Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol VIII

by Various

  But Natalie said: "Hush! I might have lingered on a little longer, but I chose to concentrate the vital force which would have lasted me a few more senile years into the minutes necessary for this message from me to you--a message I could not have given you if he were not dead. And I am dying so that you may hear it. Dying! My God! I am already dead."

  She seemed to struggle against some force that battled with her, and the roar of many waters was louder around us before she was able to speak again.

  "Bend lower, Arthur; my strength is failing, and I have not yet said that for which I am here. Lower still.

  "I said it is all a mistake--a hideous mistake. Existence as we know it is ephemeral. Suffering is ephemeral. There is nothing everlasting but love. There is nothing eternal but mind. Your mind is mine. Your love is mine. Your human life may belong to whomsoever you will it. It ought to belong to that brave girl below. I do not grudge it to her, for I have you. We two shall be together through the ages--for ever and for ever. Heart of my heart, you have striven manfully and well, and if you did not altogether succeed in saving my flesh from premature corruption, be satisfied in that you have my soul. Ah!"

  She pressed her hands to her head as if in dreadful pain. When she spoke again her voice came in short gasps.

  "My brain is reeling. I do not know what I am saying," she cried, distraught. "I do not know whether I am saying what is true or only what I imagine to be true. I know nothing but this. I was mesmerised. I have been so for two years. But for that I would have been happy in your love--for I was a woman before this hideous influence benumbed me. They told me it was only a fool's paradise that I missed. But I only know that I have missed it. Missed it--and the darkness of death is upon me."

  She ceased to speak. A shudder convulsed her, and then her head sank gently on my shoulder.

  At that moment the great wave broke over the vessel, whirling her helpless like a cork on the ripples of a mill pond; lashing her with mighty strokes; sweeping in giant cataracts from stern to stem; smashing, tearing everything; deluging her with hissing torrents; crushing her with avalanches of raging foam. Then the ocean tornado passed on and left the Esmeralda behind, with half the crew disabled and many lost, her decks a mass of wreckage, her masts gone. The crippled ship barely floated. When the last torrent of spray passed, and I was able to look to Natalie, her head had drooped down on her breast. I raised her face gently and looked into her wide open eyes.

  She was dead.

  CHAPTER XX.

  CONCLUSION.

  Taking up my girl's body in my arms, I stumbled over the wreck-encumbered deck, and bore it to the state-room she had occupied on the outward voyage. Percival was too busy attending to wounded sailors to be interrupted. His services, I knew, were useless now, but I wanted him to refute or corroborate a conviction which my own medical knowledge had forced upon me. The thought was so repellent, I clung to any hope which might lead to its dispersion. I waited alone with my dead.

  Percival came after an hour, which seemed to me an eternity. He stammered out some incoherent words of sympathy as soon as he looked in my face. But this was not the purpose for which I had detached him from his pressing duties elsewhere. I made a gesture towards the dead girl. He attended to it immediately. I watched closely and took care that the light should be on his face, so that I might read his eyes rather than listen to his words.

  "She has fainted!" he exclaimed, as he approached the rigid figure. I said nothing until he turned and faced me. Then I read his eyes. He said slowly: "You are aware, Marcel, that--that she is dead?"

  "I am."

  "That she has been dead--several hours?"

  "I am."

  "But let me think. It was only an hour--"

  "No; do not think," I interrupted. "There are things in this voyage which will not bear to be thought of. I thank you for coming so soon. You will forgive me for troubling you when you have so much to do elsewhere. And now leave us alone. I mean, leave me alone."

  He pressed my hand, and went away without a word. I am that man's friend.

  They buried her at sea.

  I was happily unconscious at the time, and so was spared that scene. Edith Metford, weak and suffering as she was, went through it all. She has told me nothing about it, save that it was done. More than that I could not bear. And I have borne much.

  The voyage home was a dreary episode. There is little more to tell, and it must be told quickly. Percival was kind, but it distressed me to find that he now plainly regarded me as weak-minded from the stress of my trouble. Once, in the extremity of my misery, I began a relation of my adventures to him, for I wanted his help. The look upon his face was enough for me. I did not make the same mistake again.

  To Anderson I made amends for my extravagant display of temper. He received me more kindly than I expected. I no longer thought of the money that had passed between us. And, to do him tardy justice, I do not think he thought of it either. At least he did not offer any of it back. His scruples, I presume, were conscientious. Indeed, I was no longer worth a man's enmity. Sympathy was now the only indignity that could be put upon me. And Anderson did not trespass in that direction. My misery was, I thought, complete. One note must still be struck in that long discord of despair.

  We were steaming along the southern coast of Java. For many hours the rugged cliffs and giant rocks which fence the island against the onslaught of the Indian Ocean had passed before us as in review, and we--Edith Metford and I--sat on the deck silently, with many thoughts in common, but without the interchange of a spoken word. The stern, forbidding aspect of that iron coast increased the gloom which had settled on my brain. Its ramparts of lonely sea-drenched crags depressed me below the mental zero that was now habitual with me. The sun went down in a red glare, which moved me not. The short twilight passed quickly, but I noticed nothing. Then night came. The restless sea disappeared in darkness. The grand march past of the silent stars began. But I neither knew nor cared.

  A soft whisper stirred me.

  "Arthur, for God's sake rouse yourself! You are brooding a great deal too much. It will destroy you."

  Listlessly I put my hand in hers, and clasped her fingers gently.

  "Bear with me!" I pleaded.

  "I will bear with you for ever. But you must fight on. You have not won yet."

  "No, nor ever shall. I have fought my last fight. The victory may go to whosoever desires it."

  On this she wept. I could not bear that she should suffer from my misery, and so, guarding carefully her injured arm, I drew her close to me. And then, out of the darkness of the night, far over the solitude of the sea, there came to us the sound of a voice. That voice was a woman's wail. The girl beside me shuddered and drew back. I did not ask her if she had heard. I knew she had heard.

  We arose and stood apart without any explanation. From that moment a caress would have been a sacrilege. I did not hear that weird sound again, nor aught else for an hour or more save the bursting of the breakers on the crags of Java.

  I kept no record of the commonplaces of our voyage thereafter. It only remains for me to say that I arrived in England broken in health and bankrupt in fortune. Brande left no money. His formula for the transmutation of metals is unintelligible to me. I can make no use of it.

  Edith Metford remains my friend. To part utterly after what we have undergone together is beyond our strength. But between us there is a nameless shadow, reminiscent of that awful night in the Arafura Sea, when death came very near to us. And in my ears there is always the echo of that voice which I heard by the shores of Java when the misty borderland between life and death seemed clear.

  My story is told. I cannot prove its truth, for there is much in it to which I am the only living witness. I cannot prove whether Herbert Brande was a scientific magician possessed of all the powers he claimed, or merely a mad physicist in charge of a new and terrible explosive; nor whether Edward Grey ever started for Labrador. The burthen of the proof of this last must be born
e by others--unless it be left to Grey himself to show whether my evidence is false or true. If it be left to him, a few years will decide the issue.

  I am content to wait.

  THE END.

  * * *

  Contents

  NO PETS ALLOWED

  by M. A. CUMMINGS

  He didn't know how he could have stood the four months there alone. She was company and one could talk to her ...

  I can't tell anyone about it. In the first place, they'd never believe me. And, if they did, I'd probably be punished for having her. Because we aren't allowed to have pets of any kind.

  It wouldn't have happened, if they hadn't sent me way out there to work. But, you see, there are so many things I can't do.

  I remember the day the Chief of Vocation took me before the council.

  "I've tried him on a dozen things," he reported. People always talk about me as if I can't understand what they mean. But I'm really not that dumb.

  "There doesn't seem to be a thing he can do," the Chief went on. "Actually, his intelligence seems to be no greater than that which we believe our ancestors had, back in the twentieth century."

  "As bad as that?" observed one of the council members. "You do have a problem."

  "But we must find something for him to do," said another. "We can't have an idle person in the State. It's unthinkable."

  "But what?" asked the Chief. "He's utterly incapable of running any of the machines. I've tried to teach him. The only things he can do, are already being done much better by robots."

  There was a long silence, broken at last by one little, old council member.

  "I have it," he cried. "The very thing. We'll make him guard of the Treasure."

  "But there's no need of a guard. No one will touch the Treasure without permission. We haven't had a dishonest person in the State for more than three thousand years."

  "That's it, exactly. There aren't any dishonest people, so there won't be anything for him to do. But we will have solved the problem of his idleness."

  "It might be a solution," said the Chief. "At least, a temporary one. I suppose we will have to find something else later on. But this will give us time to look for something."

  So I became guard of the Treasure. With a badge. And nothing to do--unless you count watching the Key. The gates were kept locked, just as they were in the old days, but the large Key hung beside them. Of course, no one wanted to bother carrying it around. It was too heavy. The only ones who ever used it, anyway, were members of the council. As the man said, we haven't had a dishonest person in the State for thousands of years. Even I know that much.

  Of course, this left me with lots of time on my hands. That's how I happened to get her in the first place. I'd always wanted one, but pets were forbidden. Busy people didn't have time for them. So I knew I was breaking the Law. But I figured that no one would ever find out.

  First I fixed a place for her, and made a brush screen, so that she couldn't be seen by anyone coming to the gates. Then, one night, I sneaked into the forest and got her.

  It wasn't so lonely after that. Now I had something to talk to. She was small when I got her--it would be too dangerous to go near a full grown one--but she grew rapidly. That was because I caught small animals and brought them to her. Not having to depend on what she could catch, she grew almost twice as fast as usual, and was so sleek and pretty. Really, she was a pet to be proud of.

  I don't know how I could have stood the four months there alone, if I hadn't her to talk to. I don't think she really understood me, but I pretended she did, and that helped.

  Every three or four weeks, three of the council members came to take a part of the Treasure, or to add to it. Always three of them.

  That's why I was so surprised one day, to see one man coming by himself. It was Gremm, the little old member, who had recommended that I be given this job. I was happy to see him, and we talked for a while, mostly about my work, and how I liked it. I almost told him about my pet, but I didn't, because he might be angry at me for breaking the Law.

  Finally, he asked me to give him the Key.

  "I've been sent to get something from the Treasure," he explained.

  I was unhappy to displease him, but I said, "I can't let you have it. There must be three members. You know that."

  "Of course, I know it. But something came up suddenly, so they sent me alone. Now, let me have it."

  I shook my head. That was the one order they had given me--never to give the Key to any one person who came alone.

  Gremm became quite angry.

  "You idiot," he shouted. "Why do you think I had you put out here? It was so I could get in there and help myself to the Treasure."

  "But that would be dishonest. And there are no dishonest people in the State."

  "For three thousand years. I know." His usually kind face had an ugly look I had never seen before. "But I'm going to get part of that Treasure. And it won't do you any good to report it, because no one is going to take the word of a fool like you, against a respected council member. They'll think you are the dishonest one. Now, give me that Key!"

  It's a terrible thing to disobey a council member. But if I obeyed him, I would be disobeying all the others. And that would be worse.

  "No!" I shouted.

  He threw himself upon me. For his size and age, he was very strong--stronger, even, than I. I fought as hard as I could, but I knew I wouldn't be able to keep him away from the Key for very long. And if he took the Treasure, I would be blamed. The council would have to think a new punishment for dishonesty. Whatever it was, it would be terrible, indeed.

  He drew back and rushed at me. Just as he hit me, my foot caught upon a root, and I fell. His rush carried him past me, and he crashed through the brush screen beside the path. I heard him scream twice, then there was silence.

  I was bruised all over, but I managed to pull myself up and take away what was left of the screen. There was no sign of Gremm, but my beautiful pet was waving her pearl-green feelers as she always did in thanks for a good meal.

  That's why I can't tell anyone what happened. No one would believe that Gremm would be dishonest. And I can't prove it, because she ate the proof.

  Even if I did tell them, no one is going to believe that a fly-catcher plant--even a big one like mine--would actually be able to eat a man.

  So they think that Gremm disappeared. And I'm still out here--with her. She's grown so much larger now, and more beautiful than ever.

  But I hope she hasn't developed a taste for human flesh. Lately, when she stretches out her feelers, it seems that she's trying to reach me.

  * * *

  Contents

  MONKEY ON HIS BACK

  By Charles V. De Vet

  Under the cloud of cast-off identities lay the shape of another man-- was it himself?

  He was walking endlessly down a long, glass-walled corridor. Bright sunlight slanted in through one wall, on the blue knapsack across his shoulders. Who he was, and what he was doing here, was clouded. The truth lurked in some corner of his consciousness, but it was not reached by surface awareness.

  The corridor opened at last into a large high-domed room, much like a railway station or an air terminal. He walked straight ahead.

  At the sight of him a man leaning negligently against a stone pillar, to his right but within vision, straightened and barked an order to him, "Halt!" He lengthened his stride but gave no other sign.

  Two men hurried through a doorway of a small anteroom to his left, calling to him. He turned away and began to run.

  Shouts and the sound of charging feet came from behind him. He cut to the right, running toward the escalator to the second floor. Another pair of men were hurrying down, two steps at a stride. With no break in pace he veered into an opening beside the escalator.

  At the first turn he saw that the aisle merely circled the stairway, coming out into the depot again on the other side. It was a trap. He glanced quickly around him.

&n
bsp; At the rear of the space was a row of lockers for traveler use. He slipped a coin into a pay slot, opened the zipper on his bag and pulled out a flat briefcase. It took him only a few seconds to push the case into the compartment, lock it and slide the key along the floor beneath the locker.

  There was nothing to do after that--except wait.

  The men pursuing him came hurtling around the turn in the aisle. He kicked his knapsack to one side, spreading his feet wide with an instinctive motion.

  Until that instant he had intended to fight. Now he swiftly reassessed the odds. There were five of them, he saw. He should be able to incapacitate two or three and break out. But the fact that they had been expecting him meant that others would very probably be waiting outside. His best course now was to sham ignorance. He relaxed.

  He offered no resistance as they reached him.

  They were not gentle men. A tall ruffian, copper-brown face damp with perspiration and body oil, grabbed him by the jacket and slammed him back against the lockers. As he shifted his weight to keep his footing someone drove a fist into his face. He started to raise his hands; and a hard flat object crashed against the side of his skull.

  The starch went out of his legs.

  "Do you make anything out of it?" the psychoanalyst Milton Bergstrom, asked.

  John Zarwell shook his head. "Did I talk while I was under?"

  "Oh, yes. You were supposed to. That way I follow pretty well what you're reenacting."

  "How does it tie in with what I told you before?"

  Bergstrom's neat-boned, fair-skinned face betrayed no emotion other than an introspective stillness of his normally alert gaze. "I see no connection," he decided, his words once again precise and meticulous. "We don't have enough to go on. Do you feel able to try another comanalysis this afternoon yet?"

  "I don't see why not." Zarwell opened the collar of his shirt. The day was hot, and the room had no air conditioning, still a rare luxury on St. Martin's. The office window was open, but it let in no freshness, only the mildly rank odor that pervaded all the planet's habitable area.