Thrilling Wonder Stories Fall 1944 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Anthology
Publisher: Thrilling Wonder Stories
Published: 1944-10-04T05:00:00+00:00

I STARED at him venomously, but before I could take a poke at him, my neck hairs stiffened and a shiver ran down my spine.

The man was attired in a rust-colored pressure suit and high tundra boots. There was an oxygen pack on his shoulder and an anti-grav belt hung in loose folds from his waist. He looked perfectly normal in all respects except for one thing.

He had no head. Where his head should have been, yawned a nebulously weaving spiral of iridescent mist. He was standing between Ben and myself. He had wedged himself in between us and was drumming with his knuckles on the bar.

“A straight whiskey,” he said. The voice came out of the spiral and seemed to reverberate along the bar.

Ben let out a strangled moan and crumpled to the floor in a dead faint. I was made of sterner stuff. All I did was jerk my shoulders and leap back as though a cobra had materialized a yard from my face.

The stranger turned slowly and transfixed me with a warning stare. Behind the mist, a face that wasn’t there was unmistakably telling me to keep my shirt on, or else.

The voice came again.

“I wanted a bracer first. You’ll probably kick up a row, and I’ll have to get tough. Inside, I’m a gentle sort of guy.”

“Who are you?” I choked.

“You don’t know me? You’ve photographed me often enough. I’m Winslow— Dawson’s buddy. My head was clawed off last perihelion by a struebeste on the tundra.”

The revelation seemed to dry out my throat,

“Winslow—Dawson’s buddy,” he reiterated. “Hold on to yourself, man. You’re responsible for me. I was on your mind, but now I’ve stepped out from you. Electromagnetic chain reactions inside your brain, you understand? The vortex solidifies them.”

“The vortex?”

“You’re standing in a unified field vortex. Dawson might have brought me back, if he hadn’t had so many animals on his mind.”

I had the ghastly feeling that he was sadly shaking his missing head.

“Poor old Dawson looked and acted tough, but he was just a scared kid inside. He wanted to go home. He was always dreaming about the mountains, rivers and valleys of Earth. He was so homesick he kept visualizing terrestrial animals, even when he was stalking big game on the tundra.”

The stranger’s missing face seemed to stare straight at me.

“Your mind is full of smashed-up wretches like myself. Maimed and crippled explorers, lads with neutron bullets in their insides. You’re a sympathetic sort of guy, and you keep thinking about the gruesome human wrecks you’ve photographed. We haunt you night and day.”

He glanced down at Ben.

“This man thinks about nothing but women and tankards of ale. Suppose I told you that you’ve populated a huge strip of territory, just by standing here. The vortex solidifies cerebral chain reactions. Just by standing here and visualizing me you’ve brought me back. You’ve brought back smashed-up wretches and girls dead a thousand years.

“Your friend here brought back the girls. He doesn’t think much of living women. He moons over ancient American cinema stars.

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