The Space Opera Novella

by Frank Belknap Long

  “I’m returning your knife,” he said. “Thank you for lending it to me.”

  The blade of the knife was bright and clean but there was a stain on the hilt. Ambrose looked at it, looked at Harden. In the coat Harden was wearing there was a slit. It was just over the heart. There was a stain around it. Ambrose’s eyes fixed on the slit.

  “One of the Willies was wearing the coat,” Harden explained.

  “Ah—”

  Red Ambrose began to grin. The grin spread all over his face.

  “Come in, Harden,” he said. “Come in and tell me about yourself.”

  There was respect and warm regard in his voice. Harden entered. He had won the first round in the battle for his life in the land of serenity. He had won his clothes back, and he had a weapon. He had three weapons in fact, the knives he had taken from the three Martians who had robbed him of his clothes. But more than anything else—because in this place it was priceless—he had won a friend.

  “Sit down. Have a cigarette. And tell me about yourself,” Red Ambrose said. “Maybe we can work together in this hell hole.”

  “Thank you,” Harden said. “As for working with you, nothing would suit me better. About myself—”

  He told the story of his life, how he had been born in this place, how he had escaped, why he had returned, and what had happened to him. Red Ambrose listened in silence.

  “Keogh, eh?” he said at last. “I happen to know the man myself.” A grim note crept into his voice. “In fact, he is responsible for my being here.”

  “You too!”

  “Yeah,” Red Ambrose drawled. “And if you would like some help in cutting his throat, you’ve come to the right place.”

  “I would like nothing better,” Harden said. “But,” he wryly added, “cutting Keogh’s throat will be difficult. He is out and we are in.”

  “Maybe not so difficult,” Ambrose stated.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean this. Not two weeks ago I saw Keogh. A lot of Willies were with him. He was right here, in the land of serenity, right here in this same hellhole we’re in.”

  “What?” Harden had risen to his feet. “Then that means—”

  “It means Keogh has a way of getting in and out of this place. It means if we can find how he does it, maybe we can get out too.”

  “Lord!” Harden said. The word was a prayer. “If we could! If! But first—first I must find a girl.”

  “Naturally,” Red Ambrose said. “While you are looking for her, I will be looking for the way Keogh gets in and out of the land of serenity.”

  CHAPTER IV

  The Ship

  “It is agreed,” Red Ambrose said.

  “You will spend a week looking for the girl. I will spend the same time seeing what I can discover about Keogh. In one week, we will meet here again.”

  “Right,” Harden said. He walked out of the little village. The residents watched him go. They might have envied him the gun he carried at his hip—Ambrose had provided that—or the clothes he wore, but they kept discreetly out of his way and made no effort to molest him. They remembered what had happened to the three Martians who had taken this man’s clothes.

  “A good man to leave alone,” the inhabitants had agreed among themselves. In the future Harden’s possessions and Harden himself would be safe among them. There were other villages where he was not known, and there he would have to prove himself, but the gun and the knife swinging at his hips would go a long way toward providing him with a passport—in fact, they were the only acceptable passports in this vast forbidden world.

  He had spent two days with Red Ambrose, resting, talking, planning. Red Ambrose had been an engineer on a space ship. Keogh had come to him, tried to bribe him to smuggle derjin1 to Earth. Ambrose had refused. He had been walking near the space port when—ping—a needle gun had got him. He had awakened in the land of serenity. “Because I knew too much,” he had explained. “Keogh was afraid I might tell the authorities what I knew.”

  Ambrose had not been able to help him in finding Marcia Groner. He had been here only two years and had never heard of the girl. The land of serenity was a big place. Harden would have to find her. He had come here to rescue her, and if there was a chance of escaping, he wanted to take her with him. His plan was to visit the place where he had been born, the wreck of the old space ship, converted by its crew into living quarters and fortress. Marcia would be there. He wondered if she would remember him. What would she say when she saw him? What would he say when she saw her? He was thinking about Marcia but the face that kept coming into his mind was the face of Marion Gray.

  He shrugged. Miss Gray was a very beautiful girl but Marcia had been loyal. In Bruce Harden’s world, loyalty came first. In the harsh worlds of space, it was the loyalty of your comrade that counted most. It was just as simple as that.

  On the evening of the second day, he reached the wrecked ship. It lay in a little valley near an oasis and he sighted it from the top of a nearby hill. His heart leaped at the sight. This was home, home! This was the world he had known as a kid, as a youngster just reaching manhood. Marcia would be here, and the kids he had known. There hadn’t been but three children and only eight grown-ups—pitiful relic of the proud crew that once had landed here—but he would get to see them again. His own father and mother had died in an attack of criminals trying to raid the ship.

  His heart leaped, then the exultation died. He looked at the ship and looked again. He went running down to the wrecked vessel, hoping that what he thought was true was not.

  A hundred yards away he knew the truth. The ship was a wreck in reality. The carefully tended gardens in the oasis were overgrown with weeds and sand from the desert was drifting across them. The doors of the ship hung crazily open, the ports were broken, and the hull was smudged. Fire had raced through the hull.

  * * * *

  The ship was deserted. Harden went through it to make sure. It had been looted and burned, probably in another attack of the criminals of this vicious land. The humans who once had found refuge here were—gone. In the sand outside the entrance there was a skeleton.

  Harden turned away. The ship had been deserted for years. As he walked away, he did not look back.

  As he approached the hills, a figure darted out of a cave and lunged toward him. It looked like a walking skeleton. He drew his gun, then made no attempt to use it.

  It was a man who had come out of the cave. He saw the gun, drew back.

  “Don’t shoot,” he whimpered. “Don’t shoot—”

  Harden stared at this wreck of a human being. “By gad! It’s Mr. Dorsey.”

  Dorsey was the son of the pilot of the first expedition. Harden remembered him perfectly. Dorsey had been an old man when Harden had left.

  “You know me?” Dorsey whispered. “Do you know me?”

  “Sure, I know you. Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Dorsey approached hesitantly, stared at Harden from rheumy, lack-luster eyes.

  “Are—are you Jimmy Turner?” he whispered. “Jimmy Turner, who went away so long ago?”

  “I’m Jimmy Turner,” Harden answered.

  “You—you’ve come back?” Dorsey faltered. “Why—why would anyone return to this place?” His voice was cracked and broken. Each word was a wheeze.

  Harden did not attempt to explain. “I’m looking for Marcia Groner,” he said. “Where—where is she? What—what happened to her? What happened back there?” He pointed toward the wrecked ship.

  “The ship? Oh, yes, the ship. Something happened to it. Let me: see. Now what was it that did happen? I know. I’m certain I know. If I can only think what it was…”

  * * * *

  His eyes wandered from the ship to Harden, then he looked at the hills. “I can’t remember,” he sighed. “Some Willies came. Th
ere were a lot of them. But what happened after that—I don’t know—”

  “Was—was Marcia killed?” Harden whispered the words.

  “Marcia? Marcia? Who is she?”

  “Marcia Groner. You remember Marcia. She had yellow hair and freckles.”

  “Oh. Yes! Yes, I remember her. She—” For a moment elation showed on the lined face. Dorsey had remembered something. How that pleased him! Then the elation was gone as fast as it had come. The face was blank and vaguely worried. “No, I don’t remember. For a second, I had it, but it got away before I could say it. What was her name again?”

  “Marcia Groner,” Harden patiently repeated. “The girl with the yellow hair.”

  “Marcia—Marcia—” Like pebbles thrown into a bottomless pit, the words fell down the well of the old man’s memory. But the pit was bottomless and no answering splash came back. “Did something happen to her?” Dorsey queried.

  “That’s what I’m asking you,” Harden said. “Where is Marcia? Try to remember.”

  Dorsey tried. He was anxious to please. This young man had brought back vague echoes of happier days and he would like to help if he could. The trouble was, he couldn’t.

  “Maybe she is dead,” he suggested blankly. “So many are.”

  The idea seemed to please him. “Yes. That’s it. I remember a girl. And she’s dead. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  “No,” Harden said. “No. That wasn’t what I wanted to know.”

  The grimness on his face frightened Dorsey. “Don’t hit me!” the old man was suddenly begging. “Don’t hit me. I didn’t do anything.” He cringed.

  Harden forced himself to smile. “I’m not going to hit you,” he said.

  “You look like you would,” Dorsey accused. “I’m scared of you. I’m scared—” He was backing away. When he had reached a safe distance, he turned and scooted off like a frightened rabbit.

  “Poor devil,” Harden whispered. “Poor son-of-a-gun—”

  For a moment he thought of following Dorsey and trying to do something for him. He had concentrated food tablets with him. Dorsey probably hadn’t had a square meal in years. The old man would welcome the tablets. “Wait a minute,” Harden called. “I’ve got something for you.”

  Dorsey either did not hear him or would not believe him. Harden knew if he tried to follow, he would only frighten the old man more. There was nothing that could be done anyhow. This place was home to Dorsey, the only home he had ever known. He would prefer to remain here. Leaving a tin of the tablets where the old man would find them, Harden walked away.

  In his mind was a ceaseless refrain. “Yes, I remember a girl. And she’s dead. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  It wasn’t what Harden wanted to know. It was the last thing he wanted to learn.

  * * * *

  Red Ambrose opened the door at his knock. “Back so soon, eh? I’m glad to see you, Harden. I’ve got great news. I’ve discovered the damnedest thing. I know how Keogh gets in and out of this place and what he is doing here. But that can wait. Come in. Come in. Come in. Hey!” He looked past the man at the door. “You’re alone. I thought you were going after a girl. What—oh—”

  He saw Harden’s face. His voice changed. The gruff heartiness went out of it, was replaced with a non-committal bluntness. “What did you find?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Oh.” Ambrose held the door open, silently stood to one side while Harden entered and sat down. “Sorry,” the giant engineer said then. “Sorry, old man. You have my sympathy.”

  “Thank you”

  Nothing more was said. Nor would either of them under any circumstances ever reopen the subject. What was done, what had happened. The last chapter was written and the book was closed.

  “About Keogh?” Harden said.

  “Keogh? Yes, about Keogh. Harden, I’ve discovered the damnedest thing that ever happened on this or any other planet.” Excited overtones were creeping into Red Ambrose’s rumbling bass voice. Whatever it was he had discovered, just thinking about it made him excited. “Do you know the Martian legends about how the land of serenity came into existence?” he demanded.

  Harden nodded. “It was the old idea of sanctuary, a temple or sacred plot of ground where anyone was safe. In this case it was the temple of the Little Lost God. A crook, chased by the cops, a traveler, running from bandits, could find safety in this temple. As long as he remained within the temple grounds, he would not be harmed.”

  Such was the legend of the origin of the land of serenity. As the centuries passed, the area of safety had gradually grown in size. The place of sanctuary had expanded from the size of a temple courtyard to a section of land as big as a county. It was becoming too large. And—crooks were using it as a base from which to sally forth on raiding expeditions. Great gangs of bandits thronged in the place of sanctuary, raiding Martian cities and retreating at full speed to the temple area when the police got on their trail. The sanctuary of the Little Lost God was becoming a darned nuisance.

  The Martians, in accordance with their devious ideas of right and wrong, took what was to them the obvious solution. They said, “The temple of the Lost God is a sanctuary. All right, we’ll let it be a sanctuary. But we will build a great wall around the whole area and all who are once inside, will have to stay inside.”

  * * * *

  So the wall was built. And eventually, as the centuries passed, the land of serenity came into being. The temple of the Little Lost God had become a sanctuary with a vengeance.

  “No one is sure now whether there ever really was a temple,” Harden said. “Or, if it existed, where it was located.”

  “There was a temple all right,” Red Ambrose answered. “There is nothing left now but ruins but it once existed. And I know where it was located.”

  “So what?” Harden questioned. “What has that got to do with Keogh?”

  “It has this to do with Keogh,” Ambrose answered. “The temple was built on the surface. But it was either built over a vast series of underground caves or during the centuries the caverns were dug by the Martians. At any rate, the caves are there. They extend for miles. They either extend naturally or have been dug out under the wall. I’ve discovered that it is through these caves that Keogh is getting in and out of the land of serenity!”

  “Well, I’m damned!” Harden gasped in amazement.

  “You haven’t heard all of it,” Ambrose grimly continued. “Remember that the temple of the Little Lost God was a sanctuary. Anyone might find refuge there and be safe from all his enemies. Naturally a person whose life was saved would be grateful. He would make a gift to the temple. For centuries past the counting, these gifts were made: gold, jewels, the art treasures of the whole planet. The priests took the gifts and hid them away in the caverns under the temple. Keogh is hunting this hidden treasure. That is why he is coming into the land of serenity—to find and loot the lost treasure hidden under the temple of the Little Lost God.”

  Harden stared in amazement at Red Ambrose. The man had done a marvelous piece of detective work. Keogh had sniffed out and was on the trail of a gigantic hoard of hidden treasure!

  “No wonder he was so darned excited when I turned up in his hideout!” Harden gasped. “No wonder he started shooting before he asked any questions. He thought I was trying to cut myself in on his find!”

  “Exactly!” Red Ambrose said grimly. “With so much at stake, the wonder is that you ever got away alive. And now, my friend, we’ve got a chance at two things—to get out of this darned place, and to make ourselves a modest fortune at the same time, if—”

  “If what?”

  “If we’re lucky,” Red Ambrose grimly finished. His expression amplified his meaning.

  CHAPTER V

  In the Caverns

  “Fair warning,” Red Ambrose said. “Nobody knows how far
these caves run. If we get lost in here, we’ll be likely to stay lost forever.”

  “Getting cold feet?” Harden queried.

  “Nope,” the engineer cheerfully replied. “If you ask me, we had just as well be dead here as dead up there.” He nodded toward the surface.

  Harden nodded grim assent. They were in the caves under the temple of the Little Lost God. Except for the beams from their torches, they were in total darkness. The fluorescent lighting system used in the Martian cities had been invented long after this temple and the caves under it had been forgotten. There was a real chance of getting lost in the gloomy caverns. Legend said that the temple had been built because a god had been lost here.

  Their plan was to find Keogh, or the Willies working for him, and follow them out of the caverns, keeping out of sight in the meantime. Keogh and his men knew a path through the place. Once Harden and Ambrose knew the way out, then they would decide how best to investigate the treasure Keogh was hunting here. The treasure was important; escaping was more important.

  Dust inches thick was on the ground. With each step they took, it puffed up in little clouds. Red Ambrose was in the lead. He was following a double line of footprints in the dust. They were his own footprints, made when he had been running down the rumor about Keogh.

  “Another hundred yards and we will come to a round chamber, with caves leading out from it in all directions. That was as far as I went before. There were a lot of tracks leading into and out of this chamber. While I was there, Keogh and a bunch of Willies came through. I ducked out of sight and watched them. I figure if we follow the tracks they left behind them, they will lead us out of this place.”

  The chamber was just as Ambrose had described it. In some forgotten century it had been hollowed out of the solid stone. Radiating from it were six tunnels, also obviously artificial in origin. The dust here was thick with footprints. A path had been beaten from one tunnel, through the chamber, and out another tunnel on the opposite side.

  “We’ll follow the path,” Ambrose said. “It will lead us somewhere.”

  “Yeah, but—Lights out!”