People Minus X

by Raymond Z. Gallun

Again he was right. Perched on a ledge made by an irregularity of the wall, Ed waited less than five minutes before Carter Loman jumped up from the bed, cursed, and dashed from the room. Ed's Midas Touch cylinder reddened in his hand as he jetted after him. Of firmer flesh than other men, Loman hurried untiring, even in his massive armor and plastic helmet, down a back stairs, passing a hundred levels.

Then he was in a small, powerful car racing along a civic speedway that Ed remembered well. Clinging to plush that was like a dense forest under him, Ed remained undislodged by the tornadoes of air that came from speed.

Around him passed beauty that he used to know, expanded so enormously that much of the familiar mood of it was lost; and he himself seemed cut off from it, like a ghost coming back. But there was other, perhaps greater beauty, too—closer to the heart of what he was now. There'd been a controlled shower induced by the weather towers. Now the sun shone again, and the air sparkled, not with dust, but with countless tiny droplets of moisture—crystal globes, clear as lenses, but breaking the sunshine into brilliant prismatic hues.

Ed's brief rambling of mind ended when Loman did an odd thing. He stopped in Ed's old neighborhood, after having passed a half-dozen road blocks where uniformed men had entrenched themselves, covering their ugly vehicles with cut branches. Loman had only flashed his Interworld Security badge at each post, to receive respectful permission to go on.

Loman stopped his car abruptly before a house adjacent to Ed's own—one Ed knew well. But Ed had an odd feeling that this was not as strange as it seemed. This suburb, close to the City, harbored many of the noted and notorious. Besides, many recent turbulent events had been centered within these few hundred square miles. And Loman had been in the neighborhood before, in the company of Police Chief Bronson. Also, had there always been something disturbingly familiar about Loman's manner?

Ed tingled at the unraveling of an enigma, as Loman hurried up the walk to the house. Loman found the door locked, but if this annoyed him, it stopped him not at all. An armored shoulder, backed up by the muscles of his kind—their power rarely demonstrated publicly—battered the door to splinters and Loman stepped through.

Ed followed him—as unobtrusive as part of the atmosphere—up a stairway and into a pleasant student room seen in colossal scale.

It was Les Payten's room which had thus been invaded without ceremony. Nor was the intruding colossus the least abashed that the giant Les, somewhat thinned down and pallid after his long convalescence from a visit to Abel Freeman, was present.

Ed saw his old friend's startled expression, then felt the vibration of his words: "Chummy, aren't you, bursting in like this? The police, eh? What have I done? My God, I've seen your picture! You're Loman!"

The other giant's smirk was half gentle, half bullishly humorous. "That's my name—if you prefer," he said. "I've had you watched, Lester Payten, for various reasons. You've been ill. Then why do you stay so close to what may become the battle lines? You're an odd guy, Lester. Too much fear, courage and conscience. Wanting to be a hero, but half a martyr. Recently one of the 'reasonable' kind. Soon there won't be any of those left. Not when a few more see those they love torn open, crisped or perhaps crushed by created things more hideous than Tyrannosaurus Rex. Such facts destroy the folly of thoughtfulness. And, good! For in that way the showdown comes against another kind of slime that desecrates the form of man! You're a mixed-up kid, Lester—maybe even thinking of some old companions. But in your heart you know that you're all human. Me, I'm still sentimental, so I had to come to you at last. You ought to be safe among the asteroids, like your timid mother."