His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

"Close it," said Kay, dashing down the stairs to kick the gun away from the hand of the "Basque," wounded but not yet dead. She finished him for the moment with a kick to the side of his head.

Ballister and Bazasch tore after her, the door bolted as securely as it could be.

Kay inspected the tower of machinery, marvelling. "Don't ask me," she finally griped. "I agree with my ignorant colleague. Whatever it is, it drinks lots of juice and it looks like a concrete mixer."

Ballister picked up the gun. It was a hefty hand-weapon, a wide-gage projector of lead slugs that mushroomed effectively. "What do we do now?" he asked weakly. "That individual sent in an alarm, to be sure, before he even drew."

"Take a good look," said Kay. She indicated the man on the concrete flooring. "Isn't the face familiar?"

"There's a swell resemblance to that old rascal, Sir Mallory Gaffney. You mean it?"

"Nothing but that. What's it signify?"

"You have me there. What is it, Hoe?"

"It is the besiegers—can be no others. They come!"

There was the clump of boots outside, up the stairs.

Ballister slipped Bazasch the gun: "Can you hold them, Hoe? Hold them by yourself? Because we're going to be busy down here. Will you?"

The Basque took the gun, sighted along its barrel for a moment before slowly replying: "They must have killed my whole family, which I disgraced by becoming sheep-thief. I will no longer disgrace."

"Good man," gasped Ballister, holding his wounded shoulder. "Go get

'em!"

The little man scrambled up the stairs, chose a shallow niche. A big grin spread over his face as he raised his gun-muzzle and fired once through the door. He commanded the position completely; while his ammunition lasted—he neatly caught the pouch Kay unhooked from the man and tossed up to him—he was impregnable.

With feverish speed Ballister stripped the man on the flooring. Kay went through the pockets; came up triumphantly with a slim pamphlet.

"In German!" she explained.

"Let me." He took the little book and ruffled through it, then cast a despairing glance at the monstrous mechanism that nearly filled the room. "It's a handbook for this thing—the German for it is duplo-atomic-radexic-multiplic-convertor. What do you suppose that means?

The wiring's beyond me completely. I couldn't repair an electric bell."

She took the thing and unfolded the gatefold wiring-diagram, studied it with wrinkled brows. "Sweet Lord of Creation!" she muttered. "I have to crack this on an empty stomach!" Whipping out a pencil she traced—

tried to trace—the wires and tubes to their source. Finally she snapped:

"There's a switchboard somewhere on the side of the thing. Find it, please."

Ballister hunted, finally climbing the rickety iron ladder that led to the summit of the machine. "Got it!" he said. "And it makes sense!"

"Turn on the power," she called at him.

He threw the switch that seemed appropriate. His reward was a shock that nearly threw him from the structure. But the power went through; tubes lit here and there.

Eagerly Kay hunted in the vitals of the mechanism, comparing it with the diagram. "See a hopper-opening?" she asked.

Jose fired three times in rapid succession, brought four dead "Basques"

tumbling down the stairs. He waved cheerily at Ballister.

"There's a switch for it," he said, throwing it down. A metal shutter opened; its cavernous maw led into blackness. Kay, shuddering a little, peered in. "Ought to light," she said desperately. "There should be a battery of tubes that the raw material—whatever it is—passed under.

Fish for it, will you?"

Ballister stabbed at a switch; gears began to clank like a windmill's crushers. He tried another. "Okay!" yelled the girl. "They light!"

He scrambled down, squatted beside her. She had cast the book aside and was weeping. "Here," she sobbed, "all the power we need, a machine that does something terrible and wonderful to it, and we can't use it! We don't know how!"

Ballister, before replying, administered a mercy-kick to one of the

"Basques" who was trying to reach his gun, wounded as he was. Jose caught the weapon. He was grinning with fiendish delight as he fired another burst through the door.

Ballister and Kay rose. The girl's tears dried on her face as she studied the three new corpses.

"Spitting images," said Ballister, his throat hoarse. This was something uncanny, something that transcended warfare and science. Except for minor details of hair-line and clothes, the four bodies were alike—all the image of Sir Mallory.

"I get it," said the girl briskly. "There was talk of it in a Sunday feature I did. It's the only simple, logical explanation for your city of the future built as if by one man. It was built by one man, and he was Sir Mallory."