In general outline, it was the same monster but there was a subtle difference, a horrible difference, that he couldn’t put his finger on—and felt he wouldn’t want to put his finger on. Not even wearing asbestos gloves.
But the signature was there—when he was able to tear his eyes away from the monster. A tiny crooked characteristic H that was Hooper’s way of signing all his pics.
And then, in the logo at the bottom right corner, he saw the price. It wasn’t 20c.
It was 2 cr.
Two credits!
What else?
Very slowly and carefully he folded the two magazines, the two incredible magazines (for he saw now that Perfect Love Stories was also priced at 2 cr.) and put them into his pocket.
He wanted to get off somewhere by himself and study those two books, read and digest every word of them.
But first, he’d have to pay for them and get out of here. Two credits? How much was two credits? The druggist had given him two thousand credits for a quarter, but that could hardly be a criterion. That quarter, for some reason he’d have to learn, was a rare and precious object to the man who had bought it from him.
No, the magazines were a better clue. If their value were an approximate criterion, then two credits was roughly equivalent to twenty cents. And if that were true the druggist had given him the equivalent of—let’s see—two hundred dollars for a quarter in hard money.
He shouldn’t have done it—he should have been more careful—but the shock of seeing that almost-but-not-quite cover for the July book of his own doing made him a bit slaphappy for the moment. Change rattled in his pocket as he walked back to the soda counter. His hand plunged into his pocket and found a half dollar.
How would the druggist react to that?
Casually, he tossed it down on the marble. «I’ll take the two magazines,» he said. «Got change for a half?»
The druggist reached out a hand for the coin and the hand trembled.
Suddenly, Keith felt ashamed of himself. He shouldn’t have done that. And it would lead to conversation, inevitably, that would keep him from getting off by himself to read the magazines.
He said gruffly, «Keep it. You can have them both—the quarter and the half—for what you gave me.» He turned and started out of the store.
He started—that was all.
He took one step and froze. Something was coming in the open doorway of the drugstore. Something that wasn’t human.
Something that was over seven feet tall—so tall that it had to stoop slightly to get through the doorway—and that was covered with bright purple fur except for its hands, feet and face. Its hands feet and face were purple, too. Its eyes were flat white disks, pupil-less. It didn’t have a nose, but it had teeth, plenty of teeth.
And suddenly, from behind, a hand grabbed Keith’s arm and the druggist’s voice, suddenly fierce and shrill was shouting:
«Nineteen forty-three! A fake! And the other must be a fake, too. He’s a spy! An Arcturian. Get him, Lunan. Kill him!»
The purple thing in the doorway made a shrieking noise that was almost supersonic in pitch. It spread its purple arms and came toward him looking like something out of a nightmare that Gargantua might have.
The druggist, yelling, «Kill him! Kill him, Lunan!» was climbing up Keith’s back but—in the face of what was coming at him from the front of the store—Keith hardly noticed that.
He turned and ran the other way, to the back of the store, losing the druggist enroute. There had to be a door at the back of the store. If there weren’t he had a feeling he’d make one.
CHAPTER III
Shoot on Sight
THERE WAS A door. Something clawed down his back as he went through it.
He pulled free, heard his coat rip. He slammed the door and heard a yelp of pain—not a human one—behind him. But he didn’t turn around. He ran.
He didn’t turn until, half a block away, he heard the sound of a pistol report behind him and felt a sudden pain as though a redhot poker were being drawn across his upper arm. He turned his head then, just for a second. The purple thing was coming after him. It was about halfway between the door he’d just left at the back of the store and Keith. But, despite its long legs, it seemed to run slowly and awkwardly. Apparently he could outdistance it easily.
The purple thing carried no weapon. The shot that had seared Keith’s shoulder, he saw, had come from the little druggist who, a big old-fashioned revolver in his hand, was standing just outside the door. The pistol was aiming for another shot. He heard the shot as he dived into the areaway between two buildings—but the bullet must have gone past him harmlessly for he didn’t feel it.
Then he was between the buildings and, for a moment, he thought he had run into a blind alley. There was only a blank brick wall at the end of the areaway. But there were doors to the buildings on either side and one of them was standing ajar. He closed and locked it behind him.
He stood there in the dimness, panting, and looked about him. He was in a hallway. Toward the street, stairs led upward. In the other direction, there was another door. That would lead to the alley.
Sudden hammering sounded on the door he had just entered—hammering and the babble of excited voices.
Keith ran to the back door, opened it and was out into the alley. He ran between two buildings that would front on the next street. He slowed down his pace as he neared the sidewalk and emerged at a normal walk.
He turned in the direction that would take him to the main street, half a block away, then hesitated. It was a fairly crowded, busy street. Was there safety or danger in crowds? He stood in the shadow of a tree a dozen paces short of the corner and watched.
It looked like normal traffic on a normal small city main street—for a moment. Then, walking arm in arm, two of the purple-furred monsters went by. The people before and after them paid no attention to them. Whatever they were, they were—accepted. They were normal. They belonged here.
Here? But where, what, when was here?
What mad universe that took for granted an alien race more horrible looking than the worst Bem that had ever leered from a science-fiction magazine cover?
What mad universe in which he was given what seemed to be the equivalent of two hundred dollars for a quarter and attacked when he offered a half-dollar? Yet whose credit-currency bore a picture of George Washington and current dates and which had provided—they were still folded in his pocket—current and only subtly different issues of Surprising Stories and Perfect Love Stories?
A world with asthmatic Model T Fords—and space-travel? There must be space travel. Those purple things had never evolved on Earth—if this were Earth. The druggist had said, about the moon rocket, «It lands every night.»
And then—what was it the druggist had shouted just before the Bem had attacked him? «An Arcturian spy?» But that was absurd. Arcturus was light-years away. The druggist had called the monster Lunan. A proper name—or an inhabitant of Luna?
… It lands every night. It’s in by now. We’ll be getting customers any minute. Some of them drop in on their way to the hotel.»
Suddenly Keith was aware that his shoulder hurt him and that there was a wet, sticky feeling on his upper arm. He looked down and saw that the sleeve of his sport jacket was soaked with blood, looking black rather than red in the twilight and the shadow of the tree. And there was a deep gouge in the cloth where the bullet had creased it.