II
1036 Words
II“AND SO,” CHUCKLED RILEY, “he left, bubbling like a kettle on a red-hot oven. But, boy! was he ever mad! Just about ready to bust, he was.”
Some minutes had passed since Isobar had left; Riley was talking to Dr. Loesch, head of the Dome’s Physics Research Division. The older man nodded commiseratingly.
“It is funny, yes,” he agreed, “but at the same time it is not altogether amusing. I feel sorry for him. He is a very unhappy man, our poor Isobar.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Riley, “but, hell, we all get a little bit homesick now and then. He ought to learn to—”
“Excuse me, my boy,” interrupted the aged physicist, his voice gentle, “it is not mere homesickness that troubles our friend. It is something deeper, much more vital and serious. It is what my people call: weltschmertz. There is no accurate translation in English. It means ‘world sickness,’ or better, ‘world weariness’—something like that but intensified a thousandfold.
“It is a deeply-rooted mental condition, sometimes a dangerous frame of mind. Under its grip, men do wild things. Hating the world on which they find themselves, they rebel in curious ways. Suicide ... mad acts of valor ... deeds of cunning or knavery....”
“You mean,” demanded Sparks anxiously, “Isobar ain’t got all his buttons?”
“Not that exactly. He is perfectly sane. But he is in a dark morass of despair. He may try anything to retrieve his lost happiness, rid his soul of its dark oppression. His world-sickness is like a crying hunger—By the way, where is he now?”
“Below, I guess. In his quarters.”
“Ah, good! Perhaps he is sleeping. Let us hope so. In slumber he will find peace and forgetfulness.”
But Dr. Loesch would have been far less sanguine had some power the “giftie gi’en” him of watching Isobar Jones at that moment.
Isobar was not asleep. Far from it. Wide awake and very much astir, he was acting in a singularly sinister role: that of a slinking, furtive culprit.
Returning to his private cubicle after his conversation with Dome Commander Eagan, he had stalked straightway to the cabinet wherein was encased his precious set of bagpipes. These he had taken from their pegs, gazed upon defiantly, and fondled with almost parental affection.
“So I can’t play you, huh?” he muttered darkly. “It disturbs the peace o’ the dingfounded, dumblasted Dome staff, does it? Well, we’ll see about that!”
And tucking the bag under his arm, he had cautiously slipped from the room, down little-used corridors, and now he stood before the huge impervite gates which were the entrance to the Dome and the doorway to Outside.
On all save those occasions when a spacecraft landed in the cradle adjacent the gateway, these portals were doubly locked and barred. But today they had been unbolted that the two maintenance men might venture out. And since it was quite possible that Brown and Roberts might have to get inside in a hurry, their bolts remained drawn. Sole guardian of the entrance was a very bored Junior Patrolman.
Up to this worthy strode Isobar Jones, confident and assured, exuding an aura of propriety.
“Very well, Wilkins,” he said. “I’ll take over now. You may go to the meeting.”
Wilkins looked at him bewilderedly.
“Huh? Whuzzat, Mr. Jones?”
Isobar’s eyebrows arched.
“You mean you haven’t been notified?”
“Notified of what?”
“Why, the general council of all Patrolmen! Weren’t you told that I would take your place here while you reported to G.H.Q.?”
“I ain’t,” puzzled Wilkins, “heard nothing about it. Maybe I ought to call the office, maybe?”
And he moved the wall-audio. But Isobar said swiftly. “That—er—won’t be necessary, Wilkins. My orders were plain enough. Now, you just run along. I’ll watch this entrance for you.”
“We-e-ell,” said Wilkins, “if you say so. Orders is orders. But keep a sharp eye out, Mister Jones, in case Roberts and Brown should come back sudden-like.”
“I will,” promised Isobar, “don’t worry.”
- - - -
WILKINS MOVED AWAY. Isobar waited until the Patrolman was completely out of sight. Then swiftly he pulled open the massive gate, slipped through, and closed it behind him.
A flood of warmth, exhilarating after the constantly regulated temperature of the Dome, descended upon him. Fresh air, thin, but fragrant with the scent of growing things, made his pulses stir with joyous abandon. He was Outside! He was Outside, in good sunlight, at last! After six long and dreary months!
Raptly, blissfully, all thought of caution tossed to the gentle breezes that ruffled his sparse hair, Isobar Jones stepped forward into the lunar valley....
How long he wandered thus, carefree and utterly content, he could not afterward say. It seemed like minutes; it must have been longer. He only knew that the grass was green beneath his feet, the trees were a lacy network through which warm sunlight filtered benevolently, the chirrupings of small insects and the rustling whisper of the breezes formed a tiny symphony of happiness through which he moved as one charmed.
It did not occur to him that he had wandered too far from the Dome’s entrance until, strolling through an enchanting flower-decked glade, he was startled to hear—off to his right—the sharp, explosive bark of a Haemholtz ray pistol.
He whirled, staring about him wildly, and discovered that though his meandering had kept him near the Dome, he had unconsciously followed its hemispherical perimeter to a point nearly two miles from the Gateway. By the placement of ports and windows, Isobar was able to judge his location perfectly; he was opposite that portion of the structure which housed Sparks’ radio turret.
And the shooting? That could only be—
He did not have to name its reason, even to himself. For at that moment, there came racing around the curve of the Dome a pair of figures, Patrolmen clad in fatigue drab. Roberts and Brown. Roberts was staggering, one foot dragged awkwardly as he ran; Brown’s left arm, bloodstained from shoulder to elbow, hung limply at his side, but in his good right fist he held a spitting Haemholtz with which he tried to cover his comrade’s sluggish retreat.
And behind these two, grim, grey, gaunt figures that moved with astonishing speed despite their massive bulk, came three ... six ... a dozen of those lunarites whom all men feared. The Grannies!
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- Writer
