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Doomsday Eve

<h2>XII</h2> Neither the lieutenant nor any of the Asians noticed that a man had vanished. Cal and Jake, with the memory of Ed's death still very fresh in their minds, were engaged in making themselves inconspicuous. As far as Zen could tell, none of these clean, tall kids knew anything out of the ordinary had happened. Beside the colonel, Nedra seemed slightly more composed. Her eyes were blank as if she were not seeing. The thin film of moisture was still visible on her forehead. Zen started to whisper to her, to ask her if she had noticed anything different, then changed his mind. There was no point in taking such a risk at such a time. A sound was in the room, a thin, high note that was close to the upper limits of hearing. It passed beyond the range of hearing, or diminished in volume, then came again with the frequency of the ears, moving like a microscopically small but very powerful honey bee. Had the sound been present all the time? Or had it come into existence just before the fat youth vanished? Zen did not know about the sound. A face appeared in the middle of the room. About ten feet above the floor, it looked around briefly, then vanished. Cal seemed to see it too. A startled expression appeared on the face of the ragged man. His eyes opened wide. He blinked them hastily when the face vanished, then looked furtively around the room. Jake said, very loudly, to the face, "Hi, bud. Long time no see. Where you been?" "Shut up your crazy head!" Cal snarled at him. "But I just saw an old buddy," Jake tried to explain. "You saw nothing." "What are you two talking about?" the lieutenant demanded. "Nothing," Cal answered. He pointed his finger at his forehead and made circling motions in the air, then nodded toward Jake. "You know he's a looney, lieutenant." "Oh, yes," the Asian officer said, as if he had just remembered something. Again he lifted the rifle to his shoulder. Jake fell dead. The lieutenant slid another cartridge into his rifle. "As long as you needed us—" Cal began. "But I no longer need you to help me find the hidden ones," the lieutenant answered. "That makes things different, doesn't it?" "It sure does," Cal agreed. "But why did you shoot him?" "I made up my mind months ago to shoot him as soon as I no longer needed him," the Asian officer answered. "He was too crazy to trust." "But he found this place for you and he got you past those hell generators," Cal said. "That is true. But the place is now found and we are past the odd devices that make weaklings afraid." His tone said that this also made the situation different and that the ragged man had better understand this and guide himself accordingly. Cal started to speak, then changed his mind. "What were you two talking about?" the Asian asked. "He said he saw a face in the air," the ragged man answered. "I told him that he was nuts and to shut up." "Was there a face?" "I didn't see nothing," Cal answered. While the two were talking, Zen was watching a youth in a loin cloth across the room. Standing erect against the wall, looking as if he were being crucified there, but without making any sound, the youth was slowly vanishing. While the youth was sliding away, the violin note throbbed softly in the air. As he vanished, it went into silence, ending on a note of triumph. The lieutenant became suspicious. He scanned the people against the wall. "I thought there were more—" he muttered. Slowly he counted them. "Thirty-eight," he said. As if to engrave the number on his memory, he repeated it. Simultaneously, one of the Asian soldiers spoke to him in a swift flow of sound. Zen could not understand what was being said, but he guessed from the way the soldier pointed to the spot where the fat youth had stood that he was reporting what he had seen happen. While they were talking the face appeared again in the air high in the middle of the room. The face was that of a man. He was wearing a mustache and he looked around the room with alert brown eyes. Nodding to himself with apparent satisfaction, he vanished. Down the wall from Zen, a young woman vanished. She went rapidly, in the flicker of an eye. A youth standing next in line to her, followed suit. Turning, the lieutenant saw that something had happened. Hastily he counted those standing against the wall. "Thirty-six! Who slipped out while my back was turned?" As he asked the question, three of the new people vanished behind him. No one answered him. He turned again, and realized that more blank places had appeared while he was not looking. Again, keeping behind him, another one of the new people vanished. Watching, Zen was treated to the spectacle of seeing an Asian officer grow crazy. While the lieutenant was watching one particular person, nothing happened to the one under his scrutiny. But directly behind him a person flicked out of existence. For a time, the lieutenant almost had Zen's sympathy. The colonel knew what would happen to this officer when Cuso returned and found his prey had been permitted to escape. The Asians were not known for leniency to their own men who failed an assigned duty. The lieutenant knew as well as Zen what would happen to him. But he was helpless. No matter which way he looked, his back was always turned to someone. The person he was not watching—vanished. Unnoticed by the lieutenant, the face that seemed to be directing the vanishing operation appeared and disappeared in the center of the room. It kept directly above the lieutenant's head, moving as he moved, vanishing as he looked up. The note of the violin came into hearing and went out again, repeating this action time and time again. Sweat dripped off Zen's chin and formed a puddle on the floor under him. He did not know what was happening. Terror that was close to panic was in him but he did not move a muscle. For all he knew, the face might look at him and he might be the next one to vanish. Where would he find himself if he vanished? Would he find himself again? Or did these people slide forever into nothingness, into some dimensional interspace where there was no Earth, no moon, and no stars? Only he and Nedra were left along the walls. The others had vanished. The lieutenant had gone completely crazy. Sputtering a mixture of Chinese and English, he was jabbing his rifle against Nedra's stomach and was yelling at her. "Tze! Go away. I will kill you if you do. N-oten. Where did they go? I demand an answer. Speak!" "I do not know," the girl answered. "Speak! I command it. Cuso will have my throat slit if I let all of you get away!" "I have already—" The lieutenant jabbed the muzzle of his rifle against her stomach. "If you go away, I will kill you." He meant what he said. Smiling at him, the girl vanished. He pulled the trigger of the weapon. The bullets howled madly through the gallery. Zen dropped hastily to the floor. Death was too close for him to be amazed at the sight of an Asian officer shooting at nothing. The lieutenant stopped shooting when the magazine was empty. As he clicked another clip into place, some measure of sanity seemed to return to him. He did not shoot the colonel. Instead Zen found himself being prodded with the muzzle of the still hot and smoking rifle. "If you go away—" Zen got to his feet. "If I knew how to do it, I'd be gone," he said. "Where did they go? How did they do it?" Fine flecks of spittle were blown from the lieutenant's lips. The sound of hot lead was still strong in Zen's ears. At any moment, the lieutenant might start shooting again, for any reason. Or for no reason. "I don't know," Zen said. "But you've got to know. You're one of them." "Would I stand around here and let you shoot me if I was one of them?" Zen answered. Some of the logic of the question must have penetrated to the officer's mad mind. "No. No, you wouldn't. That is, I guess you wouldn't. But you might be trying to trick me." The thought of being tricked seemed to bring all his fury to the surface. "You did it once before, you and the girl." "How?" Zen demanded. "You put us all to sleep, you and that girl? Don't tell me you didn't. I was there." "I was there but I didn't have a damned thing to do with it. And neither did the girl." "Then who did?" "West. He was outside with some kind of a sleep generator that operated electronically." Doubt came over the lieutenant's face. How was he to know if this tall, thin yankee was telling the truth. In his book, all Americans were liars. Why trust this one? "If you lie to me—" "I know. You'll shoot me. And I'll return from the other world and strangle you some night, while you sleep." The shot went home. Like most Asians, this officer was superstitious. Watching the reaction, Zen wondered if this man would ever again dare to go to sleep at night. The deadly dugphas, the devil souls of the departed, might strangle him in a spirit noose the instant he closed his eyes. On the other hand, there was Cuso. The lieutenant knew what the Asian leader would do to him. Zen could see him making up his mind that it was better to take a chance on the deadly devils that roam the darkness than on Cuso. The night devils might miss. "You lie!" The lieutenant lifted the rifle. At the same instant, Cuso and West entered. The lieutenant lowered the rifle. Hastily he approached his chief and saluted. Then, taking as few chances as possible, he prostrated himself on the floor. Reaching for Cuso's foot, he tried to place it on his neck as a token of submission. Cuso kicked him in the face. The Asian leader's eyes ranged the room. He saw instantly that his prisoners were missing. His eyes turned green. He kicked the lieutenant in the face again and demanded to know what had happened. The luckless officer broke into a stream of tight, sing-song language. Now and then he waved his hand as if to say that they had been here but had gone away. "The dugphas took them," he screamed in English. Cuso kicked him in the throat this time. He had no belief in night devils, he did not think they could spirit live people away, and he was not afraid of them. Another burst of broken, impassioned speech came from the lieutenant's lips. Listening to the sound, watching the contortions in the officer's body, Zen thought with some satisfaction that Ed and Jake were being avenged. Not that they deserved vengeance; they had gotten exactly what was coming to them. West remained aloof. He glanced around the room but no flicker of surprise showed on his face. Did he know what had happened here? Cuso, listening to his lieutenant, glanced once at the craggy man, a look that was pure suspicious hatred. If it had been possible, Cuso would have had West skinned alive then and there. Too much was at stake for that. A flayed man could not reveal his secrets. He could only die. Cuso left off kicking his lieutenant and trying to listen to him at the same time. He turned to West. "It seems that your people have—departed," he said. "At least, they do not seem to be here," the craggy man answered. Again his voice had the deep boom of a bell in it. "That is interesting," Cuso said. "I find it so," West answered. "How was it done?" West spread his hands in a gesture that said something, or nothing. "Perhaps it would be best to ask them." "You know." The words were a statement, not a question. "It could be," West answered. "Then how?" Cuso's words sounded like the snap of a bear trap closing. "I want to know how it was done. No alibis. No evasions. No excuses. Just the truth." The tone of his voice carried the threat of violence with it. West smiled. "Have I alibied or evaded? Did you not see everything in our center here?" "I saw many things. That I saw all I do not know." "You saw what the colonel here—" the craggy man nodded toward Zen, "—called my super radar." "Did you show him that?" Zen demanded. "Of course. I have no secrets from the great Asian. Besides, has he not promised me a commission as a marshal in the armed forces of his land?" The words were easily spoken but Zen knew that West was actually stalling for time. What was he waiting for? Was it the appearance again of the face that had looked from the air in the center of the room? Were the vanished people to reappear, armed with new weapons, and take the Asians prisoners? "To hell with his commission!" Zen shouted. "He'll never make good on his promise." "Shut up, both of you!" Cuso shouted. His voice was a bull bellow of sound that roared back from the walls of the gallery and was echoed from the tunnels that led outward. "You are stalling. You are trying to trick me." West was silent. "My dog here says the people vanished." Cuso kicked his lieutenant again to indicate who was meant. "Howl, dog!" The lieutenant obeyed. He was in such a state of mind that if Cuso had told him to die, he would probably have obeyed, as a result of terror and suggestion. "Do you want to howl like a dog too?" Cuso said to West. "Really, the possibility does not concern me," the craggy man answered. "Did you have that in mind for me?" The tone was conversational. "West, this is no time to go over," Zen growled. "I have no such intention, colonel." "You admitted once that what you wanted most to do was to join the bronze youth. I'm asking you—" "Shut up!" Cuso screamed. "The next person to open his mouth without my permission I will have shot out of hand." "Ah," West said. The Asian leader started to shout an order at his soldiers to shoot the craggy man, then changed his mind as he realized that even though he had the weapons and the men, there was nothing he could gain by killing the goose that might possibly lay a golden egg. As much as he wanted to have West killed, for defying him, he knew he would have to save this pleasure until later. Cuso swallowed his anger. Since his rage was so great, he had to swallow several times before he got it all down, after which he looked as if he were going to choke on it. "Look, let's be reasonable," he urged. "I'm willing," Zen said. "You're not worth a damn to me!" Cuso shouted. "He is worth something to me," West interposed. Again the Asian swallowed. If ever he reached the explosion point, his anger was going to come out as boiling rage. "As I said, let us be reasonable and talk this over together." "Glad to," West agreed. "What is more reasonable than a corpse?" The question took Cuso aback. But only for an instant. "Come to think of it, you're right. Nothing that I have ever seen is more agreeable than a corpse, to me, that is. Are you still determined to volunteer for that position, or should I say condition?" "Any time," West answered. "As I told Kurt some time ago, I am rather tired of this plane of existence and I would like to see what it's like over yonder. Not that I don't already know," he added. "You know what it's like beyond death?" Cuso asked, curious in spite of himself. "Certainly," West said, in a sure tone of voice. Listening, Zen again had the impression that the craggy man was stalling for time again. On the other hand, he might be telling the literal truth, he might know what waited at the end of life. If so—Zen let this possibility slide hastily out of his mind. He had more to think about now than he had brain cells to use for the task. "Then what is it like?" Cuso asked. "You have heard of heaven—" "Yes." "That's where I'm going." As he spoke, West vanished. A stunned silence held the big gallery. Cuso, his mouth hanging open, stood leaning forward. On the floor, the lieutenant dared to sit up. He even dared to speak. "See! That's the way they went. I couldn't stop 'em." Cuso shouted an order at his men. Zen found himself tied hand and foot. A raging maniac paced the floor beside him. Every now and then Cuso kicked him. Screaming at the top of his voice, the Asian leader invited Zen to vanish too. It did Zen no good to try to protest that he was not one of the new people and that he knew nothing of the method they had used in disappearing. In Cuso's mind, he was one of them. He was to be treated as such. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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