Fritz Leiber - The Wanderer

The cab wasn’t halfway down the next block when the intersection ahead filled with more red and black cars, racing north on Lenox. The sound of the sirens from behind and ahead was brain-shaking.

If the weed-brothers hadn’t been loaded on pot, they might have realized that this stampede of police cars and firetrucks from lower Manhattan had nothing to do with them personally and that the ferocious vehicles weren’t converging into 125th Street, but continuing their mad dash north.

But the weed-brothers were loaded, and the master fear-kick of pursuit by police was upon them. Pepe believed they were to be scapegoats for an attempt to destroy Manhattan by suitcase bombs — they’d be frisked for fireballs and convicted on the evidence of a Zippo lighter.

Arab knew it was the purpose of the police to frogmarch them to the nearest roof and tie them down among the grinning wax mummies.

High simply thought they’d been spotted smoking weed back at the river — probably by telepathy. He braked the cab to a stop just short of Lenox. They piled out.

The subway entrance yawned with the dark invitation of a cave or den, promising the security all terrified animals crave. There was a white sawhorse half blocking it, but they darted past and clattered down the stairs.

The token booth was empty. They scrambled over the turnstiles. There was a lighted train waiting, its doors open. But there wasn’t anybody in it.

The station was lit, but they couldn’t see any people anywhere, on this platform or the one across.

The empty train was purring softly and insistently, but after the sirens faded there wasn’t another sound.

Despite Doc’s snoring for morale purposes, no one except Rama Joan tried to follow his example, and after a half hour or so Doc himself lifted his head, propping it up on his doubled arm, so as to get into an argument Hunter and Paul were having about the paths in space Earth and the Wanderer would take with respect to each other.

“I’ve figured it all out in my head — roughly, of course,” Doc told them. “Granting they’re of equal mass, they’ll revolve around a point midway between them in a month lasting about nineteen days.”

“Shorter than that, surely,” Paul objected. “Why, we can see with our own eyes how fast the Wanderer’s moving.” He pointed to where the strange planet, maroon and light orange now, was dipping atilt toward the ocean, the blunt yellow spearhead of the moon striking across its front almost from below.

Doc chuckled. “ That movement’s just the Earth turning — same thing as makes the sun rise.” Then, as Paul grimaced in exasperation at his own stupidity, Doc added: “Natural enough mistake — I keep making it in my own mind, which I inherited from my cavemen ancestors along with my tail bones! Say, look how far the sea’s gone out! Ross, I’m afraid the tidal effects are showing up faster than we hoped.”

Paul, trying to get back into the swing of the discussion, made himself visualize how tides eighty times higher would mean tides eighty times lower too — at six-hour intervals, at most places.

“Incidentally,” Doc added, “we’ll be about ten days getting into that nineteen-day orbit, since Earth’s acceleration is only about five-hundredths of an inch a second. That of the moon, also in respect to the Wanderer, must have been about four feet a second, cumulative, of course.”

A chilly land-breeze came sneaking around Paul’s neck. He pulled his coat tighter — he’d got it back from Margo when the Little Man had given her one of the leather jackets. In spite of that she had Miaow inside the jacket to make her warmer as she stared out across the long, flat beach.

“Look how the light glistens on the wet gravel,” she said to Paul. “Like amethysts and topazes shoveled out of trucks.”

“Ssh,” said the fat woman, beside her. “ He’s getting messages.”

Just the other side of Wanda, the Ramrod was gazing at the Wanderer as though hypnotized by it, his chin on his fist, rather in the attitude of “The Thinker.”

“The Emperor says, ‘No harm to Terra’,” the Ramrod droned just then in a trancelike voice. “ ‘Her turbulent waters shall be stilled, her oceans withdrawn from her shores’.”

“A planetful of King Canutes,” Doc murmured softly.

“Your emperor ought to have got on the ball in time to stop the earthquakes,” Mrs. Hixon called tartly. Mr. Hixon laid his hand on her arm and whispered to her. She flirted her shoulders, but made no more cracks.

Rama Joan opened her eyes. “How are your speculations going now, Rudolf?” she challenged Doc. “Angels? Or devils?”

He replied: “I’ll wait until one flies in close enough for me to see whether his wings are feathery or leathery.” Then, realizing that he’d not necessarily made a joke, he looked quickly toward the Wanderer with a sardonic shudder. Then he stood up and stretched himself and surveyed the platform.

“Ha, I see you loaded the truck while I snoozed,” he commented blandly. “That was considerate. Didn’t even forget the water jugs — I suppose I have you to thank for that, Doddsy.” Then, softly, to Hunter: “How’s Ray Hanks?”

“Hardly woke up when we moved the cot into the truck and guyed it to the sides. Put a blanket around him.”

There was a droning in the sky. Everyone held very still. Several looked apprehensively toward the Wanderer, as if they thought something might be coming from there. Then Harry McHeath called excitedly: “It’s a ’copter from Vandenberg — I think…”

But it looked like a regulation enough little dragonfly of an observation ’copter as it slanted down toward the sea, then swung around and came along the beach, traveling at not much more than fifty feet. Suddenly it swerved toward them and hovered overhead. The drone became a roar. The down-blast from the vanes scattered the pile of unused programs in a white flutter.

“Is the damn fool trying to land on us?” Doc demanded, crouching and squinting upward like all the others.

A great voice came down through the drone. “ Get out! Get out of here!”

“Why, the bastards!” Doc roared, so that what the voice said next was lost. “They’re not satisfied with slamming the door in our faces. Now they order us out of the neighborhood!” Beside him the little Man lifted and fiercely shook his fist.

“Get off the beach!” the great voice finished as the ’copter tilted over and continued in its course down the coast.

“Hey, Doc!” Wojtowicz yelled, grabbing the bigger man’s shoulder. “Maybe they’re trying to warn us about the tides!”

“But that won’t be for at least six hours—”

Doc broke off, as it became apparent that the roar wasn’t leaving with the ’copter, and as water spurted upward in a dozen places through the cracks between the floorboards.

All around the platform was a pale welter of foam. The wave had come in while all their eyes were on the ’copter and its roar had masked that of the wave.

“But—” Doc demanded, rather like King Canute himself.

“Not tides, but tsunami!” Hunter yelled at him. “Earthquake waves!”

Doc smote his own forehead.

With a hissing of sand and a hollow clanking of gravel the water receded, leaving behind a ghostly patchwork of spume.

“There’s another coming!” Paul cried out, watching a distant pale wall with horror. “Start the truck!”

The Hixons were already piling into the front seat The motor coughed and died. The starter whined by itself. Hunter, Doddsy, Doc, and Harry McHeath jumped down and prepared to heave at the truck’s sides. Rama Joan half-carried Ann across the platform, pushed her into the truck, and slapped her across the face when she tried to come back. “Stay there and hold on,” she snarled. Wanda tried to follow Ann, but Wojtowicz grabbed her in a bear-hug, telling her: “Not this time, Fatty!” Paul lifted and tried to secure the truck’s tailgate.