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(Based on a painting by Herbert James Draper, 1863-1920)
Amazing Stories, November 1943, with "Two Worlds to Conquer"
There was a rush of wings, and down from the sky came a winged man.
IT SEEMS odd now that about the first time it happened, I blamed it on my imagination—a nightmare of a blacked-out brain. I wish it had been that simple. I was at the controls of a three-place Sky Coach, one of the classiest planes available, manufactured by my boss, P.T. Flinnum of Buffalo, New York. Just south of Chicago, I nosed around under a cloud bank looking for a private landing field belonging to Ward Reese. Reese had ordered the Sky Coach and Flinnum asked me to fly it to Chicago.
I had a three thousand foot ceiling and had just spotted the race track on the Reese estate. Flinnum told me Reese's private field was just a quarter mile south of the track and I could make out the single east-west runway. I nosed over a little, looked at the sky below and it was all clear. Then the engine conked out on me, just like that. The Sky Coach is an eighty-five horse job that seldom plays tricks. I wasn't worried, because I had plenty of time and room to set her down. It was just at that moment that this crazy thing happened.
I'd had a headache all morning. I closed my eyes and rubbed one hand across the lids.
They stuck.
I couldn't open my eyes. At the same time I found myself in a very different kind of world. I'll tell it the way it impressed me, because that's the easiest way. All the time I was conscious of the weight that kept my eyes from opening, and yet I could do nothing about it. I was still Fred Hamilton, six foot three, red hair and feeling quite normal, thank you. Yet, at the same time, I wasn't Hamilton. At least, that's the way it seemed. With my eyes closed, I was a complete stranger to myself. My body was clad only in a rugged skin of some kind that was covered by tough scales. It draped around my shoulders and was trimmed neatly at the thighs, leaving me like some kind of a tow-headed Tarzan. Oh yes, I was still flying but not exactly a Sky Coach. I had a pair of wing-like contraptions strapped to my shoulders and I was gliding lazily around above a hot-looking, and very large, desert.
Maybe you don't quite get it. I didn't either, not then. It was one of those half-awake, half-asleep dreams we have sometimes. I was Fred Hamilton in a Sky Coach, and I was some kind of a winged man gliding around in the air over a desert.
IT DIDN'T make sense. I fought to escape the dream, because I was dully aware that in my sensible life, my plane had dived, levelled off, flown itself a little while and was diving again. If it kept up, I might land much more abruptly than I had planned. At the same time, in the dream I wasn't at all unhappy. The wings strapped to my shoulders were long and tapered gracefully. I kept gliding along with them and after a while I saw a long procession of people straggling across the desert below me. I seemed to know what I was doing, because right away I had the urge to dive down close and look them over.
I folded my wings up neatly around me and shot down like nothing human.
It took only a few seconds to see that the caravan was made up of strange-looking animals drawing carts. The carts stirred up a lot of dust.
Ahead of the caravan two milk-white animals galloped along with their riders. At first I thought they were horses. Then as I dipped down I saw that they were more like camels with three humps on their backs, and an extra set of legs that held up the center of the chassis. A man sat on one of these humpy, six legged creations and he looked pretty worried as I dove toward him. He drew a long sword and started to display it in a manner that made me back away and hover at a respectable distance. The other rider, staying close to the guy with the sword, was a slim, neatly clad girl with a lovely face and the look of a princess about her. Here, I decided, was a babe who knew that she was Class A, and wouldn't let anyone forget it. I was looking them over carefully when the dream started to fade and I remembered that I was a thousand feet above ground in a Sky Coach that had been flying itself for several minutes. I managed to pry open my eyes. It was easy then. I got a grip on the stick, eased it back and went in for a nice landing on Reese's bent-grass runway.
That estate was a nice bit of scenery at that, and my mind slipped away from the dream for a few minutes as I eased the Sky Coach up the taxi strip and turned it around on the lawn before Reese's swimming pool. Two horses were galloping up the cinder strip that came from the woods behind the house. As they came, I took a few seconds to stare around at the hundred-foot tile pool, the terraces of green that came down from the huge, almost palace-like house on the hill. The house was white, and touched off with a tile roof and carefully decorated shutters. Reese already had two planes, and the hangar in which he housed them looked big enough for half the United States Army. Reese was that kind of a guy, according to Flinnum.
"Reese owns half the real estate in Chi," Flinnum had told me when I left Buffalo. "Treat him like Gosh-al-mighty. He's got the dough to buy us out."
That was a pretty good-sized statement, considering that Sky Coach Inc. had about sixteen million in the bank,
I GOT out of the plane, found a rag and was polishing a spot where the engine had been throwing oil since Buffalo. I had just finished rubbing when the two horses snorted up and I heard someone shout.
"Is that the plane I ordered from Sky Coach?"
I turned around, remembering that I was supposed to be nice and treat Mr. Reese like he was—well, you know.
I said: "If your name is Reese, this is the plane."
I heard him snort and it didn't sound a lot different than the noise of his horse had made a minute before. I guess my eyes opened a little wider than they ever had before. I stood there, the grease rag still in my hand, staring up at the pair on the horse.
Remember that dream?
Well, I sure did. This guy Reese, and the pale-faced girl in riding breeches who sat near him were spitting images of the pair I'd seen riding six-legged camels while I plummeted around the sky in that whacky dream I'd been having. Odd part of it was, I'd never seen Reese or his daughter before.
I scratched my head and succeeded in looking very bewildered about the whole thing. Meanwhile, Reese climbed down off his horse and a flunky came running across the lawn and relieved him of the beast. Reese came over and ran his hand across the wing of the Sky Coach. Then he looked at his hand, as though he was afraid he'd find some dust on it. I'd say that Reese would weigh in at about two hundred, and he had a small moustache that wriggled when he talked and looked like something that should have been washed off when he took his last bath.
"Nice job," he said, and I felt like thanking him for putting his stamp of approval on a plane that sold ten thousand copies a year.
"Yes," he added, "I think I'll like it. Of course you plan to stay until I've picked up the necessary pointers to fly the thing?"
I hadn't planned anything like that. I told Flinnum I'd be back the following day. Then I remembered the six-legged camels and the dream of the strange desert. When I put two and two together, I didn't get anything. That made me curious about the whole set-up. I looked straight at the girl on the horse and her nose went up three notches and turned to the windward.
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I'll stick around."
"Good." Reese didn't rub his hands together, but he acted as though he might at any minute. "Good. We'll make arrangements for you. Meanwhile, put her into the hangar. My mechanic will show you where everything is."
The hangar had everything, including hot and cold running showers. I had one on the house, ate lunch with Pete Flemish, Reese's mechanic, and ended up dangling my bare feet in the swimming pool. Reese had sent word to Flemish that I could sleep at the hangar and he'd call me the first thing next morning. He was anxious to get checked out in the Sky Coach.
I knew of Flemish. He had washed out of two outfits and been grounded on three separate occasions. I hadn't heard anything of him during the past three years, but I didn't like his record.
I wasn't in any hurry. I kept dangling my toes in the million-dollar pool until the moon came up and it started to get cold. Then I went in and found the bed Flemish had made up for me in the neat little room behind the hangar. I fell asleep, dreaming of six-legged camels dangling their toes in swimming pools, and of Ward Reese getting stuck in the door of the Sky Coach and having to stay there until I could come along with a pair of wings strapped on my shoulders and pull him out.
It was all beautifully confusing.
I DON'T know what awakened me.
I was sitting up in bed suddenly, and after looking around I decided it wasn't morning. It wasn't noisy and it wasn't like me to open my eyes in the middle of the night with my heart pounding like a trip-hammer. With these facts compiled carefully in my sleepy brain, I decided that something very unusual had awakened me. I usually sleep like a bear in hibernation. I didn't like it. The hangar was too darn quiet. The night was too quiet. I slipped into my trousers and shoes. It was warm and I didn't need more clothing to keep me comfortable. I went out of the bedroom that opened directly into the hangar. Flemish had another room identical to mine right next door. It was open. That might have meant something, and probably it didn't. I moved across the hangar counting the noses of the ships as I went. Reese's two planes were here. The Sky Coach was gone. Reese couldn't fly it. At least, I didn't think he could. Flemish might.
I went out into the moonlight It was very bright. Everything looked shiny and almost white under the light from the sky. No one was in sight. No one? I saw a small figure detach itself from the shadows near the house and move across the lawn toward me. I was a quarter of a mile away, but from where I stood it looked like a girl. Reese's daughter?
I didn't have time to guess. At that moment, two sharp jagged sparks of orange flame shot from the upper story of the house and the girl on the lawn slipped and fell forward on her face. I heard the sound of the gun-shots a split second later.
I was on my way, and I'm not bad in a sprint. Someone was taking potshots at the girl, and I didn't like that. It took me nothing flat to get to the girl. She wasn't Reese's daughter. She was a far prettier dish. She was slim with dark hair curling around her throat. She wore a pair of pink pajamas, not exactly the type of clothing you'd expect a vision to wear when wandering about the lawn.
This kid was in trouble. Maybe the same person who had fired at her was still up there somewhere getting ready to pot-shot at us both. I rolled her over gently but didn't have the heart to give her a very thorough examination. Hamilton tries to be a gentleman, even when it hurts. I decided that she hadn't been hit. The grass was wet. She had slipped, fallen head first and knocked herself out cold. I couldn't very well take her away to some hidden cave. I started back toward the house with her in my arms.
AFTER a minute she opened her eyes and I felt her stiffen in my arms. She started to struggle and her eyes, very blue and full of life, were flashing with anger.
"Let me down!" Her voice was low but she said it with so much anger inside her that I almost dropped her. I didn't. I said:
"I'm your pal. I don't know what happened to you and I don't care. It's not going to happen again tonight."
Reese came out on the front porch. He was dressed in his pajamas but had shoes and socks on.
"Why, Miss Halsey," he said, and what his little eyes did to those pink pajamas was misery. "What on earth—?"
"There was someone in my room." I had placed the girl on her feet, but she still leaned on me for support. Maybe I just imagined it, but it seemed as though she was depending on me a little. "I—I ran out to escape, Mr. Reese. I'm going to leave here."
She blurted out that last line as though her heart was breaking.
Reese's daughter came out. She wore a long robe all spangled with silver and she made a cool, moon-queen picture in it.
"Your imagination, Miss Halsey, is becoming very unfunny."
There was ice in Miss Reese's voice.
The Halsey kid stiffened and I thought she was going to lash out with something nasty. She didn't. She held herself in check.
"Imagination perhaps," she said quietly, "but I've had enough of it. I'll leave in the morning."
She turned to me.
"I'm—I'm sorry we had to meet like this. I'm not quite up to any more conversation. Thanks—and good night."
"Sure," I said. I watched her go inside. Reese and his daughter stayed put.
"See here, Hamilton," Reese said, "that young woman is crazy. She's Wanda's secretary. Wanda has treated her very decently. No one has tried to harm her."
He was sounding me out. He wanted to know what I knew. I wasn't falling for that stuff.
I shrugged.
"It's nothing to me," I said. "The young lady fell down out on the lawn and she was hurt. I happened to be wandering around. Hot night. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't just let her lay there."
Reese grinned.
"Don't blame you," he said. "Not a bad picture in pajamas."
I WANTED to smash his fat face. I didn't intend to give up what little I had found out that easily. If people were around firing guns at Miss Halsey, I intended to stay at least long enough to see her safely away from this nuthouse.
"I'm going to bed," I said. "See you in the morning."
"Good," Reese said. "We'll fly about noon. Looks like a clear day ahead."
Wanda had already gone back into the house. Reese wandered after her. I went down the lawn until I got myself behind an outgrowth of heavy bushes. I crouched down and waited. I was a heck of a long way from being tired. I figured if anything else happened tonight I would be close enough to help the Halsey girl. In a way Reese had been right. She was a nice picture. One of the nicest and most wholesome-looking I'd viewed in my life.
I wondered who had fired those two shots and who had taken the Sky Coach. Flemish wasn't back yet.
He didn't come in until five in the morning. He cut his engine at two thousand and glided into the field as silently as a ghost on rubber tires. It was evident that I wasn't supposed to know that the Sky Coach flew that night, so I decided to forget all about it for the present. At seven o'clock I made up my mind that the Halsey kid would be safe while I caught a few winks. When I hit the bed, I went out like a light. Flemish called me at nine. He was grinning when he jerked the sheet off me.
"Climb out, Hamilton," he said. "My gosh, man, anyone could fly right through your room without turning you over. I never saw such a heavy sleeper."
He didn't know the half of it—I hoped.
I MET an odd character. His name was Sealey Watson. It was just after ten o'clock. Reese sent word that he didn't plan to fly. Miss Halsey, he said, wanted to leave today and he was driving her to Chicago. I could loaf around the estate and, if I wished, try the other two planes to see what they could do.
I had flown models like Reese's and had no interest in them. I felt more like lazing around and keeping an eye on the house. I hated to see Miss Halsey leave but I intended to see her safely away before I did anything special.
I found a large canvas-covered chair by the pool. I turned it so that I could keep the house in sight. After a while a car came around and Reese came out. A girl followed carrying two suitcases. It was, I thought, Jean Halsey carrying all her earthly belongings back to Chicago and away from the unwelcome atmosphere of Reese's estate. How wrong I was didn't occur to me until some hours later. Then it was too late to save her from the hell both of us would go through.
The car left and I closed my eyes.
"You look downright comfortable," a voice said.
I LOOKED around and an old codger was hobbling across the grass toward me. He used a heavy hand-carved cane and he leaned on it heavily, dragging a bad leg behind him. He looked like something out of the old people's home, except that he smiled easily and his face, framed in a white beard, was tinged with good color.
"I'm doing all right," I said and stretched. "Pull up a chair."
He chuckled because there wasn't a chair in sight. He dropped the cane and flopped down on the grass.
"I allus kinda liked it here by the pool," he said. I thought his voice sounded a little wistful. "Mr. Reese lets me come over here and sit."
He wanted me to know that he wasn't trespassing.
"My name's Sealey Watson," he went on. "I live right next door. Don't get much work done anymore. Dig around Mr. Reese's garden a little for him. Most the time I just sit and think."
That sounded all right to me. I felt lazy myself and Watson seemed to be all right.
"Reese's a pretty good scout, isn't he?" I asked casually.
Watson was silent for a minute, staring at me in a speculative manner. Then he said:
"Treats me fine."
I grinned.
"Treat everyone the same way?"
Watson wasn't having any. If he knew anything he was going to keep it a dark secret.
"Darn nice day, ain't it?" he said.
I agreed that it was. I stared up at the sky and closed my eyes again. It hit me like all the bricks in the Empire State Building. When my eyelids closed, I was lifted right out of the world and thrown smack into that strange desert sky. Once more I had wings strapped to me and I was flying down, down toward a strange white-walled city. "Hey," I said, "wait a minute."
IT WAS no use. Watson was gone.
The world was gone. I tried to open my eyes but I couldn't. It was even different than yesterday. Yesterday I was conscious of both worlds, and fighting to get back into my own. Today the spell was more complete. Almost at once I was at home in the sky. I had forgotten the earth and old Sealey Watson. Forgotten—everything.
I flew steadily toward the walled city. It was very tiny, laid out against the red sands below me in a pattern that a child might trace on the beach. I was conscious of my own strength. My chest seemed to expand and fill with clear air. Anger stirred inside me. I was going to fight. Going to fight for something very dear to me.
Yet I faced the puzzle of not knowing what or how. You must think, I told myself.
You were above the desert once before. You flew down toward a caravan and you found two people you hated.
Then I knew. I knew everything as clearly as though some old well of knowledge, laying deep in my brain, had suddenly overflowed and flooded my everyday life.
I was flying toward the Mighty City. I was flying to save one person from the slave mill.
I circled the Mighty City, studying the walls and the many guards who patrolled them.
I wasn't frightened of the walls or of the guards. They had not seen me. I would be a speck in the sky. I would dive—now.
Easily I turned my arms and folded the wings around my body. I shot down like a plummeting eagle, and my eyes adjusted themselves as swiftly as a bird's eyes. The city flew upward. I chose a roof-top near the Palace of Starn. Don't ask me how I knew these things. They were born in me. They were part of my knowledge, a double knowledge of a double life.
I landed on the red tile of the palace roof. Below me in the courtyard was a huge, square block. About the block were clustered the greedy slave-buyers. The aged, horrible men of the Mighty City who dealt in flesh of the desert people. My mind was suddenly filled with intense hatred for them. Clad in their rich robes, they shouted and screamed with delight as handsome desert men and childish girls were dragged on the block and sold.
THEN, before anyone saw me, I saw the girl. I knew her as though I had known her all my life. Her name was Jean of Suba, and I was a dweller of the Suba valleys.
Her figure was lithe and perfect. She was clad in a brief slave apron. I gathered my strength and shot downward, straight at the slave block. I heard the scream of the crowd and the cries of fear.
"The winged man of Suba. Kill the winged man of Suba."
I reached the girl and grasped her in my arms. Then something hit me a terrific blow and I lost consciousness.
When I awakened, I was in a tiny dark room and an aged man stared down at me with patient twinkling eyes.
"You are fortunate to be alive, my son." His voice was soft and gentle. "In the riot that followed your arrival in the Mighty City, I managed to drag your wounded body from the courtyard."
I stared around at the small comfortless room. "Where am I?"
I was angry. My body was bruised. My head ached furiously.
The sage smiled.
"You are hidden in the palace wall," he said. "No one knows the hiding place of John the Aged."
I knew that I must do one thing. To escape this nightmare, I must open my eyes. Odd, I thought, to have an idea like that. Were not my eyes open now? Could I not see? Was I not the winged man of Suba?
Still, my other self struggled, and at last, slowly, I managed to get my eyes open.
I WAS lying in the chair on the lawn of Reese's estate. I was staring with wondering eyes at old Sealey Watson, still sitting on the grass, his cane beside him. But this time Sealey Watson meant more to me than before. Sealey Watson was also John the Aged, who had saved my life in that other world. I knew something else, also. I knew that Jean Halsey had not left Reese's home that morning. She was still here, held prisoner, for in that other world of mine, Jean Halsey was Jean of Suba, the slave girl I had tried to rescue and failed.
I rubbed an arm across my eyes.
"You've been asleep," Sealey Watson said quietly. "I didn't have the heart to bother you."
I was suspicious of him. Of that worldly wise smile of his.
"How long?" I asked.
He hunched his shoulders.
"Oh about twenty minutes, I guess. I'm not much at keeping track of time."
I wasn't going to let him get away that easily.
"Did you ever hear of Suba?" I asked. "Or of the Mighty City or of John the Aged?"
His amazement was so genuine that I felt like a fool for saying what I had.
"I—I don't think I ever have," he said.
I guess my face turned a little red.
"Had a damned nightmare," I said. "You were in it."
He stood up with some difficulty and reached for his cane.
"Well, I'm off to a good start," he said. "Gave you a nightmare the first time I met you. Better luck next time. See you again."
I stood up while he hobbled away.
"Make it soon," I urged. "I don't always go to sleep and insult my guests."
"I'll be back," he called over his shoulder. "Don't need urging to come over and keep you company. Say 'hello' to Mr. Reese for me."
There was an ugly parallel somewhere between my dream life in Suba and what was going on at Ward Reese's home. I couldn't quite get the drift between the slave business and Jean Halsey, but I would before I finished.
I was beginning to wonder if I had been dreaming, or if it were possible for a man to actually live two separate lives, visiting each world under certain odd circumstances.
Either way, I knew I would go back to Suba. Dream or no dream, Jean of Suba needed my help. I guess it was sort of done with mirrors, or something just as screwy. Two lives with the same characters, all screwed around and dressed in different clothing. A double feature that I didn't like, didn't dare to share with anyone else, and had no idea of shirking.
Fred Hamilton was due to be a very busy young man.
SEALEY WATSON had been gone for an hour. After he left I decided to beard the lion in his den. I went up to the house and rang the bell. A very tough-looking butler came to the door. He was a cross between a pug and a gentleman's gentleman. He doubled up like a jack knife and invited me inside.
"You may wait in the library, Mr. Hamilton," he said. "Miss Reese wants to speak to you."
"But I don't want to speak to Miss Reese," I said. "I want to speak to Miss Halsey."
He looked surprised, but not too surprised. A scowl creased his forehead.
"Miss Halsey left this morning." His voice wasn't as polished this time. He sounded nasty. "You should have known that."
I should have, because that was just what Reese wanted to think. I wasn't having any.
"Oh," I said. "Well, Miss Reese will do, as second best. Where's the boss?"
"Oh! The boss, he's—"
The butler had started to speak of Reese in a very un-butlerish manner, but he caught himself.
"Mr. Reese stayed in Chicago," he said. "We expect him back tonight."
Wanda Reese came drifting down the hall in a thing that was pale blue and very thin. I wouldn't have recommended it for a cold night. She had enough make-up on to face Hollywood. Her smile was a little artificial.
"I'm so glad you came up, Mr. Hamilton," she said. I wouldn't have called her voice gush-gush, but it wasn't far from it. "I want to try that new plane. Will you check me out?"
That was my job, and I said so.
Ten minutes later I had pushed the Sky Coach out on the apron before the hangar and had the motor warmed up. She came down from the house in a pair of slacks that were meant to knock me flat. I'll admit that the girl had the chassis but I still didn't like the paint job. She had a pasty skin that just doesn't take with me. I strapped her in, showed her a few instruments that were set up slightly different than other models and climbed in myself.
THE runway was smooth. I have a habit of watching six directions at once when I'm flying. Up, down, and all around the compass. At three thousand I levelled off and told her to take over. Wanda Reese was a good flyer. She made a few forty degree turns, a couple of engine stalls and then sent the Sky Coach down into a spin.
As we came out of it, that habit of mine to keep the world in sight paid off. A big plane, probably a four-passenger job scooted into Reese's private port. It had been flying close to the ground and I spotted it only once against the green of the runway. Then it was gone and I couldn't see it again, even after it supposedly would have had time to land.
Right after that Wanda decided she had had enough. I let her land the plane but I had a good idea why she had wanted to fly. Her old man wanted me out of the way for a while that afternoon. Why? I'm not sure. I was sure that I wasn't supposed to see that plane land, and that the spin had come just when Wanda decided that I might have a chance to spot it. Where did it go? I didn't know. I probably wouldn't find out. It would have been possible for it to land for a few minutes and take off again before we landed.
EVENTS had been piling up too rapidly for even myself. I stretched out on the bed, the lights out, listening to the night sounds that came through the open window, I tried to think things out, but darned if I could. My mind was a hopeless tangle of broken bits of adventure. None of them made sense.
"Listen, Fred," I said aloud. "Take it all from the beginning. Get it lined up in an orderly fashion and see what you've got."
First came the crazy nightmare I had had in the plane. I would have classified it as a dream and let it go at that, but one detail could not be forgotten. When I first met Ward Reese and his daughter Wanda, I had already seen them before riding camels on the Suban desert. After that, I couldn't be sure. I saw Jean Halsey and Sealey Watson before my second dream. Did that mean anything?
A fly buzzed around my nose and I swatted at it.
What was going on at the Reese house? Jean Halsey was still at the house, or was she? If I broke in and didn't find her, I'd be in a heck of a spot with Reese. If I did find her, what could she tell me? Reese was running some sort of a crazy business, and it -wasn't real estate. His mechanic and pilot, Flemish, had a police record. Strange planes landed secretly and disappeared again.
How did my imaginary Mighty City fit in with Reese and his work? It wasn't reasonable to think that Reese was a slave buyer of any type. That didn't fit.
As I pondered these questions, they made less and less sense. I had been looking up at the darkened ceiling, and each time I winked, a flash of light, gradually brighter and brighter, seemed to hit my eye-balls. It hit for that split second when the eye was covered by the lid, then the darkness of the room returned when they opened again.
"Hamilton," I said, "you've always been a normal man in every respect. No liquor, no bad living, not even a very good imagination. This is all darn screwy. Don't believe it."
I started to blink faster. Light, dark, light, dark. I kept my eyes closed a little longer this time.
Suba.
Suba was no nightmare. Suba was real. This, the third time I visited Suba, would prove that to me.
In explaining what happened, the transition between world and Suba is so abrupt that it is difficult to get across the terrific shock of the change.
From now on I would be on the verge of returning to Suba every hour I was awake. Every time my eyelids closed and my body did not seek rest, I would go from this world to another—Suba.
How did I know that then?
I WAS in the tiny room with John the Aged. I had evidently not left that room since I tried to save Jean of Suba. I was lying on a rough plank bed, my wings wrapped tightly about me, my body in pain. I listened to John as he talked in a soothing voice. I was learning.
"You were not here for a while," he said. "Your body remained but your mind seemed to drift away and your body rested without it. Let me tell you, winged man, you have a great battle ahead."
It all seemed normal to me. I was a man with a past. I had to learn that past or I could not know what I fought for.
"Go on," I said. My voice was cool and commanding.
"You are a man of dual lives," John said. "A man who lives at once on the normal plane, called earth or world, and a man who lives on the seventh plane—Suba.
"What manner the gods used to transport you from one place to another I do not know. I know that you are confused, and that you must be made to understand your duties. That is why you will listen closely."
I sat up, leaning on one elbow. I was amazed even now to find the tough, sinewy body I owned on this, the seventh plane. I was dark, almost bronze, and the leather thongs that held the wings to my body were wide and bound tightly to the tough flesh. This was probably where my wings belonged.
"I'll listen."
"Good," John smiled. It was Sealey Watson's smile, I thought, and I wondered. "You are the winged man of the desert. That is not mysterious. For some reason, you were given the secret of flight. Who made the wings you wear I don't know. You have worn them since youth.
"The Suban plane is your home, and from there the men of the Mighty City bring the cream of our people and sell them to the filthy scum who bow to the King. One man alone has a weapon to destroy that practice of slavery. You and your wings."
Very nice, I thought. How?
"I'm not sure I believe all this," I said. "I'm not sure that this isn't a dream and that you might be—Sealey Watson."
John stared at me.
"You have been aware of certain things from the first, have you not? You have had knowledge that you belonged here. It did not amaze you when you found yourself over the desert?"
"No," I said, "but dreams are like that. They seem quite natural at the time they happen. Afterwards—" I shrugged.
He smiled.
"Call it dream or what you will," he said. "I have saved you once and I have told you what you must do. As to how you do it...?" He arose and walked up and down the small room. "Destroy King Starn and his daughter. Then the people of Suba will be left free to live their own lives. They fear only the King. They would never allow themselves to be sold into slavery if it were not for him."
"And if I don't? If I call this a screwball nightmare and open my eyes and leave it?"
He shook his head. He looked very solemn then.
"Yesterday you tried to save the girl, Jean of Suba. She is in the palace now."
Jean of Suba? Jean Halsey? In the palace?
"What have they done to her?"
"Princess Starn, daughter of King Starn, has taken her for her personal handmaiden. The Princess loves to wield the whip. She has killed a dozen maids with her whip. You were ready to fight yesterday. Something in your mind forced you to fight. Is that will gone today? Would you allow Jean of Suba to die at the hands of Princess Starn?"
Jean of Suba or Jean Halsey, I didn't care which. It seemed that destiny had given me a double quarrel all the way through. I stood up. I felt strong and ready to fight an army.
"How do I find my way into the palace?"
JOHN took me along a narrow passageway through the wall and left me alone at a small, stone panel that would lead me into the halls of the palace of the Mighty City.
"Be careful that no one sees you come or go this way," he cautioned me. "If I am discovered, my value to you will be gone abruptly."
I waited until I was sure the wall was deserted, for there was a small crack near the top of the panel through which I could see. I pushed the panel open and stepped into the hall.
"Go left," John had said. "Sixteen doors will lead you to death. The seventeenth will lead you to the Princess' chambers."
I went softly, silently. Fourteen—fifteen—sixteen—then a wide, gold inlaid panel. I pushed it open and sunshine hit my face. I staggered back, for I had been in the darkness for many hours.
The room in which I found myself was huge. It must have been forty feet from end to end and windowless openings led to a balcony. I looked around hurriedly. Voices came from the balcony. I knew that I must hide at once or be discovered. There was a huge bed near the far wall. I ran across the room and dropped to my knees behind the bed.
Princess Starn came into the room. She was followed by the girl I had tried to save yesterday—or was it a century ago? I didn't know.
The Princess could have been Wanda Reese, for she looked the same, save for the flowing silken robe and emerald head-dress. Her face was crimson with rage. Need I say that the girl in the scanty slave dress who followed her from the balcony was a thousand times more attractive than the Princess herself? This was Jean of Suba who I had for a reason unknown even to myself tried to get myself killed for a few hours before.
"You are like the others," the Princess said coldly. She came directly toward the bed, stopped at a chest near the wall and lifted the cover. She drew out a long five tailed whip. "If you scream, I warn you that my father will throw you to the beasts of the arena. Suffer quietly, and as you deserve."
She turned on the girl and raised the whip.
"But I have done no harm," Jean of Suba protested. Her face was calm. I marvelled at that, for she didn't flinch.
Her cheeks were bright with color.
"You did no harm?" The Princess' voice was higher now, almost hysterical. "You have torn the hem to my robe and you say you did no harm. I should kill you."
She lashed out with the whip.
I SAW those five thongs hit and bite into the soft flesh of the servant girl's waist. Fortunately her dress protected her from the full force of the blow.
I leaped across the bed with a furious beating of wings. I heard the Princess scream with fear and saw her white, upturned face as she pivoted to face me. I was filled with blind fury. I snatched the whip from her nerveless hand and brought it down across her shoulders.
It didn't seem melodramatic at the time, for I stood there looking at the bloody welts I had torn in the flesh of her shoulders.
"You will never wield the whip again," I said. "You have made the mistake of meeting the winged man of Suba."
The slave girl stood there, hands at her sides, tears streaming down her face.
"Nars," she said in a broken voice. "Nars, you have come back."
I took two hesitant steps toward her and she held out her arms.
"You know my name? Is Nars my name?"
She smiled suddenly through her tears.
"Nars—you have not forgotten. You came yesterday and I knew you would return."
I was close to her and her arms went about my neck. Then, as her lips sought mine, her body stiffened. I heard the throaty cry of fear that parted her lips and saw the stark horror in her eyes. I whirled around, grasping the whip, wondering what was coming.
In the doorway stood King Starn, rugged, forbidding, a huge cross-bow poised in his hands.
"You have come too dose to the trap, winged man," he shouted. "It has closed on you."
"Open your eyes, you fool," I told myself.
The bow sang a song of death but as it did, I threw Jean to one side and fell forward.
Open your eyes.
I tried. Oh God, how I tried, and then it happened. I had opened my eyes and the Mighty City was gone.
I WAS standing outside the hangar among the trees near the pool. Jean Halsey stood at my side, sobbing as though her heart would break, her cheek pressed against my chest. In my hand, I gripped a heavy riding whip. Wanda Reese lay on the grass a few feet away, and across her shoulders where the backless gown did not hide them, were long red welts.
Jean was trying to speak.
"Fred, she tried to kill me. She was whipping me for trying to escape. She had me locked in my room."
I brushed my hand across my eyes, trying to acclimate myself to what had happened.
Wanda was all right. She was crying loudly, and swearing at me.
Suba, I thought. Suba, in a new setting. I had beaten a Princess and the King had come to revenge her.
Suddenly I was tense, waiting. Waiting for that last act that would make the scene complete. Where was Reese?
I heard the underbrush crackle and I stood still. Jean stayed close to me.
Ward Reese rushed into the clearing. The scowl on his face told me that I was in a tough spot. He held a pistol in his hand.
"What the hell goes on here?"
I grinned wryly.
"You win," I said. "Enter the King and exit the hero."
He stared at me and I don't blame him for being bewildered. He saw Wanda, and the whip I held in my hand. Blank rage turned his face an ugly red.
"It's time you learned a few things you don't know, Hamilton," he said coldly. "Face the house—and march."
He didn't frighten me much. I was still too bewildered to worry.
"King Starn gives the command. His subjects obey," I said icily. I helped Jean with one arm around her waist and we marched.
I EXAMINED every inch of the room carefully, but there was no way to escape. It was about fifteen by twenty, furnished luxuriously, with an adjoining bedroom. It had everything in it from soup to nuts—writing-desk, bed, comfortable chairs. This was where Reese, still violently angry, locked Jean Halsey and me. This was evidently to be our apartment from now until he decided what to do with us. I realized that I hadn't been exactly a gentleman to whip Wanda Reese. But I would have done it again if I had caught her whipping Jean. That's the way things were now, and double life or not, I loved Jean in both worlds. Another thing troubled me greatly. Jean and I had been here alone for over an hour. Every second since I had come back to world to save Jean Halsey, I had been on the verge of returning to Suba. It was easy now, for every time my eyes closed, Suba flashed into my life. When they opened, I was once more locked in the suite in Reese's home. We were sitting opposite each other near one of the barred windows. The bars were small but very tough. I hadn't even noticed them from the lawn. Here, they were very much in evidence.
"Wanda may be a fool," I said, "but she should know enough not to beat a person in this day and age."
Jean had a lot of spunk, but the Reese girl was taller and stronger than she. It hadn't been an even battle.
"She did though," Jean said ruefully. "If you hadn't come...."
"Which reminds me," I said, "just when did I pitch into the battle?"
Her eyes widened.
"But of course you're fooling," she said. "You certainly know what happened. They locked me up yesterday after you left me. I managed to escape today when Wanda brought up some food for me. She chased me half way to the hangar."
Jean shuddered.
"The girl must be crazy. She screamed for me to come back. Then she caught up with me. I was trying to reach you at the hangar. I stumbled and fell. She struck me three times before I could get up. That was when you found me."
"Of course," I said. "And what did I do?"
I know she thought I was crazy, but I didn't care. I could explain later.
"Why—why you took the whip away from Wanda and hit her with it," she said. "I—I couldn't blame you. I know you were awfully angry."
"I was," I admitted. "But not for the reason you thought. I'm going to tell you something that sounds absolutely impossible. When I've finished, you can tell me so. Perhaps it will explain some things that you are wondering about."
She was puzzled. I couldn't blame her. "About those odd questions you've been asking?"
I NODDED. "I'm leading a double life," I said, and I told her the whole story of Suba from beginning to end. When I had finished, I leaned back in my chair and sighed. It was a relief to get it off my chest.
"Now," I said, "you can call the paddy-wagon and send me away to the home on the hill. I feel better."
To my amazement she seemed to believe. She stared at me for some time. When she spoke, she did it very softly.
"You—fell in love with Jean of Suba?"
"I did," I admitted. "You see, that other life, the one on Suba, seems to be all figured out in advance for me. I do certain things mechanically. Jean of Suba seems to fit in. She calls me 'Nars,' and seems to know all about me."
Her eyes remained soft and calm. I can't quite explain, but her eyes seemed misty and deep, like two pools that were about to absorb me.
"You say that Reese, Wanda, all the others, are there in the other life?"
"Yes."
"And they seem to have the same character—the same personality that they do here?"
"Yes," again.
"I'd like to think—" she stammered, hesitated and her face turned red.
"I mean," she continued, "that I'd like to have 'Nars' for my protector. He sounds very romantic, flying about the sky with his leather wings."
I guess it was my turn to blush, if I still knew how.
"Nars is a little corny, I'm afraid," I admitted. "You see, I'm not the hero type. Nars seems to be a dream guy who possesses a lot of the stuff I'd like to have and haven't got."
We sat there for some time. Then Jean rose and walked over to the window. Her back was turned toward me.
"I believe everything you've told me," she said at last. "Somehow, fate has chosen to split you into two persons. How, will probably remain a mystery. You are actually living in two worlds at once. You see one normally, and you see the other when this world is cut off from your vision. When are you going back to Suba?"
It sounded so damned idiotic that I chuckled.
"I guess I'll have to figure out a way to get out of here first," I admitted. "We aren't just going to sit here and let Reese have his way, are we?"
She turned and I saw fire in her eyes.
"I hate Reese," she said. "I hate his daughter. They're—they're not human. They are beasts."
"Just how much do you know about Reese and his business?"
It was time I found out. I hadn't done much so far but dream.
She shook her head.
"Nothing. Two weeks ago he advertised for a private secretary for Wanda. I came down here and found out that what she really wanted was a personal maid. I needed the job so I stayed. I was happy enough until the day you came."
"And what happened the day I came?"
SHE came back and sat down. I offered her a cigarette and helped her light it. Her hands were trembling.
"I'm not sure. I went down to dinner. I usually eat with the Reeses. There were a dozen men at the table. I had never seen them before. They said insulting things to Wanda and me. They told stories. Wanda didn't seem to mind. She liked them and laughed with them. I wanted to leave the table but I didn't dare. They all looked like gangsters. I—I think I recognized one of them."
"And who was it?"
I was beginning to feel like a private detective questioning a suspect. "Jules Waterman," she said. I shook my head.
"Guess again," I said. "Jules Waterman is in the pen. Been there for five years on a murder charge. He'll still be there when his beard is long and white."
Her faced turned very pale.
"But, Fred—Mr. Hamilton—"
I liked that. "Make it Fred," I urged. "From now on you're Jean."
She smiled. "Fred—you haven't seen today's papers. Waterman broke out of prison. He hasn't been located."
"Uh-huh," I said slowly. It was beginning to make sense. "I've been exit off from the world. Too lazy to look at a paper. You're sure it was Waterman?"
"I'm not sure," she admitted. "But —after I left the table I was frightened. That night I tried to escape and someone shot at me from upstairs. You saw that."
I had seen it. Someone certainly didn't want Jean Halsey to leave.
"After they took me back into the house, Waterman talked with Reese. I heard him tell Reese that I was too pretty a bird to let out of the cage. Then they locked me up."
It made beautiful logic. Waterman hiding out with Reese. Perhaps some of Waterman's gang. But why? Reese had plenty of dough. Did Waterman have something on him?
"You've told me enough," I said, and I tried to sound confident and sure of myself. "Now leave it up to me. I'll get us out of here somehow. We know each other's stories. I guess we understand each other."
She had taken two or three puffs on her cigarette. Now she laid it in the ash tray.
"Fred," she said uncertainly. "I'm not a coward, but I'm damn' glad you came when you did. I've never been so frightened in my life."
She wasn't too far away from me then, and I lifted her out of her chair and held her in both arms.
"Jean of Suba," I said, and it sounded romantic. "From now on you can consider yourself the personal property of Nars, the winged wonder. If I catch anyone harming a hair of your head, I'll kill him."
She put both arms around my neck and kissed me. Everything would have been all right if her kiss hadn't been so sweet.
I closed my eyes tightly and tasted her lips.
With my eyes closed, Suba flashed before me and I was standing in the great hall of the Palace of Starn, my arms about the girl of Suba. This was the slave girl. Tears were streaming down her face.
I WAS beginning to get accustomed to these quick changes. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to see King Starn lying there on the rock floor of the hall, his head twisted at a crazy angle, the cross-bow broken and lying at his feet. In a distance I heard a cry of alarm, and I knew that I had killed a King and gained a love. I put Jean of Suba down gently on the floor.
"We must hurry," I said.
I started to run swiftly down the hall toward the panel that led to John's hideaway. The girl's sandaled feet padded after me. I found the panel and opened it quickly. The voices were closer, shouting for revenge. Then the panel opened. I pushed her through, into the tunnel beyond. I heard a cry of wrath.
They had discovered King Starn's body. I followed Jean into the tunnel and we ran in the darkness. I was sure of my way now, and I held her hand to guide her. It was soft and very small in my ringers.
John's tiny room was empty. I knew no other way out, but I could see light coming from a slanting shaft. The shaft was small, hardly more than two feet across. I turned to the girl and she stared up at me with complete trust in her eyes.
"I don't know the way from here," I said. "We'll have to take our chances. Are you game?"
"Game?"
"Willing to go on. Willing to face death to escape?"
"With you, Nars," she said quietly.
I liked that. I pushed her into the shaft and started to crawl upward myself. The rocks were smooth and several times she slipped and fell back against me. At last we reached the top. Here was the palace wall. It was covered with fine stone and a walk had been constructed around the top of it. From the many niches in the outer side, I could look down upon the strange Mighty City. The Mighty City was built mostly of white chalk-stone. The buildings were low and strong. I could see people flowing in waves through the streets. The wall was deserted. Below, in the courtyard, guards rushed about looking for us.
Jean stood beside me.
"We must go at once to Suba," she said.
That sounded nice, but how?
"It may not be easy."
"But, Nars," she said, "surely your wings will carry us."
I felt foolish. I had forgotten the heavy leather things strapped to my shoulders.
I wasn't sure they would work. There was more of Fred Hamilton in me at this moment, than Nars, the winged man. I flapped the wings outward and felt them lift me from the wall. I felt suddenly strong and confident.
"Here goes nothing," I said, and took, her in my arms.
I STEPPED up to the highest point of the wall and spread the wings. Strength surged through me. Strength that came only to the man of Suba. I leaped into space and flapped the wings and we soared upward as lightly as a feather. It was a wonderful feeling, surging upward into the clear sky, holding the girl in my arms.
We were high over the city, and Jean, her arms about my neck, stared downward. I heard her laugh scornfully.
"See how they shout and point at us," she said. "They cannot harm us now."
I looked down. We were close to the edge of the city, and below, warriors rode outward, fanning across the desert, looking very small and helpless on their six-legged camels.
"They cannot harm us now," I said.
"And we will be in Suba soon."
Suba.
I, Nars, winged man of Suba, was going home. Home to a place that I could not remember. Home with a girl who knew me well, to people who knew my past. Yet to me, it was blanked out like chalk erased from a blackboard.
Nars, I thought, there is much of Fred Hamilton in your blood, and Fred Hamilton isn't entirely sure that he'll be able to go through with this strange adventure.
The warriors below us faded behind and the desert became a weird, lost world of flowing sand. Now I was conscious only of the girl with her arms tight around my neck, and of the vast nothingness below. Evidently that sixth sense of mine was guiding me toward Suba, for Jean said nothing for some time. In a distance, the plain seemed to grow greener. I thought I saw the thin, ribbon-like strip of blue that could have been a river. The sand turned green and I realized that it was not sand at all, but grass growing close to the desert, hiding the desolate sand.
The river was under us, and the soft, flowing lines of small hills and valleys. Jean pointed to the right.
"That should be the way," she said. "The River Soona bends into the heart of our land."
The River Soona?
I flew toward it and followed the curves of its broad surface. I dropped lower until I could see the trees that bordered it and the tiny boats that floated on its surface. Then we were hardly twenty feet above the water and a strange cry floated up to us.
A moment later I knew it was a warning. It was the battle cry of those from the Mighty City. Something hit my chest suddenly and sent a burning shower of sparks through my body. I tingled with pain. I grasped the small feathered arrow with one hand, trying to wrench it loose. Jean cried out but it was too late. I had no strength to use the wings. Swiftly, like a falling bird, I swept downward toward the trees. I could no longer see, and the pain was terrible. I felt myself crashing toward death, and tried desperately to shield Jean's body with my own.
I HEARD a scream of fear. I opened my eyes to see Jean Halsey dashing toward the door of the room in which she and I had been imprisoned. At the door, holding a smoking revolver was the man we had spoken of a few minutes ago—Jules Waterman.
I rolled over and tried to struggle to my feet. A bursting pain caught me in the chest and I groaned and sank back. Jean was between Waterman and me. I could see his cruel, lean face twisted with passion.
She dashed herself at him and he hit at her savagely. Jean crumpled to the floor, sobbing.
I tried to get up again, still dazed by the transition from Suba to earth. On Suba an arrow had hit me and I fell. On earth, Jules Waterman had come into the room and fired point blank, sending hot lead ripping into my body. I wondered what had happened. Why had he fired?
Then I saw Ward Reese crumpled on the floor near me, and I knew. On Suba, I had somehow caught King Starn with his guard down and had killed him. Evidently at the same time I had managed to overcome Reese and throttle him. Waterman had come in time to prevent our escape.
Waterman crossed the room with small mincing steps. His face was the face of a killer. His body, even the hand that grasped the gun, was wiry. Shifty eyes caught mine, darted to Reese, then back to me. Waterman grinned.
"You've succeeded in complicating things," he said. "In a way, I'm not unhappy about it."
Jean was getting to her feet. She was behind Waterman. I wondered if she would be fool enough to try to attack him again. She didn't have a chance. Waterman was sly, deadly.
"Jean," I said. "It's no use. Don't try to fight."
"That's better," Waterman said. He pushed his gun into his pocket and helped me into a chair. I was breathing hard. The bullet had hit me to the right of the heart, and high. My shoulder ached. Jean helped me out of my coat and tried to stop the flow of blood with a piece of my shirt. Waterman stood nearby, watching Jean with some amusement.
"I take it you think a lot of your friend," he said. There was no emotion in his voice. Jean ignored him.
"You realize that getting rid of Reese isn't going to be easy to explain? He's well known. His daughter will be here in a few minutes asking where her father is."
I said:
"Lay off, Waterman. I don't know much about you, but a murder or two shouldn't bother your conscience. As for me, I'll take what comes."
He nodded ever so slightly. "Nice talk, flier," he said. "I wonder if you will? Need a doc, don't you?"
I was surprised.
"Shoot a guy and then offer him a doctor? That doesn't sound like you."
He grinned. His teeth were very white and large. They made the grin unpleasant.
"Sure I lost my temper," he said. "Reese came up here to bring you down. Wanted you to fly me out of the country. When I came up to check on him you had the guy by the throat choking hell out of him. I lost my temper. Now that he's out of the way, I'm not so sure you didn't do the right thing. How much do you know about this set-up?"
I said I didn't know anything and I didn't give a damn what was going on. My shoulder was bleeding badly and I needed help.
"You go down past the hangar and find a little green house down there across the fence," he told Jean. "There's an old slug by the name of Watson. Tell him to come here. My boys are posted all over the place. If you try to make a run for it..." He patted his gun pocket affectionately.
Jean said nothing. She hurried out of the room. From the chair I could see her cross the lawn, running swiftly.
Sealey Watson. How did he figure in on this mess?
Then when I saw the two of them coming back, I knew why Watson had been called. He carried a little black bag under his arm and he was hobbling along as fast as he could with his heavy cane.
Jean didn't come up with him. He said nothing to me, but put the bag down and went to work swiftly. Jean came up in a minute or two with a dish of steaming water. Watson was good. In ten minutes he had fished out the bullet, cleansed the wound and had it bound up carefully. He stood up, sighed and looked at Waterman. Waterman had been staring out the window all this time.
"Okay," Waterman said. "Fifty bucks, like before. Keep your mouth shut. That okay?"
Sealey Watson didn't smile. He didn't look at me.
"Satisfactory," he said and gathered up his stuff. He left the room.
Waterman looked at me.
"Can you fly?"
"That all depends," I said.
The smile faded from his face.
"Look," he said, "you ain't kidding me. You didn't act so dumb about Reese without a good reason. What did you come here for?"
I told him I delivered a plane to Reese and Reese asked me to stay. Miss Halsey had got in trouble and I had tried to help her. Was it my fault if it ended in a gangster's brawl?
He said it wasn't. "You know why Reese wanted you to hang around?"
I said Reese wanted me to check him out in the new plane.
"Nuts," he said. "Reese had been barnstorming for years. He made his first solo while you were nothing but a mother's dream. Reese is good, see, or he was. Here's the line-up. Reese had a nice little game here. He helped guys who were hot get out of the country. He charged plenty. He got away with it. Reese arranged for us to board here until the heat was off. Then he flew us out of the States. You don't think he made all this dough on real estate?"
I WAS learning plenty. More than it was safe for me to know. All this time Jean had remained silent. Now that she saw I felt better and that Waterman hadn't killed me, she was somewhat relieved.
"This doesn't mean a thing to us," she said. "All we want is to get away from—from this madhouse."
Waterman grinned. This time he was quite, sincere.
"Nice speech," he said. "Girl and guy walk away from a nest of rats, all wanted by the cops. They say nothing to no one. Happy ending. That ain't the way I read it, sister. You're too good to let go."
Jean's face went pale.
"What do you want from us?" I asked.
"That's better," Waterman admitted. "I got plenty of dough. As far as Reese is concerned, he don't need anything now. His daughter flew up to Chi this morning. She's picking up a couple of hoods that need an airing in the country. She's the only one I got to worry about.
"Meanwhile, I don't trust this guy Flemish, or I'd get him to fly me out. That leaves you. You're a good flyer; I checked on that. Get me into Mexico and I leave ten thousand bucks laying in the seat when I climb out. You and your girl friend can set up housekeeping in Brooklyn and live happy and peaceful. Is it a deal?"
Something was worrying me very much. I had the rest of the characters in this little tragedy pretty well pegged. They all fitted into Suba and that made it easier. I had a double chance to fight against them.
Jules Waterman was different. I had never met his double in Suba. I didn't know what to do or how to fight. I might drop Waterman in Mexico and get out clean. If I didn't, Jean would have to suffer with me.
"Let the girl go," I said, "and I'll fly."
"No," he said quickly. "No, that's out. The girl would rat before we reached the border. She's got to fly with us."
I tried another approach.
"How many ex-cons has Reese got holed up here?"
Waterman said: "Fifteen beside myself. Two more tonight will make seventeen, and Reese's daughter. They can all go to hell. I'll skip while I can. They're hot after me, and if I'm caught again, I'll be in for life. Cut the stalling, flyer, and get a plane warmed up."
I didn't have any choice, not just then.
"Okay," I said, "for ten thousand, in cash. You go down to the hangar and we'll see you there. We won't try to escape."
He patted his gun pocket.
"We go together," he said.
THE Sky Coach was out on the apron and Pete Flemish was working on the motor. He didn't know Waterman, or at least he pretended he didn't.
"Pete," I said, "one of Reese's guests wants a hop. How's the Coach?"
"She's all warmed up," he said. "Been working on the plugs. They're hitting perfect."
He opened the door and held it while
Jean and Waterman got into the rear seat. I strapped them down and climbed in. I checked the switch and set the brakes. Flemish was at the prop.
"Switch off," I yelled.
"Switch off."
Flemish gave the prop a half dozen turns and yelled, "Contact."
I put the switch on and advanced the gas a little.
"Contact."
The motor roared the first time, and Flemish jumped back. I let her idle a minute, then gave her the gun. The ceiling was very low. It didn't worry me much. The coach would climb high. I figured on lots of altitude for the flight. The gas checked on full.
The runway dropped away from us and Reese's estate became a small checkerboard of greens and browns with a white toy house in the center.
I looked back. Jean was game. She gave me a faint smile. Waterman wasn't so happy, and what I saw made my heart jump.
Waterman's face was pasty and gray. He was gulping for air and his eyes, usually narrow and hard, were wide open.
Waterman didn't like flying. He was sick.
I started to sing to myself. It wasn't exactly a song. Just a little tune over and over, with the same words.
"Waterman is sick, Waterman is sick, and we've got a chance."
It was silly. Sure it was. Not to me, though. I knew he packed a gun and if he became desperate he might use it—even in the plane. The state prison was as bad as death to Jules Waterman. He might choose death in the sky before he would allow himself to be taken back.
I hit a couple of imaginary air pockets and sent the ship bouncing up and down. At five hundred feet we hit the mist and at six hundred it closed in thick and white. The Coach was equipped with all instruments and I could fly blind easily.
The air was rough, so I went up. Luckily the fog lifted and at two thousand, it was clear. I headed south because I knew Waterman could see the compass from where he sat. I looked back again.
JEAN was taking it well. I guessed that she liked flying. Waterman wasn't so good. He was holding his hand over his stomach and I think he could have used a paper bag if there had been one in the coach.
I gave the plane a forty degree turn, headed down and levelled off again.
"Hey," Waterman shouted, "cut out the rough stuff. This isn't fun for me."
I tried not to smile when I turned again.
"Can't help it," I said. "The air's rough. Got to fight it out the best way I can."
He was a complete sucker. This was a new world to him and he knew nothing about it.
We had flown about fifty miles. I didn't dare give it to Waterman all at once. We flew into a drizzle of rain and the ship tossed a little. I accented each dip as much as I could. Waterman was all fed up. He didn't have the heart for it. I knew how his stomach felt. I had felt the same way the first time I soloed.
I shouted over my shoulder.
"It's a hell of a long way to Mexico. We'll have to refuel a couple of times. Damned long trip, though this ship's up to it if we take it easy."
He was game.
"Do it your way," he said. "But keep going south. I ain't a dumb bunny, even if this is new scenery for me."
I settled down to the business of flying. In my mind I had a little field picked out in southern Illinois. It wasn't a long hop. The field was one of those things that someone starts a dozen miles from town, fails to get CAA approval, and folds up. I had landed there once. It was in a deep valley and the updrafts were terrible around it. If the air would clear up before we got there, I thought we could sit down. It was easy for me to stall the motor and pretend engine trouble.
I kept right on flying in a straight line, and Waterman looked a little better. I tried to spot that field in my mind. We hit a clear spot in the air and I saw a familiar town far below. We were on the way.
A HALF hour passed, then forty-five minutes. The fog lifted and the sun came out. Fifteen minutes to my field, if my memory was any good. I cut the motor, made a grab for the instrument panel and fumbled around with it for a minute. I could sense Waterman going taut behind me.
"What the hell...?"
I snapped the switch on again, gunned her and levelled off.
"It's okay," I said. "She's not doing so hot. That guy Flemish must have tampered with the controls."
Waterman was ready for anything after that. I cut the engine twice more, kicked the coach into a spin and we rode her down five hundred feet. That time Waterman was ready to get out and walk.
I don't know just why. Perhaps she had complete confidence in me, but Jean didn't seem to be worrying much. I was happy about that. I wouldn't have hurt the kid for anything. I pasted a worried frown on my forehead and turned to Waterman. I've never seen a more dejected looking hunk of humanity.
"We've got to go down," I said. "This engine needs tinkering. Flemish didn't do it any good."
I heard him swear at Flemish, then I saw the green hill loom up. The hill that had the unused landing strip behind it.
I nosed down and turned so that the strip was in sight, almost hidden behind the hill.
Thermal drafts played the devil with the Coach for a while. This wasn't the worst of it. I knew that as I put her down beyond the hill, the air was rougher than a jeep ride. I was ready for it when it came.
The coach bucked like a bronco and I side-slipped over the trees at fifty feet, hit on one wheel and straightened up at the edge of the runway.
The strip was worse than I expected. Some farmer had been hauling rocks off his land and had been dumping them on the grass. He evidently didn't care whether we lived or not, because I couldn't pick one spot where it was possible to dodge them. I set the brakes as fast as I dared, but it was too late. The coach hit a small boulder and went into a ground loop. The scenery whirled around faster than I could follow it. I closed my eyes and held on. Something hit my forehead a crack and I heard Jean cry out. Waterman didn't make a sound.
WHEN I closed my eyes, I left the plane. I was falling again. Falling with wings clinging as a dead weight. Falling toward the forest of Suba.
Something cushioned our fall, for I was able to stagger to my feet. The ground was covered with soft, deep moss of a peculiar reddish tint. Above us the soft boughs of the evergreen trees were broken and twisted where we had hit them. The arrow was small and I tore it out of my chest. The blood flowed after it. I turned to Jean. The wind was knocked out of her. I started to gather her in my arms, for I was still confused and filled with pain. Then I heard the bushes break and the heavy panting of someone running toward us in the underbrush. I left Jean's side and stepped quickly behind a tree.
A man came into sight. He wore the leather uniform of the warriors of the Mighty City. He carried a small bow and a quiver of arrows. One of them was strung in the bow. He stopped short as he saw Jean and stared around in amazement.
At last I had fitted in all the pieces. Here was Jules Waterman of Suba. The gunman in the guise of a warrior.
Before he had a chance to release the arrow, I was upon him. I don't think my fury could have been human. Somehow the double hatred for the man gave me strength beyond anything I could have hoped for. He cried out and went down under the blow I gave him. Before he could get up, I was upon him. Suba had taught me one thing. Here, men fought like animals. No holds were barred. My wings troubled me some, but I grappled with him and prevented him from rolling over. My fingers, the sturdy fingers of the flying man of Suba, tightened around his throat. In a moment it was over.
Jean had struggled to her feet when I returned to her. She made a crude bandage from her skirt and stopped the flow of blood from my chest. I felt better, but I needed sleep. I was exhausted and almost at the point of death. The struggle had been great and much of my blood had gone. Jean made a bed of moss for me there in the forest and it was warm and comfortable. I slept.
WHEN I awakened, I felt better. Jean was at my side.
"I have to talk to you," I said. "I have a lot on my mind. Sometimes I even wonder if I am the person you think."
Her eyes widened, but I imagine she guessed the condition of my mind and thought that it wasn't entirely clear.
"You will feel better soon," she said and placed her hand on my forehead. "Sleep again. It will heal your body and your mind."
I sat up. I felt as though I had been hit by a steam-roller, but I managed, by leaning back against a tree, to see her face clearly and to gather my thoughts.
"No," I said. "What I have to say won't wait."
She smiled.
"If my Nars must talk, he will talk," she said simply.
"Listen, Jean of Suba," I said. "Perhaps I am Nars and perhaps I am not. After I have told you all I know, it is for you to judge."
She said nothing but her hand squeezed mine.
"Talk."
I did. I told her everything that had happened to me since the day I flew over Ward Reese's estate in the new Sky Coach. Some of it must have been baffling to her for she knew nothing of the other world. She listened to every word. When I had finished, she sat silently for a long time. Then she nodded.
"You have told me a strange story," she said. "Yet Nars, I must believe it, for no one could invent such fantasy. You are truly two men. Perhaps you are one man with two lives. I am not sure. I only know this.
"You are Nars but you have forgotten the life we lived. Still, as Nars, you have delivered the people of Suba from a terrible King.
"The Subans have lived in the valleys along the River Soona for many centuries. They had a superstitious fear of King Starn, for they thought that he came directly from the Sun and from the Sun God. Therefore, when he bid them become slaves, they followed him like animals across the desert, and were sold into bondage. The people of the Mighty City love to see death. The men fought in the arena until they died. The women," she shuddered, "did not escape so easily."
She paused and her breathing was hard. Her hands were clenched and the knuckles were bloodless.
"You outwitted Starn. Even as he fired his crossbow, you fell forward, folded your wings about him and blinded him. You have delivered the Subans from a bad king. Now they do not fear. They will resist the raiders from the Mighty City and will never again go there, for they will not fear a king who is dead."
THE shadows were collecting along the river and the forest was dark and warm and restful.
"What about me?" I asked. "Where did I come from? Where did I meet you?"
She shook her head and I saw a tear in her eye.
"It is enough for you to know that you were more clever than your friends. You made the wings and you made them work for you. You met me—I don't know how much I can tell you—perhaps you met me in both worlds; for though you say you leave me at times, I am never away from you. If I can share you with another Jean, and yet have you here with me forever, I cannot ask more. You have never left my side since we escaped from the palace. You will never leave me again. We met in Suba as girl and boy and we have never parted. It has been a long time, and the future will be longer and happier."
I shook my head. I couldn't be in two places at once.
"When I open my eyes, I am back on earth. I am not with you then."
"You are wrong, Nars," she said. "Perhaps part of you goes away. Perhaps your soul goes. Still, you do not leave me. You have never left me."
"Have I lived here in the valley? Have I loved you and been with you since the beginning?"
She smiled happily. The tears were gone. She put her arms around me tenderly.
"Forget the past—and live for the future," she said.
SOMETHING was afire in my head.
I had a splitting headache. I concentrated on one tiny spot and found that I was staring at a broken, mangled instrument-board. Somewhere near me a girl was crying softly. I fought to get control of myself and realized that I was hanging upside down in the cabin of the battered Sky Coach. I couldn't see Jean Halsey because I couldn't move easily.
I got the safety belt loose and half fell, half slid to a more normal position. I could use my arms and legs.
I released Jean and because the belt was built for both passengers, the limp body of Jules Waterman slipped out with her and fell with a thud. I helped Jean out of the plane and sat down on the turf. I felt like crying, I was so damned weak and shaken. Jean was in better condition than I was.
"Fred," she said. "Fred, your face is cut. Are you all right?"
"I'm all right." I ran my hand across my face. It was criss-crossed with little surface wounds. The hand came away bloody.
"I guess that Waterman's number is up," I said. "It's about ten miles to the nearest town. Can you walk?"
"I can," she said. She helped me get up. My right leg was paining me, but the bone was okay.
I went back to the plane and looked in at Jules Waterman. No one but myself could have explained the blue-black bruises on his neck. No one but the killer of the warrior in the Suban forests.
Jean and I found the main road a half mile away. A farmer picked us up and took us into a small town called Stuebenville. I went to the police station and told them who I was.
The police captain, an old guy with a sour face and a badly worn uniform, didn't believe me. He continued to look sour and angry, until I mentioned that the dead man in our plane was Jules Waterman. That woke him up. Waterman was hot news in every town in the state. The captain, Ed Hickley was his name, found his coat and shouted for his car to be brought around. We went howling out to the field in Hickley's Chevvy and when he made sure the man in the plane was Waterman, he wanted to take us out for dinner and keep us overnight. Meanwhile, we were letting Wanda Reese and her crew of cut-throats plan their get-away a few hundred miles north.
"Look here," I told Hickley, once he had phoned the news of Waterman's death to Chicago. "We need a plane in a hurry."
Hickley, by this time, was ready to turn the city of Stuebenville over to us.
"There's a kid named Newton who's got an old crate out on his farm," he said. "Flies it all the time, though how he keeps the thing in the air, I don't—"
I told him that was okay.
"Lead us to Newton and we'll be grateful."
HALF an hour later I had rented Newton's dilapidated Cub and we were limping back toward Reese's place. Two hours—and I put the panting Cub down in front of the hangar and climbed out. Sealey Watson had evidently been watching the place, for as soon as I was on the ground he came limping across the field toward us. Watson was excited. He panted and wheezed as he reached me.
"Hey," he shouted, "I been wondering when you was coming back. Don't go up there to the house. Something's gone wrong and there's hell to pay. That bunch of gangsters has got the place guarded like a fort."
I wanted to talk with Watson. I didn't care much about tackling the house alone.
"Did Reese's daughter come home?" I asked.
He nodded, then saw Jean as she climbed out of the plane.
"Say," he said with a sigh, "I'm sure glad Miss Halsey got out of there. I been worried about her." Then in answer to my question, "Miss Reese came back all right. She brought a couple of fellows. I think I know them. Two lifers escaped from the State pen two nights ago. I been putting two and two together."
I grinned at him.
"You been doing more than that," I said. "How come Waterman knew who to send for when I was hurt?"
The old man's face turned slightly red.
"I'd like to explain that," he said. "I don't have much chance to make money. I used to be a doctor before I got too darn old for it. Reese knew it. He used to call me in as sort of a house doctor for his 'guests.' When I realized who his guests were and why I was treating so many bullet wounds, it was too late. Reese would have shot me if I talked. He had an eye on me all the time. I needed the money." He shrugged. "Even old men have to eat."
Somehow I couldn't blame him too much. I said:
"Now, about the house. You don't think the rest of Reese's guests have escaped?"
"Nope," he shook his head. "They're up there all right. Pete Flemish got scared when you left. He took off in the big plane and got tangled up in a tree at the far end of the field. When I got to him it wasn't any use. Flemish had a record in Chicago. Killed a guy up there. I've known that for a long time. I ain't sorry he's dead."
His eyes were gleaming.
"The rest of them—there must be twenty, not counting Miss Reese—don't dare to take to the road. The police wouldn't look for them here. There's enough room for some of them in the other airplane but they don't trust each other. It's like a bunch of skunks all holed up together, each threatening to stink the other out."
He paused, then said with a sigh,
"Wanda Reese is the worst one of the lot."
I called the police at Chicago. I called from the hangar, because there was a direct line. At ten that night, fifteen squad cars of State Police and some city detectives came in and surrounded the house. Sealey Watson, Jean and I stayed at the hangar because the cops didn't want us to get messed up. They surrounded the house in the moonlight, closed in and at midnight someone blew a whistle.
After that it didn't take more than a half hour to drag out twenty assorted pugs and killers. It was a nice haul and the police were pleased.
WANDA REESE and the others were brought down to the hangar. Wanda was cold as ice and took it well. She listened to Inspector Skeems of Chicago, while he told her that she would get at least fifteen years for harboring criminals and assisting in their escape. She heard Skeems tell her that she was the lowest type of criminal alive and that it was too bad that she had not been killed with her father, and thereby saved the state the expense of boarding her.
Sealey Watson was there, and Jean and I. A few cops were there, but most of them had left with car loads of Reese's guests. Wanda did some plain and fancy swearing at me for doing away with her Dad, but not once did I see a tear or any sign of a crack-up. The girl was hard to the core. I was almost glad I had hit her with the riding whip that night.
Then Sealey Watson did a strange inexplainable thing that, save for chance, I would never have understood.
He drew a gun from his coat and before anyone could prevent it, shot Wanda Reese straight through the forehead.
The girl slumped to the floor. The huge hangar was full of stunned silence. A couple of cops dashed for Watson but he had already dropped the gun on the floor. He waited while they snapped the cuffs on him. Lieutenant Skeems went to work on the old man.
"Not that the girl didn't deserve it," Skeems said angrily, "but who the hell do you think you are to take justice in your own hands?"
There was, flashing in my eyes, an urgent message to return to Suba. A message that I could not mistake, for each time my eyes blinked, the light of Suba grew stronger. Why? I did not know, but I knew I must go. I closed my eyes.
I WAS standing in the palace of Suba, in a huge courtroom. Before me were many men, dressed simply as I was, strong-muscled and clean-limbed. These were the men of the Suban plain. Locked in chains, their faces twisted and contorted with anger, were many of the slave buyers of the Mighty City.
On the floor, her body prostrate, one arm drawn queerly beneath her, was Princess of Starn, the wicked girl who had beaten Jean of Suba.
One man stood alone. It was John the Aged. John who had saved me that second day in Suba. He was talking.
"Subans, go home. Forget the Mighty City. The key criminals are in bonds. The last of the ruling family is dead."
He held a dripping blade in his hand. He stood over the Princess' corpse.
"But why—why did you kill her?" I cried in horror.
John's eyes clouded with tears but his voice was firm.
"Why do you think I remained so close to the palace? King Starn wasn't the true father of the Princess. Many years ago she was stolen from her crib in a poor part of the city. Stolen for the King; for she was an attractive child, and the King was without wife or child.
"I was a poor man. I could not fight a king. I could only come here and watch over my daughter. She became wicked, and was of no more use to society. Who, more than I, was entitled to judge her?"
That was my message, and having it, I was again in our normal world. I was once more listening to poor Sealey Watson. He faced Inspector Skeems with wide, untroubled eyes.
"I have nothing to say," Watson was telling Skeems. "What I do is my business, until I encroach on the powers of the state. I am ready to take my punishment."
AFTER they were gone, and Jean and I were alone, I propped the ship and prepared to take-off for a long forgotten apartment in Buffalo, then I called home. I didn't ask Jean if she meant to go. She was as alone in the world as I was, and in my mind there was no doubt. We had no other fate. We would go together, without questioning each other.
Just before we took off, I held her in my arms and kissed her. It was a strange kiss, for interwoven with it was the fleeting, crazy-quilt impression that I was kissing both Jean Halsey and Jean of Suba, the girl of my other life.
I wonder if, being one and the same, I do live two lives? If I do, will the two gradually merge until Jean and I at last live together in a single world, the lovely green valleys of Suba, where the River Soona flows peacefully through our beloved country?
Perhaps, after all, we will discover together what my true past has been. Which would be preferable, life on the world called Suba, or in a five-room apartment in Buffalo? I'm sure Jean has no choice, for her kiss is as tender on earth as it is on Suba. As for myself, I am a flyer. With wings, be they of fabric and metal or fashioned of leather, I will be happy.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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