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diff --git a/32667.txt b/32667.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..558d1cd --- /dev/null +++ b/32667.txt @@ -0,0 +1,964 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Holes and John Smith, by Edward W. Ludwig + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Holes and John Smith + +Author: Edward W. Ludwig + +Illustrator: Kelly Freas + +Release Date: June 3, 2010 [EBook #32667] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLES AND JOHN SMITH *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + +This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction June 1954. +Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright +on this publication was renewed. + + + + + + _He was something out of a nightmare but his music was straight from + heaven. He was a ragged little man out of a hole but he was money in + the bank to Stanley's four-piece combo. He was_--whoops!... + + + The HOLES and JOHN SMITH + + By Edward W. Ludwig + + Illustration by Kelly Freas + + +[Illustration] + +It all began on a Saturday night at _The Space Room_. If you've seen +any recent Martian travel folders, you know the place: "A picturesque +oasis of old Martian charm, situated on the beauteous Grand Canal in +the heart of Marsport. Only half a mile from historic Chandler Field, +landing site of the first Martian expedition nearly fifty years ago in +1990. A visitor to the hotel, lunch room or cocktail lounge will +thrill at the sight of hardy space pioneers mingling side by side with +colorful Martian tribesmen. An evening at _The Space Room_ is an +amazing, unforgettable experience." + +Of course, the folders neglect to add that the most amazing aspect is +the scent of the Canal's stagnant water--and that the most +unforgettable experience is seeing the "root-of-all-evil" evaporate +from your pocketbook like snow from the Great Red Desert. + +We were sitting on the bandstand of the candle-lit cocktail lounge. +Me--Jimmie Stanley--and my four-piece combo. Maybe you've seen our +motto back on Earth: "The Hottest Music This Side of Mercury." + +But there weren't four of us tonight. Only three. Ziggy, our bass +fiddle man, had nearly sliced off two fingers while opening a can of +Saturnian ice-fish, thus decreasing the number of our personnel by a +tragic twenty-five per cent. + +Which was why Ke-teeli, our boss, was descending upon us with all the +grace of an enraged Venusian vinosaur. + +"Where ees museek?" he shrilled in his nasal tenor. He was almost +skeleton thin, like most Martians, and so tall that if he fell down +he'd be half way home. + +I gulped. "Our bass man can't be here, but we've called the Marsport +local for another. He'll be here any minute." + +Ke-teeli, sometimes referred to as Goon-Face and The Eye, leered +coldly down at me from his eight-foot-three. His eyes were like black +needle points set deep in a mask of dry, ancient, reddish leather. + +"Ees no feedle man, ees no job," he squeaked. + +I sighed. This was the week our contract ended. Goon-Face had +displayed little enough enthusiasm for our music as it was. His +comments were either, "Ees too loud, too fast," or "Ees too slow, too +soft." The real cause of his concern being, I suspected, the +infrequency with which his cash register tinkled. + +"But," I added, "even if the new man doesn't come, _we're_ still here. +We'll play for you." I glanced at the conglomeration of uniformed +spacemen, white-suited tourists, and loin-clothed natives who sat at +ancient stone tables. "You wouldn't want to disappoint your customers, +would you?" + +Ke-teeli snorted. "Maybe ees better dey be deesappointed. Ees better +no museek den bad museek." + +Fat Boy, our clarinetist who doubles on Martian horn-harp, made a +feeble attempt at optimism. "Don't worry, Mr. Ke-teeli. That new bass +man will be here." + +"Sure," said Hammer-Head, our red-haired vibro-drummer. "I think I +hear him coming now." + +Suspiciously, Ke-teeli eyed the entrance. There was only silence. His +naked, parchment-like chest swelled as if it were an expanding +balloon. + +"Five meenutes!" he shrieked. "Eef no feedle, den you go!" And he +whirled away. + +We waited. + +Fat Boy's two hundred and eighty-odd pounds were drooped over his +chair like the blubber of an exhausted, beach-stranded whale. + +"Well," he muttered, "there's always the uranium pits of Neptune. +Course, you don't live more than five years there--" + +"Maybe we could make it back to Lunar City," suggested Hammer-Head. + +"Using what for fare?" I asked. "Your brains?" + +Hammer-Head groaned. "No. I guess it'll have to be the black pits of +Neptune. The home of washed-up interplanetary musicians. It's too +bad. We're so young, too." + +The seconds swept by. Ke-teeli was casting his razor-edged glare in +our direction. I brushed the chewed finger nails from the keyboard of +my electronic piano. + +Then it happened. + + * * * * * + +From the entrance of _The Space Room_ came a thumping and a grating +and a banging. Suddenly, sweeping across the dance floor like a cold +wind, was a bass fiddle, an enormous black monstrosity, a refugee from +a pawnbroker's attic. It was queerly shaped. It was too tall, too +wide. It was more like a monstrous, midnight-black hour-glass than a +bass. + +The fiddle was not unaccompanied as I'd first imagined. Behind it, +streaking over the floor in a waltz of agony, was a little guy, an +animated matchstick with a flat, broad face that seemed to have been +compressed in a vice. His sandcolored mop of hair reminded me of a +field of dry grass, the long strands forming loops that flanked the +sides of his face. + +His pale blue eyes were watery, like twin pools of fog. His +tightfitting suit, as black as the bass, was something off a park +bench. It was impossible to guess his age. He could have been anywhere +between twenty and forty. + +The bass thumped down upon the bandstand. + +"Hello," he puffed. "I'm John Smith, from the Marsport union." He +spoke shrilly and rapidly, as if anxious to conclude the routine of +introductions. "I'm sorry I'm late, but I was working on my plan." + +A moment's silence. + +"Your plan?" I echoed at last. + +"How to get back home," he snapped as if I should have known it +already. + +Hummm, I thought. + +My gaze turned to the dance floor. Goon-Face had his eyes on us, and +they were as cold as six Indians going South. + +"We'll talk about your plan at intermission," I said, shivering. "Now, +we'd better start playing. John, do you know _On An Asteroid With +You_?" + +"I know _everything_," said John Smith. + +I turned to my piano with a shudder. I didn't dare look at that +horrible fiddle again. I didn't dare think what kind of soul-chilling +tones might emerge from its ancient depths. + +And I didn't dare look again at the second monstrosity, the one named +John Smith. I closed my eyes and plunged into a four-bar intro. + +Hammer-Head joined in on vibro-drums and Fat Boy on clarinet, and +then-- + +My eyes burst open. A shiver coursed down my spine like gigantic mice +feet. + +The tones that surged from that monstrous bass were ecstatic. They +were out of a jazzman's Heaven. They were great rolling clouds that +seemed to envelop the entire universe with their vibrance. They held a +depth and a volume and a richness that were astounding, that were like +no others I'd ever heard. + +First they went _Boom-de-boom-de-boom-de-boom_, and then, +_boom-de-de-boom-de-de-boom-de-de-boom_, just like the tones of all +bass fiddles. + +But there was something else, too. There were overtones, so that John +wasn't just playing a single note, but a whole chord with each beat. +And the fullness, the depth of those incredible chords actually set my +blood tingling. I could _feel_ the tingling just as one can feel the +vibration of a plucked guitar string. + +I glanced at the cash customers. They looked like weary warriors +getting their first glimpse of Valhalla. Gap-jawed and wide-eyed, they +seemed in a kind of ecstatic hypnosis. Even the silent, bland-faced +Martians stopped sipping their wine-syrup and nodded their dark heads +in time with the rhythm. + +I looked at The Eye. The transformation of his gaunt features was +miraculous. Shadows of gloom dissolved and were replaced by a +black-toothed, crescent-shaped smile of delight. His eyes shone like +those of a kid seeing Santa Claus. + +We finished _On An Asteroid With You_, modulated into _Sweet Sally +from Saturn_ and finished with _Tighten Your Lips on Titan_. + +We waited for the applause of the Earth people and the shrilling of +the Martians to die down. Then I turned to John and his fiddle. + +"If I didn't hear it," I gasped, "I wouldn't believe it!" + +"And the fiddle's so old, too!" added Hammer-Head who, although sober, +seemed quite drunk. + +"Old?" said John Smith. "Of course it's old. It's over five thousand +years old. I was lucky to find it in a pawnshop. Only it's not a +fiddle but a _Zloomph_. This is the only one in existence." He patted +the thing tenderly. "I tried the hole in it but it isn't the right +one." + +I wondered what the hell he was talking about. I studied the black, +mirror-like wood. The aperture in the vesonator was like that of any +bass fiddle. + +"Isn't right for what?" I had to ask. + +He turned his sad eyes to me. "For going home," he said. + +Hummm, I thought. + + * * * * * + +We played. Tune after tune. John knew them all, from the latest pop +melodies to a swing version of the classic _Rhapsody of The Stars_. He +was a quiet guy during the next couple of hours, and getting more than +a few words from him seemed as hard as extracting a tooth. He'd stand +by his fiddle--I mean, his _Zloomph_--with a dreamy expression in +those watery eyes, staring at nothing. + +But after one number he studied Fat Boy's clarinet for a moment. "Nice +clarinet," he mused. "Has an unusual hole in the front." + +Fat Boy scratched the back of his head. "You--you mean here? Where the +music comes out?" + +John Smith nodded. "Unusual." + +Hummm, I thought again. + +Awhile later I caught him eyeing my piano keyboard. "What's the +matter, John?" + +He pointed. + +"Oh, there," I said. "A cigarette fell out of my ashtray, burnt a hole +in the key. If The Eye sees it, he'll swear at me in seven languages." + +"Even there," he said softly, "even there...." + +There was no doubt about it. John Smith was peculiar, but he was the +best bass man this side of a musician's Nirvana. + +It didn't take a genius to figure out our situation. Item one: +Goon-Face's countenance had evidenced an excellent imitation of +Mephistopheles before John began to play. Item two: Goon-Face had +beamed like a kitten with a quart of cream after John began to play. + +Conclusion: If we wanted to keep eating, we'd have to persuade John +Smith to join our combo. + +At intermission I said, "How about a drink, John? Maybe a shot of +wine-syrup?" + +He shook his head. + +"Then maybe a Venusian fizz?" + +His grunt was negative. + +"Then some old-fashioned beer?" + +He smiled. "Yes, I _like_ beer." + +I escorted him to the bar and assisted him in his arduous climb onto a +stool. + +"John," I ventured after he'd taken an experimental sip, "where have +you been hiding? A guy like you should be playing every night." + +John yawned. "Just got here. Figured I might need some money so I went +to the union. Then I worked on my plan." + +"Then you need a job. How about playing with us steady? We like your +style a lot." + +He made a long, low humming sound which I interpreted as an expression +of intense concentration. "I don't know," he finally drawled. + +"It'd be a steady job, John." Inspiration struck me. "And listen, I +have an apartment. It's got everything, solar shower, automatic chef, +'copter landing--if we ever get a 'copter. Plenty of room there for +two people. You can stay with me and it won't cost you a cent. And +we'll even pay you over union wages." + +His watery gaze wandered lazily to the bar mirror, down to the +glittering array of bottles and then out to the dance floor. + +He yawned again and spoke slowly, as if each word were a leaden weight +cast reluctantly from his tongue: + +"No, I don't ... care much ... about playing." + +"What _do_ you like to do, John?" + +His string-bean of a body stiffened. "I like to study ancient history +... and I must work on my plan." + +Oh Lord, that plan again! + +I took a deep breath. "Tell me about it, John. It _must_ be +interesting." + +He made queer clicking noises with his mouth that reminded me of a +mechanical toy being wound into motion. "The whole foundation of this +or any other culture is based on the history of all the time +dimensions, each interwoven with the other, throughout the ages. And +the holes provide a means of studying all of it first hand." + +_Oh, oh_, I thought. _But you still have to eat. Remember, you still +have to eat._ + +"Trouble is," he went on, "there are so many holes in this universe." + +"Holes?" I kept a straight face. + +"Certainly. Look around you. All you see is holes. These beer bottles +are just holes surrounded by glass. The doors and windows--they're +holes in walls. The mine tunnels make a network of holes under the +desert. Caves are holes, animals live in holes, our faces have holes, +clothes have holes--millions and millions of holes!" + +I winced and thought, humor him because you gotta eat, you gotta eat. + +His voice trembled with emotion. "Why, they're everywhere. They're in +pots and pans, in pipes, in rocket jets, in bumpy roads. There are +buttonholes and well holes, and shoelace holes. There are doughnut +holes and stocking holes and woodpecker holes and cheese holes. Oceans +lie in holes in the earth, and rivers and canals and valleys. The +craters of the Moon are holes. Everything is--" + +"But, John," I said as patiently as possible, "what have these holes +got to do with you?" + +He glowered at me as if I were unworthy of such a confidence. "What +have they to do with me?" he shrilled. "I can't find the right +one--that's what!" + +I closed my eyes. "Which particular hole are you looking for, John?" + +He was speaking rapidly again now. + +"I was hurrying back to the University with the _Zloomph_ to prove a +point of ancient history to those fools. They don't believe that +instruments which make music actually existed before the tapes! It was +dark--and some fool researcher had forgotten to set a force-field over +the hole--I fell through." + +I closed my eyes. "Now wait a minute. Did you drop something, lose it +in the hole--is that why you have to find it?" + +"Oh I didn't lose anything important," he snapped, "_just_ my own time +dimension. And if I don't get back they will think I couldn't prove my +theory, that I'm ashamed to come back, and I'll be discredited." + +His chest sagged for an instant. Then he straightened. "But there's +still time for my plan to work out--with the relative difference taken +into account. Only I get so tired just thinking about it." + +"Yes, I can see where thinking about it would tire any one." + +He nodded. "But it can't be too far away." + +"I'd like to hear more about it," I said. "But if you're not going to +play with us--" + +"Oh, I'll play with you," he beamed. "I can talk to _you_. _You_ +understand." + +Thank heaven! + + * * * * * + +Heaven lasted for just three days. During those seventy-two golden +hours the melodious tinkling of The Eye's cash register was as +constant as that of Santa's sleigh bells. + +John became the hero of tourists, spacemen, and Martians, but +nevertheless he remained stubbornly aloof. He was quiet, moody, +playing his _Zloomph_ automatically. He'd reveal definite indications +of belonging to Homo Sapiens only when drinking beer and talking about +his holes. + +Goon-Face was still cautious. + +"Contract?" he wheezed. "Maybe. We see. Eef feedleman stay, we have +contract. He stay, yes?" + +"Oh, sure," I said. "He'll stay--just as long as you want him." + +"Den he sign contract, too. No beeg feedle, no contract." + +"Sure. We'll get him to sign it." I laughed hollowly. "Don't worry, +Mr. Ke-teeli." + +Just a few minutes later tragedy struck. + +A reporter from the _Marsport Times_ ambled into interview the Man of +The Hour. The interview, unfortunately, was conducted over the bar and +accompanied by a generous guzzling of beer. Fat Boy, Hammer-Head and I +watched from a table. Knowing John as we did, a silent prayer was in +our eyes. + +"This is the first time he's talked to anybody," Fat Boy breathed. +"I--I'm scared. + +"Nothing can happen," I said, optimistically. "This'll be good +publicity." + +We watched. + +John murmured something. The reporter, a paunchy, balding man, +scribbled furiously in his notebook. + +John yawned, muttered something else. The reporter continued to +scribble. + +John sipped beer. His eyes brightened, and he began to talk more +rapidly. + +The reporter frowned, stopped writing, and studied John curiously. + +John finished his first beer, started on his second. His eyes were +wild, and he was talking more and more rapidly. + +"He's doing it," Hammer-Head groaned. "He's telling him!" + +I rose swiftly. "We better get over there. We should have known +better--" + +We were too late. The reporter had already slapped on his hat and was +striding to the exit. John turned to us, dazed, his enthusiasm +vanishing like air from a punctured balloon. + +"He wouldn't listen," he said, weakly. "I tried to tell him, but he +said he'd come back when I'm sober. I'm sober now. So I quit. I've got +to find my hole." + +I patted him on the back. "No, John, we'll help you. Don't quit. +We'll--well, we'll help you." + +"We're working on a plan, too," said Fat Boy in a burst of +inspiration. "We're going to make a more scientific approach." + +"How?" John asked. + +Fat Boy gulped. + +"Just wait another day," I said. "We'll have it worked out. Just be +patient another day. You can't leave now, not after all your work." + +"No, I guess not," he sighed. "I'll stay--until tomorrow." + + * * * * * + +All night the thought crept through my brain like a teasing spider: +_What can we do to make him stay? What can we tell him? What, what, +what?_ + +Unable to sleep the next morning, I left John to his snoring and went +for an aspirin and black coffee. All the possible schemes were +drumming through my mind: finding an Earth blonde to capture John's +interest, having him electro-hypnotized, breaking his leg, forging a +letter from this mythical university telling him his theory was proved +valid and for him to take a nice long vacation now. He was a screwball +about holes and force fields and dimensional worlds but for that music +of his I'd baby him the rest of his life. + +It was early afternoon when I trudged back to my apartment. + +John was squatting on the living room floor, surrounded by a forest +of empty beer bottles. His eyes were bulging, his hair was even wilder +than usual, and he was swaying. + +"John!" I cried. "You're drunk!" + +His watery eyes squinted at me. "No, not drunk. Just scared. I'm awful +scared!" + +"But you mustn't be scared. That reporter was just stupid. We'll help +you with your theory." + +His body trembled. "No, it isn't that. It isn't the reporter." + +"Then what is it, John?" + +"It's my body. It's--" + +"Yes, what about your body? Are you sick?" + +His face was white with terror. "No, my--_my body's full of holes_. +Suppose it's one of those holes! How will I get back if it is?" + +He rose and staggered to his _Zloomph_, clutching it as though it were +somehow a source of strength and consolation. + +I patted him gingerly on the arm. "Now John. You've just had too much +beer, that's all. Let's go out and get some air and some strong black +coffee. C'mon now." + +We staggered out into the morning darkness, the three of us. John, the +_Zloomph_, and I. + +I was hanging on to him trying to see around and over and even under +the _Zloomph_--steering by a sort of radar-like sixth sense. The +street lights on Marsport are pretty dim compared to Earthside. I +didn't see the open manhole that the workmen had figured would be all +right at that time of night. It gets pretty damned cold around 4: A.M. +of a Martian morning, and I guess the men were warming up with a +little nip at the bar across the street. + +Then--he was gone. + +John just slipped out of my grasp--_Zloomph_ and all--and was +gone--completely and irrevocably gone. I even risked a broken neck and +jumped in the manhole after him. Nothing--nothing but the smell of +ozone and an echo bouncing crazily off the walls of the conduit. + +"--is it.--is it.--is it.--is it." + +John Smith was gone, so utterly and completely and tragically gone it +was as if he'd never existed.... + + * * * * * + +Tonight is our last night at _The Space Room_. Goon-Face is scowling +again with the icy fury of a Plutonian monsoon. As Goon-Face has said, +"No beeg feedle, no contract." + +Without John, we're notes in a lost chord. + +We've searched everything, in hospitals, morgues, jails, night clubs, +hotels. We've hounded spaceports and 'copter terminals. Nowhere, +nowhere is John Smith. + +Ziggy, whose two fingers have healed, has already bowed to what seems +inevitable. He's signed up for that trip to Neptune's uranium pits. +There's plenty of room for more volunteers, he tells us. But I spend +my time cussing the guy who forgot to set the force field at the other +end of the hole and let John and his _Zloomph_ back into his own time +dimension. I cuss harder when I think how we were robbed of the best +bass player in the galaxy. + +And without a corpus delecti we can't even sue the city. + + +... THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Holes and John Smith, by Edward W. 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