Author: Frank Belknap Long
Date: 2024-10-29T02:26:50+00:00
Keywords: Short stories; Horror tales; Time travel -- Fiction; Occultism -- Fiction
Description: A collection of short fiction by Frank Belknap Long, ordered by date of original publication.
Publisher: Standard Ebooks

Short Fiction

By Frank Belknap Long.

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The Hounds of Tindalos

I

“I’m glad you came,” said Chalmers. He was sitting by the window and his face was very pale. Two tall candles guttered at his elbow and cast a sickly amber light over his long nose and slightly receding chin. Chalmers would have nothing modern about his apartment. He had the soul of a medieval ascetic, and he preferred illuminated manuscripts to automobiles and leering stone gargoyles to radios and adding-machines.

As I crossed the room to the settee he had cleared for me I glanced at his desk and was surprised to discover that he had been studying the mathematical formulae of a celebrated contemporary physicist, and that he had covered many sheets of thin yellow paper with curious geometric designs.

“Einstein and John Dee are strange bedfellows,” I said as my gaze wandered from his mathematical charts to the sixty or seventy quaint books that comprised his strange little library. Plotinus and Emanuel Moscopulus, St. Thomas Aquinas and Frenicle de Bessy stood elbow to elbow in the somber ebony bookcase, and chairs, table and desk were littered with pamphlets about medieval sorcery and witchcraft and black magic, and all of the valiant glamorous things that the modern world has repudiated.

Chalmers smiled engagingly, and passed me a Russian cigarette on a curiously carved tray. “We are just discovering now,” he said, “that the old alchemists and sorcerers were two-thirds right, and that your modern biologist and materialist is nine-tenths wrong.”

“You have always scoffed at modern science,” I said, a little impatiently.

“Only at scientific dogmatism,” he replied. “I have always been a rebel, a champion of originality and lost causes; that is why I have chosen to repudiate the conclusions of contemporary biologists.”

“And Einstein?” I asked.

“A priest of transcendental mathematics!” he murmured reverently. “A profound mystic and explorer of the great suspected.”

“Then you do not entirely despise science.”

“Of course not,” he affirmed. “I merely distrust the scientific positivism of the past fifty years, the positivism of Haeckel and Darwin and of Mr. Bertrand Russell. I believe that biology has failed pitifully to explain the mystery of man’s origin and destiny.”

“Give them time,” I retorted.

Chalmers’ eyes glowed. “My friend,” he murmured, “your pun is sublime. Give them time. That is precisely what I would do. But your modern biologist scoffs at time. He has the key but he refuses to use it. What do we know of time, really? Einstein believes that it is relative, that it can be interpreted in terms of space, of curved space. But must we stop there? When mathematics fails us can we not advance by—insight?”

“You are treading on dangerous ground,” I replied. “That is a pitfall that your true investigator avoids. That is why modern science has advanced so slowly. It accepts nothing that it can not demonstrate. But you—”

“I would take hashish, opium, all manner of drugs. I would emulate the sages of the East. And then perhaps I would apprehend—”

“What?”

“The fourth dimension.”

“Theosophical rubbish!”

“Perhaps. But I believe that drugs expand human consciousness. William James agreed with me. And I have discovered a new one.”

“A new drug?”

“It was used centuries ago by Chinese alchemists, but it is virtually unknown in the West. Its occult properties are amazing. With its aid and the aid of my mathematical knowledge I believe that I can go back through time.”

“I do not understand.”

“Time is merely our imperfect perception of a new dimension of space. Time and motion are both illusions. Everything that has existed from the beginning of the world exists now. Events that occurred centuries ago on this planet continue to exist in another dimension of space. Events that will occur centuries from now exist already. We can not perceive their existence because we can not enter the dimension of space that contains them. Human beings as we know them are merely fractions, infinitesimally small fractions of one enormous whole. Every human being is linked with all the life that has preceded him on this planet. All of his ancestors are parts of him. Only time separates him from his forebears, and time is an illusion and does not exist.”

“I think I understand,” I murmured.

“It will be sufficient for my purpose if you can form a vague idea of what I wish to achieve. I wish to strip from my eyes the veils of illusion that time has thrown over them, and see the beginning and the end.”

“And you think this new drug will help you?”

“I am sure that it will. And I want you to help me. I intend to take the drug immediately. I can not wait. I must see.” His eyes glittered strangely. “I am going back, back through time.”

He rose and strode to the mantel. When he faced me again he was holding a small square box in the palm of his hand. “I have here five pellets of the drug Liao. It was used by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tze, and while under its influence he visioned Tao. Tao is the most mysterious force in the world; it surrounds and pervades all things; it contains the visible universe and everything that we call reality. He who apprehends the mysteries of Tao sees clearly all that was and will be.”

“Rubbish!” I retorted.

“Tao resembles a great animal, recumbent, motionless, containing in its enormous body all the worlds of our universe, the past, the present and the future. We see portions of this great monster through a slit, which we call time. With the aid of this drug I shall enlarge the slit. I shall behold the great figure of life, the great recumbent beast in its entirety.”

“And what do you wish me to do?”

“Watch, my friend. Watch and take notes. And if I go back too far you must recall me to reality. You can recall me by shaking me violently. If I appear to be suffering acute physical pain you must recall me at once.”

“Chalmers,” I said, “I wish you wouldn’t make this experiment. You are taking dreadful risks. I don’t believe that there is any fourth dimension and I emphatically do not believe in Tao. And I don’t approve of your experimenting with unknown drugs.”

“I know the properties of this drug,” he replied. “I know precisely how it affects the human animal and I know its dangers. The risk does not reside in the drug itself. My only fear is that I may become lost in time. You see, I shall assist the drug. Before I swallow this pellet I shall give my undivided attention to the geometric and algebraic symbols that I have traced on this paper.” He raised the mathematical chart that rested on his knee. “I shall prepare my mind for an excursion into time. I shall approach the fourth dimension with my conscious mind before I take the drug which will enable me to exercise occult powers of perception. Before I enter the dream world of the Eastern mystics I shall acquire all of the mathematical help that modern science can offer. This mathematical knowledge, this conscious approach to an actual apprehension of the fourth dimension of time will supplement the work of the drug. The drug will open up stupendous new vistas—the mathematical preparation will enable me to grasp them intellectually. I have often grasped the fourth dimension in dreams, emotionally, intuitively, but I have never been able to recall, in waking life, the occult splendors that were momentarily revealed to me.

“But with your aid, I believe that I can recall them. You will take down everything that I say while I am under the influence of the drug. No matter how strange or incoherent my speech may become you will omit nothing. When I awake I may be able to supply the key to whatever is mysterious or incredible. I am not sure that I shall succeed, but if I do succeed”—his eyes were strangely luminous—“time will exist for me no longer!”

He sat down abruptly. “I shall make the experiment at once. Please stand over there by the window and watch. Have you a fountain pen?”

I nodded gloomily and removed a pale green Waterman from my upper vest pocket.

“And a pad, Frank?”

I groaned and produced a memorandum book. “I emphatically disapprove of this experiment,” I muttered. “You’re taking a frightful risk.”

“Don’t be an asinine old woman!” he admonished. “Nothing that you can say will induce me to stop now. I entreat you to remain silent while I study these charts.”

He raised the charts and studied them intently. I watched the clock on the mantel as it ticked out the seconds, and a curious dread clutched at my heart so that I choked.

Suddenly the clock stopped ticking, and exactly at that moment Chalmers swallowed the drug.

I rose quickly and moved toward him, but his eyes implored me not to interfere. “The clock has stopped,” he murmured. “The forces that control it approve of my experiment. Time stopped, and I swallowed the drug. I pray God that I shall not lose my way.”

He closed his eyes and leaned back on the sofa. All of the blood had left his face and he was breathing heavily. It was clear that the drug was acting with extraordinary rapidity.

“It is beginning to get dark,” he murmured. “Write that. It is beginning to get dark and the familiar objects in the room are fading out. I can discern them vaguely through my eyelids but they are fading swiftly.”

I shook my pen to make the ink come and wrote rapidly in shorthand as he continued to dictate.

“I am leaving the room. The walls are vanishing and I can no longer see any of the familiar objects. Your face, though, is still visible to me. I hope that you are writing. I think that I am about to make a great leap—a leap through space. Or perhaps it is through time that I shall make the leap. I can not tell. Everything is dark, indistinct.”

He sat for a while silent, with his head sunk upon his breast. Then suddenly he stiffened and his eyelids fluttered open. “God in heaven!” he cried. “I see!”

He was straining forward in his chair, staring at the opposite wall. But I knew that he was looking beyond the wall and that the objects in the room no longer existed for him. “Chalmers,” I cried, “Chalmers, shall I wake you?”

“Do not!” he shrieked. “I see everything. All of the billions of lives that preceded me on this planet are before me at this moment. I see men of all ages, all races, all colors. They are fighting, killing, building, dancing, singing. They are sitting about rude fires on lonely gray deserts, and flying through the air in monoplanes. They are riding the seas in bark canoes and enormous steamships; they are painting bison and mammoths on the walls of dismal caves and covering huge canvases with queer futuristic designs. I watch the migrations from Atlantis. I watch the migrations from Lemuria. I see the elder races—a strange horde of black dwarfs overwhelming Asia and the Neandertalers with lowered heads and bent knees ranging obscenely across Europe. I watch the Achæans streaming into the Greek islands, and the crude beginnings of Hellenic culture. I am in Athens and Pericles is young. I am standing on the soil of Italy. I assist in the rape of the Sabines; I march with the Imperial Legions. I tremble with awe and wonder as the enormous standards go by and the ground shakes with the tread of the victorious hastati. A thousand naked slaves grovel before me as I pass in a litter of gold and ivory drawn by night-black oxen from Thebes, and the flower-girls scream ‘Ave Caesar’ as I nod and smile. I am myself a slave on a Moorish galley. I watch the erection of a great cathedral. Stone by stone it rises, and through months and years I stand and watch each stone as it falls into place. I am burned on a cross head downward in the thyme-scented gardens of Nero, and I watch with amusement and scorn the torturers at work in the chambers of the Inquisition.

“I walk in the holiest sanctuaries; I enter the temples of Venus. I kneel in adoration before the Magna Mater, and I throw coins on the bare knees of the sacred courtesans who sit with veiled faces in the groves of Babylon. I creep into an Elizabethan theater and with the stinking rabble about me I applaud The Merchant of Venice. I walk with Dante through the narrow streets of Florence. I meet the young Beatrice and the hem of her garment brushes my sandals as I stare enraptured. I am a priest of Isis, and my magic astounds the nations. Simon Magus kneels before me, imploring my assistance, and Pharaoh trembles when I approach. In India I talk with the Masters and run screaming from their presence, for their revelations are as salt on wounds that bleed.

“I perceive everything simultaneously. I perceive everything from all sides; I am a part of all the teeming billions about me. I exist in all men and all men exist in me. I perceive the whole of human history in a single instant, the past and the present.

“By simply straining I can see farther and farther back. Now I am going back through strange curves and angles. Angles and curves multiply about me. I perceive great segments of time through curves. There is curved time, and angular time. The beings that exist in angular time can not enter curved time. It is very strange.

“I am going back and back. Man has disappeared from the earth. Gigantic reptiles crouch beneath enormous palms and swim through the loathly black waters of dismal lakes. Now the reptiles have disappeared. No animals remain upon the land, but beneath the waters, plainly visible to me, dark forms move slowly over the rotting vegetation.

“The forms are becoming simpler and simpler. Now they are single cells. All about me there are angles—strange angles that have no counterparts on the earth. I am desperately afraid.

“There is an abyss of being which man has never fathomed.”

I stared. Chalmers had risen to his feet and he was gesticulating helplessly with his arms. “I am passing through unearthly angles; I am approaching—oh, the burning horror of it!”

“Chalmers!” I cried. “Do you wish me to interfere?”

He brought his right hand quickly before his face, as though to shut out a vision unspeakable. “Not yet!” he cried; “I will go on. I will see—what—lies—beyond—”

A cold sweat streamed from his forehead and his shoulders jerked spasmodically. “Beyond life there are”—his face grew ashen with terror—“things that I can not distinguish. They move slowly through angles. They have no bodies, and they move slowly through outrageous angles.”

It was then that I became aware of the odor in the room. It was a pungent, indescribable odor, so nauseous that I could scarcely endure it. I stepped quickly to the window and threw it open. When I returned to Chalmers and looked into his eyes I nearly fainted.

“I think they have scented me!” he shrieked. “They are slowly turning toward me.”

He was trembling horribly. For a moment he clawed at the air with his hands. Then his legs gave way beneath him and he fell forward on his face, slobbering and moaning.

I watched him in silence as he dragged himself across the floor. He was no longer a man. His teeth were bared and saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth.

“Chalmers,” I cried. “Chalmers, stop it! Stop it, do you hear?”

As if in reply to my appeal he commenced to utter hoarse convulsive sounds which resembled nothing so much as the barking of a dog, and began a sort of hideous writhing in a circle about the room. I bent and seized him by the shoulders. Violently, desperately, I shook him. He turned his head and snapped at my wrist. I was sick with horror, but I dared not release him for fear that he would destroy himself in a paroxysm of rage.

“Chalmers,” I muttered, “you must stop that. There is nothing in this room that can harm you. Do you understand?”

I continued to shake and admonish him, and gradually the madness died out of his face. Shivering convulsively, he crumpled into a grotesque heap on the Chinese rug.

I carried him to the sofa and deposited him upon it. His features were twisted in pain, and I knew that he was still struggling dumbly to escape from abominable memories.

“Whisky,” he muttered. “You’ll find a flask in the cabinet by the window—upper left-hand drawer.”

When I handed him the flask his fingers tightened about it until the knuckles showed blue. “They nearly got me,” he gasped. He drained the stimulant in immoderate gulps, and gradually the color crept back into his face.

“That drug was the very devil!” I murmured.

“It wasn’t the drug,” he moaned.

His eyes no longer glared insanely, but he still wore the look of a lost soul.

“They scented me in time,” he moaned. “I went too far.”

“What were they like?” I said, to humor him.

He leaned forward and gripped my arm. He was shivering horribly. “No word in our language can describe them!” He spoke in a hoarse whisper. “They are symbolized vaguely in the myth of the Fall, and in an obscene form which is occasionally found engraven on ancient tablets. The Greeks had a name for them, which veiled their essential foulness. The tree, the snake and the apple—these are the vague symbols of a most awful mystery.”

His voice had risen to a scream. “Frank, Frank, a terrible and unspeakable deed was done in the beginning. Before time, the deed, and from the deed—”

He had risen and was hysterically pacing the room. “The seeds of the deed move through angles in dim recesses of time. They are hungry and athirst!”

“Chalmers,” I pleaded to quiet him. “We are living in the third decade of the Twentieth Century.”

“They are lean and athirst!” he shrieked. “The Hounds of Tindalos!”

“Chalmers, shall I phone for a physician?”

“A physician can not help me now. They are horrors of the soul, and yet”—he hid his face in his hands and groaned—“they are real, Frank. I saw them for a ghastly moment. For a moment I stood on the other side. I stood on the pale gray shores beyond time and space. In an awful light that was not light, in a silence that shrieked, I saw them.

“All the evil in the universe was concentrated in their lean, hungry bodies. Or had they bodies? I saw them only for a moment; I can not be certain. But I heard them breathe. Indescribably for a moment I felt their breath upon my face. They turned toward me and I fled screaming. In a single moment I fled screaming through time. I fled down quintillions of years.

“But they scented me. Men awake in them cosmic hungers. We have escaped, momentarily, from the foulness that rings them round. They thirst for that in us which is clean, which emerged from the deed without stain. There is a part of us which did not partake in the deed, and that they hate. But do not imagine that they are literally, prosaically evil. They are beyond good and evil as we know it. They are that which in the beginning fell away from cleanliness. Through the deed they became bodies of death, receptacles of all foulness. But they are not evil in our sense because in the spheres through which they move there is no thought, no morals, no right or wrong as we understand it. There is merely the pure and the foul. The foul expresses itself through angles; the pure through curves. Man, the pure part of him, is descended from a curve. Do not laugh. I mean that literally.”

I rose and searched for my hat. “I’m dreadfully sorry for you, Chalmers,” I said, as I walked toward the door. “But I don’t intend to stay and listen to such gibberish. I’ll send my physician to see you. He’s an elderly, kindly chap and he won’t be offended if you tell him to go to the devil. But I hope you’ll respect his advice. A week’s rest in a good sanitarium should benefit you immeasurably.”

I heard him laughing as I descended the stairs, but his laughter was so utterly mirthless that it moved me to tears.

II

When Chalmers phoned the following morning my first impulse was to hang up the receiver immediately. His request was so unusual and his voice was so wildly hysterical that I feared any further association with him would result in the impairment of my own sanity. But I could not doubt the genuineness of his misery, and when he broke down completely and I heard him sobbing over the wire I decided to comply with his request.

“Very well,” I said. “I will come over immediately and bring the plaster.”

En route to Chalmers’ home I stopped at a hardware store and purchased twenty pounds of plaster of Paris. When I entered my friend’s room he was crouching by the window watching the opposite wall out of eyes that were feverish with fright. When he saw me he rose and seized the parcel containing the plaster with an avidity that amazed and horrified me. He had extruded all of the furniture and the room presented a desolate appearance.

“It is just conceivable that we can thwart them!” he exclaimed. “But we must work rapidly. Frank, there is a stepladder in the hall. Bring it here immediately. And then fetch a pail of water.”

“What for?” I murmured.

He turned sharply and there was a flush on his face. “To mix the plaster, you fool!” he cried. “To mix the plaster that will save our bodies and souls from a contamination unmentionable. To mix the plaster that will save the world from—Frank, they must be kept out!”

“Who?” I murmured.

“The Hounds of Tindalos!” he muttered. “They can only reach us through angles. We must eliminate all angles from this room. I shall plaster up all of the corners, all of the crevices. We must make this room resemble the interior of a sphere.”

I knew that it would have been useless to argue with him. I fetched the stepladder, Chalmers mixed the plaster, and for three hours we labored. We filled in the four corners of the wall and the intersections of the floor and wall and the wall and ceiling, and we rounded the sharp angles of the window-seat.

“I shall remain in this room until they return in time,” he affirmed when our task was completed. “When they discover that the scent leads through curves they will return. They will return ravenous and snarling and unsatisfied to the foulness that was in the beginning, before time, beyond space.”

He nodded graciously and lit a cigarette. “It was good of you to help,” he said.

“Will you not see a physician, Chalmers?” I pleaded.

“Perhaps—tomorrow,” he murmured. “But now I must watch and wait.”

“Wait for what?” I urged.

Chalmers smiled wanly. “I know that you think me insane,” he said. “You have a shrewd but prosaic mind, and you can not conceive of an entity that does not depend for its existence on force and matter. But did it ever occur to you, my friend, that force and matter are merely the barriers to perception imposed by time and space? When one knows, as I do, that time and space are identical and that they are both deceptive because they are merely imperfect manifestations of a higher reality, one no longer seeks in the visible world for an explanation of the mystery and terror of being.”

I rose and walked toward the door.

“Forgive me,” he cried. “I did not mean to offend you. You have a superlative intellect, but I—I have a superhuman one. It is only natural that I should be aware of your limitations.”

“Phone if you need me,” I said, and descended the stairs two steps at a time. “I’ll send my physician over at once,” I muttered, to myself. “He’s a hopeless maniac, and heaven knows what will happen if someone doesn’t take charge of him immediately.”

III

The following is a condensation of two announcements which appeared in the Partridgeville Gazette for July 3, 1928:

Earthquake Shakes Financial District

At 2 o’clock this morning an earth tremor of unusual severity broke several plate-glass windows in Central Square and completely disorganized the electric and street railway systems. The tremor was felt in the outlying districts and the steeple of the First Baptist Church on Angell Hill (designed by Christopher Wren in 1717) was entirely demolished. Firemen are now attempting to put out a blaze which threatens to destroy the Partridgeville Glue Works. An investigation is promised by the mayor and an immediate attempt will be made to fix responsibility for this disastrous occurrence.

Occult Writer Murdered by Unknown Guest

Horrible Crime in Central Square

Mystery Surrounds Death of Halpin Chalmers

At 9 a.m. today the body of Halpin Chalmers, author and journalist, was found in an empty room above the jewelry store of Smithwick and Isaacs, 24 Central Square. The coroner’s investigation revealed that the room had been rented furnished to Mr. Chalmers on May 1, and that he had himself disposed of the furniture a fortnight ago. Chalmers was the author of several recondite books on occult themes, and a member of the Bibliographic Guild. He formerly resided in Brooklyn, New York.

At 7 a.m. Mr. L. E. Hancock, who occupies the apartment opposite Chalmers’ room in the Smithwick and Isaacs establishment, smelt a peculiar odor when he opened his door to take in his cat and the morning edition of the Partridgeville Gazette. The odor he describes as extremely acrid and nauseous, and he affirms that it was so strong in the vicinity of Chalmers’ room that he was obliged to hold his nose when he approached that section of the hall.

He was about to return to his own apartment when it occurred to him that Chalmers might have accidentally forgotten to turn off the gas in his kitchenette. Becoming considerably alarmed at the thought, he decided to investigate, and when repeated tappings on Chalmers’ door brought no response he notified the superintendent. The latter opened the door by means of a pass key, and the two men quickly made their way into Chalmers’ room. The room was utterly destitute of furniture, and Hancock asserts that when he first glanced at the floor his heart went cold within him, and that the superintendent, without saying a word, walked to the open window and stared at the building opposite for fully five minutes.

Chalmers lay stretched upon his back in the center of the room. He was starkly nude, and his chest and arms were covered with a peculiar bluish pus or ichor. His head lay grotesquely upon his chest. It had been completely severed from his body, and the features were twisted and torn and horribly mangled. Nowhere was there a trace of blood.

The room presented a most astonishing appearance. The intersections of the walls, ceiling and floor had been thickly smeared with plaster of Paris, but at intervals fragments had cracked and fallen off, and someone had grouped these upon the floor about the murdered man so as to form a perfect triangle.

Beside the body were several sheets of charred yellow paper. These bore fantastic geometric designs and symbols and several hastily scrawled sentences. The sentences were almost illegible and so absurd in context that they furnished no possible clue to the perpetrator of the crime. “I am waiting and watching,” Chalmers wrote. “I sit by the window and watch walls and ceiling. I do not believe they can reach me, but I must beware of the Doels. Perhaps they can help them break through. The satyrs will help, and they can advance through the scarlet circles. The Greeks knew a way of preventing that. It is a great pity that we have forgotten so much.”

On another sheet of paper, the most badly charred of the seven or eight fragments found by Detective Sergeant Douglas (of the Partridgeville Reserve), was scrawled the following:

“Good God, the plaster is falling! A terrific shock has loosened the plaster and it is falling. An earthquake perhaps! I never could have anticipated this. It is growing dark in the room. I must phone Frank. But can he get here in time? I will try. I will recite the Einstein formula. I will—God, they are breaking through! They are breaking through! Smoke is pouring from the corners of the wall. Their tongues—ahhhhh—”

In the opinion of Detective Sergeant Douglas, Chalmers was poisoned by some obscure chemical. He has sent specimens of the strange blue slime found on Chalmers’ body to the Partridgeville Chemical Laboratories; and he expects the report will shed new light on one of the most mysterious crimes of recent years. That Chalmers entertained a guest on the evening preceding the earthquake is certain, for his neighbor distinctly heard a low murmur of conversation in the former’s room as he passed it on his way to the stairs. Suspicion points strongly to this unknown visitor and the police are diligently endeavoring to discover his identity.

IV

Report of James Morton, chemist and bacteriologist:

My dear Mr. Douglas:

The fluid sent to me for analysis is the most peculiar that I have ever examined. It resembles living protoplasm, but it lacks the peculiar substances known as enzymes. Enzymes catalyze the chemical reactions occurring in living cells, and when the cell dies they cause it to disintegrate by hydrolyzation. Without enzymes protoplasm should possess enduring vitality, i.e., immortality. Enzymes are the negative components, so to speak, of unicellular organism, which is the basis of all life. That living matter can exist without enzymes biologists emphatically deny. And yet the substance that you have sent me is alive and it lacks these “indispensable” bodies. Good God, sir, do you realize what astounding new vistas this opens up?

V

Excerpt from The Secret Watchers by the late Halpin Chalmers:

What if, parallel to the life we know, there is another life that does not die, which lacks the elements that destroy our life? Perhaps in another dimension there is a different force from that which generates our life. Perhaps this force emits energy, or something similar to energy, which passes from the unknown dimension where it is and creates a new form of cell life in our dimension. No one knows that such new cell life does exist in our dimension. Ah, but I have seen its manifestations. I have talked with them. In my room at night I have talked with the Doels. And in dreams I have seen their maker. I have stood on the dim shore beyond time and matter and seen it. It moves through strange curves and outrageous angles. Some day I shall travel in time and meet it face to face.

The Red Fetish

Bill Cullen shaded his eyes with his hand and stared at the empty skyline. His arms, as he stood in the glittering light, showed scraggy and emaciated and his features were pinched and black. There had been strong winds blowing and enormous seas thundering on the beach, and the ferocity of the elements had accentuated his helplessness. He turned to his companion with a gesture of despair.

“Look here,” he said, “you know as well as I do that it is physically impossible for us to hang on without water. What do you say to a swim?”

Bill’s companion groaned and shook his head. He was a frightened, nervous little man with pointed fox-like ears, and people who knew him were prone to brand him a coward. His name, Wellington Van Wyck, did not raise him in the estimation of his friends.

Bill studied regretfully the thing that Van Wyck had become. It was not the lack of water that gave him discomfort. His sorrow lay in the fact that Van Wyck did not possess a capacity for blind enthusiasm.

“It’s only six miles,” he urged.

“There are cannibals on that island,” replied Van Wyck. “It’s down on the chart.”

Van Wyck was a little wild and he imagined that cannibals tore themselves to pieces over their ceremonies. Bill knew that cannibals were decent and clean and orderly; but there was no explaining that to Van Wyck. He dealt with him in another fashion.

“You’re as weak and flabby and spineless as a jellyfish with rheumatism,” said Bill. “You’re so unsavory that the cannibals wouldn’t eat you. Why don’t you kill yourself now, and be done with it? ’Twould be a good way to economize on food!”

Van Wyck scowled and sat down upon the beach. His eyes narrowed. “We are safer here,” he said. His lips were swollen and cracked and he spoke in a thin, small voice. He assured Bill that he could survive without luxuries. He said that two men could go three days on one pint of water, and that in three or four days anything might happen.

Nothing did happen. The three days went by like great white birds at sea, and the merciless glare of the sun made life a perfect misery. Bill looked grim. He squatted on the sands and watched the pale blue water foaming and bubbling in the lagoon, and his eyes glittered. Once he turned to Van Wyck and laughed. “It has green eyes,” he said. “I saw it watching us on the beach. It plays with the moon and its tentacles are long and gelatinous!”

Sea water affects some men like hashish. That morning Bill had crawled to the lagoon on his hands and knees and swallowed more salt than was good for him. Van Wyck had warned him that it wasn’t done, but Bill was of the disbelieving sort.

Bill’s clothes were in tatters, and he found no satisfaction in contemplating the leanness of his wrists and ankles. Whenever he held up his wrists for inspection they shook so violently that he let himself be guided by sentiment and wept. His ankles were no wider than broomsticks, and when he tried to walk he could hear them crack. He didn’t want to turn them, so he sat down and talked to Van Wyck. He made an effort to be agreeable.

“I’ll concede that the cannibals may eat us,” he said. “There is always that risk. But I don’t see why they should; and it’s only a six-mile swim. If we stay here I can’t trust myself.”

Van Wyck recoiled and his under lip trembled. Bill laid a merciful hand upon his emaciated shoulder. “There isn’t anything that I want to keep from you,” he said. “I’ll tell you the truth. For three days I’ve been planning to kill you. I lay awake last night and watched you. I thought: ‘This thirst—this dreadful thirst’—he would put an end to it!”

Van Wyck shivered, and tears ran down his face and dampened his brittle red beard. His small blue eyes dilated with horror. Hot shame flushed red over his throat and ears. “But you wouldn’t really eat me?” he moaned.

“I don’t know,” replied Bill. “That’s why I suggest the swim. It’s six miles and we’re atrociously weak; but anything to keep from thinking of that!”

Bill knew that Van Wyck understood and sympathized. Van Wyck had a knife, which he kept hidden, but in his sleep he frequently took it out and felt the edge of it. Bill had been very much horrified, and he had not pretended to misunderstand the expression on Van Wyck’s face. There was something brazen in Van Wyck’s affrightment when he discovered that two could play the same sinister game.

The sun was setting and a few gray wisps of clouds were fleeing like flakes of snow across the blue sky. A single gull careened and dipped far out in the tumbling black immensity of ocean. A great silence had fallen upon the atoll, and the stubborn struggle between the two men drew to an issue before the first wild rush of stars. Van Wyck felt unsafe in the presence of Bill Cullen, and he made no effort to conceal his fear.

“Let’s get away from here as quickly as possible,” he pleaded. “You were right. Six or seven miles isn’t a long swim. If we strip, we can make it.”

Bill extended his hand. It was like a dead thing, but Van Wyck seized it and wrung it warmly. His voice quivered. “It isn’t a long swim, old fellow,” he repeated.

Bill made a grimace. “It might rain,” he said.

“It won’t rain,” responded Van Wyck.

That settled it. They spent the evening getting ready. They hid their anguish in a bustle of preparation. Bill scurried about and secured three clams. The unfortunate bivalves were devoured with immoderate ferocity. Even their stiff, rubber-like necks afforded grist for the mill of Van Wyck’s teeth. It grieved Bill to see the shells go to waste. They sat down and congratulated themselves for the first time in a week. The clams seemed to make their situation less hopeless, but they did not on that account decide to remain on the island. Their thirst was abnormal and monstrous. It was not a thing to be talked about.

They managed to get some sleep; but they awoke with their throats on fire. The game that they had played was over. But they avoided the thought of their new plan as much as possible, since they did not want the possibility of fatal consequences to look them in the face.

A chill in the atmosphere generally preceded the customary heat of the day; and the coldness now seemed unusually severe. They got together a few sticks and built a fire. The sun had not yet risen, but the island was immersed in the ghostly gray light of early dawning. They saw everything vividly. The boulders on the beach seemed alive. A light wind furred the steel-gray sea with tiny ripples.

“We mustn’t waste time,” said Van Wyck. It was obvious that his dread of Bill had grown in the night. Bill’s threat had taken complete possession of his shriveled, selfish little brain. His teeth chattered over the fire and he planned a thousand assaults on the man beside him. His fingers clutched frantically at the knife which he kept hidden; but he lacked the stomach for malicious manslaughter. He feared that his cowardice might betray him into a false or dangerous move, and he endeavored to conquer his hysteria with loud boasts.

“It was all poppycock, our worrying about the cannibals,” he announced. “The thing for us to do is to put on a bold front. They’ll make gods of us!”

In the present condition of his mind these words produced a curious effect on Bill. He waved his arms wildly, and swore at the sky. “Yes,” he shouted, “they’ll do that. But sometimes they’re not satisfied with a living man. They’re headhunters, you know. They have a way of removing the skull from a man’s head, and drying it up, and worshiping it. They have a predilection for red hair and beards. When they find both on one head they go wild.”

Bill looked directly at Van Wyck. The latter could scarcely stand. He was swaying hysterically back and forth and running his fingers through his bristling red beard. “Perhaps I could shave it off before we start,” he wailed.

“With what?” demanded Bill.

“With the clam shells,” cried Van Wyck, dejectedly seeking to grasp some straw that would save his head.

“I refuse to permit it,” said Bill. “It’s time we started. It wouldn’t be pleasant to swim in the full glare of the sun.”

They stripped and rolled their clothes into neat, round balls. Somehow it did not seem right to abandon them helter-skelter on the beach. They had a vague idea that they might return for them. They deposited them gingerly beneath the one coco palm, and walking solemnly to the water’s edge they scowled into the clouded mirror of sea before them.

The water was like ice, and Bill shivered and stood on one foot. “Walk right in,” said Van Wyck. “The cannibals expect us!” His smile was ghastly and indescribable. The blue veins stood out on his scrawny neck, and his forehead was covered with globules of perspiration.

Bill was the first to go into deep water. Van Wyck stood with the icy current swirling about his ankles, and watched him wade out until he stood waist-deep. Bill turned and looked back reproachfully. “You’re coming, aren’t you?” Bill’s disdain and distrust of Van Wyck were forgotten in a momentary need for companionship.

As Van Wyck stood with the cold water numbing his toes he had an irrational desire to turn back and run wildly up the beach, and to stay on the island until thirst finished him off. The risk of the swim seemed suddenly displeasing to him. A mist passed rapidly before his eyes; he ran his fingers through his hair and gulped. But when he saw the pitiful, hurt expression on Bill’s face he put aside unworthy thoughts. “I’m coming, Bill,” he said.

He walked forward until the water eddied and swirled about his chin. His face was hideously drawn and his eyes bulged, but a forlorn ray of sunlight filtered through the clouds and played about his head, bringing out its latent manliness.

“It’s deep, out there,” said Bill.

They both lurched forward. The sudden loss of footing accentuated Bill’s weakness, and he went under. He felt that his arms and legs were incapable of sustaining him, and he wondered if Van Wyck would try to save him.

He came up and struck out, his mouth full of water. The salt burned his throat and he swallowed. The water went into his stomach. He shivered. The sun beat mercilessly down upon his naked body.

He swam boldly, with a brief sense of triumph. He had conquered his physical weakness. He knew that his strength might not last, but the thought that he had not depended upon Van Wyck gave him secret satisfaction.

He could see Van Wyck’s red head on the water several yards ahead of him. The little wretch had evidently made good use of his legs and arms. “Slow up, Van Wyck!” he shouted.

“I don’t dare to!” Van Wyck called back. “If I stop I might sink. And think how deep it is!”

Bill resented Van Wyck’s reminder. “If you don’t ease up,” he shouted, “you’ll surely go down. This isn’t an athletic contest!”

“It is,” cried Van Wyck. “It’s the greatest ever—even if there are headhunters at the goal. I advise you to talk to me. It keeps me from thinking. If I think I shall go down.”

But Bill did not feel like talking. The water was cold and he had no stomach for repartee. He felt the chill of the depths beneath in his nude limbs. He swallowed great quantities of sea water. He knew that he might suffer eventually, but he did not care. He wanted to reach the island. He had never shared Van Wyck’s dread of cannibals, and the thought of the island, with its crystal-clear springs and refreshing fruits, was a precious balm to him.

He wondered if Van Wyck would survive him. The latter was swimming with frightful rapidity, leaving him definitely in the lurch. Bill envied and pitied his little companion. Van Wyck might survive to view the island, with its green, welcome frondage—but would he ever reach it?

Bill had an uncomfortable suspicion that he might sink. His initial courage threatened to give out. A mounting hysteria surged through his brain. He closed his eyes and tried not to think. There was nothing before him but a limitless stretch of malachite sea. He was fascinated and horrified by his isolation. A cold, brilliant sun blinded his eyes and dried up the sap of life in him. The water seemed to thicken, and he had great difficulty in moving his arms and legs.

Bill never knew how he reached the island. For a starving, emaciated man to swim seven miles is tremendous, and deserves some reward. Like most valiant men, Bill was conscious of his own worth. When he sighted the island he said nothing, but he thought: “This is only just. I have paid the price, and I deserve this.”

He had also caught up with Van Wyck. The awful glare in the despairing eyes that Van Wyck turned upon him told of a fatigue immeasurable and a desire for water that had passed the bounds of sanity. Van Wyck’s eyes were living pools of liquid fire. His voice was hoarse and rasping, and he turned over and over in the water; and twice his head went under.

They were horribly near when they sighted the cannibals. Van Wyck saw them first. He was puffing and wailing, and he had been swimming on his back, and when he turned over and sighted them his face took on the aspect of an open wound. His mouth became an awful gash in a grotesque, streaked horror of countenance.

“Bill,” he called hoarsely. “It’s worse than we thought. There are hundreds of ’em!”

Fixing his frightened and horrified eyes on the shore, Bill trod water, and became suddenly very angry. The scene before him burned itself on his brain, and robbed him of his victory. He felt that the fates had taken an indecent advantage of him. His anger mounted, and flushed his neck and throat. “Damn their black hides!” he muttered.

A clamor and a stench arose from the rocks. The cannibals seemed to be recovering from a drinking-bout. They writhed in the sun like wounded snakes. Bill counted sixty or seventy. Their bodies were hideously tattooed, and they wore monstrous shell rings through their ears and noses. The women joined with the men in dancing and spitting venom. The hubbub was deafening. Ages of savagery and blood had shaped them into capering devils. They were all the more terrible because they had seen other white men. Bill did not expect much from them. He confessed a frank horror at the situation.

“If we only had something to give ’em,” he groaned.

Van Wyck had somehow expected Bill to rally and come to his support. He needed a moral prop and he noted with horror that Bill had lost his solid, comforting manner. Van Wyck’s lips were so dry that he could scarcely get his tongue to shape words of rebuff.

“I don’t like it,” he finally blurted out. “They certainly mean business. You might swim in and test ’em!”

“Don’t be an ass!” roared Bill.

“All right, then. But if one of us doesn’t swim in, both of us are goners. And since I’ve never talked with savages I’m hardly the man. You have a way with you. You could pacify a Java ape-man! Get ’em laughing—tell ’em a funny story!”

Bill protested venomously. “Those cannibals aren’t children,” he groaned. “You can’t spoof ’em. This is serious business, Van Wyck.”

Van Wyck refused to be convinced and he would have gone on urging Bill to commit suicide to save his own precious skin if something had not made all conversation ridiculous. They both saw it at the same time. They looked at each other and said nothing. Then Van Wyck began frantically swimming toward the rocks.

The fin divided the water into two glassy walls. As it passed along it turned the dark surface to shining quicksilver. Bill had barely grasped the meaning of it when something touched his ankles and he knew that the water was infested. He gave a sudden, defiant shriek.

But the sharks did not molest him. They made straight for Van Wyck. They approached in vicious circles, and Bill saw the whites of their stomachs through the dark green water. The mouth of the largest opened and closed; and then there followed a clashing of teeth that sounded like the clanging to of ironclad portcullises.

Once the horrible gray back of the fish showed above the surface, and glittered lethally in the sun, and Bill knew that Van Wyck was done for. Van Wyck was almost near enough to the rocks to climb them, and he might reasonably have pushed the shark off with his foot, but Bill knew that he wouldn’t. Bill knew that Van Wyck was as good as eaten, and he thought: “That shark will hardly be content with Van Wyck alone!”

A dozen fins intersected on the surface and occasionally one of the ravenous monsters would jump clear of the water in its eagerness to taste satisfying human flesh.

The sight got in under Bill’s skin and hurt. He closed his eyes, and endeavored to think of the grinning, leering savages on the rocks. The sharks made frantic dashes at Van Wyck and came away with something in their mouths. They would rush forward, their great jaws would snap—and there would be less and less of Van Wyck.

Bill was unable to keep his eyes shut. He tried to cover them with his hands, but then he would go under and get an extra mouthful of salt water. He came up gasping, and saw that the sea was streaked with crimson.

As the sharks darted away from Van Wyck they left dark red trails behind them. Bill heard Van Wyck’s screams distinctly, although the latter had reached a point where screams seemed futile. They became less and less coherent. Perhaps Van Wyck realized the absurdity of protest. Perhaps he realized that all things eventually work together for the best. Certainly the cannibals would have treated him worse. It is not pleasant to be boiled in oil or hacked to pieces with little knives.

Bill saw the last of Van Wyck disappear in the maw of an enormous shark. The water turned a deeper red, and for a moment the sky and sea and even the naked, gesticulating savages seemed bathed in a crimson aura. It may have been an optical illusion, since Bill’s eyes had ceased to function with clarity. Bill knew that the sharks would look about a bit after finishing Van Wyck, and the thought gave him no satisfaction. “You’re next on the list,” he told himself.

But somehow the sharks seemed satisfied with poor Van Wyck. Perhaps they found Van Wyck so unsavory that they did not care to risk tackling another of the same breed. They circled about for a few minutes after the last of Van Wyck had disappeared, and then they passed solemnly eastward, their fins glistening in the brilliant sunlight.

Meanwhile Bill trod water and shuddered when he thought of Van Wyck. But he didn’t let himself think of Van Wyck much after that. Van Wyck, he argued, was no longer in need of sympathy. “It is the living who have to suffer,” he thought. It was patent that he could enjoy no security in waters infested with man-eating sharks.

He shouted with delight when he discovered that the cannibals had disappeared from the rocks. He was forcefully tempted to swim in and take advantage of his amazing good fortune. But he thought better of that when he calmly considered the nature of cannibals. They were probably waiting behind the rocks for him to swim in, and he didn’t care to be boiled in oil when there were sharks to make a quicker, cleaner job of it.

He decided to attempt to round the island. His ability to keep afloat amazed and frightened him. He had evidently drawn upon some reserve strength that nature had hitherto wilfully concealed. Destiny had played him a new hand. He secretly congratulated himself, although he continued to curse fate for the cannibals.

He got around the island somehow. The current set to at the northern end and he had some difficulty in surmounting the backwash of black tidal water; but he finally reached a beach so clean and white and refreshing that he shouted with boyish eagerness and gratification. He swam in without reckoning consequences, for in his exultation he had forgotten or overlooked the cannibals.

He would build a fire and warm himself, and he would eat nothing but fruit. It needed but a momentary inspection to convince him that the island contained an excess of fruit. And there was water! A tiny streamlet came out from the woods, between the boles of fabulously ancient trees, and ran down the smooth white beach.

Bill swam in and clambered up the beach. He sat down under a hotoo tree, an absurd horror of bones and wet, clinging sand. He was a living scarecrow come out of the sea with the wisdom and weariness of ancient ocean upon him. He could scarcely open and close his thick, black lips. His sunbaked skin was drawn painfully taut over his protruding ribs.

A steady surf was crashing on the beach, and he paused while he listened to the roar of the breakers. He reposed for a time; then he got up, and a peal of wild laughter came from between his swollen lips. He had won out! He had hoodwinked the cannibals and sharks! In that blazing crystal world of sunlight and water he came to life again.

The sun dried him. He gulped up gallons of water from the tiny streamlet. It was fresh and clear. He was genuinely elated. The wind swept in from the sea in great, steady gusts, and the flaffing breeze whistled through his hair and under his armpits. He shouted and danced in sheer joy. The cannibals, he assured himself, were on the other side of the island. It was a large island, and he could hide. The chances against him, he thought, were negligible.

He decided to look about for a hiding-place. He knew that in the vast forest of tangled vegetation he would have no difficulty in achieving utter concealment. He could hoard up fruits and coconuts and live unmolested for days.

But when he turned he saw something peering from between the boles of the distorted, antique trees that made him change his mind. He stood still in the center of the beach, and stared, and presently he saw black, hideous figures come forward into the clearing. Others appeared crawling toward him on their hands and knees. He realized then the absurdity of attempting any sort of concealment.

He stood stark still while the cannibals advanced toward him across the smooth, white sands. He began to envy Van Wyck. He knew too much about savages. He had that and his imagination to blame for the little hell that he endured. How could he guess that they did not want revenge? A savage considers everything an insult. He knew that he should not have landed upon their infernal island. He wanted to apologize to them, and to make them understand. He had no desire to lord it over them, and he admitted to himself that he had deliberately injured their sense of dignity.

At first he thought that they intended to make short work of him. They looked sinister. There were three dozen of them in the guard of honor that advanced toward him across the beach and he did not like their faces. Their faces were black and swollen and ugly and incredibly tattooed, and their cheeks were smeared with green and blue paint. One of them paraded a discarded panama hat. Bill could not imagine where he had obtained the hat. The wretch had probably repaid the owner by boiling him in oil. It was quite the thing twenty years ago to burn traders and missionaries in oil, although the custom has been outgrown among respectable savages. But the hat looked at least twenty years old. And one of the devils smoked a corncob pipe! They were tall, solemn-looking cusses, and Bill did not pretend to like them.

But when they got close to him they formed a circle, shutting him off from the sea, and he felt then that everything was worse than he had anticipated. When cannibals begin forming into rings it is customary to give up hope. They were grinning hideously and Bill could count the number of teeth in the rings which they wore about their necks.

Some of the leanest and tallest wore thirty or forty teeth. And Bill knew that a savage never wears more than one tooth from a single head. It is not considered decent. And each tooth means—but Bill never wept over spilt milk. He felt that his own head was in imminent danger, and the knowledge annoyed and frightened him. But he did not dare let on that he feared them, and he stood up very stiff and straight, and scowled into their narrow, bloodshot eyes.

They seemed to resent his hostility. It seemed to hurt them, and Bill was amazed at the hint of reproach in their glances. A cannibal is something of a gentleman, and he would not deliberately hurt a man’s feelings for the world. And Bill’s resentment somehow seemed an insult to their hospitality. Bill understood how they felt, and he realized that he had behaved like a boor. But his teeth were knocking together like billiard balls, and a stern front was necessary.

But he could not look his captors in the face. They came close to him, and then one of them stepped forward and patted him on the back. He spoke and Bill understood him. Bill knew nearly all of the Bantu languages, and the savage spoke a corruption of several.

“We thank our brother for the very fine gift,” he said. “We are indeed grateful!”

Although Bill could understand what the black devil said a reply was utterly beyond him. The grammatical construction of Bantu overwhelmed him. Bill kept his mouth shut and stared, pretending not to understand.

The spokesman turned and beckoned. A tall, lean youth with protruding yellow teeth came quickly forward. Save for a slight hint of pity in his small eyes his face bore no expression. He held in his right hand a large, round object which Bill did not immediately recognize. The spokesman nodded and took the object by its hair. He stroked it effusively, calling upon it to protect and succor him in war and in peace. He begged that the object’s pity and benevolence would extend to the whole tribe. He praised the object in terms that would have embarrassed any living man. Then he turned to Bill and made a very low bow. “It came ashore before you,” he said. “And we are most grateful!”

Bill opened his eyes wide with horror. He sought to express his agony in words, but no sound came from between his black, swollen lips. A sudden shriek would perhaps have saved him, and Bill tried hard to make a sound in his throat. But his horror lay too heavily upon him. He made a wild, horrid gesture with his right arm and collapsed in a heap upon the sand.

Three months later Bill was taken off by a trading-sloop. He blabbered idiotically about the right of a head to decent burial and made uncomplimentary allusions to the wearing of teeth. He evidently sought to stir up anger against the cannibals, but the traders ignored his insinuations, since he was obviously mad and since the cannibals had worshiped him and given him the run of the island. The memory of Van Wyck’s encrimsoned head had addled his wits.

The Vibration Wasps

I

Out in Space

I was out in space with Joan for the sixth time. It might as well have been the eighth or tenth. It went on and on. Every time I rebelled Joan would shrug and murmur: “All right, Richard. I’ll go it alone then.”

Joan was a little chit of a girl with spun gold hair and eyes that misted when I spoke of Pluto and Uranus, and glowed like live coals when we were out in space together.

Joan had about the worst case of exploritis in medical history. To explain her I had to take to theory. Simply to test out whether she could survive and reach maturity in an environment which was hostile to human mutants, Nature had inserted in her makeup every reckless ingredient imaginable. Luckily she had survived long enough to fall in love with sober and restraining me. We supplemented each other, and as I was ten years her senior my obligations had been clear-cut from the start.

We were heading for Ganymede this time, the largest satellite of vast, mist-enshrouded Jupiter. Our slender space vessel was thrumming steadily through the dark interplanetary gulfs, its triple atomotors roaring. I knew that Joan would have preferred to penetrate the turbulent red mists of Ganymede’s immense primary, and that only my settled conviction that Jupiter was a molten world restrained her.

We had talked it over for months, weighing the opinions of Earth’s foremost astronomers. No “watcher of the night skies” could tell us very much about Jupiter. The year 1973 had seen the exploration of the moon, and in 1986 the crews of three atomotor-propelled space vessels had landed on Mars and Venus, only to make the disappointing discovery that neither planet had ever sustained life.

By 2002 three of the outer planets had come within the orbit of human exploration. There were Earth colonies on all of the Jovian moons now, with the exception of Ganymede. Eight exploring expeditions had set out for that huge and mysterious satellite, only to disappear without leaving a trace.

I turned from a quartz port brimming with star-flecked blackness to gaze on my reckless, nineteen-year-old bride. Joan was so strong-willed and competent that it was difficult for me to realize she was scarcely more than a child. A veteran of the skyways, you’d have thought her, with her slim hands steady on the controls, her steely eyes probing space.

“The more conservative astronomers have always been right,” I said. “We knew almost as much about the moon back in the eighteenth century as we do now. We get daily weather reports from Tycho now, and there are fifty-six Earth colonies beneath the lunar Apennines. But the astronomers knew that the moon was a sterile, crater-pitted world a hundred years ago. They knew that there was no life or oxygen beneath its brittle stars generations before the first space vessel left Earth.

“The astronomers said that Venus was a bleak, mist-enshrouded world that couldn’t sustain life and they were right. They were right about Mars. Oh, sure, a few idle dreamers thought there might be life on Mars. But the more conservative astronomers stood pat, and denied that the seasonal changes could be ascribed to a low order of vegetative life. It’s a far cry from mere soil discoloration caused by melting polar ice caps to the miracle of pulsing life. The first vessel to reach Mars proved the astronomers right. Now a few crackbrained theorists are trying to convince us that Jupiter may be a solid, cool world.”

Joan turned, and frowned at me. “You’re letting a few clouds scare you, Richard,” she said. “No man on Earth knows what’s under the mist envelope of Jupiter.”

“A few clouds,” I retorted. “You know darned well that Jupiter’s gaseous envelope is forty thousand miles thick—a seething cauldron of heavy gases and pressure drifts rotating at variance with the planet’s crust.”

“But Ganymede is mist-enshrouded too,” scoffed Joan. “We’re hurtling into that cauldron at the risk of our necks. Why not Jupiter instead?”

“The law of averages,” I said, “seasoned with a little common sense. Eight vessels went through Ganymede’s ghost shroud into oblivion. There have been twenty-six attempts to conquer Jupiter. A little world cools and solidifies much more rapidly than a big world. You ought to know that.”

“But Ganymede isn’t so little. You’re forgetting it’s the biggest satellite in the solar system.”

“But still little—smaller than Mars. Chances are it has a solid crust, like Callisto, Io, and Europa.”

There was a faint, rustling sound behind us. Joan and I swung about simultaneously, startled by what was obviously a space-code infraction. A silvery-haired, wiry little man was emerging through the beryllium steel door of the pilot chamber, his face set in grim lines. I am not a disciplinarian, but my nerves at that moment were strained to the breaking point. “What are you doing here, Dawson,” I rapped, staring at him in indignation. “We didn’t send for you.”

“Sorry, sir,” the little man apologized. “I couldn’t get you on the visiplate. It’s gone dead, sir.”

Joan drew in her breath sharply. “You mean there’s something wrong with the cold current?”

Dawson nodded. “Nearly every instrument on the ship has gone dead, sir. Gravity-stabilizers, direction gauges, even the intership communication coils.”

Joan leapt to her feet. “It must be the stupendous gravity tug of Jupiter,” she exclaimed. “Hadley warned us it might impede the molecular flow of our cold force currents the instant we passed Ganymede’s orbit.”

Exultation shone in her gaze. I stared at her, aghast. She was actually rejoicing that the Smithsonian physicist had predicted our destruction.

Knowing that vessels were continually traveling to Io and Callisto despite their nearness to the greatest disturbing body in the Solar System, I had assumed we could reach Ganymede with our navigation instruments intact. I had scoffed at Hadley’s forebodings, ignoring the fact that we were using cold force for the first time in an atomotor propelled vessel, and were dependent on a flow adjustment of the utmost delicacy.

Dawson was staring at Joan in stunned horror. Our fate was sealed and yet Joan had descended from the pilot dais and was actually waltzing about the chamber, her eyes glowing like incandescent meteor chips.

“We’ll find out now, Richard,” she exclaimed. “It’s too late for caution or regrets. We’re going right through forty thousand miles of mist to Jupiter’s solid crust.”

II

Through the Cloud Blanket

I thought of Earth as we fell. Tingling song, and bright awakenings and laughter and joy and grief. Woodsmoke in October, tall ships and the planets spinning and hurdy-gurdies in June.

I sat grimly by Joan’s side on the pilot dais, setting my teeth as I gripped the atomotor controls and stared out through the quartz port. We were plummeting downward with dizzying speed. Outside the quartz port there was a continuous misty glimmering splotched with nebulously weaving spirals of flame.

We were already far below Jupiter’s outer envelope of tenuous gases in turbulent flux, and had entered a region of pressure drifts which caused our little vessel to twist and lunge erratically. Wildly it swept from side to side, its gyrations increasing in violence as I cut the atomotor blasts and released a traveling force field of repulsive negrations.

I thanked our lucky stars that the gravity tug had spared the atomotors and the landing mechanism. We hadn’t anything else to be thankful for. I knew that if we plunged into a lake of fire even the cushioning force field couldn’t save us.

Joan seemed not to care. She was staring through the quartz port in an attitude of intense absorption, a faint smile on her lips. There are degrees of recklessness verging on insanity; of courage which deserves no respect.

I had an impulse to shake her, and shout: “Do you realize we’re plunging to our death?” I had to keep telling myself that she was still a child with no realization of what death meant. She simply couldn’t visualize extinction; the dreadful blackness sweeping in—

Our speed was decreasing now. The cushioning force field was slowing us up, forcing the velocity needle sharply downward on the dial.

Joan swung toward me, her face jubilant. “We’ll know in a minute, Richard. We’re only eight thousand miles above the planet’s crust.”

“Crust?” I flung at her. “You mean a roaring furnace.”

“No, Richard. If Jupiter were molten we’d be feeling it now. The plates would be white-hot.”

It was true, of course. I hadn’t realized it before. I wiped sweat from my forehead, and stared at her with sombre respect. She had been right for once. In her girlish folly she had outguessed all the astronomers on Earth.

The deceleration was making my temples throb horribly. We were decelerating far too rapidly, but it was impossible to diminish the speed-retarding pressure of the force field, and I didn’t dare resort to another atomotor charge so close to the planet’s surface. To make matters worse, the auxiliary luminalis blast tubes had been crippled by the arrest of the force current, along with the almost indispensable gravity stabilizers.

The blood was draining from my brain already. I knew that I was going to lose consciousness, and my fingers passed swiftly up and down the control panel, freezing the few descent mechanisms which were not dependent on the interior force current in positions of stability and maximum effectiveness, and cupping over the meteor collision emergency jets.

Joan was the first to collapse. She had been quietly assisting me, her slim hands hovering over the base of the instrument board. Suddenly as we manipulated dials and rheostats she gave a little, choking cry and slumped heavily against me.

There was a sudden increase of tension inside my skull. Pain stabbed at my temples and the control panel seemed to waver and recede. I threw my right arm about Joan and tried to prevent her sagging body from slipping to the floor. A low, vibrant hum filled the chamber. We rocked back and forth before the instrument board, our shoulders drooping.

We were still rocking when a terrific concussion shook the ship, hurling us from the dais and plunging the chamber into darkness.

Bruised and dazed, I raised myself on one elbow and stared about me. The jarred fluorescent cubes had begun to function again, filling the pilot chamber with a slightly diminished radiance. But the chamber was in a state of chaos. Twisted coils of erillium piping lay at my feet, and an overturned jar of sluice lubricant was spilling its sticky contents over the corrugated metal floor.

Joan had fallen from the pilot dais and was lying on her side by the quartz port, her face ashen, blood trickling from a wound in her cheek. I pulled myself toward her, and lifted her up till her shoulders were resting on my knees. Slowly her eyes blinked open, and bored into mine.

She forced a smile. “Happy landing?” she inquired.

“Not so happy,” I muttered grimly. “You were right about Jupiter. It’s a solid world and we’ve landed smack upon it with considerable violence, judging from the way things have been hurled about.”

“Then the cushioning force field—”

“Oh, it cushioned us, all right. If it hadn’t we’d be roasting merrily inside a twisted mass of wreckage. But I wouldn’t call it happy landing. You’ve got a nasty cut there.”

“I’m all right, Richard.”

Joan reached up and patted my cheek. “Good old Richard. You’re just upset because we didn’t plunge into a lake of molten zinc.”

“Sure, that’s it,” I grunted. “I was hoping for a swift, easy out.”

“Maybe we’ll find it, Richard,” she said, her eyes suddenly serious. “I’m not kidding myself. I know what a whiff of absolute zero can do to mucous membranes. All I’m claiming is that we’ve as good a chance here as we would have had on Ganymede.”

“I wish I could feel that way about it. How do we know the atomotors can lift us from a world as massive as Jupiter?”

“I think they can, Richard. We had twelve times as much acceleration as we needed on tap when we took off from Earth.”

She was getting to her feet now. Her eyes were shining again, exultantly. You would have thought we were descending in a stratoplane above the green fields of Earth.

“I’ve a confession to make, Richard,” she grinned. “Coming down, I was inwardly afraid we would find ourselves in a ghastly bubble and boil. And I was seriously wondering how long we could stand it.”

“Oh, you were.”

“Longer than you think, Richard. Did you know that human beings can stand simply terrific heat? Experimenters have stayed in rooms artificially heated to a temperature of four hundred degrees for as long as fifteen minutes without being injured in any way.”

“Very interesting,” I said. “But that doesn’t concern us now. We’ve got to find out if our crewmen are injured or badly shaken up. Chances are they’ll be needing splints. And we’ve got to check the atmosphere before we can think of going outside, even with our helmets clamped down tight.

“Chances are it’s laden with poisonous gases which the activated carbon in our oxygen filters won’t absorb. If the atmosphere contains phosgene we’ll not be stepping out. I’m hoping we’ll find only carbon monoxide and methane.”

“Nice, harmless gases.”

“I didn’t say that. But at least they’ll stick to the outside of the particles of carbon in the filter and not tear our lungs apart.”

“A thought, Richard. Suppose we find nickel carbonyl. That’s harmless until it is catalyzed by carbon. Then it’s worse than phosgene.”

“There are lots of deadly ingredients we could find,” I admitted with some bitterness. “Gases in solid toxic form—tiny dust granules which would pass right through the filters into our lungs. Jupiter’s atmosphere may well be composed entirely of gases in solid phase.”

“Let’s hope not, Richard.”

“We’ve been talking about lung corrosives,” I said, relentlessly. “But our space suits are not impermeable, you know. There are gases which injure the skin, causing running sores. Vesicant gases. The fact that there are no vesicants on Io and Europa doesn’t mean we won’t encounter them here. And there are nerve gases which could drive us mad in less time than it takes to—”

“Richard, you always were an optimist.”

I stared at her steadily for an instant; then shrugged. “All right, Joan. I hope you won’t fall down on any of the tests. We’ve got to project an ion detector, a barometer and a moist cloud chamber outside the ship through a vacuum suction lock, in addition to the atmosphere samplers. And we’ve got to bandage that face wound before you bleed to death.”

III

What the Camera Showed

A half hour later we had our recordings. Joan sat facing me on the elevated pilot dais, her head swathed in bandages. Dawson and the two other members of our crew stood just beneath us, their faces sombre in the cube-light.

They had miraculously escaped injury, although Dawson had a badly shaken up look. His hair was tousled and his jaw muscles twitched. Dawson was fifty-three years old, but the others were still in their early twenties—stout lads who could take it.

The fuel unit control pilot, James Darnel, was standing with his shoulders squared, as though awaiting orders. I didn’t want to take off. I had fought Joan all the way, but now that we were actually on Jupiter I wanted to go out with her into the unknown, and stand with her under the swirling, star-concealing mist.

I wanted to be the first man to set foot on Jupiter. But I knew now that the first man would be the last. The atmospheric recordings had revealed that there were poisons in Jupiter’s lethal cloud envelope which would have corroded our flesh through our space suits and burned out our eyes.

Joan had been compelled to bow to the inevitable. Bitterly she sat waiting for me to give the word to take off. I was holding a portable horizon camera in my hand. It was about the smallest, most incidental article of equipment we had brought along.

The huge, electro-shuttered horizon camera which we had intended to use on Ganymede had been so badly damaged by the jar of our descent that it was useless now. We had projected the little camera by a horizontal extension tripod through a vacuum suction lock and let it swing about.

I didn’t expect much from it. It was equipped with infrared and ultraviolet ray filters, but the atmosphere was so dense outside I didn’t think the sensitive plates would depict anything but swirling spirals of mist.

I was waiting for the developing fluid to do its work before I broke the camera open and removed the plates. We had perhaps one chance in ten of getting a pictorial record of Jupiter’s topographical features.

I knew that one clear print would ease Joan’s frustration and bitterness, and give her a sense of accomplishment. But I didn’t expect anything sensational. Venus is a frozen wasteland from pole to pole, and the dust-bowl deserts of Mars are exactly like the more arid landscapes of Earth.

Most of Earth is sea and desert and I felt sure that Jupiter would exhibit uniform surface features over nine-tenths of its crust. Its rugged or picturesque regions would be dispersed amidst vast, dun wastes. The law of averages was dead against our having landed on the rim of some blue-lit, mysterious cavern measureless to man, or by the shores of an inland sea.

But Joan’s eyes were shining again, so I didn’t voice my misgivings. Joan’s eyes were fastened on the little camera as though all her life were centered there.

“Well, Richard,” she urged.

My hands were shaking. “A few pictures won’t give me a lift,” I said. “Even if they show mountains and crater-pits and five hundred million people gape at them on Earth.”

“Don’t be such a pessimist, Richard. We’ll be back in a month with impermeable space suits, and a helmet filter of the Silo type. You’re forgetting we’ve accomplished a lot. It’s something to know that the temperature outside isn’t anything like as ghastly as the cold of space, and that the pebbles we’ve siphoned up show Widman-statten lines and contain microscopic diamonds. That means Jupiter’s crust isn’t all volcanic ash. There’ll be something more interesting than tumbled mounds of lava awaiting us when we come back. If we can back our geological findings with prints—”

“You bet we can,” I scoffed. “I haven’t a doubt of it. What do you want to see? Flame-tongued flowers or gyroscopic porcupines? Take your choice. Richard the Great never fails.”

“Richard, you’re talking like that to hide something inside you that’s all wonder and surmise.”

Scowling, I broke open the camera and the plates fell out into my hand. They were small three by four inch positive transparencies, coated on one side with a iridescent emulsion which was still slightly damp.

Joan’s eyes were riveted on my face. She seemed unaware of the presence of the crewmen below us. She sat calmly watching me as I picked up the topmost plate and held it up in the cube-light.

I stared at it intently. It depicted—a spiral of mist. Simply that, and nothing more. The spiral hung in blackness like a wisp of smoke, tapering from a narrow base.

“Well?” said Joan.

“Nothing on this one,” I said, and picked up another. The spiral was still there, but behind it was something that looked like an anthill.

“Thick mist getting thinner,” I said.

The third plate gave me a jolt. The spiral had become a weaving ghost shroud above a distinct elevation that could have been either a mountain or an anthill. It would have been impossible to even guess at the elevation’s distance from the ship if something hadn’t seemed to be crouching upon it.

The mist coiled down over the thing and partly obscured it. But enough of it was visible to startle me profoundly. It seemed to be crouching on the summit of the elevation, a wasplike thing with wiry legs and gauzy wings standing straight out from its body.

My fingers were trembling so I nearly dropped the fourth plate. On the fourth plate the thing was clearly visible. The spiral was a dispersing ribbon of mist high up on the plate and the mound was etched in sharp outlines on the emulsion.

The crouching shape was unmistakably wasplike. It stood poised on the edge of the mound, its wings a vibrating blur against the amorphously swirling mist.

From within the mound a companion shape was emerging. The second “wasp” was similar to the poised creature in all respects, but its wings did not appear to be vibrating and from its curving mouthparts there dangled threadlike filaments of some whitish substance which was faintly discernible against the mist.

The fifth and last plate showed both creatures poised as though for flight, while something that looked like the head of still another wasp was protruding from the summit of the mound.

I passed the plates to Joan without comment. Wonder and exaltation came into her face as she examined them, first in sequence and then haphazardly, as though unable to believe her eyes.

“Life,” she murmured at last, her voice tremulous with awe. “Life on Jupiter. Richard, it’s—unbelievable. This great planet that we thought was a seething cauldron is actually inhabited by—insects.”

“I don’t think they’re insects, Joan,” I said. “We’ve got to suspend judgment until we can secure a specimen and study it at close range. It’s an obligation we owe to our sponsors and—to ourselves. We’re here on a mission of scientific exploration. We didn’t inveigle funds from the Smithsonian so that we could rush to snap conclusions five hundred million miles from Earth.

“Insectlike would be a safer word. I’ve always believed that life would evolve along parallel lines throughout the entire solar system, assuming that it could exist at all on Venus, Mars, or on one of the outer planets. I’ve always believed that any life sustaining environment would produce forms familiar to us. On Earth you have the same adaptations occurring again and again in widely divergent species.

“There are lizards that resemble fish and fish that are lizardlike. The dinosaur Triceratops resembled a rhinoceros, the duck-billed platypus a colossal. Porpoises and whales are so fishlike that no visitor from space would ever suspect that they were mammals wearing evolutionary grease paint. And some of the insects look just like crustaceans, as you know.

“These creatures look like insects, but they may not even be protoplasmic in structure. They may be composed of some energy-absorbing mineral that has acquired the properties of life.”

Joan’s eyes were shining. “I don’t care what they’re composed of, Richard. We’ve got to capture one of those creatures alive.”

I shook my head. “Impossible, Joan. If the air outside wasn’t poisonous I’d be out there with a net. But there are limits to what we can hope to accomplish on this trip.”

“We’ve siphoned up specimens of the soil,” Joan protested. “What’s to stop us from trying to catch up one of them in a suction cup?”

“You’re forgetting that suction cups have a diameter of scarcely nine inches,” I said. “These creatures may be as huge as the dragonflies of the Carboniferous Age.”

“Richard, we’ll project a traveling suction cup through one of the vacuum locks and try to—”

Her teeth came together with a little click. Startled, I turned and stared at her. Despite her elation she had been sitting in a relaxed attitude, with her back to the control panel and her latex taped legs extended out over the dais. Now she was sitting up straight, her face deathly pale in the cube-light.

The creatures were standing a little to the right of the rigidly staring crewmen, their swiftly vibrating wings enveloped in a pale bluish radiance which swirled upward toward the ribbed metal ceiling of the pilot chamber.

Enormous they were—and unutterably terrifying with their great, many-faceted eyes fastened in brooding malignance upon us.

Joan and I arose simultaneously, drawn to our feet by a horror such as we had never known. A sense of sickening unreality gripped me, so that I could neither move nor cry out.

Dawson alone remained articulate. He raised his arm and pointed, his voice a shrill bleat.

“Look out, sir! Look out! There’s another one coming through the wall directly behind you.”

The warning came too late. As I swung toward the quartz port I saw Joan’s arm go out, her body quiver. Towering above her was a third gigantic shape, the tip of its abdomen resting on her shoulders, its spindly legs spread out over the pilot dais.

As I stared at it aghast it shifted its bulk, and a darkly gleaming object that looked like a shrunken bean-pod emerged from between Joan’s shoulder blades.

Joan moaned and sagged on the dais, her hands going to her throat. Instantly the wasp swooped over me, its abdomen descending. For an awful instant I could see only a blurred shapelessness hovering over me.

Then a white-hot shaft of pain lanced through me and the blur receded. But I was unable to get up. I was unable to move or think clearly. My limbs seemed weighted. I couldn’t get up or help Joan or even roll over.

My head was bursting and my spine was a board. I must have tried to summon help, for I seem to remember Dawson sobbing: “I’m paralyzed too, sir,” just before my senses left me and I slumped unconscious on the dais.

How long I remained in blackness I had no way of knowing. But when I opened my eyes again I was no longer on the dais. I was up under the ceiling of the pilot chamber, staring down at the corrugated floor through what looked like a glimmering, whitish haze.

Something white and translucent wavered between my vision and the floor, obscuring the outlines of the great wasps standing there.

There were five wasps standing directly beneath me in the center of the pilot chamber, their wings a luminous blur in the cube-light.

My perceptions were surprisingly acute. I wasn’t confused mentally, although my mouth felt parched and there was a dull, throbbing ache in my temples.

The position in which I found myself and the whitish haze bewildered me for only an instant. I knew that the “haze” was a web the instant I studied its texture. And when I tried to move and couldn’t the truth dawned in all its horror.

I was suspended beneath the ceiling of the chamber in a translucent, hammock-like web. I was lying on my stomach, my limbs bound by fibrous strands as resistant as whipcords.

Minutes which seemed like eternities passed as I lay there with fear clutching at my heart. I could only gaze downward. The crewmen had vanished and the wasps were standing like grim sentinels in front of the control panel.

I was almost sure that Joan and the crewmen were suspended in similar webs close to me. I thought I knew what the wasps had done to us.

I had talked to Joan about life evolving along parallel lines throughout the Solar System, but I hadn’t expected to encounter life as strange and frightening as this—insectlike, and yet composed of some radiant substance that could penetrate solid metal and flow at will through the walls of a ship.

Some radiant substance that had weight and substance and could touch human flesh without searing it. Nothing so ghastly strange and yet—indisputably the creatures were wasplike. And being wasplike their habit patterns were similar to those of so-called social wasps on Earth.

Social wasps sting caterpillars into insensibility, and deposit eggs in their paralyzed flesh. When the wasp-grubs hatch they become ghoulish parasites, gruesomely feasting until the caterpillars dwindle to repulsive, desiccated husks.

IV

Eddington’s Oscillations

Horror and sick revulsion came into me as I stared down at the great wasps, with their many-faceted eyes seeming to probe the Jovian mists through a solid metal bulkhead!

They thought we were Jovian caterpillars! Evidently there were flabby, white larva-shapes out in the mist as large as men—with the habit perhaps of rearing upright on stumpy legs like terrestrial measuring worms. We looked enough like Jovian caterpillars to deceive those Jovian wasps.

They had apparently seen us through the walls of the ship, and their egg-laying instincts had gone awry. They had plunged ovipositors into our flesh, spun webs about us and hung us up to dry out while their loathsome progeny feasted on our flesh.

The whitish substance exuding from the mouthparts of one of the photographed wasps had evidently been mucilaginous web material.

There was no other possible explanation. And suddenly as I lay there with thudding temples something occurred which increased my horror tenfold.

Zigzagging, luminous lines appeared on the ribbed metal wall opposite the quartz port and a wasp materialized amidst spectral bands of radiance which wavered and shimmered like heat waves in bright sunlight.

A coldness itched across my scalp. Dangling from the wasp’s right foreleg was the web-enmeshed form of the fuel unit control pilot. Young Darnel’s hair was tousled, and his metacloth pilot tunic had been partly torn away, leaving his ribs exposed.

I had never seen anything quite so horrible. Embedded in Darnel’s flesh was a huge, faintly luminous grub, its rudimentary mouthparts obscurely visible beneath the drum-tight skin over his breastbone.

His hands closed and unclosed as I stared down at him. His forehead was drenched with sweat and he writhed as though in unbearable anguish, a hectic flush suffusing his cheeks.

My throat felt hot and swollen but I managed to whisper: “Darnel. Darnel, my lad.”

Slowly his eyelids flickered open and he stared up at me, a grimace of agony convulsing his haggard features.

“Nothing seems quite real, sir,” he groaned. “Except—the pain.”

“Is it very bad?”

“I’m in agony, sir. I can’t stand it much longer. It’s as though a heated iron were resting on my chest.”

“Where did that wasp take you?”

“Into the chart room, sir. When I struggled in the web it carried me into the chart room and stung me again.”

I swallowed hard. “Did you experience any pain before that, lad?”

“I felt a stab the first time it plunged its stinger into me, but when I came to in the web there was no pain. The pain started in the chart room.”

I was thinking furiously. Stinger—ovipositor. A few species of stinging terrestrial insects possessed organs which combined the functions of both. Evidently the wasps had simply stung us at first—to paralyze us. Now they were completing the gruesome process of providing a feast for their avaricious progeny. One of the wasps had taken Darnel from the web, and deposited a fertile, luminous egg in his flesh.

It was becoming hideously clear now. The wasp’s retreat into the chart room had been motivated by a desire to complete its loathsome task in grim seclusion. It had withdrawn a short distance for the sake of privacy, passing completely through the wall out of sight.

My stomach felt tight and hollow when I contemplated the grub, which had apparently hatched out almost instantly. It seemed probable that Darnel’s anguish was caused by the grub’s luminosity searing his flesh, as its mouthparts were still immobile.

“Darnel,” I whispered. “The paralysis wore off. They couldn’t sting us into permanent insensibility. The pain may go too.”

He looked at me, his eyes filming. “I don’t understand, sir. Paralysis?”

I had forgotten that Darnel wasn’t even aware of what we were up against. He couldn’t see the grub. He didn’t know that we were—caterpillars.

He was in torment, and I was powerless to help him. I was glad he didn’t know, despite my certain knowledge that I was about to share his fate. I whispered hoarsely: “Can you see Joan, lad. Is she—”

“She’s lying in the web next to you, sir. Dawson and Stillmen have been out.”

“Taken out.”

“There are two empty webs, sir. Oh, God, the pain—I can’t stand it.”

The great wasp was moving now. It was moving slowly across the chamber toward the quartz port, between its motionless companions. Its wings were vibrating and it was raising Darnel up as though it were about to hurl him out through the inches-thick quartz into the mist.

Suddenly as I stared the utter strangeness of something that had already occurred smote me with the force of a physical blow. The wasp had carried Darnel right through the wall—from the pilot chamber to the chart room, and back again.

Apparently the great wasps could make us tenuous too! Close and prolonged contact with the energies pouring from them had made Darnel’s body as permeable as gamma light. Horribly it was borne in on me that Darnel’s anguish was caused by a pervasive glow which enveloped him from head to foot. It was fainter than the radiance which poured from the wasps and was almost invisible in the fluorescent cube-light, but I could see it now.

The wasp didn’t hurl Darnel out. It simply vanished with him through the quartz port, its wings dwindling to a luminous blur which hovered for an instant before the inches-thick crystal before it dwindled into nothingness.

The same instant a voice beside me moaned. “Richard, I can’t move.”

“Joan,” I gasped. “Oh, my dearest—”

“Richard, I can’t move. I’m in a sort of web, Richard. It’s—it’s like a mist before my eyes.”

I knew then that Joan was trussed up on her side, gazing through her web directly at me. I was glad that she couldn’t see the wasps.

“Joan.”

“Yes, Richard.”

“Did you just wake up?”

“Wake up? You mean I’ve been dreaming, Richard. Those wasps—”

“Darling, do you want it straight?”

“You don’t need to ask that, Richard.”

I told her then—everything I suspected, everything I knew. When I stopped speaking, she was silent for ten full seconds. Then her voice came to me vibrant with courage.

“We can’t live forever, Richard.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking, darling. And you’ve got to admit we’ve had the best of everything.”

“Some people I know would call it living,” she said.

“Darling?”

“Yes, Richard.”

“I’ve a confession to make. I’ve liked being out in space with you. I’ve liked the uncertainty, the danger—the desperate chances we both took with our lives.”

“I’m glad, Richard.”

“I don’t glow outwardly—you know that. You’ve had a lot to contend with. I’ve reproached you, and tried to put a damper on your enthusiasm, and—”

“You’ve been a wonderful husband, Richard.”

“But as a lover—”

“Richard, do you remember what you said to me when we were roaring through the red skies above Io? You held my fingers so tightly I was afraid you’d break them, and your kisses were as fiery as a girl could ask for. And you said I reminded you of someone you’d always loved, and that was why you’d married me.

“And when I scowled and asked her name you said she had no name and had never existed on Earth. But that I had her eyes and hair and thoughts, and was just as slim, and that when I walked I reminded you of her, and even when I just sat on the pilot dais staring out into space.

“I knew then that you had always been in love with love, and that means everything to a woman.”

“I didn’t do so badly then?”

“Richard, you’ve never done badly at any time. Do you think I could love a man who was all flattery and blather?”

“I’ve always loved you, Joan.”

“I know, Richard my darling.”

“If only it didn’t have to end.”

“It will be over swiftly, dearest. They’ll take us out into the mist and into one of their nests, but we’ll be beyond pain ten seconds after the atmosphere enters our lungs. Darnel and Dawson are at peace now.”

“But we could have gone on, and—” I broke off in stunned bewilderment.

The vibrating wings of the wasps beneath me seemed to be casting less massive shadows on the walls of the pilot chamber. The wasps themselves seemed to be—

My heart gave a sudden, violent leap. For perhaps ten seconds utter incredulity enveloped me. Unmistakably the wasps had grown smaller, dimmer.

Even as I stared they continued to dwindle, shedding their awesome contours and becoming no larger than ourselves.

“Good God!” I exclaimed.

“Richard, what is it?”

“The wasps, Joan. They’re getting smaller!”

“Richard, you’re either stark, raving mad, or your vision is swimming from the strain of watching them.”

“No, Joan. I’m quite sane, and my eyes are all right. I tell you, they’re shrinking.”

“Richard, how could they shrink?”

“I—I don’t know. Perhaps—wait a minute, Joan. Eddington’s oscillations.”

“Eddington’s what?”

“Oscillations,” I exclaimed, excitedly. “A century ago Eddington pictured all matter throughout the universe as alternating between a state of contraction and expansion. Oh, Joan, don’t you see? These creatures are composed not of solid matter, but of some form of vibrating energy. They possess an oscillatory life cycle which makes them contract and expand in small-scale duplication of the larger pulse of our contracting and expanding universe. They become huge, then small, then huge again. They may expand and contract a thousand times before they die. Perhaps they—”

A scream from Joan cut my explanation short. “Richard, the web’s slackening. I’m going to fall.”

Fifteen minutes later we were rocketing upward through Jupiter’s immense cloud blanket, locked in each other’s arms.

Joan was sobbing. “It’s unbelievable, Richard. We were saved by—by a miracle.”

“No, Joan—Eddington’s oscillations. Although I’ll admit it seemed like a miracle when those tiny wasps became frightened by enormous us descending upon them, and flew straight through the quartz port into the mist.”

“What do you suppose made the web slacken?”

“Well,” I said. “That web was spun out of the bodies of those dwindling wasps. It seems to have been a sort of energy web, since it shriveled to a few charred fibers before we could pluck it from our tunics. Apparently it was sustained by energies emanating from the wasps which burned out the instant the wasps dwindled.”

“Richard, hold me close. I thought we would never see Earth again.”

“I’m not sure that we will,” I warned her. “We’ve lost our crew and we can’t even set our course by the stars. Perhaps the direction gauges will function again when the atomotors carry us beyond Jupiter’s orbit, but I wouldn’t bank on it.”

“Oh, Richard, how could you? You said you liked uncertainty, danger. You said—”

“Never mind what I said. I’m just being realistic, that’s all. Do you realize how heavily the cards are stacked against us?”

“No, and I don’t particularly care. Kiss me, Richard.”

Grumblingly I obeyed. It would have been better if we could have saved our energies for the grim ordeal ahead of us, but it was impossible to reason with Joan when she was in one of her reckless moods.

The Sky Trap

Lawton enjoyed a good fight. He stood happily trading blows with Slashaway Tommy, his lean-fleshed torso gleaming with sweat. He preferred to work the pugnacity out of himself slowly, to savor it as it ebbed.

“Better luck next time, Slashaway,” he said, and unlimbered a left hook that thudded against his opponent’s jaw with such violence that the big, hairy ape crumpled to the resin and rolled over on his back.

Lawton brushed a lock of rust-colored hair back from his brow and stared down at the limp figure lying on the descending stratoship’s slightly tilted athletic deck.

“Good work, Slashaway,” he said. “You’re primitive and beetle-browed, but you’ve got what it takes.”

Lawton flattered himself that he was the opposite of primitive. High in the sky he had predicted the weather for eight days running, with far more accuracy than he could have put into a punch.

They’d flash his report all over Earth in a couple of minutes now. From New York to London to Singapore and back. In half an hour he’d be donning street clothes and stepping out feeling darned good.

He had fulfilled his weekly obligation to society by manipulating meteorological instruments for forty-five minutes, high in the warm, upper stratosphere and worked off his pugnacity by knocking down a professional gym slugger. He would have a full, glorious week now to work off all his other drives.

The stratoship’s commander, Captain Forrester, had come up, and was staring at him reproachfully. “Dave, I don’t hold with the reforming Johnnies who want to remake human nature from the ground up. But you’ve got to admit our generation knows how to keep things humming with a minimum of stress. We don’t have world wars now because we work off our pugnacity by sailing into gym sluggers eight or ten times a week. And since our romantic emotions can be taken care of by tactile television we’re not at the mercy of every brainless bit of fluff’s calculated ankle appeal.”

Lawton turned, and regarded him quizzically. “Don’t you suppose I realize that? You’d think I just blew in from Mars.”

“All right. We have the outlets, the safety valves. They are supposed to keep us civilized. But you don’t derive any benefit from them.”

“The heck I don’t. I exchange blows with Slashaway every time I board the Perseus. And as for women—well, there’s just one woman in the world for me, and I wouldn’t exchange her for all the Turkish images in the tactile broadcasts from Stamboul.”

“Yes, I know. But you work off your primitive emotions with too much gusto. Even a cast-iron gym slugger can bruise. That last blow was—brutal. Just because Slashaway gets thumped and thudded all over by the medical staff twice a week doesn’t mean he can take—”

The stratoship lurched suddenly. The deck heaved up under Lawton’s feet, hurling him against Captain Forrester and spinning both men around so that they seemed to be waltzing together across the ship. The still limp gym slugger slid downward, colliding with a corrugated metal bulkhead and sloshing back and forth like a wet mackerel.

A full minute passed before Lawton could put a stop to that. Even while careening he had been alive to Slashaway’s peril, and had tried to leap to his aid. But the ship’s steadily increasing gyrations had hurled him away from the skipper and against a massive vaulting horse, barking the flesh from his shins and spilling him with violence onto the deck.

He crawled now toward the prone gym slugger on his hands and knees, his temples thudding. The gyrations ceased an instant before he reached Slashaway’s side. With an effort he lifted the big man up, propped him against the bulkhead and shook him until his teeth rattled. “Slashaway,” he muttered. “Slashaway, old fellow.”

Slashaway opened blurred eyes, “Phew!” he muttered. “You sure socked me hard, sir.”

“You went out like a light,” explained Lawton gently. “A minute before the ship lurched.”

“The ship lurched, sir?”

“Something’s very wrong, Slashaway. The ship isn’t moving. There are no vibrations and—Slashaway, are you hurt? Your skull thumped against that bulkhead so hard I was afraid—”

“Naw, I’m okay. Whatd’ya mean, the ship ain’t moving? How could it stop?”

Lawton said. “I don’t know, Slashaway.” Helping the gym slugger to his feet he stared apprehensively about him. Captain Forrester was kneeling on the resin testing his hocks for sprains with splayed fingers, his features twitching.

“Hurt badly, sir?”

The Commander shook his head. “I don’t think so. Dave, we are twenty thousand feet up, so how in hell could we be stationary in space?”

“It’s all yours, skipper.”

“I must say you’re helpful.”

Forrester got painfully to his feet and limped toward the athletic compartment’s single quartz port—a small circle of radiance on a level with his eyes. As the port sloped downward at an angle of nearly sixty degrees all he could see was a diffuse glimmer until he wedged his brow in the observation visor and stared downward.

Lawton heard him suck in his breath sharply. “Well, sir?”

“There are thin cirrus clouds directly beneath us. They’re not moving.”

Lawton gasped, the sense of being in an impossible situation swelling to nightmare proportions within him. What could have happened?

Directly behind him, close to a bulkhead chronometer, which was clicking out the seconds with unabashed regularity, was a misty blue visiplate that merely had to be switched on to bring the pilots into view.

The Commander hobbled toward it, and manipulated a rheostat. The two pilots appeared side by side on the screen, sitting amidst a spidery network of dully gleaming pipe lines and nichrome humidification units. They had unbuttoned their high-altitude coats and their stratosphere helmets were resting on their knees. The Jablochoff candle light which flooded the pilot room accentuated the haggardness of their features, which were a sickly cadaverous hue.

The captain spoke directly into the visiplate. “What’s wrong with the ship?” he demanded. “Why aren’t we descending? Dawson, you do the talking!”

One of the pilots leaned tensely forward, his shoulders jerking. “We don’t know, sir. The rotaries went dead when the ship started gyrating. We can’t work the emergency torps and the temperature is rising.”

“But—it defies all logic,” Forrester muttered. “How could a metal ship weighing tons be suspended in the air like a balloon? It is stationary, but it is not buoyant. We seem in all respects to be frozen in.”

“The explanation may be simpler than you dream,” Lawton said. “When we’ve found the key.”

The Captain swung toward him. “Could you find the key, Dave?”

“I should like to try. It may be hidden somewhere on the ship, and then again, it may not be. But I should like to go over the ship with a fine-tooth comb, and then I should like to go over outside, thoroughly. Suppose you make me an emergency mate and give me a carte blanche, sir.”

Lawton got his carte blanche. For two hours he did nothing spectacular, but he went over every inch of the ship. He also lined up the crew and pumped them. The men were as completely in the dark as the pilots and the now completely recovered Slashaway, who was following Lawton about like a doting seal.

“You’re a right guy, sir. Another two or three cracks and my noggin would’ve split wide open.”

“But not like an eggshell, Slashaway. Pig iron develops fissures under terrific pounding but your cranium seems to be more like tempered steel. Slashaway, you won’t understand this, but I’ve got to talk to somebody and the Captain is too busy to listen.

“I went over the entire ship because I thought there might be a hidden source of buoyancy somewhere. It would take a lot of air bubbles to turn this ship into a balloon, but there are large vacuum chambers under the multiple series condensers in the engine room which conceivably could have sucked in a helium leakage from the carbon pile valves. And there are bulkhead porosities which could have clogged.”

“Yeah,” muttered Slashaway, scratching his head. “I see what you mean, sir.”

“It was no soap. There’s nothing inside the ship that could possibly keep us up. Therefore there must be something outside that isn’t air. We know there is air outside. We’ve stuck our heads out and sniffed it. And we’ve found out a curious thing.

“Along with the oxygen there is water vapor, but it isn’t H_2O. It’s HO. A molecular arrangement like that occurs in the upper Solar atmosphere, but nowhere on Earth. And there’s a thin sprinkling of hydrocarbon molecules out there too. Hydrocarbon appears ordinarily as methane gas, but out there it rings up as CH. Methane is CH_4. And there are also scandium oxide molecules making unfamiliar faces at us. And oxide of boron—with an equational limp.”

“Gee,” muttered Slashaway. “We’re up against it, eh?”

Lawton was squatting on his hams beside an emergency ’chute opening on the deck of the Penguin’s weather observatory. He was letting down a spliced beryllium plumb line, his gaze riveted on the slowly turning horizontal drum of a windlass which contained more than two hundred feet of gleaming metal cordage.

Suddenly as he stared the drum stopped revolving. Lawton stiffened, a startled expression coming into his face. He had been playing a hunch that had seemed as insane, rationally considered, as his wild idea about the bulkhead porosities. For a moment he was stunned, unable to believe that he had struck pay dirt. The winch indicator stood at one hundred and three feet, giving him a rich, fruity yield of startlement.

One hundred feet below him the plummet rested on something solid that sustained it in space. Scarcely breathing, Lawton leaned over the windlass and stared downward. There was nothing visible between the ship and the fleecy clouds far below except a tiny black dot resting on vacancy and a thin beryllium plumb line ascending like an interrogation point from the dot to the ’chute opening.

“You see something down there?” Slashaway asked.

Lawton moved back from the windlass, his brain whirling. “Slashaway there’s a solid surface directly beneath us, but it’s completely invisible.”

“You mean it’s like a frozen cloud, sir?”

“No, Slashaway. It doesn’t shimmer, or deflect light. Congealed water vapor would sink instantly to earth.”

“You think it’s all around us, sir?”

Lawton stared at Slashaway aghast. In his crude fumblings the gym slugger had ripped a hidden fear right out of his subconsciousness into the light.

“I don’t know, Slashaway,” he muttered. “I’ll get at that next.”

A half hour later Lawton sat beside the captain’s desk in the control room, his face drained of all color. He kept his gaze averted as he talked. A man who succeeds too well with an unpleasant task may develop a subconscious sense of guilt.

“Sir, we’re suspended inside a hollow sphere which resembles a huge, floating soap bubble. Before we ripped through it it must have had a plastic surface. But now the tear has apparently healed over, and the shell all around us is as resistant as steel. We’re completely bottled up, sir. I shot rocket leads in all directions to make certain.”

The expression on Forrester’s face sold mere amazement down the river. He could not have looked more startled if the nearer planets had yielded their secrets chillingly, and a super-race had appeared suddenly on Earth.

“Good God, Dave. Do you suppose something has happened to space?”

Lawton raised his eyes with a shudder. “Not necessarily, sir. Something has happened to us. We’re floating through the sky in a huge, invisible bubble of some sort, but we don’t know whether it has anything to do with space. It may be a meteorological phenomenon.”

“You say we’re floating?”

“We’re floating slowly westward. The clouds beneath us have been receding for fifteen or twenty minutes now.”

“Phew!” muttered Forrester. “That means we’ve got to—”

He broke off abruptly. The Perseus’ radio operator was standing in the doorway, distress and indecision in his gaze. “Our reception is extremely sporadic, sir,” he announced. “We can pick up a few of the stronger broadcasts, but our emergency signals haven’t been answered.”

“Keep trying,” Forrester ordered.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The captain turned to Lawton. “Suppose we call it a bubble. Why are we suspended like this, immovably? Your rocket leads shot up, and the plumb line dropped one hundred feet. Why should the ship itself remain stationary?”

Lawton said: “The bubble must possess sufficient internal equilibrium to keep a big, heavy body suspended at its core. In other words, we must be suspended at the hub of converging energy lines.”

“You mean we’re surrounded by an electromagnetic field?”

Lawton frowned. “Not necessarily, sir. I’m simply pointing out that there must be an energy tug of some sort involved. Otherwise the ship would be resting on the inner surface of the bubble.”

Forrester nodded grimly. “We should be thankful, I suppose, that we can move about inside the ship. Dave, do you think a man could descend to the inner surface?”

“I’ve no doubt that a man could, sir. Shall I let myself down?”

“Absolutely not. Damn it, Dave, I need your energies inside the ship. I could wish for a less impulsive first officer, but a man in my predicament can’t be choosy.”

“Then what are your orders, sir?”

“Orders? Do I have to order you to think? Is working something out for yourself such a strain? We’re drifting straight toward the Atlantic Ocean. What do you propose to do about that?”

“I expect I’ll have to do my best, sir.”

Lawton’s “best” conflicted dynamically with the captain’s orders. Ten minutes later he was descending, hand over hand, on a swaying emergency ladder.

“Tough-fibered Davie goes down to look around,” he grumbled.

He was conscious that he was flirting with danger. The air outside was breathable, but would the diffuse, unorthodox gases injure his lungs? He didn’t know, couldn’t be sure. But he had to admit that he felt all right so far. He was seventy feet below the ship and not at all dizzy. When he looked down he could see the purple domed summits of mountains between gaps in the fleecy cloud blanket.

He couldn’t see the Atlantic Ocean—yet. He descended the last thirty feet with mounting confidence. At the end of the ladder he braced himself and let go.

He fell about six feet, landing on his rump on a spongy surface that bounced him back and forth. He was vaguely incredulous when he found himself sitting in the sky staring through his spread legs at clouds and mountains.

He took a deep breath. It struck him that the sensation of falling could be present without movement downward through space. He was beginning to experience such a sensation. His stomach twisted and his brain spun.

He was suddenly sorry he had tried this. It was so damnably unnerving he was afraid of losing all emotional control. He stared up, his eyes squinting against the sun. Far above him the gleaming, wedge-shaped bulk of the Perseus loomed colossally, blocking out a fifth of the sky.

Lowering his right hand he ran his fingers over the invisible surface beneath him. The surface felt rubbery, moist.

He got swayingly to his feet and made a perilous attempt to walk through the sky. Beneath his feet the mysterious surface crackled, and little sparks flew up about his legs. Abruptly he sat down again, his face ashen.

From the emergency ’chute opening far above a massive head appeared. “You all right, sir,” Slashaway called, his voice vibrant with concern.

“Well, I—”

“You’d better come right up, sir. Captain’s orders.”

“All right,” Lawton shouted. “Let the ladder down another ten feet.”

Lawton ascended rapidly, resentment smouldering within him. What right had the skipper to interfere? He had passed the buck, hadn’t he?

Lawton got another bad jolt the instant he emerged through the ’chute opening. Captain Forrester was leaning against a parachute rack gasping for breath, his face a livid hue.

Slashaway looked equally bad. His jaw muscles were twitching and he was tugging at the collar of his gym suit.

Forrester gasped: “Dave, I tried to move the ship. I didn’t know you were outside.”

“Good God, you didn’t know—”

“The rotaries backfired and used up all the oxygen in the engine room. Worse, there’s been a carbonic oxide seepage. The air is contaminated throughout the ship. We’ll have to open the ventilation valves immediately. I’ve been waiting to see if—if you could breathe down there. You’re all right, aren’t you? The air is breathable?”

Lawton’s face was dark with fury. “I was an experimental rat in the sky, eh?”

“Look, Dave, we’re all in danger. Don’t stand there glaring at me. Naturally I waited. I have my crew to think of.”

“Well, think of them. Get those valves open before we all have convulsions.”

A half hour later charcoal gas was mingling with oxygen outside the ship, and the crew was breathing it in again gratefully. Thinly dispersed, and mixed with oxygen it seemed all right. But Lawton had misgivings. No matter how attenuated a lethal gas is it is never entirely harmless. To make matters worse, they were over the Atlantic Ocean.

Far beneath them was an emerald turbulence, half obscured by eastward moving cloud masses. The bubble was holding, but the morale of the crew was beginning to sag.

Lawton paced the control room. Deep within him unsuspected energies surged. “We’ll last until the oxygen is breathed up,” he exclaimed. “We’ll have four or five days, at most. But we seem to be traveling faster than an ocean liner. With luck, we’ll be in Europe before we become carbon dioxide breathers.”

“Will that help matters, Dave?” said the captain wearily.

“If we can blast our way out, it will.”

The Captain’s sagging body jackknifed erect. “Blast our way out? What do you mean, Dave?”

“I’ve clamped expulsor disks on the cosmic ray absorbers and trained them downward. A thin stream of accidental neutrons directed against the bottom of the bubble may disrupt its energies—wear it thin. It’s a long gamble, but worth taking. We’re staking nothing, remember?”

Forrester sputtered: “Nothing but our lives! If you blast a hole in the bubble you’ll destroy its energy balance. Did that occur to you? Inside a lopsided bubble we may careen dangerously or fall into the sea before we can get the rotaries started.”

“I thought of that. The pilots are standing by to start the rotaries the instant we lurch. If we succeed in making a rent in the bubble we’ll break out the helicoptic vanes and descend vertically. The rotaries won’t backfire again. I’ve had their burnt-out cylinder heads replaced.”

An agitated voice came from the visiplate on the captain’s desk: “Tuning in, sir.”

Lawton stopped pacing abruptly. He swung about and grasped the desk edge with both hands, his head touching Forrester’s as the two men stared down at the horizontal face of petty officer James Caldwell.

Caldwell wasn’t more than twenty-two or three, but the screen’s opalescence silvered his hair and misted the outlines of his jaw, giving him an aspect of senility.

“Well, young man,” Forrester growled. “What is it? What do you want?”

The irritation in the captain’s voice seemed to increase Caldwell’s agitation. Lawton had to say: “All right, lad, let’s have it,” before the information which he had seemed bursting to impart could be wrenched out of him.

It came in erratic spurts. “The bubble is all blooming, sir. All around inside there are big yellow and purple growths. It started up above, and—and spread around. First there was just a clouding over of the sky, sir, and then—stalks shot out.”

For a moment Lawton felt as though all sanity had been squeezed from his brain. Twice he started to ask a question and thought better of it.

Pumpings were superfluous when he could confirm Caldwell’s statement in half a minute for himself. If Caldwell had cracked up—

Caldwell hadn’t cracked. When Lawton walked to the quartz port and stared down all the blood drained from his face.

The vegetation was luxuriant, and unearthly. Floating in the sky were serpentine tendrils as thick as a man’s wrist, purplish flowers and ropy fungus growths. They twisted and writhed and shot out in all directions, creating a tangle immediately beneath him and curving up toward the ship amidst a welter of seed pods.

He could see the seeds dropping—dropping from pods which reminded him of the darkly horned skate egg sheaths which he had collected in his boyhood from sea beaches at ebb tide.

It was the unwholesomeness of the vegetation which chiefly unnerved him. It looked dank, malarial. There were decaying patches on the fungus growths and a miasmal mist was descending from it toward the ship.

The control room was completely still when he turned from the quartz port to meet Forrester’s startled gaze.

“Dave, what does it mean?” The question burst explosively from the captain’s lips.

“It means—life has appeared and evolved and grown rotten ripe inside the bubble, sir. All in the space of an hour or so.”

“But that’s—impossible.”

Lawton shook his head. “It isn’t at all, sir. We’ve had it drummed into us that evolution proceeds at a snailish pace, but what proof have we that it can’t mutate with lightning-like rapidity? I’ve told you there are gases outside we can’t even make in a chemical laboratory, molecular arrangements that are alien to earth.”

“But plants derive nourishment from the soil,” interpolated Forrester.

“I know. But if there are alien gases in the air the surface of the bubble must be reeking with unheard of chemicals. There may be compounds inside the bubble which have so sped up organic processes that a hundred million year cycle of mutations has been telescoped into an hour.”

Lawton was pacing the floor again. “It would be simpler to assume that seeds of existing plants became somehow caught up and imprisoned in the bubble. But the plants around us never existed on earth. I’m no botanist, but I know what the Congo has on tap, and the great rain forests of the Amazon.”

“Dave, if the growth continues it will fill the bubble. It will choke off all our air.”

“Don’t you suppose I realize that? We’ve got to destroy that growth before it destroys us.”

It was pitiful to watch the crew’s morale sag. The miasmal taint of the ominously proliferating vegetation was soon pervading the ship, spreading demoralization everywhere.

It was particularly awful straight down. Above a ropy tangle of livid vines and creepers a kingly stench weed towered, purplish and bloated and weighted down with seed pods.

It seemed sentient, somehow. It was growing so fast that the evil odor which poured from it could be correlated with the increase of tension inside the ship. From that particular plant, minute by slow minute, there surged a continuously mounting offensiveness, like nothing Lawton had ever smelt before.

The bubble had become a blooming horror sailing slowly westward above the storm-tossed Atlantic. And all the chemical agents which Lawton sprayed through the ventilation valves failed to impede the growth or destroy a single seed pod.

It was difficult to kill plant life with chemicals which were not harmful to man. Lawton took dangerous risks, increasing the unwholesomeness of their rapidly dwindling air supply by spraying out a thin diffusion of problematically poisonous acids.

It was no sale. The growths increased by leaps and bounds, as though determined to show their resentment of the measures taken against them by marshalling all their forces in a demoralizing plantkrieg.

Thwarted, desperate, Lawton played his last card. He sent five members of the crew, equipped with blow guns. They returned screaming. Lawton had to fortify himself with a double whiskey soda before he could face the look of reproach in their eyes long enough to get all of the prickles out of them.

From then on pandemonium reigned. Blue funk seized the petty officers while some of the crew ran amuck. One member of the engine watch attacked four of his companions with a wrench; another went into the ship’s kitchen and slashed himself with a paring knife. The assistant engineer leapt through a ’chute opening, after avowing that he preferred impalement to suffocation.

He was impaled. It was horrible. Looking down Lawton could see his twisted body dangling on a crimson-stippled thornlike growth forty feet in height.

Slashaway was standing at his elbow in that Waterloo moment, his rough-hewn features twitching. “I can’t stand it, sir. It’s driving me squirrelly.”

“I know, Slashaway. There’s something worse than marijuana weed down there.”

Slashaway swallowed hard. “That poor guy down there did the wise thing.”

Lawton husked: “Stamp on that idea, Slashaway—kill it. We’re stronger than he was. There isn’t an ounce of weakness in us. We’ve got what it takes.”

“A guy can stand just so much.”

“Bosh. There’s no limit to what a man can stand.”

From the visiplate behind them came an urgent voice: “Radio room tuning in, sir.”

Lawton swung about. On the flickering screen the foggy outlines of a face appeared and coalesced into sharpness.

The Perseus radio operator was breathless with excitement. “Our reception is improving, sir. European short waves are coming in strong. The static is terrific, but we’re getting every station on the continent, and most of the American stations.”

Lawton’s eyes narrowed to exultant slits. He spat on the deck, a slow tremor shaking him.

“Slashaway, did you hear that? We’ve done it. We’ve won against hell and high water.”

“We done what, sir?”

“The bubble, you ape—it must be wearing thin. Hell’s bells, do you have to stand there gaping like a moronic ninepin? I tell you, we’ve got it licked.”

“I can’t stand it, sir. I’m going nuts.”

“No you’re not. You’re slugging the thing inside you that wants to quit. Slashaway, I’m going to give the crew a first-class pep talk. There’ll be no stampeding while I’m in command here.”

He turned to the radio operator. “Tune in the control room. Tell the captain I want every member of the crew lined up on this screen immediately.”

The face in the visiplate paled. “I can’t do that, sir. Ship’s regulations—”

Lawton transfixed the operator with an irate stare. “The captain told you to report directly to me, didn’t he?”

“Yes sir, but—”

“If you don’t want to be cashiered, snap into it.”

“Yes—yessir.”

The captain’s startled face preceded the duty-muster visiview by a full minute, seeming to project outward from the screen. The veins on his neck were thick blue cords.

“Dave,” he croaked. “Are you out of your mind? What good will talking do now?”

“Are the men lined up?” Lawton rapped, impatiently.

Forrester nodded. “They’re all in the engine room, Dave.”

“Good. Block them in.”

The captain’s face receded, and a scene of tragic horror filled the opalescent visiplate. The men were not standing at attention at all. They were slumping against the Perseus’ central charging plant in attitudes of abject despair.

Madness burned in the eyes of three or four of them. Others had torn open their shirts, and raked their flesh with their nails. Petty officer Caldwell was standing as straight as a totem pole, clenching and unclenching his hands. The second assistant engineer was sticking out his tongue. His face was deadpan, which made what was obviously a terror reflex look like an idiot’s grimace.

Lawton moistened his lips. “Men, listen to me. There is some sort of plant outside that is giving off deliriant fumes. A few of us seem to be immune to it.

“I’m not immune, but I’m fighting it, and all of you boys can fight it too. I want you to fight it to the top of your courage. You can fight anything when you know that just around the corner is freedom from a beastliness that deserves to be licked—even if it’s only a plant.

“Men, we’re blasting our way free. The bubble’s wearing thin. Any minute now the plants beneath us may fall with a soggy plop into the Atlantic Ocean.

“I want every man jack aboard this ship to stand at his post and obey orders. Right this minute you look like something the cat dragged in. But most men who cover themselves with glory start off looking even worse than you do.”

He smiled wryly.

“I guess that’s all. I’ve never had to make a speech in my life, and I’d hate like hell to start now.”

It was petty officer Caldwell who started the chant. He started it, and the men took it up until it was coming from all of them in a full-throated roar.

I’m a tough, truehearted skyman,
Careless and all that, d’ye see?
Never at fate a railer,
What is time or tide to me?

All must die when fate shall will it,
I can never die but once,
I’m a tough, truehearted skyman;
He who fears death is a dunce.

Lawton squared his shoulders. With a crew like that nothing could stop him! Ah, his energies were surging high. The deliriant weed held no terrors for him now. They were stouthearted lads and he’d go to hell with them cheerfully, if need be.

It wasn’t easy to wait. The next half hour was filled with a steadily mounting tension as Lawton moved like a young tornado about the ship, issuing orders and seeing that each man was at his post.

“Steady, Jimmy. The way to fight a deliriant is to keep your mind on a set task. Keep sweating, lad.”

“Harry, that winch needs tightening. We can’t afford to miss a trick.”

“Yeah, it will come suddenly. We’ve got to get the rotaries started the instant the bottom drops out.”

He was with the captain and Slashaway in the control room when it came. There was a sudden, grinding jolt, and the captain’s desk started moving toward the quartz port, carrying Lawton with it.

“Holy Jiminy cricket,” exclaimed Slashaway.

The deck tilted sharply; then righted itself. A sudden gush of clear, cold air came through the ventilation valves as the triple rotaries started up with a roar.

Lawton and the captain reached the quartz port simultaneously. Shoulder to shoulder they stood staring down at the storm-tossed Atlantic, electrified by what they saw.

Floating on the waves far beneath them was an undulating mass of vegetation, its surface flecked with glinting foam. As it rose and fell in waning sunlight a tainted seepage spread about it, defiling the clean surface of the sea.

But it wasn’t the floating mass which drew a gasp from Forrester, and caused Lawton’s scalp to prickle. Crawling slowly across that Sargasso-like island of noxious vegetation was a huge, elongated shape which bore a nauseous resemblance to a mottled garden slug.

Forrester was trembling visibly when he turned from the quartz port.

“God, Dave, that would have been the last straw. Animal life. Dave, I—I can’t realize we’re actually out of it.”

“We’re out, all right,” Lawton said, hoarsely. “Just in time, too. Skipper, you’d better issue grog all around. The men will be needing it. I’m taking mine straight. You’ve accused me of being primitive. Wait till you see me an hour from now.”

Dr. Stephen Halday stood in the door of his Appalachian mountain laboratory staring out into the pine-scented dusk, a worried expression on his bland, small-featured face. It had happened again. A portion of his experiment had soared skyward, in a very loose group of highly energized wavicles. He wondered if it wouldn’t form a sort of sub-electronic macrocosm high in the stratosphere, altering even the air and dust particles which had spurted up with it, its uncharged atomic particles combining with hydrogen and creating new molecular arrangements.

If such were the case there would be eight of them now. His bubbles, floating through the sky. They couldn’t possibly harm anything—way up there in the stratosphere. But he felt a little uneasy about it all the same. He’d have to be more careful in the future, he told himself. Much more careful. He didn’t want the Controllers to turn back the clock of civilization a century by stopping all atom-smashing experiments.

The Mercurian

We stood before the airlock, the old man and I, and watched them go out. Ellison was a granite man and I was just the lad who threw the switches.

I was new at it. They had sent me out with a pat on the back and a commission, but I didn’t feel like a Mercury run officer. Mining uranium on the Sun’s firstling was no job for a green kid of twenty-two. Outside were lakes of molten zinc and a temperature of 790 degrees Fahr.

No part of that temperature seeped into us, but just knowing it was out there was spine-chilling. I am not being facetious. To keep from thinking of the hot face we thought of the cold face, and you can’t imagine extremes of cold without feeling shivery. Out on the cold face were other miners, working under conditions I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. They had the cold of open space to contend with, and a little of that seeped in.

The Commander was passing out advice to each of the miners as they stepped into the lock.

“Murphy, it’s uranium we want. We’re not zoologists. The next time you go specimen chasing—”

“But it looked like a frog, Chief. I swear it did.”

“You know damn well no froglike animal could hop around on red-hot rocks.”

“I won’t let him out of my sight this time, sir,” said the miner at Murphy’s heels.

“Thank you, Haines. He needs a nurse, but do what you can.”

Five miners stepped out, each with a glance from Ellison which said as plain as words that he would walk beside them until they came back in again. The old man had so much quiet strength that he could split off simulacra of himself, and send them out through the airlock by just passing out advice. He moved like a living presence over the semi-molten Mercurian crust beside each of his men, fretting when a coupling slipped or mysterious stirrings caused the lads to look at one another with a wild surmise.

He knew that the merciless heat beating down did something to the scarred and cracked surface rocks which made them seem to buckle and split up into little leaping ghosts, and half his warnings were directed against “heat-devils” and other optical illusions.

When the last man had passed out he turned to me with a wry smile. “Dave, speaking as a psychiatrist, and without knowing for sure, I’ve a hunch there is too much tension inside of you.”

The old man actually was a psychiatrist. You have to be pretty nearly everything to qualify as a Mercury run commander and Ellison’s knowledge started with Aasen and ended with Zwolle. There were some gaps in between, but not many, and he frequently surprised me by pulling rabbits out of those.

We went down into the cuddy and the old man brought out some real smoky Scotch, and we had at least three while a strained look came into his face. One of these days someone is going to stop putting bulkhead chronometers in the cuddies of Mercury run spaceships. Men have to go out and Commanders have to wait, and if an officer can’t get his mind off the seconds in a cuddy what chance has he of relaxing at all?

Hanging on the corrugated metal bulkhead were curios from all over the Solar System, and I tried to interest myself in the things the Commander had collected in his travels. A dried Venusian weejee head looks pretty grotesque, but so does a deep-sea fish from home, and when you’ve seen both dozens of times—

A sudden vibrant humming made me spill a jigger of Scotch on my liberty uniform. The lad who was taking my place at the lock control was buzzing the old man from the “peel off” room. Ellison swung about, and barked into the auxiliary circuit audiocoil. “Well?”

“The men have returned, sir.”

“All right. Keep the inner locks closed and watch the insulators. Rawley is taking over.”

Between the outer and inner locks we had to cool off the men a little. When they stepped in from the crust the sheath couplings on their noncombustible suits had to be sprayed over with liquid air.

We went up in the jacket-lift with our knees braced and down the stern passageway to the “peel off” room, the old man striding on ahead of me. Had I stopped to reflect I might have realized there was trouble brewing. The old man wasn’t psychic exactly, but his hunches came out pat.

Before I looked through the lock port my nerves were merely jumpy, but when I actually saw Murphy standing in the freeze vault enveloped in smoke and sizzle I nearly passed out from shock.

Murphy was waving his arms up and down and the man behind him was making frantic signs to us. The frog was dangling by its long legs from the Irishman’s gloved right hand. It was about three feet in height. Every time he raised it up it tried to leap in his hand, and twisted its eyes around.

Some quirk of parallel evolution had given it a froglike face, webbed feet and long, powerful hindlimbs. But, of course, it wasn’t a frog. It was a Mercurian animal, and my stomach went tight ten seconds after I laid eyes on it.

I’ve said that I was just a green kid. The old man thought otherwise, but he was wrong and I proceeded to prove it. I turned on the freeze conduits. Liquid air poured into the vault over Murphy and he stopped gesticulating. He just stood there looking at me through the eyepiece of his helmet.

Murphy had gone out at the risk of his life and brought back a living Mercurian animal. When he perceived that I had frozen that frog to a crisp something must have gone dead inside him. When he came in through the inner locks his couplings were coated with frost and there was a look of anguish on the upper part of his face. Behind the eyepiece his features seemed all wrenched apart. From his gloved right hand the frog still dangled, but its squirmings had ceased. Its limbs were rigid, its stalked eyes frozen shut.

With shaking fingers Murphy removed his helmet and started peeling off his suit, his gaze riveted on my face. The other miners stood watching him as though fearful of what he might do.

The old man laid a hand on my arm. “You’d better go below, Dave.”

Murphy shook his head. “No, no, let the lad stay.”

He had laid the frog on the deck and was pushing his suit down below his knees. I noticed that his features were twitching, but I thought he was making an effort to control his anger until he came up out of that crouch with all his strength riding on his fists.

He clipped me on the side of the head, and delivered a blow to my midriff which sent me reeling back against the bulkhead.

The old man leapt between us. “Watch yourself, Murphy,” he thundered. “I’m still in command here.”

Murphy spat on the deck, a slow flush creeping up over his face. “I just can’t figure it,” he muttered. “I saw an infant once without one, but its skull tapered and it had to be fed through a tube.”

I had always liked Murphy, but suddenly I saw red. I jumped him, and for a minute it was touch and go. We rolled over on the deck, exchanging hammer blows. He was hampered by the tangle his legs were in, but he made good use of his fists.

The old man had to intervene again. He accomplished it by backing up his tuggings with profanity. He cast aspersions on our ancestry, and threatened us with the psycho-lash.

I’m hot-tempered, but I cool off quickly. The instant I realized I was making it tough for the old man I struggled to my feet, and held out my hand.

“Any time you’re ready, Murphy,” I said.

The Irishman rose groggily, shaking his head to clear it. He stood for a minute staring incredulously at my extended palm, his eyebrows twitching. Then his own hand went out and locked with mine.

“I guess I was a bit hasty, lad,” he said.

Ten minutes later Sylvia was placing cool pads on my face, one on each cheek, and shaking her head over my blackened eye. “I’m not really sorry for you, Dave,” she said. “You apparently enjoy lashing out with your fists. You just used that frog as an excuse.”

Perhaps I should have mentioned sooner that there was a woman on board. A slim and attractive girl with coppery hair named Sylvia Varner was visiting us for five days consecutively. But she had come out on the crew-shift cruiser Aquila which was berthed right alongside of us on the semi-molten crust.

Women are out of place on Mercury run ships, and if I were taking fictional liberties with this record I’d leave her out. But facts are facts, and the feminine zigzag had a lot to do with the way the frog brought us all to the brink of despair. Without her it would have been less though, but less exciting, too, and, of course, for romantic reasons I was glad she had come. She happened to be Ellison’s niece, and my fiancée, and had a kid brother working on the metallurgical staff.

“But it isn’t a frog,” I said, irritably. “It’s a Mercurian animal. And I don’t blame Murphy for sailing into me.”

“You’re being very charitable,” she said. “He tried to kill you.”

“All right,” I said. “For a minute he went berserk. But what would you do if you bagged the first Mercurian animal ever seen and a dumb kid turned it into a museum piece? If Murphy could have brought that frog back to Earth alive the National Geographic Society would have smothered him with medals.”

“But won’t it thaw out, Dave?”

“It’s limper than a rag right now,” I said. “But it is also dead as a doornail.”

Sylvia’s brow crinkled. “I should think a Mercurian animal would have to be plated like an armadillo. I should think it would need some sort of air-cooling system and a—”

“Hold on,” I said. “You’re jumping to a priori conclusions. We’ll start with the animal. It is froglike, so conditions on Mercury must favor the development of slender, agile quadrupeds with powerful hindlimbs. Since Mercury is flecked with semi-molten ‘marsh patches’ its froglike appearance does not surprise me. We can only speculate as to its habits, but it’s probably oviparous, and has a brief life-cycle.

“Now, in hot baths with carefully regulated approaches human beings have been able to stand degrees of heat above the boiling point of water. Back in the eighteenth century a Frenchman named Chamouni the Incombustible entered an oven containing a raw leg of mutton, and remained there until the meat was completely cooked. Medical history records hundreds of similar cases.”

“But what has that to do with Murphy’s frog?”

“Don’t you see? If human beings can build up all that resistance in a few minutes what’s to stop a rapidly breeding Mercurian animal from acquiring ten times as much immunity in fifty thousand generations? With already immune invertebrates to start with natural selection could give even a highly evolved, meaty-fleshed animal plenty of resistance.”

I was feeling distinctly proud of myself when Sylvia countered with: “You said the sides of its body and its hindlimbs were covered with fine, reddish hairs. Villosities was the term you used. How could natural selection build up immunity in hair?”

I could have brought up another player, but I wanted her to smooth my forehead instead. So I leaned back with a sigh and refrained from pointing out that chitin was slow-burning at best, and that the only hairy frog on Earth—Trichobatatrachus robustus from West Africa—lived up to its name.

She sat on the arm of my chair and leaned forward and for a minute I thought I was going to get my wish. But all she did was kiss me. She leaned her lips against mine and for about three minutes a pleasant tingling surged through me. Then I began to grow restless. I couldn’t breathe and her lips were no longer warm and vibrant.

I had to move her face to one side in order to inhale, and the instant I did so she swayed and her elbows descended on my chest.

A chill coursed through me. Her arms were rigid and she seemed almost weightless. Alarmed, I rose, grasped her wrists and eased her gently down into the chair.

She just sat there staring up at me, her face a petrified mask and her body so utterly still that it did something to sound. In place of the faint susurrous which occupied space gives forth the chair seemed to be enveloped in a kind of auditory vacuum which chilled me to the core of my being.

I can’t remember how long I stood there with horror slapping at my brain like the tides of some cold, dead moon. I only know that I turned at last and went stumbling from her presence with one thought uppermost in my mind.

I must get medical aid to her quickly, before that trance could deepen, before it could endanger her life.

Going up in the jacket-lift to the sick bay I kept visualizing Ned Dawson’s face. Dawson was a strong-jawed, competent physician with years of experience behind him and I was sure he would know what to do.

He was usually in the sick bay attending to the many little sprains and bruises the men brought in with them from the crust. There was a flicker of violet light as the jacket-lift hummed to a stop. I stepped out and raced down a cold-lighted passageway to the “drug shop,” my breath coming fast.

On meta-glass chairs amidst a faint odor of antiseptics two men sat frozen, but I thought they were asleep. I went straight through the waiting space with scarcely a glance at them, and burst into the sick bay unannounced.

Dawson was there all right, but he was bent nearly double, frozen in the act of applying a gauze bandage to the badly cut ankle of a miner who stood contemplating his navel like a schizophrene, his head sunken on his chest.

For an instant I just stood there gasping, too stunned to realize that I was staring at a physician who could no longer heal. It wasn’t until I went up to him and discovered that his body was cold and his face a frozen mask that my brain started to soak up horror.

I went reeling out into the passageway like a drunken man and tried to locate the commander, and found him at last in the control room with his body glinting in light-silvered dust.

He was standing before one of the Lyra’s translucent windows staring out upon the steamy Mercurian landscape, his arms folded on his chest. When I touched him he swayed and when I looked into his eyes I perceived that the pupils were set in a fixed stare, and covered with a dull, grayish film.

Murphy was standing beside him. The Irishman had evidently come in for orders and stiffened to immobility with a pipe in his mouth and a slightly provoked look on his face, as though my stupidity still riled him.

A nightmare unreality lengthened the minutes which followed into unevenly-spaced eternities filled with a steadily mounting dread. In the more crowded parts of the ship frozen men clustered in little queues. Every member of the atomotor crew stood frozen at his post. The starboard watch looked like statues carved in bronze and in the chain locker room were three crewmen whose muscular contortions conveyed an illusion of motion as they tugged at windlasses which had ceased to turn.

My palms were wet and I was trembling in every limb when I completed my inspection of the ship. It was especially bad going back in the jacket-lift to the commander’s cabin. In the dark fore-hold I had glimpsed obscure, rigid shadows which had unnerved me more than all the frozen, brittle men illumed by cold light in the crew spaces fore and aft.

When I stepped from the jacket-lift a voice said: “They only seem brittle, Rawley. Actually they are still soft and flabby, like all the inhabitants of the third planet.”

It was a telepathic voice, but I didn’t know that. I thought it was a human voice speaking close to my ear. Appalled, I swung about.

The frog was peering around a bend in the passageway, its stalked eyes pointing toward the lift. I fought a desire to scream as it leapt agilely toward me. It seemed to be grinning up at me. Its wet, yellowish lips were split in a grimace which gave it the appearance of being convulsed with mirth.

“Why are you trembling, Rawley?” it said. “Surely you expected to find intelligent life on at least one of the planets.”

“You mean you are—”

“Intelligent, yes. So intelligent that you seem very primitive to us. It is a hindrance, in a way. Too wide a gulf.”

“Then you did this,” I choked. “You—you froze every man on this ship.”

“Froze? Oh, I see what you mean. It is unfortunate that I am compelled to use your mental concepts to think with. You are giving my thoughts a verbal twist peculiar to yourself. You see, Rawley, I can correlate your fugitive reactions to a given phenomenon with everything experienced by you from the day of your birth. By simply tuning in on your thoughts I can get your—your slant. Not merely your thought images, Rawley, but all the little twists and turns of your familiar speech. Fortunately you have telepathic powers, too. Somewhat rudimentary, but adequate.”

The frog’s eyes quivered. “Don’t glare at me, Rawley. I have no intention of harming you.”

“You harmed her,” I groaned.

“I harmed—Oh, I see. The girl, eh? We propagate by fission, so we’ve been spared all that. I didn’t harm her, Rawley. All I did was diminish her mass. I had to do that to warm myself.

“Rawley, I was almost gone. I can stand a little cold, but that liquid air—”

“You did what to her?”

“Diminished her mass. Now keep your shirt on, Rawley. I need the glow to warm me. Needed it badly. For real warmth there’s nothing like the radiant energies imprisoned in kalium. The bodies of terrestrials are ideal sources of heat in all respects; not only because they contain kalium, but because the other elements of which they are composed are among the easiest to tap.

“No harm done, you understand. I can radiate back subatomic particles at any time. All I did was squeeze out the radiations in a soft, glutinous mass. You don’t have to bombard atoms or surround them with water-jackets to strip them, Rawley. With a little patience you can squeeze out their energies the way you squeeze toothpaste from a tube.

“My body has soaked up a fine, tingling warmth from all those frozen terrestrials. They are mere atomic husks now, but perfectly preserved and restorable at any time.”

I scarcely heard it. Something was happening to the ship. Beneath my feet the deck was unmistakably swaying, and there were twangings and creakings all along the passageway which could only mean one thing.

The ship was in motion!

The frog had noticed it, too. It stiffened abruptly and cocked its head as though listening, its stalked eyes squinting shut.

In paralyzed astonishment I stood staring at the vibrating overhead, wondering what in hell it could mean. Had one of the frozen crewmen regained the use of his limbs and attempted an emergency takeoff? I strained my ears, but could detect no atomotor drone, or other indication that we were rocketing upward from the crust.

“No, Rawley,” the frog’s voice came again, vibrant but strained. “No, we are not leaving the planet. I think I know what is happening. Rawley, you have an instrument which enables you to see the ship as though it were being viewed from a distance by someone out on the planet. Horiz—horizonscope. Suppose we see for ourselves.”

We descended in the jacket-lift together, the frog bracing its knees precisely as the commander had done long ago in another world.

I don’t know how I lived through the next ten minutes. When I stood in the control room and looked in the horizonscope I saw a sight which I shall never forget if I live to be a hundred.

On both sides of the ship were dozens of froglike shapes moving in single file, their bodies bent nearly double as though they were straining at the leash.

All about them swirled steamy vapors and flickering tongues of flame. A bloodred sun, so gigantic that it spanned a fifth of the sky, hung like a vast, glowing eye directly overhead, dazzling my pupils as I stared. Even in the horizonscope it seemed huge, blinding.

The scent was weird beyond all imagining—weird and unutterably terrifying.

“Rawley, they are moving the ship. They are using magnetic tow lines and making a mighty good job of it.”

“Where—where are they taking us?” I gasped.

The frog’s reply was utterly bewildering. “We’ll label it terrestrial fauna—habitat group. We’ll take the ship right into the museum. Large-brained bipeds from the third planet, stooping above their artifacts in perfectly natural attitudes. Magnificent.

“Mustn’t let sunlight touch them. It’s curious I didn’t think of this when I absorbed their energies. My one thought was to warm myself, but necessity is the mother of invention. They’ll honor me for this. I’ll head the next expedition. My instructions were imbecilic. ‘Observe all their habits and then mummify them.’

“What good are shriveled specimens? So long as sunlight doesn’t touch them they’ll keep this way for a thousand years. This one has been—helpful. Oh, enormously. Just as well I didn’t tap him.

“I mustn’t let him suspect that I couldn’t—can’t. I’ve absorbed too much radiance as it is. My energies are brimming over. He thinks I can still diminish his mass. Might have to kill him if he knew.

“Kill him. I could do that, of course. But I’d hate to lose one of these specimens.”

It hit me all at once, with the force of a physical blow. There was something that the frog didn’t know. It didn’t know that I could listen in on its private thoughts. It thought it could shut off its mind from me. Hitting me also with force was the sudden realization that when in close proximity to it I had telepathic powers which were first rate, as good as its own.

Wait a minute—better. Because it didn’t seem aware of what I was thinking now. So we were just animals to it, eh? Big-brained bipeds—specimens. I was edging away from it and toward the control panel, very cautiously.

Keeping my excitement down wasn’t easy. There was a lot of anger mixed up with it, and more fear than a man of courage likes to own up to. I wondered how strong the magnetic tow lines were. Would they hold the ship if I blasted out all the rocket jets and started the atomotors ten seconds later?

It didn’t seem likely. If I could reach the control panel nine-tenths of the battle would be won. Nearer to it I inched, and nearer.

The frog stirred just as my hand touched the rocket control. I swung down on it hard. Something in my brain started babbling as I swung my other hand toward the atomotor emergency bulb and splintered it with my naked palm.

The whole ship seemed to explode, carrying the top of my skull with it. I was no longer in a Mercury run spaceship screaming defiance at a frog.

I was far out in space between massive gaseous suns, red and blue and mottled, with island universes to right and left of me and a long-tailed comet sweeping down from a ragged hole on the sky.

When I crawled through the fence into my own backyard again I was bruised and partly numb, but the ship was plowing steadily through the void, and Mercury was so far away from it that it was a mere flyspeck mottling on the dull-corona-encircled disk of the sun.

The frog? Yes, it was still with us, but all the cockiness had gone out of it. It came to me, as meek as a lamb, and laid all its cards on the table.

It would be the specimen now. So long as we didn’t cast it out through the airlocks to freeze in the void it would consent to be exhibited in every museum on Earth. Only the museums would have to be roofless, because it would need the sunlight.

It promised not to diminish the mass of a single human being on Earth. All it needed was our sunlight. Locked up in the Lyra and freezing to death it had been compelled to tap the nearest energy source, which happened to be us.

But on Earth it would tap the sunlight. It pointed out that the sunlight falling on one square foot of Earth would keep one of our big power plants running for a year, if we knew as much as the Mercurians did about radiant heat.

“I’ll be no trouble at all, Rawley. And if you wish, I’ll show you how to convert sunlight into useful energy. You won’t need so many cyclotrons then. Before I’d monkey with anything as unpredictable as a skinless atom I’d go jump in a lake.”

I was no longer listening. There was something I had left unfinished and it suddenly seemed more important to me than anything a frog could say or do.

Going down in the jacket-lift to Sylvia I kept trying to recall just how I felt when it had cheated me out of something I was entitled to.

It didn’t seem right to leave a kiss dangling in midair, and I was sure that Sylvia was feeling frustrated, too.

She was. She came into my arms in utter silence, and we did the kiss up brown, and stored it away in our memories for when we were eighty-eight.

“Darling,” she said. “I’m glad we thought of that.”

I felt better almost at once. They had sent me out from Earth with a pat on the back and a commission, and I was returning with the commander’s niece in my arms and a story in my brain which the news syndicates would certainly want.

I’d ask a good price for it. Lunar honeymoons were expensive, and although Sylvia wasn’t extravagant she liked orchids as well as the next girl and was just the right height to wear sables with grace.

And We Sailed the Mighty Dark

I

Graveyard of Old Ships

You’ve seen them—the old ships, the battered and ruined ships, the ships that have made one voyage too many, and are so ancient you can’t remember their names or the reputations they’ve earned for themselves in deep space! Sure you’ve seen them! Black hulls stretching away for miles into the red sunset—ships that can be bought for a song if you’ve a song left in you and still want to go adventuring on the rim of the System.

Do you know how it feels not to have a song left in you? Do you know how it feels to be a legend without substance—the lad who broke the bank at Callisto City and walked out two days later without a penny to his name?

Pete knew and he kept harping on it. “If you’d quit that first night, Jim, instead of pushin’ it all back across the board!”

There was awe in his eyes when he looked at me, and then he’d look at the ships, and I could guess what he was thinking. Good old Pete! When he shut his eyes I was still wearing a golden halo.

Lucky Jim Sanders, strong as an ox and coming along fine—born lucky and loving life too much to worry his head about the future. But when life rises up and wallops you and lays you out flat you forget the good times and your own recklessness, and the inner strength and the laughing girls, and you just want to sit down and never get up!

I’d met Pete down in the valley, sitting on a rock. He didn’t want to get up either. He wanted to croak.

A wiry little cuss with blue eyes and a fringe of beard on his chin that had just grown there and stayed. Clothes that made him look like he was trying to spin a cocoon about himself.

You bet he had a story! A hard luck story that would have made Sinbad look like a quiet family man. But when I like someone straight off, his past is just so much water over the dam if he wants it that way.

I never did find out the truth about Pete—right up until we parted. I had a lot of fun kidding him about it. “Rip Van Winkle slept twenty years, but you slept a thousand, Pete! You crawled out of an old ship and went to sleep in the desert.

“Did you get tired, Pete? Of the roar and the dust and the night—the crocus-flower faces of Venusians, the gopher-girls of Mars and the pinwheeling stars—of the night and the dust and the roar? Couldn’t you take it in the old days, Pete, when ships kept bursting apart at the seams and there was an ant hill on Callisto called a colony, with twenty living dead men in it?

“The ant hill’s a city now, Pete. And you’re still Pete, still around, and I’m just cutting my wisdom teeth on my first streak of hard luck! Hard like a biscuit, Pete! A dog biscuit flung to a dog!”

I was raving even more wildly as I stared out over that graveyard of old ships, feeling sorry for myself, envying Pete because he didn’t seem to care much whether he lived or died.

But I was wrong. Pete did care.

“If we could just get back to Earth, Jim!” he pleaded. “If we could smell the green earth again, after it’s been rainin’! If we could just get a whiff o’ the sea!”

I swung on him. “What chance have we? You don’t value dough so much when you’ve got it to toss around. But when you’re stony broke you get to feeling like a stone. Weighed down, petrified! You can’t do anything without dough!”

Pete made a clucking sound. “All right! You got trimmed, Jim—and bad! But last night you had another streak of luck!”

I stared at him, hard.

He gestured toward the old ships. “There’s a yardmaster down there with a list of ships a yard long. If you want to buy a ship you just stand around twiddling your thumbs until he notices you. If he sizes you up right—you get a bargain!”

“You mean if he thinks you’ve got some dough, but not much?”

“Uh huh!” Pete winked. “But if he thinks you’ve got a lot of dough you could get a bargain too. Without shelling out a cent!”

It didn’t take me long to get what Pete was driving at. I’d taken a beating, and everyone knew it. But everyone knew my face too! I was still Lucky Jim Sanders, wearing a golden halo!

Pete’s eyes were shining like Halley’s Comet when I got through coaching him. It was his idea, but when I tossed it back at him wrapped up in dialogue the sparkle took his breath away!

We went down into the valley where the ships stood row on row, shouting and reeling as though we’d been celebrating for a week. The yardmaster heard us before he saw us. But he saw us quickly enough.

His lips tightened as he came striding toward us—a bushy-browed, hard-bitten old barnacle with a crusty stare. I could tell the exact instant when he recognized me. His jaw dropped about six inches; then closed with a click.

“Now!” I whispered to Pete.

Pete raised his voice. “You’re higher than a kite!” he shouted. “Why buy a flying coffin when you could own the sweetest little job in the System?”

“What I do with my dough is my own business!” I shouted back. “They knew how to build ships in the old days!”

“I tell you—you’re crazier than a diving loon!”

“Sure I’m crazy!” I agreed. “Only a baby with curvature of the brain could win back a cool eighty thousand on one spin of the wheel! But I’m sane enough not to want to thin out my take!”

“You’d flip a coin for one o’ those flyin’ coffins?”

“Why not?” I roared belligerently. “I’ve got five thousand that says I know what I’m doing! Five thousand against—the right to pick my own ship!”

I tripped myself then, deliberately by accident. I went sprawling over Pete’s out-thrust right leg. When I picked myself up I must have looked as helpless as a newborn babe, because the yardmaster was gripping my arm and refusing to let go.

“You were saying, mister?”

He was seeing the halo, of course, the rim of gold about my head. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t even ask me to cover my bet.

The copper piece on my palm seemed to fascinate him. He couldn’t take his eyes from it.

“What will it be?” I asked.

He swallowed hard. “Heads!” he said.

I flipped the coin.

“Tails it is!” I told him.

He stared at my palm suspiciously. I grinned and handed him the copper piece. There was nothing wrong with it.

“I never cheat!” I said.

I walked over to where she stood collecting rust in the red Jupiterlight—the ship I’d picked out. She wasn’t so ancient as old ships go. She must have been built around 2097, just a hundred years before I’d won her. We were riding hard on your luck!

“Got a navigator’s license?” the yardmaster asked.

“Sure! Want to see it?”

He shook his head. “Never mind! Take her and get going before I start telling myself I’m the System’s prize sap!”

The control room was as musty as a tomb, and when I switched on the cold lights our shadows looked like black widow spiders dangling from the overhead.

“She’ll never hold together!” Pete groaned.

“Don’t be like that!” I chided. “All of these ships have to pass a rigid inspection.”

Pete blinked. “You sure of that?”

“Well … maybe the inspectors skip a ship here and there,” I conceded.

I went over her from stem to stern, to make sure she wouldn’t fly about when I gave her the gun. While I inspected the atomotors Pete kept giving me uneasy looks, like he was dying to ask me where I’d picked up my knowledge of ghost ships, but was scared I’d say something to shake his confidence in me.

I wasn’t worried. I can be awfully sure of myself when I’m around anything mechanical, from an inch-high rheostat to the guide lines on a sixty-foot control board.

The ship had the right feel about her. I’d have trusted my life to her, but Pete kept sniffing like he could smell the odor of charred flesh. To make him feel better I thumped him on the back and told him not to worry, that he’d appreciate what a fine ship she was when he saw the green Earth filling the viewpane, misty with spring rains. He’d lived alone so long he’d become suspicious of everything.

Eaten up by his own fears, tormented by shadows, an old man before his time. Some of my confidence seemed to seep into him as I talked. He didn’t look so old when he looked up.

He was sitting on a bulkhead chronometer, which meant that time was ticking away right under him. He was a dead ringer for old Father Time himself, but for an instant as he returned my stare there was a strange look in his eyes. As though he’d shrugged off his woes, and was gazing straight back across the years at his lost youth.

“Maybe you’re right, Jim,” he said. “When do we take off?”

“Before the yardmaster visiphones Callisto City to find out if I really did make a killing last night!” I told him.

I was standing close to the control board, my thumb on the oscillatory circuit. There are two ways of starting an atomotor. You can test out the strength of the circuit by letting the power drum through the board before you give the dial a full turn.

Or you can switch the power on full blast, reaching peak in ten seconds and letting the ship do its own testing. I liked the second way best. A ship that can’t absorb the shock of a takeoff at sixty gravities will almost certainly fly apart in space.

I switched the power on full strength. From the corner of one eye I had a brief, soul-satisfying glimpse of Pete stiffening in utter consternation. A mean trick to play on a pal? No. I don’t think so. I wasn’t asking him to take the plunge alone. I was sharing the risks, and I was doing him a favor.

When you’re taking a swim you just prolong the agony by sitting around on a diving raft wriggling your toes in the icy water. It’s best to jump right in, and get it over with.

We must have been twenty thousand feet up when Pete’s startled face slipped out of focus, and I found myself on my hands and knees on a deck that was revolving like a centrifuge. Cathode rays were darting in all directions, and everything in the path of the rays glowed with fluorescent light. I knew that the ship was X-raying itself while fog condensed on the negative ions of its hull and dissolved into sizzling steam.

I didn’t try to get up immediately. I waited for the deck to stop gyrating and the strength to return to my wrists. My right arm was numb and tingling. When I raised my hands I could see the bones in my fingers. All pilots have skeleton hands when they take off. It’s a second-order cathode ray effect which vanishes after a minute or two. It doesn’t mean a thing. Not if you’re sound of mind and limb, and the ship you’ve picked is spaceworthy.

But Pete seemed to take a different view. He was staring at me in horror. I knew what he was thinking. If I was pinch-hitting for Death—I’d got off to a good start.

He, too, was on his knees on the deck, his shoulders swaying, his face turned toward me in bitter reproach.

Suddenly his eyes blazed with anger. “Son, I ought to get up and bust you one on the jaw! If you’d warned me, I could have braced myself!”

I hadn’t thought of that. But before I could tell him how sorry I felt, he was chuckling!

“It’s all right, Jim! No bones broken! She sure took it beautifully, eh?”

“She sure did!” I muttered.

I watched him get to his feet and go reeling toward the viewpane. Mr. Chameleon was the name for him! He could change his moods so fast, his mental outlook must have been as dazzling as a display of fireworks.

A guy like that just couldn’t hold a grudge. If you poked him in the ribs he’d blacken your eye and give you his last ounce of tobacco. Good old Pete! Insatiably curious he was too, like a little boy at a circus side show.

He just couldn’t wait to see how far up we were, had to look out the viewpane before his brain stopped spinning.

I was satisfied just to sit on the deck and watch him.

For an instant he stared out, his face pressed to the pane, the pulse in his forehead swelling visibly.

Then, abruptly, he turned and flashed me a startled look. “Jehoshaphat, Jim! We—we can’t be travelin’ that fast! Callisto’s just a little crawlin’ red gnat in the middle o’ the sky!”

II

Planet Shift

I stared at him uneasily. He was talking like an idiot. I knew that Jupiter itself would have to dwindle to a small disk before Callisto could become a pin point of light. When you take off from a little moon the glare of its primary magnifies its surface features. For about one hour Callisto would look like a black orchid dwindling in a blaze of light. Then it would whip away into emptiness to reappear as a glowing dot.

“Jupiter looks funny too!” Pete muttered. “Mighty funny! Like a big slice o’ yellow cheese with golden bands around it, spreadin’ out—”

That did it! I got up and walked to the viewpane, slapping my hands together explosively. I had to let off steam in some way. My steadiness surprised me. My eyelids felt a little heavy, but there was nothing wrong with my space legs.

When I started out I didn’t see the red gnat. But I saw something else, something that gave me a tremendous shock. What I saw was a great ringed planet swimming in a golden haze!

When I turned my face must have given Pete a jolt. He gulped so hard I was afraid he’d swallow his Adam’s apple and choke on the rind.

“What is it, Jim?” he asked huskily. “You look like you’d seen a ghost!”

I laughed without amusement. “I did! A ghost planet! And we’re not moving away from it! It’s getting larger!”

Pete stared. “Sure you feel okay, son?”

“Not too good!” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “Take another look!”

I gestured toward the viewpane. “Go on! See for yourself!”

Pete stood for a long time with his face pressed to the pane, his shoulders hunched. I thought he was never going to turn.

A crazy thought flashed through my mind. I’d seen men in a state of collapse on their feet, their faces blanched, unable to move or speak. Had Pete been shocked speechless?

I was sweating as he turned. His face was blanched, all right, but he could speak, and did!

“I’ve got to sit down, Jim!” he choked out.

He reeled to the bulkhead chronometer, sat down and started tugging at his chin. After a moment he whipped his hand from his face.

“You’re an educated man, Jim,” he said. “I’m not! If you tell me we’re headin’ straight for Saturn, I won’t call you a liar!”

“You won’t?”

“No, Jim. Say a guy brings you a watch. The hands go in the wrong direction, the tickin’s so loud it drives you nuts. ‘Buddy,’ he says, ‘if you want to know what time it isn’t, this watch will tell you.’

“Well, say you’ve got to know the time, say your life depends on it. What do you do, Jim? Lift him up by his seat and toss him out the door? Shucks, no! You listen while he talks. You ask him to take the watch apart and show you what makes it tick.”

“Fine!” I said. “So I’m the man with the watch! I put Saturn outside the viewpane just to torture you!”

He looked so miserable I felt sorry for him. “I didn’t mean it that way, Jim,” he apologized. “But I’m plumb scared! Somethin’s happenin’ to space! Somethin’ ghastly awful! You must have some idea what’s causin’ it!”

“Don’t kid yourself!” I told him. “A wild guess isn’t an idea.”

“Let me be the judge o’ that, son!”

“Well—all right. Maybe we’re seeing Saturn as a magnified image—through some kind of magnifying space drift. A big, floating lens in space, made up of refractive particles spread out in a cloud. A lens with more magnifying power than the five-hundred inch! It isn’t as haywire as it sounds, if that’s any comfort to you!”

“But no pilot’s ever seen anything like that, Jim!” Pete protested, with unanswerable logic.

He tapped his brow. “It could be in here, Jim! That’s what I’m afraid of! A sickness of the mind—”

“Don’t start that!” I warned, striking my knee with my fist. “Don’t even think it!”

My voice was getting out of control. I was yelling at him, and there was no reason for it.

He had every right to his opinion.

“What are we goin’ to do, Jim?”

“Check up first!” I snapped. “If I have to use every instrument on the ship—”

I stopped. The door into the pilot room had opened and closed, and a clumping figure was coming toward us across the deck.

I heard Pete suck in his breath. I couldn’t seem to draw a deep breath. There was a physical quality of eeriness in the sight which took me by the throat.

The figure was wearing a light spacesuit, vacuum-sealed at the neck. A transparent headpiece bulged out above the flexible garment, a great glistening globe encasing the head of the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

Her hair was piled in a tumbled mass of gold on her head and there was a delicate flush on her skin, visible through the glowing sphere. She was staring at me without seeming to see me, her cheeks shadowed by long, convex lashes.

Some women mature into loveliness; others have it thrust upon them. I didn’t tell myself that straight off. I was too stunned to make up pretty speeches. But later I realized that her hair, eyes, and complexion were as near perfect as they could be without looking artificial.

Her suit was cumbersome, and it weighed her down. But there was something weird, spine-chilling about the way she moved. She walked with a smooth flow of motion, almost as if she were skating across the deck.

I was a little afraid of what Pete might do. He was shaking with excitement, and I could see that he was keyed up to a dangerous pitch. Doubting his own sanity and mine to boot!

But I wasn’t going to be stampeded into fear! I’d been under a tremendous strain, sure. But I knew a flesh-and-blood woman when I saw one! The girl was real! The pulse beating in her forehead was real and so were her eyes and hair! We hadn’t made even a cursory search of the ship. There were plenty of dark little corners where she could have concealed herself.

Suddenly I saw that she’d glided past Pete and was facing away from us, her hands extended toward the control board. A little to the left of the board there was a dull flickering on the bulkhead.

For an instant I mistook the weird glimmer for a shadow cast by her swaying shoulders. I thought she was just reaching for the board to steady herself.

Then I saw her hands moving on the board and knew that a gravity panel was swinging open on the void! I leapt toward her with a warning cry.

If she heard me she gave no sign. You can hear a shout through a thin helmet, but she didn’t even turn. She just darted sideways and then forward—straight through the panel into the utter black emptiness of space! A flash of light—and she was gone!

The panel closed so soundlessly you could have heard a pin drop.

I had trouble with my breath again. For an instant my throat had an iron brace around it. Then I remembered that she hadn’t gone out unprotected into the void. Her suit would keep the cold out, and the magnetic suction disks on her wrists and knees would enable her to cling to the hull, to crawl along it. But if she’d gone out to do a repair job on the hull, she had the kind of courage you read about in the Admiralty Reports.

If I had it, it was glazed over with a thick coating of ice. I stood braced against the bulkhead, the old Adam in me chanting a hymn to life, a hymn to the Sun, and feeling glad I wasn’t in her shoes.

What a way for a guy to feel!

Then something happened to me. I saw her face again, deep in my mind, and it seemed to be pleading with me. It wasn’t just a pleading. There was music and wonder in it!

I could hear the pound of surf on a golden beach, and the sun was warming the sea and the air, and she was in my arms and I was kissing her.

Then it was night and the palms were bending lower over us, and the moonlight was so bright I could hardly see the web of radiance around her head. But I could hear the rise and fall of paddles, and someone singing far off over the water. We were running down the beach toward the pounding surf. Water was glistening on her tanned arms and I could hear her laughter.

Pete had leapt to his feet. He was staring at me, sweat standing out on his forehead in great, shining beads.

“What did I tell you, son?” he groaned. “A sickness of the mind—”

His voice thickened, broke.

The terror in his stare made me realize how close to the brink I was. His refusal to believe the evidence of his eyes was an attempt at rationalization, but it wasn’t a good attempt.

He was assuming the worst, taking his own madness for granted.

I grabbed him by both shoulders. “You’re as sane as I am!” I yelled, shaking him. “That girl was here when we took over! A stowaway! What’s so crazy about that?”

Pete’s throat moved as he swallowed. “Let go of me, Jim! Believe what you want! I’m going crazy—and tryin’ to explain it won’t stop it!”

“Common sense will stop it! Did you notice that vacuum suit she was wearing? It’s as ancient as the ship! It must have come out of the ship’s locker!”

Pete stared at me until I lost my head. “She’s out on the hull alone! You hear? Alone, in a suit that won’t give her much protection! If her irons slip she’ll be done for! She’s either stark staring mad or—”

My thoughts came so fast I had to stop. But my mind raced on. Was she actually mad? Or had she crawled out of hiding to find herself in a ship that was fast becoming a droning death trap?

A woman hiding in the dark, with her senses abnormally alert, would be quick to get the awful feel of a ship about to fly asunder. She wouldn’t have to guess. She’d know!

A girl pilot? Well, why not? There were plenty of girl pilots working their fingers to the bone to earn passage money in Callisto City. Stowing away would be a shortcut to freedom and the green hills of Earth. You couldn’t blame a girl for hating the dust and roar of an atomic power plant, or the drudgery of a mining job.

I could picture her succumbing to blind panic, ripping a suit down from the locker, and crawling out into the void to tighten the gravity bolts on the naked hull with a magneto-wrench.

“Jeebies always try to kill themselves!” Pete croaked. “You get to pitying them! Your head swells and you get all choked up with pity! And that’s when you know you’ve blown your top!”

I answered that with a voice that rang hard. “All right, have it your own way! She’s a jeebie! But I’m not going to stand here pitying her! I’m going to help her!”

I never quite knew how I reached the locker, with imaginary eyes glittering at me from every corner of the ship. Pete’s wild talk hadn’t really shaken me. All loose talk about the mind is dangerous, of course. But I wasn’t scared of anything I couldn’t see.

The idea of a haunted ship seemed silly to me. Almost laughable. But I had to admit the ship had the feel of occupancy about it. I half expected that a second helmeted figure would pop out of the shadows before I could go to the aid of the first.

My palms were sweating as I struggled into a spacesuit that hadn’t been occupied for at least a century. There were five suits hanging in the locker, and I picked the biggest one. It was a little too small for me, but I couldn’t complain much on that score. It kinked a little, then drew tight over the shoulders, but nothing ripped when I moved.

I must have looked grotesque in that old, stiff, freakish garment, all bulges and creases. A big flaring dome over my head, feet like metal pancakes clattering on the deck.

But I wasn’t concerned with my appearance, just my oxygen intake.

Back by the gravity panel, Pete tried desperately to stop me. His bony hands went out, plucked at my wrists. I couldn’t hear him babbling outside the helmet. But I could see his shining eyes and moving lips. His eyes were tortured, pleading.

He might as well have been pleading with a man a hundred miles away—or a century dead!

I was deaf to reason. I was feeling merely a blind instinct to help a woman who had taken on a man’s job.

Pete’s eyes followed me as I went clumping toward the control board, and I felt a sudden tug of pity for him. If I never came back, he’d miss me a lot. Good old Pete! To make him feel better I flashed him a smile and waved him back.

“Sit down and relax, old-timer!” I said. “I’m just going out for a little breath of fresh air!”

It was just as well he couldn’t hear me. He was real touchy about space. You had to treat it with respect. The lads who sailed the seas of Terra before Pete started reaching for the stars with his little pink hands had what it takes, and their lingo is the spaceman’s lingo still. But to Pete spacemen were a notch higher in every respect. Nothing riled him more than loose talk about reading the weather by the glass or taking a squint at the North Star. Or going out for a breather on deck!

I thought of all that as I went out. Oh, Pete was a special character if ever there was one.

III

The Mirage Pup

I crawled out into the void on my hands and knees, clinging to the rough hull, digging with my magnetic irons into the thick coating of meteoric dust and grit and rubble the ship had picked up in deep space.

Brother, it’s all yours if you want it! A wind that isn’t a wind tearing at you; the stars blazing in a black pit, and a million light years staring you in the face, doing your thinking for you, warning you that forever is too long a time to go somersaulting through space shrouded in a blanket of ice.

You feel your grip slipping, know it can’t slip, and dig, dig with your knees. You look up and there’s the flame of a rocket jet missing you by inches. You look down and there’s nothing to maim or sear you—just utter blackness. Believe me, that’s worse!

I stared straight across the hull through a spiraling splotch of blue flame toward the stern rocket jets. The flame whorl came from diffuse matter friction. Tiny particles hit the ship, bounced off and set up an electrical discharge in the ether.

It’s cool and it doesn’t burn. If you keep your head you can crawl right through it.

I started crawling the instant I saw her. She was clinging to the hull between two flaring rocket jets, her magneto-wrench rising and falling in the unearthly glare.

A swaying figure wrapped in blue light, her face looking pinched and white and faraway through the globe on her shoulders. The helmet itself looked small against the vast backdrop of space. But as I crawled toward her it kept getting larger—like an expanding soap bubble. I had the crazy feeling that there was a big crowd down below, waiting to jeer or cheer!

I threw the illusion off and let my irons carry me back and forth in a crazy kind of jig. The magnetics had to be guided by my muscles and my will. It was twist and turn, go limp and brace hard, relax and edge forward.

Suddenly the ship lurched, giving off a blinding flare. I knew it was just a stress we’d hit—one of those little pockets in space where the diffuse matter of the void is sucked dry by energies that don’t show up on the instruments.

Ships pass through stresses fast. But when the flare vanished I was dangling head downwards from the hull, my right knee attached to solid metal, the rest of me hugging empty space.

Furiously I slammed my left knee upward, twisted my body forward, and got a firm grip on the hull again with my wrist irons. It was a contortionist feat which brought the blood rushing to my ears. When my head stopped spinning I was staring into the face of the girl I’d risked my neck to save in an inferno of ice and flame.

We were so close our helmets almost touched. But she wasn’t looking at me. Six feet from my swaying knees she was making frantic gestures with her magneto-wrench, her face a twisting mask of horror. Her body was twisting too and she seemed to be fighting off something I couldn’t see!

Frantic with alarm, I strained forward and threw my right arm about her.

At least, I thought I did! But my iron-weighted wrist seemed to pass right through her! It whipped through emptiness to strike the hull with an impact that sent a stab of pain darting up my arm to my shoulder. The pain was agonizing for an instant; then it fell away.

At the same instant I saw the light. It was faint at first, a pale spectral glow that haloed her helmet and lapped in concentric waves about her knees. It wasn’t a flame whorl. It gave off iridescent glints and grew swiftly brighter, turning from pale blue to dazzling azure. Then it became a weaving funnel of light that spurted from the hull with a low humming sound.

The humming was unearthly. It penetrated my helmet and became a shrill inward keening with a quality hard to define. Imagine a butterfly of sound struggling fiercely to escape from a sonic chrysalis. It was a little like that, a kind of shrill fluttering on the tonal plane.

The light did not remain attached to the hull. It shot up into the void and became a vertical shaft of downsweeping radiance. From its summit pulsing ripples ascended, giving it the aspect of a waterfall. Then it became a prism, flashing with all the colors of the spectrum.

A man may awaken from a nightmare, stare for an instant into the darkness and try to rationalize his fears. But this was no nightmare! As I stared up the iridescence was replaced by a leaf-screen effect shot through with crimson filaments. Shadows appeared amidst the ripples, straight and jagged lines of some tenuous substance that seemed to mold itself into a pattern.

It may have been imagination. But for the barest instant as I stared at the incredible shape of radiance a face seemed to look out at me. A fat face, bloated, toadlike, supported by a shadowy neck that swelled out beneath it like the hood of a rearing cobra!

Suddenly my scalp crawled and my helmet seemed to contract, pressing against my skull with a deadly firmness. An electrolube!

I knew instinctively that the flame shape was an electrolube—a devouring entity of the void which snaked through deep space close to Saturn’s orbit, a whiplash shape of pure force with a hellish affinity for life, its negative charge seeking a positive charge with which to unite!

It was itself alive, the ultimate life form, sentient and polarized, an energy eater that sucked nourishment from electrical impulses.

And there was just enough positive electricity in the human body to give the horror the power to destroy by slashing down in swift, flesh-destroying stabs that could cut through a spacesuit like a knife through jelly!

Flesh and blood had no chance against it.

For one awful instant I looked straight into the eyes of a girl I couldn’t save, an instant as long as a lifetime to the poor fool who loved her! No, I’m not raving! Do you think I’d have crawled out into the everlasting night of space if I hadn’t known there could be no other woman for me?

She didn’t wait for the horror to slice down. She jerked her knees, tore her wrists free and shut her eyes. Then she was gone. She didn’t even move her lips to say goodbye. Space was her bridegroom. It took her and she was gone.

I looked away. Not caring how soon death came, knowing I’d be with her if I just stayed with the ship.

I waited for the anguish to hit me. I waited for a full minute. Two. I shut my eyes as she had done.

When I opened them the electrolube had vanished. And when I looked down, the void had grown brighter. Gone was the great ringed disk of Saturn.

Just little frosty stars glittered far-off, mocking. And another planet that was mottled pink and yellow. A ringless planet, swimming in a murky haze, with eleven little moons spinning around it—eight on one side, three on the other. One of the moons was red.

Jupiter is bigger than Saturn, bigger than a thousand Earths. And I was moving away from it on a droning ship’s hull, a tiny fleck of matter of no importance in that awful sweep of space. But when I dragged myself back through the gravity panel into the ship my brain was bursting with a despair so vast it seemed to dwarf the vastness of space.

Pete was standing just inside the panel, holding something furry and black in his arms that squirmed in the cold light. When he saw me he uttered a smothered oath.

I tugged at my helmet, got it off.

“Jim, lad, I was afraid you was a goner!” Pete choked. “You went chasing mirages on the hull. Mirages, Jim!”

My jaw dropped. I stood stock still, staring at him, unable to believe my eyes.

“It’s all my fault!” Pete groaned. “Me and my rantings! Jeebies my foot! Soon as you went out I got to thinkin’. There’s a beastie could do it, a little black, furry beastie called a mirage pup!

“Sired on Pluto, breedin’ on Pluto in the dark an’ the cold! Squattin’ on its haunches, projectin’ thoughts! Makin’ ’em look solid and real! Sounds too, though you don’t hear the sounds with your ears!

“His memories, Jim! Things he’s seen himself, long, long ago! We been makin’ pets of ’em so long we take ’em for granted. All the old skippers had ’em on their ships.”

“Oh, Eternity!” I choked.

“They can make thoughts look as solid as a cake of ice, Jim! Three-dimensional, like! I figured it this way. There was a girl, about a hundred years ago, took a ship—this ship—out to Saturn! And somethin’ happened to the ship. So she went out to fix what was wrong and maybe never came back. Her gravity irons could have slipped—”

“No,” I said quickly. “She let go deliberately because—it was better that way!”

I was staring at the little beast. Take a rabbit, puff it out, paint it black, and give it two huge, spectral, tarsierlike eyes! Give it a purple snout, devilishly long claws. Breed it with a full-blooded Scotch Terrier and you’ll get—a Plutonian mirage pup!

The little beast whined, then yapped and wagged its tail at me. Its ear stood straight up. It nuzzled Pete’s palm.

Mirage pups could coat everything over with evanescent images that looked real. They could change the outside as well as the inside of a ship. They could put Saturn beyond the viewpane, instead of Jupiter. Put a girl in the ship who lived once, engrave an image of that girl on your heart so that getting it off would mean a tearing anguish.

Yes, a mirage pup could do that because it would have a long memory. Mirage pups lived to a ripe old age. Slowed metabolism. The cold and dark of Pluto. Long periods of hibernation on that frigid planet while they dreamed the long, long dreams of their youth. And projected those dreams on awakening. Dreams, memories, buried loyalties.

If a master had been kind they’d never forgot! If a mistress had been kind—

The wetness at the corners of my eyes was making me blink.

So the mirage pup had followed her out on the hull, long ago. Crouched down perhaps, shivering, its paws covering its face. And the electrolube hadn’t touched it! A small body, a small positive charge! No nourishment for an electrolube in a mirage pup!

Then it had crawled back, whining and hopeless and lost, back into the ship. Hibernation in a dark corner! For one hundred years!

“I found him in the tube room!” Pete grunted. “He was hidin’ behind one o’ the atomotors, coiled up like a porcupine. But I knew he was just playin’ possum! I could see his eyes—blazin’ out at me in the dark!”

“Yeah,” I said, gruffly.

“You want to hold him, Jim?”

Pete extended the little beast toward me, but I shied away. I couldn’t bear to touch anything that she had touched! Later, maybe, when I got over the shock.

“Guess we’ll never know how the ship found its way to the graveyard!” Pete said. “Say, do you suppose if we’re patient he’ll project a picture of what happened? Maybe he’ll start fillin’ the tub with mirages again!”

“They only do it when they’re scared!” I told him. “And lonely and miserable! He’s not scared now! He likes us, worse luck!”

“He was homesick, eh?”

“That’s right! For his past, for his mistress.” I looked at Pete. “As for the ship, I can make a pretty good guess. Ship went into an orbit of its own, close to Saturn. It drifted around for about a century. Then a salvage crew found it and towed it to Callisto City to be sold as junk. It has happened before, plenty of times!”

“Never with a mirage pup inside, I bet!”

“Maybe not!”

I turned away, feeling all hollow inside, like one of those caterpillars that pupae wasps sting to death and feast on until they’re nothing but husks. Grave bait, lying in a tunnel deep in the earth.

I knew the only chance I had of crawling out of the tunnel into the sunlight again was to give the little beast a kick. If he got lonely and frightened, he’d see her again! He’d start dreaming about her, and she’d come to life again, as a memory in the brain of a mirage pup!

But I never could be that cruel.

“What’s the matter, Jim?” Pete asked, concerned. “You look sick!”

I wheeled on him. “I didn’t tell you what happened outside. If you open your trap again—I will!”

Pete avoided my eyes. “I didn’t ask you, Jim!”

I knew then that the pup had projected two sets of images, one in the control room for Pete’s benefit and one outside for me to live through. A mirage pup could generate images like an electronic circuit, duplicate them in all directions, pile them up in layers. Automatically without thinking, to ease its own wretchedness.

Pete had been able to follow me as I crawled along the hull. He knew what I was going through.

I moved away from him, sat down on the chronometer and cradled my head in my arms.

Dusk.

Dawn.

Dusk.

Dawn.

You don’t see the sun rise and set inside a spaceship, but that’s how the days seem to pass. Your mind grows a little darker when it’s time for the sun to set on Earth. Lightens when it rises.

Dusk. Dawn. Dusk. Dawn. Three days. Four. But for me it was just dusk. My mind didn’t lighten at all.

How does it feel to love a woman a century dead? If you’d asked me, I couldn’t have told you. Because she wasn’t dead to me. I kept seeing her pale, beautiful face and everywhere I turned time seemed to stretch away into endless vistas. If I’d been on Earth, in New York or Chicago, I could have gone out and lost myself in the crowds and the glitter. But it wouldn’t have helped.

I turned and looked at the sleeping mirage pup. He lay on my bunk with his legs coiled up under him, his moist nose resting on his folded forelimbs. He looked like a prize puppy at a pet show, but what a puppy!

In his unfathomable animal mind was that strange capacity for projecting illusions, of making them seem three-dimensional and real. He could blur the viewpane, fill it with unreal star fields, draw shapes of energy from the void.

But he couldn’t change his memories by slicklying them over with the pale cast of thought! At bottom he was just a dumb beast. He had the mind of a puppy, a mind that chased fantasms while asleep through a labyrinth of dark alleyways. He twitched and shook while asleep, just like an excitable mutt.

Little agitated noises came from him. His nostrils quivered, his tail vibrated and he rolled over in his sleep and started scratching himself. Thump. Thump. Thump.

What was he thinking about? A girl in a garden with the moonlight in her hair? Stooping to pat him or feeding him yummies? He’d rolled over and was lying with his forelimbs stretched straight out, as though he were reaching for the moon.

But I knew he wasn’t seeing the moon. He was reaching for something I couldn’t see or hear or touch, something older than the human race maybe.

I was hating him furiously when Pete came into the compartment. He grabbed my arm and started shaking me.

“Jim! Jim, lad! Get a grip on yourself! We’ll be hittin’ the Heaviside in a minute!”

“What do I care?” I lashed out. “Go away, can’t you? Blow!”

“Now, now, son!” he pleaded. “That’s no way to act! You can’t bring her back! And if you keep eatin’ your heart out—”

“Get out!” I shouted, heaving myself from the bunk. “Get out—get out!”

“Don’t be a fool, Jim! You’ve got to get rid of that grievin’ look! The skyport Johnnies are funny that way! You walk out of this ship with your eyes burnin’ holes in your face, and they’ll think you got somethin’ to hide!

“Look at yourself in a mirror! Whiskers sproutin’ out of your chin, face sooty as a tube fittin’ and no fight left in you! You got to get back the look of a fightin’ fury, son! A lad who can stand up to a port clearance inspector and say ‘Me an’ my buddy, here, we’re headin’ for that gate, and if you want to stay healthy—’ ”

“What?”

“Jehoshaphat!” Pete groaned. “He don’t even hear me!”

I stood up. “Okay, Pete!” I told him. “I heard you! Most of it, anyway. And I’ll get myself spruced up. How close are we to the Heaviside?”

He heaved a high sigh of relief. “We’ll hit it in half an hour, Jim!”

He grinned. “He’s got to have a harness, Jim. I’ll rig up a harness for him!”

IV

New York Kid

We made as good a landing as could be expected, considering the way my hands shook when I brought her down.

Right smack in the middle of La Guardia field! It’s the biggest skyport in the System, and you can’t miss it if you’re a New York kid, with the lay of the land and the navigation lights burned into your brain from boyhood.

One of my own ancestors had brought a primitive skyplane down on that field during the Second World War, when the First Atomic Age was just starting.

They’d built the field up quite a bit in the intervening years—built it in revolving stations toward the Heaviside. You could make contact with the atomic clearance floats at sixty-five miles, and pick up a guiding beam from a rocket glider twenty miles above the grounded runways.

But you can’t build the past out of existence. There were ghosts all over that field, grease monkeys in khaki jeans, and taking care of jet planes that had passed into limbo before the first space crate took off for Mars. At least, that’s the way Pete seemed to feel, and I could sympathize with his screwball occultism.

I had a feeling that my own ancestor was down there, shading his eyes, watching me make a perfect twenty-point landing. His eyes shining with pride because I made such a good job of bringing her in. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

I thought we’d have trouble with the clearance officials, but when I came striding out of the gravity port with the mirage pup clinging to my right shoulder I was greeted with nothing but merriment. Tickle a man’s sense of humor if you want him to do you a favor!

Just seeing that crazy little beast put everyone in the best of humor. A tall, young-old lad with puckered brows and graying hair, his skin bleached by irradiation particles, took one swift look at my pilot’s license, ignored Pete’s jittery stare, and gave the mirage pup a pat that set his tail wagging.

“What’s his name?” somebody asked.

I thought fast. “Flipover!” I said.

“Boy, he’s quite a pup! Cute! Don’t see many of them since the new quarantine regulations went into effect. They have to be defleaed too often!”

“All the little critters jumped off him in deep space!” I said.

The officer chuckled. “Okay, my friend! You can pass through. The first gate on your right!”

We were through the gate and ascending a ramp toward a skyline that brought a lump to my throat in less time than you could say, “Flip Flipover!”

Little old New York hadn’t changed much in ten years. The white terrific flare that spiraled up from its heart was as bright as the day I’d first seen it. Broadway—and a New York kid is hooked for life. He’ll always come back to it.

But now I didn’t want to head for the bright lights. I wanted to find a lodging close to the harbor lights, where I could look out over the bay at night and—remember things. Her face just before she let go, not really seeing me. Her eyes—

Pete was shaking his arm. “Set him down, Jim! Put him into that harness I rigged up. Give him a chance to stretch his legs!”

“Sure, why not?” I grunted.

I set Flipover down on the ramp, fitted Pete’s makeshift harness to his shoulders, and wrapped the leash-end around my wrist.

The little beast started tugging right off.

“Looks like he knows his way around!” Pete chuckled. “Maybe New York was his home town!”

That didn’t sound funny to me. But a few minutes later I was taking it seriously. The crazy pup had led us deep into the labyrinth of dark streets which bordered the skyport, and there was no stopping him. I had all I could do to keep up with him.

Pete’s eyes were shining with excitement. “Give him his head!” he urged.

“What do you think I’m doing?” I yelled.

From the houses lights streamed out. Cornerset windows flamed in the dusk and people moved across shadowed panes. Music came from beyond the windows, loud, tumultuous. Someone was playing Milhaud’s “Bal Martiniquais” on an old-fashioned percussion instrument with shallow keys.

I liked it. Give me color in music, polychromes. Give me color in life. The flare of rocket jets, the blackness of space, a spinning wheel in a big crystal casino—

I’d stay one week on Earth! Then I’d be off again and never come back. I’d bury myself in the farthest—

“Give him his head!” Pete yelled.

Flipover had swerved and was heading for a narrow walk leading to a fairly large circular house surrounded by a garden plot bright with yellow flowers. There was a fountain in the middle of the garden and it was sending up jets of spray which drenched Flipover as he tore down the path.

I almost let go of the leash as I played it out. The house had the look of age about it but not of neglect. We were within thirty feet of it when the front door banged open and a big, angry-faced man came striding out.

Down the path he came, straight toward me. A sunbronzed giant of a lad built like a cargo wrestler, but with keen, probing eyes behind glasses that had slipped far down on his nose.

When he saw me he stopped dead. Then he adjusted his glasses and peered at me wordlessly, his hands knotting into fists.

Flipover was straining furiously, but I drew him in quickly and returned the big lug’s stare.

“So you’re the guy!” he roared.

It happened so quickly I was taken by surprise. His fist lashed out, caught me on the jaw.

I felt Flipover tear loose as I went crashing backwards, my head filled with forked lightning.

He jumped me the instant I hit the ground. About three tons of flailing weight crashed down on my shoulders, pinning me to the walk.

As deliberately as I could, I raised my right knee, whammed it into his stomach and threw one arm about his neck in a strangle lock he couldn’t break.

“That’s showin’ him, son!” I heard Pete yell.

I tried not to break his glasses. But I had to be a little rough because he wanted to play rough.

About one minute later he was standing in the fountain, eying me angrily from behind a rising curtain of spray. The water came to his knees.

Suddenly his lips split in a grin. He threw back his head and roared with laughter. “By George, you sure know how to cool off a hothead!”

“Well—thanks!” I said, modestly.

He stepped out of the fountain, walked up to me and thrust out his hand. “Phillip Goddard’s the name!” he said. “She just gave me my ring back! When she said she couldn’t marry a certified public accountant I knew there was someone else. You’re the kind of lad her great-grandmother went for—and she’s just like that famous ancestor of hers!”

“Ancestor?” I gulped.

He nodded. “Just like her! Pluckiest girl in the System! Back in the First Atomic Age it was. First girl pilot to make a solo hop to Saturn—”

His face darkened. “Something happened to her! She never came back. But she’s come alive again in her granddaughter! No indoor cookie for Anne Haven’s granddaughter! I’m not exactly a lightweight, but I make my living adding up long rows of figures. If she married me what would be the result?”

The grin returned to his face. “She’d pine away from boredom. I like it. I enjoy it! But the girl for me will have to be a redheaded adding machine.”

He stepped back. “When I saw you coming up the walk I lost my head! Sour grapes, fella! If I couldn’t have her—I didn’t intend to step aside for a rival without putting up a fight! Little boy stuff! I had no call to take a sock at you! You’re all right, fella!”

He gave me a resounding thump on the back. “So the best man gets her! Okay, I can be a good loser! I don’t know how long you’ve known her, but I bet if you pop the question tonight, when she has that faraway look in her eyes again—”

“He never bets!” Pete cut in.

I didn’t wait to thank him. I was running up the walk toward the house before he could let out a startled grunt. But I heard the grunt—far off in the darkness.

Then a door slammed and I was standing in a brightly lighted living room staring at her. A log fire was crackling in the grate and there was a big, framed painting in oils hanging on the wall, facing the entrance hall.

She was standing directly before the painting, staring down at Flipover. Flipover was wagging his tail and pawing at her knees, and she was stooping and patting him on the head. Only—she wasn’t calling him by the name I had given him. She was calling him, “Tow Tow.”

“Oh, I can’t believe it! I can’t, I can’t. Granny’s pup! You’ve come home, Tow Tow—and you are Tow Tow! I’d know you anywhere! You precious darling.”

Then I saw the girl in the painting. She was wearing a space suit a hundred years out of date, and her hand was on the head of a mirage pup too. Only it was a mirage pup in oils! Life-sized, lifelike and unmistakably Tow Tow! The pup in the painting had the same dumb-bright unweaned look about him! Any child brought up with that painting before her would know the real Tow Tow when he came bounding home! He was like no other pup!

The girl who was patting the real Tow Tow raised her head suddenly, and looked at me!

For a full minute we just stood there, staring at each other. I don’t know how she felt, but I knew how I felt! A family resemblance can be a remarkable thing! The contours of a face, the way the eyes look at you, and the trembling of lips shaped in a certain way can—make the universe reel!

Especially when there’s no difference at all between the face of a girl a century dead and a living face you’d never thought to see again!

“Who are you?” she whispered.

I told her.

Her eyes were shining when I stopped telling her about myself. She swayed a little, and I think we both knew then how it was going to be.

She was in my arms before I realized that I didn’t even know her name.

“It’s Barbara!” she whispered, when I got around to asking her. That was quite a few minutes after I’d met her. You can’t kiss a girl and ask her name in the same breath. And there was just a chance she’d be offended and refuse to tell me.

But Barbara was a darned good sport about it!

“I’ve never been kissed by a total stranger before!” she said. “Jim, it was wonderful!”

It sure was. We went back to it again.

It’s been a long time, now. Seven years. And if I haven’t proved you can fall in love with the same woman twice I’ve been living a lie. But I know that it isn’t so. If I was living a lie, Tow Tow would be unhappy, and he’d be filling the house with mirages. But my five-year-old son, Bobby, isn’t a mirage, and neither is the girl I married.

Sometimes, when I see the lights of the skyport through a cornerset window, and winds howl in from the bay, I get to wondering about Pete.

You see, he never came in that night, never joined us! He may have looked in through a window, and realized I’d reached my last “port o’ call,” a quiet harbor in a storm that had died away forever. He may have turned and gone stumbling off into the night!

I’ll never know, of course. Good old Pete! Sometimes I get to thinking. A mirage pup can coil up in an old ship and hibernate for a century. Could a human being do that?

There are strange influences in deep space. Are there discharges in the electromagnetic field that could slow up the metabolism of a tired little character like Pete?

That’s nonsense, of course.

I’ll have to go now. Bobby’s calling me. He’s standing at the head of the stairs, in his pajamas, and he’s waiting for me to tell him a bedtime story about what it’s like out in the mighty dark.

“Pop, you promised! Aw, come on, Pop—”

I’ll have to keep it simple, of course. But maybe tonight I’ll tell him about Pete.

Maybe when he grows up he’ll meet Pete.

Who knows?

Time Trap

Charley Grimes was a big man who had been everywhere in the Solar System and collected trophies which were as strange and shining as the stories he liked to tell.

His face was as gaunt as the jungle mask and, when he lit a pipe and smoked it, you watched to see where the smoke would drift. It wasn’t hard to picture it drifting over the mountains of the moon or across the flat red plains of Mars.

We were sitting around a campfire in the Rockies just as our ancestors must have sat five hundred years in the past. We were swapping yarns to get Charley started, and watching the sun sink to rest on clouds shaped like wild mustangs when the talk drifted to the dark side of the moon.

You know what it’s like on the dark side. The brittle stars shine down and the great craters loom up, but when you’re flying low in a rocket ship about all you can see through the viewpane is a circle of radiance spotlighting a desolation as bleak as the Siberian Steppes.

You miss so many things you don’t dare even think about the earth. If you’re an escapist you cover your bunk with pictures of the lush Venusian jungles and pretend you’re somewhere else. But if you’re a realist you go outside and come to grips with the bleakness in one way or another.

Charley was a realist.

“So I went wandering off just to see what I could find!” Charley said.

We watched him get up, throw another log on the fire and draw his Indian blanket around himself—so tightly he looked like a great swathed mummy swaying in the glare.

“Nothing tremendous ever happens when you go exploring with all the trimmings!” Charley went on. “You’ve got to be devil-may-care about it. So I just made sure my helmet was screwed on tight and went striding away from the ship like a clockwork orangutan!

“If you’ve been on the dark side you know that there’s a sensation of bitter cold at all times—even when you’re bundled up and in motion. You keep looking back and wishing you hadn’t—and before you can count the stars in a square foot of sky you’re at the bottom of a valley with glacial sides and the desolation is so awful you want to sit down on the nearest rock and never get up!”

Charley sat down, crossed his long legs and took a deep, slow puff on his pipe.

“I shouted—just to hear the echoes come rolling back. You can talk to yourself that way and get comfort out of it, because what you’ll hear will be the giant in yourself. The valley was so big a soaring eagle would have burst its lungs trying to fly out of it.

“But don’t get the idea I climbed down over an icy slope on a rope. I simply sat down and let myself slide. Smooth? There wasn’t a crevice or a projection until I reached the bottom and picked myself up.”

Charley nodded. “I had to lift off my helmet for a minute, to shake off the ice. That’s when I shouted and heard the echoes come rolling back.

“I’d clamped the helmet back on, and was adjusting my oxygen intake when I happened to glance down at my big, square feet.”

Charley chuckled.

“I’ve got outsized feet even when I’m as bare as a baby. But I was wearing heavy moon-shoes, and the prints I’d left in the snow were eight inches across!

“There was a straight line of prints, as big and square as my own, leading out across the valley—prints I couldn’t possibly have made. I’d stumbled around a bit, of course. But I hadn’t budged two yards from the base of the slope.

“The oddest thing about that single trail of prints was the fact that it started right where I was standing!

“An icy wind seemed to blow through me. On the moon you don’t slide down a steep slope and land right where someone else has been standing. Not if you’re in your right mind, you don’t. The moon isn’t that thickly populated.

“I was badly shaken, I can tell you! But I didn’t sit down and brood over it. When you go into a huddle with yourself on the moon you’re apt to wind up looking like an ice-carved replica of Rodin’s Thinker.

“I simply shaded my helmet with my palm, to cut down the starshine, and stared across the valley. The valley was about a mile wide, and as smooth as a skating rink over most of its surface. But about halfway across a big mound of blue-gray sandstone broke the monotony by looming up on the frozen plain like an African termite’s nest.

“Maybe you’ve seen some pictures of those big nests in travel books. They were usually photographed with seven-foot natives standing beside ’em, to make you realize what insects could accomplish. Old travel books, of course, because Africa is just one big stone highway now.

“Those nests were huge, weren’t they? If my memory doesn’t betray me—some of those nests were twelve feet tall.

“Uh … Uh. But this mound would have dwarfed twenty termite nests in a valley of giants—all tumbled together and piled up in a skyward direction.

“As near as I could make out the footprints ran right up to the base of the mound, and stopped there.

“Well … you can be sure I didn’t just stand in my own prints goggling up at the stars. I followed that impossible trail—straight out into the valley as fast as I could clump.

“It took me about ten minutes to reach the mound. Once or twice I stumbled and almost went sprawling. But whenever I felt the plain slipping out from under me I shot a quick glance at the mound and its sheer massiveness steadied me.

“Close up it had a corrugated, hoary look, as if it had bubbled up out of the ground when the moon had a molten crust and been fused into a mound by fire and earthquake.

“But when I halted directly in front of it I saw that it wasn’t as solid as it looked. It was riddled with little dark holes, as though a woodpecker had spent at least a month making a wreck of it. And at its base there was a wide, dark, tunnel-like opening.

“Another man might have thought of a hundred excuses for not crawling through that tunnel on his hands and knees. But when my curiosity is aroused I’m a very special kind of idiot.

“The tunnel was about twenty feet in length. I crawled along through the darkness with my atomic blaster slapping against my hip, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“When the smothering feeling you get in tunnels began to wear thin I knew that it would be safe for me to stand up. You can feel a stone wall arching above you without touching it, and I knew suddenly that I was in the clear.

“When I got to my feet and stared about me I could see the dark end of the tunnel and what appeared to be stone walls hemming me in. The walls arched away into shadows, and were faintly luminous.

“I’ve spent as many hours underground as there are seeds in a watermelon—so I can take a cave interior in my stride. But the mound wasn’t just hollow and cavelike and filled with wavering shadows. It was—occupied!

“He was sitting on a projecting ledge in deep shadows. But the wall behind him glowed, and I could see him clearly. He was wearing a spacesuit exactly like my own, but it was all shriveled up over him.

“Take a little monkey—a lemur or a spectral tarsier will do—and put him inside a cumbersome spacesuit, and let his bright eyes shine out through the viewpane. Do that—and you’ll have as clear a picture of him as I could give you if I rambled on for ten minutes.

“I couldn’t see the little fellow’s face through the pane. It was all a shadowy blue. But I could see his bright eyes, and I could tell he was little by the way the suit overlapped, and bulged out in the wrong places.

“You know how a kid of eight or ten looks when he puts on a man’s suit on Halloween? But this wasn’t Halloween, and he wasn’t trying to scare anyone!

“He was too scared himself. He was shaking all over and when he saw me his eyes got even brighter, and he started to get up. He was trembling so I had to help him to his feet.

“I steadied him with one arm and lifted off the helmet with my free hand. As you know, you can stay outside a suit on the moon without getting frostbitten for about half a minute.

“When his face came into view and his eyes looked straight into mine I was so startled that fifteen seconds were lost right at the start—before a single word could be exchanged between us. But at least I had a chance to get a good look at him.

“If you saw yourself as a boy of ten, suddenly, without warning, would you recognize yourself? Maybe some men would. If you looked at yourself a lot in a mirror when you were growing up—or kept photographs of yourself, carefully preserved in an old album, you might not have any trouble. Right off you might hear yourself muttering, ‘Why, that’s me!’

“But I had trouble. The kid’s face was just enough like my own to give me a start. But I couldn’t really place it—couldn’t remember where I had seen it before.

“Then the kid spoke. ‘I—I thought you were Pops! But you’re not! He’s older! Where am I? How did I get here?’

“The voice did something to me. You get a chance to hear yourself talking a lot when you’re knee-high to a grasshopper. And I had no kids of my own! But my own father had looked enough like me to be my twin brother, and if this kid thought I was his dad—

“It hit me between the eyes—and like a voice screaming at me through a blur of spinning suns!

“I was staring at myself as I had been long ago—and no tracks made by a dead man in a bog could have been more nerve-shattering.

“He wasn’t even a poor little kid in a desperate plight, because you can’t feel paternal about yourself! He was a tormented ghost out of the past, and for an instant I had an impulse to blame him and rail at him for returning to torture me.

“But I’m not a cruel man, deep down, and that crazy impulse passed quickly. He was a poor little lost cuss, even if he was myself, and all my sympathy went out to him.

“I even forgot for a moment how insane the whole thing was. He was gasping for breath, so I put the helmet back on, and gave the oxygen tube a double twist to straighten it out. But an instant before the helmet descended over his mouth he managed to stammer, ‘I was up in the attic playing—’

“Playing ‘Pirate’s den!’ I had spent the happiest years of my boyhood in the attic, pretending I was Captain Kidd, or climbing out on the tree that arched over our house when the December snows weighed it down, and making myself out to be in the crow’s nest of an arctic windjammer!

“As I swayed there beside myself my mind followed crazy-paved paths in all directions. Great chunks of the past seemed to float before me—like icebergs nine-tenths submerged.

“But all the while the sanest part of my mind was seeking an explanation that would one-tenth explain it! I gripped my own boy-self by the shoulder to make sure he’d stay solid until the man he’d become could get a mental toehold on the problem.

“If you can persuade a man to mount a stepladder and plant himself firmly on the air you’ve taken your first brave step into the unknown. The poor devil may or may not fall. But at least you’ve made a start in the right direction.

“It isn’t too hard to believe that certain things can happen to Time on the wrong side of yesterday—or tomorrow! Time—the physicists tell us—never stops flowing. It’s like a melting candle or silk before it hardens on the loom—all crinkled up and sparkling like a dew-drenched spider web.

“If Time melts in a back-of-yesterday dimension what’s to stop a man from dissolving with it, and running in a thin trickle back to his yesterdays? You were a boy once and you could be a boy again—without ceasing to be a man.

“Put it this way. On the dark side of the moon there was a valley of shadows. A big, blundering fool went stumbling into it, and landed in a heap. Before he could pick himself up a part of himself dissolved in some unimaginable backwash of time, and he became a boy again. His boy-self split off from him, and went stumbling off over the plain in a suit five sizes too large for him.

“It’s not as impossible as it sounds. The boy you were still exists in Time, and he could emerge from the past to stand beside you in a vortex of dissolving Time. Was there something in the valley that could change the flow of time, reverse it, and twist it around like butter in a churn?

“The answer was right there in the cave with me. But I couldn’t see it because another spacesuited figure was making my brain whirl. He’d come clumping into the cave bent nearly double, and now he was shuffling toward me as though I’d committed some horrible crime I could never hope to atone for.

“Through the pane of his helmet his eyes burned accusingly into mine. But it wasn’t until he halted directly in front of me and lifted the helmet from his head that I knew what my crime was and why he found it hard to forgive me.

“I had committed the crime of living beyond my alloted span! The man facing me was old … old. His face was still my face, but if ever I had been young and handsome and a target for the wiles of a pretty woman I was so no longer!

“He seemed to realize that I could hardly bear to look upon myself as I would be, for he spoke sharply, quickly, without attempting to explain his presence, or even to prepare me for what he had to say by working up to it like a storyteller with a great load of unimaginable horror on his mind.

“ ‘It’s a monstrous beast of prey!’ he croaked. ‘It can dissolve Time and reshape Time in a hundred horrible ways!’

“He quirked his head at me. ‘You know more than that lad but I know more than you—for I have lived through this moment before! Once long ago I stood in this cave and warned you! You are at the crossroads of a branching future! If you take the right turn now you will live to become me. But, if you take the wrong turn—’

“He straightened, and pointed with his gloved forefinger into the shadows behind me. ‘It is there—at your back! When you turn you will see the shining web which it uses to dissolve Time! All over this valley the creature has thrown a Time-dissolving web of force!’

“His voice rose warningly. ‘It is as intelligent as we are, but it moves with glacial slowness. An inch in an hour—a foot in a day! When it dissolves Time it nourishes itself by drawing the energy-whirl into itself, and spinning it out again in another form, like an immense, living shuttlecock. A spider—’

“He looked at me with a haggard intensity of appeal. ‘It will try to hold you with the web—to hold you in complete helplessness until you become a hundred lads and a hundred men. You’ll be an infant, a boy of five, a lad of twenty, and a man older than myself. But every time you split up in the folds of the web you’ll lose a part of your substance.

“ ‘You’ll cease to be a man with a past and a future. You’ll become a mere hollow shell—no more substantial than I am, and I am little more than a wraith. You’ll be drained, and you’ll vanish like a puff of smoke. You’ll be devoured and swallowed up!’

“He was struggling for breath and the veins on his forehead had begun to swell. ‘You’ve got to blast it down before the web dazzles and confuses you! You’ll have to face it to blast, but if you fight it with your mind—’

“Suddenly the helmet was back on his head and he was turning from me. He moved straight toward the lad and put a palsied hand on the shoulder of that younger me.

“Then, slowly, they both turned to face me, and I could see their eyes inside their helmets, trained upon me in desperate appeal. At least—there was appeal in the eyes of the old one. The lad may have been merely terrified, and confused.

“He couldn’t have been more terrified than I was as the shadows lengthened about me, and a coldness crept into my bones.

“I knew I’d have to come to grips with the web. I knew, too, that if it was behind me I’d be safer facing it. When there’s something unspeakable at your back, you can die so many deaths just waiting for it to make its presence known that all the courage and decision goes out of you.

“Panic smote me as I turned, hip and thigh like a flat sword. But all I could see for an instant was a faint, moving radiance blending with the shadows, a kind of nebulous flowing in the darkness on the far side of the cave.

“My hand must have closed on my blaster, for I could feel the bite of cold metal against my palm. But there was something about the light that my will could not withstand. My arms seemed to freeze as I stared at it, and terrifying thoughts rushed into my brain.

“At first I experienced only a feeling of almost unbearable oppression. Then something in the glow seemed to reach out toward me and there was no sound in the cave but the beating of my heart.

“A ghastly something seemed to be watching me with a kind of fiendish triumph, as though the soul of a devil lurked in the depth of the light which could send out vampire tendrils, filmed with writhing menace.

“I couldn’t tear my eyes from the glow and the longer I stared the worse it got.

“The light seemed filled with an evil purpose. It writhed and changed shape as I stared at it, seeming to sweep out through the walls of the cave and back again with a pulsing greediness.

“Then, gradually, it ceased to blend with the shadows. It became stationary and transparent, hanging suspended in the murky air like a gigantic burning glass.

“As though in a dream-delirium I became slowly aware that a picture was forming within it. A valley swept into view, walled with high, saw-toothed mountain ranges.

“Deep in the weaving radiance I could see a tiny, plodding figure coming toward me across the valley.

“For an instant I thought I was looking at the far-off image of a human figure plodding over the plain. A figure clad in a heavy spacesuit, moving awkwardly—as I had moved.

“Nearer it came and nearer, its reflection floating on ahead of it, bobbing about like a little ship.

“And then, suddenly, I saw that it was skimming the plain. It was balancing itself on flapping wings, sweeping across the plain without actually touching it, but so slowly that it appeared to be advancing with the plodding, awkward gait of a man.

“It swerved abruptly as I stared, made a full turn, and soared into the air. It flew straight toward me, its wings beating the air as though it were struggling against a furious uprush of wind.

“There was a sloping wall of light-dappled rock at the edge of the radiance, and for an instant the winged shape disappeared behind it. I didn’t see it descend.

“I saw only a shadow forming behind the rock, and swirling out from it. It came into view again abruptly, dragging its wings behind it, hobbling toward me over the ice.

“My spine congealed. The thing that had crossed the valley was a monstrous bird of prey. It was wearing a spacesuit, but no helmet, and I could see its vulture-like head bobbing about in the glow.

“It seemed to be in pain. It had halted at the edge of the glow, as if fearful of what lay beyond it, and suddenly as I stared it began furiously to pluck and tear at its breast with its taloned foreclaws.

“So frenzied were the creature’s exertions that the front of its spacesuit came away in shreds. The hideous creature had scales on its breast instead of feathers, and a pulsing, lizardlike throat … a throat which turned red as it continued to inflict cruel injuries on itself.

“The impression I got was one of agonized despair, of a creature trapped and cornered that could only escape by destroying itself. Again and again it slashed at its flesh, twisting about in the glow, its eyes brimming with agony.

“Then, suddenly, it was no longer alone. A little bird-lizard shape had materialized at its side and was going through the same grisly pantomime.

“As I blinked in stunned disbelief a third shape swam into view—and a fourth. The eyes of the third shape were dull and opaque, like frosted glass, and the fourth shape was so atrophied that the scales on its breast seemed to overlap, squeezing out the flesh between them.

“Then, abruptly, the first shape began to grow transparent. It shriveled and glistened, and I could see its skeleton gleaming beneath the glassy transparency of its dissolving flesh.

“It vanished in a gush of gray light, so quickly that the air about it had a sucked-in look. Swiftly, terribly, the other shapes converged toward that swirling vacuum and were swallowed up, as though with their passing Time had collapsed in upon itself.

“That Time had collapsed I knew! For I am no fool. Long ago the alien inhabitant of another world had landed in that valley of all horror, and the living shuttlecock had split it up into time fragments, the better to destroy it.

“It wanted me to know that—to realize that my time was short. So it had brought back a scene out of the past to unnerve me, and sap my will!

“Could I go on taking it? I hadn’t much time to think about it—for the web was filling with another picture. A living shuttlecock, the old one had called it. So now it was weaving another picture for me on Time’s dissolving loom.

“It was a picture so hideous I could hardly bring myself to believe in it. It was a picture of still another me. But if the old one had seemed palsied, wretched, at the end of his endurance—the face that stared out at me from the radiance was a thousandfold more so!

“It was a face that had lost itself in Time—a face that was all sagging jowls and puckered brows, a toothless, yellowed caricature of a face.

“But it was my face still—my face ravaged by a century’s decay!

“Looking at myself as I would be—I suddenly had no longer any desire to live. A small, shrill voice shrieked within me that the monstrous, living shuttlecock desired just that—that it was resorting to a devilish subterfuge!

“But I did not heed the voice. I just stood there, waiting to die, hoping that the end would come quickly.

“The blast was deafening! The sudden crash of it made a muffled booming in the thin air, and smashed against my eardrums like a trump of doom. The flare was blinding. The awful brightness of it lit up the cave like a hundred suns, and burned through my eyeballs into my brain.

“When the smoke cleared all I could see at first was a shattered something lying on the floor of the cave, all twisted and bent back on itself like a smoking heap of shattered glass.

“As I shook my big, dull head to clear it my boy-self lifted off his helmet and returned his blaster to the holster on his hip. His face was shining with triumph. The sweat was running off it and he was breathing heavily.

“But he spoke to me and his words were good to hear.

“ ‘We got him, pal!’

“He didn’t say ‘it’—didn’t refer to the monstrous creature as something unspeakably alien.

“No—why should he? To him it wasn’t a horror in the valley of the moon. It was something out of a nightmare and he knew he’d wake up safe in his own little bed at home.

“He was still thinking of me as his father—in a nightmare. We’d been hunting jabberwocks together!

“And that lad was still in me—a part of me! I tell you, it sobered me and made me feel ashamed.

“I was still feeling ashamed when both the boy and the old one vanished. Perhaps melted back would be a better way of putting it. For they did seem to dissolve and flow back, rush back, into me an instant before I found myself standing alone again—in that valley that would never grow old!”

Charley had arisen and was standing by the fire. Suddenly he stooped and threw another log into the flames.

Far to the west the lights of the biggest spaceport on Earth blinked through the purple haze, and every time a ship took off, bound for the great outer planets, the desert would light up for miles.

But that light couldn’t hold a candle to the one that blazed in Charley’s eyes.

The Miniature Menace

I

The sky was harsh with the flare of rocket jets when Captain Ralph Langford emerged from his deep space cruiser on the Mars City landing field. There was a girl standing alone at the far end of the field, and for a moment Langford thought it might be Joan, irrational as the thought was. Of course, Joan couldn’t be here; he was to see her at the hospital. He started across the field, blinking in the glare, his eyes shining with a warm gratefulness to be home again; as he approached the solitary figure, he could see it was not Joan, though there was a resemblance. He was so engrossed that he didn’t notice the tall, eagle-eyed young Patrol officer who came striding toward him, until he heard the man’s voice.

“You’re under arrest, sir!” the youth said, his hand whipping to his visor. “Commander Gurney’s orders.”

Langford looked up suddenly, then stiffened in belligerent protest. “Hold on, Lieutenant! You can’t arrest me and march me off to jail like a common criminal. Commission regulations! How long have you worn those stripes, youngster?”

The youth’s eyes were respectful, sympathetic; he did not appear to be offended. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said firmly. “Commander Gurney went before the Commission and had you certified as irresponsible.”

Langford flushed angrily. “So that’s it,” he grunted.

The Patrol officer hesitated. He had prepared what he intended to say, but the fame of the big man facing him had reached sunward to Mercury, and outward to Pluto’s frozen tundras.

Langford’s fist lashed out suddenly, catching the youth flush on the jaw, and crumpling him to his knees. The girl, who had been a silent witness up to now, gasped, then turned and ran like a frightened rabbit. Langford did not stop to apologize. Rumor had it that deep space officers bore charmed lives, but Langford knew as he broke into a run that his life hung by a thread that might at any moment turn crimson.

No part of the field was unguarded. If the guards had orders to withhold their fire he saw a desperate chance of outwitting them; but if they had orders to blast, his fate was already sealed. As he ran he had a vision of himself sinking down in a welter of blood and blackness, his ears deafened by the hollow chant of concussion weapons. He saw himself lying spread out on the landing field, the taste of death in his mouth, the air above him filled with a harsh, eerie crackling.

He ran faster, ran like a man bemazed, his eyes filled with dancing motes that kept cascading down both sides of his oxygen mask. He was a hundred feet from the ship when he became aware that a dozen armed guards had emerged from shadows at the edge of the field and were converging upon him.

Angry curses whipped through the night and the field seemed to tilt as the guards came racing toward him. Far off in the darkness a siren wailed.

Langford suddenly realized that he was becoming lightheaded from too much oxygen intake; his head was filled with a dull roaring, and seemed to be expanding. It was filled with flashing lights as well as sound, and was leaving his shoulders as he ran.

He had a sudden impulse to laugh and shout, to whoop at how ridiculous it was. His head had left his shoulders and was spinning about in the air. But before he could grasp the tube which was flooding his brain with hilarity, armed guards were all about him, raising their weapons to cover him and shouting at him to raise his arms.

Unfortunately he couldn’t seem to move his arms. When he made the effort he went plunging and skidding over the ramp with running figures on both sides of him. He was skating, cutting capers on ice. Fantastic and incredible capers. Then the ice was inside his skull, swelling up thick; his heels were together when the lights in his head went out.

When the lights came on again Langford found himself stumbling forward into a blank-walled room with a steady pressure at his back. At first he thought the room was a cell, but when his vision adjusted itself to the glare he saw that he was facing a seated man whose head seemed to be dancing in the air.

“Here he is, Commander!” a harsh voice said. “He blacked out, but that didn’t stop him from putting up a terrific fight!”

Langford had no recollection of putting up a fight, but the guard’s jaw was bruised and swollen, which seemed to indicate that a struggle had taken place. A massive desk swam into view and the head of the seated man settled down on his shoulders.

Langford blinked. Facing him in the cold light was the supreme commander of the Solar Patrol, a thin, hollow-cheeked man of fifty whose eyes behind narrowed lids glittered as cold as glass.

Commander Gurney’s immobility was not unlike the roll of thunder in a vacuum. There was sound and fury to it, and yet not a muscle of his face moved as he dismissed the guard with a curt nod, and waited for the massive door behind Langford to clang shut.

The instant silence settled down over the room Commander Gurney came to life. “You’re under arrest, Langford,” he said, quietly. “If you’ve anything to say in your own defense you’d better start talking. I can spare you—” the patrol commander glanced at his wrist watch—“Exactly twenty minutes.”

“Good enough!” Langford grunted. All the muscles of his gaunt face seemed to pull together as he seated himself. For an instant he remained motionless, his eyes troubled and angry, as if he could not quite accept the fact that he had been deprived of his command by the irate man opposite him.

The two men who sat facing each other in the cold light were sharply divergent types. Langford was a man of enormous strength and a temper that was just a little dangerous when it got out of control. He had never once failed in his duty and the inner discipline which he had imposed on himself showed in his features, which were as tight as a drum. But beneath his rough exterior Langford concealed the sensitive imagination of a poet, and an immense kindliness which sometimes overflowed in strange ways, embarrassing him more than he cared to admit.

Commander Gurney had never experienced such embarrassment; he had imposed his will on the Solar Patrol by becoming an absolute slave to efficiency at considerable detriment to his health. There was something rapacious and hornetlike about him, something ceaselessly alert. Now he sat regarding Langford with a stinging contempt in his stare, poised for the attack, his harsh features mirroring his thoughts like an encephalograph. “Well?” he prodded.

Langford wet his dry lips. Reaching inside his resplendent uniform, he removed a small, shining object which he set down at the edge of his superior’s desk. “They shot this out at us when I ordered them to stand by for boarding,” he said. “It was contained in a small, translucent capsule which I picked up with a magnetic trawl. It’s just a model in miniature, but take a good look at it, sir; would you care to make the acquaintance of a creature like that in the flesh?”

Commander Gurney’s eyes widened and his mouth twitched slightly. “In the name of all that’s unholy, Langford, what is it?” he muttered.

Langford shook his head. “I wish I knew, sir. It looks quite a bit like a praying mantis. A little, metallic praying mantis six inches tall. But it doesn’t behave like one!”

The statuette on Gurney’s desk seemed chillingly lifelike in the cold light. It had been fashioned with flawless craftsmanship; its upraised forelimbs were leaf green, its abdomen salmon pink, and its gauzy wings shone with a dull, metallic luster as Langford turned it carefully about.

Gurney couldn’t help noticing, with a little shudder, that its mouthparts consisted of a cutting mandible, and a long, coiled membrane like the ligula of a honeybee. Huge, compound eyes occupied the upper half of the metal insect’s face.

Gurney’s hand had gone out, and was about to close on the little statue; but something in Langford’s stare made him change his mind. As his hand whipped back he fastened his gaze on Langford’s face with the ire of a peevish child denied access to a jampot.

“What in blazes has that to do with your failure to obey orders?” he demanded, with explosive vehemence. “That ship must have used an interstellar space-warp drive to appear out of nowhere in the middle of the Asteroid Belt. And you deliberately let it slip away from you!”

Langford shut his eyes before replying. He saw again the myriad stars of space, the dull red disk of Mars and the far-off gleam of the great outer planets. He saw the luminous hull of the alien ship looming up out of the void. An instant before, the viewpane had been filled with a sprinkling of very distant stars with a faint nebulosity behind them. The ship had appeared with the suddenness of an image forming on a screen, out of the dark matrix of empty space.

Langford leaned forward, a desperate urgency in his stare. “Mere alienage doesn’t justify the crime of murder, sir!” he said. “Attacking an alien race without weighing the outcome would have been an act of criminal folly, charged with great danger to ourselves.”

Commander Gurney shook his head in angry disagreement. “Just how would you define murder, Langford?” he demanded. “If a highly intelligent buzzsaw came at you would you bare your throat?”

Langford ignored the question. “Violence breeds violence, sir,” he said, with patient insistence. “Suppose the shoe were on the other foot. Suppose the inhabitants of another planet attacked you without giving you a chance to prove your friendliness?”

Langford’s eyes held a dogged conviction. “Remember, sir—to issue a warning is an act of forbearance. No reasonable man could mistake a warning for an aggressive act. If their weapons are superior to ours, or they are superior to us in other, truly terrifying ways, they proved their friendliness by warning us. Would you have had me attack their ship without studying that warning?”

Gurney’s eyes had returned to the statue. He seemed fascinated by the glitter of its folded wings. He had a sudden vision of the metal insect spreading its wings and taking off with a low, horrible droning.

Suddenly there was a dull throbbing in the Patrol commander’s temples. A frightful dread took possession of him, so that he could hardly breathe; in his mind’s gaze he saw a vast, stationary plain that seemed to hang suspended in midair above a fiery sea. Sweeping straight toward him, dark against the glow, were hundreds of flying mantis shapes with their arms upraised in the glow.

Gurney shuddered and gripped the arms of his chair. He transfixed Langford with an accusing stare. “Man, if you’d engaged them in open combat we’d at least know where we stand! We could have put the entire patrol on the alert. Now they’ve given us the slip and may show up anywhere, armed with weapons that could wipe out civilization overnight.”

“I chose what I believed to be the lesser of two evils, sir,” Langford said, stepping closer to the desk. His eyes rested briefly on the metal insect; then they returned to Gurney’s face.

“There were two metal insects in that capsule, sir. I’m going to show you exactly what happened to the one I experimented with.”

Langford’s forefinger whipped out as he spoke, striking the little statue sharply on its folded wing membranes. For an instant nothing happened; then, with appalling suddenness, the metal insect came to life. It spread its wings and ascended straight up into the air.

Gurney leapt to his feet with a startled cry. As he did so the flying insect’s wings blurred and another pair of wings came into view behind them. The wings were shadowy at first, but they quickly solidified, taking on a glittering sheen. Preying arms sprouted from them. Then, even more quickly, a big-eyed head and a writhing, salmon-pink abdomen.

The instant the second shape became a complete insect it whipped away from its parent image with a furious buzzing. As Gurney stared up in horror the original insect gave off eight more buzzing replicas of itself. They darted swiftly up toward the ceiling and circled furiously about, their wings gleaming in the cold light.

Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light. The flying replicas vanished and the original insect thudded to the floor. For an instant the little horror squirmed; then lay motionless.

“It’s playing possum!” Langford said.

Langford advanced as he spoke and raised his foot. The instant he started to bring his heel down the metal insect shivered convulsively, lifted its huge eyes and stared up at him.

Then an incredible thing happened. There was no need for him to crush the insect; methodically and with cold deliberation it began to dismember itself, tearing off its wings with its own sharp claws, and ripping its abdomen to shreds. After a moment, it lay still.

Langford turned and stared soberly at Gurney. “If we wanted to warn them we could send them a little mechanical man, complete in every detail armed with miniature weapons. They’ve simply sent us a replica of themselves, a model in miniature. It’s so unbelievably complex that we could learn nothing by subjecting it to mechanical tests. But we don’t have to know what makes it tick.

“They’ve warned us that they can multiply by fission, so rapidly that they could overrun the Earth in a few hours; they’ve also warned us that if they find themselves facing impossible odds, they won’t hesitate to destroy themselves.”

Commander Gurney had returned to his desk and stood facing Langford, his face as grim as death. “I quite agree,” he said. “That was—an ugly warning. Langford, letting that ship get away was worse than treasonable. Your twenty minutes are up!”

He was reaching for the communication disk on the far side of his desk when Langford reached inside his uniform for the second time. When the big man withdrew his hand he was clasping an automatic pistol.

Gurney took a swift step backward, his eyes widening in alarm. “So the guards forgot to search you!”

“I’m afraid they did, sir!” Langford said, quietly. “Sit down. I’m going to ask a small favor. A port clearance permit, signed and sealed by you; if you give me your word you won’t move until I’ve cleared the port I won’t tie you up.”

Gurney sat down and stared at the young space officer in scornful mockery. “Suppose I refuse to promise anything. Would you blast me down in cold blood?”

Langford hesitated. His jaw tightened and a candid defiance came into his stare. “No!” he said.

“Then if you’re not prepared to murder me you haven’t got what it takes to exact a promise!” Gurney said.

Langford shook his head. “That’s sheer sophistry,” he pointed out. “I’ve just laid my cards on the table. If you take advantage of my good faith you’ll be hitting below the belt. You see, sir, there’s something I’ve got to do; if I fail I’ll come back and give myself up.”

For a moment not a muscle of Gurney’s face moved. Then he shrugged and glanced at his wrist watch. “I’ll sit perfectly still for exactly fifteen minutes, Langford,” he said. “That should give you sufficient time to clear the port.”

His eyes narrowed to steely slits. “But heaven help you when I move!”

“Fair enough!” Langford said.

Ten minutes later the Patrol captain was climbing into a small jet plane at the edge of the spaceport. Far to the east the skyline of Mars City rose above the horizon like a glittering copper penny swimming in a nebulous haze. A penny flipped in desperation that had miraculously come heads.

Part of the wonder he felt was due to his knowledge that he would soon be flying straight through the penny toward a tall white building he would have braved the sun to scale.

II

A grave-faced physician met Langford at the end of the corridor and beckoned him into a small white-walled room. The physician was not talkative; he didn’t need to be. The girl who sat under the bright lamps with her eyes swathed in bandages told Langford all he cared to know.

Her lips were smiling and she held out her arms as her husband came into the room. Langford went up to her, and kissed her tenderly on the cheek, his big, awkward hands caressing her hair that lay in a tumbled dark mass on her shoulders.

She had tried to keep back the tears, but they came now, so that her body quivered with the intensity of her emotion. “I’m going to see, darling!” she whispered; “I know I’m going to see again. I wouldn’t let them remove the bandages until you came.”

“Sure you are!” Langford said, gruffly. “And you’ll have better sight than ever before! Both kinds of sight, just as you had before!”

“I was afraid you might be hurt, darling!” Joan Langford whispered, running her forefinger down his wet cheek as she held his head close. “I used the other sight that makes me so different, and terrifies people much more than it should!”

“You should not have done that!” Langford said, scowling; “I was in no real danger!”

“You were being hunted like a criminal!”

She turned her head toward Dr. Crendon as she spoke. The physician looked away, feeling her gaze on him through the bandages.

“The law of compensation, child,” he said, gently. “Mutants are clairvoyant; their vision is piercingly sharp where vision matters most. When nature confers a priceless gift she sometimes withdraws a lesser one; no one knows why, not even the biologists.” He smiled, “There I go, personifying the impersonal again. Perhaps ordinary sight will someday be vestigial in all of us.”

Langford glanced up. The physician was pressing his finger to his lips and gesturing toward the door. Langford got quickly to his feet. A chill wind seemed to blow into the room, driving all the warmth from his mind.

Just outside the door Dr. Crendon turned and spoke in a cautious whisper. “I haven’t given up hope!” he said. “But the chances are not too good, we don’t know why, but mutants have defective vision from birth even when their eyes are normal.”

Langford nodded, “I know that, doctor!”

The physician’s voice became gentler. “We know so little about mutants. Fifty thousand of them in the world, perhaps—born too early or too late! An inward vision that can pierce the barriers of sense and see to the heart of things. And an outward vision that’s defective, faltering, almost a blind man’s vision. Clairvoyance and failing sight—it just doesn’t make sense.”

“Joan makes sense,” Langford said. “If she were stone blind I’d still worship her.”

Dr. Crendon held his hands straight out before him and looked down at them. “I did my best,” he said, simply. “There were slight peculiarities of structure in the choroid but I’m sure that the new cornea will adjust. It’s the retina itself, the innermost nervous tunic of the eye, that I’m worried about.”

He paused, then went on quickly: “A mutant’s retina is hypersensitive. It responds to light in a peculiar way and has a tendency to distort images. But that distortion vanishes when the mind becomes really active.”

Langford looked at him. “Just what are you trying to tell me?”

“I’m not sure I know!” There were little puckers between Crendon’s eyes. “Put it this way. If she doesn’t brood too much, if she leads an active life and has complete confidence in her inner vision, her sight may improve. I think the failure of a mutant’s sight may be partly due to—well, a kind of fear. Mutants feel cut off from ‘normal’ humanity—whatever that may be—and are tempted to use their inner vision as a means of escape. And when they do that the outer vision dims to the vanishing point.”

“Then you think—”

“Make her feel that she can be of assistance to you in every moment of your waking life. Give her some important task to perform. Keep her with you, lad, as much as you can. She’s missed you these many months. Make her realize you can’t get along without her.”

Langford’s eyes held a dawning wonder; he seemed like a man from whom an immense weight had been lifted. “I was just about to tell you that I need her inward vision,” he said. “Not only the eyes you’ve done your best to restore, but her powers of clairvoyance.”

“You mean that?”

“Why should I lie to you, doctor?”

For the second time Crendon smiled. “No reason, I suppose. But I thought you might be deceiving yourself by pretending you needed her when you didn’t. You’ve been under something of a strain.”

It was Langford’s turn to smile. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“Oh, yes I do! She saw you crossing the skyport with scanner beams trained on you; she saw you playing hide and seek with annihilation. I had to give her a sedative injection to quiet her.”

Langford did not move. Something in Crendon’s face told him he was not expected to say anything.

“So that makes me an accessory!” Crendon said, the smile still on his lips. “Her vision went blank when I decided she’d seen enough for her own peace of mind.”

He nodded. “I didn’t know whether you managed to escape or not; it kept me on the tetherhooks until you showed up in my office twenty minutes ago. I’ve always liked you, Langford; I flatter myself I know an honest man when I see one.”

His hand went out and tightened on Langford’s palm. “Come on, now! We’ve got to remove those bandages before she reads my thoughts, and knows how scared I get when I operate. Mutants know what humbugs we all are, Langford; they can see all the flaws in us, and if they can still trust us and believe in us despite that, they must be the forerunners of a new humanity in more ways than we dream!”

If Joan Langford had eavesdropped, using her strange sight, she gave no sign when her husband returned to her side. The conversation in the corridor had taken him from her for the barest instant, but that instant had seemed like an eternity to Langford and the inner vision of his wife.

For how could “time” be measured in minutes or hours by a woman wearing a blindfold, shut away in the dark, and waiting a verdict that could cause the future to slough away into chill gulfs? And how could “time” have any meaning when the stars faded out of the sky and a sunset gun boomed farewell to the joys of the physical world? And to one who loved and hoped—could “time” be measured by the moving hands of a clock?

Quickly Langford’s fingers interlocked with those of his wife. “This is it, darling!” he said.

Crendon’s fingers fumbled a little as he turned Joan’s head gently from the light and began to unwind the bandages.

“Don’t open your eyes until I’ve removed the gauze pads,” he warned. “And don’t look directly at the light. At first you may not see at all; you must be prepared for that.”

Crendon hated himself for his sternness, but experience had taught him that it was best to arouse a faint antagonism in his patients; it prevented them from regarding him as a miracle worker. He wanted them to face reality with courage, for healing depended on many things and was often a matter of blind, fanatical trust.

“Now then!” he said.

As he spoke he raised the last fold of the bandage, and carefully removed the small, moist pads beneath, one from each eye. He straightened, his back to the light.

Langford looked away quickly. As though from a great distance he heard Crendon say: “Now you may open your eyes. Remember, you may not see at all for five full minutes!”

Mentally he added: Or ever! I shouldn’t be discouraged. A man does what he can. Ten years of it, ten years of trying to save human sight. And every day I learn something. And every day I envy men who endure merely the loneliness of space. Why pretend? I have never felt compassion for humanity in the abstract. It is only when I look into eyes that I have failed to heal and realize that I can do nothing at all.

“Dr. Crendon, I can see! Everything—clearly.”

And so it was that Dr. Crendon—moody, skeptical Dr. Crendon—received the greatest shock of his life. He had anticipated an agonized outcry—or a joyous one. But Joan had spoken hardly above a whisper, in a tone of quiet assurance, as if she had known all along that she would see.

And suddenly Crendon realized that she had known! For mutants could see into the most probable future! Not too clearly, but clearly enough! How could he have been so blind?

As Crendon turned he saw that Langford had fallen to his knees beside his wife and was sobbing convulsively, his head cradled in her arms. He tiptoed softly out of the room. He felt curiously hollow inside, as though all capacity for emotion had been burned out of him by the corroding acid of his own skepticism.

III

Five minutes later Langford was replacing the bandages on Joan’s eyes. He felt like a man who was playing a game with a deadly, unseen antagonist in a room full of crouching shadows. No—not a room. As he bent above his wife, his hand on her tumbled hair, the space about him seemed to fall away into darkness. And now he was gazing straight down the interplanetary deeps at a green world swimming in a nebulous haze. The haze dissolved, drifted away, and he saw the green hills of his native land.

He saw the earth, and crouching shadows covered the face of the land.

The crouching shadows of enormous insects. He could not escape from them because they were everywhere; when he broke into a run the mantis shapes followed him. They towered above him, sinister, horrible. He felt like a man caught in an invisible trap, the sky hemming him in, the ground beneath his feet a dissolving quagmire.

He shook the illusion off, for he did not want Joan to see the shadows as he saw them. What was it Crendon had said? She must be made to feel that you need her. Well, he did; he knew now that more than his own honor was at stake. If the alien ship could not be located his fears would not remain subjective. The fate of humanity hung in the balance.

His imagination had been stimulated abnormally by the events of the past few days; now it was leaping ahead of developments. For all he knew to the contrary the alien ship had foundered in the void or crashed on one of the inner planets in a red swirl of destruction.

Interstellar exploration was not without its risks and those risks would mount steadily to an alien intelligence as unfamiliar landmarks loomed up out of the void.

“You do not need the bandages,” Langford said, a deep solicitude in his voice. “If you simply shut your eyes you would see the ship clearly. My thoughts would guide you to it.”

“My vision is sharper when my eyes are bandaged,” Joan replied. “You must trust me, darling; I know. When my eyes are sealed there is no emotional block and my inner vision has free play. I am prevented from using my eyes by an actual physical impediment. So I strain all of my faculties to see as far as I can in the dark. Call it a psychological quirk if you wish; I only know that it helps.”

“If it helps that’s all that matters,” Langford assured her. “Forget I put my oar in.”

“Don’t think about the ship for a minute,” Joan said. “Make your mind a blank. Then visualize yourself standing before the viewport staring out, just as you stood when you first saw the alien ship. Visualize the ship coming toward you through the void. If you can visualize it clearly I’ll be able to locate it, no matter where it is now.”

Joan paused, as though she didn’t quite know how to make the complexity of the problem clear to her husband. “I can’t explain the power,” she said; “I know so little about ‘time,’ far less than the physicists think they know. Mutants, they tell us, can visualize ‘time’ as a stationary dimension, freezing all event objects in ‘the past’ and in the ‘probable future.’ They can travel along ‘time’ in either direction at will.”

“But you do not think of it as an actual journey?” Langford asked; “you merely shut your eyes and see?”

Joan shook her head. “It isn’t quite as simple as that. Clairvoyance is never simple; it’s accompanied by an intense inward illumination. It’s a little like staring at something through a long vista of converging prisms. Objects get in the way and there’s doubt, uncertainty. Sometimes it’s sheer torment.

“Sometimes I can’t see at all. And even when I can see there’s a curious, almost terrifying sense of wrongness about it.”

“You mean you feel guilty?”

Joan smiled slightly. “Did Alice feel guilty when she went through the looking glass? Perhaps she did! But I didn’t mean that kind of wrongness, not a moral wrongness. It’s as though the strange tensions will get you if you don’t watch out. Rush in upon you and project you forcibly into another place. As though you were a jet of steam imprisoned in a bottle that’s much too tight and forced in the wrong direction by a power you can’t begin to understand.

“You keep fearing you’ll get caught in the neck of the bottle and wake up screaming.”

“Good Lord!” Langford muttered.

“I’ve never got caught,” Joan said. “Now make your mind a blank, darling. We’re going to find that ship!”

A moment later Langford stood holding his wife’s hand, a sharp apprehension in his stare. Joan seemed slightly agitated. She sat gripping the arms of her chair, her bandaged eyes turned from the light.

Suddenly her lips moved. “Ralph, I can see the ship! It’s coming straight toward the viewport. You didn’t tell me it was so beautiful, so—so huge!”

“I was waiting for you to tell me!” Langford said, quickly.

“Well, I’m telling you, darling! I’m glad you didn’t completely visualize it. Now I’m sure I’m not just reading your mind. It must be three hundred feet long; it’s hard to tell where the illumination comes from.”

Joan straightened suddenly. “It’s no longer just a ship,” she said. “I’m still outside, but I’ve moved closer to it. And I can sense a rustling deep inside the hull, a vague stir of activity that’s not entirely physical.”

While Langford held his breath Joan pressed her palms to her temples. “The rustling is becoming clear. There are swift, abrupt movements, accompanied by thoughts. But I’m not sure whether the thoughts come from one mind or many minds. The thoughts are swift, piercing. Darting thoughts. That’s the only way I can describe them.”

Her voice rose slightly. “I can sense a living presence deep inside the ship. More than one, I think. There’s a kind of swarming.”

“A swarming?”

“I’m not sure about that,” Joan said, quickly. “I don’t think they’re moving about much. The thoughts seem to come from one direction. I can just make out a shape now; it’s tall, and very slender.”

“Winged?” Langford whispered.

“No, no, don’t prompt me!” Joan was excited. “The important thing is that I can see it. I may never see it clearly. Gauzy—yes, it is winged. It has gauzy, shining wings, folded on its chest. Two clawlike appendages, raised in a praying attitude. Perhaps I saw that in your mind; you mustn’t interrupt again.”

“I won’t!” Langford promised.

“The creature is horribly agitated!” Joan said. “It looks upon your ship as a menace. Its brain is humming with fear; it is preparing to contact you, warn you. It’s getting ready to warn you in a strange way. It has prepared something for just such an emergency. Something small, glistening. I can’t make it out, but it’s putting the object into a luminous shell!”

“That’s right!” Langford said, forgetting his promise. “They shot the shell into the void; we picked it up with a magnetic trawl.”

There was a brief silence as Joan thought that out. Then her lips twisted in a strained smile. “If you say another word—”

“Sorry!”

“It’s bad; it hinders.” She raised her arms in a gesture of grim urgency. “Now the ship is moving swiftly away from your ship. I can dimly sense vast distances rushing past. And there’s a feeling of loneliness, of utter desolation. No despair, exactly; it’s as though I were sensing the utter desolation of deep space through a mind filled with a bitter nostalgia!

“If the feeling wasn’t so intense, so strange and bewildering, I’d say it was a ‘Carry me back to old Virginia’ feeling! Does that make sense to you? It’s like—someone thrumming a guitar a billion miles from home, whistling to keep up his courage, remembering something very precious and beautiful lost forever. I can’t explain it in any other way.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she said: “Now a planet is taking shape in the darkness. It’s pale green and crossed by a long, wavering streamer of light. I can make out continents and seas.”

Joan stiffened. “Ralph! There’s only one planet in the Solar System that catches the sunlight through great swarms of meteors in the plane of its ecliptic. The lights of the Zodiac! It must be the Earth!”

Langford dared not speak for fear of breaking the spell. Joan was trembling now, as though thoughts from the past were impinging with a tormenting intensity on her inner vision.

“The ship’s out of control!” came suddenly. “It’s plunging down through the lower atmosphere toward a vast expanse of jungle. A tropical rain forest. A mist is rising over the trees and a burst of flame is coming from the ship. It’s zigzagging as it descends.”

Emotion seemed to quiver through her. For a moment she remained silent, her lips slightly parted.

Then more words came in a rush. “The ship lies on an island in a forking river. Above it the foliage is charred, blackened. There are three rivers and just below the island the water is white with foam. There’s a tremendous cataract about five miles below the island. It’s the largest cataract I’ve ever seen.”

There was an eagerness on Langford’s face, but he remained silent.

“There’s a man swimming in the river above the cataract,” Joan went on. “A brown-skinned man with straggly hair, his shoulders gleaming in the sunlight. I’m going to try to read his mind.”

Langford did not move. For a moment there was no sound in the room save Joan’s harsh breathing. Then, suddenly, she straightened and ripped the bandage from her eyes.

“Brazil!” she exclaimed, exultantly. “Darling, I’ve located the ship for you. That island is in the interior of Brazil, in the deep jungle, close to the headwaters of the Amazon!”

Langford stood very still, scarcely daring to breathe. In his mind’s gaze he saw a slender space cruiser lying unguarded in a suburban hanger close to the dark waters of the great Northwestern Canal. Commander Gurney’s own private cruiser, the White Hawk!

How much of his mental audacity was inspired by sheer desperation Langford could not guess. But he suddenly saw himself climbing out of a thrumming jet plane in deep shadows and running straight toward the cruiser with Joan at his side.

He saw the cruiser ascending, saw himself at the controls, with the red disk of Mars dwindling beyond the viewport. He saw the myriad stars of space and the rapidly expanding disk of the Earth pierced by wavering banners of light.

And then it dawned on him that in some strange way Joan had seen the vision first and was sharing it with him. He knew then that he could not fail.

IV

Beneath the descending cruiser the roof of the forest gleamed in russet and emerald splendor above a labyrinth of wooded archipelagoes.

It still seemed a little like a dream to Langford, but he knew that it wasn’t. The vision that he had experienced three days before, standing beside his wife in a white-walled room, had taken on the bright, firm texture of reality.

He stood before the controls, with a thrumming deck under him, and studied the shifting landscape through the White Hawk’s viewport. He had never before flown directly over the Amazon Basin, and a river of shining wonder seemed to flow into his mind as he stared.

It was Joan who broke the spell. She tugged gently at his arm, her face anxious. “I don’t see any sign of the three rivers!” she exclaimed. “Do you?”

Langford swung about. “We haven’t passed the great cataract of Itamaraca yet,” he said. “It rushes straight along for five or six miles. Then it becomes the most impressive waterfall in South America. A few miles below the falls the river spreads out into a lake.”

Langford turned back to the viewport. “When we see the lake we can look for another branching and the island. The island is right in the middle of the three rivers you saw in your vision. But it’s just a dot on the electrograph. Are you sure it has a distinctive shape?”

“It has a high, rocky shoreline,” Joan assured him. “The central tributary cuts it in half and the other rivers flow around it. It’s heavily forested, but the rent in the foliage where the ship came down is so wide you should be able to see it from ten thousand feet. The treetops are charred over a half mile radius.”

Langford smiled and squeezed her arm. “I bet you’d be happy mapping the Amazon in a bark canoe like a twentieth century explorer,” he said.

He grinned wryly. “A big rock island, mysterious as a cave of vampire bats, bisects the largest tributary west of the Tocantins, and it’s just a dot on an electrograph to us. We’ve explored every crevice of every world in the System, but sometimes I envy our ancestors; they had elaborate pictorial maps to guide them.”

After a moment the ship leveled off, and the Great Cataract swept into view. It was a shining whiteness between two towering walls of foliage festooned with hanging vines, and flame-tongued flowers upon which the red sunlight seemed to dance.

It foamed and cascaded over jagged rocks, swept around little clumps of submerged vegetation, and tore at sloping mud banks glimmering in the sunlight.

Then the cataract became a receding blur and the wide river split up.

Langford heard Joan cry out.

The island which loomed below was about eight miles in circumference and so heavily forested that it resembled a single shrub of wilderness proportions growing from a cyclopean stone flowerpot.

Its high banks were almost vertical, its summit a charred mass of foliage cleft by an enormous rent which funneled the sunlight downward to a circular patch of bare, scorched earth.

Something glittered on the forest floor, far below the blackened foliage. But whether it was the alien ship, or merely the glint of sunlight on the river which flowed completely through the island Langford could not determine from his aerial vantage point.

A divided island was really two islands, but Langford was in no mood for geological hairsplitting. Erosion had failed to efface the original, hoary uniqueness of that towering mass of jungle, and for all practical purposes it was one island still, its high banks and far-flung aerial traceries hemming it in, and sealing its teeming life in eternal solitude.

Langford turned and looked at Joan with eyes that were meshed in little wrinkles of confidence. “I’m going to gun her down through that gap!” he said. “We could crash through anywhere, but the best way to locate a wreck is to hew close to the cinder line!”

He bent grimly over the controls, in his mind a vision of a great host of alien creatures rushing toward him through the forest, swarming over the ship, refusing to let him emerge.

He feared their weapons, which he had never seen. He remembered the little statue with its suicidal impulses, and its ability to shed force-shell replicas of itself.

The ship thrummed as it swept downward, the lights in the control room blinking on and off. Lower it swept and lower. The blood was pounding in Langford’s temples when a black-rimmed funnel of swirling brightness yawned suddenly before the viewport. The same instant the cushioning pressure of the anti-gravity jets made itself felt, holding the ship suspended above the roof of the forest until its atomotors ceased to throb.

The ship descended under its own weight amidst a slowly dissolving pressure field. Sweeping down between the fire-blackened trees, it circled slowly about and settled to rest on the soggy forest floor.

When Langford and Joan emerged a warm breeze, laden with jungle scents, swept toward them. They stood for an instant close to the airlock, staring about them.

No sound broke the stillness except the insistent hum of insects and the rustling of the vegetation on both sides of the ship. A few yards from where they were standing the ground sloped to the brown waters of a swift-running river, its surface flecked with white foam, and studded with little whirlpools that swirled with a darkly writhing turmoil as dry leaves fluttered down, twisting and turning in the breeze.

Twisting and turning above a limp form that lay sprawled on the riverbank, its bare shoulders horribly hunched, its head immersed in the muddy brown water.

Joan screamed when she saw it.

She broke from Langford’s restraining clasp and went stumbling forward until she was knee-deep in the swirling current. She was stooping and tugging in desperation at the half-submerged figure when Langford’s hand closed on her shoulder.

“Let me handle this,” he said, firmly; “it’s no job for a woman.”

On the bank Joan swung about to face him. “It’s a job for a mutant!” she protested, her lips shaking. “You don’t know how close he is to death. He’s still breathing, but if we don’t get him out—”

She broke off abruptly when she saw that Langford needed no urging. He was already on his knees, tugging at the sprawled form. For a moment he tried to succeed from the bank, his knees sunk deep into the mud, his neckcords swelling. Then, with a gesture of fierce impatience, he waded deep into the water and lifted the unconscious man on his shoulders.

Langford carried the man up the sloping bank, eased him to the ground and rolled him over. A small, wiry man, darkly bearded, his mouth hanging open! Staring down at the familiar face, Langford experienced a sense of irony so sharp and overwhelming it interfered with his breathing.

He leaned forward, and started working the man’s arms slowly up and down. He knelt in the soft mud, a murk of depth and shadow looming behind him, a grim anticipation in his stare.

Suddenly the man on the riverbank stirred, groaned and opened his eyes. “Hey, cut that out!” he grunted. “What in blazes are you trying to do, you devil? Wrench my arms from their sockets?”

“Good morning to you, Commander!” Langford said, chuckling.

“Langford!” Commander Gurney’s eyes began to shine, as though lit by fires from unfathomable depths of space. A convulsive shudder shook him. Digging his fists into the mud, he sat up straight.

“You stole my ship!” he rasped, staring at Langford accusingly. “What made you think I couldn’t trace my own cruiser? You can’t rip out infra-radiant alarm installations unless you know where to look. Didn’t you know I’d follow you in a fast auxiliary cruiser and get here ahead of you?”

“I was afraid you might, sir!” Langford smiled ruefully. “But it was a chance I had to take.”

Gurney’s eyes narrowed. “Your ship was sending out more automatic alarm rays than a chunk of radium. My men had orders to close in the instant you brought her down.”

“Just where are your men now, sir?” Langford asked.

Something happened to Gurney’s face. His features twitched and the strained intensity of his stare increased so sharply he seemed to be staring right through Langford into space.

“Those devilish things attacked us!” he muttered. “Exactly as that little statue did! There were dozens of them, ten feet tall, and they kept coming. We blasted, but the charges went right through them; they lifted my lads up in their devilish preying arms and dumped them in the river!”

Sweat gleamed on Gurney’s brow. “It was ghastly, Langford. In the river—like pieces of dead timber. The current carried them downstream. I was helpless. I—I kept blasting, but I couldn’t save them!”

“How did you save yourself?” Langford asked.

Gurney passed a dripping hand over his brow. “I was struggling with one of them when everything went blank. That’s all I remember.”

Langford stood up. “I don’t understand it. Why did that creature go away and leave you with your face submerged? Why didn’t it make sure you’d drift downstream too?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Langford!” Gurney jerked a tremulous hand toward the wall of foliage on the opposite bank. “Why don’t you swim over to their ship and ask them? You’ll find the ship in a clearing about three hundred yards from the bank. They’ve cleared a path to it.”

“That’s just what I intend to do!” Langford said.

Joan paled and moved swiftly to his side, her eyes wide with alarm. “Ralph! You’re not going alone—”

Langford nodded. “I’m a pretty good swimmer,” he said.

Joan stared at him. “But why?”

“It’s a little hard to explain,” Langford said. “You’ve got a picture in your mind of something pretty horrible happening to me. Somehow I feel that everything about that picture is wrong. I’ve got to cross that stream, darling; I’d be a pretty poor specimen of a man if I turned back now, when we’re so close to the answer.”

Joan said nothing. She would have argued and pleaded, but she knew that it would have been of no use.

Five minutes later Langford was stripping on the riverbank. He slipped into the water quietly, and struck out with powerful, even strokes. On the opposite bank he turned an instant to flick a wet strand from his forehead, and wave to his wife. Then he struck off into the forest.

He was a hundred feet from the bank, walking with his shoulders squared, when something bright and incredible swirled up from the forest floor directly in his path.

“For your forbearance, your kindliness, thank you, Langford!” a voice said.

It was not a spoken voice. It was still and small and remote, and it seemed to come from deep inside Langford’s head. Langford stopped advancing; he stood utterly rigid, his temples pounding, his eyes riveted on a darting shape of flame.

“Don’t be alarmed, Langford,” the voice said. “I’m not a shape of flame. But I can wrap myself in blinding flame so that the human eye cannot see me as I am.”

“Who are you?” Langford heard himself asking.

“A traveler blown from his course by ill cosmic winds!” the voice said. “A lone and bewildered stranger from a universe so remote its light has not yet reached you. A genuinely frightened stranger and—a telepath, Langford.”

The voice paused, then went on. “I made you come to me just now. A promise of medals could not have done it, but I got inside your mind, and drew you to me. Medals, rewards, promotions; you prize them, don’t you? What a pity that I cannot stay until your tunic gleams with ribbons.”

Another pause. Then the voice said: “It is difficult to get the intimate feel of your language. You must forgive me if my speech seems a little strained.”

“Your speech. You—”

“You’re not afraid of me, Langford? No, you mustn’t be; you are the kindest of men. How can I convince you that I am—you have a phrase for it—letting down my hair? I shall leave you soon, my friend. I have repaired my ship, and I must try to return to my own people. But before I go I will tell you the truth.”

Another pause while the brightness pulsed. “You could have destroyed my ship when we met in the Asteroid Belt with a single blast; but you refused to do so. And I, not knowing you as I do now, tried to frighten you. There are so many worlds where intelligent life is cold and merciless that I was prepared for any emergency. I am rather proud of that little multiplying creature I shot out into the void. It was a child’s bauble in my world, Langford—a toy!

“I am alone, my friend. Alone in a ship that utterly dwarfs me. But you like large ships, too; we’re curiously alike in some respects. We’d never be satisfied with mechanical mastery on a puny scale!”

“Mechanical mastery?” Langford’s lips had gone cold. “Just what kind of mastery? Why did you attack Commander Gurney and his men?”

The shape of flame seemed to pulse with a curious, inward merriment. Langford could feel the merriment beating into his brain, waves upon waves of it.

“I didn’t attack them. I can no more divide by fission than you can. But when I saw them crouching by the river, their faces merciless, waiting to seize you, I got inside their minds and drove them into the river.

“Like chattering monkeys they fled from the terrifying images I planted in their minds. They were prepared to believe I was not one, but many, a swarming multitude. They floundered and swam until their strength gave out. When they could no longer swim they dragged themselves from the river, and went floundering through the jungle, fleeing from shapes that had no real existence.

“Good Lord!” Langford muttered.

“Their weapons are now at the bottom of the river. That stern and silly little man, who is nothing more than a jumble of bones, fell face down in the river; before I could reach his side you were lifting him up. You have won his undying gratitude. He will grumble and fume, but when he sees my ship disappearing into deep space you will wear ribbons, my friend. You will become—yes, a senior commander!”

“A senior—”

“Perhaps you’d like to see me as I really am, Langford, my friend! You’ll promise not to laugh? I may look a little ridiculous to you.”

Langford’s eyes were suddenly moist. “You couldn’t possibly look ridiculous to me,” he said.

“Well … I wouldn’t like to show myself to just anybody. Certainly not to Skin-and-Bones! But it’s terribly important that you know how completely I trust you. How else can I prove my gratitude?”

Slowly the shape of flame began to contract. Its edges became brighter, sweeping inward to become a small, dazzling circle of radiance that hovered in the air like a blazing signet ring.

In the middle of the ring a tiny form appeared. Amidst Langford’s rioting thoughts one thing stood out with mind-numbing clarity. The form was minute, so tiny that the mantis shape it had shot into the void would have utterly dwarfed it. The form was minute, and yet—it did resemble a mantis. Its arms were upraised, and its pinpoint eyes fastened on Langford with a blazing intensity that seemed to bore deep into his brain.

But there was no enmity in that stare. Only complete gratitude, trust and friendship. Yes, and a certain greatness!

“Now you see me as I really am!” the voice said. “I am so small that you could crush me between your thumb and forefinger. But I would not hesitate to alight on your thumb, my friend!”

A strange wonder throbbed in Langford’s brain. And suddenly he found himself thinking: “Jimmy Cricket!”

Yes, that was it! The tiny shape was as friendly, as puckish, as noble in essence as that little nursery rhyme will-o’-the-wisp, Jimmy Cricket. And it did look like a cricket; a chirping, gleeful, truly great cricket.

Suddenly down the long sweep of the years Langford saw two small human figures advancing over a path of golden bricks toward a glittering distant palace.

One of the forms was himself, the other his sister. They moved in awe and terror, because the palace was inhabited by a mighty wizard with truly terrifying powers. But when they reached the palace they met a human, likeable little man who wasn’t terrible at all. And they knew then that the mighty wizard was a humbug. But somehow in his simple humanness the wizard seemed even greater than he had been. Greater, but no longer terrifying.

Jimmy Cricket was—the Wizard of Oz. And he was something more. A lonely, wayfaring stranger, blown from his course by ill cosmic winds, taking reasonable precautions, but seeking only a responsive friendliness in the gulfs between the stars.

For a moment Langford felt a swirl of energy brush his fingertips, like the clasp of an intangible hand. Then the mental voice said: “Good heavens, Langford! You’re dripping wet! See how the dry leaves of the forest cling to your feet!”

Startled, Langford lowered his eyes.

When he looked up the circle of radiance was gone.

“Forgive me, Langford!” a faint, diminishing voice said. “But partings should not be prolonged! Goodbye, my friend!”

When Langford emerged on the riverbank, sunlight struck down over his tall, straight body, giving him the aspect of a Greek god emerging from a forest glade in the morning of the world.

He paused for an instant on the sloping bank to wave to his wife. Then he plunged into the river and swam straight toward her.

The Mississippi Saucer

Jimmy watched the Natchez Belle draw near, a shining eagerness in his stare. He stood on the deck of the shantyboat, his toes sticking out of his socks, his heart knocking against his ribs. Straight down the river the big packet boat came, purpling the water with its shadow, its smokestacks belching soot.

Jimmy had a wild talent for collecting things. He knew exactly how to infuriate the captains without sticking out his neck. Up and down the Father of Waters, from the bayous of Louisiana to the Great Sandy other little shantyboat boys envied Jimmy and tried hard to imitate him.

But Jimmy had a very special gift, a genius for pantomime. He’d wait until there was a glimmer of red flame on the river and small objects stood out with a startling clarity. Then he’d go into his act.

Nothing upset the captains quite so much as Jimmy’s habit of holding a big, croaking bullfrog up by its legs as the riverboats went steaming past. It was a surefire way of reminding the captains that men and frogs were brothers under the skin. The puffed-out throat of the frog told the captains exactly what Jimmy thought of their cheek.

Jimmy refrained from making faces, or sticking out his tongue at the grinning roustabouts. It was the frog that did the trick.

In the still dawn things came sailing Jimmy’s way, hurled by captains with a twinkle of repressed merriment dancing in eyes that were kindlier and more tolerant than Jimmy dreamed.

Just because shantyboat folk had no right to insult the riverboats Jimmy had collected forty empty tobacco tins, a down-at-heels shoe, a Sears Roebuck catalogue and—more rolled up newspapers than Jimmy could ever read.

Jimmy could read, of course. No matter how badly Uncle Al needed a new pair of shoes, Jimmy’s education came first. So Jimmy had spent six winters ashore in a first-class grammar school, his books paid for out of Uncle Al’s “New Orleans” money.

Uncle Al, blowing on a vinegar jug and making sweet music, the holes in his socks much bigger than the holes in Jimmy’s socks. Uncle Al shaking his head and saying sadly, “Some day, young fella, I ain’t gonna sit here harmonizing. No siree! I’m gonna buy myself a brand new store suit, trade in this here jig jug for a big round banjo, and hie myself off to the Mardi Gras. Ain’t too old thataway to git a little fun out of life, young fella!”

Poor old Uncle Al. The money he’d saved up for the Mardi Gras never seemed to stretch far enough. There was enough kindness in him to stretch like a rainbow over the bayous and the river forests of sweet, rustling pine for as far as the eye could see. Enough kindness to wrap all of Jimmy’s life in a glow, and the life of Jimmy’s sister as well.

Jimmy’s parents had died of winter pneumonia too soon to appreciate Uncle Al. But up and down the river everyone knew that Uncle Al was a great man.

Enemies? Well, sure, all great men made enemies, didn’t they?

The Harmon brothers were downright sinful about carrying their feuding meanness right up to the doorstep of Uncle Al, if it could be said that a man living in a shantyboat had a doorstep.

Uncle Al made big catches and the Harmon brothers never seemed to have any luck. So, long before Jimmy was old enough to understand how corrosive envy could be the Harmon brothers had started feuding with Uncle Al.

“Jimmy, here comes the Natchez Belle! Uncle Al says for you to get him a newspaper. The newspaper you got him yesterday he couldn’t read no-ways. It was soaking wet!”

Jimmy turned to glower at his sister. Up and down the river Pigtail Anne was known as a tomboy, but she wasn’t—no-ways. She was Jimmy’s little sister. That meant Jimmy was the man in the family, and wore the pants, and nothing Pigtail said or did could change that for one minute.

“Don’t yell at me!” Jimmy complained. “How can I get Captain Simmons mad if you get me mad first? Have a heart, will you?”

But Pigtail Anne refused to budge. Even when the Natchez Belle loomed so close to the shantyboat that it blotted out the sky she continued to crowd her brother, preventing him from holding up the frog and making Captain Simmons squirm.

But Jimmy got the newspaper anyway. Captain Simmons had a keen insight into tomboy psychology, and from the bridge of the Natchez Belle he could see that Pigtail was making life miserable for Jimmy.

True—Jimmy had no respect for packet boats and deserved a good trouncing. But what a scrapper the lad was! Never let it be said that in a struggle between the sexes the men of the river did not stand shoulder to shoulder.

The paper came sailing over the shining brown water like a white-bellied buffalo cat shot from a sling.

Pigtail grabbed it before Jimmy could give her a shove. Calmly she unwrapped it, her chin tilted in bellicose defiance.

As the Natchez Belle dwindled around a lazy, cypress-shadowed bend Pigtail Anne became a superior being, wrapped in a cosmopolitan aura. A wide-eyed little girl on a swaying deck, the great outside world rushing straight toward her from all directions.

Pigtail could take that world in her stride. She liked the fashion page best, but she was not above clicking her tongue at everything in the paper.

“Kidnap plot linked to airliner crash killing fifty,” she read. “Red Sox blank Yanks! Congress sits today, vowing vengeance! Million dollar heiress elopes with a clerk! Court lets dog pick owner! Girl of eight kills her brother in accidental shooting!”

“I ought to push your face right down in the mud,” Jimmy muttered.

“Don’t you dare! I’ve a right to see what’s going on in the world!”

“You said the paper was for Uncle Al!”

“It is—when I get finished with it.”

Jimmy started to take hold of his sister’s wrist and pry the paper from her clasp. Only started—for as Pigtail wriggled back sunlight fell on a shadowed part of the paper which drew Jimmy’s gaze as sunlight draws dew.

Exciting wasn’t the word for the headline. It seemed to blaze out of the page at Jimmy as he stared, his chin nudging Pigtail’s shoulder.

New flying monster reported blazing gulf state skies

Jimmy snatched the paper and backed away from Pigtail, his eyes glued to the headline.

He was kind to his sister, however. He read the news item aloud, if an account so startling could be called an item. To Jimmy it seemed more like a dazzling burst of light in the sky.

“A New Orleans resident reported today that he saw a big bright object ‘roundish like a disk’ flying north, against the wind. ‘It was all lighted up from inside!’ the observer stated. ‘As far as I could tell there were no signs of life aboard the thing. It was much bigger than any of the flying saucers previously reported!’ ”

“People keep seeing them!” Jimmy muttered, after a pause. “Nobody knows where they come from! Saucers flying through the sky, high up at night. In the daytime, too! Maybe we’re being watched, Pigtail!”

“Watched? Jimmy, what do you mean? What you talking about?”

Jimmy stared at his sister, the paper jiggling in his clasp. “It’s way over your head, Pigtail!” he said sympathetically. “I’ll prove it! What’s a planet?”

“A star in the sky, you dope!” Pigtail almost screamed. “Wait’ll Uncle Al hears what a meanie you are. If I wasn’t your sister you wouldn’t dare grab a paper that doesn’t belong to you.”

Jimmy refused to be enraged. “A planet’s not a star, Pigtail,” he said patiently. “A star’s a big ball of fire like the sun. A planet is small and cool, like the Earth. Some of the planets may even have people on them. Not people like us, but people all the same. Maybe we’re just frogs to them!”

“You’re crazy, Jimmy! Crazy, crazy, you hear?”

Jimmy started to reply, then shut his mouth tight. Big waves were nothing new in the wake of steamboats, but the shantyboat wasn’t just riding a swell. It was swaying and rocking like a floating barrel in the kind of blow Shantyboaters dreaded worse than the thought of dying.

Jimmy knew that a big blow could come up fast. Straight down from the sky in gusts, from all directions, banging against the boat like a drunken roustabout, slamming doors, tearing away mooring planks.

The river could rise fast too. Under the lashing of a hurricane blowing up from the gulf the river could lift a shantyboat right out of the water, and smash it to smithereens against a tree.

But now the blow was coming from just one part of the sky. A funnel of wind was churning the river into a white froth and raising big swells directly offshore. But the river wasn’t rising and the sun was shining in a clear sky.

Jimmy knew a dangerous floodwater storm when he saw one. The sky had to be dark with rain, and you had to feel scared, in fear of drowning.

Jimmy was scared, all right. That part of it rang true. But a hollow, sick feeling in his chest couldn’t mean anything by itself, he told himself fiercely.

Pigtail Anne saw the disk before Jimmy did. She screamed and pointed skyward, her twin braids standing straight out in the wind like the ropes on a bale of cotton, when smokestacks collapse and a savage howling sends the river ghosts scurrying for cover.

Straight down out of the sky the disk swooped, a huge, spinning shape as flat as a buckwheat cake swimming in a golden haze of butterfat.

But the disk didn’t remind Jimmy of a buckwheat cake. It made him think instead of a slowly turning wheel in the pilot house of a rotting old riverboat, a big, ghostly wheel manned by a steersman a century dead, his eye sockets filled with flickering swamp lights.

It made Jimmy want to run and hide. Almost it made him want to cling to his sister, content to let her wear the pants if only he could be spared the horror.

For there was something so chilling about the downsweeping disk that Jimmy’s heart began leaping like a vinegar jug bobbing about in the wake of a capsizing fishboat.

Lower and lower the disk swept, trailing plumes of white smoke, lashing the water with a fearful blow. Straight down over the cypress wilderness that fringed the opposite bank, and then out across the river with a long-drawn whistling sound, louder than the air-sucking death gasps of a thousand buffalo cats.

Jimmy didn’t see the disk strike the shining broad shoulders of the Father of Waters, for the bend around which the Natchez Belle had steamed so proudly hid the sky monster from view. But Jimmy did see the waterspout, spiraling skyward like the atom bomb explosion he’d goggled at in the pages of an old Life magazine, all smudged now with oily thumbprints.

Just a roaring for an instant—and a big white mushroom shooting straight up into the sky. Then, slowly, the mushroom decayed and fell back, and an awful stillness settled down over the river.

The stillness was broken by a shrill cry from Pigtail Anne. “It was a flying saucer! Jimmy, we’ve seen one! We’ve seen one! We’ve—”

“Shut your mouth, Pigtail!”

Jimmy shaded his eyes and stared out across the river, his chest a throbbing ache.

He was still staring when a door creaked behind him.

Jimmy trembled. A tingling fear went through him, for he found it hard to realize that the disk had swept around the bend out of sight. To his overheated imagination it continued to fill all of the sky above him, overshadowing the shantyboat, making every sound a threat.

Sucking the still air deep into his lungs, Jimmy swung about.

Uncle Al was standing on the deck in a little pool of sunlight, his gaunt, hollow-cheeked face set in harsh lines. Uncle Al was shading his eyes too. But he was staring up the river, not down.

“Trouble, young fella,” he grunted. “Sure as I’m a-standin’ here. A barrelful o’ trouble—headin’ straight for us!”

Jimmy gulped and gestured wildly toward the bend. “It came down over there, Uncle Al!” he got out. “Pigtail saw it, too! A big, flying—”

“The Harmons are a-comin’, young fella,” Uncle Al drawled, silencing Jimmy with a wave of his hand. “Yesterday I rowed over a Harmon jug line without meanin’ to. Now Jed Harmon’s tellin’ everybody I stole his fish!”

Very calmly Uncle Al cut himself a slice of the strongest tobacco on the river and packed it carefully in his pipe, wadding it down with his thumb.

He started to put the pipe between his teeth, then thought better of it.

“I can bone-feel the Harmon boat a-comin’, young fella,” he said, using the pipe to gesture with. “Smooth and quiet over the river like a moccasin snake.”

Jimmy turned pale. He forgot about the disk and the mushrooming water spout. When he shut his eyes he saw only a red haze overhanging the river, and a shantyboat nosing out of the cypresses, its windows spitting death.

Jimmy knew that the Harmons had waited a long time for an excuse. The Harmons were law-respecting river rats with sharp teeth. Feuding wasn’t lawful, but murder could be made lawful by whittling down a lie until it looked as sharp as the truth.

The Harmon brothers would do their whittling down with double-barreled shotguns. It was easy enough to make murder look like a lawful crime if you could point to a body covered by a blanket and say, “We caught him stealing our fish! He was a-goin’ to kill us—so we got him first.”

No one would think of lifting the blanket and asking Uncle Al about it. A man lying stiff and still under a blanket could no more make himself heard than a river cat frozen in the ice.

“Git inside, young ’uns. Here they come!”

Jimmy’s heart skipped a beat. Down the river in the sunlight a shantyboat was drifting. Jimmy could see the Harmon brothers crouching on the deck, their faces livid with hate, sunlight glinting on their arm-cradled shotguns.

The Harmon brothers were not in the least alike. Jed Harmon was tall and gaunt, his right cheek puckered by a knife scar, his cruel, thin-lipped mouth snagged by his teeth. Joe Harmon was small and stout, a little round man with bushy eyebrows and the flabby face of a cottonmouth snake.

“Go inside, Pigtail,” Jimmy said, calmly. “I’m a-going to stay and fight!”

Uncle Al grabbed Jimmy’s arm and swung him around. “You heard what I said, young fella. Now git!”

“I want to stay here and fight with you, Uncle Al,” Jimmy said.

“Have you got a gun? Do you want to be blown apart, young fella?”

“I’m not scared, Uncle Al,” Jimmy pleaded. “You might get wounded. I know how to shoot straight, Uncle Al. If you get hurt I’ll go right on fighting!”

“No you won’t, young fella! Take Pigtail inside. You hear me? You want me to take you across my knee and beat the livin’ stuffings out of you?”

Silence.

Deep in his uncle’s face Jimmy saw an anger he couldn’t buck. Grabbing Pigtail Anne by the arm, he propelled her across the deck and into the dismal front room of the shantyboat.

The instant he released her she glared at him and stamped her foot. “If Uncle Al gets shot it’ll be your fault,” she said cruelly. Then Pigtail’s anger really flared up.

“The Harmons wouldn’t dare shoot us ’cause we’re children!”

For an instant brief as a dropped heartbeat Jimmy stared at his sister with unconcealed admiration.

“You can be right smart when you’ve got nothing else on your mind, Pigtail,” he said. “If they kill me they’ll hang sure as shooting!”

Jimmy was out in the sunlight again before Pigtail could make a grab for him.

Out on the deck and running along the deck toward Uncle Al. He was still running when the first blast came.

It didn’t sound like a shotgun blast. The deck shook and a big swirl of smoke floated straight toward Jimmy, half blinding him and blotting Uncle Al from view.

When the smoke cleared Jimmy could see the Harmon shantyboat. It was less than thirty feet away now, drifting straight past and rocking with the tide like a topheavy flatbarge.

On the deck Jed Harmon was crouching down, his gaunt face split in a triumphant smirk. Beside him Joe Harmon stood quivering like a mound of jelly, a stick of dynamite in his hand, his flabby face looking almost gentle in the slanting sunlight.

There was a little square box at Jed Harmon’s feet. As Joe pitched Jed reached into the box for another dynamite stick. Jed was passing the sticks along to his brother, depending on wad dynamite to silence Uncle Al forever.

Wildly Jimmy told himself that the guns had been just a trick to mix Uncle Al up, and keep him from shooting until they had him where they wanted him.

Uncle Al was shooting now, his face as grim as death. His big heavy gun was leaping about like mad, almost hurling him to the deck.

Jimmy saw the second dynamite stick spinning through the air, but he never saw it come down. All he could see was the smoke and the shantyboat rocking, and another terrible splintering crash as he went plunging into the river from the end of a rising plank, a sob strangling in his throat.

Jimmy struggled up from the river with the long leg-thrusts of a terrified bullfrog, his head a throbbing ache. As he swam shoreward he could see the cypresses on the opposite bank, dark against the sun, and something that looked like the roof of a house with water washing over it.

Then, with mud sucking at his heels, Jimmy was clinging to a slippery bank and staring out across the river, shading his eyes against the glare.

Jimmy thought, “I’m dreaming! I’ll wake up and see Uncle Joe blowing on a vinegar jug. I’ll see Pigtail, too. Uncle Al will be sitting on the deck, taking it easy!”

But Uncle Al wasn’t sitting on the deck. There was no deck for Uncle Al to sit upon. Just the top of the shantyboat, sinking lower and lower, and Uncle Al swimming.

Uncle Al had his arm around Pigtail, and Jimmy could see Pigtail’s white face bobbing up and down as Uncle Al breasted the tide with his strong right arm.

Closer to the bend was the Harmon shantyboat. The Harmons were using their shotguns now, blasting fiercely away at Uncle Al and Pigtail. Jimmy could see the smoke curling up from the leaping guns and the water jumping up and down in little spurts all about Uncle Al.

There was an awful hollow agony in Jimmy’s chest as he stared, a fear that was partly a soundless screaming and partly a vision of Uncle Al sinking down through the dark water and turning it red.

It was strange, though. Something was happening to Jimmy, nibbling away at the outer edges of the fear like a big, hungry river cat. Making the fear seem less swollen and awful, shredding it away in little flakes.

There was a white core of anger in Jimmy which seemed suddenly to blaze up.

He shut his eyes tight.

In his mind’s gaze Jimmy saw himself holding the Harmon brothers up by their long, mottled legs. The Harmon brothers were frogs. Not friendly, good natured frogs like Uncle Al, but snake frogs. Cottonmouth frogs.

All flannel red were their mouths, and they had long evil fangs which dripped poison in the sunlight. But Jimmy wasn’t afraid of them no-ways. Not any more. He had too firm a grip on their legs.

“Don’t let anything happen to Uncle Al and Pigtail!” Jimmy whispered, as though he were talking to himself. No—not exactly to himself. To someone like himself, only larger. Very close to Jimmy, but larger, more powerful.

“Catch them before they harm Uncle Al! Hurry! Hurry!”

There was a strange lifting sensation in Jimmy’s chest now. As though he could shake the river if he tried hard enough, tilt it, send it swirling in great thunderous white surges clear down to Lake Pontchartrain.

But Jimmy didn’t want to tilt the river. Not with Uncle Al on it and Pigtail, and all those people in New Orleans who would disappear right off the streets. They were frogs too, maybe, but good frogs. Not like the Harmon brothers.

Jimmy had a funny picture of himself much younger than he was. Jimmy saw himself as a great husky baby, standing in the middle of the river and blowing on it with all his might. The waves rose and rose, and Jimmy’s cheeks swelled out and the river kept getting angrier.

No—he must fight that.

“Save Uncle Al!” he whispered fiercely. “Just save him—and Pigtail!”

It began to happen the instant Jimmy opened his eyes. Around the bend in the sunlight came a great spinning disk, wrapped in a fiery glow.

Straight toward the Harmon shantyboat the disk swept, water spurting up all about it, its bottom fifty feet wide. There was no collision. Only a brightness for one awful instant where the shantyboat was twisting and turning in the current, a brightness that outshone the rising sun.

Just like a camera flashbulb going off, but bigger, brighter. So big and bright that Jimmy could see the faces of the Harmon brothers fifty times as large as life, shriveling and disappearing in a magnifying burst of flame high above the cypress trees. Just as though a giant in the sky had trained a big burning glass on the Harmon brothers and whipped it back quick.

Whipped it straight up, so that the faces would grow huge before dissolving as a warning to all snakes. There was an evil anguish in the dissolving faces which made Jimmy’s blood run cold. Then the disk was alone in the middle of the river, spinning around and around, the shantyboat swallowed up.

And Uncle Al was still swimming, fearfully close to it.

The net came swirling out of the disk over Uncle Al like a great, dew-drenched gossamer web. It enmeshed him as he swam, so gently that he hardly seemed to struggle or even to be aware of what was happening to him.

Pigtail didn’t resist, either. She simply stopped thrashing in Uncle Al’s arms, as though a great wonder had come upon her.

Slowly Uncle Al and Pigtail were drawn into the disk. Jimmy could see Uncle Al reclining in the web, with Pigtail in the crook of his arm, his long, angular body as quiet as a butterfly in its deep winter sleep inside a swaying glass cocoon.

Uncle Al and Pigtail, being drawn together into the disk as Jimmy stared, a dull pounding in his chest. After a moment the pounding subsided and a silence settled down over the river.

Jimmy sucked in his breath. The voices began quietly, as though they had been waiting for a long time to speak to Jimmy deep inside his head, and didn’t want to frighten him in any way.

“Take it easy, Jimmy! Stay where you are. We’re just going to have a friendly little talk with Uncle Al.”

“A t‑talk?” Jimmy heard himself stammering.

“We knew we’d find you where life flows simply and serenely, Jimmy. Your parents took care of that before they left you with Uncle Al.

“You see, Jimmy, we wanted you to study the Earth people on a great, wide flowing river, far from the cruel, twisted places. To grow up with them, Jimmy—and to understand them. Especially the Uncle Als. For Uncle Al is unspoiled, Jimmy. If there’s any hope at all for Earth as we guide and watch it, that hope burns most brightly in the Uncle Als!”

The voice paused, then went on quickly. “You see, Jimmy, you’re not human in the same way that your sister is human—or Uncle Al. But you’re still young enough to feel human, and we want you to feel human, Jimmy.”

“W—Who are you?” Jimmy gasped.

“We are the Shining Ones, Jimmy! For wide wastes of years we have cruised Earth’s skies, almost unnoticed by the Earth people. When darkness wraps the Earth in a great, spinning shroud we hide our ships close to the cities, and glide through the silent streets in search of our young. You see, Jimmy, we must watch and protect the young of our race until sturdiness comes upon them, and they are ready for the Great Change.”

For an instant there was a strange, humming sound deep inside Jimmy’s head, like the drowsy murmur of bees in a dew-drenched clover patch. Then the voice droned on. “The Earth people are frightened by our ships now, for their cruel wars have put a great fear of death in their hearts. They watch the skies with sharper eyes, and their minds have groped closer to the truth.

“To the Earth people our ships are no longer the fireballs of mysterious legend, haunted will-o’-the-wisps, marsh flickerings and the even more illusive distortions of the sick in mind. It is a long bold step from fireballs to flying saucers, Jimmy. A day will come when the Earth people will be wise enough to put aside fear. Then we can show ourselves to them as we really are, and help them openly.”

The voice seemed to take more complete possession of Jimmy’s thoughts then, growing louder and more eager, echoing through his mind with the persuasiveness of muted chimes.

“Jimmy, close your eyes tight. We’re going to take you across wide gulfs of space to the bright and shining land of your birth.”

Jimmy obeyed.

It was a city, and yet it wasn’t like New York or Chicago or any of the other cities Jimmy had seen illustrations of in the newspapers and picture magazines.

The buildings were white and domed and shining, and they seemed to tower straight up into the sky. There were streets, too, weaving in and out between the domes like rainbow-colored spider webs in a forest of mushrooms.

There were no people in the city, but down the aerial streets shining objects swirled with the swift easy gliding of flat stones skimming an edge of running water.

Then as Jimmy stared into the depths of the strange glow behind his eyelids the city dwindled and fell away, and he saw a huge circular disk looming in a wilderness of shadows. Straight toward the disk a shining object moved, bearing aloft on filaments of flame a much smaller object that struggled and mewed and reached out little white arms.

Closer and closer the shining object came, until Jimmy could see that it was carrying a human infant that stared straight at Jimmy out of wide, dark eyes. But before he could get a really good look at the shining object it pierced the shadows and passed into the disk.

There was a sudden, blinding burst of light, and the disk was gone.

Jimmy opened his eyes.

“You were once like that baby, Jimmy!” the voice said. “You were carried by your parents into a waiting ship, and then out across wide gulfs of space to Earth.

“You see, Jimmy, our race was once entirely human. But as we grew to maturity we left the warm little worlds where our infancy was spent, and boldly sought the stars, shedding our humanness as sunlight sheds the dew, or a bright, soaring moth of the night its ugly pupa case.

“We grew great and wise, Jimmy, but not quite wise enough to shed our human heritage of love and joy and heartbreak. In our childhood we must return to the scenes of our past, to take root again in familiar soil, to grow in power and wisdom slowly and sturdily, like a seed dropped back into the loam which nourished the great flowering mother plant.

“Or like the eel of Earth’s seas, Jimmy, that must be spawned in the depths of the great cold ocean, and swim slowly back to the bright highlands and the shining rivers of Earth. Young eels do not resemble their parents, Jimmy. They’re white and thin and transparent and have to struggle hard to survive and grow up.

“Jimmy, you were planted here by your parents to grow wise and strong. Deep in your mind you knew that we had come to seek you out, for we are all born human, and are bound one to another by that knowledge, and that secret trust.

“You knew that we would watch over you and see that no harm would come to you. You called out to us, Jimmy, with all the strength of your mind and heart. Your Uncle Al was in danger and you sensed our nearness.

“It was partly your knowledge that saved him, Jimmy. But it took courage too, and a willingness to believe that you were more than human, and armed with the great proud strength and wisdom of the Shining Ones.”

The voice grew suddenly gentle, like a caressing wind.

“You’re not old enough yet to go home, Jimmy! Or wise enough. We’ll take you home when the time comes. Now we just want to have a talk with Uncle Al, to find out how you’re getting along.”

Jimmy looked down into the river and then up into the sky. Deep down under the dark, swirling water he could see life taking shape in a thousand forms. Caddis flies building bright, shining new nests, and dragonfly nymphs crawling up toward the sunlight, and pollywogs growing sturdy hindlimbs to conquer the land.

But there were cottonmouths down there too, with death behind their fangs, and no love for the life that was crawling upward. When Jimmy looked up into the sky he could see all the blazing stars of space, with cottonmouths on every planet of every sun.

Uncle Al was like a bright caddis fly building a fine new nest, thatched with kindness, denying himself bright little Mardi Gras pleasures so that Jimmy could go to school and grow wiser than Uncle Al.

“That’s right, Jimmy. You’re growing up—we can see that! Uncle Al says he told you to bide from the cottonmouths. But you were ready to give your life for your sister and Uncle Al.”

“Shucks, it was nothing!” Jimmy heard himself protesting.

“Uncle Al doesn’t think so. And neither do we!”

A long silence while the river mists seemed to weave a bright cocoon of radiance about Jimmy clinging to the bank, and the great circular disk that had swallowed up Uncle Al.

Then the voices began again. “No reason why Uncle Al shouldn’t have a little fun out of life, Jimmy. Gold’s easy to make and we’ll make some right now. A big lump of gold in Uncle Al’s hand won’t hurt him in any way.”

“Whenever he gets any spending money he gives it away!” Jimmy gulped.

“I know, Jimmy. But he’ll listen to you. Tell him you want to go to New Orleans, too!”

Jimmy looked up quickly then. In his heart was something of the wonder he’d felt when he’d seen his first riverboat and waited for he knew not what. Something of the wonder that must have come to men seeking magic in the sky, the rainmakers of ancient tribes and of days long vanished.

Only to Jimmy the wonder came now with a white burst of remembrance and recognition.

It was as though he could sense something of himself in the two towering spheres that rose straight up out of the water behind the disk. Still and white and beautiful they were, like bubbles floating on a rainbow sea with all the stars of space behind them.

Staring at them, Jimmy saw himself as he would be, and knew himself for what he was. It was not a glory to be long endured.

“Now you must forget again, Jimmy! Forget as Uncle Al will forget—until we come for you. Be a little shantyboat boy! You are safe on the wide bosom of the Father of Waters. Your parents planted you in a rich and kindly loam, and in all the finite universes you will find no cosier nook, for life flows here with a diversity that is infinite and—Pigtail! She gets on your nerves at times, doesn’t she, Jimmy?”

“She sure does,” Jimmy admitted.

“Be patient with her, Jimmy. She’s the only human sister you’ll ever have on Earth.”

“I—I’ll try!” Jimmy muttered.

Uncle Al and Pigtail came out of the disk in an amazingly simple way. They just seemed to float out, in the glimmering web. Then, suddenly, there wasn’t any disk on the river at all—just a dull flickering where the sky had opened like a great, blazing furnace to swallow it up.

“I was just swimmin’ along with Pigtail, not worryin’ too much, ’cause there’s no sense in worryin’ when death is starin’ you in the face,” Uncle Al muttered, a few minutes later.

Uncle Al sat on the riverbank beside Jimmy, staring down at his palm, his vision misted a little by a furious blinking.

“It’s gold, Uncle Al!” Pigtail shrilled. “A big lump of solid gold—”

“I just felt my hand get heavy and there it was, young fella, nestling there in my palm!”

Jimmy didn’t seem to be able to say anything.

“High school books don’t cost no more than grammar school books, young fella,” Uncle Al said, his face a sudden shining. “Next winter you’ll be a-goin’ to high school, sure as I’m a-sittin’ here!”

For a moment the sunlight seemed to blaze so brightly about Uncle Al that Jimmy couldn’t even see the holes in his socks.

Then Uncle Al made a wry face. “Someday, young fella, when your books are all paid for, I’m gonna buy myself a brand new store suit, and hie myself off to the Mardi Gras. Ain’t too old thataway to git a little fun out of life, young fella!”

Lake of Fire

Steve found the mirror in the great northwestern desert. It was lying half-buried in the sand, and the wind howled in fury over it, and when he bent to pick it up the sun smote him like a shining blade, dividing his tall body into blinding light and wavering shadow.

I knew it was a Martian mirror before he straightened. The craftsmanship was breathtaking and could not have been duplicated on Earth. It was shaped like an ordinary hand mirror; but its glass surface was like a lake of fire, with depth beyond depth to it, and the jewels sparkling at its rim were a deep aquamarine which seemed to transmute the sun-glow into shimmering bands of starlight.

I could have told Steve that such mirrors, by their very nature, were destructive. When a man carries a hopeless vision of loveliness about with him, when he lives with that vision night and day, he ceases to be the undisputed master of his own destiny—

“She’s alive, Jim,” Steve said. “A woman dead fifty thousand years. A woman from a civilization that flourished before the dawn of human history.”

“Take it easy, Steve,” I warned. “The Martians simply knew how to preserve every aspect of a mirrored image. Say howdedo to her if you like. Press your lips to the glass and see what happens. But don’t mistake an imitation of life for the real thing.”

“An imitation of life!” Steve flared. “Man, she just smiled at me. She’s aware of us, I tell you.”

“Sure she is. Her brain was mirrored too, every aspect of its electro-dynamic structure preserved forever by a science that’s lost forever. Get a grip on yourself, Steve.”

I was hot and tired and dusty. My throat was parched and I didn’t feel much like arguing with him. But I had my reasons for being stubborn.

“Men have found Martian mirrors and gone mad,” I said. “Don’t take any chances, Steve. We don’t know yet what it’s rigged with. Why not play it safe? A thousand cycles of direct current should melt it down.”

“Melt her down!” Steve’s eyes narrowed in sudden fury. “Why, it would be murder!”

Steve got up and brushed sand from his knees. He held the mirror up so that the red Martian sunlight caught and aureoled the splendor of a face that offered a man no chance of help if he ever let go.

A pale, beautiful face, the eyes fringed with long, dark lashes, the lips parted in a mocking smile. A living image capable of mercurial changes of mood, unnaturally still one moment, smiling and animated the next.

One thing at a time, I thought. Don’t drive him too hard.

“Some men have carried them about for years,” I said. “But just remember what falling in love with an image can mean. You’ll never hold her in your arms, Steve. And compulsions can kill.”

“She’s alive as flesh-and-blood is alive,” he said, glaring at me.

“Easy, Steve!”

I could see that I was going to have trouble with my stouthearted buddy, Captain Stephen Claymore.

He could have stared at a mountain of gold unmoved. He could have knelt with a wry chuckle, and let a handful of diamonds trickle through his wiry, bronze-knuckled hands, in utter contempt for what diamonds could buy on Earth.

He could have thrown back his head and laughed, at wealth, at glory, at anything you want to name that men prize highly on Earth. But a beautiful woman was a temptation apart. A beautiful woman—

Steve grabbed my arm. “Look out, Tom!” he cried. “Watch it!”

The bullet whizzed past like a heat-maddened insect. Steve leapt back, and I flattened myself.

The attack was no great surprise. When people take up a new way of life, when they pull up stakes and go striding into the sunrise, strife paces after like a ravenous hound, red tongue lolling. When the first colonists from Earth swarmed into the crumbling Martian cities a good third of them ended up in stony desolation with their hearts drilled through.

They danced to riotous tunes, calling for louder music and stronger wine, and they fought savagely to set up little kingdoms of tyranny eighty feet square.

Everywhere anarchy reigned, and haggard-eyed, desperate men crouched behind smoke-blackened ruins and held off other men as greedy as themselves. They fought and died by dozens, by hundreds, their minds inflamed by the quickly-made discovery that the Martian cities were vast treasure troves.

You had to go prospecting, you had to search, and when you found your own shining treasure you didn’t want to share it with any man alive.

Steve had his gun trained on the wall ahead when he ducked down at my side.

“Yes, sir,” I whispered, half to myself. “This is going to be rough!”

“They asked for it!” Steve said.

His gun roared twice.

From the wall ahead came a burst of gunfire in reply.

“If they think they’re going to get this mirror away from me—”

I looked at his grim, sweat-beaded face. “I’ll help you fight for it,” I said.

“So nice of you,” he grunted.

“Then maybe you’ll have sense enough to bury it face down in the sand.”

Guns went off thirty feet directly in front of us. Red sand geysered up, granite cracked and splintered. You could feel the awful heat of the blazing exchange of bullets.

I could see faces between the chinks. Malignant faces moving from peephole to peephole like scavenger birds hopping about in the desert.

I was aiming at one of the peepholes when Steve groaned and sagged against me. His gun arm sagged, and I could see that a bullet had pierced his shoulder high up.

“I’m sorry, Tom,” he whispered, hoarsely. “I was careless, damn it!”

“Never mind, Steve,” I said.

“Now they’ll close in and get you. Better take my gun. You can use two guns.”

“I won’t need two guns, Steve,” I said. “I’m walking into the open with my hands raised.”

“You’re crazy!” he breathed, his eyes on my face. “We’re outnumbered five to one. They’ll drop you the instant you step out from behind this wall.”

My gun was hot and smoking. I smiled and tossed it to the sand.

“I’ll be back in a minute and fix up that shoulder,” I said.

“You’ll be walking to your death,” he said. “They’ve been trailing us for days, hoping we’d stumble on something. They must have seen me pick up that mirror.”

“They trailed us because they thought we looked experienced, rugged,” I said. “They thought we were following a map. They just haven’t got what it takes to go prospecting for themselves. They’re hyenas of the desert, Steve.”

“All right—hyenas. That means they won’t respect a white flag. If you walk out with your hands raised they’ll burn you down before you’ve taken five steps.”

I steadied my helmet and unloosed my collar so that I wouldn’t feel cramped.

“Don’t worry, Steve,” I said.

I knew they saw me the instant I stepped out from behind the wall.

The silence was ominous, and I could feel their eyes upon me, hot and deadly.

I didn’t raise my hands. It didn’t seem quite right to let them think I was seeking a truce. A man may be a fool to play fair with killers, but something made me change my mind about raising my hands.

I’d give them their chance—ten seconds. I wouldn’t try to bargain for those ten seconds by walking toward them under false colors. I’d just trust to luck and—

Steve had never seen the weapon I held in my palm. It was a tiny electrostatic accelerator tube, capable of flexible, high precision control of ions with energies up to twelve million electron-volts.

It was a simple thing—and unbelievably destructive. It made no sound at all. But ten seconds after I clicked it on, the desert directly in my path was glowing white hot.

Just a glow, white, dazzling for an instant. Then a dull rumbling shook the ground and the wall opposite blackened and crumbled. The heat was like a blast of incandescent helium gas from a man-made sun.

I turned and walked back to where Steve was lying.

“I didn’t want to do it that way,” I said. “But I had no choice. It was them—or us.”

Steve seemed not to realize we were no longer in danger. There was fear in his eyes, and he was staring at me as if I’d just returned from the dead.

In a way I had. A man may die fifty deaths while counting off ten seconds in his mind.

“I’ll give you something to help you sleep, Steve,” I said.

It didn’t take me long to dress and bind up his wound. He winced once or twice, but he never took his eyes from the mirror.

“You promised to bury it face down in the sand,” I said.

He looked at me. “You know better than that,” he said. “I promised nothing of the sort.”

“It’s like falling in love with a ghost, only worse,” I said.

“That’s where you’re wrong. There’s nothing ghostly about her.”

I mixed him a sleeping draught, using the little water we had left.

In five minutes he was snoring. I pried the mirror from his fingers and propped it up against a rock, so that he could see her face when he woke up.

Then I stretched myself out in the sand, kicked off my shoes and stared up at the sky. The sun was just sinking to rest, and there was a thin sprinkling of stars in the middle of the sky.

The stars seemed cold and immeasurably remote.

Would it work out?

Could it possibly work out? Was I sticking out my neck in a gamble so big it was like attempting to pierce the sun, and hammer out a new humanity on a great blazing anvil heated to millions of degrees centigrade?

I laughed, alone with my thoughts. Nothing dared, nothing gained. What does a man gain by striking bargains with the mouse in himself?

I awoke in the cool dawn. The morning mists had rolled back and the red desert looked almost beautiful in the sun-glow.

Steve was sitting up, staring at the mirror. The light shifted suddenly, and I could see the radiance which smouldered in the depths of the glass.

I got up, walked to the wall and peered over Steve’s shoulder. The girl was looking at him, her face so beautiful it fairly took my breath away. It was as though after a lifetime of wandering she’d found the only man in the world for her.

Her face was bright with sympathy, with compassion for Steve. But Steve sat slumped in utter dejection, his eyes burning holes in his face. He didn’t even look up when I spoke to him.

“She knows, Tom,” he whispered, hoarsely. “She turned pale when that bullet hit me. She was relieved when you dressed the wound. She’s been watching over me all night, like an angel of mercy.”

“You’ll need her more and more,” I said. “You know what the end will be, Steve. Complete hopelessness in an empty room.”

He stood up, his face savage.

“I never asked your advice,” he ground out. “I’m not asking it now.”

“I’ve got to save you, Steve,” I said.

“I love her, do you hear? I don’t care what happens to me!”

I picked up the mirror before he could guess my purpose. I swung about and I brought that rare and beautiful object down on the rock Steve had been sitting on.

There was a splintering crash, a crackling burst of white flame.

Steve gave a great despairing cry. He stood for an instant staring down at the shattered fragments of the mirror. Then he came at me like a charging bull, his eyes bloodshot.

I clipped him lightly on the jaw.

“That’s all I wanted to know, Steve,” I said. “Thanks, pal.”

I looked down at him, lying in a crumpled heap at my feet.

I was glad he hadn’t fallen on his wounded side. He was plenty sturdy, and he came from a long-lived family, and I didn’t think a little clip on the jaw could hurt him. I hoped he’d forgive me when he woke up. That was important, because I thought a lot of Steve.

When you’ve been to Mars, when you’ve fought your way through the red and raging dust storms, and labored beneath the naked glare of the sun, and juggled with men and ships and supplies like some tremendous Herculean figure in the morning of the world, you’ll never really feel at home on Earth. You’ll see the world of ordinary men and women as a vision of Lilliput, too small to be measurable in terms of human worth. You’ll be lost and helpless, blind and staggering beneath the weight of a memory you can’t throw off. A memory of bigness, too much bigness, integrated into your every fiber, as much a part of you as the beating of your heart.

You’ll lurch and overreach yourself, you’ll never feel at home on Earth, never really at home. You’ll find a way to come back to Mars.

I smiled down at Steve.

So Steve had come back to go prospecting, like an ordinary greed-driven man, and only I knew he was one of the scant dozen great constructive geniuses who had made possible man’s conquest of space.

He was an engineer, a physicist and—a man in need of a partner. So I’d just stepped up and introduced myself. Tom Gierson, who knew every square foot of Mars. For my purpose one Earth name was as good as another, and Tom Gierson had a sturdy ring.

Hard-bitten Tom Gierson, bronzed by the harsh Martian sunlight, as much at home in the desert as the sturdy little spiked plants that thrust their way up through the parched soil when the spring begins to break.

Steve’s finest achievement was years in the past, but he was a young man still, with a young man’s need of a woman as great as himself to share every moment of his waking life. That woman was waiting for him, but I had to be sure that he’d really go berserk if I smashed the glass.

I was sure now.

I raised my arm, and out of the ruins the Martians came.

Steady hands lifted Steve up, and a hushed silence ringed Steve round.

“Azala,” I said. “Where is she—”

Then I saw her. She was advancing straight toward me through the glare of sunset on desert sand, a shining eagerness in her eyes. The girl of the mirror, young and straight and alive, her hair the color of red sand and sunset glow, her eyes twin dark stars.

She paused before me and raised her eyes in questioning wonder.

“Go to him,” I said. “He will never love another woman. I can promise you that.”

She ran to Steve with a little glad cry and fell to her knees beside him. I wanted to break through the circle and slap Steve on the back, and wish him all the happiness on Mars. The first Earthian to wed a Martian, and it was tremendous, and I wanted to tell Steve—

But how could I tell him that Martians had numerous ways of watching Earthians, the very best being mirrors which were really two-way televisual instruments. How could I tell him that the alert Martian women had all been trained to watch and observe Earthians day and night? And all the while the Earthians thought they were carrying about with them, in beautiful jeweled artifacts of a dead culture, the living images of their heart’s desire!

Steve was awake now and sitting up straight, and the image was warm and alive in his arms. But how could I make Steve understand? I had a wild impulse to say: “I’d change places with you if I could, Steve. She’s just about the cutest kid I know.”

You get to thinking that way when you’ve mingled with Earthians around desert campfires, studying them as you’d study a new neighbor who comes knocking at your door, the neighbor you fear at first and are never quite sure of until you really get to know and like him.

You see, we had so much to offer one another. A young race, constructive, brawling, shouting its defiance to the stars. And an old race, imaginative, sensitive, heirs to a civilization on the wane, but needing just a few Steves to make it young and great again.

I’d picked Steve because he was one of the shining ones of Earth. I’d known from the start that persuading him to wed a Martian woman would take plenty of doing.

Earthians are funny that way. Love to them is a complex thing, a web that has to be skillfully woven right from the start. Beauty alone isn’t enough. You have to say to them: “You’ll never hold that woman in your arms. Can’t you see how hopeless it is?”

Then the iron goes deep. If a love flies straight in the teeth of despair and comes out all right in the end, it will be as strong as death.

So I’d arranged for Steve to stumble on the mirror, to pick up that two-way televisual circuit into a very special paradise for two. And I’d opposed and warned him just to make sure he’d think of himself as a man facing hopeless odds to win through to an undying love.

On the other side it was easier. Azala had fallen in love with Steve before we put her on the other end of that televisual circuit. But seeing him wounded and in need of her had turned it into what Earthians call a great love.

Perhaps Earthians would someday smash the aura that had flamed about the heads of the Martian rulers for fifty thousand years.

I’d done my best to smash it. I had gone simply and humbly among Earthians, seeking a fresh wind to trundle the cinders of a dying culture.

I dreamed of Martians and Earthians standing equal and strong and proud, hands linked in friendship, cemented by bonds of kinship, separated by no gulfs such as now yawned before me, separating me from Steve.

I wanted to shout: “Good luck, Steve, Azala. You’re good kids and you deserve the best.”

Then I remembered that Steve was nearly forty, not quite a kid by Earthian standards. But, looking at Azala, I was pretty sure that Steve still had his best years ahead of him.

I wanted to go up to him and shake his hand for the last time. But now the hands of my people were tugging at my shoulders, stripping off the Earthian garments I’d worn so long with scant respect for my desire to be as human and regular as the next guy.

They got the suit off, and then I saw the old familiar cloak, purple and billowing out with shimmering star images, and I shuddered a little because I knew I’d never really feel at ease wearing it from that moment on.

They got me into the cloak and they bent down and straightened the stiff imperial folds and I was suddenly bored and deathly weary.

A chill wind from the stars seemed to blow over me, but I stood straight and still, and allowed them to fasten on the cloak the great glowing jewel I’d worn from childhood.

Steve saw me then. He was sitting up very straight, his hand on Azala’s tumbled, red-gold hair, and I heard him say: “Holy smoke.”

I stared down at the jewel, blazing and shuddering and shivering in the desert air, and I shut my eyes tight, wishing for the first time in my life that it did not proclaim me Tulan Sharm, the Glorious One, Temporal Ruler of the Seven Cities before Whom the Stars Bowed.

The Timeless Ones

“There will be a great many changes, Ned,” Cynthia Jackson said. She stared out the viewport at the little green world which the contact rocket Star Mist was swiftly approaching on warp-drive.

Her husband copilot nodded, remembering Clifton and Helen Sweeney, and the Sweeney youngsters. Remembering with a smile Tommy Sweeney’s kite-flying antics, his freckles and mischievous eyes—a towheaded kid of ten with an Irish sense of humor, sturdily planted in a field of alien corn five thousand light years from Earth.

Sowing and reaping and bringing in the sheaves, in the blue light of a great double sun, his dreams as vibrant with promise as the interstellar warp-drive which, a century ago, had brought the first prospect ship from Earth to the stars.

He’d be a man grown now, as sturdy as his dad. You could almost take that for granted. And his sister would be a willowy girl with clear blue eyes, and she’d come out of a white plastic cottage with the buoyancy of twenty summers in her carriage and smile.

They’d be farmers still. You couldn’t change the Sweeneys in a million years, couldn’t wean them away from the good earth.

It was funny, but he couldn’t even visualize the Sweeneys without thinking of a little sleepy town, the kind of town he’d left himself as a kid to strike out across the great curve of the universe. Dry dust of Kansas and the Dakotas that would still be blowing after a thousand years!

“They’ve had time to build a town, Ned!” Cynthia said. “A really fine town with broad streets and modern, dust-proof buildings!”

Ned Jackson awoke from his reverie with a wry start. He nodded again, remembering the many other colonists and the equipment which had been shipped to the little green world across the years. Plastic materials to build houses and schools and roadways, educational materials to build eager young minds.

Every ten years a contact rocket went out from Earth by interstellar warp-drive to make a routine check. The trip was a long one—eight months—but the Central Colonization Bureau had to make sure that anarchy did not take the place of law on worlds where teeming jungles encouraged the free exercise of man’s best qualities—and his worst.

From end to end of the Galaxy, on large planets and small, progress had to be measured in terms of the greatest good for the greatest number. There could be no other yardstick, for when man ceased to be a social animal his star-conquering genius shriveled to the vanishing point.

“The friends we made here were very special, Ned,” Cynthia said. “I guess people who dare greatly have to be a bit keener than the stay-at-homes, a bit more eager and alive. But the Sweeneys had such a tremendous zest for living—”

“I know,” Ned said.

“They were wonderful—generous and kind. It will be good to see them again. Good to—” Cynthia laughed. “I don’t know why, but I was about to say: ‘Good to be home.’ ”

Ned thought he knew why.

They’d made their first flight for the Bureau exactly ten years before. It had been a combined “official business” and honeymoon flight, and almost the whole of it had been spent on the little green world.

Did not the queen bee and her consort, flying high above the hive on a night of perfumed darkness, remember best what was bliss to recall, the shifting lights and shadows and honey-scented murmurings of their nuptial trance?

Would not the brightest, furthest star be “home” to the star-beguiled?

The rocket-ship was out of subspace now and traveling on its murmuring overdrive. It was well within sight of green valleys and purple-rimmed hills.

The planet had grown from a tiny dot to a shining silver sphere swimming in misty radiance; for a moment it had wavered against the brightly burning stars, caught in a web of darkness—

Then, swiftly, had exploded into a close, familiar world, as beautiful as a flower opening snowy petals to the dawn.

It was a simple matter to bring the rocket down. The valley seemed to sweep up toward them, and gravity jets took over in automatic sequence. There was a gentle hiss of air as the Star Mist settled to rest on hard-packed soil, a scant fifty yards from a blue and vermillion flower garden.

Through a dancing blue haze a dwelling loomed, white and serene in the rosy flush of evening.

Cynthia looked at her husband, her eyes wide with surmise.

“Just shows how close you can come when you follow dial readings!” Ned said. “The first lean-to shack stood just about here. I remember the slope of the soil—”

Cynthia’s eyes grew warm and eager. “Ned, I’m glad—it’s no fun searching for old friends with your heart in your throat! We’ll step right up and surprise them!”

When they emerged from the ship the perfume of flowers mingled with the richer scent of freshly-turned earth, bringing back memories of their earlier visit.

There had been no flower garden then, but the soil had possessed the same April shower freshness.

“I must look like a fright!” Cynthia said. “You didn’t give me time to powder my nose!”

They were within five yards of the dwelling when a door opened and a child of ten or twelve emerged. She was blue-eyed, golden-haired, and she stood for a moment blinking in the evening light, her hair whipped by the wind.

“Mary Sweeney!” Cynthia exclaimed, catching hold of Ned’s arm. Then, in a stunned whisper: “Oh, but it can’t be! She’d be a grown woman!”

The child straightened at the sound of the voice, looking about. She saw Ned and Cynthia, and blank amazement came into her eyes. Then she gave a little glad cry, and ran toward them, her arms reaching out in welcome.

“You’ve come back!” she exclaimed. “Mom and dad thought it would be a long time. But I knew you’d come soon! I knew! I was sure!”

Nowhere any sign that this was not the child they had known ten years before! Her voice, the peaches-and-cream color that flooded her cheeks, the way her hair clung in little ringlets to her temples, all struck memory chords from long ago.

And now she was beckoning them into the dwelling, having moved a little away from them. She was balancing herself in elfin lightness on one toe, and smiling in warm gratefulness, the sun all blue and gold behind her.

She had always seemed an elfin and mischievous child.

“What can it mean, Ned?”

White-lipped, Ned shook his head. “I—I don’t know! We’d better go inside!”

Helen Sweeney, her white-streaked auburn hair damp with steam vapor, sent a frying pan crashing to the floor as she turned from the stove with a startled cry.

“Ned! Cynthia! Why, land sakes, it seems only yesterday—”

Ned had a good look at her face. The eyes were the same, good-humored and kindly and wise; and if she had been forty a decade before she seemed now to be forcing herself back into an earlier instant of time—the very evening of that last well-remembered birthday party, with the candles all bright and gleaming, and the children refusing to admit that she could ever be middle-aged.

Old Clifton came in from his workshop out in back. He’d been whittling away at a rocket-ship model, and he still held it firmly in the crook of his arm, his eyes puckered in dust bowl grief. Like most men of the soil, Clifton had difficulty with his whittling when he turned his skill to rocketships.

The grief vanished when he saw Ned and Cynthia. Pure delight took hold of him, bringing a quick smile of welcome to his lips.

“Back so soon? Seems only yesterday you folks went away!”

“It was ten years ago!” Ned said, his throat strangely dry.

Clifton looked at him and shook his head. “Ten years, Ned? Surely you’re joking!”

“It was a good many years, Clifton,” Helen Sweeney said quickly. “You must forgive us, Ned, Cynthia. Time just doesn’t seem to matter when you’re busy building for the future. Time goes fast, like a great ship at sea, its sails ballooning out with a wind that keeps carrying it faster and faster into the sunrise.”

“There are no ships here,” Clifton said, chuckling. “Helen’s fancy-wedded to Earth, but she’s forgetting the last sailing ship rotted away a hundred years before she was born. It’s a good thought though.

“Don’t know what put a sailing ship in Helen’s head, but I guess folks who were born on Earth have a right to hark back a bit. It’ll be different with Tom and Mary.”

“Where’s Tommy?” Ned asked.

“Out shucking corn!” Clifton’s voice was vibrant with sudden pride. “He’s still the same reckless young lad. He’d risk his neck to bring in a full harvest. I keep warning him, but he goes right on worrying his mother.

“Fact is, he hasn’t changed at all. No more than we have.”

So they knew! Cynthia looked at Ned, an unspoken question in her eyes. How could they accept the tremendousness of not changing without realizing that any arrest of the aging process must alter their daily lives in a thousand intangible ways?

How could they build for the future—when their children would never grow up?

It was Ned who discovered the mind block.

Not only had the Sweeneys ceased to age physically—they lacked a normal time sense. If you reminded them of the passing years their minds cleared momentarily, and they could think back.

But that link with the past had no staying power. It was like punching pillows to get them to remember. They lived in the present, well content to accept the world about them on a day-to-day basis, warmed by the bright flame of their children growing up—

But their children weren’t growing up—they had only the illusion of change, the illusion of planning for their future; and that illusion was terribly real to them—unless jolted by a question:

“How’s Tommy?”

“Why, Tommy hasn’t changed at all—”

A puzzled frown. A moment’s honest facing of the truth, an old memory stirring into life. Then the mind block closing in, clamping down.

“Ned, Cynthia, you’ll stay for dinner?”

It was late and growing cold, and the stars had appeared in the sky. In the rocket-ship Ned sat facing his wife.

“That house was never built by human hands!” he said, a cold prickling at the base of his scalp. He had suffered from the prickling off and on for a full hour. He could still taste the strong coffee he’d downed at a gulp before rising in haste at the end of an uneasy meal.

He was sorry now they’d returned to the ship without waiting to say “hello” to Tommy, fresh from his harvesting chores. Tommy was the brightest member of the family. Perhaps Tommy knew more than the others—or could remember better.

“Not built by human hands! But that’s insane, Ned.” Cynthia’s face, shadowed from below by the cold light of the instrument board, was harsh with concern. “The materials came from Earth.”

“They did,” Ned acknowledged. “Grade A plastics—the best. And a good engineer can build almost anything with malleable plastics. But not a house without seams!”

“Without—seams?”

“Joints, connections, little rough places,” Ned elaborated. “Inside and out that house was smooth, all of a piece. Like a burst of frozen energy. Like—oh, you know what I mean! Surely you must have noticed it!”

“There were other colonists,” Cynthia said. “Some of them were engineers. They’ve had time to work out new constructive techniques.”

“They’ve had time to disappear. Why did the Sweeneys act so funny when I asked them about the other colonists? Why did Clifton refuse to look at me? Why did I have to drag the answer out of him? ‘Oh, we spread out. Enough land here for all of us—’ Does that ring true to you?”

“They didn’t want us to stay together!” Tommy Sweeney said.

Ned leapt up with a startled cry. Cynthia swayed, her eyes widening in stark disbelief.

Tommy Sweeney walked smiling into the compartment, his shoulders squared. He came through the pilot-room wall in a blaze of light, and stood between Ned and Helen, his lips quivering in boyish earnestness.

“Take any school,” Tommy said. “Some of the pupils are bright. Some are just good students who work hard at their homework. Some are stupid and dull. If you let them stay together the bright ones, the really bright ones, get held back.”

Tommy seemed suddenly to realize he was seeing Ned and Cynthia for the first time in ten years. His good friends, Ned and Cynthia. A Cynthia who was as beautiful as ever, though deathly pale now, and a Ned who was just a little older and grayer.

A broad grin overspread his face. “I knew you’d come back!” he said.

“You—you came through a solid metal wall!” Ned said, feeling as though an earthquake had taken place inside of him.

“It’s easy when you know how!” Tommy said.

“Who taught you how?” Cynthia asked, in a voice so emotional Ned forgot his own horror in concern for her sanity. “Who taught you, Tommy?”

“The Green People!” Tommy said.

“The Green—People?”

“They live in the forest,” Tommy said. “They come out at night and dance around the house. They hold hands and dance and sing. Then they talk to us. To mom, dad and sis—but mostly to me. They taught me how to play, to really have fun.”

“Did they teach you how to change the atoms of your body so that you could pass through a solid metal wall?” Ned asked, framing the question very carefully.

“Shucks, it was nothing like that!” Tommy said. “They just told me that if I forgot about walls I could go anywhere.”

“And you believed them!”

Suddenly Cynthia was laughing. Her laughter rang out wild and uncontrollable in the pilot-room.

“He believed them, Ned! He believed them!”

Ned went up to her and took her by the shoulders and shook her.

Tommy looked shamefaced. He shuffled his feet, ill at ease in the presence of adult hysteria.

“I’ve got to go now!” he stammered. “Mom will be awful mad if I’m late for dinner again.”

“You are late, Tommy!” Cynthia said. “The joke’s on you. We just had dinner with your parents in a house Ned claims wasn’t built by human hands.”

She laughed wildly. “Your parents are sensible people, though. They didn’t even try to walk through the kitchen wall.”

“They could if they tried hard enough,” Tommy said. “Someday they will.”

Tommy looked almost apologetic. “I can’t stay any longer. I saw your ship, and wanted to see if you really had come back. I thought it might be someone else. I’m sure glad it’s you.”

Tommy turned abruptly and walked straight out of the pilot-room, his small body lighting up the wall until he vanished.

Cynthia stared at her husband, her eyes dark with a questioning horror.

“The Green People,” Ned said. “Think, Cynthia. Does the name mean anything to you?”

Cynthia shook her head, her lips shaping a soundless No.

Ned sat down slowly, rubbing his jaw. “I just thought you might know something about Druidism, and what the strange rites of that mysterious cult meant to the ancient inhabitants of Gaul and the British Isles. According to the Roman historian Pliny, the Druids built stone houses for their pupils and called themselves the Green People.”

Starlight from the viewport illuminated Ned’s pale face. He paused, then said: “The Druids were soothsayers and sorcerers who disappeared from history at the time of the Roman conquest. It was widely believed they had the power of conferring eternal youth. They taught that time was an illusion, space the shadow of a dream.”

His eyes were grim with speculation. “The Druids were teachers almost in the modern sense. Pliny records that they had a passion for teaching, and thought of their worshippers as pupils, as children with much to learn. Instruction in physical science formed the cornerstone of the Druidic cult.”

Cynthia leaned forward, her face strained and intense as he went on.

“The Romans hated and feared them. There was a terrible, bloody battle and the Druids no longer danced in their groves of oak, in slow procession to a weird dirge-like chanting. They vanished from Earth and almost from the memory of man.”

Ned took a deep breath.

“Man fears the unknown, and knowledge is a source of danger. Maybe the Druids were never really native to Earth. What if this were their home planet—”

“Ned, you can’t really believe—”

“Listen!” Ned said.

The sound was clearly audible through the thin walls of the rocket-ship. It was a steady, dull droning—an eerie, terrifying sound.

Ned got up and walked to the viewport. He stared out—

He could see the Sweeney’s dwelling clearly. It was bathed in an unearthly green light, and around it in a circle robed figures moved through shadows the color of blood. Around and around in ever widening circles, their tall gaunt bodies strangely bent.

For a full minute he stared out. When his wife joined him he stretched out a hand and let it rest lightly on her shoulder.

“Perhaps we wouldn’t be far wrong if we thought of the Sweeneys as catalysts!” he said.

Cynthia stood very straight and quiet, a great fear growing in her.

“Catalysts, Ned?”

“It’s just a wild guess, of course. I can’t even tell you what made me think of it. But it does have a certain relevancy. In chemistry, as you know, a catalytic agent is a substance which promotes chemical action, but is in itself unchanged.”

“Well?”

“Why do men and women who surrender themselves to sorcery remain, in legend, eternally young? Young, unchanging. It’s a belief as old as prehistory and all the ages since. Only in the Middle Ages were witches pictured as shrunken, hideous old women. The ancient world pictured witches as eternally youthful, unaging.”

A long pause, and then Ned said: “As unaging as the forests of oak where they served as human catalysts for the Druids before the Druids left Earth forever?”

He suddenly seemed to be thinking aloud rather than addressing his wife.

“Well—and why not? The Druids must change, for change is the first law of life. But perhaps they can only find complete fulfillment, can only grow in wisdom and strength, by using human beings as little hard grains of chemical substance which must remain forever bright and shining.

“Human catalysts, imprisoned in a horrible little test tube of a house. If human beings aged and changed they would cease to be catalysts. They would become valueless to the Druids. And when the Romans discovered the truth—”

Agreement was clearly in Cynthia’s eyes. She moved closer to the viewport, her face pale.

“Fear, and a merciless hatred,” Ned said. “Pursuing the Druids, driving them from Earth. And dim, fearful legends remaining of a dark magic older than the human race.”

“Ned, they’ve stopped dancing!” Cynthia’s voice rang out sharply in the silence. “They’re coming toward the ship!”

“I know,” Ned said.

“But we don’t know what they’re planning to do!” Cynthia’s voice rose. “We’ve got to get out!”

“Steady,” Ned said, turning. “If we take off at peak acceleration I just can’t picture them stopping us!”

“Ned, the Sweeneys may be happier than we know,” Cynthia said, hours later. They were deep in subspace, a hundred light years from the little green world; and, in the warm security of the pilot-room, its menacing shadows seemed immeasurably remote.

“Happy?” Ned laughed harshly. “Kids who’ll never grow up. Adults cut off from all further growth. The same today, tomorrow and forever.”

“Their minds may change,” Cynthia said. “Their minds may grow, Ned. Tommy said that bright pupils could go far.”

“As catalysts, caught in a ghastly trap.”

“How can you be so sure, Ned? A wild guess, you called it. How do you know the Druids and the Sweeneys don’t learn from one another? Perhaps they grow wise together, in a wonderful bright sharing of knowledge and happiness that’s like nothing we can imagine.”

Ned looked at his wife. “Why say a thing like that? Why even think of it?”

“Pandora, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m a woman and the Pandora complex is pretty basic, darling. I’d be tempted to go back and throw open the box.”

“Something pretty black and horrible would come out,” Ned said sharply. “You can take my word for that. I hope you’re not forgetting that Pandora was the first woman chosen by Zeus to bring complete ruin on the human race.”

“She didn’t quite succeed. And how can we know for sure, Ned? If what you say is true, if the Druids were really driven from Earth, we haven’t done so well since. Wars and madness for two thousand years. Destruction and cruelty and death.”

“All you have to do is prove we’d be better off if the Druids had stayed,” Ned said.

“Darling, think. If people grew wiser all the time, if they never aged, would they want to murder one another?”

“Now see here—”

Cynthia smiled. “Think of having our own beautiful little home forever, in a fragrant woody patch, with shining kitchen utensils on the wall. Think of being spared all the miseries of old age and poverty and sickness and death.

“Think of having neighbors like the Sweeneys to grow young with, to grow wise and young with, day by splendid day until the end of time.”

There was a long silence, and then Cynthia said: “I’d trust them, Ned. The Druids, I mean. I’d take the chance. What have we to lose that’s really great, that can hold a candle to what the Sweeneys have?”

“You can go anywhere if you just remember how close you are to where you want to be!” Tommy Sweeney said, coming through the pilot-room wall in a blaze of light. He grinned. “I asked mom and dad to try real hard this time and here they are!”

All of the Sweeneys came into the pilot-room as Tommy spoke, their faces incredibly radiant.

“I never really believed Tommy until this minute!” Clifton Sweeney said. “If you just forget about walls you’re where you want to be!”

“Sure you are!” Tommy said. “It’s as easy as skinning a chipmunk.”

“Ned, Cynthia,” Helen Sweeney said. “Come back!”

Tommy’s sister simply smiled, a mischievous elfin smile which seemed to mock the vast loneliness of space. It was as if some wizard game, played by laughing children and wise forest creatures through long golden afternoons, had become a universe-spanning web, embracing everything in its path in a warm and radiant way.

Cynthia looked at Dan. “Well, darling?”

“Yes,” Ned said, with quick decision. “We’ll go back!”

And at that moment, in the forest deep and dark, the Druids built another house. It was designed to appeal to a man and a woman who had traveled far and grown weary of human cruelty and death. It was designed for gracious living; but whether the Druids, in their inscrutable wisdom, wished mankind well or ill, who could say?

Little Men of Space

The children were coming home. Elwood could see them from the cottage doorway, shouting and rejoicing in the bright October sunlight. They carried lunch baskets and—as they came tripping toward him across the lawn—he was ready to believe that nothing in life could be quite as enchanting as the simple wonder of childhood itself with its lighthearted merriment and freedom from care.

He was ready to forget the laundry bills and the scuffed shoes, the father-and-son problems, all the tormenting lesser difficulties which could demolish parenthood as an exact science and turn it into a madcap adventure without rhyme or reason.

Mary Anne was in the lead. She squealed with delight when she caught sight of her father’s entranced face, as if by some miracle he had become all at once a gift-bestowing snowman quite as remarkable as the hollow dolls, one within the other, which she had received from him as a goodwill offering on her last birthday.

Eleven-year-old Melvin was more circumspect. In his son’s eyes John Elwood represented all the real values of life in so far as they could be translated into model locomotives and bridge-building sets. But he knew his father to be a man of dignity who could not be easily cajoled. It was best to let his sister try first and when she failed. …

For an instant as he stared Elwood found himself secretly envying his son. At a quarter-past eleven Melvin had a firm grasp of elementary physics. His feet were firmly planted on the ground and he wasn’t serious-minded enough yet to make the tragic mistakes that come with adult unsureness.

Not the kind of mistakes which he, James Seaton Elwood, had made with the moon rocket, for instance. Or the mistake which he was making now by whimsically comparing the ages of his son and daughter to the moving hands of a clock.

How absurd it was to think of Mary Anne as a quarter-past seven when her budding feminine intuition made her as ageless as the Sphinx. All children were ageless really and it was absurd to imagine that they could be made to conform to any logical frame of reference, scientific or otherwise.

Children were illogically imaginative, with a timelessness which gave them an edge on adults when it came to solving problems that required a fresh approach to reality. What was it Wordsworth had said? Trailing clouds of glory. …

“Daddy, Mr. Rayburn let us out early—so we could have a picnic. It would have been fun if Melvin hadn’t spoiled everything. He ate up all of the peanut butter sandwiches himself.”

“Tattle tale!”

“He got in a fight too. Freddy Mason didn’t want to fight but Melvin started it!”

“I didn’t!”

“You did! You know you did!”

“That’s a lie!”

Elwood lowered his eyes and saw that both of his children were now as close to him as they could ever be. Mary Anne was tugging at his sleeve, begging him to take her part, and Melvin was appealing to him in man-to-man fashion, his contemptuous masculinity acting as a foil to his sister’s feminine wiles.

It was a grave crisis and Elwood recognized it as such. Ordinarily he would have shunned a cut-and-dried solution but for once he had no choice.

When children fall out, when you are backed into a corner and your authority totters, there is only one sure way to save yourself—Occupy their minds with something else.

“You’re spoiling the surprise, kiddies,” Elwood said, striving to sound embittered. “It’s been a lonesome hard day for me but I kept telling myself you’d soon be home to share my triumph. I suppose I shouldn’t say this—but your mother just doesn’t understand me the way you do.”

“What is it, daddy?” Mary Anne asked, a sudden warm solicitude in her gaze.

“Yeah, Pop, tell us!” Melvin chimed in.

“The rocket is just about completed,” Elwood said.

He felt Mary Anne’s hand tighten on his sleeve and realised with elation that she was a scientist’s daughter to her fingertips. He was gratified quite as much by the sudden hiss of Melvin’s indrawn breath.

“Come along—I’ll show you!” he said.

Elwood derived the most intense pleasure from showing groups of visiting dignitaries—scientific big shots for the most part—through his basement laboratory. But when the dignitaries happened to be his own children his elation knew no bounds.

Down the basement stairs they trooped, Melvin to the right of him, Mary Anne to the left. A door opened with a gentle click, a light came on and Melvin let out a yell which resounded through the house.

“You’ve got the blast reflector set up. Pop!”

The rocket stood out, silver on black at its base, with a dull shine where it tapered to catch and hold the light.

It was not large as rockets go. It was barely five feet in height, a miracle of technical craftsmanship wrought by the unerring skill and scientific knowhow of a very practical man with a family to support. But it had been built with an eye to beauty as well and as the light glimmered and danced on its sloping vanes it seemed as gracefully poised for flight as some half-mythical bird cast in metal by a long-vanished elfin race.

As gracefully poised and as shiningly beautiful. …

It was Mary Anne who broke the spell. “Daddy, will it really go to the moon?”

Elwood looked down at his daughter and patted her tousled red-gold hair. “How many times must I tell you it isn’t an experimental model?” he chided. “It was designed for actual space flight.”

“But daddy—”

“If you’ve any more silly notions you’d better get rid of them right now. You may never get another chance. Yesterday Melvin and I discussed the details as fellow-scientists. Suppose you tell her just how much the Government is contributing, son.”

“Forty thousand dollars!” Melvin said promptly, rolling the figure over his tongue as though it had some mysterious magic of its own which could elevate him to man’s estate—if he repeated it often enough.

“A research grant,” Elwood added as if thinking aloud for his own benefit. “I had a tough time persuading them to let me do all the construction work right here in my own laboratory. I’ve probably cut more yards of official red tape than any odd duck since Archimedes.”

He smiled a little ruefully. “In case you’re interested—I’ve had to pay through the nose for the technical assistance I’ve been getting. Those owl-faced characters you’ve seen drifting in and out won’t work for peanuts.”

“But all of the rockets in the stereo-cineramas are much bigger!” Mary Anne protested. “Why is that, daddy?”

“We’ve just about seen the end of the huge outmoded, stratosphere observation-type rockets,” Elwood replied, including both children in his glance. “In the future observation rockets will be much smaller and there is little to be gained by attempting to send a large rocket to the moon. The cost would be a thousand times as great.”

“But daddy, how could such a little rocket ever get as far as the moon.”

“Perhaps the worst mistake an individual or a society can make is to confuse size with power,” Elwood said. “There is a tiny bee which, in proportion to its size, can travel faster than our cleverest flight specialists in their jet planes.”

“But daddy—”

“Don’t look so incredulous, honeybunch. You remind me of your mother. Melvin knows just how much progress we’ve made in atomic research since Eniwetok. Tell her, son.”

“The primitive hydrogen bomb tested at Eniwetok laid the groundwork for the storage of vast amounts of nuclear power in blast compartments a few inches square,” Melvin said pridefully. “We can now power a very small rocket designed for space flight with the equivalent of fifty million tons of T.N.T.”

“You left out one vital consideration, Melvin,” Elwood said. “The automatic-control factor.”

“Pop’s right,” Melvin said, confronting his sister almost accusingly. “The power won’t be released all at once.”

“It will be released in successive stages,” Elwood corroborated. “We hope eventually to regulate the stages—or steps, as they are called—in such a way that other rockets, identical in design, will build up velocities approaching the speed of light.”

Elwood picked up an odd-looking instrument from the workbench against which he had been leaning. As he fingered it idly he enjoyed his daughter’s stunned acceptance of his accomplishment, realising more than ever what an important contribution he had made to man’s eventual conquest of the stars.

That conquest would come in good time. Even now enough atomic potential had been stored in the rocket to carry it to Alpha Centauri—and back. The blast mechanism had to have an overload to function at all. But only a tiny fraction of the potential would be needed to make the moon flight an accomplished fact.

The rocket wouldn’t be traveling at anything like the speed of light. But just as soon as a few more complicated technical details had been worked out. …

Elwood felt suddenly very tired. His back ached with stiffness and his eyelids throbbed. Fortunately he knew the reason for his weariness and refused to become alarmed. He had simply been driving himself too hard. But with the rocket so near completion he couldn’t afford to let even a draft of cold wind blow upon him and increase his chances of becoming really ill.

“If it’s all right with you, kiddies,” he said, “I’m going upstairs to bed. I’m practically out on my feet.”

“Aw, Pop, it isn’t six o’clock yet!” Melvin protested.

Instantly Mary Anne came to his rescue. “Daddy, you’re not getting enough rest!” she said, her eyes darting to the rocket and then to her brother in fierce reproach.

“I ought to turn in early when I can,” Elwood said. “If your mother wasn’t at Aunt Martha’s I’d have to sit up half the night convincing her I’ve got enough practical sense left to shave and bathe myself and take in the mail.”

“Goodnight, daddy!” Mary Anne said.

“Goodnight, kids. Thanks for being patient and giving me a break.”

“Pop, can I stay down here and look it over?”

“Sure, Melvin, stay as long as you like. I don’t mind your puttering around a bit with the tools so long as you don’t touch the rocket.” Elwood’s face grew suddenly strained. “Promise me you won’t.”

“He won’t!” Mary Anne promised.

She waited for her father’s footsteps to echo hollowly on the floor above before she turned her ire full upon Melvin. “If I was a boy I’d be more considerate of daddy than you are!” she exclaimed, accusingly. “You don’t care how tired he gets.”

“You’re not a boy,” Melvin retorted. “You never could be. What’s the sense in fooling yourself?”

“You just repeat everything he tells you,” Mary Anne flared. “You’re not so smart!”

“I’m smart enough to know that rocket could be sent further than the moon—right now.”

Mary Anne gasped. “You’re crazy. Daddy knows what he’s doing.”

“Sure he does. If he sent it as far as it could go it would disappear in space. He couldn’t prove anything and he’d be in real trouble. They’d say he got rid of it because it wouldn’t work and kept the forty thousand dollars for himself.”

“The Earth-child is right!” a tiny voice said. “That rocket can and must carry us to our home planet. It is our last remaining hope.”

For an instant Melvin felt as if he had swallowed a goldfish. Something flopped in his throat, coldly and horribly, and though the voice rang clear in his ears it seemed to come from deep inside his head.

“He hears us!” the voice said. “Before he sees us we’d better train the beam on him. All Earth-children are emotional but the males are the hardest to control.”

It was Mary Anne who screamed in protest. She stood as if frozen, staring down with swiftly widening eyes at the three tiny men who had come striding into the room through the wall. They had come in with a blaze of light behind them, a shimmering of the wall itself that seemed to go right through to the other side.

Mary Anne could have crushed them simply by raising her foot and bringing it down dead center above them. But their eyes warned her to be still.

Do not scream again, Earth-child, the eyes warned. We are not as ugly as we seem to you and your fright is very distasteful to us.

Horribly ugly they seemed to Mary Anne. They were no larger than the white ivory pawns on the chessboard in her father’s library but they did not resemble pawns in the least. They were wrinkled and old-looking and the cheapest doll she had would have cried with shame to be dressed as they were.

She could have made out of an old handkerchief a better dress, with more tucks and seams to it—and no Jack-in-the-Box could have popped up to shiver and sway with such toothless, evil-eyed malice.

A child can escape from a monster of the toymaker’s craft simply by drawing a line between the real and the imaginary. But Mary Anne could not escape from the little men facing her. There was no line to be drawn and she knew it.

The little men were alive, and they were staring at her now as she had never been stared at before. As if she were a stick of wood about to be thrown into a blazing fire which had been kindled for Melvin as well.

Totally bald they were, with skins so shriveled that their small, slitted eyes were buried in a maze of wrinkles. Most pitiful of all was the fact that their skins were mottled brown and green—colors so enchanting when associated with budding leaves or the russet-and-gold splendors of an autumn landscape.

The little men were alive and they were warning her to be quiet. Just to make sure that she would not move or attempt to scream again they spoke to her again inside her head.

“We’re going to use the beam on you too. But you won’t be hurt if you don’t try to wake up your father.”

She could hardly keep from screaming when she saw what they were doing to her brother. The tallest of the three—they were not all of the same height—was turning Melvin slowly about in a blaze of light.

He was the thinnest of the three too—so thin and tall that she automatically found herself thinking of him as Tall-Thin. The light came from a tiny glowing tube which Tall-Thin was clasping in hands as small and brightly shining as the penpoints in her school stationery set.

She knew by the way she felt that Melvin wanted to scream too—to scream and struggle and fight back. But he couldn’t even move his head and shoulders. He was all stiffened up and he turned as she’d seen him do in dreams when they’d been quarreling and she had wanted to punish him for making faces at her—to punish him by skipping away across the room and laughing because he couldn’t follow her.

She was sorry now she’d ever dreamed of Melvin in that way even when he was mean to her. She felt even sorrier when she heard her brother shriek. It wasn’t much of a shriek—just a thin little cry that came out muffled.

Melvin had almost lost the power of speech and it was awful to watch him trying to move his lips. He was completely turned now, staring down at the little men, and his eyes were shrieking for him.

“Don’t make them mad, Melvin!” Mary Anne pleaded. “They’ll kill you.”

Instantly Tall-Thin turned and trained his gaze on Mary Anne, his face twitching with impatience. “Dealing with the immature is a nuisance,” he complained and Mary Anne heard the words clearly even though she knew they were not meant for her. Deep inside her head she could hear Tall-Thin speaking to his companions.

As if sensing something disturbing in that the second-tallest of the three spoke in reply—spoke for the first time. “They’ll hear everything we say. It would be so much more convenient if we could talk to them without giving them the power to hear in return every word we utter.”

“That cannot be avoided, Rujit,” replied Tall-Thin. “When we read their minds we awaken extrasensory faculties which would ordinarily remain dormant in them.”

“And rudimentary.”

“And rudimentary.” Tall-Thin agreed. “It’s like stimulating a low-grade energy circuit with a high-grade charge. The low-grade circuit will remain supercharged for a brief period.”

“Would it not be safer to kill them at once?”

“Unnecessary killing is always unpleasant,” Tall-Thin said.

“We should be emotionally prepared for it,” Rujit countered. “We would not have survived and become great as a race if we had not conquered all such squeamishness in ourselves. We must be prepared to nullify all opposition by instant drastic action—the most drastic action available to us at any given time.”

Rujit paused for an instant to transfix Tall-Thin with an accusing stare. Then he went on quickly, “In an emergency it is often very difficult to decide instantly how necessary an action may be. To take pleasure in killing unnecessarily is therefore a survival attribute of a very high order.”

“I would as soon kill the Earth-children as not.” Tall-Thin said. “But the slightest emotional unpleasantness militates against survival. Every act we perform must be dictated by reason. Our moral grandeur as a race is based on absolute logic—not on blind instinct. Even in an emergency we are wise enough to determine how necessary an action may be. So your argument falls to pieces.”

Tall-Thin straightened, his parchment-dry face crinkling with rage. “This isn’t the first time you’ve questioned my wisdom and authority, Rujit!” he said and his voice was like the hiss of a snake uncoiling in the long grass of a jungle clearing.

Rujit stiffened as if invisible fangs had buried themselves in his flesh. His cheeks could hardly have been called ruddy to begin with but their pallor suddenly became extreme. He took a quick step backward, a look of horror coming into his eyes.

“You wouldn’t! No, no, Hilili!”

“The choice is no longer mine alone.”

“But I was just thinking out loud!”

Tall-Thin clicked off the beam, leaving Melvin still standing large-eyed and motionless against the wall. He raised the tube which had projected the beam until it was pointing directly at Rujit.

“I’m going to step up the beam,” he said.

“But why? Why, Hilili? For the love you bear me—”

“I bear you no love.”

“But you are my biogenetic twin, Hilili. We have been closer than ordinary brothers from birth.”

“It does not matter. It does not concern me. Family relationships militate against survival when reason falters in a single member of a family group.”

Tall-Thin’s voice hardened. “We came to this planet for one purpose—to colonize it for the good of all. We numbered thousands and now we are reduced to a pitiful remnant—just ourselves. Thanks to the stupidity of a few.”

“I was never one of the stupid ones!” Rujit protested. “I advised our immediate return. The unknown and hideous diseases which decimated us like migs, the atmospheric gases which rotted our ships so insidiously that we were not aware of the damage until they exploded in flight—remember, I kept insisting that we could not survive such hazards for long!”

“Your sound judgment in that respect was more than offset by your wilful insistence we explore the entire planet,” Tall-Thin countered. “Our ships were so numerous that they were observed in flight and we might have been destroyed completely when death and disaster struck.

“As might have been expected the very shape of our ships made them conspicuous. Fiery disks they must have seemed to the Earth dwellers, so terrifying that they would have eventually found a way to fathom the mystery, and strike back. A perishing remnant of an advanced race has never yet succeeded in killing two billion primitives armed with Class C-type weapons.”

“But how could I have known it then?”

“Ignorance is never an excuse!” Tall-Thin’s voice was a merciless rasp. “A well-organized logical mind does not make such mistakes. Now we are facing utter disaster unless we can get back to our home planet and warn The Twenty that it would be sheer madness to attempt to colonize this planet again without better disease-preventing safeguards and atmosphere-resisting metals. Such safeguards can and must be worked out.”

Tall-Thin paused, watching Melvin as if apprehensive that the praise he was about to bestow would be held against him to the detriment of his vanity.

“Unfortunately only two of us can go in this rocket, which has miraculously come into our possession. The primitive who constructed it, this Earth-child’s progenitor, must have an almost Class B-type mind. Only two of us, understand?”

“But—”

“The survival of the wisest. I’m afraid I shall have to extinguish you, Rujit.”

The tube lit up again, so brightly that Tall-Thin’s hand was blotted out by the glare. Equally blotted out was Rujit’s face but the rest of him did not vanish immediately. One arm disappeared but not the other—and there was a yawning dark gap between his knees and his waist.

It might not have seemed so horrible if Rujit had not shrieked first. The shriek had an outward-inward quality, echoing both inside the heads of the children and in the room as actual sound.

Even Tall-Thin seemed shaken by it, as if in a race that had outgrown the need for physical speech there could be nothing more unnerving than anguish so expressed.

Yet both the shriek and the almost instant blotting out of Rujit’s face were eclipsed in point of horror by the fading of the little man’s legs. They faded, kicking and protesting and spasmodically convulsed, faded in a ruby red glow that lingered for an instant in the still air like a slowly dissolving blood clot, then as slowly vanished.

It was at that moment Mary Anne ceased to think as a child. She dug her knuckles into her mouth to keep from screaming but the undaunted way in which her mind worked was a tribute to her forgetfulness of self. If he should do that to Melvin!

Tall-Thin must have sensed the loathing in her mind, for he turned with a grimace of rage and trained the beam full upon her, taking care however to alter the tube’s destructive potential with a quick twist of his thumb.

“A primitive would have been sorely tempted to kill you, Earth-child,” he said. “Fortunately for you we have a high and undeviating code of ethics.”

Back and forth over the children Tall-Thin played the beam, as if to make sure there would be no further unpleasantness from that source.

Then he clicked off the tube again, and turned to his remaining companion—a little man who apparently believed that silence and good order were the foundation of all things.

In a more primitive society he would have been considered a stooge but there appeared to be no such cultural concept in Tall-Thin’s scale of values. He spoke with the utmost respect, as if anyone who agreed with him automatically became as exalted as himself.

“The primitive who constructed this rocket had a remarkable mind,” he said. “We could not have constructed it for every culture, no matter how primitive, has resources peculiar to itself.”

“That is very true, Hilili!”

Mary Anne tried to turn her head to look at Melvin but her neck felt as stiff as when she’d had the mumps and everyone had felt sorry for her. She was sure that the little men did not feel in the least sorry and all she could do was stare in helpless anger as they turned and scrambled into the rocket.

Finally she did manage to turn her head, just far enough to see what Melvin was doing.

Melvin wasn’t moving at all. His head was lowered and he was thinking. She knew that he was thinking by the look in his eyes. Melvin was silently thinking and as she stared she ceased to be afraid.

She sat very still, waiting for Melvin to speak to her. Suddenly he did, deep inside her head.

The little men had come from far, far away. They had come from a big cloud of stars in the sky called the Great Nebula in Andromeda. Nearly everything in the universe curved and they had come spinning along the biggest curve of all in hundreds and hundreds of punched-out disks that glowed in the dark like Roman candles.

The cow pasture Melvin and she played in was—she knew what it was but she waited for Melvin to say it—rocket proving-ground. It was their own secret playing place but daddy called it a rocket proving-ground.

Daddy wouldn’t send the rocket to the moon from his laboratory in the cellar. He’d take it out to the proving-ground and ask even the President of the United States to watch it start out for the Moon.

The President would come because her daddy was a very important and wonderful man. He didn’t have much money but he’d be rich and famous if the rocket reached the moon.

Most men as wonderful as her daddy were poor until they did something to make people stand up and shout. The little men didn’t want her daddy to become rich so that he could send Melvin through college and she could go to college too. The little men didn’t want her to learn domestic housekeeping and make the handsomest man in all the world happy.

The little men wouldn’t—couldn’t—take the rocket out to the proving-ground. It would start off blazing and go straight up through the roof into the sky. It would blow the cellar apart and the cottage would come tumbling down in ruins. Melvin would be killed and her daddy. …

She had never been so terrified in all her life and if Melvin hadn’t started thinking she would have burst out crying.

Melvin was thinking something now about the cottage. Water came in from the sea. It did too—she remembered daddy complaining about it when he went down to stoke the furnace. Water in the cellar and the ground underneath all soft and soggy.

Salt-marsh seepage. Why, it was like quicksand down below the solid strata. The words came quick and clear from Melvin thinking. Solid strata. Even the solid strata wasn’t all solid. There were porosities in it—like a sponge. If something very heavy went down through the cellar floor it would go right on sinking.

Auxiliary fuels, came from Melvin thinking. They’re in the auxiliary fuel-chamber now. Hot steam in the turbines, pushed right through the heat exchanger. The atomic charge won’t go of at all if the heat exchanger works fast enough.

They don’t know as much about the rocket as Pop does, came from Melvin. The atomic part is the big important part. They came at night and studied that. But the heat exchanger—they didn’t take the trouble to study it. Now they’re worried about it. Why should an atomic rocket have auxiliary fuels?

Daddy could have told them. You had to have auxiliary fuels in a rocket if you were going to send it to the moon. The rocket’s trajectory would have to be modified by small readjustments that could only be made by auxiliary fuels.

Melvin, think hard! Think hard and fast, and in the right way!

They’re stopping now to puzzle it out, came from Melvin. Their minds work differently from ours. They fasten on the big important things first. The small things they sometimes overlook. They can’t help it. Their minds are constructed that way.

Mustn’t let trivialities distract us. That’s what they were thinking. That’s what they were thinking, and they were going to make a mistake.

They’re going to move the wrong dial. I’m going to help them move the wrong dial. I want them to move the wrong dial. They must move the wrong dial. …

It began with a faint humming sound—nothing more. But something that couldn’t have come from Melvin at all showered Mary Anne’s mind with thoughts and emotions that were like a screaming inside her head.

A continuous terrified screaming that made her want to slap her hands to her ears to shut out the sound.

The screaming stopped the instant the rocket began to vibrate. It stopped as abruptly as a jet of steam issuing from a suddenly clogged pipe.

The humming changed to a droning and the rocket vibrated so furiously that Mary Anne grew dizzy just watching it. With the dizziness came a terrible fear that the rocket would explode. It was like being bound to a chair, helpless, and knowing you couldn’t possibly escape. She saw herself being blown up with the cottage, with Melvin screaming for her to save him.

But nothing like that happened. The cottage shook a little. She was hurled forward, then to her knees. But the blast of heat which fanned her face was no worse than the blast from a furnace door swinging quickly open and shut.

Straight down through the floor the rocket sank with its base glowing white hot. There were a sizzling and a hissing and she could see flames dancing through the steam which kept rising in clouds until water gushed up in torrents and put the fire out.

She shut her eyes then and clenched her hands tight.

She sat very still, waiting for Melvin to come to her. She felt a great and overwhelming need to lean on someone, to be consoled by a firm masculine voice speaking out bold and clear.

The bursting strangeness was gone from inside her head. She could move again. She refused to try but she knew that she could whenever she wanted to. Her thoughts were her own now—not Melvin’s or Tall-Thin’s.

She started to cry, very softly, and she was still crying when Melvin reached her side, helped her to her feet.

“Mary Anne, I could see them moving around inside the rocket. I could even make them do what I wanted them to do. It happened as soon as they turned that ray on me. I couldn’t move but I knew what they were thinking.”

“So did I, Melvin,” Mary Anne sobbed. “I knew what you were thinking too.”

“Yeah. We seemed to be talking together there for a minute. But not the way we’re talking now.”

Mary Anne nodded. “I knew what you were thinking and they knew what we. …” Mary Anne stopped. “Melvin! You fooled them! Inside the ship they didn’t hear us talking together. If they had heard us they would not have made a mistake and turned the wrong dial.”

“Yeah, I know. I tried to throw up a mental block when we talked about the auxiliary fuel-chamber and what would happen if the heat exchanger worked fast enough. I guess it worked. The mental block, I mean. …”

“You bet it worked, Melvin. You’re wonderful, Melvin.”

“You didn’t think so when you told Pop about the sandwiches.”

“I didn’t mean to be a nasty, Melvin.”

“All right—skip it. Funny thing—I could never read anybody’s thoughts before. It only lasted for a few minutes. I couldn’t do it now.”

“They must have done something to us, Melvin.”

“I’ll say they did. What’s Pop going to think when he comes down here tomorrow and sees the rocket gone?”

“I’m afraid he’s going to be awfully mad, Melvin.”

There is perhaps no more striking illustration of the prophetic faculty at work in the world than when it appears full-blown in the occasional understatements of children.

The next morning, Elwood didn’t merely hurl the magazine at his son. He pointed first to the article, tapping furiously with his forefinger at Melvin’s photograph while his breakfast grew cold at his elbow.

“Melvin, I warned you to keep your hands off that rocket. I warned you not to touch it or jar it in any way. But you had to putter around until you did something to the heat exchanger dial. It’s conduct like that which makes me realize how mistaken these journalist monkeys can be. A genius! You’re no more of a genius—”

“Pop, you’ve got to believe me!” Melvin protested. “The little men are—”

“Little men! My son is not only a genius”—Elwood stressed the word with a biting sarcasm which was not lost on Melvin—“but a first-class liar! Here, read this article again. It was published two months ago—but I guess you didn’t read it over often enough. It may shame you into going into a corner and giving yourself a thorough mental overhauling.”

Elwood tossed the magazine then—straight across the table at the disturbed Melvin.

“If he’s a liar so am I!” Mary Anne gasped in angry protest.

“For a dozen years now flying saucer rumors have been all over the place,” Elwood said, glaring at both of his children. “I suppose it’s only natural you should chatter occasionally about little men. All children do. But to use such imaginary companions as an excuse for an act of wanton destructiveness. …”

Melvin picked up the magazine almost automatically. Solely to bolster his sagging self-esteem—even the innocent and falsely accused can feel guilty at times—he stared at his own photograph and the somewhat baroque caption which surmounted it.

Young Scientific America

Can genius be inherited? The distinguished accomplishments in nuclear physics and spaceflight theory by the father of the boy who has won the most coveted annual award available to American youth for all-around scientific achievement strengthens the arguments of those who believe that the bright mysterious torch of genius can be passed on from father to son. But when interviewed the youthful winner of the Seabury Medal modestly disclaimed. …

“If I saw a little man do you know what I’d do?” came in bitter reproach from the original holder of Melvin’s inherited torch.

And then, in rhetorical response, “I’d make it my fight—a fight forced upon me against my will. I’d consult a good psychiatrist immediately.”

“I throw myself on your mercy!” a tiny voice said. “I am unarmed, I am alone—and I am the last of my kind remaining alive on your planet.”

Melvin stopped reading abruptly, flushing guiltily to the roots of his hair. He had been wishing that his father could see a little man and now he was being punished for his thoughts in the cruelest possible way.

The winner of the Seabury Medal knew that insanity was rare in childhood but to hear imaginary voices. …

“Hilili thought he had extinguished me,” the voice went on, “but by exerting my will to the utmost I managed to waver back. I beg you to be merciful!”

The voice became almost pathetic in its tragic pleading. “You need no longer fear me for I will soon die. Injured and weakened as I am the disease organisms so fatal to my race are certain to kill me very quickly now.”

Melvin looked up then—and so did Mary Anne.

The little man stood on a bright mahogany sideboard, gleaming with all the primitive appurtenances of a Class C-type breakfast. A tray of buttered toast, crisply brown, rose like the Great Pyramid of Cheops at his back, and he was leaning for support against the coffee percolator that mirrored his wan and tormented face in wavy and distorted lines.

It was easy to see that death was already beckoning to Rujit with a solemn and pontificial bow.

“Pop!” Melvin gasped, leaping to his feet.

John Elwood did not answer his son. However much he may have wanted to communicate there are few satisfactory avenues of communication that remain open to a man lying flat on his stomach on the floor in a dead faint.

The Man the Martians Made

I

There was death in the camp.

I knew when I awoke that it had come to stand with us in the night and was waiting now for the day to break and flood the desert with light. There was a prickling at the base of my scalp and I was drenched with cold sweat.

I had an impulse to leap up and go stumbling about in the darkness. But I disciplined myself. I crossed my arms and waited for the sky to grow bright.

Daybreak on Mars is like nothing you’ve ever dreamed about. You wake up in the morning, and there it is—bright and clear and shining. You pinch yourself, you sit up straight, but it doesn’t vanish.

Then you stare at your hands with the big callouses. You reach for a mirror to take a look at your face. That’s not so good. That’s where ugliness enters the picture. You look around and you see Ralph. You see Harry. You see the women.

On Earth a woman may not look her glamorous best in the harsh light of early dawn, but if she’s really beautiful she doesn’t look too bad. On Mars even the most beautiful woman looks angry on arising, too weary and tormented by human shortcomings to take a prefabricated metal shack and turn it into a real home for a man.

You have to make allowances for a lot of things on Mars. You have to start right off by accepting hardship and privation as your daily lot. You have to get accustomed to living in construction camps in the desert, with the red dust making you feel all hollow and dried up inside. Making you feel like a drum, a shriveled pea pod, a salted fish hung up to dry. Dust inside of you, rattling around, canal water seepage rotting the soles of your boots.

So you wake up and you stare. The night before you’d collected driftwood and stacked it by the fire. The driftwood has disappeared. Someone has stolen your very precious driftwood. The Martians? Guess again.

You get up and you walk straight up to Ralph with your shoulders squared. You say, “Ralph, why in hell did you have to steal my driftwood?”

In your mind you say that. You say it to Dick, you say it to Harry. But what you really say is, “Larsen was here again last night!”

You say, I put a fish on to boil and Larsen ate it. I had a nice deck of cards, all shiny and new, and Larsen marked them up. It wasn’t me cheating. It was Larsen hoping I’d win so that he could waylay me in the desert and get all of the money away from me.

You have a girl. There aren’t too many girls in the camps with laughter and light and fire in them. But there are a few, and if you’re lucky you take a fancy to one particular girl—her full red lips and her spun gold hair. All of a sudden she disappears. Somebody runs off with her. It’s Larsen.

In every man there is a slumbering giant. When life roars about you on a world that’s rugged and new you’ve got to go on respecting the lads who have thrown in their lot with you, even when their impulses are as harsh as the glint of sunlight on a desert-polished tombstone.

You think of a name—Larsen. You start from scratch and you build Larsen up until you have a clear picture of him in your mind. You build him up until he’s a great shouting, brawling, golden man like Paul Bunyon.

Even a wicked legend can seem golden on Mars. Larsen wasn’t just my slumbering giant—or Dick’s, or Harry’s. He was the slumbering giant in all of us, and that’s what made him so tremendous. Anything gigantic has beauty and power and drive to it.

Alone we couldn’t do anything with Larsen’s gusto, so when some great act of wickedness was done with gusto how could it be us? Here comes Larsen! He’ll shoulder all the guilt, but he won’t feel guilty because he’s the first man in Eden, the child who never grew up, the laughing boy, Hercules balancing the world on his shoulders and looking for a woman with long shining tresses and eyes like the stars of heaven to bend to his will.

If such a woman came to life in Hercules’ arms would you like the job of stopping him from sending the world crashing? Would you care to try?

Don’t you see? Larsen was closer to us than breathing and as necessary as food and drink and our dreams of a brighter tomorrow. Don’t think we didn’t hate him at times. Don’t think we didn’t curse and revile him. You may glorify a legend from here to eternity, but the luster never remains completely untarnished.

Larsen wouldn’t have seemed completely real to us if we hadn’t given him muscles that could tire and eyes that could blink shut in weariness. Larsen had to sleep, just as we did. He’d disappear for days.

We’d wink and say, “Larsen’s getting a good long rest this time. But he’ll be back with something new up his sleeve, don’t you worry!”

We could joke about it, sure. When Larsen stole or cheated we could pretend we were playing a game with loaded dice—not really a deadly game, but a game full of sound and fury with a great rousing outburst of merriment at the end of it.

But there are deadlier games by far. I lay motionless, my arms locked across my chest, sweating from every pore. I stared at Harry. We’d been working all night digging a well, and in a few days water would be bubbling up sweet and cool and we wouldn’t have to go to the canal to fill our cooking utensils. Harry was blinking and stirring and I could tell just by looking at him that he was uneasy too. I looked beyond him at the circle of shacks.

Most of us were sleeping in the open, but there were a few youngsters in the shacks and women too worn out with drudgery to care much whether they slept in smothering darkness or under the clear cold light of the stars.

I got slowly to my knees, scooped up a handful of sand, and let it dribble slowly through my fingers. Harry looked straight at me and his eyes widened in alarm. It must have been the look on my face. He arose and crossed to where I was sitting, his mouth twitching slightly. There was nothing very reassuring about Harry. Life had not been kind to him and he had resigned himself to accepting the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune without protest. He had one of those emaciated, almost skull-like faces which terrify children, and make women want to cry.

“You don’t look well, Tom,” he said. “You’ve been driving yourself too hard.”

I looked away quickly. I had to tell him, but anything terrifying could demoralize Harry and make him throw his arm before his face in blind panic. But I couldn’t keep it locked up inside me an instant longer.

“Sit down, Harry,” I whispered. “I want to talk to you. No sense in waking the others.”

“Oh,” he said.

He squatted beside me on the sand, his eyes searching my face. “What is it, Tom?”

“I heard a scream,” I said. “It was pretty awful. Somebody has been hurt—bad. It woke me up, and that takes some doing.”

Harry nodded. “You sleep like a log,” he said.

“I just lay still and listened,” I said, “with my eyes wide open. Something moved out from the well—a two-legged something. It didn’t make a sound. It was big, Harry, and it seemed to melt into the shadows. I don’t know what kept me from leaping up and going after it. It had something to do with the way I felt. All frozen up inside.”

Harry appeared to understand. He nodded, his eyes darting toward the well. “How long ago was that?”

“Ten—fifteen minutes.”

“You just waited for me to wake up?”

“That’s right,” I said. “There was something about the scream that made me want to put off finding out. Two’s company—and when you’re alone with something like that it’s best to talk it over before you act.”

I could see that Harry was pleased. Unnerved too, and horribly shaken. But he was pleased that I had turned to him as a friend I could trust. When you can’t depend on life for anything else it’s good to know you have a friend.

I brushed sand from my trousers and got up. “Come on,” I said. “We’ll take a look.”

It was an ordeal for him. His face twitched and his eyes wavered. He knew I hadn’t lied about the scream. If a single scream could unnerve me that much it had to be bad.

We walked to the well in complete silence. There were shadows everywhere, chill and forbidding. Almost like people they seemed, whispering together, huddling close in ominous gossipy silence, aware of what we would find.

It was a sixty-foot walk from the fire to the well. A walk in the sun—a walk in the bright hot sun of Mars, with utter horror perhaps at the end of it.

The horror was there. Harry made a little choking noise deep in his throat, and my heart started pounding like a bass drum.

II

The man on the sand had no top to his head. His skull had been crushed and flattened so hideously that he seemed like a wooden figure resting there—an anatomical dummy with its skull-case lifted off.

We looked around for the skull-case, hoping we’d find it, hoping we’d made a mistake and stumbled by accident into an open-air dissecting laboratory and were looking at ghastly props made of plastic and glittering metal instead of bone and muscle and flesh.

But the man on the sand had a name. We’d known him for weeks and talked to him. He wasn’t a medical dummy, but a corpse. His limbs were hideously convulsed, his eyes wide and staring. The sand beneath his head was clotted with dried blood. We looked for the weapon which had crushed his skull but couldn’t find it.

We looked for the weapon before we saw the footprints in the sand. Big they were—incredibly large and massive. A man with a size-twelve shoe might have left such prints if the leather had become a little soggy and spread out around the soles.

“The poor guy,” Harry whispered.

I knew how he felt. We had all liked Ned. A harmless little guy with a great love of solitude, a guy who hadn’t a malicious hair in his head. A happy little guy who liked to sing and dance in the light of a high-leaping fire. He had a banjo and was good at music making. Who could have hated Ned with a rage so primitive and savage? I looked at Harry and saw that he was wondering the same thing.

Harry looked pretty bad, about ready to cave in. He was leaning against the well, a tormented fury in his eyes.

“The murderous bastard,” he muttered. “I’d like to get him by the throat and choke the breath out of him. Who’d want to do a thing like that to Ned.”

“I can’t figure it either,” I said.

Then I remembered. I don’t think Molly Egan really could have loved Ned. The curious thing about it was that Ned didn’t even need the kind of love she could have given him. He was a self-sufficient little guy despite his frailness and didn’t really need a woman to look after him. But Molly must have seen something pathetic in him.

Molly was a beautiful woman in her own right, and there wasn’t a man in the camp who hadn’t envied Ned. It was puzzling, but it could have explained why Ned was lying slumped on the sand with a bashed-in skull. It could have explained why someone had hated him enough to kill him.

Without lifting a finger Ned had won Molly’s love. That could make some other guy as mad as a caged hyena—the wrong sort of other guy. Even a small man could have shattered Ned’s skull, but the prints on the sand were big.

How many men in the camp wore size-twelve shoes? That was the sixty-four dollar question, and it hung in the shimmering air between Harry and myself like an unspoken challenge. We could almost see the curve of the big question mark suspended in the dazzle.

I thought awhile, looking at Harry. Then I took a long, deep breath and said, “We’d better talk it over with Bill Seaton first. If it gets around too fast those footprints will be trampled flat. And if tempers start rising anything could happen.”

Harry nodded. Bill was the kind of guy you could depend on in an emergency. Cool, poised, efficient, with an air of authority that commanded respect. He could be pigheaded at times, but his sense of justice was as keen as a whip.

Harry and I walked very quietly across a stretch of tumbled sand and halted at the door to Bill’s shack. Bill was a bachelor and we knew there’d be no woman inside to put her foot down and tell him he’d be a fool to act as a lawman. Or would there be? We had to chance it.

Law-enforcement is a thankless job whether on Earth or on Mars. That’s why it attracts the worst—and the best. If you’re a power-drunk sadist you’ll take the job just for the pleasure it gives you. But if you’re really interested in keeping violence within bounds so that fairly decent lads get a fighting chance to build for the future, you’ll take the job with no thought of reward beyond the simple satisfaction of lending a helping hand.

Bill Seaton was such a man, even if he did enjoy the limelight and liked to be in a position of command.

“Come on, Harry,” I said. “We may as well wake him up and get it over with.”

We went into the shack. Bill was sleeping on the floor with his long legs drawn up. His mouth was open and he was snoring lustily. I couldn’t help thinking how much he looked like an overgrown grasshopper. But that was just a first impression springing from overwrought nerves.

I bent down and shook Bill awake. I grabbed his arm and shook him until his jaw snapped shut and he shot up straight, suddenly galvanized. Instantly the grotesque aspect fell from him. Dignity came upon him and enveloped him like a cloak.

“Ned, you say? The poor little cuss! So help me—if I get my hands on the rat who did it I’ll roast him over a slow fire!”

He got up, staggered to an equipment locker, and took out a sun helmet and a pair of shorts. He dressed quickly, swearing constantly and staring out the door at the bright dawn glow as if he wanted to send both of his fists crashing into the first suspicious guy to cross his path.

“We can’t have those footprints trampled,” he muttered. “There are a lot of dumb bastards here who don’t know the first thing about keeping pointers intact. Those prints may be the only thing we’ll have to go on.”

“Just the three of us can handle it, Bill,” I said. “When you decide what should be done we can wake the others.”

Bill nodded. “Keeping it quiet is the important thing. We’ll carry him back here. When we break the news I want that body out of sight.”

Harry and Bill and I—we took another walk in the sun. I looked at Harry, and the greenish tinge which had crept into his face gave me a jolt. He’s taking this pretty hard, I thought. If I hadn’t known him so well I might have jumped to an ugly conclusion. But I just couldn’t imagine Harry quarreling with Ned over Molly.

How was I taking it myself? I raised my hand and looked at it. There was no tremor. Nerves steady, brain clear. No pleasure in enforcing the law—pass that buck to Bill. But there was a gruesome job ahead, and I was standing up to it as well as could be expected.

Ever try lifting a corpse? The corpse of a stranger is easier to lift than the corpse of a man you’ve known and liked. Harry and I lifted him together. Between us the dead weight didn’t seem too intolerable—not at first. But it quickly became a terrible, heavy limpness that dragged at our arms like some soggy log dredged up from the dark waters of the canal.

We carried him into the shack and eased him down on the floor. His head fell back and his eyes lolled.

Death is always shameful. It strips away all human reticences and makes a mockery of human dignity and man’s rebellion against the cruelty of fate.

For a moment we stood staring down at all that was left of Ned. I looked at Bill. “How many men in the camp wear number-twelve shoes?”

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

All this time we hadn’t mentioned Larsen. Not one word about Larsen, not one spoken word. Cheating, yes. Lying, and treacherous disloyalty, and viciousness, and spite. Fights around the campfires at midnight, battered faces and broken wrists and a cursing that never ceased. All that we could blame on Larsen. But a harmless little guy lying dead by a well in a spreading pool of blood—that was an outrage that stopped us dead in our legend-making tracks.

There is something in the human mind which recoils from too outrageous a deception. How wonderful it would have been to say, “Larsen was here again last night. He found a little guy who had never harmed anyone standing by a well in the moonlight. Just for sheer delight he decided to kill the little guy right then and there.” Just to add luster to the legend, just to send a thrill of excitement about the camp.

No, that would have been the lie colossal which no sane man could have quite believed.

Something happened then to further unnerve us.

The most disturbing sound you can hear on Mars is the whispering. Usually it begins as a barely audible murmur and swells in volume with every shift of the wind. But now it started off high pitched and insistent and did not stop.

It was the whispering of a dying race. The Martians are as elusive as elves and all the pitiless logic of science had failed to draw them forth into the sunlight to stand before men in uncompromising arrogance as peers of the human race.

That failure was a tragedy in itself. If man’s supremacy is to be challenged at all let it be by a creature of flesh-and-blood, a big-brained biped who must kill to live. Better that by far than a ghostly flickering in the deepening dusk, a whispering and a flapping and a long-drawn sighing prophesying death.

Oh, the Martians were real enough. A flitting vampire bat is real, or a stinging ray in the depths of a blue lagoon. But who could point to a Martian and say, “I have seen you plain, in broad daylight. I have looked into your owlish eyes and watched you go flitting over the sand on your thin, stalklike legs? I know there is nothing mysterious about you. You are like a water insect skimming the surface of a pond in a familiar meadow on Earth. You are quick and alert, but no match for a man. You are no more than an interesting insect.”

Who could say that, when there were ruins buried deep beneath the sand to give the lie to any such idea. First the ruins, and then the Martians themselves, always elusive, gnomelike, goblinlike, flitting away into the dissolving dusk.

You’re a comparative archaeologist and you’re on Mars with the first batch of rugged youngsters to come tumbling out of a spaceship with stardust in their eyes. You see those youngsters digging wells and sweating in the desert. You see the prefabricated housing units go up, the tangle of machinery, the camp sites growing lusty with midnight brawls and skull-cracking escapades. You see the towns in the desert, the law-enforcement committees, the camp followers, the reform fanatics.

You’re a sober-minded scholar, so you start digging in the ruins. You bring up odd-looking cylinders, rolls of threaded film, instruments of science so complex they make you giddy.

You wonder about the Martians—what they were like when they were a young and proud race. If you’re an archaeologist you wonder. But Bill and I—we were youngsters still. Oh, sure, we were in our thirties, but who would have suspected that? Bill looked twenty-seven and I hadn’t a gray hair in my head.

III

Bill nodded at Harry. “You’d better stay here. Tom and I will be asking some pointed questions, and our first move will depend on the answers we get. Don’t let anyone come snooping around this shack. If anyone sticks his head in and starts to turn ugly, warn him just once—then shoot to kill.” He handed Harry a gun.

Harry nodded grimly and settled himself on the floor close to Ned. For the first time since I’d known him, Harry looked completely sure of himself.

As we emerged from the shack the whispering was so loud the entire camp had been placed on the alert. There would be no need for us to go into shack after shack, watching surprise and shock come into their eyes.

A dozen or more men were between Bill’s shack and the well. They were staring grimly at the dawn, as if they could already see blood on the sky, spilling over on the sand and spreading out in a sinister pool at their feet. A mirage-like pool mirroring their own hidden forebodings, mirroring a knotted rope and the straining shoulders of men too vengeful to know the meaning of restraint.

Jim Kenny stood apart and alone, about forty feet from the well, staring straight at us. His shirt was open at the throat, exposing a patch of hairy chest, and his big hands were wedged deeply into his belt. He stood about six feet three, very powerful, and with large feet.

I nudged Bill’s arm. “What do you think?” I asked.

Kenny did seem a likely suspect. Molly had caught his eye right from the start, and he had lost no time in pursuing her. A guy like Kenny would have felt that losing out to a man of his own breed would have been a terrible blow to his pride. But just imagine Kenny losing out to a little guy like Ned. It would have infuriated him and glazed his eyes with a red film of hate.

Bill answered my question slowly, his eyes on Kenny’s cropped head. “I think we’d better take a look at his shoes,” he said.

We edged up slowly, taking care not to disturb the others, pretending we were sauntering toward the well on a before-breakfast stroll.

It was then that Molly came out of her shack. She stood blinking for an instant in the dawn glare, her unbound hair falling in a tumbled dark mass to her shoulders, her eyes still drowsy with sleep. She wore rust-colored slippers and a form-fitted yellow robe, belted in at the waist.

Molly wasn’t beautiful exactly. But there was something pulse-stirring about her and it was easy to understand how a man like Kenny might find her difficult to resist.

Bill slanted a glance at Kenny, then shrugged and looked straight at Molly. He turned to me, his voice almost a whisper, “She’s got to be told, Tom. You do it. She likes you a lot.”

I’d been wondering about that myself—just how much she liked me. It was hard to be sure.

Bill saw my hesitation, and frowned. “You can tell if she’s covering up. Her reaction may give us a lead.”

Molly looked startled when she saw me approaching without the mask I usually wore when I waltzed her around and grinned and ruffled her hair and told her that she was the cutest kid imaginable and would make some man—not me—a fine wife.

That made telling her all the harder. The hardest part was at the end—when she stared at me dry-eyed and threw her arms around me as if I was the last support left to her on Earth.

For a moment I almost forgot we were not on Earth. On Earth I might have been able to comfort her in a completely sane way. But on Mars when a woman comes into your arms your emotions can turn molten in a matter of seconds.

“Steady,” I whispered. “We’re just good friends, remember?”

“I’d be willing to forget, Tom,” she said.

“You’ve had a terrible shock,” I whispered. “You really loved that little guy—more than you know. It’s natural enough that you should feel a certain warmth toward me. I just happened to be here—so you kissed me.”

“No, Tom. It isn’t that way at all—”

I might have let myself go a little then if Kenny hadn’t seen us. He stood very still for an instant, staring at Molly. Then his eyes narrowed and he walked slowly toward us, his hands still wedged in his belt.

I looked quickly at Molly, and saw that her features had hardened. There was a look of dark suspicion in her eyes. Bill had been watching Kenny, too, waiting for him to move. He measured footsteps with Kenny, advancing in the same direction from a different angle at a pace so calculated that they seemed to meet by accident directly in front of us.

Bill didn’t draw but his hand never left his hip. His voice came clear and sharp and edged with cold insistence. “Know anything about it, Kenny?”

Strain seemed to tighten Kenny’s face, but there was no panic in his eyes, no actual glint of fear. “What made you think I’d know?” he asked.

Bill didn’t say a word. He just started staring at Kenny’s shoes. He stood back a bit and continued to stare as if something vitally important had escaped him and taken refuge beneath the soggy leather around Kenny’s feet.

“What size shoes do you wear, Jim?” he asked.

Kenny must have suspected that the question was charged with as much explosive risk as a detonating wire set to go off at the faintest jar. His eyes grew shrewd and mocking.

“So the guy who did it left prints in the sand?” he said. “Prints made by big shoes?”

“That’s right,” Bill said. “You have a very active mind.”

Kenny laughed then, the mockery deepening in his stare. “Well,” he said, “suppose we have a look at those prints, and if it will ease your mind I’ll take off my shoes and you can try them out for size.”

Kenny and Bill and I walked slowly from Molly’s shack to the well in the hot and blazing glare, and the whispering went right on, getting under our skin in a tormenting sort of way.

Kenny still wore that disturbing grin. He looked at the prints and grunted. “Yeah,” he said, “they sure are big. Biggest prints I’ve ever seen.”

He sat down and started unlacing his shoes. First the right shoe, then the left. He pulled off both shoes and handed them to Bill.

“Fit them in,” he said. “Measure them for size. Measure me for size, and to hell with you!”

Bill made a careful check. There were eight prints, and he fitted the shoes painstakingly into each of them. There was space to spare at each try.

It cleared Kenny completely. He wasn’t a killer—this time. We might have roused the camp to a lynching fury and Kenny would have died for a crime another man had committed. I shut my eyes and saw Larsen swinging from a roof top, a black hood over his face. I saw Molly standing in the sunlight by my side, her face a stony mask.

I opened my eyes and there was Kenny, grinning contemptuously at us. He’d called our bluff and won out. Now the shoe was on the other foot.

A cold chill ran up my spine. It was Kenny who was doing the staring now, and he was looking directly at my shoes. He stood back a bit and continued to stare. He was dramatizing his sudden triumph in a way that turned my blood to ice.

Then I saw that Bill was staring too—straight at the shoes of a man he had known for three years and grown to like and trust. But underlying the warmth and friendliness in Bill was a granite-like integrity which nothing could shake.

It was Bill who spoke first. “I guess you’d better take them off, Tom,” he said. “We may as well be thorough about this.”

Sure, I was big. I grew up fast as a kid and at eighteen I weighed two hundred and thirty pounds, all lean flesh. If shoes ran large I could sometimes cram my feet into size twelves, but I felt much more comfortable in a size or two larger than that.

What made it worse, Molly liked me. I was involved with her, but no one knew how much. No one knew whether we’d quarreled or not, or how insanely jealous I could be. No one knew whether Molly had only pretended to like Ned while carrying a torch for me, and how dangerously complex the situation might have become all along the line.

I stood very still, listening. The whispering was so loud now it drowned out the sighing of the wind. I looked down at my shoes. They were caked with mud and soggy and discolored. Day after day I’d trudge back and forth from the canal to the shacks in the blazing sunlight without giving my feet a thought until the ache in them had become intolerable, rest an absolute necessity.

There was only one thing to do—call Kenny’s bluff so fast he wouldn’t have time to hurl another accusation at me.

I handed Bill both of my shoes. He looked at me and nodded. I waited, listening to the whispering rise and fall, watching him stoop and fit the shoes into the prints on the sand.

He straightened suddenly. His face was expressionless, but I could see that he was waging a terrible inward struggle with himself.

“Your shoes come pretty close to filling out those prints, Tom,” he said. “I can’t be sure—but a wax impression test should pretty well clear this up.” He gripped my arm and nodded toward the shacks. “Better stick close to me.”

Kenny took a slow step backward, his jaw tightening, his eyes searching Bill’s face. “Wax impression test, hell!” he said. “You’ve got your murderer. I’m going to see he gets what’s coming to him—right now!”

Bill shook his head. “I’ll do this my way,” he said.

Kenny glared at him, then laughed harshly. “You won’t have a chance,” he said. “The boys won’t stand for it. I’m going to spread the word around, and you’d better not try to stop me.”

That did it. I’d been holding myself in, but I had a sudden, overpowering urge to send my fist crashing into Kenny’s face, to send him crashing to the sand. I started for him, but he jumped back and started shouting.

I can’t remember exactly what he shouted. But he said just enough to put a noose around my neck. Every man and woman between the shacks and the well swung about to stare at me. I saw shock and rage flare in the eyes of men who usually had steady nerves. They were not calm now—not one of them.

IV

It all happened so fast I was caught off balance. In the harsh Martian sunlight human emotions can be as unstable as a wind-lashed dune.

A crazy thought flashed through my mind: Will Molly believe this too? Will she join these madmen in their wild thirst for vengeance? My need for her was suddenly overwhelming. Just seeing her face would have helped, but now more men had emerged from the shacks and I couldn’t see beyond them. They were heading straight for me and I knew that even Bill would be powerless to stop them.

You can’t argue with an avalanche. It was rolling straight toward me, gathering momentum as it came—not one man or a dozen, but a solid wall of human hate and unreason.

Bill stood his ground. He had drawn his gun, and he started shouting that the prints couldn’t have been made by my shoes. I chalked that up to his credit and resolved never to forget it.

I knew I’d have to make a dash for it. I ran as fast as I could, keeping my eyes on the glimmer of sunlight on rising dunes, and deep hollows which a carefully placed bullet could have quickly changed into a burial mound.

A sudden crackling burst of gunfire ripped through the air. Directly in my path the sand geysered up as the bullets ripped and tore at it. Somebody wasn’t a good marksman, or had let blind rage unnerve him and spoil his aim. A lot of somebodies—for the firing increased and became almost continuous for an instant, a dull crackling which drowned out the whispering and the sighing of the wind.

Then abruptly all sound ceased. Utter stillness descended on the desert—an unnatural, terrifying stillness, as if nature herself had stopped breathing and was waiting for someone to scream.

I must have been mad to turn. A weaving target has a chance, but a target standing motionless is a sitting duck and his life hangs by a hair. But still I turned.

Something was happening between the well and the shacks which halted the pursuit dead in its tracks. One of the shacks was wrapped in darting tongues of flame, and a woman was screaming, and a man close to her was grappling with something huge and misshapen which loomed starkly against the dawn glow.

A human shape? I could not be sure. It seemed monstrous, with a bulge between its shoulders which gave a grotesque and distorted aspect to the shadow which its weaving bulk cast upon the sand. I could see the shadow clearly across three hundred feet of sand. It lengthened and shortened, as if an octopus-like ferocity had given it the power to distort itself at will, lengthening its tentacles and then whipping them back again.

But it was not an octopus. It had legs and arms, and it was crushing the man in a grip of steel. I could see that now. I stared as the others were staring, their backs turned to me, their blind hatred for me blotted out by that greater horror.

I suddenly realized that the shape was human. It had the head and shoulders of a man, and a torso that could twist with muscular purpose, and massive hands that could maul and maim. It threw the hapless man from it with a sudden convulsive contraction of its entire bulk. I had never seen a human being move in quite that way, but even as its violence flared its manlike aspect became more pronounced.

A frightful thing happened then. The woman screamed and rushed toward the brutish maniac with her fingers splayed. The swaying figure bent, grabbed her about the waist, and lifted her high into the air. I thought for a moment he was about to crush her as he had crushed the man. But I was wrong. She was hurled to the sand, but with a violence so brutal that she went instantly limp.

Then the brutal madman turned, and I saw his face. If ever monstrous cruelty and malign cunning looked out of a human countenance it looked out of the eyes that stared in my direction, remorseless in their hate.

I could not tear my gaze from his face. The hate in it could be sensed, even across a blinding haze of sunlight that blotted out the sharp contours of physical things. But more than hate could be sensed. There was something tremendous about that face, as if the evil which had ravaged it had left the searing brand of Lucifer himself!

For an instant the madman stood motionless, his ghastly brutality unchallenged. Then Jeff Winters started for it. Jeff had come to Mars alone and grown more solitary with every passing day. He was a brooding, ingrown man, secretive and sullen, with a streak of wildness which he usually managed to control. He went for the madman like a gigantic terrier pup, shaggy and ferocious and contemptuous of death.

The big figure turned quickly, raised his arm, and brought his closed fist down on Jeff’s skull. Jeff collapsed like a shattered plaster cast. His body seemed to break and splinter, and he sprawled forward on the sand.

He did not get up.

Frank Anders had guns on both hips, and he drew them fast. No one knew what kind of man Anders was. He hardly ever complained or made a spectacle of himself. A little guy with sandy hair and cold blue eyes, he had an accuracy of aim that did his talking for him.

His guns suddenly roared. For an instant the air between his hands and the maniac was a crackling wall of flame. The brute swayed a little but did not turn aside. He went straight for Anders with both arms spread wide.

He caught Anders about the waist, lifted him up, and slammed his body down against the sand. A sickness came over me as I stared. The madman bashed Anders’ head against the ground again and again. Then suddenly the big arms relaxed and Anders sagged limply to the ground.

For an instant the madman swayed slowly back and forth, like a bloodstained marionette on a wire. Then he moved forward with a terrible, shambling gait, his head lowered, a dark, misshapen shadow seeming to lengthen before him on the sand like a spindle of flame.

The clearing was abruptly tumultuous with sound. The fury which had been unleashed against me turned upon the monster and became a closed circle of deadly, intent purpose hemming him in—and he was caught in a crossfire that hurled him backwards to the sand.

He jumped up and lunged straight for the well. What happened then was like the awakening stages of some horrible dream. The madman shambled past the well, the air at his back a crackling sheet of flame. The barrage behind him was continuous and merciless. The men were organized now, standing together in a solid wall, firing with deadly accuracy and a grim purpose which transcended fear.

The madman went clumping on past me and climbed a dune with his shoulders held straight. With a sunset glare deepening about him, he went striding over the dune and out of sight.

I turned and stared back at the camp. The pursuit had passed the well and was headed for me. But no one paid the slightest attention to me. Twelve men passed me, walking three abreast. Bill came along in their wake, his eyes stony hard. He reached out as he passed me, gripping my shoulder, giving me a foot-of-the-gallows kind of smile.

“We know now who killed Ned,” he whispered. “We know, fella. Take it easy, relax.”

My head was throbbing, but I could see the big prints from where I stood—the prints of a murderer betrayed by his insatiable urge to slay.

I saw Kenny pass, and he gave me a contemptuous grin. He had done his best to destroy me, but there was no longer any hate left in me.

I took a slow step forward—and fell flat on my face. …

I woke up with my head in Molly’s lap. She was looking down into my face, sobbing in a funny sort of way and running her fingers through my hair.

She looked startled when she saw that I was wide awake. She blinked furiously and started fumbling at her waist for a handkerchief.

“I must have passed out cold,” I said. “It’s quite a strain to be at the receiving end of a lynching bee. And what I saw afterwards wasn’t exactly pleasant.”

“Darling,” she whispered, “don’t move, don’t say a word. You’re going to be all right.”

“You bet I am!” I said. “Right now I feel great.”

My arm went around her shoulder, and I drew her head down until her breath was warm on my face. I kissed her hair and lips and eyes for a full minute in utter recklessness.

When I released her her eyes were shining, and she was laughing a little and crying too. “You’ve changed your mind,” she said. “You believe me now, don’t you?”

“Don’t talk,” I said. “Don’t say another word. I just want to look at you.”

“It was you right from the start,” she said. “Not Ned—or anyone else.”

“I was a blind fool,” I said.

“You never gave me a second glance.”

“One glance was enough,” I whispered. “But when I saw how it seemed to be between you and Ned—”

“I was never in love with him. It was just—”

“Never mind, don’t say it,” I said. “It’s over and done with.”

I stopped, remembering. Her eyes grew wide and startled, and I could see that she was remembering too.

“What happened?” I asked. “Did they catch that vicious rat?”

She brushed back her hair, the sunlight suddenly harsh on her face. “He fell into the canal. The bullets brought him down, and he collapsed on the bank.”

Her hand tightened on my wrist. “Bill told me. He tried to swim, but the current carried him under. He went down and never came up.”

“I’m glad,” I said. “Did anyone in the camp ever see him before?”

Molly shook her head. “Bill said he was a drifter—a dangerous maniac who must have been crazed by the sun.”

“I see,” I said.

I reached out and drew her into my arms again, and we rested for a moment stretched out side by side on the sand.

“It’s funny,” I said after a while.

“What is?”

“You know what they say about the whispering. Sometimes when you listen intently you seem to hear words deep in your mind. As if the Martians had telepathic powers.”

“Perhaps they have,” she said.

I glanced sideways at her. “Remember,” I said. “There were cities on Mars when our ancestors were hairy apes. The Martian civilization was flourishing and great fifty million years before the pyramids arose as a monument to human solidarity and worth. A bad monument, built by slave labor. But at least it was a start.”

“Now you’re being poetic, Tom,” she said.

“Perhaps I am. The Martians must have had their pyramids too. And at the pyramid stage they must have had their Larsens, to shoulder all the guilt. To them we may still be in the pyramid stage. Suppose—”

“Suppose what?”

“Suppose they wanted to warn us, to give us a lesson we couldn’t forget. How can we say with certainty that a dying race couldn’t still make use of certain techniques that are far beyond us.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she said, puzzled.

“Someday,” I said, “our own science will take a tiny fragment of human tissue from the body of a dead man, put it into an incubating machine, and a new man will arise again from that tiny shred of flesh. A man who can walk and live and breathe again, and love again, and die again after another full lifetime.

“Perhaps the Martian science was once as great as that. And the Martians might still remember a few of the techniques. Perhaps from our human brains, from our buried memories and desires, they could filch the key and bring to horrible life a thing so monstrous and so terrible—”

Her hand went suddenly cold in mine. “Tom, you can’t honestly think—”

“No,” I said. “It’s nonsense, of course. Forget it.”

I didn’t tell her what the whispering had seemed to say, deep in my mind.

We’ve brought you Larsen! You wanted Larsen, and we’ve made him for you! His flesh and his mind—his cruel strength and his wicked heart! Here he comes, here he is! Larsen, Larsen, Larsen!

The Man from Time

Daring Moonson, he was called. It was a proud name, a brave name. But what good was a name that rang out like a summons to battle if the man who bore it could not repeat it aloud without fear?

Moonson had tried telling himself that a man could conquer fear if he could but once summon the courage to laugh at all the sins that ever were, and do as he damned well pleased. An ancient phrase that—damned well. It went clear back to the Elizabethan Age, and Moonson had tried picturing himself as an Elizabethan man with a ruffle at his throat and a rapier in his clasp, brawling lustily in a tavern.

In the Elizabethan Age men had thrown caution to the winds and lived with their whole bodies, not just with their minds alone. Perhaps that was why, even in the year 3689, defiant names still cropped up. Names like Independence Forest and Man, Live Forever!

It was not easy for a man to live up to a name like Man, Live Forever! But Moonson was ready to believe that it could be done. There was something in human nature which made a man abandon caution and try to live up to the claims made for him by his parents at birth.

It must be bad, Moonson thought. It must be bad if I can’t control the trembling of my hands, the pounding of the blood at my temples. I am like a child shut up alone in the dark, hearing rats scurrying in a closet thick with cobwebs and the tapping of a blind man’s cane on a deserted street at midnight.

Tap, tap, tap—nearer and nearer through the darkness. How soon would the rats be swarming out, blood-fanged and wholly vicious? How soon would the cane strike?

He looked up quickly, his eyes searching the shadows. For almost a month now the gleaming intricacies of the machine had given him a complete sense of security. As a scholar traveling in Time he had been accepted by his fellow travelers as a man of great courage and firm determination.

For twenty-seven days a smooth surface of shining metal had walled him in, enabling him to grapple with reality on a completely adult level. For twenty-seven days he had gone pridefully back through Time, taking creative delight in watching the heritage of the human race unroll before him like a cineramoscope under glass.

Watching a green land in the dying golden sunlight of an age lost to human memory could restore a man’s strength of purpose by its serenity alone. But even an age of war and pestilence could be observed without torment from behind the protective shields of the Time Machine. Danger, accidents, catastrophe could not touch him personally.

To watch death and destruction as a spectator in a traveling Time Observatory was like watching a cobra poised to strike from behind a pane of crystal-bright glass in a zoological garden.

You got a tremendous thrill in just thinking: How dreadful if the glass should not be there! How lucky I am to be alive, with a thing so deadly and monstrous within striking distance of me!

For twenty-seven days now he had traveled without fear. Sometimes the Time Observatory would pinpoint an age and hover over it while his companions took painstaking historical notes. Sometimes it would retrace its course and circle back. A new age would come under scrutiny and more notes would be taken.

But a horrible thing that had happened to him, had awakened in him a lonely nightmare of restlessness. Childhood fears he had thought buried forever had returned to plague him and he had developed a sudden, terrible dread of the fogginess outside the moving viewpane, the way the machine itself wheeled and dipped when an ancient ruin came sweeping toward him. He had developed a fear of Time.

There was no escape from that Time Fear. The instant it came upon him he lost all interest in historical research. 1069, 732, 2407, 1928—every date terrified him. The Black Plague in London, the Great Fire, the Spanish Armada in flames off the coast of a bleak little island that would soon mold the destiny of half the world—how meaningless it all seemed in the shadow of his fear!

Had the human race really advanced so much? Time had been conquered but no man was yet wise enough to heal himself if a stark, unreasoning fear took possession of his mind and heart, giving him no peace.

Moonson lowered his eyes, saw that Rutella was watching him in the manner of a shy woman not wishing to break in too abruptly on the thoughts of a stranger.

Deep within him he knew that he had become a stranger to his own wife and the realization sharply increased his torment. He stared down at her head against his knee, at her beautiful back and sleek, dark hair. Violet eyes she had, not black as they seemed at first glance but a deep, lustrous violet.

He remembered suddenly that he was still a young man, with a young man’s ardor surging strong in him. He bent swiftly, kissed her lips and eyes. As he did so her arms tightened about him until he found himself wondering what he could have done to deserve such a woman.

She had never seemed more precious to him and for an instant he could feel his fear lessening a little. But it came back and was worse than before. It was like an old pain returning at an unexpected moment to chill a man with the sickening reminder that all joy must end.

His decision to act was made quickly.

The first step was the most difficult but with a deliberate effort of will he accomplished it to his satisfaction. His secret thoughts he buried beneath a continuous mental preoccupation with the vain and the trivial. It was important to the success of his plan that his companions should suspect nothing.

The second step was less difficult. The mental block remained firm and he succeeded in carrying on actual preparations for his departure in complete secrecy.

The third step was the final one and it took him from a large compartment to a small one, from a high-arching surface of metal to a maze of intricate control mechanisms in a space so narrow that he had to crouch to work with accuracy.

Swiftly and competently his fingers moved over instruments of science which only a completely sane man would have known how to manipulate. It was an acid test of his sanity and he knew as he worked that his reasoning faculties at least had suffered no impairment.

Beneath his hands the Time Observatory’s controls were solid shafts of metal. But suddenly as he worked he found himself thinking of them as fluid abstractions, each a milestone in man’s long progress from the jungle to the stars. Time and space—mass and velocity.

How incredible that it had taken centuries of patient technological research to master in a practical way the tremendous implications of Einstein’s original postulate. Warp space with a rapidly moving object, move away from the observer with the speed of light—and the whole of human history assumed the firm contours of a landscape in space. Time and space merged and became one. And a man in an intricately-equipped Time Observatory could revisit the past as easily as he could travel across the great curve of the universe to the farthest planet of the farthest star.

The controls were suddenly firm in his hands. He knew precisely what adjustments to make. The iris of the human eye dilates and contracts with every shift of illumination, and the Time Observatory had an iris too. That iris could be opened without endangering his companions in the least—if he took care to widen it just enough to accommodate only one sturdily built man of medium height.

Sweat came out in great beads on his forehead as he worked. The light that came through the machine’s iris was faint at first, the barest glimmer of white in deep darkness. But as he adjusted controls the light grew brighter and brighter, beating in upon him until he was kneeling in a circle of radiance that dazzled his eyes and set his heart to pounding.

I’ve lived too long with fear, he thought. I’ve lived like a man imprisoned, shut away from the sunlight. Now, when freedom beckons, I must act quickly or I shall be powerless to act at all.

He stood erect, took a slow step forward, his eyes squeezed shut. Another step, another—and suddenly he knew he was at the gateway to Time’s sure knowledge, in actual contact with the past for his ears were now assailed by the high confusion of ancient sounds and voices!

He left the Time machine in a flying leap, one arm held before his face. He tried to keep his eyes covered as the ground seemed to rise to meet him. But he lurched in an agony of unbalance and opened his eyes—to see the green surface beneath him flashing like a suddenly uncovered jewel.

He remained on his feet just long enough to see his Time Observatory dim and vanish. Then his knees gave way and he collapsed with a despairing cry as the fear enveloped him …

There were daisies in the field where he lay, his shoulders and naked chest pressed to the earth. A gentle wind stirred the grass, and the flute-like warble of a song bird was repeated close to his ear, over and over with a tireless persistence.

Abruptly he sat up and stared about him. Running parallel to the field was a winding country road and down it came a yellow and silver vehicle on wheels, its entire upper section encased in glass which mirrored the autumnal landscape with a startling clearness.

The vehicle halted directly in front of him and a man with ruddy cheeks and snow-white hair leaned out to wave at him.

“Good morning, mister!” the man shouted. “Can I give you a lift into town?”

Moonson rose unsteadily, alarm and suspicion in his stare. Very cautiously he lowered the mental barrier and the man’s thoughts impinged on his mind in bewildering confusion.

He’s not a farmer, that’s sure … must have been swimming in the creek, but those bathing trunks he’s wearing are out of this world!

Huh! I wouldn’t have the nerve to parade around in trunks like that even on a public beach. Probably an exhibitionist … But why should he wear ’em out here in the woods? No blonds or redheads to knock silly out here!

Huh! He might have the courtesy to answer me … Well, if he doesn’t want a lift into town it’s no concern of mine!

Moonson stood watching the vehicle sweep away out of sight. Obviously he had angered the man by his silence, but he could answer only by shaking his head.

He began to walk, pausing an instant in the middle of the bridge to stare down at a stream of water that rippled in the sunlight over moss-covered rocks. Tiny silver fish darted to and fro beneath a tumbling waterfall and he felt calmed and reassured by the sight. Shoulders erect now, he walked on …

It was high noon when he reached the tavern. He went inside, saw men and women dancing in a dim light, and there was a huge, rainbow-colored musical instrument by the door which startled him by its resonance. The music was wild, weird, a little terrifying.

He sat down at a table near the door and searched the minds of the dancers for a clue to the meaning of what he saw.

The thoughts which came to him were startlingly primitive, direct and sometimes meaningless to him.

Go easy, baby! Swing it! Sure, we’re in the groove now, but you never can tell! I’ll buy you an orchid, honey! Not roses, just one orchid—black like your hair! Ever see a black orchid, hon? They’re rare and they’re expensive!

Oh, darl, darl, hold me closer! The music goes round and round! It will always be like that with us, honey! Don’t ever be a square! That’s all I ask! Don’t ever be a square! Cuddle up to me, let yourself go! When you’re dancing with one girl you should never look at another! Don’t you know that, Johnny!

Sure I know it, Doll! But did I ever claim I wasn’t human?

Darl, doll, doll baby! Look all you want to! But if you ever dare—

Moonson found himself relaxing a little. Dancing in all ages was closely allied to lovemaking, but it was pursued here with a careless rapture which he found creatively stimulating. People came here not only to dance but to eat, and the thoughts of the dancers implied that there was nothing stylized about a tavern. The ritual was a completely natural one.

In Egyptian bas-reliefs you saw the opposite in dancing. Every movement rigidly prescribed, arms held rigid and sharply bent at the elbows. Slow movements rather than lively ones, a bowing and a scraping with bowls of fruit extended in gift offerings at every turn.

There was obviously no enthroned authority here, no bejeweled king to pacify when emotions ran wild, but complete freedom to embrace joy with corybantic abandonment.

A tall man in ill-fitting black clothes approached Moonson’s table, interrupting his reflections with thoughts that seemed designed to disturb and distract him out of sheer perversity. So even here there were flies in every ointment, and no dream of perfection could remain unchallenged.

He sat unmoving, absorbing the man’s thoughts.

What does he think this is, a bath house? Mike says it’s okay to serve them if they come in from the beach just as they are. But just one quick beer, no more. This late in the season you’d think they’d have the decency to get dressed!

The sepulchrally-dressed man gave the table a brush with a cloth he carried, then thrust his head forward like an ill-tempered scavenger bird.

“Can’t serve you anything but beer. Boss’s orders. Okay?”

Moonson nodded and the man went away.

Then he turned to watching the girl. She was frightened. She sat all alone, plucking nervously at the red-and-white checkered tablecloth. She sat with her back to the light, bunching the cloth up into little folds, then smoothing it out again.

She’d ground out lipstick-smudged cigarettes until the ash tray was spilling over.

Moonson began to watch the fear in her mind …

Her fear grew when she thought that Mike wasn’t gone for good. The phone call wouldn’t take long and he’d be coming back any minute now. And Mike wouldn’t be satisfied until she was broken into little bits. Yes, Mike wanted to see her on her knees, begging him to kill her!

Kill me, but don’t hurt Joe! It wasn’t his fault! He’s just a kid—he’s not twenty yet, Mike!

That would be a lie but Mike had no way of knowing that Joe would be twenty-two on his next birthday, although he looked eighteen at most. There was no pity in Mike but would his pride let him hot-rod an eighteen-year-old?

Mike won’t care! Mike will kill him anyway! Joe couldn’t help falling in love with me, but Mike won’t care what Joe could help! Mike was never young himself, never a sweet kid like Joe!

Mike killed a man when he was fourteen years old! He spent seven years in a reformatory and the kids there were never young. Joe will be just one of those kids to Mike …

Her fear kept growing.

You couldn’t fight men like Mike. Mike was strong in too many different ways. When you ran a tavern with an upstairs room for special customers you had to be tough, strong. You sat in an office and when people came to you begging for favors you just laughed. Ten grand isn’t hay, buddy! My wheels aren’t rigged. If you think they are get out. It’s your funeral.

It’s your funeral, Mike would say, laughing until tears came into his eyes.

You couldn’t fight that kind of strength. Mike could push his knuckles hard into the faces of people who owed him money, and he’d never even be arrested.

Mike could take money crisp and new out of his wallet, spread it out like a fan, say to any girl crazy enough to give him a second glance: “I’m interested in you, honey! Get rid of him and come over to my table!”

He could say worse things to girls too decent and self-respecting to look at him at all.

You could be so cold and hard nothing could ever hurt you. You could be Mike Galante …

How could she have loved such a man? And dragged Joe into it, a good kid who had made only one really bad mistake in his life—the mistake of asking her to marry him.

She shivered with a chill of self-loathing and turned her eyes hesitantly toward the big man in bathing trunks who sat alone by the door.

For a moment she met the big man’s eyes and her fears seemed to fade away! She stared at him … sunburned almost black. Muscles like a lifeguard. All alone and not on the make. When he returned her stare his eyes sparkled with friendly interest, but no suggestive, flirtatious intent.

He was too rugged to be really handsome, she thought, but he wouldn’t have to start digging in his wallet to get a girl to change tables, either.

Guiltily she remembered Joe, now it could only be Joe.

Then she saw Joe enter the room. He was deathly pale and he was coming straight toward her between the tables. Without pausing to weigh his chances of staying alive he passed a man and a woman who relished Mike’s company enough to make them eager to act ugly for a daily handout. They did not look up at Joe as he passed but the man’s lips curled in a sneer and the woman whispered something that appeared to fan the flames of her companion’s malice.

Mike had friends—friends who would never rat on him while their police records remained in Mike’s safe and they could count on him for protection.

She started to rise, to go to Joe and warn him that Mike would be coming back. But despair flooded her and the impulse died. The way Joe felt about her was a thing too big to stop …

Joe saw her slim against the light, and his thoughts were like the sea surge, wild, unruly.

Maybe Mike will get me. Maybe I’ll be dead by this time tomorrow. Maybe I’m crazy to love her the way I do …

Her hair against the light, a tumbled mass of spun gold.

Always a woman bothering me for as long as I can remember. Molly, Anne, Janice … Some were good for me and some were bad.

You see a woman on the street walking ahead of you, hips swaying, and you think: I don’t even know her name but I’d like to crush her in my arms!

I guess every guy feels like that about every pretty woman he sees. Even about some that aren’t so pretty. But then you get to know and like a woman, and you don’t feel that way so much. You respect her and you don’t let yourself feel that way.

Then something happens. You love her so much it’s like the first time again but with a whole lot added. You love her so much you’d die to make her happy.

Joe was shaking when he slipped into the chair left vacant by Mike and reached out for both her hands.

“I’m taking you away tonight,” he said. “You’re coming with me.”

Joe was scared, she knew. But he didn’t want her to know. His hands were like ice and his fear blended with her own fear as their hands met.

“He’ll kill you, Joe! You’ve got to forget me!” she sobbed.

“I’m not afraid of him. I’m stronger than you think. He won’t dare come at me with a gun, not here before all these people. If he comes at me with his fists I’ll hook a solid left to his jaw that will stretch him out cold!”

She knew he wasn’t deceiving himself. Joe didn’t want to die any more than she did.

The Man from Time had an impulse to get up, walk over to the two frightened children and comfort them with a reassuring smile. He sat watching, feeling their fear beating in tumultuous waves into his brain. Fear in the minds of a boy and a girl because they desperately wanted one another!

He looked steadily at them and his eyes spoke to them …

Life is greater than you know. If you could travel in Time, and see how great is man’s courage—if you could see all of his triumphs over despair and grief and pain—you would know that there is nothing to fear! Nothing at all!

Joe rose from the table, suddenly calm, quiet.

“Come on,” he said quietly. “We’re getting out of here right now. My car’s outside and if Mike tries to stop us I’ll fix him!”

The boy and the girl walked toward the door together, a young and extremely pretty girl and a boy grown suddenly to the full stature of a man.

Rather regretfully Moonson watched them go. As they reached the door the girl turned and smiled and the boy paused too—and they both smiled suddenly at the man in the bathing trunks.

Then they were gone.

Moonson got up as they disappeared, left the tavern.

It was dark when he reached the cabin. He was dog-tired, and when he saw the seated man through the lighted window a great longing for companionship came upon him.

He forgot that he couldn’t talk to the man, forgot the language difficulty completely. But before this insurmountable element occurred to him he was inside the cabin.

Once there he saw that the problem solved itself—the man was a writer and he had been drinking steadily for hours. So the man did all of the talking, not wanting or waiting for an answer.

A youngish, handsome man he was, with graying temples and keenly observant eyes. The instant he saw Moonson he started to talk.

“Welcome, stranger,” he said. “Been taking a dip in the ocean, eh? Can’t say I’d enjoy it, this late in the season!”

Moonson was afraid at first that his silence might discourage the writer, but he did not know writers …

“It’s good to have someone to talk to,” the writer went on. “I’ve been sitting here all day trying to write. I’ll tell you something you may not know—you can go to the finest hotels, and you can open case after case of the finest wine, and you still can’t get started sometimes.”

The writer’s face seemed suddenly to age. Fear came into his eyes and he raised the bottle to his lips, faced away from his guest as he drank as if ashamed of what he must do to escape despair every time he faced his fear.

He was trying to write himself back into fame. His greatest moment had come years before when his golden pen had glorified a generation of madcaps.

For one deathless moment his genius had carried him to the heights, and a white blaze of publicity had given him a halo of glory. Later had come lean and bitter years until finally his reputation dwindled like a gutted candle in a wintry room at midnight.

He could still write but now fear and remorse walked with him and would give him no peace. He was cruelly afraid most of the time.

Moonson listened to the writer’s thoughts in heart-stricken silence—thoughts so tragic they seemed out of keeping with the natural and beautiful rhythms of his speech. He had never imagined that a sensitive and imaginative man—an artist—could be so completely abandoned by the society his genius had helped to enrich.

Back and forth the writer paced, baring his inmost thoughts … His wife was desperately ill and the future looked completely black. How could he summon the strength of will to go on, let alone to write?

He said fiercely, “It’s all right for you to talk—”

He stopped, seeming to realize for the first time that the big man sitting in an easy chair by the window had made no attempt to speak.

It seemed incredible, but the big man had listened in complete silence, and with such quiet assurance that his silence had taken on an eloquence that inspired absolute trust.

He had always known there were a few people like that in the world, people whose sympathy and understanding you could take for granted. There was a fearlessness in such people which made them stand out from the crowd, stone-markers in a desert waste to lend assurance to a tired wayfarer by its sturdy permanence, its sun-mirroring strength.

There were a few people like that in the world but you sometimes went a lifetime without meeting one. The big man sat there smiling at him, calmly exuding the serenity of one who has seen life from its tangled, inaccessible roots outward and testifies from experience that the entire growth is sound.

The writer stopped pacing suddenly and drew himself erect. As he stared into the big man’s eyes his fears seemed to fade away. Confidence returned to him like the surge of the sea in great shining waves of creativeness.

He knew suddenly that he could lose himself in his work again, could tap the bright resonant bell of his genius until its golden voice rang out through eternity. He had another great book in him and it would get written now. It would get written …

“You’ve helped me!” he almost shouted. “You’ve helped me more than you know. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you. You don’t know what it means to be so paralyzed with fright that you can’t write at all!”

The Man from Time was silent but his eyes shone curiously.

The writer turned to a bookcase and removed a volume in a faded cover that had once been bright with rainbow colors. He sat down and wrote an inscription on the flyleaf.

Then he rose and handed the book to his visitor with a slight bow. He was smiling now.

“This was my firstborn!” he said.

The Man from Time looked at the title first … This Side of Paradise.

Then he opened the book and read what the author had written on the flyleaf:

With warm gratefulness for a courage which brought back the sun.

F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Moonson bowed his thanks, turned and left the cabin.

Morning found him walking across fresh meadowlands with the dew glistening on his bare head and broad, straight shoulders.

They’d never find him, he told himself hopelessly. They’d never find him because Time was too vast to pinpoint one man in such a vast waste of years. The towering crests of each age might be visible but there could be no returning to one tiny insignificant spot in the mighty ocean of Time.

As he walked his eyes searched for the field and the winding road he’d followed into town. Only yesterday this road had seemed to beckon and he had followed, eager to explore an age so primitive that mental communication from mind to mind had not yet replaced human speech.

Now he knew that the speech faculty which mankind had long outgrown would never cease to act as a barrier between himself and the men and women of this era of the past. Without it he could not hope to find complete understanding and sympathy here.

He was still alone and soon winter would come and the sky grow cold and empty …

The Time machine materialized so suddenly before him that for an instant his mind refused to accept it as more than a torturing illusion conjured up by the turbulence of his thoughts. All at once it towered in his path, bright and shining, and he moved forward over the dew-drenched grass until he was brought up short by a joy so overwhelming that it seemed to him that his heart must burst.

Rutella emerged from the machine with a gay little laugh, as if his stunned expression was the most amusing in the world.

“Hold still and let me kiss you, darling,” her mind said to his.

She stood in the dew-bright grass on tiptoe, her sleek dark hair falling to her shoulders, an extraordinarily pretty girl to be the wife of a man so tormented.

“You found me!” his thoughts exulted. “You came back alone and searched until you found me!”

She nodded, her eyes shining. So Time wasn’t too vast to pinpoint after all, not when two people were so securely wedded in mind and heart that their thoughts could build a bridge across Time.

“The Bureau of Emotional Adjustment analyzed everything I told them. Your psycho-graph ran to fifty-seven pages, but it was your desperate loneliness which guided me to you.”

She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it.

“You see, darling, a compulsive fear isn’t easy to conquer. No man or woman can conquer it alone. Historians tell us that when the first passenger rocket started out for Mars, Space Fear took men by surprise in the same way your fear gripped you. The loneliness, the utter desolation of space, was too much for a human mind to endure.”

She smiled her love. “We’re going back. We’ll face it together and we’ll conquer it together. You won’t be alone now. Darling, don’t you see—it’s because you aren’t a clod, because you’re sensitive and imaginative that you experience fear. It’s not anything to be ashamed of. You were simply the first man on Earth to develop a new and completely different kind of fear—Time Fear.”

Moonson put out his hand and gently touched his wife’s hair.

Ascending into the Time Observatory a thought came unbidden into his mind: Others he saved, himself he could not save.

But that wasn’t true at all now.

He could help himself now. He would never be alone again! When guided by the sure hand of love and complete trust, self-knowledge could be a shining weapon. The trip back might be difficult, but holding tight to his wife’s hand he felt no misgivings, no fear.

The Calm Man

Sally Anders had never really thought of herself as a wallflower. A girl could be shy, couldn’t she, and still be pretty enough to attract and hold men?

Only this morning she had drawn an admiring look from the milkman and a wolf cry from Jimmy on the corner, with his newspapers and shiny new bike. What if the milkman was crowding sixty and wore thick-lensed glasses? What if Jimmy was only seventeen?

A male was a male, and a glance was a glance. Why, if I just primp a little more, Sally told herself, I’ll be irresistible.

Hair ribbons and perfume, a mirror tilted at just the right angle, an invitation to a party on the dresser—what more did a girl need?

“Dinner, Sally!” came echoing up from the kitchen. “Do you want to be late, child?”

Sally had no intention of being late. Tonight she’d see him across a crowded room and her heart would skip a beat. He’d look at her and smile, and come straight toward her with his shoulders squared.

There was always one night in a girl’s life that stands above all other nights. One night when the moon shone bright and clear and the clock on the wall went tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. One night when each tick said, “You’re beautiful! Really beautiful!”

Giving her hair a final pat Sally smiled at herself in the mirror.

In the bathroom the water was still running and the perfumed bath soap still spread its aromatic sweet odor through the room. Sally went into the bathroom and turned off the tap before going downstairs to the kitchen.

“My girl looks radiant tonight!” Uncle Ben said, smiling at her over his corned beef and cabbage.

Sally blushed and lowered her eyes.

“Ben, you’re making her nervous,” Sally’s mother said, laughing.

Sally looked up and met her uncle’s stare, her eyes defiant. “I’m not bad-looking whatever you may think,” she said.

“Oh, now, Sally,” Uncle Ben protested. “No sense in getting on a high horse. Tonight you may find a man who just won’t be able to resist you.”

“Maybe I will and maybe I won’t,” Sally said. “You’d be surprised if I did, wouldn’t you?”

It was Uncle Ben’s turn to lower his eyes.

“I’ll tell the world you’ve inherited your mother’s looks, Sally,” he said. “But a man has to pride himself on something. My defects of character are pretty bad. But no one has ever accused me of dishonesty.”

Sally folded her napkin and rose stiffly from the table.

“Good night, Uncle,” she said.

When Sally arrived at the party every foot of floor space was taken up by dancing couples and the reception room was so crowded that, as each new guest was announced, a little ripple of displeasure went through the men in midnight blue and the women in Nile green and lavender.

For a moment Sally did not move, just stood staring at the dancing couples, half-hidden by one of the potted palms that framed the sides of the long room.

Moonlight silvered her hair and touched her white throat and arms with a caress so gentle that simply by closing her eyes she could fancy herself already in his arms.

Moonlight from tall windows flooding down, turning the dancing guests into pirouetting ghosts in diaphanous blue and green, scarlet and gold.

Close your eyes, Sally, close them tight! Now open them! That’s it … Slowly, slowly …

He came out of nothingness into the light and was right beside her suddenly.

He was tall, but not too tall. His face was tanned mahogany brown, and his eyes were clear and very bright. And he stood there looking at her steadily until her mouth opened and a little gasp flew out.

He took her into his arms without a word and they started to dance …

They were still dancing when he asked her to be his wife.

“You’ll marry me, of course,” he said. “We haven’t too much time. The years go by so swiftly, like great white birds at sea.”

They were very close when he asked her, but he made no attempt to kiss her. They went right on dancing and while he waited for her answer he talked about the moon …

“When the lights go out and the music stops the moon will remain,” he said. “It raises tides on the Earth, it inflames the minds and hearts of men. There are cyclic rhythms which would set a stone to dreaming and desiring on such a night as this.”

He stopped dancing abruptly and looked at her with calm assurance.

“You will marry me, won’t you?” he asked. “Allowing for a reasonable margin of error I seriously doubt if I could be happy with any of these other women. I was attracted to you the instant I saw you.”

A girl who has never been asked before, who has drawn only one lone wolf cry from a newsboy could hardly be expected to resist such an offer.

Don’t resist, Sally. He’s strong and tall and extremely good-looking. He knows what he wants and makes up his mind quickly. Surely a man so resolute must make enough money to support a wife.

“Yes,” Sally breathed, snuggling close to him. “Oh, yes!”

She paused a moment, then said, “You may kiss me now if you wish, my darling.”

He straightened and frowned a little, and looked away quickly. “That can wait,” he said.

They were married a week later and went to live on an elm-shaded street just five blocks from where Sally was born. The cottage was small, white and attractively decorated inside and out. But Sally changed the curtains, as all women must, and bought some new furniture on the installment plan.

The neighbors were friendly folk who knew her husband as Mr. James Rand, an energetic young insurance broker who would certainly carve a wider swath for himself in his chosen profession now that he had so charming a wife.

Ten months later the first baby came.

Lying beneath cool white sheets in the hospital Sally looked at the other women and felt so deliriously happy she wanted to cry. It was a beautiful baby and it cuddled close to her heart, its smallness a miracle in itself.

The other husbands came in and sat beside their wives, holding on tight to their happiness. There were flowers and smiles, whispers that explored bright new worlds of tenderness and rejoicing.

Out in the corridor the husbands congratulated one another and came in smelling of cigar smoke.

“Have a cigar! That’s right. Eight pounds at birth. That’s unusual, isn’t it? Brightest kid you ever saw. Knew his old man right off.”

He was beside her suddenly, standing straight and still in shadows.

“Oh, darling,” she whispered. “Why did you wait? It’s been three whole days.”

“Three days?” he asked, leaning forward to stare down at his son. “Really! It didn’t seem that long.”

“Where were you? You didn’t even phone!”

“Sometimes it’s difficult to phone,” he said slowly, as if measuring his words. “You have given me a son. That pleases me very much.”

A coldness touched her heart and a despair took hold of her. “It pleases you! Is that all you can say? You stand there looking at me as if I were a—a patient …”

“A patient?” His expression grew quizzical. “Just what do you mean, Sally?”

“You said you were pleased. If a patient is ill her doctor hopes that she will get well. He is pleased when she does. If a woman has a baby a doctor will say, ‘I’m so pleased. The baby is doing fine. You don’t have to worry about him. I’ve put him on the scales and he’s a bouncing, healthy boy.’ ”

“Medicine is a sane and wise profession,” Sally’s husband said. “When I look at my son that is exactly what I would say to the mother of my son. He is healthy and strong. You have pleased me, Sally.”

He bent as he spoke and picked Sally’s son up. He held the infant in the crook of his arm, smiling down at it.

“A healthy male child,” he said. “His hair will come in thick and black. Soon he will speak, will know that I am his father.”

He ran his palm over the baby’s smooth head, opened its mouth gently with his forefinger and looked inside.

Sally rose on one elbow, her tormented eyes searching his face.

“He’s your child, your son!” she sobbed. “A woman has a child and her husband comes and puts his arms around her. He holds her close. If they love each other they are so happy, so very happy, they break down and cry.”

“I am too pleased to do anything so fantastic, Sally,” he said. “When a child is born no tears should be shed by its parents. I have examined the child and I am pleased with it. Does not that content you?”

“No, it doesn’t!” Sally almost shrieked. “Why do you stare at your own son as if you’d never seen a baby before? He isn’t a mechanical toy. He’s our own darling, adorable little baby. Our child! How can you be so inhumanly calm?”

He frowned, put the baby down.

“There is a time for lovemaking and a time for parenthood,” he said. “Parenthood is a serious responsibility. That is where medicine comes in, surgery. If a child is not perfect there are emergency measures which can be taken to correct the defect.”

Sally’s mouth went suddenly dry. “Perfect! What do you mean, Jim? Is there something wrong with Tommy?”

“I don’t think so,” her husband said. “His grasp is firm and strong. He has good hearing and his eyesight appears to be all that could be desired. Did you notice how his eyes followed me every moment?”

“I wasn’t looking at his eyes!” Sally whispered, her voice tight with alarm. “Why are you trying to frighten me, Jim? If Tommy wasn’t a normal, healthy baby do you imagine for one instant they would have placed him in my arms?”

“That is a very sound observation,” Sally’s husband said. “Truth is truth, but to alarm you at a time like this would be unnecessarily cruel.”

“Where does that put you?”

“I simply spoke my mind as the child’s father. I had to speak as I did because of my natural concern for the health of our child. Do you want me to stay and talk to you, Sally?”

Sally shook her head. “No, Jim. I won’t let you torture me any more.”

Sally drew the baby into her arms again and held it tightly. “I’ll scream if you stay!” she warned. “I’ll become hysterical unless you leave.”

“Very well,” her husband said. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

He bent as he spoke and kissed her on the forehead. His lips were ice cold.

For eight years Sally sat across the table from her husband at breakfast, her eyes fixed upon a nothingness on the green-blue wall at his back. Calm he remained even while eating. The eggs she placed before him he cracked methodically with a knife and consumed behind a tilted newspaper, taking now an assured sip of coffee, now a measured glance at the clock.

The presence of his young son bothered him not at all. Tommy could be quiet or noisy, in trouble at school, or with an A for good conduct tucked with his report card in his soiled leather zipper jacket. It was always: “Eat slowly, my son. Never gulp your food. Be sure to take plenty of exercise today. Stay in the sun as much as possible.”

Often Sally wanted to shriek: “Be a father to him! A real father! Get down on the floor and play with him. Shoot marbles with him, spin one of his tops. Remember the toy locomotive you gave him for Christmas after I got hysterical and screamed at you? Remember the beautiful little train? Get it out of the closet and wreck it accidentally. He’ll warm up to you then. He’ll be brokenhearted, but he’ll feel close to you, then you’ll know what it means to have a son!”

Often Sally wanted to fly at him, beat with her fists on his chest. But she never did.

You can’t warm a stone by slapping it, Sally. You’d only bruise yourself. A stone is neither cruel nor tender. You’ve married a man of stone, Sally.

He hasn’t missed a day at the office in eight years. She’d never visited the office but he was always there to answer when she phoned. “I’m very busy, Sally. What did you say? You’ve bought a new hat? I’m sure it will look well on you, Sally. What did you say? Tommy got into a fight with a new boy in the neighborhood? You must take better care of him, Sally.”

There are patterns in every marriage. When once the mold has set, a few strange behavior patterns must be accepted as a matter of course.

“I’ll drop in at the office tomorrow, darling!” Sally had promised right after the breakfast pattern had become firmly established. The desire to see where her husband worked had been from the start a strong, bright flame in her. But he asked her to wait a while before visiting his office.

A strong will can dampen the brightest flame, and when months passed and he kept saying “no,” Sally found herself agreeing with her husband’s suggestion that the visit be put off indefinitely.

Snuff a candle and it stays snuffed. A marriage pattern once established requires a very special kind of rekindling. Sally’s husband refused to supply the needed spark.

Whenever Sally had an impulse to turn her steps in the direction of the office a voice deep in her mind seemed to whisper: “No sense in it, Sally. Stay away. He’s been mean and spiteful about it all these years. Don’t give in to him now by going.”

Besides, Tommy took up so much of her time. A growing boy was always a problem and Tommy seemed to have a special gift for getting into things because he was so active. And he went through his clothes, wore out his shoes almost faster than she could replace them.

Right now Tommy was playing in the yard. Sally’s eyes came to a focus upon him, crouching by a hole in the fence which kindly old Mrs. Wallingford had erected as a protection against the prying inquisitiveness of an eight-year-old determined to make life miserable for her.

A thrice-widowed neighbor of seventy without a spiteful hair in her head could put up with a boy who rollicked and yelled perhaps. But peephole spying was another matter.

Sally muttered: “Enough of that!” and started for the kitchen door. Just as she reached it the telephone rang.

Sally went quickly to the phone and lifted the receiver. The instant she pressed it to her ear she recognized her husband’s voice—or thought she did.

“Sally, come to the office!” came the voice, speaking in a hoarse whisper. “Hurry—or it will be too late! Hurry, Sally!”

Sally turned with a startled gasp, looked out through the kitchen window at the autumn leaves blowing crisp and dry across the lawn. As she looked the scattered leaves whirled into a flurry around Tommy, then lifted and went spinning over the fence and out of sight.

The dread in her heart gave way to a sudden, bleak despair. As she turned from the phone something within her withered, became as dead as the drifting leaves with their dark autumnal mottlings.

She did not even pause to call Tommy in from the yard. She rushed upstairs, then down again, gathering up her hat, gloves and purse, making sure she had enough change to pay for the taxi.

The ride to the office was a nightmare … Tall buildings swept past, façades of granite as gray as the leaden skies of midwinter, beehives of commerce where men and women brushed shoulders without touching hands.

Autumnal leaves blowing, and the gray buildings sweeping past. Despite Tommy, despite everything there was no shining vision to warm Sally from within. A cottage must be lived in to become a home and Sally had never really had a home.

One-night stand! It wasn’t an expression she’d have used by choice, but it came unbidden into her mind. If you live for nine years with a man who can’t relax and be human, who can’t be warm and loving you’ll begin eventually to feel you might as well live alone. Each day had been like a lonely sentinel outpost in a desert waste for Sally.

She thought about Tommy … Tommy wasn’t in the least like his father when he came racing home from school, hair tousled, books dangling from a strap. Tommy would raid the pantry with unthinking zest, invite other boys in to look at the Westerns on TV, and trade black eyes for marbles with a healthy pugnacity.

Up to a point Tommy was normal, was healthy.

But she had seen mirrored in Tommy’s pale blue eyes the same abnormal calmness that was always in his father’s, and the look of derisive withdrawal which made him seem always to be staring down at her from a height. And it filled her with terror to see that Tommy’s mood could change as abruptly and terrifyingly cold …

Tommy, her son. Tommy, no longer boisterous and eager, but sitting in a corner with his legs drawn up, a faraway look in his eyes. Tommy seeming to look right through her, into space. Tommy and Jim exchanging silent understanding glances. Tommy roaming through the cottage, staring at his toys with frowning disapproval. Tommy drawing back when she tried to touch him.

Tommy, Tommy, come back to me! How often she had cried out in her heart when that coldness came between them.

Tommy drawing strange figures on the floor with a piece of colored chalk, then erasing them quickly before she could see them, refusing to let her enter his secret child’s world.

Tommy picking up the cat and stroking its fur mechanically, while he stared out through the kitchen window at rusty blackbirds on the wing …

“This is the address you gave me, lady. Sixty-seven Vine Street,” the cab driver was saying.

Sally shivered, remembering her husband’s voice on the phone, remembering where she was … “Come to the office, Sally! Hurry, hurry—or it will be too late!”

Too late for what? Too late to recapture a happiness she had never possessed?

“This is it, lady!” the cab driver insisted. “Do you want me to wait?”

“No,” Sally said, fumbling for her change purse. She descended from the taxi, paid the driver and hurried across the pavement to the big office building with its mirroring frontage of plate glass and black onyx tiles.

The firm’s name was on the directory board in the lobby, white on black in beautifully embossed lettering. White for hope, and black for despair, mourning …

The elevator opened and closed and Sally was whisked up eight stories behind a man in a checkered suit.

“Eighth floor!” Sally whispered, in sudden alarm. The elevator jolted to an abrupt halt and the operator swung about to glare at her.

“You should have told me when you got on, Miss!” he complained.

“Sorry,” Sally muttered, stumbling out into the corridor. How horrible it must be to go to business every day, she thought wildly. To sit in an office, to thumb through papers, to bark orders, to be a machine.

Sally stood very still for an instant, startled, feeling her sanity threatened by the very absurdity of the thought. People who worked in offices could turn for escape to a cottage in the sunset’s glow, when they were set free by the moving hands of a clock. There could be a fierce joy at the thought of deliverance, at the prospect of going home at five o’clock.

But for Sally was the brightness, the deliverance withheld. The corridor was wide and deserted and the black tiles with their gold borders seemed to converge upon her, hemming her into a cool magnificence as structurally somber as the architectural embellishments of a costly mausoleum.

She found the office with her surface mind, working at cross-purposes with the confusion and swiftly mounting dread which made her footsteps falter, her mouth go dry.

Steady, Sally! Here’s the office, here’s the door. Turn the knob and get it over with …

Sally opened the door and stepped into a small, deserted reception room. Beyond the reception desk was a gate, and beyond the gate a large central office branched off into several smaller offices.

Sally paused only an instant. It seemed quite natural to her that a business office should be deserted so late in the afternoon.

She crossed the reception room to the gate, passed through it, utter desperation giving her courage.

Something within her whispered that she had only to walk across the central office, open the first door she came to to find her husband …

The first door combined privacy with easy accessibility. The instant she opened the door she knew that she had been right to trust her instincts. This was his office …

He was sitting at a desk by the window, a patch of sunset sky visible over his right shoulder. His elbows rested on the desk and his hands were tightly locked as if he had just stopped wringing them.

He was looking straight at her, his eyes wide and staring.

“Jim!” Sally breathed. “Jim, what’s wrong?”

He did not answer, did not move or attempt to greet her in any way. There was no color at all in his face. His lips were parted, his white teeth gleamed. And he was more stiffly controlled than usual—a control so intense that for once Sally felt more alarm than bitterness.

There was a rising terror in her now. And a slowly dawning horror. The sunlight streamed in, gleaming redly on his hair, his shoulders. He seemed to be the center of a flaming red ball …

He sent for you, Sally. Why doesn’t he get up and speak to you, if only to pour salt on the wounds you’ve borne for eight long years?

Poor Sally! You wanted a strong, protective, old-fashioned husband. What have you got instead?

Sally went up to the desk and looked steadily into eyes so calm and blank that they seemed like the eyes of a child lost in some dreamy wonderland barred forever to adult understanding.

For an instant her terror ebbed and she felt almost reassured. Then she made the mistake of bending more closely above him, brushing his right elbow with her sleeve.

That single light woman’s touch unsettled him. He started to fall, sideways and very fast. Topple a dead weight and it crashes with a swiftness no opposing force can counterbalance.

It did Sally no good to clutch frantically at his arm as he fell, to tug and jerk at the slackening folds of his suit. The heaviness of his descending bulk dragged him down and away from her, the awful inertia of lifeless flesh.

He thudded to the floor and rolled over on his back, seeming to shrink as Sally widened her eyes upon him. He lay in a grotesque sprawl at her feet, his jaw hanging open on the gaping black orifice of his mouth …

Sally might have screamed and gone right on screaming—if she had been a different kind of woman. On seeing her husband lying dead her impulse might have been to throw herself down beside him, give way to her grief in a wild fit of sobbing.

But where there was no grief there could be no sobbing …

One thing only she did before she left. She unloosed the collar of the unmoving form on the floor and looked for the small brown mole she did not really expect to find. The mole she knew to be on her husband’s shoulder, high up on the left side.

She had noticed things that made her doubt her sanity; she needed to see the little black mole to reassure her …

She had noticed the difference in the hairline, the strange slant of the eyebrows, the crinkly texture of the skin where it should have been smooth …

Something was wrong … horribly, weirdly wrong …

Even the hands of the sprawled form seemed larger and hairier than the hands of her husband. Nevertheless it was important to be sure …

The absence of the mole clinched it.

Sally crouched beside the body, carefully readjusting the collar. Then she got up and walked out of the office.

Some homecomings are joyful, others cruel. Sitting in the taxi, clenching and unclenching her hands, Sally had no plan that could be called a plan, no hope that was more than a dim flickering in a vast wasteland, bleak and unexplored.

But it was strange how one light burning brightly in a cottage window could make even a wasteland seem small, could shrink and diminish it until it became no more than a patch of darkness that anyone with courage might cross.

The light was in Tommy’s room and there was a whispering behind the door. Sally could hear the whispering as she tiptoed upstairs, could see the light streaming out into the hall.

She paused for an instant at the head of the stairs, listening. There were two voices in the room, and they were talking back and forth.

Sally tiptoed down the hall, stood with wildly beating heart just outside the door.

“She knows now, Tommy,” the deepest of the two voices said. “We are very close, your mother and I. She knows now that I sent her to the office to find my ‘stand in.’ Oh, it’s an amusing term, Tommy—an Earth term we’d hardly use on Mars. But it’s a term your mother would understand.”

A pause, then the voice went on, “You see, my son, it has taken me eight years to repair the ship. And in eight years a man can wither up and die by inches if he does not have a growing son to go adventuring with him in the end.”

“Adventuring, father?”

“You have read a good many Earth books, my son, written especially for boys. Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. What paltry books they are! But in them there is a little of the fire, a little of the glow of our world.”

“No, father. I started them but I threw them away for I did not like them.”

“As you and I must throw away all Earth things, my son. I tried to be kind to your mother, to be a good husband as husbands go on Earth. But how could I feel proud and strong and reckless by her side? How could I share her paltry joys and sorrows, chirp with delight as a sparrow might chirp hopping about in the grass? Can an eagle pretend to be a sparrow? Can the thunder muffle its voice when two white-crested clouds collide in the shining depths of the night sky?”

“You tried, father. You did your best.”

“Yes, my son, I did try. But if I had attempted to feign emotions I did not feel your mother would have seen through the pretense. She would then have turned from me completely. Without her I could not have had you, my son.”

“And now, father, what will we do?”

“Now the ship has been repaired and is waiting for us. Every day for eight years I went to the hill and worked on the ship. It was badly wrecked, my son, but now my patience has been rewarded, and every damaged astronavigation instrument has been replaced.”

“You never went to the office, father? You never went at all?”

“No, my son. My stand-in worked at the office in my place. I instilled in your mother’s mind an intense dislike and fear of the office to keep her from ever coming face to face with the stand-in. She might have noticed the difference. But I had to have a stand-in, as a safeguard. Your mother might have gone to the office despite the mental block.”

“She’s gone now, father. Why did you send for her?”

“To avoid what she would call a scene, my son. That I could not endure. I had the stand-in summon her on the office telephone, then I withdrew all vitality from it. She will find it quite lifeless. But it does not matter now. When she returns we will be gone.”

“Was constructing the stand-in difficult, father?”

“Not for me, my son. On Mars we have many androids, each constructed to perform a specific task. Some are ingenious beyond belief—or would seem so to Earthmen.”

There was a pause, then the weaker of the two voices said, “I will miss my mother. She tried to make me happy. She tried very hard.”

“You must be brave and strong, my son. We are eagles, you and I. Your mother is a sparrow, gentle and dun-colored. I shall always remember her with tenderness. You want to go with me, don’t you?”

“Yes, father. Oh, yes!”

“Then come, my son. We must hurry. Your mother will be returning any minute now.”

Sally stood motionless, listening to the voices like a spectator sitting before a television screen. A spectator can see as well as hear, and Sally could visualize her son’s pale, eager face so clearly there was no need for her to move forward into the room.

She could not move. And nothing on Earth could have wrenched a tortured cry from her. Grief and shock may paralyze the mind and will, but Sally’s will was not paralyzed.

It was as if the thread of her life had been cut, with only one light left burning. Tommy was that light. He would never change. He would go from her forever. But he would always be her son.

The door of Tommy’s room opened and Tommy and his father came out into the hall. Sally stepped back into shadows and watched them walk quickly down the hall to the stairs, their voices low, hushed. She heard them descend the stairs, their footsteps dwindle, die away into silence …

You’ll see a light, Sally, a great glow lighting up the sky. The ship must be very beautiful. For eight years he labored over it, restoring it with all the shining gifts of skill and feeling at his command. He was calm toward you, but not toward the ship, Sally—the ship which will take him back to Mars!

How is it on Mars, she wondered. My son, Tommy, will become a strong, proud adventurer daring the farthest planet of the farthest star?

You can’t stop a boy from adventuring. Surprise him at his books and you’ll see tropical seas in his eyes, a pearly nautilus, Hong Kong and Valparaiso resplendent in the dawn.

There is no strength quite like the strength of a mother, Sally. Endure it, be brave …

Sally was at the window when it came. A dazzling burst of radiance, starting from the horizon’s rim and spreading across the entire sky. It lit up the cottage and flickered over the lawn, turning rooftops to molten gold and gilding the long line of rolling hills which hemmed in the town.

Brighter it grew and brighter, gilding for a moment even Sally’s bowed head and her image mirrored on the pane. Then, abruptly, it was gone …

Mr. Caxton Draws a Martian Bird

Mr. Caxton was such an impatient, ill-tempered man it was surprising that the children cared to talk to him at all. It was even more surprising that the parents of Peter and Susan Ashley should have gone exploring in the trackless Martian desert, and left Mr. Caxton in charge.

Peter was ten, and Susan was eight, and even on Earth the Mr. Caxtons of this world make very poor companions for the young.

It was true, of course, that Mr. Caxton was skillful with skillets, and knew how to build and bank fires with great precision, and economy of effort. But surely some kindlier guardian could have been found for Peter and Susan, some guardian less harsh, self-centered, and downright mean.

In the rust-red desert camps were gruff, friendly, grizzled-bearded men who would have taken delight in dangling both children on their knees. In the camps were men who would have said: “Hello, Susan! Hello, Tommy! Isn’t it a grand day for hiking? What’s that? You saw a clawmark in the sand? Four-toed? Well now—suppose we go, and have a look.”

“But we really saw it, Mr. Caxton!” Peter insisted. “We’re not making it up. Honest we’re not.”

“Sit down, don’t annoy me!” Mr. Caxton said, throwing another log on the fire. “If you say another word I’ll take you across my knee, and drum some sober sense into you!”

Tommy winced, and recoiled in alarm. But Susan could run, hop or skip a rope, and still know when an adult was bluffing.

“You wouldn’t dare spank Peter,” she said.

“Oh, wouldn’t I?”

Mr. Caxton arose from his crouching position by the fire, and eyed Susan angrily. “You’re a very little girl to talk so big,” he sneered. “Let me tell you something. To me you’re a woman already—a woman in embryo. I can see you twenty years from now, nagging the life out of a man. If I sent you off to bed without your supper I’d be doing your future husband a favor.”

“Just try shutting Peter and me up in the dark again!” Susan warned. “Just try—and see what happens!”

Mr. Caxton bent, and picked up a thin reed switch. He flourished it threateningly.

“Go away,” he growled. “Get out of my sight. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Come on,” Peter urged, tugging at his sister’s sleeve. “If he hits me you’ll start crying.”

“I won’t, Peter. I’ll show him.”

“I’d rather take a whipping than see you cry. Do you want me to take a whipping?”

“No, Peter.”

“Then let’s go.”

Peter and Susan turned, and went racing across the hot red sand to the prefabricated metal shack which they shared with their parents when Martian archeology wasn’t waging relentless warfare on the domestic instincts of Dr. Kenneth Ashley, and his gifted, scholarly wife.

“Just wait until papa gets back!” Susan whispered, stopping to loosen her oxygen mask at the door of the shack. “Papa doesn’t know how mean Mr. Caxton gets when he’s been drinking.”

“He doesn’t have to drink to be mean,” Peter reminded her. “Next time we go exploring I’ll play dumb.”

Peter’s voice came out thin, and muffled through his oxygen mask. But there was a ring of angry defiance in it. “He doesn’t know how an explorer feels anyway. He’s awfully educated, but Mr. Walgreen says you can’t just pop knowledge into your mouth like a pill, and swallow it.”

Self-portrait of Peter. A boy with shining eyes, and curly dark hair who loves knowledge for its own sake. Knowledge and a lot of other things, eh, Peter? The wind ruffling the tumbled dunes, the bone-white summits of the buried Martian cities, and, just for good measure, the dawn with its banners of fire.

Why shouldn’t an eager, inquiring boy of ten see a few strange clawmarks in the sand? What right had Mr. Caxton or anyone else to disillusion and shake the faith of a budding explorer in the strange, the incredible?

Without mystery adventuring would quickly lose its zest, and science would just as quickly lose its Peters. Could science afford such a loss?

Susan appeared to think so. She almost pulled Peter into the shack, and forced him to sit down in the middle of the floor.

“You talk too much, Peter,” she said.

Buried somewhere in the myths and legends of childhood there is reputed to be a magical box which at one time contained, incredibly folded and shrunken, all of the animals that ever were.

Small on the outside, large within. The shack wasn’t magical, but it did seem to swallow up and shrink the children in much the same fashion. Little white ghosts they might have seemed to a not too observant eavesdropper, sitting side by side in the middle of the floor.

Above them arched a shining roof of crystal clear quartz, and they had only to raise their eyes to see the Martian sky, cold, cloudless and eerily remote.

“I don’t hate Mr. Caxton,” Peter said. “I just feel sorry for him.”

“Mr. Caxton thinks I’m hungry, but I’m not,” Susan said. “I don’t want any supper. He’ll be madder than ever when he finds out we’ve gone to sleep without giving him a chance to punish us.”

Susan fell silent, leaning her head against her brother’s shoulder.

On Mars the night does not creep treacherously over the desert amidst clusters of lengthening shadows. It sweeps down on pinions of pulsating blackness, with hardly a glimmer of twilight to herald its coming.

Susan was the first to drowse off. Peter watched her for a moment, inwardly congratulating himself on his superior reserves of strength.

It seemed tragic to him that his sister had been born a girl. She was terribly clever, of course, even at play. But she never woke up planning a full day of exploring, never wanted to lie awake in the darkness dreaming of campfires in the desert, and the echoing tramp of strange beasts going on and on in the blackness like a peal of thunder, now loud and terrifying, and now muffled, but never quite dying out.

She was content to play hopscotch with the other children, build doll houses out of the soft red mud that lined the canal beds, and get sticky smears of jam on her cheeks.

It was perhaps fortunate for Peter that his sister could not tune in on his thoughts. Before falling asleep he sometimes experienced moments of twilight meditation when his mind became crystal clear, its memory-conjured visions flooded with the nightmare brilliance of an actual dream.

Now, suddenly, he saw the strange clawmarks again, four-toed, and pointing in the direction of the camp. Why hadn’t Mr. Caxton believed him? He asked the question without realizing that sleep was already hovering over him, with a black curtain of oblivion to impose silence on his thoughts.

Whether Peter slept five minutes or five hours would not have in any way altered the depth and completeness of that sudden falling away of consciousness. It was therefore of no importance.

Only Peter’s terror on awakening was important. It was a terror so cruelly sharp, sudden and overwhelming that it brought him to his knees with a scream. No sooner was he on his knees than he began to shake, to clutch at his sister’s arm in a sort of boyish agony, as if the panic he felt was being made worse by her refusal to awake, and share it with him.

It was not a brave way to act at all. Despite his terrible fear of being alone he should have controlled himself, he should have tried to protect and spare his sister. He realized that almost instantly, with the coldness still coursing up his spine.

But he was afraid to keep silent lest the thing he saw should come out of the night toward him.

He could see it very clearly. It was framed in the doorway, and it was staring straight at him, its owlish face half in shadows. He could see its narrowly slitted eyes burning brightly, and the wicked gleam of its teeth as its feathered jaws opened and closed.

It was watching him and listening, and he knew that at any moment it might decide to come into the shack, and kill him. It hates me, he thought. Hates me, hates me.

Yes, Peter, it’s bad. When people you don’t like come to visit you you can lock the door, and hide. But you can’t hide from a shadow on the floor, the dreadful rustle and flutter of dark wings unfolding.

Peter could have refused to believe that the thing was actually standing in the doorway—a tall, fearful, blood-taloned thing as real as the pounding of his heart. He could have fled into a hidden corner of himself, shutting his eyes tight, and knotting up his fists until the clutch of its cold talons brought a horribly agonizing awakening.

But when Susan awoke, and saw it too every avenue of escape was blocked to him. Susan didn’t scream. Her breath came in a sharp gasp, but her self-control was extraordinary.

“Peter,” she whispered. “Turn on the lights. The light will scare it away.”

Peter’s heart leapt with sudden hope. But when he tried to move his knees came together, and his muscles tightened up.

“I’ll do it, Peter,” Susan said.

He heard her getting to her feet, and panic struck at him again. The light switch was close to the door, and for one awful moment Peter had a sickening vision of Susan being snatched away into the darkness forever, her eyes turned upon him in agonized reproach.

Peter half stumbled, half dragged himself to the light switch. He got ahead of Susan and pushed her back, becoming all at once the recognized leader of an indomitable band of desert-roaming men, scornful of ferocious beasts, and with little thought to spare for his own safety.

The light came on in a sudden, blinding flare.

“I won’t let it catch you, Susan!” Peter cried. “If it catches me run for help!”

With that, Peter leapt back and stared wildly.

The doorway was a square of inky blackness, and there was nothing to be seen beyond it. If lights could kill lights had killed—or convulsed the creature with such instant, overwhelming terror that it had vanished without a sound.

It had vanished so completely that it was remarkably easy for Peter to persuade himself that he had acted bravely from the instant of his awakening.

Lest censure bear too heavily upon him, it should be remembered that even a lion makes haste to hide itself in the impenetrable depths of the forest when alarmed by an unfamiliar scent, or a shadow not quite to its liking.

“Now Mr. Caxton will have to believe me, Susan,” Peter said. “Did you see its claws? Two in front and two in back.”

Susan said nothing. She stood staring into the darkness at Peter’s side, and although there was nothing to be seen there was a great deal to be heard.

Somewhere in the darkness Mr. Caxton was shouting. That did not surprise Susan. Mr. Caxton had no control at all over his anger. The instant he became annoyed he raised his voice, and when he became really furious his shouts could be deafening.

There is a coarseness of speech which strains the credulity of children. Their innocence is spared because adult anger is quite unlike the brief, quickly-aroused belligerency which results in blackened eyes, and bruised knuckles.

Listening, Peter and Susan both knew that Mr. Caxton’s anger was a thing peculiar to himself. It could only have been brought forth piping hot from the kindling of great, smouldering fires deep inside him.

He could be heard shouting and cursing in the darkness for a full minute before he came striding into the shack.

“You little devils!” he shouted. “Next time you scream like that you’ll wish you hadn’t. Oh, how you’ll wish you hadn’t! How can a man get any rest when he can’t hear himself think?”

“It wasn’t me,” Susan said. “It was Peter. If you saw what we saw you’d scream too, Mr. Caxton.”

“Now wait a minute,” Mr. Caxton said. “Stop right there. Before I listen to any of that you may as well know that screaming is a luxury you can’t afford.”

Susan refused to wait. “Peter saw what it was made the clawmarks,” she said, defiantly. “I saw it too.”

Mr. Caxton stood very still, looking at her. “Likely enough,” he said, with derisive malice. “The clawmarks couldn’t just stand alone. You have to work over a gnat to make it bring forth a mountain.”

“It’s true, Mr. Caxton,” Peter corroborated. “We both saw it. It was all covered with feathers.”

“One moment, boy!” Mr. Caxton rasped. “Exactly where was it standing when you saw it?”

“In the doorway,” Peter said.

“In the doorway. How interesting. There’s no animal life at all on Mars. But you saw a bird. How tall was it, boy?”

“Much taller than you are, Mr. Caxton!” Susan said, quickly.

Mr. Caxton bent, and gripped Peter’s arm. “I asked Peter,” he said, shaking him. “Speak up, boy. Is there something wrong with your tongue?”

“It was big, Mr. Caxton,” Tommy managed. “It had four toes. Two in front, and two in back.”

“And a long, curving bill, I suppose.”

“I don’t know, Mr. Caxton.”

“You’ve seen pictures of birds—Earth birds. Did you ever see a bird without a bill?”

“No, Mr. Caxton. But it was dark. It just stood in the door, and looked at me.”

In the human mind deliberate, calculated cruelty can wear many masks. Its range is infinite, its devious twistings and turnings often subtle beyond belief.

Mr. Caxton could have slapped Peter’s face, or so terrified him by shaking him that he would have thrown himself down, and given way to a wild, uncontrollable fit of sobbing.

But Mr. Caxton had a better, and far more sagacious idea. The boy fancies himself an explorer. Teach him a lesson he’ll never forget. Prove to him that his knowledge of the natural sciences would disgrace a four-year-old—no, an infant in swaddling clothes.

“All right, Peter,” Mr. Caxton said. “Suppose we take a look at the planet Mars. It’s the planet of your birth, remember. A boy with real intelligence should know a great deal about the planet of his birth, shouldn’t he?”

Peter gulped and stared, knowing that Mr. Caxton did not really expect an answer.

“Peter,” Mr. Caxton went on. “The first space rocket reached Mars in nineteen ninety-seven. This is the year twenty fifty-three. Fifty years is a long time, Peter. In all those years no man or boy has ever seen a Martian animal.

“Do you know why, Peter?” Mr. Caxton gave Peter’s arm a slight wrench. “I’ll tell you why. A man requires so much gaseous oxygen to support his life that he can’t walk twenty yards on Mars without an oxygen mask. He’d drop dead if he tried to walk a mile. You can build fires if you bank them carefully, but a man needs more oxygen than a fire.”

Mr. Caxton’s eyes narrowed in malicious triumph. “No animal the size of man or larger could exist on Mars without some kind of natural oxygenating apparatus built into its body.

“A bird? Peter, I’m going to be completely honest with you. A certain kind of bird might just possibly be able to survive on Mars, but it would have to get along on very little oxygen.”

With an effort Peter summoned the courage to interrupt Mr. Caxton with a quite unnecessary reminder. “It was a bird, Mr. Caxton. I told you it had feathers!”

“Yes indeed, Peter. It was a bird you saw. You say you saw a huge bird standing in the doorway. Do you realize what a perfect pit you have just dug for yourself? Do you know what a Martian bird would look like? Have you ever tried to imagine how a real scientist feels when he knows that he can’t be wrong? Here, I’ll show you!”

With his gaze fixed triumphantly on Tommy Mr. Caxton removed a small writing pad from his weather jacket, and proceeded to draw upon it. Mr. Caxton used an ordinary lead pencil, and that his skill as an artist was of no mean order could be seen almost instantly.

With a few deft strokes Mr. Caxton traced out on the smooth paper a shape of incredible lightness and grace, a shape so fragile, slender and spiraling that only a miracle of the glassblower’s art could have translated it into three-dimensional reality.

A veritable wonder bird it seemed, a creature of light and fire with a bill three times the length of its body.

With skill in the arts there goes usually a certain gentleness, a generosity of spirit which shrinks from inflicting pain on others. But so closely was Mr. Caxton’s skill linked to the cruelty in his nature that he always saw to it that it aroused in the beholder bitterness and despair.

Mr. Caxton did not ask Peter how he liked the drawing. Instead, he thrust it at him, twisting him about and forcing him to stare at it.

“A Martian bird would look like that,” he said, with cold mockery in his stare. “Did the bird you claim to have seen look like that? Did it? Answer me!”

“No!” Susan cried.

“You keep out of it!” Mr. Caxton warned. “I’m waiting, Peter.”

“No, it didn’t,” Peter said. “Pop wouldn’t want me to say it did. He told me an explorer has to observe closely everything he sees.”

“I thought so—you little liar!” Mr. Caxton’s features hardened and his voice rang out accusingly. “You made the whole thing up.”

It is doubtful if Mr. Caxton would have struck a child in spiteful rage. The grotesque melodrama of self-righteous deceit that went on inside of him would have been thrown out of joint by such a flagrant violation of adult mores. Besides, the danger of retribution from Peter’s parents would have given him very serious and solemn pause.

What Mr. Caxton actually did was a far less grievous offense. He simply took the drawing and molded it carefully to Peter’s face. Then, with a quick, abrupt shove, he sent Peter reeling backward.

Peter let out a yell, lost his balance, and went down on the floor on his hands and knees.

It was not a too grievous offense, but if Mr. Caxton had delivered a stinging blow to Peter’s cheek with the flat of his hand he would have condemned himself less absolutely.

Some people can do a malicious thing once, but it doesn’t mean that they are completely evil. Even the sternest type of old English schoolmaster had redeeming qualities, and a knuckle rapping with a ruler has been forgiven by irate parents time and time again.

But by blindfolding Peter and sending him reeling Mr. Caxton had placed himself beyond the pale. There is nothing quite as shocking and unforgivable as a blow to the pride of a sensitive boy with no malice in his nature, and to Peter’s father, just coming in through the door, the affront seemed outrageous.

Peter’s mother, too, turned white with rage. She stood for an instant swaying in the doorway, unnerved by the mind-numbing realization that she had returned just in time to rescue her children from the clutches of a monster. Then she made straight for Mr. Caxton.

She was a frail little woman, and it seemed strange that Mr. Caxton should have been more terrified by her unbridled fury than by the more immediate threat of Dr. Ashley himself, who was now towering directly over him.

Dr. Ashley’s arm was drawn back, and his eyes were darting venom. But even when Dr. Ashley’s fist crashed against Mr. Caxton’s jaw with shattering violence Peter’s discredited guardian took the blow unblinkingly, his eyes still on Mrs. Ashley’s white and accusing face.

For a moment Mr. Caxton blacked out completely. He lay sprawled out on the floor at Dr. Ashley’s feet, and the little ribbon of crimson which dribbled from his mouth might have been a vehicle for cruel satire if Mr. Caxton had been less firmly convinced that there was no animal life on Mars.

For it looked suspiciously like a worm, a blood-hued crawler of the Martian night that in its own tiny way symbolized the many branching tunnels of corruption and decay that could exist inside a man.

It was to Dr. Ashley’s credit that he did not give Mr. Caxton a second glance when that very disheveled person got to his feet, and stared in sullen, despairing confusion at Peter picking himself up in sobbing defiance.

Dr. Ashley very deliberately allowed his anger to cool, his quick brown eyes flashing to Peter in radiant sympathy.

“It won’t happen again, son,” he promised.

“If it does, he’ll wish he never was born,” Mrs. Ashley agreed, staring at Mr. Caxton with a hate so cold and merciless it brought all of his terror back.

Perhaps buried somewhere deep in Mr. Caxton’s mind was a childhood fear of punishment at the hands of a scolding woman. It could have explained why he trembled and turned pale, and went stumbling out of the shack without a backward glance.

It was of no great importance, and it would have been silly for Peter’s parents to waste any sympathy on him.

They didn’t.

Dr. Ashley went up to his son, and gripped him by the shoulder with all of the gentleness of a supremely wise parent with a bedrock of granite-like strength to draw upon.

“Never let malicious envy disturb you, son,” he said. “If anyone hates you enough to push you around you can rest assured there’s a secret envy gnawing away at him.”

Seeing the puzzlement in Peter’s eyes, Dr. Ashley smiled reassuringly. “Mr. Caxton has a complicated approach to everything. He’d like to see nature as you do, son—simply and clearly with a boy’s shining vision. He never could, and that shriveled him up tragically.”

“I really did see a bird, Pop. It stood in the doorway and—”

“We’ve neglected you shamefully, Tommy,” Mrs. Ashley said. “We’ve gone poking around in buried cities without realizing that the Martians never had it so good. A living son and daughter are worth all of the archeological treasures on Earth. Why shouldn’t they be worth even more on Mars?”

“Your mother’s right,” Dr. Ashley said. “It’s a brave, new world, and there are so many shining roads ahead we’d be crazy not to go jogging along them together.”

Mr. Caxton stood for a moment just outside the shack listening to the children’s excited voices rejoicing in a reunion he was powerless to spoil.

He stood swaying and cursing, telling himself that he had been quite mad to let the Ashleys make him look like a fool.

Peter had lied about the bird, hadn’t he? Deliberately made the whole thing up for the sole purpose of ruining his reputation as a kindly and tolerant man whose only fault was a certain severity of temper which he could not always control.

For a moment Mr. Caxton fingered his bruised jaw, and remembered with a shudder the look of quite unreasoning fury in Mrs. Ashley’s eyes. Then he straightened his shoulders, shook his fist at the empty air, and started back toward his own shack.

Mr. Caxton did not get far.

At first all he saw was a weaving blur in the darkness a few yards ahead of him, and all he felt was a chill wind blowing up his spine. He thought for a moment that the blur was casting an actual shadow, and that terrifyingly in the darkness there had appeared for the barest instant the glitter and gleam of claws.

But that, of course, was nonsense. Having quickly persuaded himself that he was in no danger Mr. Caxton confidently increased his stride, and did not realize that he was in the presence of Peter’s bird until it was breathing at his side.

Peter’s Martian bird! The instant Mr. Caxton felt its breath fanning his cheeks on both sides of his oxygen mask he leapt back with a wild, despairing cry.

In the darkness the creature appeared much bigger than it actually was, and it was easy to see how two startled and imaginative children might have magnified its outlines, and misjudged its bulk.

Mr. Caxton was deceived very much as Peter had been.

Actually it was an incredibly slender and graceful bird, a creature of air and fire with a razor-sharp bill three times the length of its long, tapering body.

Unfortunately Mr. Caxton could not see the bill straighten out in the darkness, and he had no way of knowing that a bill that could curve down to pick up lichenous food from the sparse Martian desert could straighten out in an instant to bayonet a man.

“If you saw what Peter saw you’d scream too, Mr. Caxton,” Susan had said.

Mr. Caxton saw what Peter saw, but when the bill pierced his chest and went plunging on through him he made no sound at all.

He did scream as he fell backwards—shrilly and horribly for an instant.

But there was no one to hear.

The Cottage

To Will Durkin it seemed to be the realization of a long-cherished dream—this return from town over a rutted dirt road, equipped and ready for a cruel duel with another man’s offspring. He raised his left hand as he drove, staring at his bony knuckles, and then slashing at the empty air with a whiplash ferocity of purpose.

Perhaps there had been a hard core of cruelty in Durkin at birth. Perhaps he had knotted up his fists, and cried out in resentment on first seeing the sunlight, eager to hurt and punish.

It was difficult to say, difficult to be sure. But certainly the stony soil which had nourished his childhood had helped to make him what he was—a gaunt, restless-eyed man so consumed by animosity he could find no pleasure in merriment of any kind.

In town he had stalked with fierce impatience from the general store to the post office, and then back down Cedar Street to his car, clutching his purchase with the greediness of a carrion crow eager to take flight. Now, beneath the leaden sky, in his asthmatic wreck of an automobile, he pictured himself as too shrewd and quick-witted to allow a woman’s simpering stupidity to weaken his attachment to the land.

A dust storm could stir a man to anger, and rob him of a night’s sleep. It could demolish his chicken cots, and embitter him in other ways. But it could also protect him by keeping him hard.

So certain was he of that hardness that the gathering clouds, the dust flurries, and the whistling wind gave him no concern. They seemed to be setting a seal on his purpose, and he was sure that if trouble descended from the sky he would know how to cope with it.

Unfortunately Durkin had no way of knowing that the desert was soon to blossom in ways that were strange. He heard the dull, occasional rumbling, and saw the sky light up far to the east. But his thoughts were on other things. If he had been told that the desert was being used by the Government as an atomic proving ground he would have dismissed the matter with a shrug.

Malice narrows curiosity. In the back seat of the creaking car a small, white cottage caught and held the leaden sky glow, its tiny windows gleaming like uncut jewels.

A man of wide and kindly sympathies would have taken delight in the cottage, for though it was a cheap toy it had been built with great respect for the critical eye of childhood. It had eight rooms, a porch trellis, and a little golden weathercock on its roof.

Durkin smiled spitefully, remembering with grim pleasure the child training article in the popular science magazine which had sent him into town in search of an inexpensive doll house.

The article had contained a great deal of meat, and its impact upon his mind had been remarkably direct. Give a kid a doll house with a mother and father doll inside, and you could find out exactly what he thought of his parents. He’d move the dolls around, and work out his private grudges on them. He’d pretend the dolls were his real parents, and act out what the article had called the family drama.

Yeah, why not? A man had a right to know what his own kids thought of him, hadn’t he? Especially if they were stepkids, and owed everything to him. Apart from the fact that the article had been against punishing children the way he’d been punished as a kid—and what better way was there?—its ideas were good.

The article had contained a lot of fancy phrases like “harmful emotional repression,” and “healthful release of guilt feelings.” But giving a grudge a fancy name didn’t change it one bit. If the kids he’d fed and clothed hated him his hand would come down heavy on them. Yes, by heaven. Each whack would ring out like a pistol shot.

It was high noon when Durkin came in sight of the farmhouse, and saw the children playing in the yard, and his wife standing in the kitchen door. Her stringy black hair annoyed him far out of proportion to its importance, and he was further incensed by the realization that she was staring up the road as if she had another complaint to make, and could hardly wait for him to come within earshot.

He drove into the yard muttering unpleasantly to himself. Abruptly his stepson Robert—a tall, freckled-faced youngster of nine—stopped playing. Seven-year-old Emily, thoughtful-eyed and less assertive, remained seated, but Durkin could see that there was a defiant something struggling in her head.

The ritual of mistrust they’d worked out against him never varied. As he descended from the car he became aware of a hostile silence hemming him in, making him feel like a stranger. Even their expressions betrayed them. The instant fear came into Robert’s eyes Emily too became fearful, clutching the doll she was holding more tightly to her breast.

Flushed and resentful, Durkin stood waiting for his wife to advance toward him across the yard. She had been beautiful once, but she now only reminded him of a nag set out to pasture after years of usefulness about the farm. She was as handy about the farm as she was about a stove, but that didn’t mean he had to be grateful to her.

He’d taken her in and married her, hadn’t he? A woman of forty with two kids, a complaining woman who was always trying to meddle in his affairs.

“You’re back early, Will!” Helen Durkin said.

“Yeah,” he grunted, eyeing her bitterly.

“Did you buy the fertilizer, and the barbed wire?”

He shook his head, his lips writhing back from his teeth in cruel derision.

“I bought something better,” he said. His voice was harsh, edged with mockery. “A present for the kids.”

Durkin reached into the car as he spoke, and hauled out the doll house. He set it down on the stony soil directly in front of him, and folded his arms, his eyes darting toward his stepson in surly challenge.

“Come here, Robbie!” he called out. “Look what I’ve got for you!”

Robert scrambled to his feet with a startled gasp, and Emily turned to look at her mother in bewilderment, Durkin glanced triumphantly at his wife, stepped back, and waited for the children to approach.

Robert came forward slowly, stark incredulity in his stare. His sister followed at a less cautious pace, her fear swallowed up by the miracle that had taken place before her very eyes.

Robert spoke first. “Golly, it’s a little house.”

“A doll house!” Emily elaborated, falling to her knees, and staring in through the diamond-bright windows at a sight that made her catch her breath.

In a room on the ground floor four dolls sat at a circular table. Before each was a knife and fork, a tiny plate and a double serving of wax vegetables. The husband doll wore a stiff, ill-fitting store suit, the wife a checkered gingham dress, and the two children blue denim overalls.

The parents were wooden dolls, but Durkin had been forced to purchase the children separately, and insert them in the house. The children were made of some newfangled plastic material which Durkin intensely disliked. But very lifelike dolls they were, and just the right size to lend wings to the illusion of a happy family about to break bread together.

“That’s me!” Emily cried excitedly.

She raised a window, reached inside, and lifted “herself” out. The doll had dark hair and brown eyes, and Emily was an ash blond. But childhood is not a time for carping, and it has been well established that a completely unspoiled imagination can be sent soaring by a fancied resemblance in the twinkling of an eye.

“That’s me, isn’t it, Mommy?” Emily insisted. “Isn’t it?”

She displayed the doll proudly to her mother, her eyes shining with unshakable conviction.

“Yes, dear—of course.” Helen Durkin glanced sharply at her husband as she spoke. The look in his eyes frightened her. There was satisfaction in his stare, but it was a cold, derisive kind of satisfaction with no warmth or sympathy radiating out from it.

He was watching Emily as he might have watched a hummingbird hovering over a cannibal plant, one of those horrible flytrap things that grew in tropical jungles. What chance would the hummingbird have against the sudden, cruel closing of the plant’s spiked petals, its animal-like ferocity of purpose?

An overpowering surge of terror swept over Durkin’s wife, tightening the muscles of her throat. Will, don’t—she wanted to scream. Don’t punish the children because you hate me. Or because you hate yourself. Don’t, Will, please—

Robert failed to notice the trembling of his mother’s hands, failed even to observe that his stepfather had not budged an inch from his attitude of sharp-eyed observation.

For a moment the adult world was blotted out for Robert—blotted out completely. He knelt and stared through the cottage window as his sister had done, resting his hand on the arching trellis.

It was not a doll house to Robert. He took far too much pride in his budding masculinity to admit for an instant that he could be interested in a doll house. No—it was a cottage, small, white and very beautiful. He pictured himself as having a wife and children of his own and coming home every night to just such a cottage.

“You look tired,” his wife would say. “You’d better rest a bit—then we’ll have dinner.” He could picture himself going into the bathroom and turning on the hot water. Later he’d open the windows wide to the night air. He’d hear crickets chirping as the children clustered about him.

But so complex and subtle are childhood identifications that he could also think of himself as still a boy, living with his sister in a cottage just as small, white and beautiful, but set adrift on a pirate-perilous sea remote from his stepfather’s mockery.

With a swift, defiant gesture Robert reached in through the window, and grasped the crude doll replica of himself. He lifted it out, jarring the parent dolls slightly.

“Excuse me, Mom,” he said.

To the replica of his stepfather he offered no apology.

Durkin’s lips whitened, and for the barest instant a defeated look touched his gaunt face. From thought to attitude he had the whip hand over his stepchildren. Yet even when his power could not be questioned he found himself a shunned and forgotten man.

Fury turned the living flesh and bone of his face into a stone mask with features so sharp that his wife recoiled as if feeling the cruel rasp and bite of them against her cheeks.

Cursing softly, Durkin swung about and went striding toward the kitchen door without a backward glance.

All through dinner he was silent, completely ignoring his wife, and raising his eyes only to stare out the kitchen window at the bare yellow earth he could at least bend to his will. Even when the children excused themselves, and ran out into the yard again he remained sullenly uncommunicative.

In an attempt to make conversation Helen Durkin said: “Will, it came over the radio right after you left. They’re making some more of those atomic weapon tests. Remember the last time—how the explosion shook the house?”

“So that’s where the flash came from!” Durkin muttered. “I saw it when I stopped at the gas station to get my battery checked. I figured it was just heat lightning.”

“Robbie saw it too,” Robert’s mother said. “It means a lot to a boy to know he’s living in an age like this. In some ways Robbie is a man already, Will. A boy born a hundred years ago had to remain a child every waking hour. But not Robbie. Robbie was born into a different kind of world.”

Her eyes flashed with stubborn pride. “Robbie has real strength inside of him, Will. He’ll make a mark for himself in the world. He’ll grow up knowing what atomic energy means. He won’t age and dry up before his time. You ought to be proud of him, Will.”

Abruptly Durkin pushed back his chair and stood up, his eyes grown sharp again from watching the children playing in the yard. He had avoided looking at his wife, but now he permitted his gaze to linger for an instant on her pinched and sallow features, in a scrutiny so mocking it made her almost physically ill.

Your brats hate me, his eyes mocked. One of these days I’ll catch them off guard and give them a lesson in discipline they won’t forget in a hurry.

She knew what he was waiting for. He was hoping they’d stop playing just long enough to cast a look toward the kitchen door filled with unmistakable hate. He was hoping to emerge beneath the darkening sky, and see Emily turn away her head, remembering the loving father she had lost, and the harsh, unbending man who had come to take his place.

She knew that he was waiting only for that. He was the kind of man who had to have an excuse to justify his every act of cruelty. Some oddity in his makeup made self-justification as necessary to him as breathing.

With a chill foreboding she watched him turn, and go striding out into the yard.

The children had been kneeling on opposite sides of the doll house, but they got up the instant they saw their stepfather approaching. Robert looked guilty, and his sister’s face mirrored his guilt.

“You ate your lunch mighty fast,” Durkin said. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing,” Robert said.

“What kind of answer is that?” Durkin demanded, his face turning ugly.

“We were just playing house,” Emily said, quickly.

“Then why did you get up so fast when you saw me?” Durkin asked. “Is there something in that house you don’t want me to see?”

Robert shook his head, his eyes on the ground.

“Speak up! I asked you a question.”

“We were just pretending,” Robert said.

For an instant the man and the two children stood with the doll house between them. They were each aware that they had started a game that must be played out now to the bitter end, no matter how frightening it became.

“We’ll soon know!” Durkin said.

Durkin bent swiftly, and without glancing at the children, picked up the house, and raised it until the ground floor windows were on a level with his eyes.

He stared in.

Children do not self-consciously engage in gruesome pranks—even when they hate. Emotional impulses which later in life are filtered through reason and become social attitudes remain in children appallingly direct.

Children are thus exposed to adult censure for acts which they would never dream of performing in a frame of reference removed from the playground and tied in with their socially-consolidated attitudes of respect toward home, school, and parents.

Children chalk up sidewalks, ring doorbells and throw stones at windows and are almost instantly sorry. But Durkin knew nothing of that. He only saw himself sitting on a red-hot stove, his long legs drawn up grasshopper fashion on both sides of his lank body.

What was even more shocking, he saw himself as a fiend incarnate. The children had done an astonishingly ingenious job of making a devil out of him by painting him in the darkest colors imaginable.

In fact, they had painted him black. The ill-fitting store suit had been removed, and with the aid of Emily’s watercolor set, and Robert’s clay modeling set he had been made to resemble a demon being roasted over a spit.

Utterly fiendish was his charcoal-dark aspect of face and limb. Horns sprouted from his temples, and a long, forked tail, ash-gray in hue, coiled down over the stove like some evil brand snatched from the burning.

There were tiny gleaming coals in the stove fashioned of red isinglass. The stove had gone with the house, but by the matchless artistry of childhood something new had been added, and as Durkin stared all of the color drained from his face.

He was sitting directly over the coals, exposed to the cruelly searing blast in every part of his anatomy. For an instant the illusion of searing heat was so real that he responded psychosomatically. His nostrils dilated with the odor of burning flesh, and his nerve-roots shrieked as if irradiated by intolerable pain.

Then reality came sweeping back. Instead of an imaginary projection of himself he saw only a ridiculous wooden doll sprawled akimbo on a toy stove.

Shaking with rage, Durkin set the house down, swung about, and gripped his stepson savagely by the wrist.

“Just pretending, were you?” he muttered. “Just waiting for me to come out here, and pat you on the back.”

Robert tried to break free. Sick with fear, he tugged and twisted, but Durkin had stronger fingers than a demon, and a deeper understanding of how a frightened boy could make a fool of a man by using his smallness as a cloak.

“You too, Emily,” Durkin said. “Come here. I want to have a long, fatherly talk with you.”

Emily turned and cast a frantic glance of appeal toward the kitchen door. When her mother did not appear she started backing away from her stepfather across the yard.

Without releasing her brother, Durkin circled around in back of her. “Not so fast, brat!” he warned. “You and Robbie play house in a mighty interesting way. Suppose you tell me more about it.”

“Let me go!” Robert pleaded. “We just took one of the dolls and made a Halloween coal man out of him.”

“A coal man, eh?” Durkin sneered. “That’s sure odd. You must have forgotten it’s not Halloween?”

“It doesn’t have to be Halloween!” Robert protested.

“Doesn’t it? I suppose not. You could turn on your own father just as well on Thanksgiving day. That’s how grateful you are.”

Emily spoke up defiantly then. “You’re not Robbie’s father,” she said. “You never could be.”

“I tried my best to be a good father to Robbie,” Durkin said, lowering his voice in mock humility. “You can’t claim I didn’t try. But there comes a time when discipline’s needed. No punishment’s severe enough for a boy who’d like to see his own father roasted like a chestnut in a red-hot fire.”

A sudden, terrible anger flared in his eyes. “No punishment’s bad enough. But a strong birch switch laid on heavy may do some good.”

He stared at Emily, his neck arched in chicken-hawk fashion. “I can’t punish you the way I’m going to punish Robbie,” he said. “You’re too young—just a baby. But when a baby does wrong you’ve got to be stern. That’s kindness.”

Durkin bent abruptly, gripped his stepdaughter by the elbow, and lifted her to her feet. “A few hours without your supper in the dark—”

“Mommy!” Emily shrieked. “Mommy, Mommy!”

The kitchen door flew open, and Helen Durkin came running out of the house, her eyes wide with fright. She went up to her husband, and started tugging at his wrists.

“Let them go!” she cried. “Robbie hasn’t done anything. I was watching every minute.”

“He hasn’t, eh?” Durkin glared at her. “He’d like to see me hanging from a rafter. Give him a piece of rope, and he’d hang me in effigy.”

“He wouldn’t. Why do you say a thing like that? You must be out of your mind, Will Durkin!”

“He would, I tell you. He’s already done something just as bad. He’s got to learn respect, and I’m going to give him the thrashing of his life.”

“Will Durkin, you let them go. Do you hear? You’ve no right—”

Surprisingly Durkin complied. He released both children, and turned his full fury on his wife.

“I’m going upstairs and get a birch switch,” he said. “You’d better see that Robbie stays right here in the yard. I’ll hold you responsible. If he isn’t here when I come back you can pack your things and get out. No right to punish my own son. We’ll see—”

His eyes narrowed in relentless hate, Durkin swung about and went striding toward the house. Despite his rage he experienced a fierce, secret gratification in knowing he’d had the foresight to cut and trim a stout birch switch well in advance.

Perhaps it was intended by something in the mysterious, hidden texture of nature itself that Will Durkin should reach the house before the first blast came. Perhaps fury kindled and unleashed by a puny man in a moment of cataclysmic upheaval had an energy pattern of its own, capable of blending with that greater violence, and carrying its victim to disaster, precisely as a tiny squirming creature of the sea might be lifted up and carried on the back of a terrified tortoise.

Be that as it may, Durkin was well inside the house, crossing the kitchen to the living room when light flashed all about him, and a chill wind brushed the nape of his neck. His lips tightened, but for an instant he continued on, as if refusing to believe that a mere rumbling and quaking could prevent him from climbing a narrow flight of stairs, and returning to the yard with a cruel instrument of retribution in his clasp.

Then, abruptly, panic overcame him. Shock after shock shook the house, jarring up through him, threatening to pitch him off his feet. But even as he swung about in wild terror he could not quite relinquish what he had set out to do. One part of his mind remained filled with choking rage, and his hands were busy at his waist, unbuckling his cowhide belt and ripping it free. At least he’d give his stepson a hiding—

Suddenly through the kitchen door he caught a brief glimpse of the children, standing in the yard. They were clinging to their mother, but they were as yet untouched by the violence which was raging all about them.

Durkin’s jaw fell open. The violence increased with appalling suddenness, breaking every window in the house, filling the kitchen with blowing dust.

With a deafening roar the house vanished, carrying Durkin with it. The children cried out in bewilderment and fright, and pressed closer to their mother.

In every upheaval, no matter how violent, there may well be pockets of erratically channeled calm, regions of security which remain untouched by the turbulence surrounding them. Helen Durkin clung resolutely to an assurance which nothing could shake, and with her conviction that the children would not be harmed went a warm gratefulness that they had turned to her for comfort and protection.

She stood staring straight ahead, refusing to be dismayed, hearing only a dreadful humming sound which gradually died away.

Where the house had stood there spread only a smooth expanse of yellow sand.

The whirling was like nothing Durkin had ever known before. It constricted his chest, blurred his vision, and drove the blood in torrents from his heart. There was no stopping it, and as it grew steadily more intolerable he tore at his collar, swayed, and went down on his hands and knees.

Around and around the cottage whirled, now rising and tilting, and then descending with a terrible, jerky abruptness. Twice he tried to rise, but fell back helpless, powerless to save himself from the spineless inertia that sent him spinning to and fro like some ill-made, rain-sodden scarecrow dragged in disgust from a cornfield, and tossed into a butter-churning machine.

In one respect only was Durkin fortunate. His torment, though great and almost unendurable, was not absolutely continuous. There were moments when the cottage seemed to hover motionless in midair, or to drift lazily in a single direction with a buoyancy as light as thistledown.

Gradually these moments became more frequent, calming Durkin like a soothing palm pressed with compassion to his brow. More and more frequent until the merciless buffetings and swift, sickening descents ceased completely, and a light that was bright, clear and steady streamed in through the kitchen window, and somewhere off in the distance a snowy-crested bird burst into song.

There were flowers outside the window, scarlet and aquamarine faintly flecked with gold. Tall-stemmed and wide-petalled they were, almost screening the view, and if at that moment Durkin had been on his feet staring out he might well have failed to see the huge, joyously romping lad.

But Durkin was still lying prone, and the lad’s curiosity had not as yet been acutely aroused.

The lad came swinging boisterously down a country lane, his lips puffed out in a childish pout, his chubby hands thrust deeply into the green and vermillion trousers of his play suit.

He did not love his foster father, and he had run away in a sudden burst of independence and was temporarily free to roam. Oh, it was good to be free to laugh and romp in the sunlight, and to build mud castles out of the gleaming red walls of Snerkle nests.

He came swinging around a curve in the lane and stopped abruptly, staring straight before him in utter disbelief.

For a moment he stood as if turned to stone, his eyes saucer-wide in the slanting sun glow. Then he was running forward with a cry of boyish eagerness.

The little cottage stood in a glimmer of sunlight and shadow cast by weaving boughs. All about it stretched a smooth blue lawn, starred with long-stemmed windflowers as tall as the house itself.

He clapped his hands in pure delight. True, he had a village of his own to play with, an entire toy village bright with weaving communication beams. But all the dolls were child dolls and the village no longer pleased him.

He pouted and became angry again when he thought about it. His foster father did not want him to play with grown-up dolls. His foster father was an old meanie, and he didn’t want him to have any fun.

He was hovering directly over the house now, straddling it. He reached down with a chuckle of delight, and poked at the little red chimney with a stubby forefinger, beaming in simple pleasure as four tiny bricks tumbled out on the roof.

Then he bent over and stared with a puzzled frown at the smashed windows.

A moment later he was squatting before the house peeking in. Slowly as he stared all of the good-natured anticipation went out of his face.

Exaltation of a different kind came into his features, a fiendish kind of exaltation common enough in childhood, but often disturbing to adults.

It was shockingly disturbing to Durkin. Roused suddenly to consciousness in the middle of the kitchen floor he saw the great malicious child face staring in at him, and struggled frantically to rise, his eyes wild with terror.

There were other things Durkin did not understand, about energy, about time, about other worlds of life and purpose lying parallel to ours in undreamed of dimensions of space.

He did know that a single farmhouse in the path of a tornado could be uprooted and carried for miles through the sky. He knew that a fence could be leveled, a tree torn down and the rest of the countryside remain unscathed, even to the last sun-gilded haystack.

It was easy to understand how such things might be. But nothing had prepared Durkin’s mind for the disturbing and frightening parallel which a scientist might have drawn from a hurricane’s erratic course. He had no way of knowing that matter on the fringe of an atomic blast could be agitated abnormally, and pass into another dimension piecemeal.

He had no way of knowing that the desert at the edge of an atomic proving ground might decide suddenly to blossom like some multidimensional rose.

He had no way of knowing that size is a relative thing, varying with every matter dissolving energy shift in the physical universe, and that a house could be huge in one dimension, his own, and tiny in another, and might even indeed take on the aspect of a house built solely to delight the eye of childhood.

He had no way of knowing, for he had not heard the great eternal voices discussing it. The reddening of the rose meant nothing to him, the stars in their wheeling courses, the speculations of men like gods.

All time, all space is relative, Einstein had said. There is only one equation for energy, matter, light, fire, air—

And who knows how closely other dimensions may parallel ours?

Durkin had no way of knowing until the great dimpled hand reached in through the window and picked him up. Then, and only then, in one blinding flash of intuition, he guessed the truth.

Too late. The blade of grass was like a tendril rope, and it went so swiftly about Durkin’s throat he had no time to leap back. As he screamed and struggled a huge wet palm smothered his mouth, rumpled his hair, and squeezed the breath from his lungs. His struggles were of no avail.

Emotional impulses which later in life are filtered through reason and harden into social attitudes remain in children appallingly fluid and direct. A child identifies itself with its toys and it is very easy for a child to see a living, breathing adult human being in a doll which is in reality quite unlike the object of its love—or hate.

Kneeling beside the house, a child Durkin knew nothing about thought it all out for the barest instant, its body oddly bent. Then it leaned forward, and hung its hated foster father very carefully to a ceiling rafter in the precise middle of the house.

Ever so slowly the child arose, and the snowy-crested bird burst into song again, somewhere off in the distance. But Durkin knew nothing of that.

Two Way Destiny

She was kneeling when I saw her, her face half in shadows, her girlishly slender figure mirrored by the cool-running stream at her feet.

You’d think that on a planet like Dracona a man would be safe from shock. Between the fire mountains and the sea, and the snowy-crested birds that never stop singing you’d think that nothing could surprise him.

Remember Blake’s City and Garden, his New Jerusalem with its shining Eden just over the hill? Well—Dracona is just as tremendous as that, even though it’s all a garden wilderness with the city part left out.

Surely on Dracona there was enough nerve-tingling beauty everywhere to enchant a lad with my capacity for enjoyment. Why couldn’t I have accepted that beauty as a near approach to paradise, content in the knowledge that I was my own master under the stars? Why did I have to step into a forest clearing and let a slender pale girl strip away all of my defenses, leaving me as naked as a newborn babe to the great, roaring winds of unreason?

If I had shouted the question then and there the forest might have murmured in reply: “It’s because you haven’t seen a woman for so long. It’s because loneliness is a destructive blight, and you’re a young romantic fool.”

It might have shouted that to my mind, to the tumultuously pounding blood at my temples. But it wouldn’t have been a complete answer.

I knew she wasn’t from Earth the instant she raised her eyes, and looked at me. Mocking eyes she had, of a deep, lustrous violet, and her pale hair clustered in little, golden ringlets about her brow, giving her the tantalizingly defiant aspect of a woman with enough of the eternal tease in her to be secretly amused by her own beauty.

She was collecting zoological specimens in the pollen-scented Draconian dusk. Not me, especially. Just iridescent spider bats, darter birds with vermilion beaks, and flying lizards which measured forty-eight inches straight across their wing-tips.

To be strictly accurate—there was only one lizard. It was thrashing wildly about in the metallic net at her back, the glow from the stationary lure-light giving it the aspect of some fiery monster which she had enticed from its cave by her beauty, and trapped at the risk of her life.

As I returned her stare she blinked in amazement, then laughed outright, the gulfs between us dissolving in a sudden, warming intimacy that was like nothing I’d ever known before.

To keep the scales from dipping too cruelly to her side I threw in everything I had that could be weighed and measured. Mother Earth still gives her sons a good start physically. Surely I was big and strong enough to please her, with a grip no man could break.

Furthermore, I knew how to look after myself. I’d been born and bred to the thunder of primitive rocket jets, and I could walk any jungle like a native, bargain and hold my own. I was a man who would fight tooth-and-nail to justify what I was and always would be at heart—an Earthborn trader.

We of Earth are traders still! We haven’t forgotten how to rejoice when waterfalls crash on rocks white with foam, and the mists of morning rise clear and cold to the wheeling stars. I was prepared to tell her what that meant in terms of human dignity, human worth.

I was prepared to remind her that the real target of a trader is the unknown. Everything else he does, or fails to do, is a prelude to the kind of wayfaring that brought the restless human breed to Tragor.

Tragor! The scales started dipping her way, and I couldn’t stop them. She was a woman of Tragor, with the star-bright insignia of her heritage gleaming on the folded-back flaps of her weather jacket.

I thought of how human civilization had shifted from Earth to the stars, and what it meant to stand at the hub of the Galaxy in Tragor City. I thought of Tragor City as a man will who is eager not to remain a child in the eyes of one who has never known the meaning of childhood.

I thought of the thousand square miles of research laboratories, the museums and the libraries, the sports arenas swimming in a golden radiance and the sky-mirroring splendors of the biogenetic fulfillment centers. I thought of the schools where teaching had become an exact science completely integrated with human needs.

I remembered that no woman of Tragor could ever become tender and yielding without first dissecting a man. I told myself she’d see through me the instant I spoke to her. With her understanding of the conflict between the sexes the primitiveness in me would stand out like a gall blister on a sturdy oak.

Right at that moment I didn’t feel so sturdy. But I knew I’d have to speak first. I couldn’t just stand there staring her out of countenance.

“I’m sorry if I startled you,” I said. “I didn’t mean to stare, but I couldn’t very well help myself. I don’t quite know how to say it. You’re not just an attractive woman. I wouldn’t have stared if you were just one woman in ten—or one woman in twenty. I stared because I think you’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

She flushed scarlet. “I thought you’d never stop staring,” she said.

“You’re angry,” I said. “Don’t be. Many men must have told you how beautiful you are. I just happen to mean it.”

“Please,” she whispered. “Are Terrans always that abrupt?”

“We have a reputation for candor,” I said. “If I hadn’t told you why you left me speechless you’d have been angry for the wrong reason. You may take that as a compliment.”

“I’m not sure I want to.”

“You must know how lovely you are,” I protested. “Why should you resent being told the simple truth?”

“Perhaps this is one of my bad-tempered days,” she said, her eyes searching my face. “You don’t look like the kind of man who would deliberately try to embarrass anyone. No man is wise enough to be gallant by design, and make the pretense seem casual and completely honest. You’re right, of course. I had no reason to be angry.”

She came toward me, straightening her hair, her eyes crinkling with undisguised amusement.

“I still don’t know who you are.”

“The name’s Hargon,” I said. “Taro Hargon. I came here to trade with the natives. I get on fairly well with them.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Natives? I haven’t seen any.”

“You will,” I promised her.

You can accept almost any reality when it’s thrust upon you, even the wonder of a woman of Tragor facing you in a wilderness Eden with a warmth so unmistakable it makes your senses reel.

Her name was Kallatah, and she had come to Dracona alone in a faster-than-light cruiser to collect zoological specimens for the natural history museum at Tagga. Just for the record, Dracona’s the fourth planet of a second-magnitude sun in the Constellation Cygnus, and it’s as far from Tragor City as it is from Earth. Tagga is a suburb of Tragor City—a white and beautiful metropolis in its own right.

“It’s my first important assignment,” she told me. “Naturally I’ve got to make good at it. You see, there’s a new director of biological research on the Guiding Council, and from all reports he’s the kind of man who is only impressed by results. When I have my first interview with him he’ll forget I’m a woman. I’ll have to shine as a scientist who doesn’t make mistakes.”

“You’ve made one already,” I told her.

I walked past her, stared into the net. The captive lizard was twisted into a repulsive-looking knot, its verdigris-colored tail thrashing furiously back and forth. Draconian flying lizards are monstrous brutes. They’re four feet in length and have a metallic green sheen to them, and when they have reason to hate their jaws can close with a ferocity unparalleled in nature.

Visualize a Tyrant King dinosaur with ribbed, skeletal wings, reduced to the dimensions of a kangaroo, and you’ll have a fairly accurate mental picture of one.

All they do is eat. Birds and small mammals, fruits, berries and nuts. In twenty-four hours a Draconian flying lizard can eat three times its weight in food. But a man is safe if he keeps his distance, for they are lazy by nature and don’t attack without provocation.

“They’re taboo animals,” I told her. “The natives call them ‘Servants of the Mountain.’ If your purpose was to infuriate the natives you couldn’t have made a better start.”

She returned my stare with a strange mixture of alarm and defiance. “I had no way of knowing that!” she protested. “This planet is down on the charts as uninhabited. A virgin wilderness. If there are intelligent primitives here—”

Her face grew suddenly strained. She stared about her as if seeking an answer for something intangible that was pressing in upon her thoughts and undermining her confidence in herself.

I was feeling it too. A kind of cold unpleasantness with underpinnings of loneliness and dread. When you’re thousands of light years from Earth you’ve got to hold tight to your anchorage in the past, your primal birthright of friendship and trust.

There were a thousand ties linking me to Earth, and that distant jungle world was just a stopping off point to me in a web of heartwarming memories that sustained me night and day. No matter how lonely I became I could always tell myself that I’d soon be going back to the people and places I’d known all my life. I was far away, sure. But there would always be friends awaiting my return.

Freeze that memory chain, shatter the brittle links, and the human mind has no refuge left anywhere in time or space. I had only to substitute Tragor for Earth to know how Kallatah must have felt. But before I could move to her side all of the links snapped, and we were caught up in a jungle new and terrible and strange, with all points of reference stripped away.

I’d experienced that horror before and I knew exactly what to expect.

It began with a dull flickering, a faint shifting of light and shadow at the edge of the clearing. Leaves swirled up from the forest floor, and a solid wall of vegetation began to sway, to tremble and twist about. As Kallatah cried out in alarm a tangled mass of bright, toadstool-like growths split up into dozens of spinning fragments, the air about them crackling and bursting into flame.

With a sudden, roaring sound a tree collapsed, dislodging a screaming shrewlike beast that scampered into the clearing with its tail between its legs. There was a moment of awful silence while the jungle built up tensions past all sanity. The clearing became a trap brimming with a malevolence as unnerving as the ticking of some hidden detonating device.

A black blur of panic rose to encompass me as a concentration of hatred almost palpable plucked agonizingly at my mind. I was following the motion of the foliage with sick horror when out of the jungle came another beast, web-footed, walking upright.

In utter silence it stumbled to and fro, its froglike body glistening with swamp water, its stalked eyes luminous with fright. It advanced and retreated, bent double, and went into a kind of frantic waltz.

What happened then was as unexpected as it was terrifying. The light grew dazzling again, as if a cloak of fire had descended on the clearing. With a harsh screeching the frog leapt high into the air and was slammed back against a tree by a force that ploughed a furrow in the ground clear across the clearing.

I watched it sink to the ground with a broken back, shaken both by the violence which had been done to it, and an unnerving glimpse of Kallatah’s white face staring at me from the shadows. So terrible was the wrath unleashed that it had taken on a blind purposelessness. I knew that everything in the clearing was marked for destruction unless—

I crossed to where Kallatah was standing, and gripped her by the shoulders.

I spoke urgently, almost harshly. “The natives are watching us!” I warned. “When they saw you capture that lizard their anger got out of hand. Do you understand? They’re trying to kill us with their minds.”

“What can it mean?”

She swayed against me and I caught the faint fragrance of her hair. She was trembling so I wondered if she had really heard me, or if the fear in her voice was no more than an echo of the dread she must have felt on seeing the frog-creature go hurtling through the air.

I started shaking her, forcing her to look at me. “They’re poltergeists,” I told her. “They can set fires and move objects from a distance. The power resides in an area of the brain which civilization seems to blunt. It’s an E.S.P. faculty which was part of man’s original survival equipment. Our cavemen ancestors could reach out with their minds in that way too.”

She still seemed not to hear me. In desperation I raised my voice, continuing to shake her. “They get to our minds first—in a horrible, primitive sort of way. They strip our minds bare so that we’ll feel isolated—lost. Primitive man could kill off his enemies in the same way—by paralyzing them with a mental projection of the jungle as a kind of trap. Paralyzing them with fright, then closing the jaws of the trap.”

“I don’t believe it!” she almost sobbed.

“You’ll be convinced if you don’t do as I say!” I warned.

She drew back from me, as if firmly determined not to be convinced.

“You find out these things by studying primitives in different stages of development,” I went on urgently. “Don’t forget—I’m an Earthborn trader. You of Tragor may scoff, but I’ve studied dozens of primitive humanoid groups. I know that they can be won over if you handle them just right.”

“What’s just right?”

“Play along with me,” I urged. “Follow my cue.”

“Play along—”

“An old Earth expression. We’ve got to play up to them, put on an act.”

Before she could protest or cry out I swept her into my arms. I ran my hands through her hair, raised her chin, and kissed her—very firmly and determinedly for an instant.

“This is part of the act,” I whispered.

Being a woman of Tragor, she could hardly have believed that my impulsiveness had been prompted solely by a desperate human need for companionship in a moment of shared danger. She must have known it went deeper than that, and she would have been right. A giddiness swept me like a gusty hurricane wind on a tidal estuary bright with a thousand pulsating tropical blooms.

I released her suddenly, and she leapt back, her eyes startled and accusing. “You’re either a madman or a sick child!” she whispered.

“We’ll talk about it later,” I said. “Now is not the time.”

“I feel sorry for you.”

“Later.”

The clearing quieted down, and there was silence for a moment. Then out of the forest they came, walking three abreast. Geipgos, the old tribal chieftain, and his son Slagoon, and the warriors with their rippling muscles glinting in the pollen-scented dusk, and their spears held high in a cautious withholding of wrath.

You couldn’t call it a greeting. They were still shaken with anger, still ready to kill.

I went forward to meet them, with Kallatah in the crook of my arm. I’d talked and bargained and haggled with them a dozen times, but now I was seeing them for the first time through her eyes.

I have a curious gift of empathy. I could share her awe and admiration, and the stunned incredulity which must have made her doubt the evidence of her eyes.

The natives of Dracona are physically comely and well-proportioned, and they carry themselves with such an air of easy grace that you have to look twice to realize that they are not entirely like ourselves.

They have three eyes, but the extra one is so smoothly lidded that when it remains shut you scarcely notice it. Their three extra, slightly attenuated arms are not obtrusive, for they carry them pressed closely to their sides. And the green sheen of their skins looks more bronze than green in the forest gloom, and is hence far less startling than might be supposed.

They had such keen, discerning eyes, and mobile features that when they smiled in friendly greeting it was hard to think of them as primitives at all.

They were not smiling now.

I tightened my hold on Kallatah’s wrist, and looked Geipgos straight in the eye—the big forehead eye which opened slowly to glow with fierce reproach and scorn.

“Mukith Mani-Bumini!” I said. That translated out as: “I would know the reason for your displeasure, old friend!”

It was an excellent beginning and it brought an instant, completely understandable reply. The fire mountain had been complaining all day. Now the reason was clear to all. One like myself, only a female, had taken captive a Servant of the Mountain. Her punishment and death must follow as a matter of course.

Geipgos’ three eyes watched me, as if seeking in the frailties we had in common some excuse for my defense of such a female monster.

“Tun Huhji Swan,” I said. “This woman is more dear to me than life itself.”

I waited for his astonishment to subside, then went on quickly. “She is my mate. She is the adored one of my heart. The Servant of the Mountain flew to join us when he saw how deliriously happy we were. He wished to give us his blessing.”

It was a good beginning only if I could convince Geipgos that the lizard had flown into the net of its own free will, and had its own peculiar reason for not wanting to leave.

“The Servant of the Mountain is free to go,” I said. “He waits only to rejoice in the complete consummation of our happiness.”

“He waits to rejoice?” said Geipgos.

“In the glorious fulfillment of our happiness, yes.”

It was the wisest thing I could have said, for primitives everywhere are natural-born feast makers. Rejoicing in the happiness of the newlywed is second nature to them.

I could see that Geipgos was impressed. He raised his arm, and gestured to the warriors. Still scowling, but without hesitation, they strode past us, grouped themselves about the net and started prodding the lizard with their spears. Gently, firmly, and with great deference.

Suddenly the startled creature gave a shrill scream, swung about, and began untangling itself. The warriors leapt back in awe, lowered their spears, and waited to see what the Servant of the Mountain would do next.

It went right on screaming.

It was still screaming when it left the net like a bat out of a well. Straight across the clearing it soared and into the trees, missing Geipgos by a scant twelve inches.

What it did was perfectly natural under the circumstances, but its effect on Geipgos was tantamount to the lightning conversion of a miracle enacted for his benefit alone. He swung toward me, utter self-castigation in his eyes.

The Servant of the Mountain had been wiser than Geipgos. It had stayed until prodded, indicating a desire to stay. Amends must be made for the doubting of a friend. The female, my mate, must be the guest of Geipgos.

Kallatah stared at me with a wild surmise. “What did you tell him?” she asked. “What did he say to you?”

“We’re to go to their village,” I told her. “We’re to go as honored guests.”

At a command from Geipgos a litter sixteen feet square was set down before us, and we got into it. Four tall warriors grouped themselves with prideful eagerness about the conveyance, and lifted it to their shoulders, Geipgos and his son fell back with gestures of deep respect, and a procession formed behind us, and we were borne forward across the clearing like the idols of some primitive fertility cult whose wrath could shrivel crops and cause a blight to descend upon the land.

Amidst shouts of jubilation and an incredible bowing and scraping we were borne swiftly along a jungle trail between towering walls of vegetation. And then out on a sloping mountainside which overlooked a valley swimming in a deep, golden haze.

The trail descended the mountain in a corkscrew curve, with many evil-looking twists and turns. To be carried on a litter down a steep trail is always hazardous and I would have preferred to remain silent. But when I saw how alarmed Kallatah looked I thought it best to keep right on talking.

Across the valley loomed the largest volcano on Dracona and as I gestured toward it I did my best to sound cheerful.

“That mountain has our friends worried,” I said. “It’s been rumbling off and on for weeks. You’ve got to remember that to a primitive a fire mountain is just about the most terrifying object in nature. Why do you think those lizards are taboo animals?”

I laid my hand on her arm. “An accident of nature, nothing more. The lizards live just inside the crater, high up where the heat can’t harm them. Naturally they’ve become identified with the volcano. To Geipgos and his warriors the ugly-looking beasts are Servants of the Mountain who can stay its wrath. Capture them, abuse them, and the wrath of the mountain will be unleashed in all its fury. The pattern is a primitive one, but completely logical from their point of view.”

Kallatah looked at me steadily for a moment. “It almost became a pattern of death for us,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “But don’t forget it’s an ugly pattern for them too. A pattern of never-ceasing terror, of semi-starvation.”

One of the warriors thrust his face close to us to ask if we were all right. I nodded, and he fell back with a gratified grin to resume his position in the procession.

“It’s tragic how one little taboo can hold a race back,” I went on. “You’ve seen how keenly intelligent they are. If that taboo hadn’t plagued them for hundreds of years they’d be truly civilized by now.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Kallatah said. “What do you mean by a pattern of starvation.”

“Those lizards eat the natives out of house and home,” I told her. “Literally—and it’s horrible. When we come to the village you’ll see what emaciated skeletons the women and children are. The lizards are so sacred they can’t be killed off without angering the mountain.”

It was then that Kallatah surprised me. She gave a low whistle.

“You mean that tribal law has decreed that?”

“Precisely. They breed fast and eat voraciously. You can’t have agriculture and the storage of fruits and grains—any kind of stable handicraft culture even—with vicious tyrants like that on every patch of cultivated land. By rough estimate those beasts consume millions of tons of food a year. Even the small animal life is vanishing.”

“And they don’t dare kill one,” Kallatah said. “It sounds insane.”

“All primitive fear taboos are insane,” I told her. “They’re symptoms of the stark lunacy which possesses the human mind before it gets hold of the tools it needs to grasp the real nature of the physical world. Even when it gets such tools,” I qualified, “a society can be psychotic in a more complex way. All societies are probably psychotic in one way or the other, but that’s another story entirely.”

“But the adult males seem well fed,” Kallatah said, her eyes on the trail ahead. “How could starved children grow up into such robust-looking adults?”

“Deprivation has left its marks,” I told her. “You’ve got to remember that only the strongest survive where the infant mortality skyrockets the way it does here. And those that do reach manhood have bad teeth, poor digestion—all kinds of psychosomatic ills. What you are seeing here is the warrior caste strutting its might. A warrior caste will always find a way to eat.”

She didn’t speak again until we were at the base of the mountain, and the village was coming swiftly toward us through the haze.

“You still haven’t told me how you managed to turn aside their wrath,” she complained. “Just what did you say to them? Why are they bringing us here? Did you expect me to understand the gibberish you used?”

Dared I be completely honest? I decided it would be tempting fate to tell her exactly what I had said to Geipgos. She’d find out soon enough. Meanwhile, I needed time to plan my strategy and come up with something workable that wouldn’t make her hate me too much.

The sudden appearance of the children saved the moment for me, sparing me the necessity of further evasion. They were playing on the plain directly in front of the village, racing to and fro with the eager abandonment of all children everywhere.

They used their five arms to good advantage, tossing mud cakes at one another, blinking and grimacing with a demoniac expressiveness, pretending to be dead from famine one instant, and then, in the twinkling of an eye, coming exuberantly to life again.

For an instant Kallatah’s face radiated only maternal solicitude, a gentle sweetness untouched by rancor. Then, all at once, she seemed to realize how emaciated they were, how completely different from ordinary children. Her head came up, and her eyes blazed with indignation.

The blaze grew hotter as the lizards added fuel to it. The revolting creatures were everywhere—on slanting mud banks lush with berry-laden vegetation, on fields that sloped away to mist-filled hollows, even within easy pouncing distance of the children.

They ignored us as we were borne past, their carrion-repulsive heads bobbing to and fro. They were devouring everything edible within reach of their forepaws, swaying back and forth and cramming the food into their mouths with a voracity which was sickening to watch.

Miraculously the children ignored them, and went right on playing.

The procession moved on in silence, straight toward a picture of human misery so tragic and pitiful that no man of good will could have contemplated it without a shudder.

The village consisted of twenty-five or thirty huts, each with its central supporting pole, and spreading straw roof. The women sat about listless and sullen in doorways, apparently not caring at all how unattractive they looked, or what a disillusioning impression their complete lack of amorous allure must have made on the returning, better-nourished warriors.

But there is something about the imminent prospect of a nuptial ceremony that infuses joy into even the most dispirited, and the instant they saw us they leapt up with one accord and came flocking around us. Old and young, tall and short, comely and ugly.

The warriors carried us to the central hut and set the litter down with prideful flourishes of their long arms and broad, straight shoulders. Instantly shouts of jubilation echoed through the village. There were no brass bands, but the brass band spirit was tremendously in evidence.

A child of ten came up, bearing garlands, and a girl with skeleton ribs, and vermilion-painted cheekbones presented Kallatah with a beautiful shell bracelet mottled yellow and black, slipping it on her wrist before she could recoil in protest.

She was still protesting when we were ushered into the hut, Geipgos grinning and bowing and his son standing straight and still and with a smirk of anticipatory amorousness in the midst of the women.

“Geega Drun Fra Hul,” Geipgos said. That translated out as: “We will leave you now. Later we will rejoice together in the great joy which has overtaken you. Ah, that I could be as young as you are on such a night as this.”

The din outside continued for a moment and then gradually subsided.

We looked at each other.

Night was already descending over the clearing. It falls fast on Dracona—a blanket of impenetrable darkness settling down. Just by craning our necks we could look out into the clearing and see the last glimmer of dusk departing. A star appeared in the sky as if by magic, but we just sat there exchanging meaningful glances, Kallatah’s face shadowed and curiously withdrawn.

Suddenly she spoke. “You didn’t fool me for a minute.”

“Fool you?” I said slowly. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Oh, you understand, all right. You’re very clever—or think you are.”

“I wasn’t trying to be clever,” I told her. “It looked pretty bad for us. They would have killed us both if I hadn’t talked them out of it.”

“You could have told me!” she flung at me, her eyes abruptly accusing. “Why did you have to make a secret of it?”

“A secret of what?”

“You didn’t think I’d guess straight off? You didn’t give me credit for knowing even that much about the psychology of primitives?”

“You’re talking in riddles,” I protested. “You’re taking too much for granted.”

“Am I? The things you take for granted are beyond belief. I know exactly how your mind worked. You told yourself they were angry enough to kill impulsively. You had to give them the strongest possible reason for not wanting to kill us. Isn’t that so?”

“Well—”

“There’s a very old saying that has a universal application,” she said, a stinging contempt in her voice. “All the world loves a lover. I thought of it instantly myself.”

“You did? If I had known—”

“Keep quiet and let me finish. You told them that I was your woman. You probably added that the whole ridiculous insanity was recent enough to be celebrated right here in their own village. Naturally that did it. Whisper the words ‘nuptial ceremony’ to a primitive and you’ve transferred to him an inward glow that makes him your friend forever.

“If he’s old he remembers what it meant when it happened to him. If he’s young there’s the rapture of anticipation. Besides, primitives like display and drama, human giggling and embarrassment just as much as you do. You of Earth still throw rice, you know. We have passed beyond such foolishness, but there are times—”

She looked at me and giggled. It was the cruelest thing she could have done because, despite the giggle, there was a cold mockery in her stare that castigated my Earthborn heritage and made me feel ridiculous.

It was then that she really threw the book at me. “Instead of discussing the whole matter as an anthropological problem that could only have been solved by analyzing it in a calmly scientific and detached way you acted as if you thought me capable of making an embarrassing situation out of it.”

She stood up abruptly, removing the binding circlet from her hair, and shaking her head until the freed tresses descended in a tumbled red-gold mass to her shoulders.

“Prudishness is both barbaric and childish,” she said. “It has nothing to do with modesty and reserve, which are admirable when a man and a woman do not know one another well enough to feel at ease in an atmosphere of mutual respect and admiration.”

There was a heavy silence for an instant. Then very calmly and deliberately she took off her weather jacket, folded it, and laid it on the floor at her feet.

“It will do for a pillow,” she said. “I hate sleeping without a support for my head.”

I stared automatically at her bare shoulders, the way I might have stared if a blinding vision of paradise had appeared to me between sleeping and waking and vanished in a flash.

“What makes all this so amusing is the way it parallels a good many of the farcical situations in the ancient folk writings of Terra,” she said. “I’ve made a comparative study of them, and they really are precious.”

The precise set of her waistline seemed to annoy her, and she changed it perceptibly, loosening the binding straps until I caught the barest glimmer of white between them. She stared at me with patronizing pity, as if my startlement was tantamount to a further step downward into the murk of a prudishness so childish that it branded me as a barbarian without a single redeeming trait.

She stared through and beyond me, her eyes stabbing the shadows, her voice derisive in its composure, “For some reason a man has to pretend that a woman is his wife. There’s a wealthy relative to impress, or a primitive conveyance breaks down, and a thunderstorm compels the pair to take refuge in a wayside dwelling.

“There is only one sleeping compartment available and what do you suppose the man does? The sane scientific approach would be to behave like an intelligent human being. When a man and a woman are alone together excessive prudishness is ridiculous. Why with such a charming companion available should he not relax as I am doing—be completely natural and human and at his ease? Why should he not sit down and discuss art and philosophy, music and the dance the whole night through?

“But does he—in the ancient folk writings? No. The silly fool gets up, takes a blanket and creeps out into the night. He shivers in the cold for no reason at all. Owls hoot at him, but he still persists in making himself ridiculous until the dawn comes up.”

I looked at her for a long moment in silence. It has never been difficult for me to take a hint. I knew, of course, that women have a remarkable capacity for burying their real feelings beneath a dozen or more carefully arranged masks for the sole purpose of keeping a man guessing. But I decided not to even attempt to peel off the masks. It would have been too dangerously time-consuming.

Fortunately I was wearing heavy enough spaceleather to protect me from the cold. I wouldn’t need a blanket, and there were no owls on Dracona to hoot at me.

“I’m afraid I’m still too much of a primitive to find our ancient folk writings amusing,” I told her.

Without another word, ignoring her abrupt, startled gasp, I swung about and went striding out of the hut into the cool night.

I slowed my stride the instant I found myself alone under the stars. So far I’d gained a respite. But I knew that what remained to be done could backfire and destroy me. She’d stepped into a situation more complicated than any we could have planned together. Nature had set the stage for it before her arrival, and the performance was about to begin. If the first act went wrong the music might well become a dirge, and the final curtain descend on a funeral landscape as bleak as a fire-ravaged tinder box.

A half mile from the village there was a hill where I could get a clear view of the volcano, and the cloud that hung poised above it night and day, its peculiar configuration giving it the aspect of a gigantic black moth flailing the air with soot-encrusted wings. For centuries that cloud had hung there, and would probably remain until the volcano burnt itself out.

I skirted the shadows until I was clear of the village and then I walked with my shoulders squared until I reached the hill. On Dracona a man must walk boldly if he is to walk at all.

It was cold on the hill—chillingly bleak and depressing. But I knew that my spaceleather would keep me warm enough. Thinking of Kallatah’s violet eyes and the incredible glints of gold in her hair I threw myself down and lay stretched out at full length in the velvety darkness.

My eyes were on the cloud when the strange, startling play of colors began. First a flash of red on the underside of the cloud, and then a flash of dazzling violet piercing the cloud. Red, violet, and then red again—each color lingering for perhaps ten seconds.

I took out my instruments then, and made a careful check. My equipment consisted of a tiny electromagnetic linear strain seismograph which was sensitive to a tremor as faint as one ten-billionth of an inch, and a vertical recorder which gave me a picture in two dimensions of the surface tension at the edge of the crater ten thousand times enlarged.

I watched the cloud and studied the instruments, waiting until I was completely sure. Then I arose, brushed the dirt from my knees, returned the instruments to their cases, and started back down the hill.

When I reached the village there was no stir of movement anywhere. I did not trade on my luck by pausing to explore the shadows. I went straight to Geipgos’ hut, pushed the boughs aside, and crept inside on my hands and knees.

Geipgos was sleeping on a couch of matted vines with his arms interlocked on his chest, the green sheen of his skin, and the prominence of his cheekbones giving him an eerily mummified aspect.

I knelt at his side, got out the little reflector and strapped it to my forehead. I had to pause an instant to control the trembling of my hands.

The light came on in a sudden, blinding glare. I was hardly aware that I had switched it on until I found myself staring directly into Geipgos’ startled eyes.

To get anywhere with hypnosis you’ve got to start fast. I looked Geipgos straight in the eye, passing my hand swiftly back and forth before his face, giving him no chance to realize that he was no longer asleep. The abrupt, almost intolerable glare was my greatest immediate asset.

“Yon Honi Erun,” I whispered. “The Servants of the Mountain are very evil.”

Geipgos blinked furiously, and his eyes widened in stark, incredulous terror.

I went on quickly: “You have always known them to be wicked—monstrously wicked and hateful. How repulsive they are in appearance alone, with their long scaly bodies so like the bodies of the shadow monsters which you feared would tear you piecemeal when as a child you disobeyed your parents.

“Do you not remember how you ran screaming from your father’s wrath and hid in the dark, wishing that you might be a man grown, mighty in your contempt and defiance? You have always known the Servants of the Mountain to be hateful. But in your great fear you dared not say to yourself: ‘They have brought me nothing but disaster!’ ”

Geipgos groaned and his eyes rolled.

“You dared not say,” I went on relentlessly, “what you knew in your heart to be true. You dared not say: ‘The Servants of the Mountain are false servants. They have brought my people nothing but disaster! When a man is hungry must he starve? Must the fruits of his labor, the harvest that he has sown not only for himself alone, but for the adored ones of his heart be snatched from him?’ ”

Geipgos’ eyes took on a strange glaze and his lips began to tremble.

“Soon the sky will be red,” I told him. “Soon the ground will shake. Soon the wrath of the mountain will be terrible against its false servants.”

Geipgos tried to rise, but I gripped his arm and compelled him to keep his eyes riveted on the reflector. “They are not true servants, for they anger the mountain. The mountain would drive them forth, but without your help how can the mountain free itself? The mountain has no legs. It cannot walk about and seek out its false servants when they descend on the village.”

For the first time in Geipgos’ life a deeply buried part of his mind was stirring tumultuously. I could tell by the way he gnashed his teeth, and swung his five arms about that he was raging inwardly.

You cannot hypnotize a man against his will. You can not force him to do something that will outrage his moral sense. But what I wanted Geipgos to do had the sanction of nature and common sense, and the sanction as well of the wild, unruly part of himself that has shaped his destiny from childhood. I was playing both ends off against the middle—against a ridiculous straw man of a hated taboo.

“When you have done what you must do the mountain will cease to be angry,” I told him. “It will rejoice with you.”

Then I told him what had to be done. I implanted the command with as much majesty as I could summon, dimming the reflector with my palm so that he could see me clearly.

“The mountain will rejoice with you,” I repeated. “The sky will cease to be red. The ground will cease to tremble.”

I left him then. I left him and hugged the shadows, moving stealthily from hut to hut. Into thirty huts I crept and roused the sleeping warriors with the same hypnotic dazzlement. And to each I whispered the same words, and imposed upon them the same urgent post-hypnotic command.

It is always unwise to take pride in a difficult task accomplished with ease until the last obstacle has been overcome, the last hurdle surmounted.

I almost did—until I walked through the high-arching entrance of the thirty-first hut, and found myself confronting a warrior wide awake and on his feet.

“I have been awaiting your coming,” Geipgos’ son said.

Our Earth heritage is rich in legends. The great poets, the myth-makers, have all paid homage to the shining strength, the courage and daring which sets a king’s son apart from ordinary mortals.

And the king’s son came in his wrath and smote them. Terrible was he in battle, shod in fire and fury, rallying the vanquished with his might.

I had never believed it. But I was startled and must have shown it, for into Slagoon’s eyes came a look of mocking triumph.

“Gru Huhu Frum,” he said. “I followed you when you left the village. I watched you making magic on the hill.”

“It was not magic, son of Geipgos,” I said. “I was talking to the mountain. Would you doubt the word of a guest?”

“I would doubt the word of a guest who does not speak the truth.”

There was no need for further speech between us.

I measured him with my eyes, the length and breadth and thickness of him. He had kept himself in fine physical trim, despite the demon of hunger which must have dogged his footsteps night and day. A lean panther is more dangerous than a well-fed one; a man with gaunt cheeks and protruding ribs a treacherous adversary if his muscles have retained their resiliency, and the will to wrestle and slay is strong in him.

He had five hands to my two. He was armed and I was weaponless and his weapon was a cruel one, a curving blade with a bone handle, ground to a deadly sharpness.

When you’re girding for a life-and-death struggle it’s best to whittle your adversary down to size. I told myself that I was a civilized man with a resolution he could never hope to match. He would fight like a savage, granted. But I was sure that two hands guided by a trained intelligence could grip and hold, twist and bend twice as well as five hands animated by a blind urge to kill.

I squared my shoulders and started walking straight toward him. I was encouraged by the way he returned my stare, as if the look of confidence in my eyes had planted a sudden, disturbing doubt in his mind. It was enough to assure me that if I kept my head and closed in relentlessly my chances would be good.

I gave him no opportunity to strike at me with his mind. I advanced to within six feet of him, and maneuvered myself into a crouching position with a grimace so scornful that his eyes remained riveted on my face.

I came up out of the crouch like a coiled spring unwinding. With shattering violence I hurled myself against him, bone against bone, solid cartilage against hard gristle. He let out a yell, and went careening backwards like a feather in the path of a hurricane.

Subconsciously I must have expected him to crack his skull against the baked mud wall of the hut, and flatten out at my feet. Otherwise why was my next move so long delayed? He must have gotten at my mind a little, for I stood like a man bemused while he hit the wall, twisted about, and came swinging back toward me, his eyes filmed with pain and shock.

The lunge he made was so accurately gauged that the bone handle of the knife grazed my cheek. He was trading on his reflexes, the sure instinct of a primitive strong in battle, confident of his own strength. I leapt back, and sent my right fist crashing into his stomach. The blow staggered him, but not enough. With a deliberation unbelievable in one so hurt he slashed at me twice.

Just in time I ducked out of range, bent low and came up in a weaving crouch. I started hitting him, raining blows on his face and chest. I thought I heard his jaw crack, but as I whirled back to get a good look at him he laughed like an insane monkey, and transferred the knife to another hand.

He lunged again and I ducked again, and it went on in the same nightmare fashion until the knife was gleaming at the tip of an attenuated arm that followed my movements like a zigzagging lightning bolt.

He transferred the knife eight times, his laughter an insane echo as he weaved about. Desperately I dove for him and tried to knock the weapon away, but each time he was too quick for me.

His eyes burned with defiance and derision. But I suddenly saw that his mouth was beginning to sag, the lower lip trembling with unmistakable weakness.

I don’t quite know how I got the knife away from him. But get it I did. I closed in suddenly, struck him a body blow that sent him reeling, followed him as he went backwards and wrested the weapon from him before he could recover his balance. I hit him again, and he went down, and I stood wrathfully over him.

He looked at me, his eyes filled with bewilderment and horror.

“Trag Unil Deguna,” I said. “I’ve beaten you man to man in honest combat.”

Suddenly his eyes widened, and all of the insane rage was gone from his face. “It is true,” he whispered. “The Mountain must have given you his strength. How else could you have conquered the son of a Chief?”

“In no other way,” I assured him.

“Does the Mountain now speak with your voice?”

“The Mountain is closer to me than it is to its false Servants,” I told him.

I bent and gripped him by the shoulders. “You are young and strong,” I said. “The son of a Chief. Only such a one can truly lead his people. If when the Mountain speaks and the sky becomes red you leap straightway into battle at your father’s side against the false Servants I will spare your life.”

He sat up and rubbed his chin. His eyes were still awestruck, and I was confident that if the mountain itself had entered the hut, and spoken to him he would scarcely have been more eager to obey.

“I will do as the Mountain desires,” he promised.

“You will not have long to wait,” I assured him. “Soon the wrath of the Mountain will be terrible against its false Servants. Sit here quietly and be patient. You will see.”

It was almost dawn when I returned to the central hut. I walked in boldly like a man coming home a little later than usual with some tremendous bright surprise for his wife that would take the curse off his lateness.

Kallatah was asleep with her weather jacket rolled up under her head, a look of almost childlike innocence on her face. She looked so beautiful that I was afraid if I knelt and kissed her she’d shatter and fly apart like one of those ancient statues that have lain for centuries in the buried past of the Earth.

There was no need for me to wake her. The rumbling did it. It started far off, and came slowly nearer, sweeping down upon the hut like the drums of primitive warfare beating at first in ominous undertones and then ever more loudly as they converged upon their mark.

The drums were nature’s own, and they were beating deep within the ground. With the beating came a heaving and a quaking, and right where I was standing a jagged rent appeared suddenly in the dried red clay which had been baked by Geipgos himself to line the floor of his hut.

I had timed the eruption with the sure instinct of a trained scientist who knows just how to fill in the gaps left by the hair-trigger measurements of precision instruments with an intuitive sixth-sense. It could have occurred an hour sooner or an hour later, but I wasn’t surprised that it occurred when it did.

Only Kallatah was surprised. She awoke with the first quake and looked up at me. Her eyes grew wide and startled, and suddenly she was on her feet, clinging to my arm and screaming.

I shook her until she grew quiet, then drew her to the hut’s swaying entrance and pointed out into the flame-streaked shadows. Flashes of light were converging on the village from all directions, cascading over the thatched roofs with their central supporting poles, sending women and children scrambling frenziedly into the open.

“The volcano’s in full eruption!” I whispered.

“How can you stand there so calmly?” Her face was white. “If a quake opens a fissure at our feet—”

“We’ll never know a moment’s pain,” I said. “It’s the one great danger. The lava flow won’t reach the village.”

“How do you know?”

“I used some very sensitive instruments to measure the banked up lava flow and the intensity of the central fires with a minimal margin of error,” I said. “I knew almost precisely to the hour when the eruption would occur. It’s a fairly severe eruption, but not a major one.”

“You knew—”

“It’s been building up for days. It should be over in an hour.”

She started to reply, then swayed toward me in blind panic.

It wasn’t a stampede exactly. The lizards didn’t emerge from the shadows in a single onrushing column, but in threes and fours. Maddened with terror they darted to and fro between the cowering, screaming women and children, their distended eyes and metallic body sheen mirroring the fiery sky glow.

They lunged and parried, striking out with their claws as they circled about as any savage animal will when it feels itself to be hopelessly trapped. There was a blind purposelessness in their movements, a frantic swaying and thumping that churned up the ground beneath them and sent clumps of uprooted vegetation spinning in all directions.

The sky glow became more fiery, spilling over in crimson splotches, turning the village thatch poles into redly glowing fingers pointing mountainward as if in remorseless accusation. The rumblings grew louder, the quakes more frequent.

A woman ran into the open with a child in her arms. She set the child down with a look of calm, tender solicitude on her face, picked up a rock and hurled it at a lizard. Other women joined her, clustering about her as if to draw strength from that straight unbending figure. The lizards veered away from her, and she stood with the infant in her arms again, a picture of quiet heroism.

Kallatah’s eyes were shining. She seemed to have lost her fear, and suddenly she too was joining in the attack on the lizards. She picked up a stone and hurled it, and her laughter rang out defiantly above the screams of the natives.

More lizards appeared, creating such panic that a few of the women ran shrieking back into their huts again. The sky had become a solid sheet of flame, and every hut in the village was writhing in fiery radiance.

There was a continuous loud scrambling and flapping noise as the lizards tried in vain to take flight. Something had crippled and imprisoned them in the flame-streaked region between the huts and they were powerless to escape from it.

I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen. I wasn’t sure just how the first destructive assault would be made on the lizards, whether the mental tensions would increase first, or the physical ones shatter the beasts with a sudden, explosive violence.

With poltergeists you can never be sure. The powerful waves of their thoughts and emotions sweep through their minds in erratic currents, and when a post-hypnotic command enters the picture—

We didn’t have long to wait. With a shrill scream one of the lizards leapt high into the air and was slammed back against a tree, so violently that it sagged to the ground without a single convulsive quiver of expiring life. A fire broke out where it lay, danced and flickered about it. Another lizard was lifted high into the air, and sent spinning with a terrible spasmodic contraction of its entire bulk.

The scramblings of the other lizards became more frantic, turned into a hideous twisting and squirming that sent chills coursing the length of my spine. Horribly one of the beasts exploded. Its chest was blown away as it reared on its hindlimbs, and was carried backwards by a whirling spiral of flame. Others were ripped apart as if by invisible talons, flattened out, crushed and shredded into fragments.

We saw the warriors then. Straight into the village clearing they strode, Geipgos at their head and his son Slagoon walking proudly at his side. They were flourishing their spears and shouting, and the sky glow was bright on their green-bronze shoulders, and was mirrored in their eyes.

I had been right in my prediction. In less than an hour the rumblings ceased and the ground stopped trembling. The fieriness vanished from the sky. But for three days the warriors pursued the lizards across the crater’s rim, descending into the smoke-filled clefts where for centuries they had nested and multiplied, routing and shattering them until Dracona was cleansed and a brave new dawn broke over Geipgos’ unbowed head.

I stood with Kallatah on a cloud-wreathed peak staring down.

“When man is free to shape his own destiny,” I said, “civilization does not beat its shining wings in vain. They will go forward boldly now, with the yoke of superstition forever removed from their necks.”

“Thanks to you,” Kallatah said.

“It was not too difficult to predict the exact moment of the volcano’s eruption,” I said. “As for the post-hypnotic command—you could have done that too.”

Kallatah turned and looked at me, her eyes strangely luminous. “Taro Hargon,” she said. “I am going to tell you something. From the first moment I saw you I knew that you were a man.”

I stared at her, wondering.

“It takes the courage and daring and resourcefulness of the Earthborn to do what you did. The Guiding Council realized that we on Tragor had need of the Earthborn too. Our heritage had worn too thin. So they selected a man of Terra with truly great gifts of body and mind to guide us all—”

I grew alarmed, still wondering how insecure my secret had become.

“Oh, you returned for a lark. Took to wandering again, as an Earthborn trader. For an hour and a day.”

She laughed and her hands were suddenly busy at the flaps of my weather jacket, peeling them back to bring the shining insignia into view.

“Supreme Councillor and Guide,” she whispered. “I knew it from the first.”

“You knew—”

“Oh, my darling, yes. I guessed, I knew. In the hushed great halls the footsteps of a man like you were solely needed. The Guiding Council had vision and strength too—the courage to break through all taboos and seek the one right man for a task no other man could do.

“Naturally you are human still. In my presence you felt at first a certain shyness. I could see that you were searching inwardly for flaws that might have made you seem unworthy in my eyes. It was a boyish, foolish trait—and from that moment I loved you with all my heart. To be great and doubt one’s greatness is the surest path to a woman’s heart.”

I reached out and took her into my arms. “No man is a safe guide when he walks alone,” I said. “It is time that the Councillor took a wife.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “It is time.”

There was silence on the peak as we stared down together into the shining valley far below.

Preview

“What every discerning theatergoer is searching for,” said Mr. Scanlon, “is a kind of sixth-sense heightening of perception. I choose to call it a superseding experience—a blotting out of the mundane and familiar and the substitution of the totally unexpected. In short, a superior vision of reality. Stella, you see, is a ‘stripped’ actress.”

Mr. Scanlon looked about him, and smiled. “No, gentlemen. I’m not being Rabelaisian, or thinking of the burlesque stage. She’s a ‘stripped’ actress in the sense that the kind of realism I’ve been talking about is her guiding star. Everything else—every shred of romantic or sentimental tinsel—has been stripped away.”

“But, Mr. Scanlon! Surely—”

“Gentlemen, I think you’ll agree that her first liaison with Hollywood has carried her to heights undreamed of in your philosophy—if drama critics can legitimately be said to possess a philosophy.”

“But, Mr. Scanlon—”

“Gentlemen, be patient. Relax. You’ll never see another preview like this, and you must enjoy it to the full. There go the lights.”

The lights dimmed and the long, cinemascopic screen brimmed with a deep-toned miracle of radiance.

Into the Black Hills on a white charger rode Robert Mitchum. The epoch which was to resound with his deeds of valor was not immediately determinable. But from the peaceful aspect of the landscape everyone took it for granted that it was BC (Before Custer)—until the new techniques of sound dispersal which convey an illusion of torment in depth went into action. From every nook and cranny of the theater rifles cracked in earsplitting synchronization.

It was no run-of-the-hill Western. Every part was played to perfection, against the kind of historically realistic background that had made Shane and a scant dozen lesser pictures classics of their kind.

The critics flanking Mr. Scanlon realized this, and unlimbering their fastidious brows they started scribbling.

“There she is,” said Mr. Scanlon. “Gentlemen, this should be your most rewarding moment.”

Into the center of that scenic magnificence stepped Stella. Her blonde loveliness was peculiarly her very own, and it was easy to see that everything was just right for her.

“No powder, no cream, no lipstick,” murmured Mr. Scanlon.

“But surely, Mr. Scanlon, she’s made up for the screen—”

“Historically makeup would have been an anachronism,” Mr. Scanlon pointed out. “The women of that age had to get along as best they could. Remember Calamity Jane? She was as ugly as a warthog, but her lovers were legion.”

There was a brief dimming of the radiance. And then, into the Black Hills on a pulsing shape of darkness rode—

“It’s Humpty Dumpty!” someone gasped.

“No.”

“No, it’s got tentacles. Can’t you see? They must have been shooting one of those science fiction pictures on another set. One of the extras must have strayed by accident—”

“And he’s waving them. Look!”

“Good grief, how did that bomb crater get there?”

“It’s unbelievable! She’s changing into a seal!”

The divine Stella was indeed changing. But no seal—or mermaid—had ever gone flapping over the Western hills on eight dangling appendages, blue-green in hue.

Of course the hills were no longer the Black Hills of the Dakotas. But no one could ask Mr. Scanlon about that because he had disappeared. One moment he had been leaning forward in his seat, alert and smiling. Then he was gone. He had simply vanished—dwindled and faded into nothingness like an unstable isotope assailed by some invisible energy source.

No narrative is complete if it does not terminate with some sort of explanation. But how could there be one when no man or woman on Earth would ever know where Mr. Scanlon went, or why he had insisted on a preview in the first place?

How could there be one when there was no one to remember—no one to recall how They landed in numbers from their flat, saucer-like ships exactly one week later, and took care to strip from the minds of men all proudly treasured knowledge of the many-splendored things of Earth?

Young Man with a Trumpet

When Man left Earth forever the animals still carried on proudly.

They knew, of course, that they could never hope to equal the Great One’s shining accomplishments. But even the warthog and the lowly cricket were determined to avoid his mistakes and the tragic impulsiveness which had led to his defeat on a battleground of his own choosing.

It may seem surprising to some, but what they missed most of all was music. It was more the pity because animals in general have an excellent idea of pitch and can swing and sway in quite miraculous fashion to nature’s inimitable rhythms.

They finally decided that something should be done about it. So they went into a huddle and came up with an astounding interrogative aphorism: Why not try?

The leading spirit in this conclave of daring was, of course, the ass. He stood up on his hindlegs and gave vent to a tremendous bray. This was the more remarkable because—unlike his far less intelligent cousin, the horse—the ass has little talent for vocal improvisation.

It was a most commendable effort but it failed dismally. A bray is not music. It may have some of the qualities of music, but a single chord, however magnificently sustained, does not make for rapture on a tonal plane.

In fact, regrettable as it may seem, the fox and the warthog held their ears, the skunk exuded an unforgivably unpleasant effluvium, and the prairie dog darted like a streak of midsummer lightning into his burrow.

The wolf tried next. His howl was distinctly on the ferocious side and it contributed nothing to the pleasures of the moment, even though there was an undercurrent of primitive amorousness in it which should have delighted the females of his species.

“You’ll have to do better than that!” the crocodile said, a comment which could have been put down to pure masculine pique, for the crocodile is notoriously sluggish in his mating habits.

The bullfrog tried next, as if to prove that, while not exactly hairy-chested, he was in all respects the exact opposite of the crocodile. The cacophony of croakings which emanated from his throat was undeniably impressive, but a tonepoem with a buzzsaw accompaniment is, at best, a contradiction in terms.

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter,” quoted the warthog, his uncouth swiftness-on-the-trigger debasing the lines with an ironic implication never intended by Keats.

“A legacy of song and story as impressive as Man’s should be the exclusive heritage of the elite,” said the Hornbill, with a patronizing, scholarly vanity.

His own contribution was a tragic flop. It was artificial and stilted, and it provoked the hyena to gales of laughter. Almost instantly the hyena realized that he had betrayed himself, and could have bitten his tongue out. He had intended to improvise out of character, with a melodious persuasiveness, but the laughter was accepted by everyone as an ordeal that had to be endured and could now be dismissed as a fait accompli.

“I’m glad that’s over,” breathed the Spoonbill, and went into a solo that made even the Hornbill shudder, despite their undoubted kinship as members of a team whose erudition and bald-domed superiority could not be challenged.

It was now the turn of the big cats. The less said about their roars the better. The lion’s was fiercely belligerent, the tiger’s playful and beguiling, for contrary to popular belief the tiger is an amiable beast. But how could such formidable vocalisms conjure up visions Mozartian?

Then it happened. A small, wiry figure arose and without even awaiting his turn lifted to his lips an incredible instrument of sound. It was fashioned of brass, and it flared at its tip like an earphone—the earphone of some pitifully ancient individual who has lost all touch with reality, and thinks of sound as a crutch.

But the instrument was neither an earphone nor a crutch. The fox with his native sagacity and the Hornbill with his learning and knowledge of prehistory recognized it for what it was.

It was a trumpet, and—it was golden. It never had been brass except in a wearisome literal sense which did not matter at all. So golden indeed was it that there came from it now, like a banner resplendently unfurled, an incomparable salute to the dawn.

Never had man dared to dream of such music. It was as if Ulysses, lashed to his mast, had burst his bonds at last, and was with swift breast strokes approaching the island of his heart’s desire.

For this was siren music. This was the music of the spheres. It was the music almost of Man dying young—Shelley in the blue Mediterranean, Bix Beiderbecke in canyons of steel, his last high imperishable note winging its way into the blue infinite.

Almost, but not quite, it was Man music. By dint of long, patient practice it had simply taken on those shadings of absolute perfection—the “little more”—that are the hallmarks of genius in its lonely and solitary pilgrimage under the stars.

Was it Eddington who first affirmed that if you set a monkey to pounding on a typewriter through all eternity he will eventually write Hamlet or King Lear? The statement has since found innumerable supporters who have paraphrased it in one way or another.

But this was not Shakespeare. This was music, sensuous and unadorned.

The monkey lowered his horn, and stood very still and straight and proud while thunderous applause echoed and reechoed through the glade and the star-bright meadows beyond.

He had known all along that he could do it.

Colophon

Short Fiction
were published between 1922 and 1956 by
Frank Belknap Long.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Robin Whittleton,
and is based on transcriptions produced between 2007 and 2024 by
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan, Alexander Bauer, Stephen Blundell, Joel Schlosberg, Tom Trussel, and Distributed Proofreaders
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
Landscape in the Park,
a painting completed in 1920 by
Fritz Stuckenberg.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

This edition was released on
March 10, 2026, 7:21 p.m.
and is based on
revision ba7334c.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
October 29, 2024, 2:26 a.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
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