Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks)

by Leslie F Stone

  It was a pity Talbot had carried his water with him, however. Jimson had told him he was carrying too much cosmicite for his own good, but he had been one of the greedy. That was perhaps the reason for his fall. Morgan averred Talbot had picked up nuggets discarded by others.

  Altogether they spent a day and a half beside the river.

  The next day they found their canteens dry! With all their precautions the terrific heat of the unshaded sun had evaporated all that remained. The sun winked out at last, lay low on the horizon. A cool breeze stirred the tops of the jungle trees, relief of a sort. The men knew what they faced. Four days under a pitiless sun, four days without water and without food, since they could neither swallow or digest the food tablets without the aid of water . . . Hunger was not the worst . . . it was the thirst! And the natives had camped them beside a shallow gurgling brook . . .

  Somehow the five fell asleep, but morning was worse. Above all they must not let Rafel and his crew know the truth. They must keep upon their feet steadily, not dare to stumble. There was no singing in the line that day, and very little talk.

  With the third stop of the day, during which the foxmen ate their fruit and slaked their thirst Jimson noticed a spot of blood on Ware’s lip. He wondered about that, so that he began to watch the other until to his horror he saw Ware put a wrist to his mouth, and heard the sibilant sound as the man sucked upon his flesh!

  Pulling Ware to his side he saw the truth. There was fresh blood on his lips. The man was sucking his own blood. He whimpered when Jimson accused him. “I cut my wrist on a vine a way back, and it . . . well . . . it sort of quenches some of my thirst . . .” he explained.

  “You fool,” moaned Wendell, “you fool!” And he watched Ware for the rest of the day. It was horrible enough to think of a man doing such a thing, but Jimson feared also that the open cut would be his end, the poison from the plant that had made the cut . . . would it prove deadly?

  In the next few hours he forgot Ware’s predicament in his own. Water, water. God, would this never end? Like an automaton he found himself pushing one foot forward . . . then the other. The heat, the odors of stinking jungle. Swarms of insects rising in clouds in a man’s face at each step. The rank odor exuded by the large fleshy leaves of the ground creepers. Webes drilling on all sides. Brightly-plumaged birds darting from their coming; paining the eyes with the slash of their color.

  Food! Fruit on every side, hanging in clusters within reach; fat, juicy, peach-like gobulars, scarlet cherries, purple plums. Luscious and poisonous. Tempting a man to stop, pluck and eat; to quench the thirst in their juice and let consequences be damned!

  But one remembers Wendell’s white hair, Warren and Yarbow. A monstrous planet this. Wrapped in beauty, festering in poison. And the water. God!

  NOW John Arth stumbles ahead. He’s reeling, unable to stand the gaff. Ah, well, what’s the odds . . . what if Rafel knows they aren’t Gods? They’ll die soon enough, they’ll die on their feet of starvation . . . thirst . . . with food and water in full sight and reach of the hand. Must try to get Beale on the wireless tonight. Last chance . . . then . . . then to give up, welter in the poisonous water, sate one’s self with lush fruit. Metal. Riches. All for the sake of a white metal dragging at their shoulders, eating into the flesh, burning a deep scar on their consciousness.

  It’s night again, blessed silvery night filled with luminous shapes, the ghosts of all those who have died for thirst in this life. Sneering at them, jeering . . . Pointing long fingers at the water beside which the natives have camped for the night, beckoning for them to come; partake of the liquid flood; bask in it; to live again if only for one moment of exquisite joy.

  Was ever there a world with more water? Since leaving the cosmicite fields the party had followed the course of a river, the same that had swallowed Talbot. Sometimes they lost it, sometimes they crossed it on a worm-eaten log; darting from stone to stone. But this was a lake beside which Rafel had camped, possibly an inlet of the same river, but it seemed to stretch for miles—cool, limpid, inviting . . .

  “I can’t stand it anymore, I can’t, I can’t.” That was Morgan. “Water, water,” he moaned, “water, please.” Jimson remembered the immortal verse, “Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink!” So had the Ancient Mariner felt . . . only not so bad . . . he could not have been so thirsty . . . surely . . .

  “Quiet, Jack, you’ll arouse the natives. That Rafel’s smart. He sits close to us at night to listen to us talk, repeats words to himself. Please, boy, keep quiet.” How fuzzy my tongue is. My words are thick in my ears.

  “I can’t. I tell you, I can’t stand it any more. I’m dying of thirst in sight of all that water . . .”

  “We all are. We’re hit hard.”

  “How d’we know it’s all poison? Maybe it was only in that place where the Corsair landed . . . maybe just one little pool . . .”

  “No . . . no, it’s the whole planet, the radium . . . too high in solution . . . and there were Warren and Yarbow, Jack.” He sighed. “Please, please, have patience. Rafel hurries home. We’ll be back to the Adventure

  in three days . . .”

  “Three days . . . three days!” The last was a shriek. “We’ll be dead by then . . . all. I’m dying now. Ah, I know!” his eyes were suddenly crafty . . . “I’ll show ’em! I’ll take my clothes off . . . I’ll stand in the lake . . . it won’t hurt . . . I’m burning up, burning up . . .”

  “No, no, Jack, you daren’t. It will kill you. Why even to remove your clothes exposes you to the emanations!”

  “I won’t drink . . . and only for a minute . . . just to stand in it?” He was begging like a child.

  “It’ll seep through your pores, it will burn your skin . . . it will kill you . . . the damned unnatural stuff!”

  Jimson tried to hold the other back, to prevent him from flinging off his clothes, but Morgan was strong with desire, and Jimson was weak . . . weak.

  He watched with heart in his mouth. Morgan was so young, just twenty-four. Perhaps after all it wouldn’t hurt him. If only he’d be content with one dip, hurry back into his clothes. Ah, he was returning.

  Morgan was revived. “It’s marvelous,” he averred. “I feel as if I’d eaten a full meal, my mouth is no longer parched. Come, all of you. See . . . I’m strong again!” He turned a neat cartwheel for their edification. Jimson knew. It was the radium. Of course he felt good for the time being . . . but what afterwards?

  “No, it’s suicide!” Jimson sought to hold the others back, harangue them, but they paid him no heed. Sitting on the bank he watched them disport themselves in the water, his own mouth so dry his tongue was like a piece of flannel. Every few minutes they tried to entice him to join them. He was tempted. “Why not?” he asked himself. There would be relief, instant relief. What did he care, for death was on the way regardless. Better death in the cool serenity of the lake than on that sun-beaten hell that was the way back to the ship.

  They were far out in the lake, several hundred yards distant when with a wild call they turned in unison to swim back to shore. Unconsciously Jimson’s weary eyes numbered them . . . one, two, three . . . one, two three . . . and there should have been four! He jumped to his feet, scanned the lake on all sides, but with the exception of those three bobbing figures racing toward him the lake was empty!

  Arth wasn’t out of the water before he began to yell. “Ware . . . went down . . .” Then they were on shore dripping water at his feet. “He went down like a stone . . . suddenly,” they told him. “We dived for him, but he was dead already!” They were shivering even though the night was warm.

  What was the use of saying “I told you so!” Death was riding their shoulders already. Nor did he tell them about the cut on Ware’s wrist that was possibly the real reason for his early death . . . that and the polluted water. Tomorrow . . . if they lived . . . they might be tempted to ape Ware.

  Then Jimson saw Rafel, a luminous figure standing beside a tree watch
ing them. Did he guess? Did he know?

  Had he understood their words, their want? Did he see that one of their number was missing again? Could he know how they suffered? Well, what of it . . . they were men, starving, thirsty men.

  CHAPTER V

  Water!

  WITHOUT a word Arth, Morgan and Petrie donned their clothing again. They dropped Ware’s garments and his load of nuggets in the water. They lay on the ground close together as if seeking safety in their numbers. Jimson turned to the radio again. It was useless. He grew drowsy, his head nodded. He dreamed he too swam crystal-clear water where there was no shore, where he kept on swimming, swimming . . .

  With the arrival of morning he found the three still alive, unharmed it appeared. They were ready for the march, their eyes bright, their bodies filled with new vigor; their fear of the previous night was gone. On the march they gave surreptitious help to Jimson over the roughest part of the trail as the natives cut through the heavy growth that seemed to spring anew with their passing.

  The day was a repetition of the past one, the nerve-trying sounds of the jungle, the myriad insects, the awful heat of the sun beating down upon heavy helmets, the bands of their knapsacks biting into their shoulders. Later Jimson was to wonder how he had ever managed to cling to the cosmicite as he did. Only force of will kept him on his feet—the will to live, to enjoy the fortune upon his back.

  Then came the mid-morning halt. He noticed that Arth was groggy. He had dropped to the ground with a heavy thud; lay where he had fallen, eyes closed, mouth strangely grim. Morgan and Petrie was almost as bad. Arth groaned, but the others set their teeth against the animal expression of the body.

  When the signal came to start, Arth could not get up. He moaned, but was unable to speak. He lay there staring up into Jimson’s face, his eyes big and glassy like the eyes of a dog Jimson had seen die once. He would recall Arth’s face many days to come. Morgan and Petrie just stared at them, gritting their teeth so hard their jaws made clicking sounds. Jimson tried to bring Arth to his feet. He was a sack of meal, boneless in his grasp. He had to let him fall back to the ground.

  “He drank some of it,” Petrie said through stiff jaws, meaning the water of the lake.

  Rafel and his men stood by watching, curious. They saw the glazed condition of Arth’s eyes; they knew death. They glowered at the white men. Then Rafel spoke. “He die . . . like men!”

  Jimson hesitated, then shook his head. “He die like man because he sin,” he said in the jargon they used to make themselves understood by the fox-men. “God eat only food and drink water of God!” He tapped his knapsack significantly. “If God eat, drink, food meant for man he die . . . for then . . . there not be plenty for man!” He could hardly force the words from his swollen lips, but he thought his answer was masterful. Let the beggars get around that!

  “The one who die in water . . . he sin, too?” asked Rafel. Then thoughtfully. “There plenty for God and man!” and waved an eloquent hand to take in the fruit-bearing trees, the glimmer of the river a hundred yards to the right. Jimson’s eyes following his hand bulged at the sight; he forgot for the moment what he was about as he too considered the plenitude of water in this wild land. He caught himself, hurried to cover his pause.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Great Leader say different. He say it taboo . . .”

  Rafel, whose land suffered with too many taboos, could appreciate that, but by listening to the men during their long days of companionship he had learned a smattering of their tongue. Now he said: “You eat all food here he tapped Jimson’s knapsack . . . “your water—gone. You die for water . . . and Gods no die! So it is told!”

  Jimson wanted to cry out, to tell him the truth, to find sympathy in the beady eyes before him, but he dared not. Rafel was a mighty man among his kind, he would not endure being made a fool of! He would lose face with his people were it known the white men had but made a pawn of him.

  “We Gods!” Jimson was belligerent now. “You know we Gods . . . or you die!” He tapped his pistol. It was the last chance, for Rafel had seen what the pistol could do. He would at least believe in that.

  The fox-man nodded. “We believe,” and he ordered his men to bury the now dead Arth, for Arth had died as they argued. The natives whispered among themselves at the decay already setting in upon the body. It rotted before their eyes. They had never seen the like. This if nothing else convinced them that these men were indeed different than they. The march continued.

  Now it was Jimson who seemed strong in comparison to the others . . . Morgan and Petrie who were weak. They stumbled at every unevenness of the road. At last Rafel came to Jimson’s side. “They die . . . too!” he muttered. Jimson nodded, not daring to speak.

  “You men . . . no Gods!” The chieftain spoke with real conviction now. “Gods no die. You men like us. You come from another place. I listen, I know. Other place!” he said accusingly.

  Jimson lost his head. “Sure . . . we’re men. It’s this damned poisonous world . . . it’s . . .” he realized what he had been saying . . . but he was speaking English . . . perhaps Rafel could not understand after all.

  “Men like us . . . you . . . you . . .” but the fox-man could not find words to express his black thoughts. He knew but one thing He and his people had been betrayed. He called to his fellows, halting their march, and broke into a flood of liquid tones that Jimson could not follow. Their faces were somber.

  SUDDENLY Morgan pitched to the ground, felled like a tree. Petrie was easing himself after him, unable to sustain his own weight longer. He had dropped his pack somewhere behind. Rafel gave them no heed. He was screaming at Jimson. “You make lie. You spoil magic . . . the dasie cries for revenge . . .” He was working himself into a black rage. Jimson found it in himself to sneer.

  “Well?” he wanted to know. “What does it matter?”

  It is to be questioned if Rafel truly understood that they had come from another world. The Tolis’ word for world is place, as is any other part of their planet which is foreign to them.

  “Men from other place. You make sky-boat swim ocean between places. You want dasie . . . you act like Gods to fool us. But you no return. You no tell others. My people . . . they make you die!” A bow and arrow appeared in his hands as if by miracle from its holder at his back. His companions were armed likewise, an evil circle of cosmicite-tipped arrowheads pointed at Jimson’s heart.

  He dared not draw forth his revolver and he was afraid. He who had faced death for three days was afraid of it in this form. “Wait,” he shrieked. “Rafel wait! Talbot . . . him God; Wendell and Beale who wait in big boat of the sun . . . them Gods. We . . . others . . . we not Gods . . . we Men-Gods . . . men who serve Gods. You understand? Someone must serve Gods . . . like muli serve men. You understand?”

  Rafel hesitated. Jimson could see in his eyes that the poor fellow wanted to believe if only he dared. He needed to save his face. He was wavering now. “You lie one time, maybe you lie again . . . the dasie wants revenge!”

  “No, no, the dasie is unharmed. It’s they who die . . .” he pointed to Morgan and Petrie. “The taboo . . . they broke it. I not die because I not sin. Wendell, Beale true Gods . . . they not die. I swear it, I swear it!” There was panic in Jimson’s voice. His throat-creaked with every word.

  After a minute long pause Rafel nodded, lowered his bow. “We wait . . . Beale, Wendell must show them true Gods!”

  Weak with relief Jimson wanted to cry, but he was a dried-out husk. He turned sadly to his companions. Morgan was breathing with difficulty. Petrie had placed himself flat on his back. Jimson leaned over Morgan. He picked up one arm to feel his pulse. It bent weirdly in the middle of the forearm. Petrie saw it. “It’s in the bones . . . its eats . . . away . . . the lime . . .” he explained. Morgan’s eyes had glazed; they stared at the brilliant swollen sun directly without seeing Petrie was going too. A few minutes and he could not raise his chest to breathe or moan.

  Rafel’s men refused
to help Jimson bury his dead, and he was too weak to scratch out even the shallowest grave. He wanted to say a prayer, but his cracked lips refused utterance. He had to leave the pair where they had fallen, boneless things, decaying already. Soon they’d be devilish masses of putrefaction shunned by the meanest scavenger of the jungle.

  The natives paid him no heed as he stumbled on after them. The machetes flashed in the sun. Rafel no longer waited for him to pass on ahead.

  On, on, push on! Swing the damn machetes. On, on, one step, now two, a third and another. What if these weighted feet refused to obey? The cosmicite on his back . . . it was dragging him down . . . Lord . . . he didn’t have the strength to pull his arms out of the straps. If there were only some water, a drop, a thimbleful. What is that? A slow-moving river. Water! Water!

  WATER!

  How thick the grass has grown, vines pull at arms and legs . . . why . . . the machete wielders have gone . . . gone, here . . . oh God . . . was he? Ah, yes . . . the water . . . water . . . there ahead!

  Funny noise! Crack . . . crack! Webes didn’t make a sound like that. Yet familiar . . . strangely familiar. Jimson! Jimson! Why all the jungle was calling his name. Jimson! What a joke. Why there they are. Talbot, Ware, Arth, Morgan, Petrie . . . coming to meet him. Good fellows . . . they wouldn’t leave a pal behind. Not them. And they’d go swimming together . . . all of them this time . . .

  Funny . . . lying here . . . hurry . . . hurry can’t you see the water ahead . . . not ten feet away. Why only animals crawl . . . what’s wrong? What’s the weight on one’s back . . . something lying heavily on one’s back, holding one down . . . oh yes . . . one’s old man of the mountain . . . the cosmicite . . . the fortune with which to buy a space ship of one’s own. The sun . . . it’s gone . . . the world is black . . . this then . . . is death . . . death. Silly to have feared it. It’s cool . . . clean.

  Water, water! Oceans of it running over his mouth. Feeble fingers reach to catch escaping drops . . . the flood withdrawn. More, more, I say! More!