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Title: Gangway for Homer
Author: George R. Hahn
Illustrator: John R. Forte
Release date: March 21, 2024 [eBook #73220]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Columbia Publications Inc, 1942
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GANGWAY FOR HOMER ***
GANGWAY FOR HOMER
By GEORGE R. HAHN
Illustrated by John Forte
C'mon out of the shadows, Homer. Here's one who claims you
as his patron. Unstring your lyre, mighty bard and sing
the epic of Achilles Maravain, who can't be hurt by bullets,
bombs, or blasters, and whose touch brings instant death!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Science Fiction Quarterly Spring 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
His name was really John Smith. Incredibly enough, it had always been
John Smith. As far back as people in his circle and neighborhood could
remember, it had been John Smith--and they could remember back all the
way to when he had been a mere tottering tot--to the swaddling clothes
days. He was what might be called a medium man. His height was medium.
His middle-age was medium. His hair, eyes, and nose were medium.
Unpretentious he looked and adequate. He fulfilled his name, which, as
we mentioned above, was John Smith--not Achilles Maravain.
Yet she persisted in calling him Achilles Maravain. She declaimed;
she cried out; she excited herself and all present--all to the effect
that John Smith was Achilles Maravain. Everybody paid her the best of
attention, although they couldn't believe her. Everybody regarded her
with interest. She had a wild, pale, exotic-looking face, a figure it
would be indelicate to remark upon, and legs that were crystallized
ecstasy. They listened to her words; they gazed upon her. The Los
Angeles Forum of Camera Arts gazed to satiety on face and figure and
legs and sighed en masse. Insanely gay sighs, sighed they. She was
desirable and moreover she had interrupted President Soupy's discussion
of "Repentance," a camera study in monotone by Pierre de la Bardier.
Had you ever listened to President Soupy remarking that such and such
was "taken on a Zeiss Super Iconta B with Metchnormatic Ultra-Lite film
at an exposure of f5.6 with diaphragm--, etc.," you too would have
been gay--aye, insanely gay--to have had him interrupted by a luscious
looking pair of legs like that. Thus, everybody was happy. The LAFCA
was happy; the lost-looking scientist with the galvanometer and other
trivia was happy, and the three dapper young men were happy. Even John
Smith was happy.
His happiness was obvious in the reluctance with which he took his
departure, in his formality. He rose from his seat and said to the
three dapper young men, of the hard, virtuous faces, "The Federal
Bureau of Investigation, I presume?"
"Right," crisply, youngishly. "John Smith, alias Achilles Maravain,
you are under arrest on charges of murder, seditious conduct, and high
treason against the government of the United States. Will you come
along quietly?"
Achilles--for it is as such he is to be referred to forever hence--did
not come along quietly. He did not come along. In point of fact,
he went his own way. The three grim young men of the FBI bitterly
contested his going, and, since, as everyone knows nowadays, to touch
Achilles Maravain was to undergo collapse, disintegration, and death,
the results were unfortunate.
* * * * *
This was the first and perhaps most important incident in his history.
It was the acorn from which sprouted that large and aberrant oak-tree
that was Achilles Maravain.
The next important incident--a scene perhaps even more diverting than
the last--was the Lincoln Heights scene. As the odds are against it
that the reader of this is either an archeologist or some pervertedly
informed devotee of ancient Los Angeles topography, it is excusable to
mention that Lincoln Heights was the jail of the city, an institution
comparable in purpose to our modern concentration camps, but differing
in that it was merely a squat, few-story cement structure abundantly
furnished with steel bars, locks, chains, gyves, paraphernalia, and
policemen. Its architecture was thus ideal for Achilles' purposes. His
purposes being to imprison the prison, purposes in which he succeeded.
His remarkable feat first manifested itself when Sergeant Leery
crashed titanically into nothingness. Not actual nothingness--as was
evidenced by its palpability--but a substance that, for all practical
purposes, was nonexistent; all practical purposes that is except that
of preventing exit or entry in regards to the Lincoln Heights jail.
Sergeant Leery withdrew his nose a few paces, vigorously rubbing that
injured member, and stared quizzically at this absurd tangibility. He
stared for a long and ponderous time and then began shouting. Minions
of the law popped miraculously into view at this point, as if conjured
there by the magic of Leery's stentorian voice. Miraculously they
popped and popping, equally miraculously popped no more. The invisible
barrier restrained them; it framed their popping faces, their popping
eyes. It kept them within the building, sealing the doors, the windows,
the walls. It was, in fact a prison; Achilles Maravain had imprisoned
the prison.
Had he stopped there, there's a shade of a ghost's super-attenuated
chance that all might have been forgotten, except perhaps by the
infuriated gendarmerie and prisoners who were left permanently to their
own devices within the Lincoln Heights jail. But Achilles didn't stop.
He visited the First Street Headquarters Jail and imprisoned it. He
visited all the jails. Likewise the insane asylums and the hospitals.
Personal appearance tour, it was; an interstate tour. He went to Salt
Lake City and there gave a repeat performance. Jails, hospitals, etc.
Thence to Denver; thence to Topeka; thence to Kansas City. Followed by
St. Louis. Followed by Indianapolis. And on all the way to the East
Coast.
It is not to be supposed that he was uncontested in this progression.
Very much to the contrary. He was shot at. Often and with the utmost
accuracy was he fired upon. Apparently, however, with no effect for he
seemed invulnerable.
Not elusive was our Achilles, not wily, not adroit. Not even clever.
He was merely invulnerable and clumsily so to boot. He would wade into
a mass of stalwart police or soldiers--the militia tried cannons on
him--and projectiles would simply bounce away from him. They would
explode in the conventional manner. Only no fragments or concussion
waves apparently could reach him. After this, the opposition would be
scattered like the proverbial chaff.
It was a melee, a very horrifying and immensely entertaining mess.
Chaos there was and wildness and fantasy and even fanaticism. Yes, even
the latter. This last was instanced the time a group of misdirected
fans of Achilles misconstrued him, and, in the belief that he was the
Almighty, surrounded him in the midst of the pursuit of one of his more
stirring enterprises. He misconstrued them, too. They still remain, so
far as is known, in the housing he provided their zeal.
* * * * *
Now we return to the beginning of the story. Not for the sake of
confusion, but merely to pick up a most important thread. Remember the
Camera Forum scene? And Los Angeles? Los Angeles, if you are following
the mood of this story, is mere dust and collapse by now. Nevertheless,
we return to the vanished metropolis and to the Forum, the three young
men of the FBI, and to the lost-looking scientist with the galvanometer
and other trivia--the scientist whom you probably never noticed, having
been lost in the spell of her. The lost-looking scientist was happy,
too.
His happiness lay in that he had come to a conclusion, one affecting
Achilles Maravain. His conclusion was that Maravain was scientifically
explainable. Not just his feats; not just the decimation he wrought
upon police; not just the prisons in which he enveloped prisons.
No--more than that--the works. Everything about Achilles Maravain--his
personality; his attitude toward life, love and literature--all down
to his very kneejerks.
First and most important of all, our Achilles had an inferiority
complex. Definitely. The proposition that anyone who had actually, with
reason, been called John Smith all his life did not have an inferiority
complex was fantastic. But the man's actions proved it beyond doubt: he
picked on criminals, insane, and the sick because he felt inferior to
them, and compensated thus. Amazing logic? Well, everyone thought so at
the time, although as you can see, it was really extraordinarily simple.
But, at the time, everyone was amazed, even the scientist himself.
He gloried in it, glowed and, entering further into the spirit and
tempo of his theories, babbled out point after telling point. Argued.
Philosophized. He quoted statistics about the ratio of invention to
the inferiority-complex and compared it with the results Achilles had
obtained. He proved that ultra-vibrational force-walls--this being
essentially what Achilles had developed for the demolition of law and
order and for the production of honestagawd, fool-proof, tamper-proof
prisons--were Machiavellian, Mephistophelian, and just plain hellish.
Why invent them, then, except to demonstrate a superiority the inventor
really didn't feel?
The scientist meditated further, brooded, calculated, grunted awhile
and then predicted--or, as he put it: prognosticated--that Achilles
would declare himself a dictator.
Which Achilles did.
In this, however, there was a flaw; here lay his weakness. Not in the
actual fact that he protested himself the greatest and wisest of men,
but that he attempted wiles. He didn't come out with it forthrightly;
he wasn't blunt as he had been with his interesting massacres. He
proved himself cagey, contemptible, striking the Humanitarian pose. He
was, he stated, producing all these absorbing newspaper stories for
man's own good. Or, rather, Man's. Man with a capital M. A document he
issued, long and scholarly. It reeked; it stank; it was crawling with
hypocrisy and shoddy diplomacy. He took some thirty thousand words
to indicate that pestilence, famine, and war was in existence. That
thieving, murder, and kindred rot was also in evidence. He dithered
about the general theme that this was horrible. Tediously he pedanted,
hedging around concerning the Perfect State, eventually coming out into
the open with his own private Perfect State plan. Revised and condensed
it still reeked. Get rid of all the misfits and criminals and the
insane. Prison up the squarepegs and breed them out. And then direct
democracy just as the Greeks had.
Apparently he had never heard of economics. No one had told him that
Greek democracy existed on the basis of a slave system. No one had told
him of other things that had either been thought of, worked out, or
had evolved according to the scientific laws concerning economics and
society since the time of the Greeks. Achilles Maravain was stuck on
Homeric Greek democracy--only he indicated that he, personally, would
be Democrat Number One.
* * * * *
Again we bewilder the reader with a thread from the beginning. Again
we return to the Los Angeles Camera Forum Scene. This time to call to
the mind of the elated reader that succulent item of femininity that
first claimed our attention with her sprightly uncovering of Achilles
Maravain as the seemingly innocuous John Smith.
We find Cecile Douve, as she is known to the intelligence services of
this and perhaps a few other countries, in a stinky little bedroom.
Again don't get ahead of the story; she is merely investigating. Not
engaged in active inquiry, if you follow me.
This stinky little bedroom, with massive volumes of a technical
nature, broken test tubes, and other rot and junk of a like nature
littering it, is the erstwhile bedroom of Achilles Maravain. He no
longer inhabits it, although we can linger nostalgically for a moment,
although we can sniff mystifiedly at the--peculiar--odors emanating
from the broken test tubes, although we can tinker with the gimcracks
and thingumbobs and machinery and no doubt shock ourselves into a
reckoning with Old Scratch.
In any case, Cecile Douve is here searching for a clue to the
whereabouts of Achilles. The scientist of the galvanometers is also
here. His name is Harold Boscoe, and he is a Ph. D. Together, Cecile
and the Ph. D. search and also engage in polite converse. They sniff
not, mystifiedly or otherwise; they linger not on anything nor brood
about the fact that perhaps here, in this very, very room was conceived
the diabolicism of the force-wall. No, they search and converse.
"It must not happen. The man is a maniac," postulates Cecile prettily,
then continues the efficient search.
"Honeybunch,"--evidently the poor egg has joined the clan of the
lovelorn--"it shall not. I shall find something to combat him and his
evil."
"Do you think you can do it, my pet?"
"Certainly. I'm a scientist, am I not? Just between you and me (and a
few governments: Auth. Note) I'm working on something already. I have a
magnificent conception that may well prove his downfall."
"Do you really think so? You're so wise--so--so marvelous."
"Do you really think so?"
"Yes," a pause, then in husky tones, "really."
Embraces, osculations, and speeches. At precisely the right moment,
when his devotion is white hot, she molds him and sends him back to
work.
* * * * *
At approximately this same time, there is going on a very important
meeting of various high and significant officials of the government:
the President, Vice President, Cabinet Members, House Committee on
Achilles Maravain, Senatorial Investigation Committee on Achilles
Maravain, the current successor to the Dies Committee, and the First
Lady. Hubbub, clamor, chaos. The authoritative voice of the President
lifts.
"Silence, please."
The Chairman of the House Committee on Achilles Maravain rises and
addresses the President. "Mr. President," (cough), "we are led to
believe that these are the facts of the case. There is (or are) a
person (or persons) calling himself (or themselves) Achilles Maravain,
who has been (or have been) imprisoning prisons, causing no end of
annoyance and embarrassment, and who has (or have) proclaimed what
purports to be the constitution of a new American state, founded after
the manner of our Grecian predecessors in the experiment of democracy.
The experiment of democracy, which, may I say, gentlemen" (voice
takes oratorical tones) "has fulfilled all the most rosy hopes and
expectations, which has turned a barren wilderness of thirteen original
states into the magnificence and resplendency of--"
"We are all aware of that, Mr. Ainsworth." The President's grimace
could rightly be termed sinister.
The Chairman sits down abruptly and the President continues. "In any
event, gentlemen, we are confronted by a profoundly serious situation,
coming as it is, at a time when we should bend every effort toward
preparing for a war against the Old World. This person (or persons)
known as Achilles Maravain is having a distressingly diverting effect
upon us when all energies from that--er, madman--in Europe. Beyond
doubt he is some pseudo-idealistic radical--perhaps an emissary of the
Federation. Whatever he is, he has no full cognizance of the extreme
gravity of our situation, and, as such will not assist us. Thus, he
(or they) must be destroyed. What might any of you gentlemen suggest
towards the speedy expedition of this destruction?"
The First Lady arises. "I'm not a gentleman," she simpers, "but--"
"Quite true. Sit down, please."
"Wait a moment. I have something to suggest. Perhaps you do not realize
it, but I am indirectly responsible for the uncovering of Achilles
Maravain, in Smith's clothing. It was one of my girls, Cecile Douve,
who did the job. And we--she in active duty, and I as her patron--are
continuing our efforts. As once she wormed her way into his affections,
so shall she do it again. As once she effectively uncovered him, so
shall she do a second time. I really promise you results, gentlemen.
Results."
* * * * *
And results she got. Results they were. The web, the power expended,
the intricacies of thought, the drive of five hundred individuals were
her results. The huge rolling mass of energy that was exhausted by five
hundred highly specialized and superbly trained and educated beings
was the result she directed against the insidious Mr. Maravain. And,
most important of all, one person named Cecile Douve. Four hundred and
ninety-nine engineers, scientists, technicians, and one little lump of
hotcha generally known as Cecile Douve.
"I love you," she said.
Achilles replied. "The last time I believed that, you called in the FBI
as witnesses to our mutual affection."
"I was mad, my darling. I didn't understand you." (Hushed, reverent
tones.) "Even then I felt violently attracted to you, to you as a man,
but your purposes and powers seemed so fearful ... I thought you were
a madman and myself a monster to love you. But now I know ... when I
read your wonderful proclamation, I realized how wrong I had been--how
gentle and idealistic you are. I understood then your purity and
realized the nobility of your aspirations.
"I love you."
She moved in for the clinch.
"It would only be fair to warn you," he replied, "that I still have
the force screen armoring me. Cuddling under these conditions would be
quite inadvisable."
She recoiled in a somewhat unamorous fashion.
"Still," he continued, "I love you, too. I don't want to trust you--but
I do. Don't look hopeful my dear--I don't completely. Just to a
certain, reasonable degree. So, here's what: if my noble aspirations
pan out, as I can't help but expect they will, I'll marry you. In the
meantime, we can be friends. We can conduct a pleasant, frolicky little
association, however--an entirely platonic one."
He sighed. "Would that Homer were alive today to write the story of
Achilles Maravain as it should be written. Will I have poets worthy of
me?"
This, she thought, could go on indefinitely. "How soon will it be?"
she broke in. "When will you succeed? Can you make it very soon, my
dearest?"
"It can't be any too soon for me, either, dewdrop--but restrain
yourself."
"I can't--oh, I can't!" she cried. Heavy breathing, then, in more
serious tones. "I know what to do. I have influence in Washington. I'll
arrange an audience for you with the President. With the President and
all of Congress. They'll see you."
"Nice of them, but I don't see the use of it."
"It might be of inestimable use, my darling. A direct impact of your
personality and honesty and drive should convince them. It would be
almost certain to convince them; they're only human, my dear. And
think of the time and trouble we can save if they are ready to give in
gracefully. Please!"
"Very well," he sighed. "I'll do it. Don't think for a moment I don't
suspect treachery, my pet, but after all, I am invincible. You know
that, I hope."
* * * * *
And on this note ends the reconciliation. Immediately followed by much
ado. Preparations while four hundred and ninety-nine engineers, etc.,
work in a veritable frenzy. And, out of their efforts and energy,
there grows an amphitheatre, large and capacious. Pretty and modern.
Beautiful.
This was to be the scene of the meeting. Here is to be decided the
fate of more than a hundred and thirty million people. Here is to be
expounded the rules and laws of a state founded on Grecian lines, on
the classic examples.
Here, on March 15.
Beware of the Ides of March, O Caesar.
Glorious, powerful, invincible Achilles Maravain comes to the
amphitheatre. Nowadays with the details and obscurities of the episode
in history shuffled into relative inconspicuity, one doesn't know
precisely how the cards fell or get the subtleties of the deal. Did
any soothsayers annoy our equivalent of Caesar on his route; did his
nonexistent Calpurnia dream gorily the night before; did lionesses
whelp in the streets, or did fierce, fiery warriors fight upon the
clouds "which drizzled blood upon the capital"? Gangway for Homer, or
even Shakespeare. Either of these two could have done justice to our
play.
In any case, Achilles ignored whatever omens there might have been and
came to the amphitheatre on March 15.
Cecile met him at the great, modern-looking portal and led him in,
introducing him to her benefactress, the First Lady, who, in turn
consummated the formalities with the President himself. Achilles
was very well-behaved throughout these presentations, conducting
himself with decorum and consideration for all the people who eyed
his much-publicized armor with especial dubiety. He was very pleased
with himself about the whole thing. All these key figures, these
obstructions to his philosophy, this destructible humanity, ponderous,
ripe so to speak for explosions and force walls--and he showing such
admirable restraint about it all. Indeed, he felt content. Restraint,
control, self-discipline--these his watch-words.
[Illustration: _She introduced him to the First Lady._]
The President didn't take him by the hand, the force wall
preventing--but he did the next best thing. He preceded him to the
raised dais in the centre of the amphitheatre and, from the spot,
delivered a fetching little introduction about which no more severe a
criticism can be applied than "superfluous." After this, Achilles began
his talk.
Here also is the ubiquitous scientist of the lost-looking face.
Apparently a member, if not a chieftain, of the clan of the four
hundred and ninety-nine technicians. He is looking remarkably heroic at
the moment. Almost gigantic--in a spiritual sort of way.
He turns and throws a switch.
And, in the amphitheatre, a globular hemisphere descends upon the dais
supporting Achilles Maravain, immediately transforming him into a
raging Achilles. A half-spheroid, transparent, glassy, but immensely
malleable and tensile and strong.
* * * * *
Upstairs in the little room in which stands the heroic and lost-looking
scientist, the door flies open. Cecile Douve, betrayer extraordinary,
hotcha extraordinary, flies into his arms.
"Darling, the hemisphere is cracking--he's winning out. What'll he do
to me?" All this excitedly. Then, ruminatively, almost sadly. "He won't
want to marry me now."
"Never fear, my sweetness," replies the chieftain of the four hundred
and ninety-nine. "We will win out. Earth science shall triumph. The
hemisphere is just makeshift, to hold him in one spot for a minute
or two. Earth'll really get going in a sec. Earth is insuperable.
Classicism he wanted and classicism he'll get. Remember the first
Achilles? He had a vulnerable spot. His heel!" The lost look was
replaced by a malevolent grin, sage and content. "Achilles Maravain
has a heel, too. It couldn't be protected by the force-wall, could it?
He doesn't walk on an inch of apparent nothingness does he? No. He's
vulnerable, just as his Homeric predecessor. And we don't have to use
clumsy poisoned arrows on this"--sneering emphasis--"heel." A wild
laugh. "We just throw a shot of good old electricity into him."
On the dais, the violent, raging figure of John Smith, alias Achilles
Maravain, colossus of the classics, exponent of the ages, Caesar
omnipotent, stiffens convulsively as a couple of hundred thousand volts
of electricity crisps his flesh. For a long moment, what is left of him
remains upright. Then, quietly it falls.
Achilles number two seeks out his illustrious predecessor in Elysia.
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