Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

“Yes,” I said heavily. “I wish they had not come. I wish we could have gone on like this forever.”

  “It will not end. It will not end, for us, Sean.”

  “I think it will end,” I said, not knowing why I spoke thus. “I think it will end in flame and death and much sorrow. We have known happiness for a little while, but all ends now.”

  She was in my arms, her mouth stopping mine. “You cannot read the future. Do not say such things! Even we of Dyan cannot brush aside the veil that hides tomorrow. Sean, you will forget this foolishness when you have faced the storm—and it comes now! Now!”

  “Yes?”

  “Look! Beyond the abyss, beyond the temple of the gateway—that light. See? The storm in the Cleft, that gives life and power to the gods, begins once more. That which comes from the rock sends out its beacon. Once you stand in the storm, Sean, you will be as an unsheathed sword! All you sense but faintly now, will be as flaming madness in your veins—as it is in mine. The bonds of the flesh still hold you. Come, before Lar reaches the castle. We shall go to the Cleft and bathe ourselves in the power that makes the gods!”

  Her high excitement caught me in its mounting tide. Laughing, I lifted her, kissed her lips, moved to the staircase. Then down it, to the courtyard—

  Glenn stood there waiting.

  “What now?” he asked sardonically. Aedis flashed him a contemptuous glance.

  “Sean is done with you,” she said. “When you see him next, he will no longer bear the taint of the Dojin.” Glenn licked his lips. “Are you going to—”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He hesitated. “All right. I’m coming along. Just in case.”

  “What does he say?” Aedis murmured. “He cannot come.”

  “Where I go, he goes,” I told her, prompted, perhaps, by the sick, hurt look in Glenn’s eyes. I felt somehow that I was betraying him. But that was folly—stupid folly!

  Aedis shrugged. We moved toward the open gate, through it, and started along the path that led to the range of low hills. Glenn thrust something into my hand.

  “Hadn’t time to get the guns,” he said. “I grabbed Mary Lou, though. Thought she might come in handy.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Sean. Do me a favor—”

  To please him, I buckled the wicked machetelike sword to my belt. Not that I’d need it. After I had faced the storm in the Cleft, I would have powers that

  needed no weapon of iron or steel.

  From the top of the ridge, looking back, I could make out a great horde of marching men—women too, no doubt—half hidden by the mist. They were still far away. It was impossible to distinguish Lar at this distance.

  Aedis’s excitement grew. She led the way, racing toward the bridge that spanned the abyss. We followed. I caught something of her exhilaration, sensing the incredible thing that lay hidden before us.

  We crossed the black span. The air shook around us with deadly radiation.

  We skirted the knoll where the gateway waited—the half-living spherical machine that had brought us to Dyan.

  The flame-colored cliffs hemmed us in. We went toward their narrowest point, where a gorge split the walls—stone ramparts of flame.

  “The Cleft,” Aedis whispered. “Now—”

  The narrow canyon twisted sharply. It widened. The walls were perhaps fifty feet apart for a space of a hundred yards. Beyond that, the gorge widened once more, and I caught a glimpse of forest—trees bearing golden fruit, and green foliage.

  “Here,” Aedis said, her voice shaking.

  That hundred-yard stretch was bare of soil, uncarpeted by moss. Like the crags that walled it, it was of flame-colored rock.

  “It comes. It comes. The storm that gives life. It comes!”

  I heard a faint whispering, dim and far away. It grew louder. It mounted to a deep, powerful roaring—a wordless bellow that shouted like the drums of all the gods.

  Higher it rose—and louder. Louder still! We were shaken with the clamor of its fury.

  From the wall of rock burst—the storm!

  That which comes from the rock!

  SHAKING the crags with its tumult, the torrent poured out, spanning the gorge, a wall of shaking, pallid flames that barred our path. It was like a river, I thought. It gushed from the rock face, drove across the Cleft, and was swallowed up by the further rampart.

  But it was no river—I realized that. It was like a snowstorm. Now I could make out the myriad individual particles that made up the torrent. They were shaped like snowflakes, but in a hundred, a thousand variations. They sparkled with star-points of light.

  They were light.

  They were—life!

  “Now!” Aedis’s cry rose about the beating thunder. She drew me toward the swirling, flashing madness.

  Instinctively I drew back. Aedis gave me a quick glance, turned, and gripped Glenn’s hand. The intoxication of that incredible storm of energy beat like surging tides in our veins. I saw Glenn take a step forward—

  “Aedis!”

  “He, too!” she shrilled. Her free hand found mine. Together, the three of us went into the heart of that tremendous fury.

  Momentarily I was blind. Then I saw again, heard the thunder trumpets bellowing like crashing worlds. Against my body the sparkling flakes were driven, as by gusting winds.

  Yet I felt no wind.

  Beside me, Aedis and Glenn. The star-points drove against them, melting into their flesh as they melted into the rock wall behind us. I felt cold fires eat into the center of my being.

  Freeing! Unleashing!

  Unsheathing the sword! Giving me back my lost heritage!

  And—I was as a god. . . .

  Through the driving, flaming veils I saw Aedis, laughing, her eyes brighter than the stars’ glints, her hair floating in the torrent. Beyond her, Glenn—

  Glenn—his face strained with agony.

  His eyes accusing, terror in their depths. His body shrinking and shriveling as I watched. Glenn—dying there. Dying!

  I lurched toward him, shouting uselessly amid the roaring. As though at a signal, the storm died, the thunder faded to a faint murmuring. A few last flakes of light drifted toward the rock and were absorbed. The whispering died to utter silence.

  Glenn lay at my feet, dying.

  I stared at Aedis. She was still drunken with the power that had surged through her. She looked like a goddess indeed.

  Her voice rang loud in the stillness.

  “He hated me, Sean. And he was a Dojin—”

  I said, “You knew it would kill him.”

  She did not answer. I dropped to my knees beside Glenn. His face was ravaged and shrunken. But he looked up at me, trying to smile.

  “You’re a god now,” he said, very faintly. “You won’t be wanting that turkey dinner—I guess—”

  I thought he had gone. But the fading life flared up once more.

  “Don’t let them scare Paula,” he said. “She’s just a kid in a—” he gasped for breath, and my middle went cold—“a hick town—not used to gods, so—”

  That was all.

  I stood up. Yes—I was a god. A super-endocrine. I possessed powers such as no man outside of Dyan had ever possessed for a million years.

  Now we are come to our kingdom. . . .

  “Sean,” Aedis said.

  I looked at her.

  “Sorry, Aedis,” I said slowly. “It’s ended. The gateway’s going to be smashed.”

  “You cannot. That is impossible. Sean! You—love me!”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I love you.”

  I turned around and went back toward the abyss. I moved fast. I moved faster than any normal human could have moved, because I was superhuman now. I was a god—yeah!

  They had begun to cross the black bridge that spanned the gulf. Lar was in the lead.

  In single file the others followed him—men like gods.

  I raised my hand. “Lar, the gateway is closed. Go back.”

  He
stopped, staring. “Sean O’Mara. You have been in the storm.”

  “Go back.”

  He said thoughtfully, “You are not mad—no. But you must realize that we will not retrace our steps—not now. We go to Earth, to regain our heritage.”

  “You lost your heritage a million years ago, when you came to Dyan. Earth belongs to another race now; a race that will some day be as great as you of Dyan.”

  He walked forward, making a gesture that held the others back. “Sean O’Mara, you cannot stop us.”

  I took out the sword at my belt. “All right.”

  Cat-footed, agile, graceful as a tiger, he approached. The scarlet hammer was in his hand. Huge as it was, be wielded it easily.

  But he did not use it—not then. He tried that other power he had—the weapon of his eyes. An hour ago, that glance would have destroyed me. As it was, I matched him stare for stare—and he nodded at last.

  Then he sprang.

  He moved faster than I would have imagined possible. But I had faced the storm in the Cleft. I, too, was fast.

  The hammer screamed past my head, my sword whined shrilly by Lar’s breast.

  And, after that, we fought—like gods. Or, perhaps, like devils. In the end, I killed him. . . .

  A PANG of sorrow touched me as he fell, his proud, leonine face ruined by my weapon, his blood spurting on the black bridge. He carried my sword with him, in his heart. But Lar’s hammer clashed down, and I caught it quickly, ready to fight again.

  From the crimson hammer, white lightning flew—driving the black substance of the bridge as chalk crumbles to a blow.

  Something Aedis had said came back to me. “We are the guardians. If an enemy should come to Dyan, the bridge across the abyss would be destroyed.”

  Lar—guardian. Lar—who could break the span when the need came. Break it with the great hammer I held now!

  I sprang back and brought the weapon crashing down on the bridge. A cry went up from the people of Dyan, across the gulf. Men came running toward me, weapons bared, perilously risking that narrow path. One fell and went plunging down. He made no outcry.

  I wielded the hammer—lightning blazed from it. The booming thunder of my work went echoing up to the hazy blueness above. No man could have broken that span, even with the hammer of Lar. But I had faced the storm in the Cleft.

  The bridge swayed. It broke away. Abruptly it wrenched itself free and, torn from its supports, swung down.

  And from the people of Dyan, isolated forever beyond the gulf, rose a wailing, desolate cry, the mourning of the damned. It was not only the gateway to Earth that was closed to them now.

  They were barred from the radiant torrent in the Cleft that kept them gods. Without it, they would lose their power—as the Aesir grew old and weak when the golden apples of Iduna were stolen from Asgard.

  Gods no more!

  I turned. At the base of the knoll where the temple stood, Aedis was visible, watching me. I walked toward her.

  Past her. I went into the Cleft and came out carrying Glenn’s body.

  I climbed the slope. At the door of the temple, Aedis was waiting for me.

  “Sean—” she said. “Sean!”

  I did not answer.

  “Sean, if you go back to Earth you will lose your power after a while. There is no Cleft in your world now. It is sunk with Lleu-Atlan.”

  I waited.

  “You have destroyed your people, Sean. But—we are left. We can dwell here, in the forest beyond the Cleft. We—”

  I looked at her, and, after a moment, she stepped aside.

  I went into the temple. Glenn was heavy in my arms. The leaden sphere seemed to tremble as I waited.

  Then the pulse of lightning beat out from it. I heard Aedis cry my name—and heard no more. . . .

  When I awoke, I was no longer in Dyan. Outside the temple cavern lay the ruined city of an uncharted islet in the South Pacific. And, on the beach, the plane waited. The sun blazed in a cloudless blue sky. The radio was working.

  I flew back to the base with Glenn’s body. But I told no one the truth of what had happened. There were few questions, and those were easily answered.

  It was dreamlike, after a while.

  So—the fight goes on. And I, a dead man who was once a god, battle in the skies, refusing to remember a horror and a loveliness in a world whose name I never knew, hidden somewhere in a space and time where blue light filtered down eternally from a changeless sky, and mists hid the horizon. It is forgotten.

  But—Aedis of Dyan! Do not forget me, goddess of a lost world. Some day you will draw me back to you, for, as long as I live, I shall remember the bitter-sweetness of your kisses—kisses that meant betrayal! If I live, Aedis—if I live—I will come back to you!

  PIGGY BANK

  He was a beautiful robot—all gold plated, and studded with sparkling diamonds. And he couldn’t do a thing—not a thing but run away. At that, however, he was damnably skillful—so damnably skillful that he damned the man who owned him—

  Ballard’s diamonds were being stolen as fast as he could make new ones. Insurance companies had long since given him up as a bad risk. Detective agencies were glad to offer their services, at a high fee, but, since the diamonds were invariably stolen, anyhow, this was simply more money down the drain. It couldn’t keep up. Ballard’s fortune was founded on diamonds, and the value of gems increases in inverse proportion to their quantity and availability. In ten years or so, at the present rate of theft, unflawed blue-whites would be almost worthless.

  “So what I need is a perfect safe,” Ballard said, sipping a liqueur. He stared across the table at Joe Gunther, who only smiled.

  “Sure,” Gunther said. “Well?”

  “You’re a technician. Figure it out. What do I pay you for?”

  “You pay me for making diamonds and not telling anybody I can make ’em.”

  “I hate lazy people,” Ballard remarked. “You graduated top man at the Institute in 1990. What have you done since then?”

  “Practiced hedonism,” Gunther said. “Why should I work my head off when I can get everything I want just by making diamonds for you? What does any man want? Security, freedom, a chance to indulge his whims. I got that. Just by finding a formula for the Philosopher’s Stone. Too bad Cain never guessed the potentialities of his patent. Too bad for him; lucky for me.”

  “Shut up,” Ballard said with soft intensity.

  Gunther grinned and glanced around the gigantic dining hall. “Nobody can hear us.” He was a little drunk. A lock of lank dark hair fell over his forehead; his thin face looked sharp and mocking. “Besides, I like to talk. It makes me realize I’m as much of a big shot as you are. Swell stuff for my soul.”

  “Then talk. When you’re quite finished, I’ll get on with what I’ve got to say.”

  Gunther drank brandy. “I’m a hedonist, and I’ve got a high I.Q. When I graduated, I looked around for the best way of supporting Joe Gunther without working. Building something new from scratch wastes time. The best system is to find a structure already built, and add something more. Ergo, the Patent Office. I spent two years going through the files, looking for pay dirt. I found it in Cain’s formula. He didn’t know what it was. A theory about thermodynamics—he thought. Never realized he could make diamonds simply by developing the idea a bit. So,” Gunther finished, “for twenty years that formula has been buried in the Patent Office, and I found it. And sold it to you, on condition that I keep my mouth shut and let the world believe your diamonds were real.”

  “Finished?” Ballard asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Why do you recapitulate the obvious on an average of once a month?”

  “To keep you reminded,” Gunther said. “You’d kill me if you dared. Then your secret would be quite safe. The way I figure it, ever so often you work out a method of getting rid of me, and it biases your judgment. You’re apt to go off half-cocked, get me killed, and then realize your mistake. When I’m dead, the f
ormula will be made public, and everybody can make diamonds. Where’ll you be, then?”

  Ballard shifted his bulky body, half closing his eyes and clasping large, well-shaped hands behind his neck. He regarded Gunther coolly.

  “Symbiosis,” he said. “You’ll keep your mouth shut, because diamonds are your security, too. Credits, currency, bonds—they’re all apt to become worthless under current economic conditions. But diamonds are rare. I want to keep ’em that way. I’ve got to stop these thefts.”

  “If one man builds a safe, another man can crack it. You know the history of that. In the old days, somebody invented a combination lock. Right away, somebody else figured out the answer—listening to the fall of the tumblers. Tumblers were made noiseless; then a crook used a stethoscope. The answer to that was a time lock. Nitroglycerin canceled that. Stronger metals were used, and precision jointures. O.K.—thermite. One guy used to take off the dial, slip a piece of carbon paper under it, replace it—and come back a day later, after the combination had been scratched on the carbon. Today it’s X rays, and so forth.”

  “A perfect safe can be made,” Ballard said.

  “How?”

  “There are two methods. One, lock the diamonds in an absolutely uncrackable safe.”

  “No such thing.”

  “Two, leave the diamonds in plain sight, guarded by men who never take their eyes from them.”

  “You tried that, too. It didn’t work. The men were gassed once. The second time, a ringer got in, disguised as one of the detectives.”

  Ballard ate an olive. “When I was a kid, I had a piggy bank made of glass. I could see the coins, but I couldn’t get ’em out without breaking the pig. That’s what I want. Only—I want a pig who can run.”

  Gunther looked up, his eyes suddenly sharp. “Eh?”

  “A pig who’s conditioned to flight—self-preservation. One who specializes in the art of running away. Animals do it—herbivores chiefly. There’s an African deer that reacts to movement before it’s made. Better than split-second reaction. A fox is another example. Can a man catch a fox?”

  “He’d use dogs and horses.”

  “Uh-huh. So foxes run through herds of sheep, and cross water, to spoil the scent. My pig must do that, too.”