The Big Time, Fritz Leiber [book recommendations website TXT] 📗

German to understand that last crack. He threw back his sable-edged pelisse to clear his sword arm and he swung away from Erich, which bumped him into Beau. At the first sign of the quarrel, Beau had raised himself from the divan as quickly and silently as a⁠—no, I won’t use that word⁠—and slithered over to them.

“Sirs, you forget yourselves,” he said sharply, off balance, supporting himself on the New Boy’s upraised arm. “This is Sidney Lessingham’s Place of Entertainment and Recuperation. There are ladies⁠—”

With a contemptuous snarl, the New Boy shoved him off and snatched with his bare hand for his saber. Beau reeled against the divan, it caught him in the shins and he fell toward the Maintainers. Sid whisked them out of the way as if they were a couple of beach radios⁠—simply nothing in the Place is nailed down⁠—and had them back on the coffee table before Beau hit the floor. Meanwhile, Erich had his saber out and had parried the New Boy’s first wild slash and lunged in return, and I heard the scream of steel and the rutch of his boot on the diamond-studded pavement.

Beau rolled over and came up pulling from the ruffles of his shirt bosom a derringer I knew was some other weapon in disguise⁠—a stun gun or even an Atropos. Besides scaring me damp for Erich and everybody, that brought me up short: us Entertainers’ nerves must be getting as naked as the Soldiers’, probably starting when the Spiders canceled all cosmic leaves twenty sleeps back.

Sid shot Beau his look of command, rapped out, “I’ll handle this, you whoreson firebrand,” and turned to the Minor Maintainer. I noticed that the telltale on the Major was glowing a reassuring red again, and I found a moment to thank Mamma Devi that the Door was shut.

Maud was jumping up and down, cheering I don’t know which⁠—nor did she, I bet⁠—and the New Girl was white and I saw that the sabers were working more businesslike. Erich’s flicked, flicked, flicked again and came away from the blond lad’s cheek spilling a couple of red drops. The blond lad lunged fiercely, Erich jumped back, and the next moment they were both floating helplessly in the air, twisting like they had cramps.

I realized quick enough that Sid had shut off gravity in the Door and Stores sectors of the Place, leaving the rest of us firm on our feet in the Refresher and Surgery sectors. The Place has sectional gravity to suit our Extraterrestrial buddies⁠—those crazy E.T.s sometimes come whooping in for recuperation in very mixed batches.

From his central position, Sid called out, kindly enough but taking no nonsense, “All right, lads, you’ve had your fun. Now sheathe those swords.”

For a second or so, the two black hussars drifted and contorted. Erich laughed harshly and neatly obeyed⁠—the commandant is used to free fall. The blond lad stopped writhing, hesitated while he glared upside down at Erich and managed to get his saber into its scabbard, although he turned a slow somersault doing it. Then Sid switched on their gravity, slow enough so they wouldn’t get sprained landing.

Erich laughed, lightly this time, and stepped out briskly toward us. He stopped to clap the New Boy firmly on the shoulder and look him in the face.

“So, now you get a good scar,” he said.

The other didn’t pull away, but he didn’t look up and Erich came on. Sid was hurrying toward the New Boy, and as he passed Erich, he wagged a finger at him and gayly said, “You rogue.” Next thing I was giving Erich my “Man, you’re home” hug and he was kissing me and cracking my ribs and saying, “Liebchen! Doppchen!”⁠—which was fine with me because I do love him and I’m a good lover and as much a Doubleganger as he is.

We had just pulled back from each other to get a breath⁠—his blue eyes looked so sweet in his worn face⁠—when there was a thud behind us. With the snapping of the tension, Doc had fallen off his bar stool and his top hat was over his eyes. As we turned to chuckle at him, Maud squeaked and we saw that the Roman had walked straight up against the Void and was marching along there steadily without gaining a foot, like it does happen, his black uniform melting into that inside-your-head gray.

Maud and Beau rushed over to fish him back, which can be tricky. The thin gambler was all courtly efficiency again. Sid supervised from a distance.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked Erich.

He shrugged. “Overdue for Change Shock. And he was nearest the stun guns. His horse almost threw him. Mein Gott, you should have seen Saint Petersburg, Liebchen: the Nevsky Prospekt, the canals flying by like reception carpets of blue sky, a cavalry troop in blue and gold that blundered across our escape, fine women in furs and ostrich plumes, a monk with a big tripod and his head under a hood⁠—it gave me the horrors seeing all those Zombies flashing past and staring at me in that sick unawakened way they have, and knowing that some of them, say the photographer, might be Snakes.”

Our side in the Change War is the Spiders, the other side is the Snakes, though all of us⁠—Spiders and Snakes alike⁠—are Doublegangers and Demons too, because we’re cut out of our lifelines in the cosmos. Your lifeline is all of you from birth to death. We’re Doublegangers because we can operate both in the cosmos and outside of it, and Demons because we act reasonably alive while doing so⁠—which the Ghosts don’t. Entertainers and Soldiers are all Demon-Doublegangers, whichever side they’re on⁠—though they say the Snake Places are simply ghastly. Zombies are dead people whose lifelines lie in the so-called past.

“What were you doing in Saint Petersburg before the ambush?” I asked Erich. “That is, if you can talk about it.”

“Why not? We were kidnapping the infant Einstein back