
âYeah. Sure. You enjoyed it, every moment of it.â
âI did that.â Irish grinned, showing white uneven teeth. âNow, what will we be doing with these uninvited guests at our door?â
âLet me thinkâ ââ
âLots of time, little man. Forty more minutes of air, to be exact.â
They sat, staring at the monsters for about a minute. Hathaway felt funny about something; didnât know what. Something about these monsters and Gunther andâ â
âWhich one will you be having?â asked Irish, casually. âA red one or a blue one?â
Hathaway laughed nervously. âA pink one with yellow rufflesâ âGood God, now youâve got me doing it. Joking in the face of death.â
âMe father taught me; keep laughing and youâll have Irish luck.â
That didnât please the photographer. âIâm an Anglo-Swede,â he pointed out.
Marnagan shifted uneasily. âHere, now. Youâre doing nothing but sitting, looking like a little boy locked in a bedroom closet, so take me a profile shot of the beasties and myself.â
Hathaway petted his camera reluctantly. âWhat in hellâs the use? All this swell film shot. Nobodyâll ever see it.â
âThen,â retorted Marnagan, âweâll develop it for our own benefit; while waitinâ for the U.S. Cavalry to come riding over the hill to our rescue!â
Hathaway snorted. âU.S. Cavalry.â
Marnagan raised his proton-gun dramatically. âSnap me this pose,â he said. âI paid your salary to trot along, photographing, we hoped, my capture of Gunther, now the least you can do is record peace negotiations betwixt me and these pixies.â
Marnagan wasnât fooling anybody. Hathaway knew the superficial palaver for nothing but a covering over the fast, furious thinking running around in that red-cropped skull. Hathaway played the palaver, too, but his mind was whirring faster than his camera as he spun a picture of Marnagan standing there with a useless gun pointed at the animals.
Montage. Marnagan sitting, chatting at the monsters. Marnagan smiling for the camera. Marnagan in profile. Marnagan looking grim, without much effort, for the camera. And then, a closeup of the thrashing death wall that holed them in. Click took them all, those shots, not saying anything. Nobody fooled nobody with this act. Death was near and they had sweaty faces, dry mouths and frozen guts.
When Click finished filming, Irish sat down to save oxygen, and used it up arguing about Gunther. Click came back at him:
âGunther drew us down here, sure as Ceres! That gravity change we felt back on that ridge, Irish; that proves it. Guntherâs short on men. So, whatâs he do; he builds an asteroid-base, and drags ships down. Space war isnât perfect yet, guns donât prime true in space, trajectory is lousy over long distances. So whatâs the best weapon, which dispenses with losing valuable, rare ships and a small bunch of men? Super-gravity and a couple of well-tossed meteors. Saves all around. Itâs a good front, this damned iron pebble. From it, Gunther strikes unseen; ships simply crash, thatâs all. A subtle hand, with all aces.â
Marnagan rumbled. âWhere is the dirty son, then!â
âHe didnât have to appear, Irish. He sentâ âthem.â Hathaway nodded at the beasts. âPeople crashing here die from air-lack, no food, or from wounds caused at the crackup. If they survive all thatâ âthe animals tend to them. It all looks like Nature was responsible. See how subtle his attack is? Looks like accidental death instead of murder, if the Patrol happens to land and finds us. No reason for undue investigation, then.â
âI donât see no Base around.â
Click shrugged. âStill doubt it? Okay. Look.â He tapped his camera and a spool popped out onto his gloved palm. Holding it up, he stripped it out to its full twenty inch length, held it to the light while it developed, smiling. It was one of his best inventions. Self-developing film. The first light struck film-surface, destroyed one chemical, leaving imprints; the second exposure simply hardened, secured the impressions. Quick stuff.
Inserting the film-tongue into a micro-viewer in the cameraâs base, Click handed the whole thing over. âLook.â
Marnagan put the viewer up against the helmet glass, squinted. âAh, Click. Now, now. This is one lousy film you invented.â
âHuh?â
âItâs a strange processâll develop my picture and ignore the asteroid monsters complete.â
âWhat!â
Hathaway grabbed the camera, gasped, squinted, and gasped again: Pictures in montage; Marnagan sitting down, chatting conversationally with nothing; Marnagan shooting his gun at nothing; Marnagan pretending to be happy in front of nothing.
Then, closeupâ âofâ ânothing!
The monsters had failed to image the
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