Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  He was drawn up within the light.

  THERE are no words to describe a blind man’s emotions when he first sees. There were no words for Holden’s emotions now. His mental vision was broadened as though veils had been drawn up suddenly; new vistas, undreamed-of images, rose up before him, and he knew unimaginable things. Knowledge seemed to be pouring into his brain. Knowledge—and understanding of this incredible city. He knew what the light was. He knew it was alive.

  Yet with no life akin to ours. It had been created, the knowledge came to him, with one purpose: a storeroom for the secrets of man’s brain. It was a library, and more than a library. It held all wisdom that man had gained, incorporated in its essence when it had been created. And that wisdom it could impart to any man—educating him in an hour with the whole arcana of man’s past and present.

  Realizing this, some measure of reassurement came to Holden. He relaxed, allowing the flood of thought to pour into his brain, slowly coming to understand . . .

  The light told him of his own world, and of himself. He had lived unthinkable ages ago. Yet in those long-past days were hidden the seeds of the future, the germs from which this colossal civilization had sprung.

  The first keystones of science’s edifice had been laid even then. Slowly, painfully, through the years and centuries and eons scientists had added to their store of knowledge, ever expanding their frontiers, ever pushing outward into the unknown.

  But “with these new things that came into the world there, mingled very old ones, emotions and passions older than mankind. Passion, greed, hatred, lust—all of these kept pace with the advance of science. Wars decimated Earth again and again. Heedless, the scientists worked on—delving into the mysteries that always lay beyond each new discovery.

  And Holden had a terrifying mental picture of minds that were crippled and warped by beast passions, transmitted in the germ plasm, undying in its malignant effects—minds ridden by this fearful heritage plunging on into the secrets of space and time.

  The cities of Man towered into the stratosphere, extended far underground. Space travel became an accomplished fact. Adventurers drove out to Mars and Venus, and later to the moons of the giant planets—and then beyond Pluto, out into the great gulfs beyond the Solar System. And travel was not limited to three dimensions alone. The scientists found ways of reaching worlds that commingled with ours, on different planes of vibration.

  And to Mars and Venus, to Callisto and Ganymede and Io, to the frigid wastes of Pluto man brought fear and hatred. The heritage of the beast ruled. The life-forms of other planets were murdered or enslaved. Other dimensions submitted to the rule of the Earth.

  Power, power, power—always science gave power to man, and always he abused it. Bi;t the subtle weakness that the beast heritage brought to man’s mind went unnoticed, passed from generation to generation in the germ plasm and chromosomes.

  Man’s vision swept outward—outward—

  New secrets unfolded. Greater and greater mysteries bowed to his rule—cosmic arcana—

  Until man went too far.

  The thoughts pouring into Holden’s brain raced on . . .

  III

  AS the black globe sprang into existence in Holden’s laboratory, David Glynn stalled forward. Two steps he took—and the sphere vanished. On the platform was Scott Holden—and he was old.

  His shoulders were slumped and drooping, and on his face was stamped the weary tragedy of what he had seen. Glynn felt his stomach move sickeningly as he stared into Holden’s eyes. They were the eyes of a dying man.

  The pale lips moved.

  “You’re right, you know—” Holden said, and swayed and toppled forward into Glynn’s arms.

  But an hour later he was seated lifelessly at his desk, facing Glynn as he talked. He explained what had happened, while the younger man watched, his dark face immobile. Once he broke into the story.

  “I don’t see that. Scott. Man went too far? You mean he met some enemy—”

  “He met himself,” Holden said dully.

  “Oh, I was a fool; I know that now. It was pleasant to think of man as a courageous little mite bravely going forward into the unknown, facing the mysteries of all time and space. But what do we know of the tremendous secrets—out there? In the cosmic vastnesses—things too big for us, Dave. What are we, anyway? Fungi, lichen, parasites, growing like fleas on a ball of mud and water. If the flea had a brain comparable to ours, he’d think himself the pinnacle of evolution’s pyramid. Yet he could be squashed by your little finger.”

  He gulped the rest of a tumbler of brandy. “We’re only on the outskirts now. Just touching the fringes of the universe’s secrets. When we get further in—don’t you see what happened?” he said shrilly, smashing the glass down on the desk. “The race learned too swiftly! I don’t know how far I went in time. A million years—a hundred million—that doesn’t matter. Man won’t be able to understand or face the greatest mysteries of space and time till his brain has evolved to a certain point. Science went too fast. Man hadn’t evolved sufficiently to understand or make use of those incredible secrets when scientists discovered them. It takes tremendous moral and mental power—a very great will—to face the last secrets of the universe. And those secrets were uncovered before man’s brain had evolved enough to bear them.

  “I saw what happened then. Many died. There were other cities like the one I was in, scattered through the Solar System and beyond, and in other space-time continua. This one had been built chiefly to house my time-sphere. You see, after I created the globe it would naturally remain a ‘dead spot’ in the three-dimensional world through the ages, until the time, far in the future, when the switch was reversed. It couldn’t be destroyed, for it was static matter, created by power within the globe it formed. At any rate, the geologic shifts changed the Earth’s surface, so that sometimes the sphere was underground, and sometimes far up in the air. Ages, Dave—I wish I knew how many. Such changes don’t take place in a century or two.

  “Well, man went too far. His brain had been given power too soon. There are secrets of thought and being that will be the last to be discovered, and they are too tremendous for any but a perfect mind to face. These last men could not face them. They tried to retrace their steps, to establish a more mundane life. It was too late. They had no interest in anything but the pursuit of knowledge—and the only knowledge left they weren’t able to face. They were misfits, cursed with brains that learned power too soon. The heritage of the beast from which they evolved bound them irretrievably in the mire. They—they found a way out.”

  GLYNN leaned forward, frowning.

  The expression on Holden’s face was ghastly.

  “I got out of the light—that brain-thing, whatever it was—before it could tell me too much. Those last secrets are still unknown to me. The city is run by something like a robot system. There are artificially created intelligences at various points within it that automatically satisfy the mental desires of human beings. That’s why the wall opened when I wanted to get out, and all the rest. The intelligences were trying to obey the confused thoughts I gave them.

  “Once I knew that, I willed to be returned to the room where I’d left the machine. I felt sick and nauseated, Dave. Twice I started to get on the platform to return, and twice I turned back. You’ve guessed why. I wanted to know what was the way out mankind discovered.”

  Holden gulped more brandy. “I found out. I willed to be taken to the place where the other humans were. That unseen force lifted me, sent me plummeting down through metallic floors that vanished at my touch, down into the heart of the pyramid. At last I saw them, in a great room far underground. About a hundred, more or less. Beautifully formed men. Giants. Mighty heads—their craniums were magnificent.”

  Holden laughed harshly. “They were mad, you know. Quite hopelessly insane. Pinnacle of man’s evolution. Idiots. They’d destroyed the thing that had destroyed them—their brains.”

  He picked up the brand
y bottle; it was empty. Staring at it, his voice a little thick with the liquor, he said: “They were quite happy, too. In nonrealization of themselves. Automatically fed and cared for by the robot intelligences.” He laughed mirthlessly. “It’s funny, Dave. Why don’t you enjoy the joke? Man and science fighting. You’re the champion of science—and you’re going to win.”

  He swung about, eyeing the black statue on the pedestal. Suddenly he snarled a wordless oath, sprang up and took a few steps toward the image. But he stumbled and came crashing down in a huddled unconscious heap . . .

  For ten days Holden was a grim, disspirited shadow. He moved purposelessly about the laboratories, drinking incessantly. Worried, Glynn secretly watered the liquor, but presently Holden returned to his desk, neglecting alcohol for black coffee. He worked on his calculations for days, vainly trying to find a solution. Tt seemed useless. Time was unchangeable.

  Then, at last, Glynn gave him the clue he had been seeking. “Scott,” he said, “there’s a discrepancy somewhere. According to your story, the globe of static matter will exist—did exist—from the present day to the time you reached in the future. That right?”

  Dawning realization shone in Holden’s eyes. He said, “You mean—”

  “Well, it isn’t there now. It vanished when you returned.”

  “You’re right. Obvious! I should have known—it means the future can be changed, Scott.”

  “How?”

  “I changed it when I came back to 1985. Time isn’t a stream—it’s a network, a labyrinth of branches. Each moment we’re at a fork. If I throw a switch now, Earth’s destiny is borne along one branch of the stream. If I don’t, it takes another path. Time isn’t unchangeable.”

  Holden whirled and returned to his desk. Only once he glanced up to say triumphantly, “I learned a great deal in the future. Knowledge I can use now. In vibration—” He laughed shortly and again bent over his pages of calculations.

  GLYNN learned the plan in snatches as he worked with microscope and electric apparatus under Holden’s direction. The old man was energized by a fire that would not let him cease; he worked both day and night, with the aid of caffeine tablets and other stimulants.

  “You see,” he told Glynn once, “the factors that went to make up the ultimate collapse of mankind are still in existence. There’s too much science. Man must relapse into the barbarism from which he emerged too soon. Eventually he’ll recover the lost sciences, but not until his brain has grown and evolved a good deal. This vibration—”

  Glynn’s face was queerly cold. “What will it do to metals, Scott?”

  “Destroy them. I learned that, at least, in the future. Sympathetic vibration applied to the atomic structure—”

  “But it’ll wreck civilization!”

  “Only so that a better one may be built up later.”

  “What of the human organism?” Glynn asked quickly. “Certain metallic elements are necessary—”

  “The destruction of metals will take a long time—perhaps several hundred years. In that time man can adapt himself to the slowly vanishing supply of metal. I’ve taken that into consideration.”

  All metals would be destroyed. The thought hammered at Glynn’s mind as he moved about the laboratory, examining-slides through the microscopes, testing currents and rheostats, adjusting wires. Curiously enough, the cold cynic became man’s champion. He argued with Holden, pleaded with him, accused him. But he accomplished nothing.

  One night Holden, working in the laboratory, straightened at a furtive sound from the next room, Glynn’s workshop. He laid down his instruments and hesitated. Then, as a thought came to him, he hurried into his own office and secured the gun that lay on his desk. He had realized that the sound he had heard was a voice—and not Glynn’s.

  But when he entered the younger man’s room, the gun hidden in his pocket, Glynn was typing busily. He glanced up, lifting inquiring eyebrows.

  “Who was that in here?” Holden asked.

  Glynn’s lips parted slightly. “There was nobody—”

  “Who? The police? The government? You’ve told them.”

  “Well, what if I have?” Glynn stood up, scowling blackly. “I gave you your chance. I tried to stop you, but I couldn’t. Now they’ll stop you.”

  Holden glanced at the door, and saw that it was locked. Glynn, seeing the direction of his look, nodded. “They can break it down. Scott, give it up! I’ll tell them I lied—”

  “No.”

  “You plan to wreck the world!”

  “Not permanently,” Holden said with an odd flash of humor. Somehow he felt calm and steady, with nerves of ice, though he knew he faced the greatest crisis of his life. He wondered briefly at himself, at the queer and inexplicable engine that was the human brain. “Not permanently. Man will recover the lost sciences. He’ll get back metal when he masters atomic transmutation. And he’ll find substitutes.”

  The door vibrated to a low, urgent knock. Glynn said with fierce desperation, “Scott, give it up! I tell you—”

  “No.”

  Glynn drew a deep, unsteady breath. Then he turned to the door. Holden said sharply:

  “Don’t open it!”

  Glynn stopped, but did not glance back. He took another step forward.

  Holden took the gun out of his pocket. “Stop or I’ll kill you, Dave,” he said. Glynn looked over his shoulder, gave a low, hoarse shout, and rushed toward the door. His hand was on the lock when Holden fired.

  THERE was no time to aim. So the bullet killed Glynn instead of merely wounding him. Glynn dropped to lie motionless on the floor, and abruptly a volley of knocks thundered out. Holden put the gun in his pocket and raced back into his laboratory, locking the door behind him. He worked furiously for perhaps five minutes, and then the attackers broke down the outer door. But another panel still barred their entrance—a panel of tough steel.

  This gave Holden time enough to complete his task. He had learned many things in the world of the future, and now he hastily made a number of adjustments on his time-platform. The device, he knew, could be adapted to influence atomic structure in various ways. Presently he had finished, though the door was warping beneath the noisy attack. Bullets had dented it.

  Holden moved the lever. A globe of shimmering, opalescent light sprang out all around him—and swiftly it darkened. It became black as the time-sphere had been. But the attributes of this globe were somewhat different. It. was a barrier—a hollow shell of atomic energy that could not be penetrated by anything man had ever created.

  It. expanded slowly, passing through walls and ceiling without effort. But the men beyond the door hesitated at sight of the strange wall of darkness that was welling out before them, and drew back. One man waited too long, and as the atomic shell passed through his body he screamed in agony and died, to vanish beneath the blackness, his molecular structure disrupted. The others fled.

  The globe was quiescent at last, and the men tried their weapons on it. But. it seemed to have solidified now, and bullets merely fell flattened to the ground. Later, machine-guns and airplane torpedoes were tried, without success. For a while the entire forces of civilization were bent upon penetrating the atomic shell and reaching Scott Holden. For Glynn had given Holden’s secret to the world, and had explained Holden’s attempt to destroy all metals. In self-protection mankind tried to destroy Holden and his laboratory.

  But the scientist, unmoved, continued his work within the sphere. In a day he had finished the machine, and without. delay moved the switch that would send around the Earth the destructive radiations. And, sighing a little, he straightened and looked around for the first time in hours.

  He was extremely thirsty. But the carafe was empty, and the faucet gave only a trickle of muddy liquid, having apparently been cut off at the main. Holden drank some sherry instead.

  He stood for a while looking at the door beyond which Glynn’s body lay, but he did not open it. Shrugging, he went to a cupboard and began to measure
out fine crystals into a large glass container. Since Glynn’s death Holden had thought himself beyond all emotion, working only on his brain. And now his intellect told him coldly that only slow starvation awaited him within the atomic shell. He did not dare remove it, for he guessed that even now attackers were trying to shatter the globe with every weapon they had.

  No, the shell must remain, guarding the machine that sent out radiations that would gradually destroy all metals. In a hundred years metals would start to weaken and fail. Then the cities would go. In two hundred years only stone or wooden structures would exist; man would have adapted himself to a body without metallic elements; and he would be slipping backward into barbarism. For all the instruments of science would go, from the great telescopes to the smallest micrometers.

  HOLDEN poured a liquid into the container. As it touched the crystals, gas was generated. A painless death—and quick.

  Turning, his eyes fell on the black stone statuette. He quickly took it from the pedestal and dropped into a chair, cradling the image in his arms. It seemed oddly heavy . . . the effect of the gas, no doubt.

  The machines would be gone in a few hundred years, when the metals went. But the shell would remain on, Holden knew, gradually growing weaker and more tenuous as its energy was dissipated into the air. But not for many ages would man be able to break the barrier.

  The gas hissed. Death . . . it was just, after all. He had killed Glynn. Holden’s eyes stung; a strong bond of affection had existed between the two men, and now his harshly repressed emotions came flooding back to him.

  But they could not hurt him now . . . nothing could hurt him any more, not even the hatred and fear that future generations would give him . . .