Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: The Eyes Have It by McKimmey James Orban Paul Illustrator
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 120 lines and 6082 words, and 3 pages
"My hobby," Heidel said. "I would like to add that not only do I collect these small arms, but I am very adept at using them. Something I will demonstrate to you very shortly," he added, grinning.
"Say now," nodded Meehan.
"That should be jolly," Forbes said, laughing courteously.
"I believe it will at that," Heidel said. "Now if you will notice, gentlemen," he said touching the clip ejector of the pistol and watching the black magazine slip out into his other hand. "I have but five cartridges in the clip. Just five. You see?"
They all bent forward, blinking.
"Good," said Heidel, shoving the clip back into the grip of the gun. He couldn't keep his lips from curling in his excitement, but his hands were as steady as though his nerves had turned to ice.
The five men leaned back in their chairs.
"Now then, Meehan," he said to the man at the opposite end of the table. "Would you mind moving over to your left, so that the end of the table is clear?"
"Oh?" said Meehan. "Yes, of course." He grinned at the others, and there was a ripple of amusement as Meehan slid his chair to the left.
"Yes," said Heidel. "All pretty foolish-looking, perhaps. But it won't be in a few minutes when I discover the bastard of a Martian who's in this group, I'll tell you that!" His voice rose and rang in the room, and he brought the glistening pistol down with a crack against the table.
There was dead silence and Heidel found his smile again. "All right, now I'll explain a bit further. Before Dr. Kingly, the head of our laboratory, died a few days ago, he made a very peculiar discovery. As you know, there has been no evidence to indicate that the Martian is any different, physically, from the Earthman. Not until Dr. Kingly made his discovery, that is."
Heidel looked from face to face. "This is how it happened," he went on. "Dr. Kingly ..."
He paused and glanced about in false surprise. "I beg your pardon, gentlemen. We might as well be enjoying our wine. Excellent port. Very old, I believe. Shall we?" he asked, raising his glass.
Five other glasses shimmered in the candlelight.
"Let us, ah, toast success to the unveiling of the rotten Martian who sits among us, shall we?" Heidel's smile glinted and he drank a quarter of his glass.
The five glasses tipped and were returned to the table. Again there was silence as the men waited.
"To get back," Heidel said, listening with excitement to his own voice. "Dr. Kingly, in the process of an autopsy on a derelict Martian, made a rather startling discovery ..."
"I beg your pardon," Forbes said. "Did you say autopsy?"
"Yes," said Heidel. "We've done this frequently. Not according to base orders, you understand." He winked. "But a little infraction now and then is necessary."
"I see," said Forbes. "I just didn't know about that."
"No, you didn't, did you?" said Heidel, looking at Forbes closely. "At any rate, Dr. Kingly had developed in his work a preserving solution which he used in such instances, thereby prolonging the time for examination of the cadaver, without experiencing deterioration of the tissues. This solution was merely injected into the blood stream, and ..."
"Sorry again, sir," Forbes said. "But you said blood stream?"
"Yes," Heidel nodded. "This had to be done before the cadaver was a cadaver, you see?"
"I think so, yes," said Forbes, leaning back again. "Murdered the bastard for an autopsy, what?"
Heidel's fingers closed around the pistol. "I don't like that, Forbes."
"Terribly sorry, sir."
"To get on," Heidel said finally, his voice a cutting sound. "Dr. Kingly had injected his solution and then ... Well, at any rate, when he returned to his laboratory, it was night. His laboratory was black as pitch--I'm trying to paint the picture for you, gentlemen--and the cadaver was stretched out on a table, you see. And before Dr. Kingly switched on the lights, he saw the eyes of this dead Martian glowing in the dark like a pair of hot coals."
"Weird," said Sadler, unblinking.
"Ghostly," said Clarke.
"The important thing," Heidel said curtly, "is that Dr. Kingly discovered the difference, then, between the Martian and the Earthman. The difference is the eyes. The solution, you see, had reacted chemically to the membranes of the eyeballs, so that as it happened they lit up like electric lights. I won't go into what Dr. Kingly found further, when he dissected the eyeballs. Let it suffice to say, the Martian eyeball is a physical element entirely different from our own--at least from those of five of us, I should say."
He picked up the pistol from the table. "As I told you, gentlemen, I am quite versatile with this weapon. I am a dead shot, in other words. And I am going to demonstrate it to you." He glanced from face to face.
"You will notice that since Mr. Meehan has moved, I have a clear field across the table. I don't believe a little lead in the woodwork will mar the room too much, would you say, Forbes?"
Forbes sat very still. "No, I shouldn't think so, sir."
"Good. Because I am going to snuff out each of the four candles in the center of this table by shooting the wick away. You follow me, gentlemen? Locke? Meehan? Sadler?"
Heads nodded.
"Then perhaps you are already ahead of me. When the last candle is extinguished, we will have darkness, you see. And then I think we'll find our Martian rat. Because, as a matter of fact," Heidel lolled his words, "I have taken the privilege of adding to the wine we have been drinking Dr. Kingly's preserving solution. Non-tasteful, non-harmful. Except, that is, to one man in this room."
Heidel motioned his gun. "And God rest the bastard's soul, because if you will remember, I have five bullets in the chamber of this pistol. Four for the candles and one for the brain of the sonofabitch whose eyes light up when the last candle goes out."
There was a steady deadly silence while the flames of the candles licked at the still air.
"I think, however," Heidel said, savoring the moment, "that we should have one final toast before we proceed." He lifted his glass. "May the receiver of the fifth bullet go straight to hell. I phrase that literally, gentlemen," he said, laughing. "Drink up!"
The glasses were drained and placed again on the table.
"Watch carefully," Heidel said and lifted the pistol. He aimed at the first candle. The trigger was taut against his finger, the explosion loud in the room.
"One," said Heidel.
He aimed again. The explosion.
"Two," he said. "Rather good, eh?"
"Oh, yes," Sadler said.
"Quite," said Forbes.
"Again," said Heidel. A third shot echoed.
"Now," he said, pointing the muzzle at the last candle. "I would say this is it, wouldn't you, gentlemen? And as soon as this one goes, I'm afraid one of us is going to find a bullet right between his goddam sparkling eyes. Are you ready?"
He squinted one eye and looked down the sights. He squeezed the trigger, the room echoed and there was blackness. Heidel held his pistol poised over the table.
Silence.
"Well," said Forbes finally. "There you have it. Surprise, what?"
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page