The Project Gutenberg eBook of Second chance
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Title: Second chance
Author: Mrs. Robert Hoskins
Release date: November 21, 2023 [eBook #72191]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1962
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND CHANCE ***
_For those of you who may be sentimentalists about
what you'd do if you could live your life over
again, here is the real lowdown about that...._
SECOND CHANCE
By ROBERT HOSKINS
Illustrated by SUMMERS
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories April 1962
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The boy was twelve, and running for dear life. Behind him came the
sounds of half a dozen pursuers, the faintly sticky slap of leather
soles coming down on summer-hot blacktopping and the sharp explosions
of breath let out and sucked back in quickly as out-of-condition bodies
forced muscles angrily beyond normal limits of endurance.
"There goes the little bastard now!"
"Don't let him get away!"
A scant hundred yards separated pursued from pursuers. The boy stopped
at the mouth of an alley, panic stealing logic as he glanced over his
shoulders at the boys coming up quickly behind him. He darted into
the alley, rounded a curve, and realized too late that he was in a
dead-end. Boxes and trash were piled against the wall; a fire-escape
beckoned invitingly just above. He scrabbled up the side of the pile,
then realized his mistake as it began to shift beneath him. He leaped
for the fire-escape ladder, his fingers brushing the lowest rung just
as the pile collapsed, carrying him down and burying him.
"Where the hell is he?"
Hands started pulling at the pile, tearing away debris. The boy bit
down on his lip, and closed his eyes against the inevitable.
"Hey, here he is!"
They grabbed him and pulled him out. A palm slapped across his cheek,
forcing his eyes open.
"Okay, you little sneak. What's the big idea? Why'd you rat to the
Principal?" He shook his head.
"Come on, dammit! Talk! You were talking enough yesterday!"
"Ah, you're wasting your breath. Come on, let's do what we came to do
and get it over with."
"Okay, if that's the way you want it."
* * * * *
Johnson winced, as the first of the blows fell. The picture on the
screen seemed far away, but the memory of physical pain was suddenly
freshened. As hands and feet lashed out, repeatedly, raining down a
storm of punishment on the quivering mass of flesh in the center of the
picture, once-tortured nerves twinged in sympathy.
"Brutal little monsters, aren't they?" said Cavendish.
"I got back at them," said Johnson. "Every last one of them. I was the
last kid they beat up."
"Mmmm. Still, that didn't change the fact that you had already received
a nasty beating yourself. No matter how sweet revenge, wouldn't it have
been sweeter to have avoided the beating altogether?"
Johnson massaged his crippled hand as he watched the tortured boy make
a break away from his tormentors. A foot shot out, and the boy went
sprawling. His chin hit the pavement; only the adult saw the biggest
of the tormentors bring booted foot down on pathetic fingers. The foot
twisted, and the man looked away.
"Shut it off!" he shouted.
"Certainly." Cavendish reached out and the screen went dead. Getting
up, he went to the bar in the corner of the room and returned with a
tumbler half-full of amber liquid. "Here, you need this."
Johnson tossed off the drink, gasping as the liquor burned its way down
to his stomach. "Ahhhh!" He wiped his mouth on the back of his good
hand.
"What do you think of my little machine, Mr. Johnson?" Cavendish
settled himself behind a cluttered desk, hands folded over his paunch,
looking extremely satisfied with himself. Pointed mustache and faintly
slanted eyes heightened the effect of a cat with a stolen canary.
"Your gadget is effective," admitted Johnson. "Just how powerful is it?"
"Fifty years seems the limit it can probe. I've tried increasing the
power, but beyond fifty years things quickly fade away into a gray fog.
That's why I wanted to see you so urgently. Another few weeks, and this
particular event in your life will be irrevocably lost." He glanced at
the crippled hand. "Considering the direct consequences, I thought it
would be a good place to start."
"Assuming that I want to have anything to do with this at all."
"Of course," said Cavendish, blandly. "Everything is always an
assumption."
"Your machine. It can actually send me back through time?"
"In effect, yes."
"I don't believe it."
"I think you do, Mr. Johnson. You want to believe it, therefore you do
believe it. A man like yourself, aware of missed opportunities...."
"I haven't missed many chances in my day," said Johnson. "If I had, I'd
never have become what I am today."
"Rich."
"I'd rather call it powerful."
"As you like." Cavendish shrugged. "After all, what is money but
power? With it, you have the power to do things, make a living, run
a business, increase your standing in the community. Without it....
Everything becomes negative. You have the power to die, but nothing
more."
"You need money, too."
"Of course. I've never denied it. Science has never been a particularly
profitable field of endeavor--at least, not on my level. For you,
science has made money. For me, it merely uses it."
"You want money from me."
"Naturally. You have enough for both of us."
* * * * *
"But why me?" asked Johnson, suspiciously. "Why not someone else? There
are other men as wealthy or wealthier than I--Reading, Blackwell,
Morgenstern, just to name three in this very city."
"Yes, I considered them--all of them, and many others besides. It
really made no difference which one I finally selected. I chose you,
Mr. Johnson, for just one reason--the scene just witnessed."
"All right. You've aroused my interest. Now tell me just how your time
machine can help me."
Cavendish winced. "Please, Mr. Johnson, I do not have a time machine."
"You just said you can send me back through time."
"In effect, Sir; in effect. Physically, no. My machine--temporal
transgressor I call it, for want of a better term--my machine has the
faculty of liberating a certain part of the human id, the conscience,
the soul, if you please, and casting it adrift on the broad temporal
stream. A strong will can direct this liberated 'something' against the
general drift of the temporal stream, forcing it backwards against the
natural current. Back through time, as it were."
"And just how does this help me?"
"From the limited experiments I have been able to perform with
available funds, I have found that, shall we say from now on, for
simplicity's sake, the Id, tends to gravitate to early versions of
itself. Apparently there is some sort of force that binds the Id with
itself. At moments of crisis, this force is strongest."
"And you want me to be a guinea pig for your experiments."
"Crudely put, Sir."
"But the truth."
Cavendish shrugged. "Consider the benefits to be reaped."
"As yet, I have seen none," said Johnson, bluntly. "Suppose you
enlighten me some more."
"Opportunities...."
"We covered that before."
"But have we? Consider, Sir; you are wealthy, powerful, in spite of
your, ah, handicap." He glanced away as Johnson inspected his hand.
"Just think what might have happened had you not been injured? Who can
say what new avenues might be opened to you?"
"How much?"
"Then you'll do it?" asked Cavendish, eagerly.
"Perhaps. How much do you need?"
"I have my equipment all ready. But I need a great deal of power to
operate it. You are one of the directors of Public Power; I need your
signature on releases for the necessary leads and, of course, the power
itself."
"You shall have them. When can we be ready to operate?"
Cavendish pursed his lips. "With PP technicians running in the new
lines--three days."
"Very well. I'll be back."
* * * * *
T. Arthur Johnson had not, as he had told Cavendish, been a man to
pass up an opportunity. Forty years of fighting and clawing his way up
through the jungle of business competition had sharpened his senses and
heightened his awareness of what one fatal mistake could do.
Still, no man is infallible; all miss out on something, sometime. Some
men go through their entire lives making the wrong decisions; they end
up failures.
T. Arthur Johnson was a qualified success. Qualified, for, although
successful he might be, as a man he was not happy. It is rarely
that the two go hand-in-hand. Happiness and success often seem to
be mutually exclusive goals. Yet contentment is a close cousin of
happiness, and many let themselves be satisfied with second best.
After checking with Cavendish to find out just how much time would have
to be invested in the experiments, Johnson arranged his affairs into
the hands of several trusted managers--trusted because they were owned,
body and soul, by Johnson. On the morning of the third day, as the last
of the Public Power trucks was leaving the warehouse in which Cavendish
had set up his laboratory, Johnson presented himself at the door.
* * * * *
"Ah, Mr. Johnson." His eyes lit up. "Right on time. I suppose you are
as anxious as I to get on with the experiments."
"Time is valuable," said Johnson. "I don't believe in wasting it. Shall
we get on with it?"
"Of course."
The lab seemed little changed from Johnson's earlier visit. An
adjustable lounge chair had been set up near the screen; from it,
lines ran into a panel of equipment that the industrialist found
incomprehensible. At Cavendish's gesture, he sat down and permitted
electrodes to be attached to his head and arms.
"Comfortable, Sir?"
"Quite."
Cavendish adjusted switches; the screen came to life, showing the
earlier scene with the youthful Johnson just beginning his dash into
the alley.
"We regress some twenty-seven hours more," he said. The scene dissolved
and was replaced by one with the boy in a classroom. The clock on the
wall read three-thirty; school had been out some fifteen minutes. Timmy
Johnson placed the last of the erasers in the blackboard trough and
checked the stack of workbooks with his eye, stopping to shift the top
one a quarter of an inch into better alignment.
"We are now approaching the crisis point," said Cavendish. "The
blending of the adult Id with that of the boy will enable you to
control the actions of the boy."
"Get on with it!" said Johnson, impatiently, anxious to have the affair
over with.
"Very well." Cavendish closed several switches and the hum of vast
amounts of power pouring into the little room rose until it set the
hackles of the men's necks rising. Still it rose, until Cavendish
closed one final switch--
* * * * *
"All done, Mrs. Taylor."
"Thank you, Timmy." She glanced up from the stack of papers and smiled
at the boy. "I swear, I don't know what I'd do without you. You're the
best helper I ever had."
Timmy glowed at the praise; he felt the back of his neck warming. It
was fun helping her out, no matter what the other kids said or thought.
He scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the heel of the other one.
"Well, I guess I'd better be getting home, Mrs. Taylor. Mom usually
wants me to run to the store for her after school."
"All right, Timmy. Good night."
"Good night." He lingered in the door for a last smile from the woman,
then ran down the stairs to the lockers on the basement corridors.
He stowed his books in his locker, then twirled the dial on the
combination lock, bought with money saved out of his allowance.
Timmy started towards the exit, when suddenly he heard voices coming
from the boys' shower room.
"Aw, come on, Janie! What's the harm in having a little peek?"
"With your big eyes, Danny Grissome, a lot!"
Raucous laughter. "I guess she told you that time, Danny boy."
"Yeah? Well, I'm gonna see what I came down here to see, whether you
like it or not, Janie. Now come on!"
"No! Keep your dirty hands off me, Danny Grissome!"
Heart pounding in his breast, Timmy edged towards the door of the
shower room. From the voices, he knew there were at least half a dozen
boys inside. The door was slightly ajar; the school was supposed to be
empty, so the boys had been careless. Placing his eye to the crack,
Timmy tried to make out what was going on, but his field of vision was
too limited. All he could get were vague impressions of bodies moving
back and forth.
Frustrated, he leaned his weight against the door. Suddenly it swung
in, and he fell after it.
"Hey, who's that?"
Rough hands pulled him to his feet.
"Ahh, it's Teacher's Pet Johnson. What are you doing here, stupid?"
Timmy panicked. "I saw what you were doing!" he piped. His voice was
shrill with fear. "I'm going to--"
Something clicked.
"Yeah?" demanded Danny. "What are you going to do shrimp?"
"I...."
Timmy shook his head; his eyes took on a faraway expression.
"Hey, what's the matter with you, shrimp? Wake up."
Something clicked again, and the adult Id settled into control of
the youthful body. T. Arthur Johnson looked out on the situation
confronting Timmy Johnson and came to a decision. It was not the
decision the boy had--would--make of his own volition. But, then,
the adult Johnson had one important advantage over his juvenile
counterpart--he knew the certain and distasteful consequences of the
boy's activities.
"Well?" demanded Danny. "Get with it, kid. What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to tell Mr. Arkins--unless you let me watch too!"
* * * * *
"How's your hand?" asked Cavendish, as he unsnapped the electrodes.
"Hand?" Johnson looked at first one then the other. "What about my
hand?"
Cavendish looked, then shook his head, puzzled. "That's funny. Now
where did I get the idea that something was wrong with your hand?"
"I'm sure I don't know," said Johnson, getting up and stretching. He
felt tired, more tired than he could remember having been in a long
time. The feeling had become alien to the desk-bound man, but it was
simply physical exhaustion. He yawned. "How about a drink?"
"Of course." He retreated to the little bar and came back with a
generous slug in the usual water tumbler. Johnson tossed it off,
sighed, and wiped his mouth.
"Well?" demanded Cavendish.
"Well, what?"
"Don't keep me in suspense!" begged the little man. "What was it like?"
Johnson considered. "Nostalgic, I suppose. Everyone would like
another chance to revisit his childhood. You've proven that your time
ma--Pardon me. Your temporal transgressor, works. But as to your idea
that events can be changed--well, consider me from Missouri."
"But the machine does work," insisted Cavendish.
"I've already said that," said Johnson, irritated with the little man.
Cavendish seemed much more pushy than he had at their first meeting.
Johnson had never cared for that type of person, perhaps recognizing
too much of himself reflected in the other personality.
"The next part should be simple, then," said Cavendish. "All we have
to do is find a suitable crisis point in your life, and send you back.
Once you have changed it--made a different decision--then you'll see."
"Perhaps," said Johnson, a strong doubt in the back of his mind. "Have
you picked out such a suitable crisis?"
"I think so." He turned to the screen, and began adjusting the dials.
Gray fog swirled mistily across the face of the tube, resolving
momentarily into brief scenes as the scientist searched for something
in particular. At last he grunted in satisfaction, and straightened up.
"Here we are." He sharpened the focus, and it became Johnson's turn to
grunt in surprise.
"Damn you!"
* * * * *
The scene was dimly-lit, obviously happening late at night. Two youths
in their late teens were busy at the rear door of a service station,
while another kept peering around the corner, keeping an anxious eye
out for passers-by. At last the lock of the door gave way to their
efforts, and all three slipped inside. Cavendish turned a dial and the
picture followed the actors into the interior of the station.
One of the figures produced a pencil flash; by its thin beam, they
made their way past a store-room piled high with cases of motor oil
and transmission fluid and into the garage part of the station. One of
the figures stopped by a stack of tires and a heated argument broke
out, soundless though it seemed to the watchers in the future. At last,
one prevailed over the other and they continued their search of the
station, stopping at last by the register. One of the boys punched it
open, and scooped up a small handful of bills, only to have disgust
register on his face when they turned out to be all singles.
In the meantime, one of the other boys was forcing the coin box on the
cigarette machine. He scooped silver into his pockets, then turned to
the soft drink machine at its side.
Sudden light glared into the station, blinding the boys. They stopped
dead in their tracks, as they tried to shield their eyes from the
glare. Then, panic-stricken, they broke for the rear and the door they
had forced to gain entrance. The figures were lost for a moment, but
soon reappeared, shepherded none too gently by several men in blue. The
station's own lights came on.
Cavendish suddenly felt pity for the aged man and switched off the
picture. Without asking, he refilled Johnson's glass.
"No one ever knew about that," said Johnson, softly.
"Your family did a good job of hushing it up," agreed Cavendish.
"We served our time, though--nine months in that stinking county jail,
after time off for good behavior." He shuddered. Across two-thirds of a
lifetime, the memory was still painful.
"It kept you out of the service, didn't it?"
"Yes. My folks always claimed I spent the time bumming around the
country. They said ill health kept me out of the Army. People never
believed them, though. They seemed to know better."
"Definitely a crisis in your life?"
"Most definitely," agreed Johnson.
"Then if I send you back to the time when you and your companions were
planning this adventure, and you succeed in talking your younger self
out of it, you'll be convinced that what I say is true?"
"Yes, that'll do it."
"Good! Events can be altered; time is not immutable!" The little man's
eyes gleamed fanatically; Johnson for the first time debated the wisdom
of letting himself be strapped in under his care. But Cavendish was
already adjusting the electrodes; he finished, and turned on the power
source.
"I'll send you back to that afternoon," he said. "The three of you are
gathered in the back room of Cook's News Shop."
"I remember," said Johnson.
* * * * *
"Hi, Danny."
"Hi," said the leader of the three, looking up. "What do you want,
Janie?"
"Oh, nothing," said the girl, tossing her pony tail back over her
shoulder. "But I'll settle for a coke."
"Be my guest," said Danny Grissome, digging a dime from his pocket.
"But be a doll and drink it at the counter, hey?"
"What's the matter? My company not good enough for the big shots?" She
sniffed, but accepted the dime.
"Your company's fine," said Grissome. "But we're busy----man-type busy.
So later, hey? Later."
The boys watched her flounce sensuously through the archway separating
the back room from the front section of the store, and knew as they
watched that she was fully aware of their eyes on her. Danny's tongue
darted over his lips; he sighed.
"Man, I gotta get me some more of that. But not now. We got things to
talk about now. Important things, right, Art?"
Johnson tore his eyes from the girl. "Uh, yeah, Danny. Sure. Anything
you say."
"That's right. Anything I say. And don't you creeps ever forget it."
"So who's arguing?"
"Nobody, Flip--not yet. But I got me a feeling all of us in our little
group aren't happy. Right, Art?"
"I didn't say that," protested Johnson.
"That's what it sounded like to me."
"So excuse me for living." He shrugged. "All I said was that I don't go
for that kind of jazz. It spells trouble, big trouble. C--O--P trouble."
"Ahhh, you're a real nervous nellie, Art. I tell you, this place is
a leadpipe cinch. He leaves the money in a register my baby brother
could walk off with, and the lock on that back door is made out of
bubble-gum. Now all we gotta do is wait till about midnight, after
the patrol car swings through. It doesn't come back again for forty
minutes, and that's more than enough time for what we want to do. What
do you say?"
"I don't like it."
"You don't have to like it. Just do it. Now, what do you say?"
"Well, okay."
"Good!" Danny settled back and slapped the table. "It's settled, then.
Flip picks us up here at eleven thirty and we drive over to Blandina
and park behind the billboard on the vacant lot the next block down.
Now don't either one of you creeps go fouling up this deal."
"What's to foul?" said Flip.
"Yeah, you're right. What's to foul?" He slapped the table again. "Hey,
who wants a coke? I'll buy." He leaned around the corner of the booth
and whistled. "Hey, Janie! Fun time! Tell Sandy to fix us three cokes
and come on out and join the party!"
* * * * *
Art Johnson rounded the corner and approached the coke shop, hands
sweaty in anticipation of what was going to happen within the next
hour. He wished there was some way for him to back out of the situation
and still manage to save face, but it was too late. The pattern was
set, and events would ride out to their inevitable climax.
Then--
Something clicked.
The youth paused in midstride and nearly stumbled. His eyes took on a
faraway look. A boy and girl came out of the shop arm-in-arm and nearly
walked into him.
"Hey, stupid! Watch where you're going."
"Sorry," he muttered, shaking his head.
"Some people," said the boy, "live in a fog." The girl giggled, and Art
pushed his way into the packed interior of the shop.
"Hey, man!"
Danny was holding a booth open. Art pushed his way through the crowd
and slid in beside him.
"You're late," said Danny. "What happened?"
"The old lady stayed up to watch the eleven o'clock news. I had to wait
until she was in bed."
"Well, it's a good thing you made it. We were about ready to take off
without you. Come on, Flip; let's move out."
"Just a minute, Danny."
"Yeah?" The boy paused, half-risen out of his seat. After staring at
Johnson's face, he sat back down again. "What is it, Art boy?"
"The deal's off. I'm cutting out."
"What?" He shook his head in disbelief. "You crazy man?"
"No. That's why I'm cutting out." He sighed. "I didn't like this deal
from the word go. You knew that."
"Yeah. But I never thought you'd go chicken on us, Art boy. Not on old
Danny. That's me, remember? Danny Grissome. What I say, goes. Anything
I say goes. Right, Flip?"
"Right, Danny."
"Right, Art boy?"
"Not right, Danny," said Johnson, softly.
"You mean it. You really mean it!" He shook his head, sadly. "What's
the world coming to?"
"No good end, most likely," said Johnson. "But I don't intend to mess
myself up any sooner than I absolutely have to."
"I dunno." Danny shook his head again. "You don't talk like the
same Art boy I know. Hey, is that you, hiding inside that mess of
goody-goody talk, Art baby? Come on out and join the party."
"No go, Danny." Johnson shook his head. "If I'm not the same Art boy,
it's because I finally woke up."
* * * * *
"How did it go?" asked Cavendish, as he unclipped the electrodes.
"Go?" Johnson shrugged, then stretched and yawned widely. "I guess it
went all right. I haven't seen Danny or Flip for forty years. Wonder
what ever happened to them?"
"Ended up in jail, most likely. But what about the crisis? Did you
succeed in avoiding it?"
"Crisis?" Johnson peered at him through narrowed lids. "Are you daft,
man? What crisis could there possible be in a bunch of kids getting
together in a corner sweet shop?"
"But...." Cavendish shook his head. "Things did change!"
"What changed? Name me one concrete thing that's different than it
used to be."
"I...." He shook his head. "I can't."
"Of course you can't. And for the very simple reason that nothing did
change. I'm still the same man I always was. And you'd better start
coming up with some concrete benefits from this gadget of yours. You
know I put myself into hock to raise the money you needed--I told my
wife I was adding another franchise to my line. If she finds out her
jewels were hocked for me to play around with a time machine, instead
of a new line of cars, she'll flip. So how about it, Cavendish? Some
concrete results next time."
Cavendish went to the bar and returned with a generous slug of whisky.
"What's this?" said Johnson.
"Why, your drink."
"Drink?" He snorted. "You know I don't drink, man. Have you gone
completely daft? I haven't touched alcohol since I was a youngster."
Cavendish seemed near tears. He drank the whisky himself, then turned
back to the machine.
"What are you up to now?"
"I'm looking for a suitable crisis point." The screen wavered, then
filled with a group of men in uniform--heavy winter garb. They were
clustered around a small fire in a cave; one seemed to be heating
coffee in a tin can. Johnson sucked in his breath.
"You know what is going to happen?"
"Yes, dammit! You're a devil!"
"Perhaps." He sighed. "I sometimes wonder.... But no matter." He
adjusted the picture, and events flowed forward a few hours. The
soldiers were now at the base of a snow-covered hill. Above them, gaunt
and bare, the timber-line beckoned with obscenely stretching limbs.
Suddenly a flare shot up from someplace to the right of the little
band. Its eerie glare picked out unexpected shadows among the trees
above. One of the soldiers, facing the prospect of near and immediate
personal death for the first time in his life, panicked and began
spraying the tree-line with his grease gun. Branches and splinters of
wood kicked out, until the Sergeant reached out and slapped the gun
from the boy's arms.
* * * * *
The men waited until an unheard signal sounded; then the Sergeant waved
them on up the hill. Slowly, cautiously at first, they made progress
through the protecting trees. But then they reached the timber-line
and froze. Cursing, the Sergeant moved from man to man, shoving them
out of the false protection. At last he came to the boy who had fired
earlier. Just as the older man placed his hand on the boy's shoulder,
the boy twisted and broke away, running madly down the hill....
"That's enough, damn you!"
Cavendish turned off the picture and came back to Johnson's side. "They
court-martialed you, didn't they?"
"You know they did," he said, dully.
"You were unlucky, that's all. Many a soldier spooks his first time
under fire. A lot of them run away."
"How many of them run right into the arms of their Commanding General?"
"Unlucky," said Cavendish.
"They kicked me out," said Johnson, bitterly. "A dishonorable
discharge--'cowardice in the face of enemy action'. Said I was lucky I
didn't face the firing squad."
"Officers are human, too," said Cavendish. "In times of stress, they
tend to panic."
"They were 'making an example of me'," said Johnson. He laughed, a
humorless sound that grated on the ears. "Some example. It took me
twenty years to live it down."
"But people do forget, eventually."
"Not all of them."
"Shall we get on with it?"
"Of course, man. This is what I have been waiting for!" His words were
sharp and impatient.
* * * * *
"Hey, Art! Got a butt?"
"Yeah, sure." Art Johnson scrabbled around inside his jacket and came
out with a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He passed them over.
"Thanks, buddy. God, but it's cold here!" He stripped off one glove and
warmed the palm of his hand over the glowing coal of the cigarette.
"Now I know what they mean when they call a place Godforsaken."
"Ease off there, you two!" Sergeant Stebbins glowered their way. "You
want every chink in Korea to hear you?"
"Sorry, Sarge," muttered the cigarette-bummer. He dropped his voice
to a whisper. "Hey, Artie! I hear some of the guys in Fox company are
making book on how many of us live through the day."
"Yeah?" Johnson shook his head. "Some characters'll bet on their own
mother's funeral."
"Or their own." The boy giggled. "Wouldn't it be funny if the winners
couldn't collect because they were all dead?"
"A real scream," said Johnson, sourly. "Look, let's change the subject,
huh?"
The boy shrugged. "Sure, Art. Anything you say."
They lapsed into silence, and Art Johnson considered the improbable
amount of circumstances that had brought him to the base of this
numbered but nameless hill half across the world from home. There was
nothing of home here, and he felt the lack mightily. There was a very
good chance that before another few hours had passed, he would be dead.
And then he would never see home again.
He shivered. The thought frightened him. He didn't want to die. Not
that he supposed any of the other men wanted to die either. But they
were remote, other beings, alien in Art Johnson's world. What they felt
he could not guess; what he felt he knew.
_And he did not want to die!_
"Hey, Art!"
"Uh, what is it, Tooey?"
"Chinks, I think. Up there in the trees. God, they're sneaking down!"
"Where? Dammit, where?" He thumbed the safety of his grease gun, and
brought it up to bear on the trees. His fingers tightened around the
stock; the trigger started to depress--
Then--
Something clicked.
"Jesus, Artie, they're coming!"
Art Johnson's eyes took on a faraway look. His fingers loosened their
death grip on the gun. He shook his head.
"_Artie!_"
"Shut up, Tooey!" Reaching out, he slapped the boy's face. "You're
imagining things."
"But they're up there, Artie!" whimpered the boy.
"Sure they're up there. But not where you think they are. They're dug
in, in the caves. And it's going to be up to us to dig them out. Now
snap out of it!"
* * * * *
Suddenly a flare shot up from somewhere to their right. It whistled,
then popped, the white light hurting their night-adjusted eyes. A
moment later, Stebbins whistled and the men started moving up the hill.
They paused at the timber-line, and Stebbins cursed, moving from man
to man and urging him out of the false protection of the trees and
onto the broad expanse of boulder-pocked snow. Above them, another
two hundred yards, black dots against the snow showed where the caves
were waiting for them. Johnson could visualize the little slant-eyed
men within. He flopped to his belly and wriggled forward. Suddenly he
stood up and dashed twenty yards, then flopped again as bullets whined
through the space occupied by his body bare instants earlier.
He lay there, face pressed into the snow, until the muscles of his legs
started tensing of their own accord. Then he was up again, and running
for dear life.
Gun fire was bursting all around now, a seemingly solid screen of lead
pouring down from the caves. But the men were getting through the
barrier; one slammed into the rock wall beside a cave mouth and started
unlimbering grenades, tossing them in as quickly as he could pull the
pins. Seconds later a vast tongue of fire roared out, melting the snow
and scorching the barren earth beneath.
The fire probed down the hill as the side around the cave shook and
roared. The fire reached and passed over Art Johnson, lying in the
snow, fingers digging at the rock beneath.
By its orange light, the spreading circle of red around the soldier
blended into the artificial coloring of the snow.
* * * * *
"Just think of it!" Cavendish pounded his hand on the desk. "The
chance to go back and correct our mistakes, live our lives over again.
The opportunities missed, the chances passed up, the decisions made
wrong--all can be changed."
The man in the chair swirled the dregs of the whisky in the bottom of
the glass. "Go on, Cavendish," he said. "You're keeping my interest."
Cavendish flushed. "Thank you, Mr. Blackwell. I knew a man of your
position would not pass up an opportunity like this. Why, this is
another chance to make the world! A second chance!"
THE END
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