Adventure stories; Asteroids -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Space pirates -- Fiction
Guns flared. But the Patrol came on. Gunther's men didn't run, Hathaway
had to credit them on that. They took it, standing.
Hathaway chuckled inside, deep. What a sweet, sweet shot this was.
His camera whirred, clicked and whirred again. Nobody stopped him
from filming it. Everything was too wild, hot and angry. Gunther was
throwing a fit, still seated at his desk, unable to move because of his
fragile, bony legs and their atrophied state.
Some of the Patrol were killed. Hathaway chuckled again as he saw three
of the Patrolmen clutch at their hearts, crumple, lie on the ground and
twitch. God, what photography!
Gunther raged, and swept a small pistol from his linked corselet. He
fired wildly until Hathaway hit him over the head with a paper-weight.
Then Hathaway took a picture of Gunther slumped at his desk, the chaos
taking place immediately outside his window.
The pirates broke and fled, those that were left. A mere handful. And
out of the chaos came Marnagan's voice, "Here!"
* * * * *
One of the Patrolmen stopped firing, and ran toward Click and the
Building. He got inside. "Did you see them run, Click boy? What an
idea. How did we do?"
"Fine, Irish. Fine!"
"So here's Gunther, the spalpeen! Gunther, the little dried up pirate,
eh?" Marnagan whacked Hathaway on the back. "I'll have to hand it to
you, this is the best plan o' battle ever laid out. And proud I was to
fight with such splendid men as these--" He gestured toward the Plaza.
Click laughed with him. "You should be proud. Five hundred Patrolmen
with hair like red banners flying, with thick Irish brogues and broad
shoulders and freckles and blue eyes and a body as tall as your
stories!"
Marnagan roared. "I always said, I said--if ever there could be an
army of Marnagans, we could lick the whole damn uneeverse! Did you
photograph it, Click?"
"I did." Hathaway tapped his camera happily.
"Ah, then, won't that be a scoop for you, boy? Money from the Patrol so
they can use the film as instruction in Classes and money from Cosmic
Films for the news-reel headlines! And what a scene, and what acting!
Five hundred duplicates of Steve Marnagan, broadcast telepathically
into the minds of the pirates, walking across a Plaza, capturing the
whole she-bang! How did you like my death-scenes?"
"You're a ham. And anyway--five hundred duplicates, nothing!" said
Click. He ripped the film-spool from the camera, spread it in the air
to develop, inserted it in the micro-viewer. "Have a look--"
Marnagan looked. "Ah, now. Ah, now," he said over and over. "There's
the Plaza, and there's Gunther's men fighting and then they're turning
and running. And what are they running from? One man! Me. Irish
Marnagan! Walking all by myself across the lawn, paralyzing them. One
against a hundred, and the cowards running from me!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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