So will I be soon. So will all of us. Why did this planet take us out of space? The weight, the pressure breaks and crushes us, and we can't get free. In space there was no death, hut now we die. . . .
Lundy stood quite still. The blood beat like drums in his temples.
"You mean that all you creatures out of space are dying? That the—the madness will stop of itself?"
Soon. Very soon. There was no death in space! There was no pain! We didn't know about them. Everything here was new, to be tasted and played with. We didn't know. . . .
"Helll" said Lundy, and looked at the creatures beating at the crack of the stone door. He sat down.
You, too, will die.
Lundy raised his head slowly. His eyes had a terrible brightness.
"You like to be worshiped," he whispered. "Would you like to be worshiped after you die? Would you like to be remembered always as something good and beautiful—a goddess?"
That would be better than to be forgotten.
"Will you do what I ask of you, then? You can save my life, if you will. You can save the lives of a lot of those litde flower-people. I'll see to it that everyone knows your true story. Now you're hated and feared, but after that you'll be loved."
Will you let me free of this net? "It you promise to do what I ask?"
I would rather die at least free of this net. The tiny figure trembled and shook back the veil of dark hair. Hurry. Tell me....
"Lead these creatures away from the door. Lead all of them in the city away, to the fire in the mountain where they'll be destroyed."
They will worship me. It is better than dying in a net. I promise.
Lundy got up and went to the altar. His feet were not steady. His hands were not steady, either, untying the net. Sweat ran in his eyes. She didn't have to keep her promise. She didn't have to. . . .
The net fell away. She stood up on her tiny pink feet.
Slowly, like a swirl of mist straightening in a little breeze. She threw her head back and smiled. Her mouth was red and sulky, her teeth whiter than new snow. Her lowered lids had faint blue shadows traced on them.
She began to grow, in the golden shaft of light, like a pillar of cloud rising toward the sun. Lundy's heart stood still. The clear glearn of her skin, the line of her throat and her young breasts, the supple turn of her flank and thigh. ...
You worship me, too.
Lundy stepped back, two lurching steps. "I worship you," he whispered. "Let me see your eyes."
She smiled and turned her head away. She stepped off the altar block, floating past him through the black water. A dream-thing, without weight or substance, and more desirable than all the women Lundy had seen in his life or his dreams.
He followed her, staggering. He tried to catch her. "Open your eyesl Please open your eyes!"
She floated on, through the crack of the stone door. The kelp-things didn't see her. All they saw was Lundy coming toward them.
"Open your eyes!"
She turned, then, just before Lundy had stepped out to death in the hall beyond. He stopped, and watched her raise her shadowed lids.
He screamed, just once, and fell forward onto the black floor.
He never knew how long he lay there. It couldn't have been long in time, because he still had barely enough oxygen to make it to the coast when he came to. The kelp-beasts were gone.
But the time to Lundy was an eternity—an eternity he came out of with whitened hair and bitter lines around his mouth, and a sadness that never left his eyes.
He'd only had his dream a little while. A few brief moments, already shadowed by death. His mind was drugged
and tired, and didn't feel things as deeply and clearly as it might. That was all that saved him.
But he knew what Jackie Smith saw before he drowned. He knew why men had died or gone mad forever, when they looked into the eyes of their dream, and by looking, destroyed it.
Because, behind those shadowed, perfect lids, there was— Nothing.
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FIRST ON MARS
by Rex Gordon
(D-233) "This is frankly a Martian Robinson Crusoe in which the first explorer of the red planet arrives with no assets for survival save a wrecked spaceship and the skilful hands and mind of a good engineer. The details of his survival are as ingenious and suspenseful as they are plausible . . . One of the most engrossing recent specimens of straight solid science fiction." —Anthony Boucher (Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)
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They'd pattern this world to fit the people.
D-315 THE SPACE WILLIES by Eric Frank Russell You just can't keep on Earthman down! and SIX WORLDS YONDER by Eric Frank Russell Stories of first landings on far planets.
D-322 THE BLUE ATOM by Robert Moore Williams Who controls it, controls all. and THE VOID BEYOND by Robert Moore Williams Amazing tales of future super-science.
D-277 CITY ON THE MOON by Murray Leinster A novel of the first lunar colonists, and MEN ON THE MOON Edited by Donald A. Wollheim A new anthology of lunar exploration.
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EXPLORERS* OF THE MYSTERY PLANET
The planet Venus is one of the greatest mysteries of the sky. The closest and brightest planet to Earth —the familiar Evening Star—a near-twin in size, no one has ever seen its surface! For it is eternally hidden in* thick impenetrable clouds. Yet, if ever men go by rocket to any other world, it will be to THE HIDDEN PLANET first!
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AN ACE BOOK
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Donald A. Wollheim (ed) Page 18
