Эрл Гарднер - The Human Zero. The Science Fiction Stories of Erle Stanley Gardner

“Look here, Forbes,” he said, turning a white, strained face away from the light, regarding the four walls of the gloomy dungeon. “I’m not going to stand for this. I’m going to get out of here, put a stop to the whole thing.”

Forbes extended a cold, white hand.

“I’m with you, old chap. But how we’re going to do it is another thing.”

“If I get my hands on that smooth, polished, educated devil of a Murasingh I’ll leave a vacancy in the world,” promised Phil.

And, as though his words had been heard, the door of the cell swung back and Murasingh grinned from the threshold.

“Gentlemen, good morning! You arrived a little sooner than I did. I trust you’ve been made comfortable.”

His eyes glowed with dancing mockery.

“I thought you were just taking a casual joy-ride in a plane, and tried to warn you back. You know it’s not healthy for whites to disregard their treaty promises and invade certain sections of India.”

Phil crouched, moved slowly toward him.

Murasingh whipped an ugly automatic from his pocket, covered the men. His eyes were as hard as black flints.

“Don’t try it, boys. I’d hate to have to kill you, but I can. And if you so much as threatened me, your death wouldn’t be pleasant. As it is, I think I can promise you a reasonably swift death. But there are other ways that might not be so pleasant. There was one poor devil that went through it. You might be able to imagine what happened. He was tied hand and foot. One of the men ran to him, pinched off a bit of flesh and ran away laughing, as though it was some new game. Another and another did the same thing. The monkeys were watching from the trees. The new game appealed to them. After all, you know, they’re little men, actuated by all the cruelties of a savage, yet containing all of the possibilities of development of a man himself.

“I know how you boys feel. But you’ve cut in on this game. No one asked you to do a damn thing except mind your own business. But you had to come prying and snooping. There’s a work going on here that’s bigger than you and bigger than me, and bigger than all of us put together. Don’t think for a moment you can interfere with that work. You must have some conception of it. They tell me one of you almost convinced the judge. In that case, you’d have been allowed to come in as one of the priests — after you’d gone through a sufficient course of training.

“I dropped in to tell you chaps good-by. You’ll be here until midnight. The wedding takes place at one o’clock. You won’t be here for the wedding — a double wedding with the rising of the old moon. Good-by.”

The door clanged. There was the rasp of a lock shooting bars into the solid wall of squared rock.

“And that’s that,” muttered Phil, his hands slimed with cold perspiration.

“That’s that,” agreed Forbes, and tried to grin.

“We couldn’t have rushed the automatic, and we’ve got until midnight.”

Phil broke off to stare meditatively at Forbes.

“He must have drugged her, sneaked into her room, loaded her into the plane, tied her down. That’s why we didn’t see anything of her when the planes were doing their stuff. Of course he’s a fanatic, like all the rest. Sincerely believes in all this stuff. As far as he’s concerned we’re just fellows who butted in and asked for what we got.”

There descended a silence. Each man was wrapped in his own thoughts.

Phil Nickers fell to pacing the floor.

“There’s a way. There must be a way. Somehow, somewhere. Good Lord! A situation like this can’t exist—”

He stopped, mid-stride, to stare at the window.

A monkey sat in the window, propped between the bars, regarding him gravely. A shadow moved across the ground, and another monkey thrust an eager, curious face over the other’s shoulder.

“Think of how they train ’em,” muttered Forbes. “Of course, it’s natural for the monkeys to imitate people. They work on that. How awful it must have been to teach them that tearing a human being to pieces was a game. Their fingers are as strong as steel nippers.”

The monkeys regarded him in moist-eyed gravity.

Phil suddenly dropped to all fours, scampered around the floor, chattering like a monkey, running, cavorting, crawling, leaping.

Forbes regarded him with startled, wide eyes. “Steady, old chap, steady. Death comes to us all. Take it easy. Don’t let the damn beasts get on your nerves.”

But Phil continued to run around.

“Start chasing me,” he hissed. “Get started after me. Run.”

“What in thunder?”

“Don’t argue. Get down while we’ve got their attention. Start running. Chase me around.”

Forbes dropped doubtfully to hands and knees, crawled clumsily.

Phil chattered shrilly.

The monkeys became excited, stirred uneasily, chattered to themselves. Other shadows came across the yard, blotted light from the window. Monkey after monkey came to see the cause of the excitement.

Phil ran on hands and feet, avoided Forbes’s reaching hand, stopped before the joint between two of the square stones on an inner wall, picked out a bit of mortar, threw it at Forbes.

Then the Englishman got the idea.

“Great stuff, old chap! It may work!”

And he, chattering shrilly, ran to the same place, picked out a bit of mortar, hurled it.

Back and forth the two men went, cavorting like huge dogs, running, jumping, and every few minutes pausing to pick a bit of mortar from the same place between the rocks and hurl the soft, crumbing white pebble at the other.

The monkeys in the window chattered shrill glee.

Suddenly one of them dropped, swung from his tail that was looped around the bars, then leaped lightly to the floor. In a mad scamper he went to the exact point in the wall where Phil had been getting mortar, picked out a bit with his wire-strong fingers, and hurled it at one of the monkeys in the window.

Almost on the instant there came a furry flood of dark animals pouring through the window. In a mad kaleidoscope of action they chased each other, stopping to grab mortar from the chink and fling it at each other.

More monkeys came. The men withdrew from the race, leaned back against the wall, panting for air, watching the scampering monkeys.

Phil’s palms were bleeding, his knees raw, but a slow smile of content swept his face.

The monkeys had pulled out all of the mortar that could have been reached by human fingers. Now they were plunging their slender, sinewy arms in between the rocks, picking out little chunks of mortar, flinging them wildly, chattering, scrambling, scampering. And they enjoyed the game.

A monkey snatched a bit of mortar from a different place, getting it where it was more accessible. Phil made a swift kick at the animal. The monkey avoided the kick, stopped to chatter his rage and surprise. But the others continued the game.

Then the chase slowed. The monkeys became interested in prying into the wall. Minutes lengthened into an hour, and still the monkeys worked, exploring, chattering, pulling out mortar. Bit by bit they loosened the mortar all the way around the stone. The mortar became harder as it went deeper into the wall, but the tough little fingers made short work of pinching out bits, dragging it to the floor.

Finally they wearied of the game. One of the monkeys jumped for the window, paused, hesitated a bit, saw the green tops of waving trees, and scampered for the cool forest. Another joined him, and soon the cell was deserted save for the human occupants.

Phil stooped to the floor, began picking up the fine chunks of mortar.

“This comes first,” he said. “We can’t let the guards get suspicious.”

For more than an hour they labored frantically, getting the mortar picked up, throwing it through the bars. At length they had the cell well cleaned, and Phil was able to turn his attention to the stone which had been partially loosened.