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

The water looked sallow green. It reminded Simon of those futuristic algae farms where the stuff is supposed to be pumped through transparent pipes to expose it to sunlight. There seemed to be a transparent top on the water tank too⁠—it was too high for Simon to see, but there was a gleam around the edge. Staring at the pipe again, Simon got the impression there were little things traveling in the water, but he couldn’t make them out.

Climbing down in some excitement, Simon got the twist of cellophane from the ledge of the easel and stared at its contents. Wild thoughts were tumbling through his head as he got back up on the stepladder. Sunlight flashed on the greenish water pipe between the tank and the shack, but after the first glance he had no eyes for it. Grushenka Stulnikov-Gurevich had her face tragically pressed to the window of the shack. She was wearing the black dress with high neck and puffed shoulders. At that moment she looked straight at him. She lifted her hands and seemed to speak imploringly. Then she slowly sank from sight as if, it horridly occurred to Simon, into quicksand.

Simon sprang from his chair, heart beating wildly, and ran down the stairs to the street. Two or three passersby paused to study him as he alternately pounded the flaking green door of the Russians’ house and leaned on the button. Also watching was the shirt-sleeved driver of a moving van, emblazoned “Stulnikov-Gurevich Enterprises,” which almost filled the street in front of the house.

The door opened narrowly. A man with a square black beard frowned out of it. He topped Simon by almost a head.

“Yes?” Ivan the Bomber asked, in a deep, exasperated voice.

“I must see the lady of the house immediately,” Simon cried. “Your sister, I believe. She’s in danger.” He surged forward.

The butt of the Bomber’s right palm took him firmly in the chest and he staggered back. The Bomber said coldly, “My sister is⁠—ha!⁠—taking a bath.”

Simon cried, “In that case she’s drowning!” and surged forward again, but the Bomber’s hand stopped him short. “I’ll call the police!” Simon shouted, flailing his limbs. The hand at his chest suddenly stopped pushing and began to pull. Gripped by the front of his shirt, Simon felt himself being drawn rapidly inside. “Let go! Help, a kidnapping!” he shouted to the inquisitive faces outside, before the door banged shut.

“No police!” rumbled the Bomber, assisting Simon upstairs.

“Now look here,” Simon protested futilely. In the two-story-high living room to his right, the pipes of an organ gleamed golden from the shadows. At the second landing, a disheveled figure met them, glasses twinkling⁠—Vasily the Vodka Breather. He spoke querulously in Russian to Ivan, who replied shortly, then Vasily turned and the three of them crowded up the narrow third flight to the pent-shack. This housed a small noisy machine, perhaps an aerator of some sort, for bubbles were streaming into the transparent pipe where it was connected to the machine; and under the pipe, sitting with an idiot smile on a chair of red plush and gilt, was a pale black-mustached man. An empty clear-glass bottle with a red and gold label lay on the floor at his feet. The opposite side of the room was hidden by a heavy plastic shower curtain. Grushenka Stulnikov-Gurevich was not in view.

Ivan said something explosive, picking up the bottle and staring at it. “Vodka!” he went on. “I have told you not to mix the pipe and the vodka! Now see what you have done!”

“To me it seemed hospitable,” said Vasily with an apologetic gesture. “Besides, only one bottle⁠—”

Ducking under the pipe where it crossed the pent-shack, Ivan picked up the pale man and dumped him crosswise in the chair, with his patent-leather shoes sticking up on one side and his plump hands crossed over his chest. “Let him sleep. First we must take down all the apparatus, before the capitalistic police arrive. Now: what to do with this one?” He looked at Simon, and clenched one large and hairy fist.

“Nyet-nyet-nyet,” said the Vodka Breather, and went to whisper in Ivan’s ear. They both stared at Simon, who felt uncomfortable and began to back toward the door; but Ivan ducked agilely under the pipe and grasped him by the arm, pulling him effortlessly toward the roof exit. “Just come this way if you please, Mr. Gru-ay,” said Vasily, hurrying after. As they left the shack, he picked up a kitchen chair.

Crossing the roof, Simon made a sudden effort and wrenched himself free. They caught him again at the edge of the roof, where he had run with nothing clearly in mind, but with his mouth open to yell. Suspended in the grip of the two Russians, with Ivan’s meaty palm over his mouth, Simon had a momentary glimpse of the street below. A third bearded figure, Mikhail the Religious, was staring up at them from the sunny sidewalk. The melancholy face, the deep-socketed tormented eyes, and the narrow beard tangled with the dangling crucifix combined to give the effect of a Tolstoy novel’s dust-jacket. As they hauled Simon away, he had the impression that a chilly breeze had sprung up and the street had darkened. In his ears was Mikhail’s distant, oddly discordant whistling.

Grunting, the two brothers set Simon down on the kitchen chair and slid him across the roof until something hard but resilient touched the top of his head. It was the plastic pipe, through which, peering upward, he could see myriads of tiny polliwog-shapes flitting back and forth.

“Do us a kindness not to make noise,” said Ivan, removing his palm. “My brother Vasily will now explain.” He went away.

Curiosity as much as shock kept Simon in his chair. Vasily, bobbing his head and smiling, sat down tailor-fashion on the roof in front of him. “First I must tell you, Mr. Gru-ay, that I am specialist in biological sciences. Here you see results of my most successful experiment.” He withdrew a round