Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  “How did the Council begin?”

  They were sitting near the great silvery dome, three hundred feet long, that rose from the center of the roof. They sat on a sloping lawn under a magnolia tree, and blossoms were drifting down about them, while the heavy fragrance was strong in their nostrils. Dawson could almost imagine himself back six centuries in time.

  “How did it begin? Why, through logical evolution. According to history, there was a world war in nineteen-ninety, which left the Earth desolated. A Technate of scientists rose and took command in various countries, eventually combining their forces. In time this gave place to the Council.”

  “I see. What were you before you joined the Council, Laurena?”

  She looked away.

  “We won’t speak of that. It does not matter now. Tell me, are you happy here, Stephen Dawson?”

  He looked at her averted profile, and all the nostalgia for a lost Earth rose up in him. “Happy? I—”

  His arms went around her then. It was not Laurena San he was holding. It was his own world—all that he had lost, all that had crumbled forever into dust. But when his lips found hers—

  It was not dust that he kissed—no!

  He drew back at last, staring at her. She put up her hand in a queer, helpless gesture.

  “Stephen . . . I—I am afraid.”

  “Why?” he asked quietly. “Is love forbidden to the Council?”

  “Love,” she repeated, and at the note in her voice Dawson felt a curious, inexplicable shock. He looked at her sharply. It was almost as though she had never heard the word before, or had forgotten it.

  She nodded.

  “I have forgotten so much, or perhaps there was much that I never knew. When I first saw you, Stephen, I sensed something—” She hesitated. “I don’t know—I don’t know! Our world, our plans—”

  Dawson caught the phrase.

  “Your plans? What do you mean?”

  She hesitated, but her glance toward the silvery, elliptical dome was betrayal. The man nodded toward it.

  “Does the secret lie there?”

  Laurena’s gray eyes found his. She nodded slowly.

  So there was a secret! Triumph leaped within Dawson. And then died as he saw the grief and pain in the girl’s face. Involuntarily he reached out to touch her.

  “You wish to go there?” she said. “Under the dome?”

  “Yes.”

  And now a queer sort of excitement shook Laurena. She leaned forward.

  “Now listen well. If I take you beneath the dome, it will mean that you can never leave the Capitol. There are secrets which must not be told.”

  “Was I ever intended to leave?” Dawson asked quietly.

  “Yes, you were. But not until a psychomachine had expunged all memory from your brain, making you harmless. Now—well, I do not think the Council will trust even the psycho-machine, after you have been under the dome. You must remain here forever.”

  A MAGNOLIA blossom drifted down between them. Dawson stared long at the girl.

  “It’s a good bargain,” he said unevenly. “Very well.”

  She started to rise. He said, “Wait,” and kissed her again. Her lips were tender as memories. There was a single scarlet blossom growing near them, and Dawson plucked this and put it in the curling brown hair.

  She smiled at him, then rose, leading him toward the ramp that led down from the gardened roof.

  Down they went, winding through corridors of stone till they faced a blank wall. From within her shirt Laurena drew a tiny metal box. She pressed this against the smooth surface.

  The panel opened. At first Dawson could not comprehend what he saw. A long bulging curve of metal that swept out above him, like the hull of an ocean liner—

  Laurena pulled him through the threshold, and the barrier closed. Dawson saw now that he looked upon a space ship.

  He remembered the silver, elliptical dome in the roof. That must be the ship’s upper half. The lower portion was hidden in this secret room, so that only part of the vessel was visible from above. A clever trick—the old “Purloined Letter” idea, of concealing an object in plain sight.

  Laurena led him to where an open port gaped in the ship’s side. He followed her in, finding himself in a little metal-lined corridor.

  This ended in a room, paned with what looked like black glass. Set flush with the dark floor was an instrument panel. Otherwise the room was quite empty.

  Laurena turned to face him.

  “Do you remember the space ship that fell to Earth hundreds of years ago?”

  DAWSON nodded, blank with amazement. “This is—”

  “Yes. It came from another world, Stephen. We never learned what the builders were like. It was robot-controlled. The Council took this ship and studied what they found in it. There were secrets of science such as Man had never dreamed existed. And that is why the Council is—as it is. Our knowledge is not drawn from Earth, but from an alien world as well.”

  “I see.” Yet Dawson did not entirely understand.

  “This ship lies here in a cradle. No one but the Council suspects its existence. It seems to be part of the Capitol building.”

  “Why is it here?”

  Laurena indicated a larger white button among the others on the instrument panel. “Do you see that? If it is pressed, the ship would rise and head into space. It would leave the Earth. It is always kept stocked with concentrated provisions, enough to last for almost a century. It is our Noah’s Ark.”

  “I don’t—”

  “We cannot see the future. We plan as we can. If cataclysm ever strikes our planet or the race—a comet, or a flood, or an incurable virus—we shall choose the hardiest and flee with them in this ship, to begin life again on another world. And that is all. We shall go now.” Laurena turned back toward the door, and Dawson perforce followed her.

  Outside the ship, he hesitated, watching the girl. She was very lovely, with the scarlet flower in her hair, her level gray eyes no longer frightened. But, deep within him, there were questions he did not ask. Laurena’s story had not satisfied him.

  A Noah’s Ark—yet why had not the Council provided for the building of thousands of space ships, so that not a few, but many, might be saved in the event of catastrophe? And then Dawson remembered the lack of furnishings in the ship, and the instrument panel set flush with the floor. Strange! He wondered what sort of beings had originally built the vessel. They could not have been human.

  That night, in his suite, Dawson spent hours pondering. Now that he had seen the ship, he could never leave the Capitol—except, perhaps, at the expense of losing all his memories and becoming like a child. No—rebellion rose in the man. He would escape somehow. Or—

  He remembered his sacred promise to Bethya, to help her save Fered. Impossible now. He could not communicate with her. If he could, she still had the plans for the vibratory principle. Some new weapon might be devised from it. And this time he would strike without warning—

  Dawson smiled bitterly. He was utterly powerless. Did he love Laurena? Yes, he thought—and yet, somehow, he was not quite sure. Perhaps it was because she was a member of the ruling Council, and, even if a marriage could take place, Dawson would still be in the position of a Prince Consort. That, to a man of his character, was unendurable. Yet under other circumstances, in a world where Laurena was not totally alien to him by ancient tradition, it might be different. A new weapon? The stasis ray would not work again. Yet vibration is an underlying principle of matter. Dawson remembered the days in Dasonee, when he had guided the conspiracy—

  His eyes widened. There was a way! A way against which this ultra-modern civilization might not suspect, because of its very existence had long been forgotten. But he must be discreet so as not to awaken the suspicions of the Council.

  “I want you to do something for me, Laurena. Back in Dasonee I had some pets. I’m rather lonely for them.”

  “You want them? Very well.”

  “The
girl who runs the aviary there—Bethya Dorn—is probably keeping them for me. A tame falcon, and some pigeons. Will you have them sent on?”

  “There is no harm in that, if you want them,” Laurena smiled. Dawson held her arm as she turned away. “Yes?”

  “I won’t want them for a month. I’ll be busy until then—I’m still not acquainted with the Capitol. Will you have Bethya send them here—in a month?”

  It was hard to wait, after that. Dawson could not know whether Bethya would understand the significance of the enforced delay. Would she remember their conversation, long ago in Dasonee, during which Dawson had described—carrier pigeons?

  CHAPTER VIII

  Triumph of Dust

  BETHYA understood. She spent that month training the pigeons to return directly to the aviary from great distances, doing it secretly. There was never any suspicion, nothing to connect the girl with the original plot to overthrow the Council. Dawson guessed all this when the pigeons—and the tame falcon—arrived.

  He had spent the month in working out plans, trying to devise a new weapon from the vibratory principle. He was not an accomplished scientist, but the final work could be done by the remnants of the conspirators, whom Bethya would gather together. Vibration . . .

  Light is vibration. And Dawson outlined theories, plans, suggestions, aimed at creating a ray that would destroy all light vibrations, canceling them so that total darkness would result. A complete blackout, in which the conspirators, wearing specially-made goggles, might move with unimpaired vision.

  To Dawson the idea seemed practical enough, in the light of this ultra-scientific civilization, but necessarily, he had to go much by guesswork.

  Messages could be sent only one way. Dawson felt triumph when he released the first of the pigeons, saw it rise and circle, and then dart away southward. His heart was a lump in his throat. Would the trick be suspected?

  It was not. Carrier pigeons were forgotten, not even mentioned in history. And the message went to Bethya . . .

  She could not answer. There was no way, without causing suspicion. Dawson tried to foresee every exigency, outlining in his shorthand notes just what Bethya should do, how she should gather together a group of plotters, how the scientists must work on the new ray-projector. Remembering the girl’s new-found self-reliance, Dawson felt that he could depend on her.

  Time passed. At last he sent the falcon back to Dasonee, giving as his reason the statement that the bird was homesick and pining. The truth was that the falcon had now become accustomed to the Capitol, and would return there promptly whenever Bethya released it in Dasonee. She would not send the bird, however, until the last moment, unless an emergency arose.

  The days fled past. More and more Dawson found himself attracted by Laurena. He scarcely ever thought of Marian now. He was burning with anxiety to learn how the plot was progressing. But there was nothing he could do except wait.

  The falcon came back, a message with it. Dawson read it surreptitiously. Bethya had not failed him. The machine was ready. The conspirators would wear protective goggles that would make the artificial darkness non-existent to them. They would land on the Capitol’s roof whenever Dawson gave the signal.

  He sent out a pigeon for the last time, setting the hour. And, after that, it was almost unendurable to wait . . .

  The day before the deadline, Dawson stole the tiny electro-oscillatory key from Laurena while she slept in the roof gardens, under the magnolia tree. He had to be sure that there would be a way of reaching the Council behind their locked doors.

  THAT night Dawson quietly let himself out of his suite. He intended to go to the roof, meet his friends as they landed, and lead them to the sleeping-quarters of the Council. Too, he wished to be present so that he could protect Laurena. He did not entirely trust the newly-aroused spirit of his co-conspirators.

  It was half an hour to deadline when Dawson slipped into a side corridor, hiding from a strolling guard. He decided to take a different way, past the rooms of the Council, usually left unguarded.

  But trouble came unexpectedly. A guard caught sight of Dawson as he sped along, and lifted his needle-gun. Dawson was used to rough-and-tumble scraps, and he had faced guns before. He dived under the weapon, so that the paralytic needle hissed above him, and crashed into the guard’s legs.

  The two men went down, Dawson’s hand shutting off a cry from his opponent.

  Fighting was almost a lost art. A fist cracked against a jaw, and the guard lay silent. Dawson stood up warily.

  He was beside a paneled door set into the wall—the sleeping-quarters of one of the Council. No sound came from beyond the panel. Yet Dawson hesitated, fearing that the noise of the scuffle might have reached dangerous ears. It would be well to make sure—

  He drew out the tiny “key” and pressed it against the door. There was a soft clicking, and a line of light widened as the panel slid up.

  Dawson saw a plain, unfurnished room of stone, with an open door set in the opposite wall. He stepped cautiously across the threshold, and the panel slid shut after him.

  He went into the next room and stopped in blank amazement. It, too, was undecorated, though cut in the wall was a square opening no more than a foot high. But flat on the floor, motionless, lay the body of Fered Yolath.

  Something was dreadfully wrong about it. Dawson moved forward, the guard’s needle-gun in his hand, looking down. Fered’s head—

  THE entire top of the man’s head was lifted up, as the lid of a box is lifted. And within the skull cavity was dark emptiness. Good God!

  Dawson fought down his repugnance, knelt, and gingerly examined the body. The skull had been cleverly hinged, he saw, so that the top of the cranium could be lifted at will. And the bone had been replaced with metal that felt cold under the crisp hair.

  He looked up in time to see something stir in the darkness of the little opening in the wall. From that gap a bizarre being emerged, so swiftly that Dawson caught only a glimpse of what looked like a monstrous spider. There was a flash of swift, innumerable limbs, the gleam of light on a shining, wrinkled, grayish body from which they sprang, and the creature sped straight for Fered’s body.

  The spiderlike creature entered the empty skull, and the cranium-cap fell into place. Before Dawson could rouse himself from his shocked incredulity, Fered’s hand moved swiftly, and a round lens glittered in it.

  Dawson swung up the gun. From the lens light flashed, and the weapon fell to the floor, while Dawson felt a shock of pain in his arm.

  Fered stood up, still holding his lens-weapon ready. Dawson could scarcely believe what he had just seen.

  Through dry lips he whispered, “You’re not—Fered—you’re some devilish being—some monster insect—aren’t you?”

  “Ask what you wish,” the low voice said. “I must kill you now, so what you know will make no difference.”

  But Dawson could not speak. And the spider thing that spoke through Fered’s body, its garment of humanity, went on:

  “You know, now, that we are not human. We came to Earth in the space ship you saw, centuries ago. We are almost immortal. But our own planet, far beyond your Galaxy, was destroyed, and we sought for a new one. We are an old race, tired of battle. You said that Mankind stagnated under us. This may be true, because we, too, are stagnant. We reached the peak of our civilization eons ago, on a different planet, and were content to rest.”

  Dawson swallowed.

  “You’re inhuman—”

  “We are intelligent, far more so than humans. When we reached the Earth, we decided to remain here. We could, perhaps, have conquered by force, but it was unnecessary. Instead, we took the bodies of Earthmen, employed psychology, and created—the Council.”

  Dawson’s fascinated gaze clung to the being’s skull.

  “We are almost immortal, as I have said. But we preferred to arouse no suspicion in Earthmen. They held their elections, whenever one of our bodies would wear out, and a new member would be appointed to
the Council. The person’s brain would be removed, and one of us would enter in its place. We are almost bodiless, Stephen Dawson. We developed into beings chiefly composed of brain-tissue, yet with the necessary mobile organs.”

  Now Dawson knew why he had sensed something alien about the Council from that first. They were alien—creatures from a different Galaxy, come to this planet centuries ago, to rule unsuspected over Mankind. So much was explained now—the stagnation of humans, the drug of contentment that had wiped out initiative . . .

  “Fered—” Dawson whispered. “What became of him?”

  “We kept his brain alive. It was a most valuable one, and we wished to drain it of its knowledge later.”

  “You mean—it can be replaced—”

  “Of course,” the being said. “It can be replaced in this skull, and Fered will live again. But that will not occur. You will die, instead.”

  Then darkness fell.

  INSTANTLY Dawson realized what had happened. Bethya’s planes had arrived, were even now hovering over the Capitol, sending down the vibratory ray that blacked out light. His reaction was instinctive. He sprang aside, feeling death touch him as the alien being used the death-lens, and grappled with the Thing.

  He put all his strength into a smashing blow at where he guessed its jaw would be. Then he felt the creature go limp, and collapse.

  Dawson bent blindly, his fingers searching. The knockout was complete. Under his hand he felt the chill metal of the skullcap, and shuddered. Then he groped his way to the door, using the “key” he had taken from Fered to let himself out into the corridor.

  He was alone in blind darkness. Guided by touch alone, he felt his way upward. He had two “keys” now, Fered’s, and the one he had stolen from Laurena. He hurried on.

  He was to meet Bethya on the roof.

  Fresh air gusted against his face. He heard low voices, and hands seized him. He felt goggles being slipped over his head, and then, amazingly, he could see again, though there was a queer absence of perspective.

  Three planes stood near by. Goggled men, armed, were still pouring from them. A knot of figures stood near Dawson, among them Bethya, a vicious little gun in her hand.