Slaves of Sleep Read online

  The puzzle was far too much for him and his tired, event-shocked brain gave it up. In a few moments he was falling steeply into exhausted slumber.

  The thing which happened immediately thereafter was the turning point in the life of Jan Palmer, for one-even beyond the effect of the murder.

  He went to sleep but he didn't go to sleep. He had a sensation of dropping straight down. Heretofore he had been aware, in common with all men, of a delicious period of semi-wakefulness preceding and succeeding slumber. But from that period he had always gone into a deep sleep (so far as he knew) or had come fully awake. Now he felt as though the world had been obscured by a veil which no more than dropped than it was ripped startlingly aside.

  A hail rang hysterically in his ears, "Breakers two points off the sta'b'd b-o-o-o-o-w! B-r-r-reakers two points off the sta'b'd bow! Captain, for the love of God, we're on the rocks!"

  Jan had scarcely lifted his head and felt the spokes of a helm under his fingers and then he was jarred fully awake and almost into sleep again by the most tremendous blow which rocketed him all the way across the quarterdeck, from binnacle to scupper. He brought up against the rail and lifted himself cautiously.

  The quiet vessel was suddenly bedlam. The captain's roars seconding the still braying lookout, the crew spilled helter-skelter from the fo'c's'le, rubbing their eyes, scarcely knowing what they were doing but automatically taking their stations.

  The masts swooped back and forth across the stars as the captain's savage hands spun the helm. The thunder of breakers could be plainly heard now and, lifting himself a little more, Jan beheld their phosphorescent line which swiftly swung parallel with them.

  "Let go the port sheets!" bellowed the captain. "Take in on the sta'b'd main sheet!"

  Canvas cannonaded in the fresh wind and then the deck leaped under them as the billowing white cliff tautened in the gloom. On a close port tack the big vessel picked up a bone and scudded back into the safety of the sea.

  "Make fast!" roared the captain.

  "Lively now," cried a mate somewhere in the waist.

  The ship surged ahead anew as the sails were more precisely trimmed and then one by one, the crew made their ways back to the fo'c's'le and more sleep.

  When all was in order, the captain turned the wheel over to another man and gave him a course and then, with both hands on his hips, he planted his feet solidly on the deck and glared about him.

  "Now! Where's the helmsman?"

  Jan shivered and he had every right. The captain loomed into the stars and the gleam of the binnacle which fell upon his face displayed two glittering fangs. From the flame of his eye and the posture Jan knew that once again, in less than four hours, he had run afoul of an Ifrit.

  He had no slightest inkling of what he was doing there or why and he had no time to consider it.

  Shaking he came upright, holding hard to the rail. "So you're still here," said the captain, advancing. Suddenly his hand shot out and he gripped Jan by the shirt front and shook him clear of the deck, slamming him back to the planking.

  "Asleep! Asleep at the wheel! Why, you ugly pup, I ought to knock every tooth out of your ugly face! I ought to smash your skull like an egg! Do you realize what you did? Has it leaked through your thick skull that you put us miles and miles off our course and almost killed us to a man on the Fraybran shoals? Sleep, will you..." And again he lifted Jan up and threw him down. With the biggest boot Jan had ever seen, the captain kicked him down the ladder and into the waist.

  "Go get the cat, d'ya hear me? Get it and bring it to me!" Jan got up and stumbled along the rail. He was stunned by the treatment no less than his strange position. He knew rightly enough what a cat was, but where he could find one aboard this packet he certainly could not tell. He looked fearfully back at the captain who stood like a tree on the quarterdeck, watching him with piercing eyes.

  The mate, likewise an Ifrit, started to pass him on his way aft and then recognized him. He flung him back against the rail. "So!" roared the mate. "It's Tiger, is it?" And he spun Jan about with a blow. "By the Seven Sisters of Circe, if I don't drown you, the crew will! First it's fight, fight, fight. It's rum and women and battle and now, by God, it's shipwreck you're asking for! Run us on a reef, will you!"

  Jan spun around the other way and went down with the salty taste of his own blood in his mouth. "Sleep at the helm, will you?" And again Jan went down. "I sent him for the cat!" roared the captain. "Get it, then," snarled the mate, his upper and lower fangs coming together with a vicious click. "Get it and be damned to you!"

  Jan despairingly watched him go. A sailor was nearby and Jan started to appeal to him but the fellow stalked away. Stag足gering forward, his head roaring and spinning, Jan almost col足lided with a bosun.

  "Wh... where's the cat?" said Jan through cracked lips. "Get it yourself, you jinx," said the bosun. "Please, I don't know where it's kept?" Something in Jan's tone made the bosun look more closely. He could not see very well through the darkness and he swung a lantern out of its niche and held it to peer into Jan's face. He was evidently perplexed.

  "What's the matter with you? You sick or something?"

  "I... I got to find the cat."

  "Never seen a man so anxious to get a flogging. It's in the gunroom where it's supposed to be." He frowned. "Maybe you oughtn't to get it, Tiger. You look awful."

  Jan stumbled up the deck toward an indicated passageway. He fumbled through the darkness and found a door which he opened. A guttering lamp showed him bracketed muskets, hung in orderly racks, and glittering cutlasses held fanwise in cleats. The "cat" had a dozen tails and it was so heavy with the brass on its ends that Jan could scarcely lift it.

  Bearing his cross, he made his blind way back to the quarterdeck. The captain was still waiting, a tower of smoldering rage. Jan gave up the whip. "Peel off your shirt."

  Jan fumbled with the unaccustomed buttons and finally removed the garment.

  "Lay yourself over the house."

  Jan sprawled against the handrail of the sterncastle house.

  There was no further ceremony to it. The whip sang with all its twelve hungry tails and then bit so savagely that Jan screamed with agony. He whirled around and dropped to his knees.

  "Please God! I don't know why I'm here or even where I am! I didn't go to sleep at the helm. I only woke up there with no knowledge of how I came to be aboard here."

  "What?" The captain was plainly perplexed. He too lifted a lantern from its niche and looked closely at Jan's features.

  "If I didn't hear it, I wouldn't believe it," said the captain. "Tiger, of all men, beggin' for mercy and lying in the bargain."

  "I don't know that name!" wailed Jan. "I don't know any足thing about it!"

  The captain picked off his cap and scratched his pointed head thoughtfully. Then he turned and called, "Mr. Malek!"

  The mate came out of a companionway. "Yessir."

  "Did you or did you not put Tiger on the helm?"

  "Why... ah..."

  "Answer me!"

  "Yes. I did. But he's never done anything like that before, sir. I didn't have any idea..."

  "I'm not blaming you, I'm asking you. Mr. Malek, there's something very wrong here. Either that or Tiger is making a fool of us. He says he doesn't know anything about it. Was he fully awake when he went on watch?"

  "Yessir. That is, he seemed so."

  The captain again raised the lantern and saw that Jan's head was bleeding. "Maybe it's that crack against the rail that did it. Listen here, Tiger, if this is one of your tricks, I'll make a flog足ging feel like a picnic in comparison."

  "I'm not lying!" wailed Jan. "I don't know anything about any of this, honest to God. I've never seen any of you before in my life."

  "Must have been the crack on the head," said the captain. "Go below and I'll look you over."

  Jan hastily scooped up his shirt and ducked down the companionway. A room obviously the captain's stood open on his right and he stumbled in
to it. The height of the ceiling was not as extreme as it really should have been, he thought, and the bed wasn't so much larger than ordinary beds, looking to be only about eight feet long.

  The captain was checking up on the ship before he came below and Jan had a moment or two to catch his breath. For the first time he realized the strangeness of his situation. Certainly it was impossible to board a ship in the open sea and he could not otherwise have arrived there. That he had no recollection whatever of arriving had him half convinced that he wasn't there at all.

  He saw a mirror across the room from him and, with sudden suspicion, approached it. He was jolted so that he took two steps backwards. He recovered himself and peered more closely at his image.

  "Yes, now that he made a closer examination, it was himself. But what a difference there was! He, Jan Palmer, was a thin-faced, anemic fellow, but this brute who was staring back at him was bold of visage, brawny of arm, tall and... yes, he had to admit it, not bad at all to look upon. But the knife scar which ran from the lobe of his ear diagonally to his jawbone... where had that come from? He felt of it and peered more closely at it. He didn't really object to it at all because it didn't mar his looks but, in truth,, rather gave him an air.

  Puzzled, he looked down at himself. His blue pants encased very muscular and shapely legs. His bare chest was matted with blond hair. He looked back at his image as though it might solve the riddle for him.

  "Tiger!" cried a voice in the passageway.

  Jan started and saw that the captain was just then entering. The captain looked shocked.

  "In here? Well, of all the gall... By God, I do believe there's something gone wrong with you. Don't you know enough to wait outside? Come here!"

  Jan obeyed. Roughly the captain forced him down to the bed and inspected his skull with great perplexity. It gave Jan a chance to realize that this Ifrit was, seemingly, a lot smaller than Zongri. Either that or... or he himself was now bigger than he had been.

  "Hell," said the captain, "there isn't even a dent there. Tiger, if you're pulling another one of your tricks..."

  Jan was frightened at the proximity of that awful, fanged face and he drew back.

  The captain once again removed his cap and scratched one of his pointed ears. "And scared, too. I never thought I'd live to see that. Tiger, scared. By God, if this is a game you won't enjoy it."

  "It's no trick," said Jan. "I don't know anything about it."

  "Hmmmmm. It's just, barely possible... See here, give me the straight of this and no lying! What are you up to?"

  Jan spread his hands hopelessly. "I'm not up to anything! One minute I am sleeping in a jail and the next I am leaning on the helm of this ship. How I can tell you when I don't know myself..."

  "Jail? For God's sake, where?"

  "Why, in Seattle, of course."

  "Where?"

  "Seattle, Washington."

  "That's one port I never heard of anyway. Go ahead and talk, Tiger, and make it good. I know you've seen plenty of jails but that particular one has escaped me. Go on. What did you do to get in jail?"

  "I didn't do anything! They thought I'd killed a Professor Frobish that came to see me but I didn't do it. He wanted to open a copper jar and I wouldn't let him so he came back at night and did it anyway. I was asleep in a chair but I woke up too late to stop him. And when the Ifrit came out . . ."

  "Copper jar? Ifrit? Go on!"

  "Well, the Ifrit almost cut him in half with an executioner's sword and then flew away."

  "You're talking about Earth!"

  "Of course."

  "Earth, by all that's . . . See here, what was the name of this Ifrit?"

  "Z . . . let's see ... Zon . . . Zongri. Yes, that was it, Zongri."

  "Zongri! Good God, Tiger, if you're making this up . . ."

  "I'm not!"

  "But Zongri was captured and entombed by Sulayman thou足sands of years ago! I remember hearing about it. He was king of the Barbossi Isles and he refused to change faith with the others." Suddenly he grew very agitated and stalked about the room. Abrupt足ly he again confronted Jan. "See here, did this Zongri say any足thing to you? Did he do anything . . . ?"

  "Yes. He said he was going to sentence me to Eternal Wakefulness . . ."

  "Hush!" said the captain, going swiftly to the port and slam足ming it shut. He closed the door and then came back to the bed with the air of a conspirator. "Zongri said that?"

  "Yes. And then I was arrested and taken to jail because they thought . . ."

  "To Shaitan with that! Oh, the fool, the fool! Eternal Wakefulness!" The captain slammed a fist into his palm with the wish that Zongri was in between. "It's like him. He almost runs my ship on the rocks! He was at the bottom of the war with Sulay足man and all our woes since. And now . . ." He eyed Jan. "Tiger, if you are telling me lies . . ."

  "It's true! I swear it's true."

  "Hmmm. Perhaps. If it weren't for the change in you I wouldn't credit any of it. But you speak so well... Hmmmmm. You swear to this, you say?"

  "Certainly."

  "All right. So be it. Mr. Malek!"

  The mate clattered down the ladder and thrust his head in the door.

  "Mr. Malek, you will take Tiger down to the brig and post a reliable Marid over him. Understand that Tiger is not to talk to anyone, you hear? Absolutely no one! When we get into port we'll find out what to do with him."

  Malek took hold of Jan's collar and jerked him to his feet.

  "Count on me," said Malek. "He won't see a soul."

  "Your head will answer for it if he does."

  "That's all right with me," said Malek, jerking Jan down the passageway and into the bowels of the ship.

  sympathy

  Jan went round and round his small cell like a white rat spinning about a pole. And his head went faster than he. He shook the bars and yelled at the departing mate, but Malek had no fur足ther heed for him. Growing terror caused him to shout at the guard, but the Marid, too, was most indifferent. And so it was that Jan dizzied himself by pacing the walls. He could stand a berating, perhaps, and even face a flogging without really cracking but this situation was the stuff of which madness was made. He had long since ceased to doubt that he was here because, after all, he was here. And what in the name of God did they mean to do with him?

  Again he besought information from the Marid. The guard was small, with a solitary eye in the middle of his head and a twist to his back, garbed in a single cloak. His lack of shoes was backed by ample reason. He had hoofs.

  "Be quiet," said the Marid at last. "Better you sleep." And with that he faced the other way and was wholly deaf.

  At long, long last Jan wearied himself to exhaustion. He sank down on the pile of blankets and buried his face in his arms, striving to gather and tie the loose ends of his nerves.

  His strange position was bad enough, but not even to be himself...! Who and what was this "Tiger"? True he had some slight resemblance to Jan Palmer, but that was not enough. Tiger was known here, known for a bad actor, it seemed. But if Jan Palmer was now Tiger, where was Tiger?

  He could not answer that and the weight of it was the pro足verbial straw. His mind went wholly blank and he lay in apathy.

  Once or twice he reasoned that this was still the jail. But each time he lifted his head to prove it, there was the Marid in all his evil dignity. Yes, and in the damp air was the hissing sound of the clean hull carving through the waves, that and the sing of wind through rigging far, far above.

  This was a sea, an unknown sea. This was a brig of a ship, the like of which had not sailed the seas for a hundred years and more.

  It was too much. And at last Jan dozed, drifting more deeply into slumber.

  To no avail.

  He had no more than shut his eyes when he was startled by the slam of iron-barred doors and the rattle of dishes which immediately followed. Voices were hollow in the concrete hall and Jan sat up. He looked carefully all around him.

  It was no Marid a
t the door but a blue-coated policeman engaged in shoving a tray of food under the door.

  "You gonna sleep forever?" said Diver Mullins, scraping half足heartedly at his lathered face. "Y'rolled and tossed all night long. I hardly got a chance to close m'eyes."

  "I ... I'm sorry," said Jan, blinking at the cell around him and experiencing an uplift of heart. Thankfully he took a deep breath only to choke on the disinfectant in the air. But that hardly lessened his thankfulness.

  It was quite plain to him now that the ship and the Ifrits had been of the substance of nightmares. And, more than that, when he looked in the glass and found that Jan Palmer's sickly visage gazed back at him, he wanted to shout for joy.

  "Geez, for a gent that's about to be stretched," said Diver Mullins, "you sure can put on the happy act."

  "Beg pardon?" said Jan.

  "It ain't right," said Diver petulantly. "You commit a moider after supper and you wake up singin' like a canary bird."

  "Murder?"

  "Don't tell me," said Diver, "that you went and forgot about it."

  Jan groaned and sank back on his bunk. He held his face in his hands to steady himself as the black ink of memory drowned him. Murder. He was in here for murder. An Ifrit named Zongri had killed a man named Frobish and now they were going to hang a hopelessly innocent Palmer for the deed.

  "Now I done it," said Diver. "I'd ruther you'd chirp than beller, my fine-fettered friend. Cheer up. They only hang a man once." So saying he hauled the tray close to him and speared the soggy hotcakes with every evidence of appetite. "C'mon and eat."

  Jan, mechanically ready to obey almost anybody, accordingly hitched a stool up to the table and took the offered plate. He even went so far as to butter the dough blankets and convey a forkful to his mouth. And then he found out what he was doing and gagged. He crawled to his bed and sprawled upon it, face down.

  "They ain't as bad as that," said Diver. "Course, in lotsa jails they serve lots better belly paddin', but my motto is to take what y'can get your hooks into and don't ask too many questions. Nobody never measured me for a noose or even said they was going to, so I ain't had a lot of experience. But, hell, you hadn't ought to let it get you down like that. You get borned and then you live awhile and then somebody knocks you off or you get pneumonia or something and there you are. Now, take me, I don't have the faintest notion of how I'll meet m'Maker. The information ain't to be had. But you, now, that's different. It's all cut and dried and you ain't got to worry about it anymore. So that's that. C'mon and have some hotcakes before they get cold."