>>> Item number 11074 from WRITERS LOG9304B --- (94 records) ----- <<< Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1993 17:05:02 JST Reply-To: WRITERS Sender: WRITERS From: Mike Barker Subject: SUB:They Don't Write 'em Like This Anymore (Thank Heavens) Dan - I got a frog in my writing, I think. Maybe I should send this to that contest? Or should I continue the thrilling adventures, the corny dialogue, the... (maybe I better just take a powder and lie down before Jewelman catches me. eh, wot, and all that rot!:-) mike ------------------------------------------------- They Don't Write 'em Like This Anymore (Thank Heavens) 722 words The one-man speedster grounded gently in the clearing, and the cockpit opened. Kelly leaped lightly out and down, his grey eyes flashing quickly around the grassy space. He thought rapidly as was his wont of the radio signal he had detected on his lonely patrol of space, the flashing voyage to this planet, and he knew the source must be here. So where were they? Just then, a single native cowered out of the world-covering jungle and collapsed on the ground by his feet. Sve sobbed, "You've come. You have really come." Kelly leaned down and patted the shaking shoulder, then heaved the native to sve's feet. He mentally catalogued the three arms and five legs in one flashing glance. The tremors coursing over the reptilian skin were not missed by his sharp eyes. He growled, "You know of Jewelmen, then?" The native bobbed sve's head, lids sliding momentarily shut across the three gerving sensors, looking like three exclamation marks with the matched snelving holes taking in air below them. Then the lids opened again and Kelly stared into those black sensors of that unknowable sense. The snelving holes whistled, "Sva have heard of you, and sent sva's first spaceboat to try to contact your Intra Spacial Lager. When sva heard no more from it, then the evil one came, and sva sent svar radio message out into the void, svar first and last mayday, in the faint hope that someone might hear it. And you have come!" Kelly felt the Jewel throb, its pearlescent light shimmering even through the heavy leather of his flight suit, at the first mention of the evil one. His sense reeled as he thought of how close this race had come to destruction, how narrow the margin that let him land in time to save some of them. He gasped, "But what does the evil one do here? Why has he come?" The native's gerving sensors shifted, uneasily. Sve whispered, "Sve.. Sve cannot tell you easily. He carries balls and stakes..." Kelly looked at the paling skin and reflected on what kind of torture must lie behind these few halting words. His Jewel warmed as he committed himself once more to utterly destroying evil so that freedom could be found. The native swayed and started to fall, but Kelly's strong right arm caught sve and held sve up. He asked, "What is it?" Sve's sensors turned toward Kelly, and he felt himself being probed by those unknown senses. Sve laughed, "Ah, your nervous system is not as fragile as svars. Good, the evil one's horrible emanation will not harm you as quickly as it does svas. Svar mind and body are not able to stand the clashing, inharmonious vibration he casts off as he tramps to the meeting ground. He has already killed so many, yet he persists." Kelly listened closely, and heard the tramping black leather boots of the evil one crashing through the nearby jungle. He gently lowered the native to the ground and rolled his sleeves up, uncovering the Jewel for instant action. The dreaded cry swept through the clearing, "Something wicket this way comes!" The native expired, a last tortured burbling gasp the only sign of the hideous agony of that death. Kelly staggered back, tripped, and toppled into the cockpit of the speedster. The evil one laughed once, then boomed from the edge of the clearing, "There was a cricket man, who built a cricket house. He played a cricket game..." The voice trailed off, and Kelly leaped to his feet and turned the power of the Jewel on the figure standing there. The evil one breathed, "A Jewelman!" as the eerie glow caught and surrounded him. In a trice, the knickers, knee socks, and dangling wickets glowed and twisted, warping to the shape imposed by the mind behind the Jewel. The evil one looked at the baseball bat and gloves, then at the Red Sox uniform and shrieked, "My dear Jewelman, that's not cricket." Kelly saluted, his Jewel shining, leaped into the speedster, and rose rapidly into the dark of space to continue his patrol. As he rolled his sleeves down again over the bulging muscles, he reflected that at least this time, the wonderful institutions of freedom had won. -------------------------------------------------