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Read Ebook: The Tantalus Death by Rocklynne Ross Fawcette Gene Illustrator
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Ebook has 237 lines and 9533 words, and 5 pages
"Poor Tantalus," in his expressively expressionless voice. "Poor Tantalus. Many persons of Earth would not like to be Tantalus, thus receive justice reserved for poets."
Olduk walked over to the Speaker and said something to him. The Speaker frowned, and then resignedly signaled an orderly.
"A gallon of water for Mr. Olduk."
The session erupted with a wave of general laughter.
The water was brought. Olduk placed the beaker to his thin lips, tossed the contents off.
He swept the assembly with his eyes.
His left arm--or what appeared to be a left arm, so covered with the cape was it--fumbled at his right wrist.
He said once more, gutturally, "Yes, poor Tantalus."
He stepped down from the rostrum, and with slow dignified step left the conclave room.
The hundred odd members of the Conclave settled back in their seats after Olduk had gone. The session was resumed.
The Speaker, listening to the monotonous reading of a bill, reached absently for the water carafe, tilted it. The water did not pour. The Speaker tilted the carafe further--and further--suddenly the water made its exit.
It fell from the carafe, the entire contents, struck against the glass, knocked the glass over, bounced off the table into the air, and thence to the floor.
There the water, a half-gallon of it, tightly rolled into a neat, compact sphere, bounced up and down several times, and then subsided on the floor as clear and flawless as crystal glass.
The Speaker stared at it.
The members of the conclave stared at it.
The Speaker turned to the gaping orderly.
"That's a glass ball," he said harshly, accusingly.
"No, it isn't," the orderly chattered. "That's water! I filled the carafe with water."
The Speaker looked at it again, and then walked to the sphere, the Conclave watching him in fascination.
The Speaker scooped up the ball in two hands. Then he tried to drop it. He couldn't. His fingers seemed curled around the ball, crushed close together. His hands couldn't draw apart.
He tried to shake the sphere away. He tried harder, and then violently, working himself into a sudden frenzy. The sphere of water clung to his hands, and his hands were locked as effectively as if handcuffs had been placed around the wrists. He got control of himself and turned to face the Conclave, white-faced.
"It can't be water," he said hoarsely, "but I think it is!"
And looking at the glass ball, he was conscious of a sudden thirst; but he knew he couldn't drink, although he held in his hands four times more water than he needed to quench his thirst.
In the Martian Legation Building, Olduk faced his seven associates.
"It is done," he said, in the Martian dialect of his native state. "The Earthmen have chosen their hell and will soon experience it. You have your tickets? Then go at once."
The youngest of the attaches said pleadingly, "Sir, we can't go and leave you. Who knows how long the Earthmen will hold out?"
"All that will happen will happen to Olduk. Go, before you are refused permission to leave. Tell our people they are to be relentless, until the Earthmen give in. Now go."
The attaches no longer questioned his commands. Olduk was left alone.
The gong sounded on his television screen; Olduk threw the switch. The face of the manager of World Broadcasters appeared.
"You will appear and speak in two minutes," he said. Olduk stood before the television screen, waiting until the proper second. He had planned the time of this speech and the "hell" chosen by Earth would not begin until he was well into it. The Speaker of the Conclave had not yet thirsted. The moment came, and Olduk was introduced briefly, as his image broadcasted.
"Olduk, the Martian ambassador, speaking for his people--"
Olduk said gutturally, "Olduk greets you, people of Earth, and regrets that he cannot drink with you.
"All read story of Tantalus, people of Earth. An old Grecian myth it is, come true. Interesting, see?
"Olduk is sorry. Will you believe Olduk? He is sorry. Olduk says, please do not touch water. Please do not touch water...."
The diving champion of the world puffed out his chest, feigning complete nonchalance as five thousand admiring people looked up at him where he stood as resplendant as an angel on the diving platform.
"Ladeeeeeees and gentlemannnnnnnn!" the loudspeaker blared. "Pedro Morestes, the handsomest man in the world, and the most perfect physical specimen by the Olivar Test, is about to break the world's diving record of all time. Four hundred feet lie between him and the glistening surface of this world-famed pool!
"Watch him, hold your breath, ladees and gentleman, there he goooooooosssss--"
Pedro Morestes ran with light graceful steps toward the end of the diving board. The board flung him upward, and he seemed to stop for an infinitesimal second, poised like a bird, with the pool far below, and gasping people staring upward.
One of those people watching had his wrist radio tuned to World Broadcasters.
"Please," said Olduk's clearly audible radio voice, "do not touch water. If things strange happen to water, do not touch, please?"
Pedro Morestes began his dazzling drop downward, twisting, twining, going through all the intricate convolutions that four hundred feet would allow him.
Now! A loop, a twist, straighten out for the last fifty feet, cut the water as clean as an arrow cutting the air.
Pedro Morestes eyes popped. A hoarse scream escaped his lips.
Where was the flat surface that should receive him?
Where were the little wavelets that usually betokened the presence of water?
Why did the entire pool bulge up in the middle, and drop at the sides?
Pedro Morestes screamed, squirmed, twisted, came down with a bone crushing shock on the bulging surface, his posterior foremost.
He bounced upward for fifty feet, fell again, bounced again, fell, bounced, fell--and was locked, flat on his back, by an invisible vise that not only held him rigid, but threatened to crush him from all sides.
The crowd stared in pure fright. The pool of water had become--a hemisphere of glass? And Pedro Morestes, world's diving champion, lay atop that gleaming sphere, ribs and one leg broken, unable to move a muscle....
"Damn that kid," said Sam, throwing his newspaper to the floor.
"I wanna drink," wailed the damned kid, from the bedroom.
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