Before They Were Giants

Before They Were Giants Read Free Page B

Book: Before They Were Giants Read Free
Author: James L. Sutter
Tags: Science-Fiction, Anthologies, made by MadMaxAU
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Knuckles white, he hauled out a flat, shiny black case about four inches by two. His eyes never left Callahan’s as he opened it and held it up so that we could all see the gleaming hypodermic. It didn’t look like it had ever been used; he must have just stolen it.
     
    He held it up to the light for a moment, looking up his bare, unmarked arm at it, and then he whirled and flung it case and all into the giant fireplace. Almost as it shattered he sent a cellophane bag of white powder after it, and the powder burned green while the sudden stillness hung in the air. The guy with the eyes looked oddly stricken in some interior way, and he sat absolutely rigid in his seat.
     
    And Callahan was around the bar in an instant, handing the Janssen kid a beer that grew out of his fist and roaring, “Welcome home, Tommy!” and no one in the place was very startled to realize that only Callahan of all of us knew the kid’s first name.
     
    We all sort of swarmed around then and swatted the kid on the arm some and he even cried a little until we poured some beer over his head and pretty soon it began to look like the night was going to get merry again after all.
     
    And that’s when the guy with the eyes stood up, and everybody in the joint shut up and turned to look at him. That sounds melodramatic, but it’s the effect he had on us. When he moved, he was the center of attention. He was tall, unreasonably tall, near seven foot, and I’ll never know why we hadn’t all noticed him right off. He was dressed in a black suit that fit worse than a Joliet Special, and his shoes didn’t look right either. After a moment you realized that he had the left shoe on the right foot, and vice-versa, but it didn’t surprise you. He was thin and deeply tanned and his mouth was twisted up tight but mostly he was eyes, and I still dream of those eyes and wake up sweating now and again. They were like windows into hell, the very personal and private hell of a man faced with a dilemma he cannot resolve. They did not blink, not once.
     
    He shambled to the bar, and something was wrong with his walk, too, like he was walking sideways on the wall with magnetic shoes and hadn’t quite caught the knack yet. He took ten new singles out of his jacket pocket - which struck me as an odd place to keep cash - and laid them on the bar.
     
    ~ * ~
     
    Callahan seemed to come back from a far place, and hustled around behind the bar again. He looked the stranger up and down and then placed ten shot glasses on the counter. He filled each with rye and stood back silently, running a big red hand through his thinning hair and regarding the stranger with clinical interest.
     
    The dark giant tossed off the first shot, shuffled to the chalk line, and said in oddly-accented English, “To my profession,” and hurled the glass into the fireplace.
     
    Then he walked back to the bar and repeated the entire procedure. Ten times.
     
    By the last glass, brick was chipping in the fireplace.
     
    When the last, “To my profession,” echoed in empty air; he turned and faced us. He waited, tensely, for question or challenge. There was none. He half turned away, paused, then swung back and took a couple of deep breaths. When he spoke his voice made you hurt to hear it.
     
    “My profession, gentlemen,” he said with that funny accent I couldn’t place, “is that of advance scout. For a race whose home is many light-years from here. Many, many light-years from here.” He paused, looking for our reactions.
     
    Well, I thought, ten whiskeys and he’s a Martian. Indeed. Pleased to meet you, I’m Popeye the Sailor. I guess it was pretty obvious we were all thinking the same way, because he looked tired and said, “it would take far more ethanol than that to befuddle me, gentlemen.” Nobody said a word to that, and he turned to Callahan. “You know I am not intoxicated,” he stated.
     
    Callahan considered him professionally and said finally, “Nope. You’re

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