Islands in the Sky Page 3

  “Two!” counted Argyle. “You’re splendid today, Archbold!”

  “I’m beginning to get the idea,” Peyton snarled at his opponent. “Maybe I won’t be so easy from now on.”

  Archbold struck.

  “Three!” Argyle counted automatically, and then said hurriedly, “No! What’s the idea, Archbold? Don’t let him beat you!”

  Peyton had interposed his shield, caught Archbold’s blade within inches of his welted cheek and struck in return. The blow made a ringing sound on the mail of Archbold’s right biceps. Before the gladiator could whip his sword back, Peyton dashed the metal shield-face hard against Archbold’s visored head. Back jerked the helmet and Archbold’s sword flew from his hand.

  Peyton dropped his own weapons, struck with both fists, swore as his knuckles bruised on the armor. Archbold tried to club him with the shield edge, but Peyton slipped in close, caught the gladiator around the waist. With a quick twist of his heel behind Archbold’s calf, he threw the gladiator heavily.

  “Get them apart!” called someone shrilly.

  But Peyton had already torn the visor up and was smashing Archbold’s distorted features with piston-quick jabs of his right fist. By the time the Airmen had run in and seized him, he had worked both hands up under Archbold’s gorget and fastened on the throat beneath it. Archbold made a gobbling sound, then no sound at all came from his prostrate figure.

  Dragging with all their strength, the Airmen tore Peyton clear. The tall, armored figure of Archbold lay silent where it had fallen. Willie, the Negro, picked it up and propped it against the wall.

  “Bring water,” he said anxiously. “Mister Archbold’s bad hurt.”

  The gladiator recovered slowly. His first wild glance was full of terror.

  “Keep him away!” he mumbled hoarsely. “He’ll kill me!”

  “He ought to kill you,” growled Argyle. “Get that armor off, Archbold, and go back to your delivery truck. You’re through.”

  The policeman moved purposefully toward Peyton.

  “Shall I take this man now, General?”

  “You will not!” snapped Argyle pettishly. “Take your orders back to Headquarters and say that General Argyle countermands them. This man Peyton’s pure poison, and he won’t be sent away to rot. I’m going to make a star gladiator out of him!”

  IV

  A LITTLE room off the gymnasium was fitted with a cot, a surgical chair, shelves of instruments and medical supplies. Peyton leaned against the wall, his pale face counterfeiting boredom as the Negro put neat stitches across a gash in his ribs. Gramp sat in a corner, watching.

  “I still don’t remember getting that cut,” said Peyton.

  “Mister Archbold flung his sword and the back was sharp,” explained the Negro. “You’re lucky you finished him so quick, Mister Blackie.”

  “Drop the ‘mister.’ I’m just Blackie Peyton. I always try to finish them quick. What did that fool Argyle mean when he said he’d make a star gladiator out of me?”

  “He meant business, and he’s no fool. General Argyle is lots of things, but you’d never call him a fool.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” seconded Gramp. “He’s foolish like an old gray wolf. They say he may be the boss Airman some day; instead of only over New York. Blackie, I never seen anybody as good at assault and battery as you. You’ll make a great gladiator.”

  “What did you say your name was?” Peyton asked the Negro.

  “Willie Burgoyne.”

  “You ought to be a good gladiator yourself, Willie. You’re quite a hunk of man.”

  For the first time Willie Burgoyne’s sepia face did not look gentle.

  “General Argyle started to train me, but I said I wouldn’t fight any man unless I was mad at him.”

  It sounded strange to Peyton. He mused while Willie put some adhesive over the wound. A gladiator could be famous, popular. It might be a step toward the Flying Island, where he had made up his mind to go.

  “I feel different,” he said. “I’ll fight anybody who craves action. But this Argyle acts like he’s used to being obeyed. What happened when you gave him that argument?”

  “He slung me into a show, with a grass skirt and a spear, to fight a lion.” Gramp whistled. “I seen it from the public bleachers. Argyle was only circus chief then, ranking colonel. He was fixing for you to be killed, eh? But you killed the lion instead.”

  “Yes,” Willie admitted modestly. “Since then they’ve used me against a lot of animals, but no men. I stick to that. Stand easy, Mister Blackie. You’ll be all right in a few days.”

  Peyton wriggled gingerly into his shirt.

  “Cut out the ‘mister.’ Gramp, you didn’t tell me everything. You didn’t say much about the Airmen, and nothing at all about the circus.”

  Gramp had found some medicinal liquor in a bottle. He poured drinks into three beakers.

  “Drink up,” he invited. “Blackie, the circus is rough stuff. Man against man, man against beast, single or in gangs. Lots of blood, plenty of deaths. Nothing like when you were a kid—box-fights, wrestling matches.”

  “It may be like this,” put in Willie’s soft voice. “Things don’t always please folks. They crave action. Maybe they get it by watching circus fighters.”

  “Sure,” agreed Peyton. “That was the Roman idea. Bread and circuses when the people got jumpy or questioning. Sounds as if the Airmen had trouble with the ground people and had to give ’em shows to sweeten ’em up.”

  “If General Argyle heard you talk like that—” began Gramp.

  “You call Argyle a general, but I heard about somebody called Marshal Torridge,” said Peyton.

  “He’s the boss Airman, never comes down off that Flying Island. There’s lots of generals—one, I guess, for every city. Every Airman, as soon as he’s born, ranks a captain. He grows up and he’s a major or a colonel. Military rule.”

  ONCE more the Flying Island soared into Peyton’s mind. “This Flying Island their home?” he asked.

  “Headquarters,” Gramp replied, “the place that keeps watch over the world. Most of the Airmen are governing the cities, the way I hear it. Don’t ask me any more of what goes on up on the Flying Island. Airmen don’t confide in me.”

  “They don’t confide in anybody,” added Willie. “All we folks on the ground do is obey orders, give them what they need to live like kings, salute them when they notice us. You make ’em mad, Mister Blackie, when you don’t do that.” He looked grim. “Takes a lot of salutes to satisfy twenty thousand Airmen.”

  Peyton stopped knotting his necktie. “Twenty thousand?” he repeated. “There must be millions of ordinary people in this town, and millions more in the others. That’s enough to swallow twenty thousand for breakfast and stop all the salutes and circuses.”

  “Not when the twenty thousand have all the guns and planes,” Gramp reminded him.

  The door opened before Peyton could think of a reply. General Argyle came in. The blonde girl looked over his shoulder.

  “How is he?” Argyle asked Willie. The great black body straightened. A broad hand flashed upward in salute. “He’ll be well in a week, General.”

  “Ready for circus after next,” decided Argyle. “Come along, Peyton. There’s a tailor waiting to see you.”

  “Tailor?” echoed Peyton, not understanding.

  He followed the general to another room and understood still less as a deft, soft man measured him quickly and promised delivery by nightfall of several suits of clothes.

  “What is this?” Peyton protested to the general. “I didn’t order any clothes and I haven’t much money.”

  “Leave that to me,” Argyle told him. “I can’t have you looking like a tramp.” He was the man who had sent away a policeman pursuing Peyton, who would give him work, clothes, money and fame, might even get him to the Flying Island, yet Peyton could not like him.

  “What do you care how I look?” Peyton challenged bluntly.

  Argyle said nothing.
The girl smiled tigerishly and went to a radio that was set flush in the wall, like a safe. She twisted a dial.

  “It’s all over town, folks,” a newscasting voice snapped, “the treat that’s coming when General Argyle celebrates his New York promotion at the circus next week! Seems lie’s been training a surprise scrapper in secret. Blackie Peyton’s the name, and they say you’ll all be knowing it. In a private tryout, he mopped up ‘Slasher’ Archbold, put him clear out of the circus business—”

  She turned it off. “You’re a celebrity now, Blackie,” she said.

  He nodded dumbly. They were giving him a build-up, but could he make good on it?

  “Publicity’s already started,” General Argyle amplified. “You’ve got to be seen in public, too. I’m taking you out tonight when your new clothes arrive—you and Thora here.”

  “You?”

  Peyton turned and looked at the blonde. She smiled.

  “Certainly. I’m here to help make you a public personality. I used to be seen with Archbold and did him justice. Now I’ll be seen with you. Strictly business.”

  “What else would it be but strictly business?” Argyle demanded.

  An inverted smile crinkled Peyton’s rocklike face.

  “Sure, what else?” he agreed coldly.

  THE pleasure garden called Brockenburg’s was not greatly different from the night clubs of twenty years before. Its vogue was in great part due to its recapturing of an archaic flavor. Tables and chairs had silver-surfaced legs of iron, seats and tops of red and green enamel. There was a bar of imitation mahogany, behind which stood bartenders in old-fashioned white coats, with hair clipped close to their temples and slicked down on top.

  Behind the bar was a mirror, against which stood shelves and shelves of bottles. The bottles and the imitation beer pumps, however, were only for show. Drinks, as ordered, were whipped along on conveyor belts just under the bar.

  In a cleared space among the tables cavorted a dancing chorus of girls. A singer heartily bawled out a rendition of “Begin the Beguine,” one of the best of the old songs. Its pumped-up avowals of passion were hailed as screamingly funny by the audience.

  At a choice table, near the music and the entertainment, sat General Argyle, resplendent in a white-and-gold uniform. He wore a monocle and a platinum bracelet. Numerous persons, city-dwellers in evening attire and lesser Airmen in uniform, came to pay him flattering court.

  “Meet Blackie Peyton,” he kept saying, gesturing toward his companion, a heavy-jawed, pallid man in beautifully fitting dinner clothes of midnight blue. “Greatest natural killer in history. See him week after next at the circus. He’ll dazzle you.”

  Peyton greeted stranger after stranger with his best pretense of cordiality.

  “Glad to meet you. Thanks for coming over.”

  Thora, the blonde, smiled above a fan of blue spun glass during a visitorless interlude.

  “I must say that you act quite like a gentleman, after all,” she told Peyton.

  “I was always a good actor,” he replied, “but don’t be deceived.

  She seemed to like that.

  The singer and the dancers made their exit. Music began—drums and wooden pipes that squealed like captive elephants. A door opened and great green shapes came springing through. Peyton stared, half-fascinated and disgusted.

  “Those are frogs,” Thora informed him, as if reading his mind.

  “They’re as big as men!” he protested.

  “Yes, and almost as smart. Scientists—Airmen have endowed plenty of them—did it with natural selection, growth rays, environment. Quite successful.”

  A trainer appeared, cracking a whip. The frogs hopped over each other, wrestled clumsily, finally croaked out a semi-tuneful chorus of “Oh, Susanna.” Peyton scowled, revolted by all this trouble to furnish trick animals, when real tobacco and coffee were not to be had. Well, he reflected, entertainment was something the Airmen insisted on. Grim entertainment was furnishing him with a living, keeping him out of police hands, might elevate him at last to the Flying Island. Meanwhile, Thora sat beside him.

  “How about a flight over the city?” Argyle asked them.

  Thora smiled politely. Peyton nodded, trying to disguise his thrilled anticipation.

  LEAVING Brockenburg’s, they walked through gravel-pathed shrubbery to a landing field surfaced in concrete. From a cubicle hangar, attendants pushed a plane. It was a winged torpedo, no more than twelve feet long and three in diameter. Two seats rode midway in the metal fusilage, one up by the controls.

  “I’ll be operating,” Argyle informed Peyton and Thora as he arranged a dome of glass to cover them. “I must order you to keep your eyes on the view. It’s interesting. Besides, only Airmen are to have anything to do with aircraft operation. Is that clear, Peyton?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Argyle went to his controls. The atomic motor hissed gently. They soared upward like a skyward shell. The full moon had suddenly come up. They rose as if to meet it.

  Below them, the city of New York resembled a single, rambling house with many lean-tos, annexes and ells. In the upper levels it was partially open here and there, revealing bits of travelways and squares. Lighted ports and windows showed on the outer walls. The parks of the vast roof gleamed with many jewel lights. It was so beautiful and bewildering that Peyton despaired of ever coming to know the complexity of New York.

  Washed by the moonglow stretched flat plains, mostly under cultivation, dotted here and there with sheds and houses. Rivers of silver—the Hudson and the East—wound in and out under the city’s mighty foundations. Most distantly, closing in around the cultivated ground, were dark fluffs of woodland. Somewhere to the north would be the ruins of the town Peyton had come from, the dust of all the people he had known and cared for . . .

  Well, he had one friend, Gramp Hooker. He had asked General Argyle to give Gramp a job as gladiator’s helper. There was Willie, too. Peyton liked the Negro, who was so gentle, yet so self-assured, who would be the best helper and most dangerous adversary he could think of. And there was Thora.

  “Aren’t you thrilled?” she asked.

  He smiled. His mouth-corners turned up this time, made his face look cheerful and quite young.

  “I’m bored stiff,” he said.

  They both laughed. General Argyle heard them above the softly hissing motor, and turned to study them in unsympathetic wonder.

  V

  GRAMP and Willie were helping Peyton into his gladiator’s costume in a small dressing room just inside the performers’ passage to the circus stadium. Through the closed door resounded a muffled commotion of voices, scuffling feet and band music.

  “Show’s about to begin,” announced Gramp, giving the gilt sandals on the table a final rub. “Say, Blackie, I don’t know whether or not I ought to thank you for giving me a job as your dresser. Before that I got five hundred a day, charity, just for being too old to work.”

  “Are you?” asked Peyton. To Willie he said, “This red sash makes me feel like Lord Fauntleroy.”

  “It looks good, Mister Blackie, and you don’t fence like Lord Fauntleroy. You gave me a real workout yesterday.”

  “Drop the ‘mister,’ I’ve told you that a hundred times! Gramp, what did you do before you grizzled up?”

  Gramp brought him the sandals.

  “I was an Airman. Yep, I mean that. One of the old-fashioned kind. Act in the First World War, instructor at Montreal in the Second. Too old, of course, for the Third, or I might be one of the high monkey-monks up there on the Flying Island. As I stand, I’m just eighty-two and I don’t feel a day over eighty-one.”

  “Eighty-two,” repeated Willie. His manganese-colored palms smoothed the fine chain mail shirt on Peyton’s chest and shoulders, passed gently over the bandaged side. “Weren’t you kind of young for the First World War, Mister Gramp?”

  “Don’t you ‘mister’ me, neither. Yep, I was young, but I went. They took ’em young for the Air Force
then. Stick up your foot, Blackie. How do these sandals look?”

  Peyton gazed into a full-length mirror as Willie set a plumed helmet on his head and draped a flame-hued mantle on his back and over one arm. His bare legs were cross-gartered and a jeweled belt clasped his narrow waist. His pale skin, where it showed, had been skillfully stained a healthy brown.

  “What a male Lucille!” he commented sourly.

  “Not fighting clothes exactly,” Willie agreed in his gentle voice as he donned his own more serviceable breastplate and strapped a sheathed sword at his left hip. “But you’re just going to be in the parade to get introduced for next time. Be sure to watch my act. They’ve got some kind of novelty animal for me to fight. Wonder what it could be?” Over his naked shoulder he swung a quiver of arrows and reached for a long hickory bow in a corner.

  “I’ll watch,” promised Peyton. “After the introduction, I sit in the general’s box with Thora and some other silky people.”

  “Yah!” jeered Gramp. “I was in the Roof Park and I spotted you riding around with that Thora girl. If I was younger by about thirty years, I’d gnaw under you and get her away.”

  His grizzled beard bunched with a teasing grin.

  “It’s all business,” Peyton said. “She keeps saying so herself.”

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “Three minutes, gentlemen! Parade now forming!”

  WILLIE and Peyton emerged side by side. Just within the great, curtained doorway to the arena, the performers were being marshalled. At the crisp order of an Airman overseer, Willie fell in beside a towering blond gladiator in a cloak fringed with lion’s fur. Others formed up behind them. Dancing girls, laughing and fussing with their flowing costumes, formed a graceful cloud. There were tractor-drawn cages full of beasts.

  “Up here, Peyton!” called the overseer.

  The attendants led forward a giant elephant with shining trappings. Peyton climbed up a ladder to a howdah.

  The music blared louder, the curtains twitched away, and applause shook the noonday sky as the parade swung into the open. Peyton found the swaying elephant ride pleasant; he looked at the far-reaching slopes of the stadium, upon which fully three-hundred thousand were crowded. The faces he could make out looked rapt, greedy for excitement. Around the lower rim, behind barred parapets, sat the rich of New York, including many Airmen. He spotted General Argyle, Thora and the others in a choice box. They applauded him as the elephant lumbered past.