FLIGHT 18

                           By PAUL A. TORAK

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                 Thrilling Wonder Stories August 1953.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Mr. Bradbury was angry. Fog or no fog, the airlines should stay on
schedule. Lack of planning, foresight, sense of responsibility--that
was the trouble. He felt like cursing.

"Damn!" said Mr. Bradbury.

But a voice on the public address system announced that Flight Eighteen
for Chicago was ready to leave. He raised his considerable bulk from
the chair in the dimly lit waiting room of the airfield and checked
his watch. No way to run a business. He shook his head and snorted
indignantly.

Such a snort is worthy of note. It was an utterance that could be
made only by a corporation lawyer in the prime of life. It was a
nasal explosion connoting wealth, confidence, and a singular lack of
imagination. It was a snort fed on T-bone steaks, good Scotch whisky,
and bicarbonate of soda.

Mr. Bradbury peered myopically around the waiting room. A few minutes
ago, while washing his face in the men's room, he had broken his
glasses in the wash bowl. Although he hated to admit it to anyone, he
could see next to nothing without those thick lenses. The room was an
unpleasant blur, but he was able to determine that he was the only
would-be passenger in the waiting room. The others were drinking coffee
in the airfield's restaurant.

"Flight Eighteen," said the voice on the speaker. "Flight Eighteen."

Mr. Bradbury shrugged his heavy shoulders, picked up his bag and
briefcase, and stepped out the door into the fog.

The mist hung thick and low over the airfield, cloaking the damp night
air in a morbid blanket of gloom. Mr. Bradbury blinked sullenly into
the shroud-like vapor.

"What the hell!" he swore. Can't even see the plane, and, he thought,
floundering unhappily into a wire gate where in blazes are the rest of
the passengers? Are they going to fly through this stuff?

"This way, sir," said a feminine voice, and he saw a dim, uniformed
figure in front of him.

The hostess. Glad someone knows where he's going, he thought, and then
he followed the girl toward the now visible lights of the plane.

"Watch your step, sir!" she said as he walked up the runway.

He grunted. Making these things steeper all the time, he thought.

The hostess was a pretty dark-eyed young thing, plump in the right sort
of way. Mr. Bradbury leaned back in the soft, cushioned seat. It felt
good.

"Fasten your safety belt, sir." She helped him with it.

"And I do hope you'll be comfortable," she said in a soft, low voice.
He caught the glint of black eyes, jet and sparkling.

He smiled at her appreciatively. "I'm sure I will," he grinned
resisting a sudden impulse to pinch her cheek. The girl walked down the
aisle toward the door again, hips swaying provocatively.

A young blossom ready for the plucking, thought Mr. Bradbury. A
succulent young partridge ready for the--Mr. Bradbury chuckled to
himself happily on thinking of the many women he had known in his fifty
years.

He looked around the plane. No passengers, except for a pleasant
looking young man sitting across the aisle from him, a young man
thoroughly engrossed in a small, paper-bound book, the title of which
Mr. Bradbury could not discern.

He wished he had his glasses, for he was getting a slight headache. The
lawyer leaned back in the soft seat and closed his eyes. Well, headache
or no headache, life was good, and he was glad he was alive. Then Mr.
Bradbury fell asleep.

       *       *       *       *       *

When he awoke the plane was in flight, and looking out the window,
he could see nothing but darkness broken only by an occasional cloud
formation. The man across the aisle was staring into the blackness
outside, the book he had been reading discarded and left lying on the
floor.

Mr. Bradbury stretched himself and looked around him. The plane had
been darkened and apparently only he and the young man were awake. He
yawned. A great conversationalist, Mr. Bradbury craved discourse. But
where was the opening wedge necessary to break the bond of silence
between himself and the other passenger? Then his eyes fell on the book
lying on the floor. He picked it up and held it close so that he could
see.

The title had something to do with "flying saucers" and the cover
illustration, a lurid affair, showed a green-skinned, globe-headed,
tentacled creature equipped with a tiny rocket motor on its back, an
expression of what was supposed to pass for lust in its face. The
thing was carrying away a beautiful, thinly clad earthgirl, her face
contorted with fear. In the background hung a disc-shaped spaceship
hovering over a burning earth city.

"Rubbish!" said Mr. Bradbury in a loud voice so that the young man
across the aisle could hear him.

"I beg your pardon?" asked the other passenger, turning away from the
window, eyebrows raised in question.

"The book you're reading," answered the corporation lawyer. "Rubbish!"

The smooth-faced young man blushed and smiled apologetically. "Well, I
suppose you're right, but it's sort of fun, you know, reading this sort
of thing."

The lawyer chuckled condescendingly and shook his head. He turned the
book over in his hands almost fondly. He wished he had his glasses so
that he could read it.

"It's sort of refreshing, if you know what I mean," continued the man
as if feeling some further defense of his choice in literature were
necessary.

"Rubbish!" chuckled Mr. Bradbury for the third time.

A shadow of annoyance registered on the young man's face.

The lawyer put down the book and extended his hand across the aisle.
"Bradbury is the name," he said. "Represent the Hotchkiss Oil
Industries. Oil is my business!" he added impressively.

The young man hesitated for a moment and then accepted Mr. Bradbury's
hand. The lawyer reflected momentarily that for a frail-looking young
fellow the chap showed an amazing strength in his handshake.

"Tarkas is my name," said Mr. Bradbury's new acquaintance. "Oswald
Tarkas."

"In business, Mr. Tarkas?"

"Well no," laughed Mr. Tarkas nervously, "not exactly. I suppose you
might say that I just sort of putter around. I work for a museum."

Mr. Bradbury frowned. He had never known anyone who just sort of
"puttered around" in museums. He wasn't quite sure that he approved.
Such an occupation seemed vaguely un-American, subversive, although he
couldn't quite say why.

"A museum? What museum?"

Oswald Tarkas hesitated, looked at the floor, and then answered almost
timidly as if he expected some reprimand.

"Well, it's probably not too well known--the Canal City Museum."

"Ummm!" muttered the lawyer. "No, can't say that I've heard of it.
Where is it? New York? San Francisco?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Oswald Tarkas had turned away for a moment and was staring out the
window. The motors of the plane hummed pleasantly giving a sense of
comforting power. The plane's cabin was dark except for the lights over
Mr. Tarkas' and Mr. Bradbury's seats.

"Oh no!" replied Mr. Tarkas. "We do have our branches in those cities,
but it's a bit difficult to pin us down. We're more or less a research
outfit. Sort of an international organization, if you know what I mean."

Mr. Bradbury didn't, but he nodded his head agreeably. "And what do you
do for the museum, Tarkas?" he asked.

"Well, I'm what you might call a collector--of sorts," he added. "Yes,
I sort of collect things in a way--you might say."

The lawyer, a great student of human character noted that his new
acquaintance wore a crew cut. His face was thin and looked clean-cut
except for a slight weakness around the chin.

"Well now, Oswald," he said, "you don't mind my calling you Oswald, do
you? I like to be friendly."

"Not at all," flushed Mr. Tarkas happily. "I like to be friendly too.
When my work permits," he added.

"I have a lot of respect for museums," ventured Mr. Bradbury. He had
never been in a museum. "Cultural institutions, that sort of thing,"
he went on waving his hand. "My company often makes contributions to
worthy institutions. Maybe I can do something for your outfit."

Oswald Tarkas seemed appreciative. "Now that's awfully kind, and, you
know, we accept all contributions gratefully. We take what we can get."

There was an embarrassed pause in the conversation. Then Mr. Bradbury
remembered the book he held in his hand.

"This book!" he said holding it up in his hand. "Nonsense!" he scoffed
shaking his head. "Know what the flying saucers really were?"

"Well--" started Oswald.

"Balloons!"

"Balloons?"

"Weather balloons!" assured Mr. Bradbury emphatically. "Weather
balloons! That's all they were!"

Oswald looked as if he were about to say something, but didn't.

Mr. Bradbury, obviously enjoying himself, drew two expensive cigars
from his coat pocket.

"Have one?" he offered.

Oswald hesitated and then accepted. He put the cigar in his breast
pocket.

"But," stammered Oswald. "What about the witnesses? The National Guard
pilot, the airliner pilots, the army anti-aircraft observers?"

The lawyer drew in the rich tobacco fumes, and tilted his large,
handsome head.

"Hallucinations!" he said. "Mass hysteria!" A smile of amused
indulgence lit his large, florid face. "Oh, oh, what a world of
fantastic notions was begun by that first atomic explosion. Now,
for example, the notion that these so-called "flying saucers" are
extra-terrestrial." Mr. Bradbury waved the very idea away with a
gesture of dismissal. "If there are intelligent beings from another
planet in control of these hypothetical spaceships, why haven't they
contacted us by this time?"

"Well," suggested Mr. Tarkas thoughtfully, "maybe they have their
reasons. Maybe you can't judge the actions of extra-terrestrial beings
by terrestrial standards of conduct."

"And the meteors," continued Mr. Bradbury ignoring Oswald's last
remark. "The meteors make space travel impossible. Do you realize that
every day our atmosphere is burning up thousands of those meteors? Do
you know that just one of those meteors the size of a pea could smash
right through the thickest armored plate and wreck any rocket?"

Something small and glowing smashed into the outside of Mr. Bradbury's
window and ricocheted off into space.

"What was that?" asked Mr. Bradbury half rising from his seat.

"I don't know," answered Oswald. And then he added jokingly, "Maybe it
was a meteor."

The lawyer stared out the window, but still he could see nothing but
blackness. He settled back into his seat again, shrugging his shoulders.

"Well now," he resumed, "as I said. The meteors. Can't escape them."

"But," suggested Mr. Tarkas defensively. "Couldn't the rocket sort
of 'scoot' around them?" He simpered as if embarrassed by such a
ridiculous notion and made a half-hearted gesture with his right hand
that Mr. Bradbury assumed was a "scooting motion."

Mr. Bradbury dismissed this contention with a wave of his cigar.

       *       *       *       *       *

Just then the airliner gave a sickening lurch to the right and
something big and luminous roared past the plane. Mr. Bradbury
bellowed. "Roughest damned trip I've ever had."

"It makes me nervous, too," said Oswald.

"Now another thing," said the lawyer. "This business about men from
Mars."

He looked uneasily out his window.

Oswald smiled. "No truth in it?"

"None! Anyone with even a token knowledge of science knows that the
Earth is the only planet that can support human life."

"But," answered Oswald, "suppose that planets could be inhabited by
something other than human life. Like that thing on the cover there."
He motioned toward the book Mr. Bradbury held.

Mr. Bradbury laughed, about to explode this fallacy with another
barrage of devastating logic. He was interrupted.

"Say, Brad. You don't mind my calling you Brad, do you?"

"Of course not," smiled the lawyer affably.

"You say there's no such thing as flying saucers?"

Mr. Bradbury inhaled from his cigar and shook his head.
"Hallucinations," he said positively.

"You're sure of that?"

"Stake my life on it!"

"Well I'm sure glad of that because for a long time now the damndest
hallucination I've ever seen has been flying alongside of us."

Mr. Bradbury rose from his seat, stepped across the aisle, and looked
out Mr. Tarkas' window. He squinted out into the darkness. It was there
all right. No wings, disc shaped, rows of lighted windows, luminous
vapor emanating from the rear.

[Illustration: He could see the flying disc outside the window.]

"Damn!" exclaimed Mr. Bradbury and pressed the button for the
stewardess.

She came quickly down the darkened aisle.

"Flight Eighteen!" she said blankly. "Flight Eighteen!"

Mr. Bradbury stared.

"Did you ring, sir?" she asked.

"Good Lord yes!" said the lawyer. "Look!" He pointed to the window.

The stewardess, plump and pretty as ever, didn't look, but with amazing
strength pushed him down into his seat.

"This way sir," she said smiling pleasantly.

"What's going on?" roared Mr. Bradbury starting to rise again from his
seat.

"Watch your step, sir," answered the stewardess giving him another
shove. "Fasten your safety belt, sir," she said, and before the lawyer
could protest again, he found himself fastened down in his seat.

"And I do hope you'll be comfortable, sir," she said in a soft, low
voice. He caught the glint of black eyes, jet and sparkling. She
turned, took one step up the aisle and stopped.

"And I do hope you'll be comfortable, sir," she repeated. She stood
there motionless, as if paralyzed in the middle of the aisle.

"And I do hope you'll be comfortable, sir," she said again. "And I do
hope you'll be--"

Mr. Tarkas stifled a yawn, rose from his seat, and stepped over to
the girl. He reached out and twisted her ear. Her voice stopped and
her back slid open like a secret panel, revealing a maze of whirring,
clicking machinery.

"What--what--" stuttered Mr. Bradbury. "She's a--"

"A robot," smiled Oswald Tarkas happily. He turned from his examination
of the defective machinery. "She's not a very good robot. Her vocal
mechanism jams now and then, but she serves the purpose. You'd be
surprised how many of you we catch this way."

       *       *       *       *       *

Then Oswald touched a wall switch. The darkened plane blazed into
light. There were no passengers on the plane other than Oswald, Mr.
Bradbury, and the robot stewardess that stood silently in the aisle.

Mr. Bradbury could still see the flying disc outside the window. Oswald
saw the direction of his glance.

"Friend of mine," he grinned.

The lawyer looked wildly around the empty plane. "Where--where are the
passengers?" he croaked, a numbing suspicion growing in his mind.

"No other passengers," answered Oswald standing there, still smiling.
"You just got in the wrong boat, Brad, old fellow."

The cabin of the airliner was changing. It was beginning to look like
something very unlike an airliner cabin. The seats dissolved into
walls which seemed to expand in the shape of a circular room, a large
disc-shaped compartment lined with machinery, tanks and dials, glass
cages of sleeping terrestrial animals. One large cage was empty. Mr.
Bradbury stared at this unoccupied glass cylinder.

"Yes," grinned Oswald, "for you! But don't worry. Just pass it all off
as a hallucination. Want to see where we are, Sport?"

A panel opened in the floor, and Mr. Bradbury looked out into the black
void of outer space. And there in the center of that panel of darkness
was the planet Earth, a tiny silver ball rapidly diminishing in size.

"What are you?" screamed Mr. Bradbury struggling against the belt that
held him in his seat. "What are you?"

"A collector," said Oswald Tarkas tearing off his head and revealing
underneath the disguise a small globe of bone and flesh, two glowing
eyes, a mouth filled with many white, sharp teeth. "A collector,"
it repeated as the false arms and legs and torso were ripped away
revealing a shapeless green body equipped with spindly tentacles that
waved obscenely at Mr. Bradbury. "Of sorts," it added as it moved
toward the frightened lawyer.

Mr. Bradbury screamed.

"Rubbish," it giggled. "Weather balloons, hallucinations," it chirped
gaily, and writhing, snakelike appendages reached out for the twisting,
screaming hysterical figure of Mr. Bradbury.

And through the empty reaches of the cosmos two tiny discs hurtled
toward Sol's fourth planet.