Shock Treatment
By Stanley Mullen
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of ScienceFiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
In Venusport, on payday-night, it is difficult to tell for certain wherethe town leaves off and the pink elephants begin. It is difficult totell about other things, too. Spud Newlin had heard that a man couldsometimes get rich overnight just tending bar on such occasions, and hewas putting the rumor to the test. Not many bartenders had lasted longenough to find out.
The night had had a good start. Clock hands over the bar in theSpacebell registered 1:18 Venus-time, and considering, things werealmost dull at the moment. The place had been jumping earlier, buthilarity had worn itself out, the dead had been removed and excitementdulled. No relatives or widows of the dead sportsmen had yet appeared;all corpses-elect had died clean, with the minimum of messy violenceand, surprisingly, only three more or less innocent bystanders had beenburned down in the proceedings. After shattering uproar, such calm wasdisturbing. Newlin was actually getting bored. Then she came in—andhe was no longer bored. But, perversely, he resented the surge ofinterest that ran through him at sight of this out-of-place girl.
At a casual glance, she might seem ordinary, but Newlin was neversuperficial. Her kind of beauty was something to be sensed, notcatalogued. It was part of the odd grace of movement, of the fine,angular features, of the curious emotion which dwelt upon them, sad andsubdued. Even her costume was as out of place in the Spacebell as hermood; the dress was simply cut and expensive, but drab for the time andplace. It clung about a slight, well-formed body in smoothly curvedlines that seemed almost a part of her. Only her hands and eyes showednervous tension.
At first he thought her eyes were cold, but it was something racialrather than personal. He noticed that they were large and luminous—likemoonstones—with a pearly opaque glimmer as if only upper layers coloredand reflected light. In their depths was an odd effect, like metalflakesdrifting through ribboned moonlight with abysses of deepest shadowbeyond. There was pain, trouble, and sadness in them, and behind that,fear—a desperate fear. You thought of wailing, haunted moonlight, andof dreadful things fled from in dreams.
Newlin's first thought was that she was one of the new-made widows, andwas likely to be all too human about it. Later, when he had begun todoubt that she was all-human, her physical charms still went inside himand turned like a dull knife. He was no more immune to animal attractionthan the next man, but in this particular woman there was something elseeven more intriguing and unpredictable. He felt a powerful impulse to dosomething to relieve her of that paralyzing supernatural dread.
A situation pregnant with violence was working up at one of the gamingtables but Newlin wilfully tore his attention from the mounting tensionbetween the fat Martian gambler and an ugly character from Ganymede.
"Anything I can do for you, sister?"
Her smile was strange, thoughtful, preoccupied. "Yes," she told him."There is something you can do for me. Unless your question was purelyprofessional. If so, forget it. I need so