The 13th Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack Page 9

  Haines watched the first of the liquid from the fuel pipes splash out, and dropped the wrench. Old Leán Dagh had doubted his ability to draw knowledge by telepathy from a race of a different culture, he reflected. Too bad the old man had died without knowing of the success his methods had met, even though the mission had been a failure, due to man’s feeble knowledge of the curative sciences. Now his one task was to prevent the race of this world from dying in the same manner.

  He pulled himself to his feet again and went staggering down the catwalk, muttering disconnected sentences. The blue of his skin was darker now, and he had to force himself across the space from the ship to the door of the building, grimly commanding his failing muscles, to the guard’s body that still lay where he had left it.

  Most of the strength left him was useless against the pull of this heavier planet and the torture movement had become. He tried to drag the corpse behind him, then fell on hands and knees and backed toward the ship, using one arm and his teeth on the collar to pull it after him. He was swimming in a world that was bordering on unconsciousness, now, and once darkness claimed him; he came out of it to find himself inside the rocket, still dragging his burden, the implanted impulses stronger than his will.

  Bit by bit, he dragged his burden behind him down the catwalk, until the engine room was reached, and he could drop it on the floor, where the liquid fuel had made a thin film. The air was heavy with vapors, and chilled by the evaporation, but he was only partly conscious of that. Only a spark was needed now, and his last duty would be finished.

  Inevitably, a few of the dead on Mars would be left unburned, where men might find the last of that unfortunate race, and the germs would still live within them. Earthmen must not face that. Until such a time as the last Martian had crumbled to dust and released the plague into the air to be destroyed, the race of Earth must remain within the confines of its own atmosphere, and safe.

  There was only himself and the corpse he had touched left here to carry possible germs, and the ship to carry the men to other sources of infection; all that was easily remedied.

  The stranger from Mars groped in his pocket for the guard’s matches, smiling faintly, darkness swept over him, he drew one of them from the box and scraped it across the friction surface. Flame danced from the point and outward—

  EVENSONG

  By the time he reached the surface of the little planet, even the dregs of his power were drained. Now he rested, drawing reluctant strength slowly from the yellow sun that shone on the greensward around him. His senses were dim with an ultimate fatigue, but the fear he had learned from the Usurpers drove them outward, seeking a further hint of sanctuary.

  It was a peaceful world, he realized, and the fear thickened in him at the discovery. In his younger days, he had cherished a multitude of worlds where the game of life’s ebb and flow could be played to the hilt. It had been a lusty universe to roam then. But the Usurpers could brook no rivals to their own outreaching lust. The very peace and order here meant that this world had once been theirs.

  He tested for them gingerly while the merest whisper of strength poured into him. None were here now. He could have sensed the pressure of their close presence at once, and there was no trace of that. The even grassland swept in rolling meadows and swales to the distant hills. There were marble structures in the distance, sparkling whitely in the late sunlight, but they were empty, their unknown purpose altered to no more than decoration now upon this abandoned planet. His attention swept back, across a stream to the other side of the wide valley.

  There he found the garden. Within low walls, its miles of expanse were a tree-crowded and apparently untended preserve. He could sense the stirring of larger animal life among the branches and along the winding paths. The brawling vigor of all proper life was missing, but its abundance might be enough to mask bis own vestige of living force from more than careful search.

  It was at least a better refuge than this open greensward and he longed toward it, but the danger of betraying motion held him still where he was. He had thought his previous escape to be assured, but he was learning that even he could err. Now he waited while he tested once more for evidence of Usurper trap.

  He had mastered patience in the confinement the Usurpers had designed at the center of the galaxy. He had gathered his power furtively while he designed escape around their reluctance to make final disposition. Then he had burst outward in a drive that should have thrust him far beyond the limits of their hold on the universe. And he had found failure before he could span even the distance to the end of this spiral arm of one galactic fastness.

  Their webs of detection were everywhere, seemingly. Their great power-robbing lines made a net too fine to pass. Stars and worlds were linked, until only a series of miracles had carried him this far. And now the waste of power for such miracles was no longer within his reach. Since their near failure in entrapping and sequestering him, they had learned too much.

  Now he searched delicately, afraid to trip some alarm, but more afraid to miss its existence. From space, this world had offered the only hope in its seeming freedom from their webs. But only micro-seconds had been available to him for his testing then.

  At last he drew his perceptions back. He could find no slightest evidence of their lures and detectors here. He had begun to suspect that even his best efforts might not be enough now, but he could do no more. Slowly at first, and then in a sudden rush, he hurled himself into the maze of the garden.

  Nothing struck from the skies. Nothing leaped upwards from the planet core to halt him. There was no interruption in the rustling of the leaves and the chirping bird songs. The animal sounds went on unhindered. Nothing seemed aware of his presence in the garden. Once that would have been unthinkable in itself, but now he drew comfort from it. He must be only a shadow self now, unknown and unknowable in his passing.

  Something came down the path where he rested, pattering along on hoofs that touched lightly on the spoilage of fallen leaves. Something else leaped quickly through the light underbrush beside the path.

  He let his attention rest on them as they both emerged onto the near pathway at once. And cold horror curled thickly around him.

  One was a rabbit, nibbling now at the leaves of clover and twitching long ears as its pink nose stretched out for more. The other was a young deer, still bearing the spots of its fawnhood. Either or both might have seemingly been found on any of a thousand worlds. But neither would have been precisely of the type before him.

  This was the Meeting World—the planet where he had first found the ancestors of the Usurpers. Of all worlds in the pested galaxy, it had to be this world he sought for refuge!

  They were savages back in the days of his full glory, confined to this single world, rutting and driving their way to the lawful self-destruction of all such savages. And yet there had been something odd about them, something that then drew his attention and even his vagrant pity.

  Out of that pity, he had taught a few of them, and led them upwards. He had even nursed poetic fancies of making them his companions and his equals as the life span of their sun should near its ending. He had answered their cries for help and given them at least some of what they needed to set their steps toward power over even space and energy. And they had rewarded him by overweening pride that denied even a trace of gratitude. He had abandoned them finally to their own savage ends and gone on to other worlds, to play out the purposes of a wider range.

  It was his second folly. They were too far along the path toward unlocking the laws behind the universe. Somehow, they even avoided their own destruction from themselves.. They took the worlds of their sun and drove outwards, until they could even vie with him for the worlds he had made particularly his own. And now they owned them all, and he had only a tiny spot here on their world—for a time at least.

  The horror of the realization that this was the Meeting World abated a li
ttle as he remembered now how readily their spawning hordes possessed and abandoned worlds without seeming end. And again the tests he could make showed no evidence of them here. He began to relax again, feeling a sudden hope from what had been temporary despair. Surely they might also believe this was the one planet where he would never seek sanctuary.

  Now he set his fears aside and began to force his thoughts toward the only pattern that could offer hope. He needed power, and power was available in any area untouched by the webs of the Usurpers. It had drained into space itself throughout the aeons, a waste of energy that could blast suns or build them in legions. It was power to escape, perhaps even to prepare himself eventually to meet them with at least a chance to force truce, if not victory. Given even a few hours free of their notice, he could draw and hold that power for his needs.

  He was just reaching for it when the sky thundered and the sun seemed to darken for a moment! The fear in him gibbered to the surface and sent him huddling from sight of the sky before he could control it. But for a brief moment there was still a trace of hope in him. It could have been a phenomenon caused by his own need for power; he might have begun drawing too heavily, too eager for strength.

  Then the earth shook, and he knew.

  The Usurpers were not fooled. They knew he was here—had never lost him. And now they had followed in all their massive lack of subtlety. One of their scout ships had landed, and the scout would come seeking him.

  He fought for control of himself, and found it long enough to drive his fear back down within himself. Now, with a care that disturbed not even a blade of grass or leaf on a twig, he began retreating, seeking the denser undergrowth at the center of the garden where all life was thickest. With that to screen him, he might at least draw a faint trickle of power, a strength to build a subtle brute aura around himself and let him hide among the beasts. Some Usurper scouts were young and immature. Such a one might be fooled into leaving. Then, before his report could be acted on by others, there might still be a chance…

  He knew the thought was only a wish, not a plan, but he clung to it as he huddled in the thicket at the center of the garden. And then even the fantasy was stripped from him.

  The sound of footsteps was firm and sure. Branches broke as the steps came forward, not deviating from a straight line. Inexorably, each firm stride brought the Usurper nearer to his huddling place. Now there was a faint glow in the air, and the animals were scampering away in terror.

  He felt the eyes of the Usurper on him, and he forced himself away from that awareness. And, like fear, he found that he had learned prayer from the Usurpers; he prayed now desperately to a nothingness he knew, and there was no answer.

  “Come forth! This earth is a holy place and you cannot remain upon it. Our judgment is done and a place is prepared for you. Come forth and let me take you there!” The voice was soft, but it carried a power that stilled even the rustling of the leaves.

  He let the gaze of the Usurper reach him now, and the prayer in him was mute and directed outward—and hopeless, as he knew it must be.

  “But—” Words were useless, but the bitterness inside him forced the words to come from him. “But why? I am God!”

  For a moment, something akin to sadness and pity was in the eyes of the Usurper. Then it passed as the answer came. “I know. But I am Man. Come!”

  He bowed at last, silently, and followed slowly as the yellow sun sank behind the walls of the garden.

  And the evening and the morning were the eighth day.

  THE STARS LOOK DOWN

  I

  Erin Morse came down the steps slowly without looking back, and his long fingers brushed through the gray hair that had been brown when he first entered the building. Four years is a long time to wait when a man has work to do and the stars look down every night, reminding him of his dreams. There were new lines in his face and little wrinkles had etched themselves around his dark eyes. But even four years had been too few to change his erect carriage or press down his wide shoulders. At sixty, he could still move with the lithe grace of a boy. The heavy gate opened as he neared it and he stepped out with a slow, even pace. He passed the big three-wheeled car parked there, then stopped and breathed deeply, letting his eyes roam over the green woods and plowed fields and take in the blue sweep of the horizon. Only the old can draw full sweetness from freedom, though the young may cry loudest for it. The first heady taste of it over, he turned his back on the prison and headed down the road.

  There was a bugling from the car behind him, but he was barely conscious of it; it was only when it drove up beside him and stopped that he noticed. A heavily built man stuck out a face shaped like a bulldog’s and yelled.

  “Hey, Erin! Don’t tell me you’re blind as well as crazy?” Morse swung his head and a momentary flash of surprise and annoyance crossed his face before he stepped over to the car. “You would be here, of course, Stewart.”

  “Sure. I knew your men wouldn’t. Hop in and I’ll ride you over to Hampton.” At Erin’s hesitation, he gestured impatiently. “I’m not going to kidnap you, if that’s what you think. Federal laws still mean something to me, you know.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Erin climbed in and the motor behind purred softly, its sound indicating a full atomic generator instead of the usual steam plant. “I suppose the warden kept you well informed of my actions.”

  The other chuckled. “He did; money has its uses when you know where to put it. I found out you weren’t letting your men visit or write to you, and that’s about all. Afraid I’d find out what was in the letters?”

  “Precisely. And the boys could use the time better for work than useless visits to me. Thanks, I have tobacco.” But at Stewart’s impatient gesture, he put the “makings” back and accepted a cigarette. “It isn’t poisoned, I suppose?”

  “Nor loaded.”

  Erin let a half smile run over his lips and relaxed on the seat, watching the road flash by and letting his mind run over other times with Stewart. Probably the other was doing the same, since the silence was mutual. They had all too many common memories. Forty years of them, from the time they had first met at the institute as roommates, both filled with a hunger for knowledge that would let them cross space to other worlds.

  Erin, from a family that traced itself back almost to Adam, and with a fortune equally old, had placed his faith in the newly commercialized atomic power. Gregory Stewart, who came from the wrong side of the tracks, where a full meal was a luxury, was more conservative; new and better explosives were his specialty. The fact that they were both aiming at the same goal made little difference in their arguments. Though they stuck together from stubbornness, black eyes flourished.

  Then, to complicate matters further, Mara Devlin entered their lives to choose Erin after two years of indecision and to die while giving birth to his son. Erin took the boy and a few workers out to a small island off the coast and began soaking his fortune into workshops where he could train men in rocketry and gain some protection from Stewart’s thugs.

  Gregory Stewart had prospered with his explosives during the war of 1958, and was piling up fortune on fortune. Little by little, the key industries of the country were coming under his control, along with the toughest gangs of gunmen. When he could, he bought an island lying off the coast, a few miles from Erin’s, stocked it with the best brains he could buy, and began his own research. The old feud settled down to a dull but constant series of defeats and partial victories that gained nothing for either.

  Erin came to the crowning stroke of Stewart’s offensive, grimaced, and tossed the cigarette away. “I forgot to thank you for railroading me up on that five-year sentence, Greg,” he said quietly. “I suppose you were responsible for the failure of the blast that killed my son, as well.”

  Stewart looked at him in surprise which seemed genuine. “The failure was none of my doing, Erin. Anyway, you had no busine
ss sending the boy up on the crazy experimental model; any fool should have known he couldn’t handle it. Maybe my legal staff framed things a little, but it was manslaughter. I could have wrung your neck when I heard Mara’s son was dead, instead of letting you off lightly with five years—less one for good behavior.”

  “I didn’t send him up.” Erin’s soft voice contrasted oddly with Stewart’s bellow. “He slipped out one night on his own, against my orders. If the whole case hadn’t been fixed with your money, I could have proved that at the trial. As it was, I couldn’t get a decent hearing.”

  “All right, then, I framed you. But you’ve hit back at me without trying to, though you probably don’t know it yet.” He brushed Erin’s protest aside quickly. “Never mind, you’ll see what I mean soon enough. I didn’t meet you to hash over past grievances.”

  “I wondered why you came to see me out.”

  They swung off the main highway into a smaller road where the speed limit was only sixty and went flashing past the other cars headed for Hampton. Stewart gunned the car savagely, unmindful of the curves. “We’re almost at the wharf,” he pointed out needlessly, “so I’ll make it short and sweet. I’m about finished with plans for a rocket that will work—a few more months should do the trick—and I don’t want competition now. In plain words, Erin, drop it or all rules are off between us.”

  “Haven’t they been?” Erin asked.

  “Only partly. Forget your crazy ion-blast idea, and I’ll reserve a berth for you on my ship; keep on bucking me and I’ll ruin you. Well?”

  “No, Greg.”

  Stewart grunted and shrugged. “I was afraid you’d be a fool. We’ve always wanted the same things, and you’ve either had them to begin with or gotten them from under my nose. But this time it’s not going to be that way. I’m declaring war. And for your information, my patents go through in a few days, so you’ll have to figure on getting along without that steering assembly you worked out.”