Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  When Israel out of Egypt came

  Safe in the sea they trod;

  By day in cloud, by night in flame,

  Went on before them God . . .

  I see the country, far away,

  Where I shall never stand;

  The heart goes where no footstep may

  Into the promised land.

  —Housman, circa 1900

  The wall was painted with a running mural of fantastic green seas banded with purple and white, washing the feet of velvety brown hills. There had been shores like that, once, long ago, on an incandescent world. The artist who painted these walls had never seen bare hills or a colored sea. There was a curious off-beat focus about his rendition of these imaginary things, and it showed all the more clearly now because in the center of his mural a square of brightly tinted moving shadows showed a real sea and a real shore, smothered in jungle, and a boat shooting forward on V-spread wings of water.

  Two people sat quietly in the painted room, watching the images of the landside world rehearse in duplicate the action far above them. Kedre Walton, cross-legged on a flat cushion on the floor, was laying out a game of tarot solitaire on the low glass table before her, glancing only now and then at the flickering screen. But Zachariah Harker in his deep chair never moved his eyes from the flying boat.

  “There they go, poor fools. There they go,” he said, almost to himself. He held a little censer of burning vine-dust in one hand, moving it gently to and fro under his nose occasionally. The vine had once run heavy with white sap that dripped poison on any landside animal rash enough to pass beneath it. Dried and burned, it gave out a slightly narcotic fragrance that soothed the senses and the mind. Zachariah inhaled a deep breath of the smoke and blew it out again toward the screen. “This time,” he said, “Sam Reed’s bitten off more than he can chew.”

  “How vulgar,” Kedre murmured, flashing him a smile. It was a smile that literally Hashed, for she had adopted today an extreme of a current fashion. Her heavy black ringlets were gilded, each separate hair sheathed in a film of gold and twisted into a great braided coronet like a helmet above her narrow Egyptian face. Even her brows were delicate arcs of gold, and a bead of gold winked at the tip of every lash.

  “You look ridiculous,” Zachariah assured her, blinking.

  “Of course I look ridiculous. I’m just testing how far I can go. You’ll see. Every woman in—”

  “Look!” Zachariah sat up suddenly in his chair, eyes on the screen. Kedre turned, holding a card poised above the table, and the two of them sat motionless, watching the mimic action on the wall.

  It did not look very real.

  The boat was swerving in to a landing inside a long, encircling arm of breakwater, where a white pier jutted out into the pale sea. There were ten passengers in the boat, ten young men and women on their way to a promised immortality. Their heads turned this way and that in quick, nervous motions, watching the strange upper world that had always meant danger and improbable romance to the people of the Keeps. Like the youths and maidens traditionally borne to the Minotaur, they watched in excited apprehension the mighty wall of jungle drawing nearer and nearer, and the low, polished white walls of Plymouth Colony encircling the first island to be subdued.

  It was no Minotaur that rose from the water in their path, but it was bent on exacting sacrifice. There were many saurian monsters in these seas. Not many yet had names, and the one that came dripping out of the milky water before the boat was unfamiliar to every watcher. Its darkly gleaming neck rose twenty feet with leisurely speed, water sliding like ragged silk from both sides of the great, gracefully bending arch. It opened a mouth that could encompass a man’s head, opened it wide and hissed terribly. The mouth was solidly lined with fangs, rim, roof and sides jagged with them.

  A chorus of shouts and screams, thin over the water, rose from the rocking boats as frantic passengers scrambled futilely toward the far side. The head dived down toward them, the neck looping after it like thick rope. There was infinite grace in the long, smooth, curving motion. The beast seemed to have chosen a girl near the front of the boat as its immediate victim. She had yellow hair and she wore a rose-red tunic, bright against the pale sea water.

  For a moment pandemonium reigned in miniature on the little boat. Then its pilot, moving With rather elaborately scornful precision, leaned forward and pushed a lever. From both sides of the boat translucent impervium slid upward, halfshells that met overhead with a click, shutting in the passengers and the crew in impregnable protection.

  The diving head struck hard against the dome. The boat heeled far over, dipping its impervium arch deep into the water, tossing the men and women into a frantic tangle. The sharp keel flashed into daylight and the long dark neck of the monster struck it squarely.

  An ear-piercing scream soared across the water. The saurian’s fang-studded mouth gaped toward the clouds. Its curved neck straightened rigidly and from the gashed dark throat a jet of rose-red blood spurted, fantastically identical in color with the rose-red tunic of the girl.

  The scream sounded again, more shrilly; Wood gurgled in the long throat and gushed from the gaping mouth. The dark neck beat the sea twice and then slid downward out of sight, A beautiful carmine stain spread outward in circles from the spot where it sank.

  The boat righted itself and swung in toward the pier.

  Kedre laughed, laying down her card in its proper place.

  “That pilot,” she said. “How bored he was with it all. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Sam Reed had tied the beast out there for a nice spectacular welcome to his recruits. What a tale they’ll have to tell!”

  “Don’t underestimate Sam Reed, my dear,” Zachariah said gravely, moving the censer under his nose again. “He’d do exactly that, or something even more elaborately dangerous, if he saw any profit in it. He’s a very dangerous person, Kedre—not because he’s resourceful but because he’s irresponsible.”

  Kedre nodded her glittering braided helmet. “You’re right, of course. It’s no laughing matter, really. Whoever would have dreamed he’d go so far as piracy! I think we can look for another act of violence the next time anything thwarts him and he can’t see an easy legal way out. We’ve got a problem, Zachariah.”

  “Have you lost your taste for him, then, my dear?”

  She did not look up, hearing that note of query in his voice. Instead she stirred the cards beside her with a pointed forefinger until she had uncovered the tarot called The Hanged Man. It was a beautifully wrought card like all the rest. The Hanged Man hung by his right ankle from a T-shaped tree against a background of elaborate gold-diapre work. A golden halo radiated around his serene face and hanging hair, which was red. Kedre reversed the card and looked at the small painted face thoughtfully.

  “Don’t ask me that, Zachariah,” she said.

  “You’d have to find an answer some day, my dear. It isn’t just a matter of a passing fancy, now. The man’s an Immortal.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  She looked up quickly. “Do you?”

  Zachariah nodded, inhaled more smoke and fanned the cloud away from his face. Through it he said, “He’s a Harker, Kedre. Do you know the story of Blaze?”

  “I do now. I suppose everyone does. Sam didn’t leave much to the imagination when he decided to tear down Harker prestige. Does he know, Zachariah?”

  The Immortal laughed softly. “That’s a very fine paradox. No, he doesn’t know. He’s put a great deal of energy and thought into the problem of discrediting us so that no one is likely to believe anything a Harker says. When he finds it’s his own name he’s destroyed, I’d enjoy watching his face.”

  “ ‘Destroy’ is hardly the word, is it?”

  “Oh, it isn’t irreparable. We can win opinion back. We may have made mistakes—I’m beginning to think that we were mistaken about opposing colonization, for one thing—but our long-term motives have always been sound, and I
think everyone knows it. Sam still thinks in short-term schedules. When we want to swing public opinion our way, we’ll do it. Just now I’m inclined to watch and wait. Give him rope. The colonies have got to succeed now, of course. Much as I dislike the thought, we’ll have to work with Reed on that.”

  Kedre turned up a card, started to lay it in place on the board and then hesitated, regarding it with a faint smile. Still looking at the picture on its face, she said, “For awhile, yes. He’s a bad man, Zachariah. However I feel toward him I realize that. He’s got a way to go yet before he reaches the top. Until he gets there he’ll do a better job than any of us could do. With the worst possible motives he’ll do quite heroic, things to establish a sound pyramid under him, something he can use as a basis for power. He’ll establish the foundation for a good working social system. But only the foundation. Beyond that he can’t go. He has no conception of constructive society. We’ll have to stop him, then.”

  “I know. Have you any idea how?”

  “Use his own methods, I’m afraid. Misdirection. Exploit his weaknesses and turn his strength against him. Tempt him with some irresistible bait, and then—” She smiled and flipped the card with a delicate finger.

  Zachariah waited.

  “I don’t have a plan yet,” Kedre said, “but I think I have the beginning of one. I must think about it for a while. If it’s possible, it’s the one weapon for which he’d have no defense.”

  “A weapon?”

  Her gold-lacquered brows rose. She looked up at him under the heavy casque of gold, her mouth tucking in at the corners with that faint Egyptian smile that might be no smile at all, but a look of pain. The gold brows gave her face a masklike expression and again she flicked the card with her nail. As well as he knew her, Zachariah could not fathom the things that went on behind her eyes when she wore that look. He had never seen .it before.

  Wordlessly he leaned forward to see the card. It was the Ten of Swords. It showed a gray amorphous seascape and a dark sunset sky, with the hilts of ten swords sharply outlined against it. Their ten blades stood upright in the body of a dead man.

  The day came when Plymouth Colony got the first full quota of volunteers. Sam had waited for that day with a certain eagerness and a certain shrinking, but the eagerness was stronger. He had always preferred to come to grips with a problem—perhaps because so many of his enemies had proved irritatingly elusive in the past. The immediate hurdle was purely psychological. He had to make a speech, and he had to say exactly the right things to the thousands of immortality-seekers.

  Facing the battery of visor screens, he drew a long breath while he studied his audience. Then he was ready. He knew what to tell them.

  Sam said:

  “You’re a specially selected group. You’ve been screened carefully, and all of you have passed the basic tests. They were hard tests.

  We wanted the smartest, toughest, strongest material in the Keeps, because you’re the shock troops of immortality.”

  He paused, glancing from screen to screen, at the thousands of faces intent on his own televised face.

  “Not everyone can have immortality. After a certain time of biological life, senescence begins to set in. It doesn’t necessarily show right away, and it comes sooner to some than to others. We still don’t know what causes age, though we know how to stop it. Age may simply be a virus. Some day we’ll find out. At present all we know is that there’s a treatment that will arrest aging. But it seldom works on those over forty—perhaps because the balance has swung too far toward obsolescence by that time.” He let his gaze flicker again across the screens. There was danger latent in those waiting thousands. He held a live grenade in his hand. And he had to keep on holding it, till the last possible moment.

  “You’ve all been screened and tested, physically and psychologically. You’re the cream of the Keeps. You’ll be the first to get immortality. Later, others will too, but you’re the advance guard. You’ll make it safe for the others—and they’ll keep it safe while you enjoy the rewards of your work. It will be work. It will be hard. You must live landside for some years before you gain immortality.” Five years, he thought. Perhaps longer—but five years was the maximum he had allowed himself. Bearing that deadline in mind, he has supervised the tests, rigging them, watching for vital points.

  Screening thousands—later it would be millions—would have been a long, difficult job except that the machinery was already set up for Sam. The bureaus of vital statistics had records of most of the population with all pertinent information, including psychology, heredity, probable longevity—an important point!—and pathological propensity, Sam wanted smart, tough, strong men and women certainly—but one other factor was even more important. On that the success of his scheme depended.

  He needed youngish, mature people. Because they wouldn’t age visibly in five years.

  The only way to prove or disprove immortality is by the empirical method unless—

  He had allowed for that possibility, too.

  He said, “You must live landside. Remember, I lived landside for nearly forty years. The treatment takes six or seven years for the average mature man. There, again, it may be because age is a virus, and the older a man is, the longer it takes to destroy that virus. If a child is exposed to the radiations at birth, as the Immortals’ children have been, only a few treatments are necessary. There once more, it may be because the age-virus is not present in the newly-born. In such a case, the child grows, reaches maturity—and stops at that point, living for hundreds of years, but growing no older.

  “Babies born in the Keeps from now on will have that opportunity. With adults, it’s another matter. You’ll have the chance, but you’ll have to work and fight for it. Because you must be continually exposed to the radiation for six or seven years, and that can’t be done in the Keeps.

  “We don’t know too much about the radiation yet. The radioelement itself is present in the soil and air of Venus, but in microscopic quantities. For reasons we don’t understand yet, exposure to solar and cosmic-ray radiation is necessary too. Later we’ll learn more. Right now, we know this: we can give you the immortality treatment, but it will take years, and you must spend those years landside, so that the action will be cumulative.

  “The process is too complicated to explain in detail.

  “It works only on humans. We know that much. Like the ancient bacillus leprae, it affects humans but not animals. Guinea pigs couldn’t be given leprosy, which was why researchers took so long to discover the cure.

  “Immortality is for humans—for you. For all the Keeps. For everyone who isn’t already too old to take the treatment. But to be immortal you must live on landside for a time. There isn’t room in Plymouth Colony for you all.

  “You must build new colonies.

  “It’s the only answer. We had thought of rotating the population in groups at seven-year intervals but, to be fair, we would have to take the oldest men and women still able to benefit by the radiation. And they would remain at that age, white the rest grew older. We feel it best to choose people at the peak of their powers mentally and physically, so that they will remain so for hundreds of years. This way, too, the others won’t have to wait seven years or fourteen or twenty-one. As soon as you’ve expanded the colony sufficiently, another batch will come in from the Keeps—and expand the colony farther. Thus everyone will benefit equally.”

  Sam studied the screens. They were swallowing it. Perhaps after five years they wouldn’t, but until then no signs of age should appear that couldn’t be explained away on the grounds of environmental influences. Colonizing Venus naturally would change a man.

  You’ve got to earn immortality,” Sam told the thousands. “You may be a bit confused at first in the transition from Keep life; the administration will allow for that. But remember that you must live landside for six years or more, and only by adapting to Colony tradition can you succeed.

  “Those in charge here have learned how to cop
e with landside. They have authority, and you must obey them. We have our own laws—not Keep laws. This is landside. Landside is trying to kill us all every minute of the day and night.

  You are colonists now, not Keep men, and you are subject to Colony law. According to the contracts you signed, you cannot become a Keep man again until formally discharged by the Colony. That will be when you are—immortal.

  “Generally speaking, it won’t be hard for anyone to readjust. Know your job. Be ready to step into the job of the man ahead of you.

  Promotion is going to be very rapid in the colony. Be ready for it.

  “Immortality must be earned. The next six or seven years may be hard ones for us all. But you won’t be giving up one-tenth of your life, you’ll be giving up less than one-hundredth. Remember that. Seven years in the colony is the equivalent of less than a month after you’re immortal.

  “Remember that!

  “Every time you feel discouraged, think of it. You’ll be immortal. And there’s no hard work a strong man can’t endure for—one single month!”

  Sam switched off the teleunit. He was alone in the room. He sat silent for a moment or two, watching the throngs who could no longer see or hear him.

  Then he said softly, “Sugar-coated pills. But it always works. Always.”

  The crowds were still watching their screens, getting new orders from their individual unit commanders—members of Plymouth Colony’s original settlers, the tough, trained men who had already worked under Hale and Sam. They were falling in line—figuratively and actually.

  Expanding the Colony—sure. But along rather different lines. As raspberry plants expand and root by canes, so landside would be colonized. Not in five years—it would take far longer than that. But from now on new settlements would appear along the coasts, supported and guarded by Plymouth till they were self-supporting. Plymouth had to remain compact and strong.