It rolled across the room and lay motionless on the floor.
Hardee jumped for it as though it were a hand grenade, fallen back into his own rifle pit; but the new man with the angry eyes yelled: ‘Don’t waste your time! That one’s dead - I killed it myself!’
Hardee stopped short, gaping.
The man grinned tightly. ‘It keeps the others from bothering me,’ he explained. ‘Don’t mess it up - we’ll need it to get out of here. Come on!’
‘Where?’ asked Hardee, trying to take it in. It was hope, it was rescue - when they had expected it least.
‘Down the end of the gallery,’ said the man, ‘there’s a linen closet. In it is a laundry chute. It goes down to the cellar. The skulls don’t go there much - the lights are bad; we keep them that way. And there are sewers and passages. If we reach the chute, we’re safe.’
He opened the door, peered out. ‘You go ahead, all of you. I’ll follow, as though I’m taking you somewhere.’ He closed the door and bent down to recover his skull. ‘Mustn’t forget Oscar,’ he said. ‘He’s our passport.’
He opened a leather strap that passed around his neck and shoulder, bound it around the dead skull, buckled it again. Experimentally he bowed slightly from the waist. The skull wobbled but stayed on.
‘Don’t jar me,’ he said, and crossed his fingers. He opened the door a crack, looked down the corridor and nodded.
‘Let’s go!’ he said, and flung it wide.
The procession moved down the gallery. Dust was thick on the leather settees that lined it; the skulls had no need for them, and no human without a skull possessing it had passed that way in five years. There were skitterbugs with skulls upon them at the end of the gallery, but they didn’t seem to notice anything. Down in the lobby, a few of the men with skull riders glanced up, but no one challenged.
It was twenty yards to the door of the linen closet.
Fifteen yards were easy.
Then, out of a ballroom that was now a pen for the human slaves of the skulls, two skitterbugs with skulls upon them came out. They paused and then one of them opened its queerly articulated transverse mouth and made a sound, a chanting metallic whine - speaking to the skull on the shoulder of their rescuer.
Hardee caught Joan’s arm, took a tighter grip on the hand of the boy by his side, lengthening his stride. So near! And then -
Quick as lightning, the skitterbug with the skull on it leaped forward and clutched at the legs of the man who was shepherding them.
He kicked it away. ‘Run!’ he yelled.
The skull on his shoulder fell free and bumped lifelessly away. Three more skulls, riding skitterbugs, popped out of the ballroom. Down on the lobby floor there was a stirring and a whining commotion.
‘Run!’ he yelled again, and shoved them powerfully forward to the linen closet.
They made the door, just in time. It was the size of a small room, and they all crammed inside.
Hardee slammed the door and held it. ‘Jump! I’ll stay here and keep them out.’
The boy cried out once, then was silent. He glanced at his father as Tavares and the other man lifted him into the chute; but he didn’t say a word when they let go and he slid out of sight.
‘Go ahead, Joan!’ barked Hardee.
Restless scratchings outside told him the skitterbugs were there. Then he could feel the door pressing against him. He cursed the clever, economical designers of the building, who had known better than to put a lock on the inside of a linen closet. If there had been one, they could all escape. But since there was not -
Griswold glanced at the chute, looked at Hardee, and nervously tongued his dry lips.
Tavares was in the chute now; he waved, and dropped out of sight.
Griswold turned his back on the chute.
He walked over to Hardee. ‘I’ve got a broken arm,’ he said, ‘and, you know, I’m not sure the free humans would welcome me. You go, Hardee.’
‘But-’
‘Go ahead!’ Griswold thrust him away. There was more strength than Hardee had expected in the worn, injured body. ‘I doubt I could make it anyway, with this arm - but I can hold them for a minute!’
Already the other man was gone; it was only Griswold and Hardee there, and the scratching and shoving were growing more insistent.
‘All right,’ said Hardee at last. ‘Griswold -’
But he didn’t know what it was, exactly, that he wanted to say; and besides, there was no time.
Griswold, sweat pouring into his eyes, chuckled faintly for the first time since Hardee had known him.
‘Hurry!’ he said, and looked embarrassed as he held up two fingers in a shaky V. But he looked embarrassed only for an instant. The fingers firmed into a spiky, humanly stubborn, defiant sign of victory. ‘Save the children,’ Griswold said. ‘I couldn’t get the skulls to let many into the colony - a waste,they told me, because kids can’t work. Save the children!’
Hardee turned away - towards the laundry chute, and towards a new life.
The Haunted Corpse
Well, we moved in pretty promptly. This Van Pelt turned up at the Pentagon on a Thursday, and by the following Monday I had a task force of a hundred and thirty-five men with full supply bivouacked around the old man’s establishment.
He didn’t like it. I rather expected he wouldn’t. He came storming out of the big house as the trucks came in. ‘Get out of here! Go on, get out! This is a private property and you’re trespassing. I won’t have it, do you hear me? Get out!’
I stepped out of the jeep and gave him a soft salute. ‘Colonel Windermere, sir. My orders are to establish a security cordon around your laboratories. Here you are, sir, your copy of the orders.’
He scowled and fussed and finally snatched the orders out of my hand. Well, they were signed by General Follansbee himself, so there wasn’t much argument. I stood by politely, prepared to make matters as painless for him as I could. I don’t hold with antagonizing civilians unnecessarily. But he evidently didn’t want it to be painless. ‘Van Pelt!’ he bellowed. ‘Why, that rotten, decrepit, back-stabbing monster of a -’
I listened attentively. He was very good. What he was saying, in essence, was that he felt his former associate, Van Pelt, had had no right to report to the Pentagon that there was potential military applicability in the Horn Effect. Of course, it was the trimmings with which he stated his case that made it so effective.
I finally interrupted him. ‘Dr. Horn,’ I said, ‘the general asked me to give you his personal assurance that we will not in any way interfere with your work here. It is only a matter of security. I’m sure you’ll understand the importance of security, sir.’
‘ Security! Now listen here, Lieutenant, I -’
‘Colonel, sir. Lieutenant Colonel Windermere.’
‘Colonel, General, Lieutenant, what the hell do I care? Listen to me! The Horn Effect is my personal property, not yours, not Van Pelt’s, and not the government’s. I was working in personality dissociation before you were born, and -’
‘Security, sir!’ I made it crackle. He looked at me pop-eyed and I nodded to my driver. ‘He isn’t cleared. Dr. Horn,’ I explained. ‘All right, O’Hare. You’re dismissed.’ Sergeant O’Hare saluted from behind the wheel and took off.
I said soothingly, ‘Now, Dr. Horn, I want you to know that I’m here to help you. If there’s anything you want, just ask; I’ll get it. Even if you want to go into town, that can be arranged - of course, you’d better give us twenty-four hours notice so we can arrange a route and -’
He said briefly, ‘Young man, go to the devil.’ And he turned and stalked into the big house. I watched him, and I remember thinking that for a lean old goat of eighty or eighty-five he had a lot of spirit.