Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  The green eyes were very tender. “Will they? But my people are safe now, since you killed the Beast. They do not need me.”

  “You—you mean you’ll stay? On earth—here with me?” Stone’s voice was incredulous.

  Though Marsalaya did not speak, her lips answered him.

  THE DARK HERITAGE

  Scott Holden became the Betrayer, using his vast scientific skill and power to destroy all metal—thrusting mankind back to elementals to save it from knowledge that would mean annihilation!

  PROLOGUE

  WITHOUT speaking the tribe followed Sorg, the chieftain, as he marched stubbornly through the wilderness. All were frightened. The tangled, underbrush and the dark shadows of the trees looming overhead created an atmosphere of mystery, in keeping with the legends of this desolate land. Occasionally the rounded summit of a low mountain range was visible far ahead. The air was chill with early spring, touched with the remembrance of an iron-cold winter.

  A woman broke from the straggling group, and came to Sorg’s side. She touched the chieftain’s arm furtively. “I am afraid, “she whimpered. “Sorg . . . let us turn back.”

  Sorg made no reply. His gnarled hand, gripping a wooden spear, tightened. His broad, fur-clad shoulders were thrown back almost imperceptibly, as though to meet a challenge.

  “You are strong,” the woman said. “Strongest in the world, I think. But . . . the Destroyer dwells here, Sorg!”

  Jal the shaman fell into step beside her—a shrivelled old man, bedecked with feathers and paint. His wise gaze was strangely comforting to the woman. He said, “In our own place we starve. The winter has killed all the game.”

  “And I will not grub for roots like a swine,” Sorg said harshly. He fingered his stiff red beard, staring around into the dim corridors of the forest. “There is game here. If the Destroyer is so powerful—why has he not killed the deer?” The woman caught her breath in a sob. “He hates only man—you know that. We shall all die.”

  “He is a fable,” Sorg said in a voice that did not carry conviction. “An old woman’s tale.”

  Jal’s wrinkled face was turned to the chief. “No fable, Sorg! Remember—without me beside you, the tribe would not have come to this evil land. We must talk softly. The Sungod has cursed this place where the Betrayer dwelt.”

  Sorg was thoughtful. Since childhood he had worshipped the Sun, and with the rest of the tribe he had spat upon the huge black globe of stone that rested in the temple-cave—symbol of the Betrayer. Never yet, to his knowledge, had anyone ventured into the secret wilderness which, according to legend, was the home of the Destroyer. Yet now, shading his eyes with a calloused palm, he could see little to frighten him.

  AGES ago this had once been the suburb of a great metropolis, though Sorg did not know it. The slow tide of time had blanketed it with vegetable life. Wood had long since rotted to dust, but occasionally a strangely-shaped stone pushed up through the underbrush. More than once before Sorg had discovered the ruins of cities, but he did not care to remember the desolate wreckage he had seen. He had felt emotions he could not analyze, and Sorg was a realist. He did not like things he could not understand.

  Behind him the tribe straggled, a wretched group of half naked savages. Would they obey him when he ordered camp made here? Game was plentiful, and they were hungry. Though the great snows were over, it would be many moons before food could be had easily. But this was the land of the Betrayer . . . a little gust of rage touched Sorg; he shook his fist at the gray sky in a gesture of foolish defiance. The woman moaned, shuddering in the cold wind that blew between the trees.

  Abruptly Jal thrust up a warning hand. He pointed. The ground dipped from their feet into a little valley, thickly forested. In its cup was a clearing, and the ruins of a building. A building better preserved than any Sorg had seen before. Above it a vague opalescence shimmered in the air, intangible, inexplicable.

  Whispers went up from the tribe. A movement of panic shook them. Even Sorg hesitated, staring down at the ruin.

  Jal touched his arm and said softly, “You must go down there.”

  “What?”

  With a movement of his eyes Jal indicated the tribe. It would not do for their chieftain to show fear now. They would flee back to the wilderness that was their home, where they would starve.

  Realizing this, Sorg barked a harsh word of command and commenced to descend the slope. Presently he realized that Jal was following him. He felt oddly relieved.

  They pushed through undergrowth till the clearing was before them. All around the hill-slopes mounted. Sorg could see a tiny knot of figures high above him. They were watching.

  He walked swiftly toward the ruin. The flickering rainbow light in the air was like a dome, enclosing part of the clearing. He halted, hesitating.

  He heard the breathing of Jal behind him. And he was conscious of the eyes of the tribe . . . with an involuntary shudder he put out a hand, touching the translucent, shimmering barrier.

  There was some resistance, but no more than water would give. Sorg made up his mind and stepped forward, breaking easily through the strange wall. And he was conscious that Jal had followed him.

  Here, within the wall, much had resisted the wearing grind of the centuries. Blocks of stone were sharply-edged instead of rounded. There were flakes of some gleaming substance on the ground—something Sorg had never seen before. He felt Jal’s gaze on him, and looked up. The shaman pointed.

  Between walls of stone, riven and shattered, a room was visible. Unknown objects were half buried in dust that carpeted the stone floor in uneven heaps. In the very center of that roofless chamber was a human skeleton, dust-heaped: amidst the bare whiteness of the bones something black shone.

  Sorg whispered, “A man—” He could not finish. He knew what Jal would reply.

  And the shaman murmured, “No man, Sorg. The Betrayer. See!”

  He moved forward to the threshold of the room, and pointed. “See what he holds? He crushed man in his grip—long ago. And things haven’t changed, still man is his victim.”

  Skeleton hands touched the black thing: a stone statuette of a nude male figure, feet on a black globe, face upturned, arms uplifted, striving. It lay amidst the bones, pitted a little with age, and filmed with a gray dust. And Sorg knew that he beheld the Betrayer, the dreadful Destroyer who had ruined the world ages ago. The old legends thronged into his mind. “He lifted Man up only to hurl him down. The Sun-god saved us, but even yet the Betrayer has power over Man . . .”

  Sorg was breathing harshly. He said, “Jal, if I—”

  The shaman nodded. He pointed to where the tribe waited. “It is in your power to free the world from the Betrayer—or his legend,” he added in a whisper, for Jal was more intelligent than his fellows. He watched now while Sorg slowly advanced to the side of the skeleton and lifted the black statuette with thick fingers that trembled as he held it.

  No doom fell. The Destroyer did not resent this blasphemy. And suddenly Sorg knew a new sense of power, a realization of his own achievement that sent him, heedless of Jal, racing back up the slopes, holding the image high, shouting words that would strike fetters of fear from the tribe . . .

  And on the threshold of that ruined room, Jal the shaman stood, peering down with age-dimmed eyes at the pitiful remnant of a living, breathing being. Vaguely in his mind incomprehensible thoughts stirred—a question, and a doubt, and above all a tremendous wonder and a wish to know, to look into the forgotten past when Man had been a giant instead of a brutal savage that he was now.

  “We shall never know, “he whispered, and turned away to follow Sorg. Yet something seemed to reach out from the skeleton on the floor, a queer affinity, and a strange understanding. Because, uncounted centuries ago to human comprehension, but a brief moment in the galactic drift, the Betrayer had been a man like Jal . . .

  I

  SCOTT HOLDEN was not an impressive figure as he crouched over his desk, laboriously working out an equation
. His face was thin and pale and wrinkled, though Holden was not yet fifty. Yet he was the most powerful man in this world of 1985.

  He nodded at last, grunted with satisfaction, and pressed a button. While he waited he extracted a worn briar pipe from a pocket of his stained smock, and filled it carefully. Clouds of blue, foulsmelling smoke wreathed him when David Glynn entered.

  Holden let his mild blue eyes wander over Glynn. An intelligent man, ears set well forward on the head, forehead high, lips firm—though Holden could never bring himself to admire or even understand the cynicism that sometimes twisted Glynn’s lips into a wry sneer. Glynn was to be Holden’s successor as ruler of the world.

  This rule had not been sought by Holden, but thrust upon him by virtue of his accomplishments. His power lay across Earth like a Titan shadow—a shielding shadow. His experiments with the atom had enabled man to create a Utopia. And the secrets he still held enabled him to put down the wars that occasionally threatened to disrupt civilization. If Holden had not kept the greatest power for himself alone, the world would have long since perished in a holocaust of battle, with new and frightful weapons of atomic warfare. Luckily, Holden was wise, and therefore maintained his peaceful rule unhindered, with the full consent of his subjects.

  Glynn said briefly, “Have you finished?”

  Holden nodded. He arose and wandered to a pedestal where stood a black stone statuette—a figure of a man, feet bound to the earth, face and arms and eyes striving upward. He lifted the image gently.

  “Yes, Dave,” he said. “I’ve finished. The last details are worked out. When I throw that switch—” He pointed—“I will be able to move in time.”

  “When will you—”

  “Why not now? But first there are some things I must tell you. This experiment—well, it’s dangerous. I may not succeed. If I die, you will take over the rule of earth.”

  Glynn’s eyes did not change.

  “I know you,” Holden went on. “Therefore I trust you. I could wish that you had more heart and less brain, but—”

  Glynn said sharply, “Why must you be the guinea pig? Let someone else. Let me!”

  Suddenly Holden’s eyes were dreaming. He glanced at the stone image he held. “No, Dave. This is my reward. I’ve worked for years to help mankind. I’ve given him new powers, new frontiers of science. I’ve helped him upward a little from the brute. My reward is to see the end.”

  Glynn’s lip curled.

  “What do those swine care what you’ve done?”

  “I didn’t work for a reward, Dave. You know that. I worked for man—courageous little pygmy that can face all space and time!” He laughed a little self-consciously. “I sound maudlin, eh? Well—you worship science. I worship mankind—and that’s why I’m being my own guinea pig. I want to see the pinnacle of human evolution.”

  He put down the image. There was a glass of water on the desk, and he filled it from a carafe. Sipping slowly, Holden said, “If I don’t return—”

  “You’re a fool,” Glynn snapped.

  HOLDEN did not take offence. He raffled a few of the papers on the desk. “The secret’s here. If I fail, experiment again. Eventually we’ll be able to control the time-extension.”

  Glynn was suddenly the scientist, cold, alert, attentive. He tapped a pencil against his hand as Holden continued, his keen brain searching for possible errors in the other’s theory.

  “Atomic structure is the secret, Dave. Time is a dimension that interpenetrates the three spatial dimensions we know. We’re like pebbles in a stream-bed, half embedded in the sand. The stream itself, flowing all around us, is time.” He paused, smiling wryly. “Difficult to explain. However—we move with the stream, but slowly. All earth moves in the time-current, impelled by the stream’s drag, held back by the sandy bed—our atomic structure. Now listen: if the pebble I’ve used as an example could be thrust up into the current, freed from its bed of sand, what would happen?”

  “I see,” Glynn said.

  “Yes. The stone would move with the current more swiftly than when the friction of the sand impeded it. If the pebble were made buoyant, it would go even faster. To make a man move with the current of time—to free him from the friction of his atomic structure—I change that structure.”

  “You’ve done that before.”

  “I’ve experimented, yes. Unsuccessfully till now. This experiment involves the slowing-down of the electronic orbits, automatically decreasing the time-rate. Actually, the heavier elements have a slower time-rate than the lighter ones. They are more permanent. D’you know the reason? They have a greater extension into the time current.”

  Glynn nodded slowly. “Rutherford and Chadwick showed the way. Their experiments—”

  “But they didn’t know—they couldn’t.” A flash of pride showed briefly on Holden’s gaunt face. He went on : “Electricity and light, of course, are the important factors. My papers will show you the details. Slowing down the electronic movement automatically extends the object into the time dimension. To return to our example, the pebble is rendered buoyant, lifted off the bed of the stream, and permitted to flow with the current. Because it moves with the current, there is no friction—and no time. It is this friction with the time-stream that causes us to grow old.

  “But I’ll move with the current, through the ages until an automatic switch releases energies that will reactivate my electronic structure. And I can return, Dave—it won’t be a one-way trip. I’ll still be bound to this time-sector, as though by an elastic band. I can retrace my way. The papers will explain it all.” Holden turned away to open a door. He glanced back from the threshold, his eyes lingering on the black statue.

  “Come on, Dave. Everything’s ready.” The two went into the adjoining room. It was a laboratory, neat and spotless. In one corner of the room a flat gray disc, seven feet in diameter, topped a low platform. Wires led from its base through hollow pipes into the walls.

  “Not very impressive, is it?” Holden said. “There’s a lot of power there, though. Wait over there, Dave. If I’m successful, I won’t be gone a second—no matter how long I stay in the future. Wait a minute!” He hurried into the adjoining room and came back stuffing a tobacco pouch into his pocket. He climbed on the platform. A lever protruded from its base.

  Glynn said, “Scott!”

  “Eh?”

  “I—nothing. It’s queer, that’s all.”

  Holden nodded understandingly. He lifted his hand in a mute gesture of farewell and swung over the lever. Instantly a black sphere seemed to engulf platform and occupant. It sprang out of empty air, a globe of nothingness—of alien matter—

  And within it stood Scott Holden, a motionless statue, utterly inert in every atom and electron—borne down the limitless eons on the sweep of times current . . .

  II

  UNDER his hand the lever stirred and moved; it seemed the fraction of a second since he had swung it. The black globe had vanished. Holden did not know it had ever existed. A moment ago, he felt, he had been in a familiar world. Now all was changed.

  He stood on the platform, and around him was a great sweep of vastness—a room, hundreds of feet broad, perfectly circular, and towering up to a high, lambent dome of glowing brilliance. The droning vibration of some sound was just dying in the air. Holden hesitated, wondering, and his hand went to the automatic in his pocket. Glynn had insisted upon his taking the weapon.

  But the room was quite empty. There was nothing here.

  Carefully Holden clambered from the platform. He hurried across the floor, feeling curiously insignificant in that vast chamber. The wall was bare, and made of a grayish metal that felt blood-warm to the hand.

  The silence blanketed Holden. He felt an unreasoning surge of fear, and shouted, “Hello!” Echoes boomed.

  “If I could get out of here—!” he thought—and stepped back involuntarily. The wall before which he stood was dissolving, a great square of it, melting into nothingness. Before him, below him, was
a city.

  A city built like a ziggurat—a ledged pyramid, all of gray metal, dropping down beneath him to the pale yellow of jungle. Even at that tremendous distance Holden realized the enormous size of that alien forest. A glance upward, at a red sun that gave little warmth, told him the reason. Decreased solar radiation meant a corresponding increase in the leaf-surface of vegetation.

  Movement shook the far jungle, though there was no wind. It seemed alive. Its pale stretches moved . . . moved . . .

  But Holden was never to solve the forest’s mystery. Glancing at the abyss at his feet, he knew that he could not leave the room thus; and simultaneously with the realization he felt himself lifted into the air as though by unseen hands. Weightless, he hung there, without discomfort, but with a momentary horrible fear of falling. He fought for calm.

  Gravitation-control—man had not yet mastered it in his day. But in times to come . . . He saw the walls glide past, and realized he was moving, though when he closed his eyes experimentally the sense of motion vanished. A wall melted into haze as he drifted toward it, and he glided through.

  He was suspended near the ceiling of a gigantic chamber. Though the floor was far below him, yet the towering metal of certain strange edifices was almost beneath his feet. He saw that they were machines, immense beyond imagination, built for some purpose he could not understand. Machines not of metal alone, but of light and movement and sheer power, he thought, staring down in wonder.

  He strained his eyes for glimpse of a human figure. Pear touched him; the apprehension of finding this incomprehensible city deserted. Again he shouted, not knowing what words his lips formed.

  The unseen power that held him unsupported in empty air, as though at a signal, lifted him. He drove up through a gray ceiling that vanished as he touched it. And Holden saw above him—a light.

  He was conscious of nothing else; it seemed to grow and swell till it dwarfed all else. Yet Holden could not have said its color. It seemed rainbow-hued, and yet pale as moonlight; flaming with white fury, and yet, paradoxically, a thing of black light that loomed gigantic in a universe of brightness. Holden had a queer, impossible idea that he was not seeing the light with his eyes, but, rather, with his brain. He felt an impulse to laugh shakily, and fought down incipient hysteria.