Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  She said. “Well, that was what happened. AH earth is dull and dead now. Only here does the old special type of matter still exist. It throws off a certain radiation that makes it possible for us to be born and live as we are. In Atlantis there was experiment with nuclear structures, and transmutation.”

  “We have atomic power now,” Miller said. “The beginnings of it. You’re merely beginning. It will be a long, long time before you stand where Atlantis once stood. First you must change the very structure of your world! Only then will you change, will the radiation-caused mutation alter you and give you the powers and senses you lost when a world went to war a millennium ago.

  “The fires of matter itself moved across the planet, and where it passed, structure altered and what was bright and shining and glorious became a dull, empty thing. Men lost their specialized, hard-won powers then. But the seeds remain latent in their bodies, recessive characteristics. Here, on the mountain, the recessive can become dominant for a little while. It is unstable, of course . . .”

  “Then—I’m like you? Tsi told me but I couldn’t believe it. I’m a—a sort of superman?”

  “Every gift has its price,” she said oddly. “There is beauty here but there is terror too.

  You must have noticed that you see with clearer eyes—the eyes of the mind.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ve noticed that. Things are—shining, somehow.”

  “It would be well if you remembered your own world.” Orelle said, after a little pause. Her eyes were troubled. “Your own atomic structure has altered but that can lake place only once.

  A man came into view through a glassy wall that melted at his approach, and solidified again behind him. He looked no older than Orelle, a firm-fleshed, smiling man whose vari-tinted hair lay smoothly across his scalp But his eyes were old, grey and cloudy with the mists of incalculable centuries.

  CHAPTER IV

  The Bomb

  “ORELLE—” he began. And then the aeon-misted eyes fell upon Miller, and a look of bewildered recognition seemed to grow in them. This man.” he said uncertainly “Should I know him. Orelle? Has he been here before, or . . .” Suddenly the mists cleared from his eyes and he looked old no longer but resolute and certain.

  “I know him!” he said in a crisp voice. “His face was in the Time Pool. It meant danger. But the likelihood was so remote that—well. I dismissed it. I didn’t believe.”

  “What was the danger?” Orelle leaned forward anxiously, her satin skirts moving with a gentle rustle over the flowery bank where she sat.

  The man shook his head. “You’ve seen the Time Pool, child. There are so many possibilities of the future—who can say in what ripple this man’s face floated for a moment before the bubble burst? But it was danger. I remember that.”

  They turned in one motion and looked at Miller with wise, wary, thoughtful eyes, astonishingly alike in the two faces. He realized they must be closely akin, and both akin to Tsi, whom no one trusted far.

  He said quickly, “If you can read the future you must know I’m not a man to break my promises—and I swear to you both I mean no harm.”

  The man made an impatient gesture. “The future is never that clear. There is no ‘must’ in time—only ‘perhaps’.”

  ‘Tsi sent him,” Orelle said. “She must have had her reasons.”

  “She sent me because of Brann,” Miller declared. The two nodded.

  Orelle said, “Well, sometimes she’s moved to save one of Brann’s victims. Sometimes I think she helps him in his—call them experiments—on those he captures. She’d like us to think only whims move her. But we know the thing that lies behind all she does. Llesi and I—we know.” She smiled grimly at the man beside her.

  “She wants the Power,” the man called Llesi said.

  Miller thought to himself, “So do I,” but aloud he said only, “The Power?” in a voice of innocent inquiry.

  Llesi nodded, his eyes fixed speculatively upon Miller as if he gazed through the mists of incalculable years.

  “A toy my brother and I once made that became far more than a toy before we were finished. Now Tsi claims her share in her father’s treasure. These two are my brother’s children but. sometimes I think Tsi has no blood of mine in her veins.”

  Orelle said, “No, Llesi, she’s only weak. If Brann didn’t, rule her so completely—”

  “She’d be welcome to her heritage. But we know that to give her what she asks is to give it straight into Brann’s hands. And there’d be an end to this castle and all who live here.”

  “Who is Brann?” Miller asked impatiently. “I’ve heard so much about him, I’ve even heard him speak. But I’ve never seen him. What does he look like?”

  Orelle shook her head. Small bells she wore in her ears tinkled at the motion, and even the tiny sounds they made were vividly beautiful to Miller’s increasingly keen new senses.

  She said. “No one has seen him except Tsi. No one but she can tell you what he is. He receives his friends only in the dark or from behind curtains. Ever since he built that castle, centuries ago, he’s kept his secret hidden—whatever it may be. I should like to see him dead.”

  She said it without passion. “Brann is time evil, perhaps pure evil in its most flawless form. He’s very wise and very powerful I’m not sure why he chose us for his enemy but I only know now we must fight or be killed.”

  Miller made up his mind suddenly. “As I left his castle,” he said, “Brann spoke to me from beyond the wall. He said this was a fight he would win too easily. He told me to come to you as another fighter, to make the battle more interesting.”

  Orelle leaned forward quickly on the flowery bank, her earrings tinkling musically. “He said that? Yoy know. I’d have guessed the opposite.

  “I’d have said Tsi sent you here knowing Brann would covet you for his experiments—knowing that with you here, he’d redouble his efforts to conquer us and drag you back. If his interest were flagging, that might be the best way to revive it against us and force her entry here. Because she’d do any tiling in the world to get her hands on the Power.”

  Llesi interrupted her in a thoughtful voice. “She might send an envoy here armed with some secret weapon Brann could devise—something that could pass even our careful searching. Remember. Orelle, I’ve seen this man before in the Time Pool—this man’s face, and danger!”

  “I’ve given you my word I didn’t come to harm you,” Miller said, realizing that though he sailed close to the wind of truth in saying that at least it was accurate as far as it went. “Still, I’d like to know more about this Power. Unless you—”

  He never finished. For suddenly there was a blast of appalling sound in the room, and a rush of white-hot fire that seemed to flow down his aim and burst in a blinding gush from his wrist.

  When he could see again, what he saw was stunning. For Llesi was collapsing where he stood, his knees buckling, his face strangely drained and empty as if he were dead before he struck the floor. There was a curious shimmering glow bathing him, sinking inward like a devouring acid.

  Orelle was on her feet, stumbling forward, and from all around figures were closing in through the glass that melted at their approach.

  Blinded and deafened by a sound that he knew was not truly audible, Miller tried to spring back.

  He could not move. The white dazzling flame still poured from him upon the falling Llesi. Louder and louder that unheard, cataclysmic shout roared through the room. Now Miller felt energy of some strange sort pouring from Orelle and the others—mental power, a silent, tremendous flood that beat upon the white flame and—sniffed it like a candle.

  The fire was gone. But Llesi had fallen.

  A dozen men and women had crowded into the room by now, bright in their sleek rainbow garments. Two men fell to their knees beside Llesi.

  Orelle had swung toward Miller. Hot rage blazed tangibly from her—tangibly, for Miller’s mind winced beneath that telepathic red fury.Through the scarlet t
wisted a black thread—the thought and intention of death, cold black against crimson.

  “Orelle!” he cried desperately. “I didn’t—it was some trick!”

  He could not speak, even telepathically. For he could see nothing now but Orelle’s dark eyes, and they were expanding, growing into luminous pools that chilled him, and effectively paralyzed muscle and nerve and mind.

  Eerily a thought that was not his own moved suddenly in his frozen brain—moved and reached out toward Orelle.

  “Wait, child, wait!” the thought said. “This was Llesi speaking.”

  ALL must have heard it, for every head in the room turned sharply. The blinding pools that were Orelle’s eyes began to fade and dimly Miller could see again. In his mind that voice of another brain said, “The bracelet on his wrist—take it!”

  No one stood near Miller but he felt a violent tug at his wristwatch, saw it torn free. It sprang through the air to Orelle as if thrown by an invisible hand. She spread her fingers and received it. But she was looking at Miller.

  “Llesi?” she said uncertainly, still staring into Miller’s eyes. “Llesi—you hear me?”

  “Yes. Waif. I must speak with this man . . . Miller . . . wait.”

  Orelle gestured. Llesi’s body was lifted without support and floated toward the bowery couch. It sank down gently. One of the men came forward and made a quick examination.

  “He isn’t dead. It’s stasis, of a sort But I can’t communicate with him. Try it, Orelle.”

  “Llesi?” Orelle’s thought arrowed out “Llesi?”

  Miller roused from his stupefied amazement. That fantastic voice in his brain was speaking quietly to himself alone.

  “Don’t fight me. They’ll kill you unless you obey me Empty your mind. Miller. Let me speak through you Now . . .”

  Miller listened to the thought that was not his riding on the waves of his own telepathic mind, speaking to Orelle and the others. But he believed it spoke to himself as well.

  “This must be Brann’s doing.” Llesi said. “The bracelet—when I guessed at a weapon the man Miller could have brought Tsi must somehow have been listening. Even our tests failed to find it but a weapon that bracelet must have been. Well, Brann failed but only thanks to you for smothering the weapon so soon. I’m not destroyed “but I think it may be a long while before I can think or move in my own body.”

  “But you can hear us. Llesi?” Orelle’s voice was soft.

  “Through this man—yes. This is a telepathic rapport with him. There must have been electronic contact at the crucial moment. Without Miller I would be cut off completely until my body mends again. I think it will in time. I know the sort of weapon Brann used. My body will have to absorb vital energy, to overcome the insulation of atomic stasis the weapon threw about me.

  “Now listen, because my strength is going, mental must draw on the physical and my body’s an ember now. I must sleep and gather power. Brann will know what’s happened here—depend on it, he’ll strike while I’m still helpless. I must think—and rest.”

  Orelle said. “We can handle Brann!”

  “We can handle him if I can lead you. Otherwise . . . Take no risks. Remember, my only contact with you is through this man Miller, Brann will destroy him if he can. But the sword is two-edged. Through Miler I can light if I must. Now let me rest. I must gather my strength, and think.”

  The thought trembled on the air—faded—and was gone into an enormous stillness. Miller was alone again in his own brain.

  Orelle stared at him, anger still bright in her mind but leashed anger now.

  “How much of this have you passed on to Brann already?” she demanded.

  Miller said. “I swear I didn’t know I was carrying a time-bomb like that. Tsi told me it was only a communication device she’d built into my watch. I can only say I’ll help you fight Brann in any way I can.”

  Orelle came forward with quick steps, her satin robes rustling, and look Miller’s shoulders in a tight grip, reaching high with both bands to do so. Her eyes were close to his. She stared compellingly up at him and he felt the warm force of her mind probing his with angry emphasis.

  “Tell me one thing—the truth,” she demanded. “Are you Brann?”

  CHAPTER V

  The Signal

  THE stars were glittering rayed circles of colored tire in the night sky. Miller staring for what seemed a long while, wondering vaguely what had wakened him. The wall before his bed was clear glass through which the night sky seemed to look at him with its countless silver eyes. He had never seen the stars before, he knew now.

  With his other eyes, they had been only dots of brilliance, without pattern. Now he could see that there was indeed a pattern to their arrangement—one too vast for even his augmented mind to grasp but something he could recognize as being there, even though it lay outside the range of human understanding.

  He could see colors change and glitter in the discs of light that had been only points without dimension to his old sight. He could even make out dimly the shapes of continents on one or two of the planets. And there was a strange, distant, ringing music, almost inaudible, circling through the dark vault above.

  He knew now that it was no legend which told of the music of the spheres and the stars dial sang together. Light-waves and sound-waves blended into a melody that was neither one nor the other, neither sight nor sound, but a beautiful medley of both.

  “Men in the old days must have heard it,” he thought to himself, half-asleep. “Maybe in ancient times they were still close enough to—this state—to catch the echoes of the old music . . .”

  Deep in the center of his drowsing mind a thought stirred that was not his own. “Miller, Miller, are you awake?”

  He framed the answer with an eerie feeling of double-mindedness. “Yes, Llesi. What is it?”

  “I want to talk to you I’ve gathered enough strength now to last me awhile. What’s been happening? Are you safe?”

  Miller let a ripple of amusement run through his mind. “Thanks to you. Can you tell from my thoughts that I didn’t know what I was bringing into your castle? I didn’t mean to attack you.”

  “I believe that—with reservations. Does Orelle?”

  “She thought I was Brann. She may still think so though I hope I’ve convinced her.”

  “I can’t read your mind. But I must trust you—no more than I can avoid! Get up, Miller, and look toward Brann’s castle. I have a feeling of danger. I think that was what roused me. Something evil is coming our way.”

  Conscious of a slight chill at the gravity with which Llesi spoke, Miller rose. The floor was ineffably soft to his bare feet. He stepped out into the little glass bay that formed one side of the room. From there he could look down over the valley he had traversed that day. Far off lights glimmered at the height of a sheer cliff—Brann’s castle.

  “Why—I can see in the dark!” he exclaimed in surprise, staring out at the soft, dim landscape that seemed to be lit by a soil of invisible starshine so that details were delicately visible as they had never been before.

  “Yes, yes,” Llesi’s mental voice said impatiently. “Turn your eyes to the left—I want to see that wall of the valley. There—now right . . .”

  The commands, couched in mental terms that, look only a flashing fraction of the time words would have taken were almost like reflex commands from Miller’s own brain.

  “I think you’d better dress and go down to the Time Pool,” Llesi said at last Miller could feel the profound uneasiness stirring in the disembodied mind that his own brain housed. “Hurry. There’s no guessing what unnatural thing Brann may have shaped to attack us. He wants you, Miller. Your coming brought our war to a climax and I know now he won’t stop until he gets you—or dies. It depends on you and me which thing happens.”

  There was a guard at Miller’s door—or the glass wall that melted like a door when he approached it. Llesi’s mental voice spoke and the guard nodded and followed down the long sloping
ramp of the glass castle, through great, dim, echoing rooms, along corridors behind which the people of Orelle’s dwelling slept.

  They came out at last into a garden in the heart of the castle. Circled by glass walls, it lay dim and fragrant around the broad shallow pool in its center. Starlight shimmered in changing patterns on the water that rippled slightly in the wind.

  Miller found himself glancing up toward the wall-top without being sure whether the impulse was his own, or Llesi’s. In a moment he knew, for there was a whispering rush and in obedience to some command from his own brain—and from Llesi’s—a domed roof of glass moved across the garden, closing it in.

  Now the starlight fell in prismed rays through the dome. It struck the pool in somehow focused patterns and the water seemed to respond to that unimaginably light pressure.

  Circles formed where the rays struck, formed and spread outward in interlocking rings that seemed to gather momentum instead of losing it, so that they were seething together in a very short time, breaking over one another in tiny waves, tossing up bubbles and foam. The pool boiled in the cool starlight.

  AND among the boiling rings there were reflections. Pictures moved chaotically through one another, so rapidly and so bewilderingly that Miller grew dizzy as he watched. Once he thought he saw Tsi’s face with the rainbow hair disordered, streaming in the wind.

  Once he had a glimpse of himself, seen confusingly from the back, struggling against something that seemed to tower and stoop above him but the vision rolled under again before he could focus on it and the faces of strangers floated among bubbles to replace it.

  “Is it real?” he asked Llesi inaudibly. “Is this the future?”

  There was an impatient movement in his own mind. Llesi. who had been studying the pictures in the profoundest silence, said, “No—yes—partly. These are the likeliest futures. No one understands fully, but the theory is that somewhere in hyperspace all possible futures work themselves out from any given point.