Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  In the end, he knew now, they must have died together, one way or another. This was quicker and so perhaps it was easier.

  He looked up and saw a pale shimmer far back in a chasm of the walls, and a hard shudder of revulsion shook him. Easier? Easier to die in the Light-Wearer’s terrible embrace?

  He watched it, fascinated, glimmering far back in the darkness, waiting and urging its puppets on.

  The pale light lanced down from all around them. And the cavern was no longer bellowing with shaking sound. Here on the roof-top they had no need to shout to one another any more. Alan saw Karen take a firmer grip upon her gun, saw her shoulders square beneath the ragged blouse.

  “Well, it won’t be long now,” she said grimly. “This is it, boys. Too bad—I’d have liked to see Venus.”

  THIS had happened before, Alan thought. And it had happened in his own lifetime—in the familiar world of the Twentieth Century, before an unguessable flood of years had swept him to the end of time. Below the sloping rooftop where they stood watching, the little army of the Terasi stood at bay, their bull thews and savagery useless now against the weapons that struck from far away, fingering out like swords of living light.

  In the past such scenes had happened many times. In Tunisia, he remembered, at Bataan and Corregidor, wherever the armadas of sea and sky and land had met in conflict, such hopeless battles had been fought. But this, he thought, was the last battle of all.

  These were civilization’s last defenders—these brutish, iron-bodied men—and this little group of less than a hundred represented all that he had known of the world that was gone. The towers of metropolitan New York, the gray cathedrals of London, the white ramparts of Chicago lifting above the blue lake—these were the symbols of a race that built and aspired—a race that had gone down to defeat.

  All over the earth was darkness. Civilization’s last sparks were being crushed out here, where mankind fought savagely and hopelessly in its last remaining fortress. The thunder of the brazen gongs was fading Imperceptibly as the heat rays licked out to splash in white fire across them.

  Alan glanced around at the tense little group on the rooftop. Sir Colin, a tattered, scarecrow figure squinting down at the battle with a look of cold, impartial, scientific interest on his face. Mike Smith, half-crouched, hand nervous on his gun, his quick eyes raking the walls where Carcasillians moved like gaily colored moths in the crevices. Mike was afraid. Not of the Carcasillians, not even of death—but of death in the embrace of the terrible shadowy thing that waited in the darkness, watching.

  Karen—he had respected her even in the long-gone days when she had been in the German espionage, and he an American Army Intelligence officer fighting her with every weapon he knew. It seemed ludicrous now to think in those meaningless terms, but he realized suddenly that she had never been intrinsically a Nazi; she was an adventurer, playing for high stakes and ready to take the consequences if she failed. Yes, he could respect Karen. There was a suggestion of a grim smile on her face as she met his glance.

  Alan did not think of Evaya. She was up there somewhere, a slim, fragile, steely creature who was no longer human. And she would accomplish her inhuman purpose very soon now, and the demon that possessed her would come sweeping into view, leaping like a hound to the kill, ravening with the hunger of a million years.

  The arrows of the Terasi still lanced up toward their besiegers. Now and then a Carcasillian fell, gossamer garments streaming, to death on the rocks below. And death was so new, so strange to these toy-like immortals from an immortal city led by the fountain of life! The city fed by—power!

  And power would save the Terasi—if they could reach it. If it were not as hopelessly far way as power on another planet. Save them? Would it?

  What was it Sir Colin had said about great mechanical gongs, built by the rebel race to fight the Light-Wearers? Alan reached out suddenly and gripped the Scotsman’s shoulder.

  “Those gongs,” he said in an urgent voice. “The big ones. Where were they?” Sir Colin gave him an abstracted glance. “Inside the machine towers. Some of them underground. Why? They were power-driven, remember. You can’t—” Alan struck the parapet triumphantly. “If we had the power, then, the heatbeam couldn’t reach ’em! Sir Colin, I’m going to get you the power!”

  The Scotsman’s face came alive, but with a startled distrust that surprised Alan.

  “Anyhow, I’m going to try. We can’t be worse off than we are right now. The gateway to Carcasilla’s open now—you saw that in the scanner—and nobody’s left there but Flande. There must be a way back from here that wouldn’t lead through the Carcasillians. Tell me what to look for and I’ll try the fountain.”

  The distrust on Sir Colin’s gaunt face had changed to a desperate sort of hope. “You’re right, laddie. It’s worth a try—by God, it is! But we’ll have to hurry.”

  “We?”

  “I’m going, too.”

  Mike shouldered forward, sweat shining on his bronzed cheeks. “So am I.”

  Sir Colin frowned. “Your gun’s needed here, Mike.”

  “The hell with that! I’m not going to stay. That—that thing—” He broke off, showing the whites of his eyes as he glanced up at the crevice where a pale shimmer flickered now and then as the Alien urged its puppet army on.

  “There’s no assurance we may not meet it ourselves,” Sir Colin said dryly. “Still—Karen?”

  “I’m staying. I can help here. Fighting’s one thing I know a little about.”

  “Good lass.” The Scotsman touched her shoulder lightly.

  Brekkir, watching their sudden animation in bewilderment, grunted something that only Sir Colin understood. They spoke together in gutturals. When the scientist turned back to Alan his ruddy face was alight with new enthusiasm.

  “Brekkir says there are ways out, if we’re reckless enough to leave the noise of the gongs. He’ll find us a lead box, too. We’ll need something to carry that—that dynamite-pill without the radiation destroying us all. What the thing is the good God knows, but I suspect something like radioatomic energy—perhaps a uranium isotope . . . Aye, it’s a risk, lads, but think what it means if we win!”

  The timeless current that flowed whispering along the Way of the Gods swept them weightlessly toward Carcasilla. They talked little, in hushed voices, as they drifted through the dimness. Alan thought of Karen, pale under the tousled red curls, saying good-by at the tunnel entrance. They might never meet again. He thought of Evaya, moving like a soft-winged moth against the craggy walls, blind and terrible, raking the Terasi village with a beam of death. He thought of the way light kindled behind her exquisite features when she smiled, like an ivory lantern suddenly glowing. He thought of the springing resilience of her body in his arms. And he knew that there was no risk too great to face if it might mean her awakening.

  “I’ll come back,” he thought grimly.

  And then he remembered that if he did come back it meant the end of Carcasilla and Evaya’s death. So he stopped thinking at all, and gave himself up to watching the violet circle of light that was Carcasilla’s open gateway grow larger and larger and larger up the tunnel before them.

  They were stumbling over the broken pavement toward it, beyond the sweep of the air-flow, when Alan was briefly aware of a sudden rocking of the world around him. Values shifted imponderably; he was not himself any more, and these men beside him—these tiny, nameless creatures.

  . . . He must have made some hoarse, inarticulate sound, for Sir Colin’s hands were suddenly heavy on his shoulders.

  “Alan! Laddie! Wake up!”

  Everything turned right side up again with a sickening dizziness. In the dimness Alan blinked at the scientist.

  “You’re all right now, aren’t ye, laddie? Answer me!”

  “Yeah,” Alan muttered, his tongue feeling numb. “It—caught me by surprise. Gone now. I—” He glanced back along the tunnel. Nothing . . . Or was that a flicker of light, far away, almost invisible? Li
ght that was somehow darkness, dark that blazed with supernal brilliance? It was gone as he looked. “I can fight it,” he said. “Don’t worry. We know I can throw it off if you help me. But for God’s sake let’s hurry!”

  And so, with Sir Colin on one side gripping his arm, and Mike on the other breathing heavily and fingering his gun as he shot ugly glances sidewise, Alan came back into Carcasilla.

  The bubble palaces, the flying avenues still hung like colored clouds in the air, but they were empty and silent now. It was strangely like homecoming to Alan Drake. He knew each spiraling ramp so well, each cluster of floating globes. And nostalgia struck him hard with a double impact—once for the lost Evaya with whom he had walked these airy ways, and once for the ruin he must visit upon this lovely city if he succeeded in his mission here.

  CHAPTER V

  THE ALIEN’S EMBRACE

  DIRECTLY before them loomed the great statue of the Light-Wearer, enigmatic, robed in blinding brilliance. One thing that he saw beyond it brought a cold thrill of foreboding. A soaring crystal bridge that spanned an arch above the statue was shattered halfway across its curve, as though the hammer of Thor had smashed ruthlessly down on Bifrost. Sir Colin’s gunfire! That was it! The bullet or the concussion must have shattered that vibrant arch.

  Silence brimmed Carcasilla like a cup. Before them through the bubble domes the violet fire of the fountain rose in cool brilliance toward the mists of the cavern roof. And under the fountain—power. Power to drive back the Enemy and save the last indomitable remnants of civilized mankind!

  “What’s that over there?” Sir Colin asked in a puzzled voice. “Flande’s tower, but—”

  Alan knew where to look for that pinnacle of running rain poised incredibly on its spiral of stairs like waterfalls. He squinted through the clustering domes.

  The tower was not there. A cone of light flamed in its place. Lambent radiance like moonlight.

  “The gateway when we first entered Carcasilla,” Sir Colin rumbled. “Remember?”

  Alan had a brief, poignant recollection of Evaya’s slim Artemis body silhouetted against the golden disc that had shut out the following Alien.

  “It can’t pass those shields of light,” he said aloud. “Flande’s built himself a barrier somehow, out of the same stuff.”

  Sir Colin jerked his head in agreement. “Guid enough. As long as he’s shut up there, he won’t be troubling us. Now the fountain—is this the shortest way, laddie?”

  “That green street, I think, between the purple globes. Here, I’ll show you.”

  They went up the winding avenue in a silence so deep that their footsteps sounded abnormally loud. Instinct made them keep their voices hushed as they wound along through the airy labyrinths aglow with delicate color. And the color, curiously, seemed to vibrate until Alan’s eyes could scarcely make out the way. What he could see looked wrong.

  Mike said, “We’re taking a hell of a long time to get there, seems to me,” and shot a wary glance across his shoulder. All of them had been doing that. Alan muttered some reassurance that did not sound very confident even to himself as he led them up an undulating boulevard through rings of floating spheres. Behind him, formless and intangible, he could feel the shadow of menace shaping itself like fog rolling together.

  The blinding vibration of color clouded his eyes. They were striding faster now up the undulant street, almost running.

  Vision suddenly cleared before Alan’s eyes. At their feet the city dropped away, spread out below Flande’s tower! He stood with Mike and Sir Colin at the foot of that cone of light which veiled the tower of rain. But he knew he had been leading them straight toward the fountain . . .

  Low laughter shook through their minds. Flande’s laughter. Words were forming there, but before Flande could shape an intelligible thought in their brains, Mike choked on a shout and flung up a pointing arm. Alan turned to look.

  The image of the Light-Wearer still blazed against the opened Gateway. But something was wrong. There were two figures now—and one of them was no statue.

  Blinding in its darkness and its light, tall as the fountain itself—the Alien stood in the threshold of Carcasilla.

  Then it leaned forward and leaped toward them with gigantic strides. It moved with such dazzling speed that Alan could not even try to focus its inhuman image. A paralysis of terror held them motionless on the platform. Nearer it came, and nearer, covering incredible distances with each soaring stride.

  And then like a shroud dropping noiselessly around them, a dark curtain shut out Carcasilla.

  In the sightless blackness Sir Colin’s voice said levelly, “It’s Flande, I think. He’s saved us—for the moment. Wait.”

  The scrape of flint-and-wheel sounded, and a wavering point of fire sprang into life on the Terasi device he carried. In its yellow flare they could see what looked like a wall of water rushing soundlessly down just before them—the surface of Flande’s tower. Alan found his voice, surprised that it was steady.

  “That’s it, all right. It can’t get at us now.”

  “You’re sure?” Mike Smith’s voice shook. It was infinitely harder for him to admit defeat than for the others. His tough integrity was crumbling almost before their eyes.

  Alan turned toward the wall of rain, and said, “Flande, Flande!”

  In response a luminous slit began to glow in the wall. The veils of water parted slowly. Light shone out through a swirl of rainbow mists, dissipating the dark in which they stood.

  Then Flande’s face, immense, god-like, hung suspended in the great oval. Through his endless vistas of memory Flande looked out at them again, young-old, immortal, infinitely weary. And yet Alan thought he sensed a change. Beneath that passionless coldness pulsed something new, something vital, like . . . Alan thought: Fear. It’s fear.

  WITHIN their minds Flande’s telepathic voice rustled like leaves in a soft wind.

  “The Light-Wearer cannot break through. You are safe here.”

  “You—saved us?” Alan asked incredulously. “But—”

  Mike broke in. “How the hell did you get us here, anyway?” His voice was belligerent. Flande had humiliated Mike once before, and the memory of it thickened his anger now.

  Flande’s remote, impersonal gaze touched the gunman.

  “Hypnotics, of course, fool.”

  “Of course,” Sir Colin echoed, tilting his head back until the red beard jutted as he looked into Flande’s face searchingly. “The question is—why? Ye weren’t so friendly the last time we met.”

  “It is for me to question—not you,” Flande told him austerely. “Answer this—has the Light-Wearer fed yet?”

  A broad grin cracked Sir Colin’s bearded face.

  “Och, that tears it!” he said. “So that’s why ye saved us, eh? So we wouldn’t be food for the Alien? Yes, I’m beginning to understand. The Alien can’t harm the Carcasillians, but he can harm you, or you’d not protect yourself like this. Ye’ve been hiding here.”

  Alan half expected the flaming sword of radiance to flash, but it did not come. Flande looked down in quiet silence. After a long while he said, “All that is true enough. But we are both food for the Light-Wearer, and you will do well to treat me with respect.”

  “Is it still there?”

  Flande paused, his eyes going unfocused with a look of inward searching. Then: “No. It is leaving now. It goes back along the Way. It knows it cannot penetrate this veil . . .”

  His voice in their minds trailed off. And then he shot a sudden question at them with the impact of a shout: “Why did you come back?”

  “To ask your help,” Sir Colin answered, quickly and smoothly. “To Join forces in fighting the Alien.”

  “You lie,” Flande said in a cold voice. “When you lie, I know it. Furthermore, the Light-Wearer cannot be destroyed. Surely you realize that.”

  “You’re wrong,” Sir Colin flashed back, as though he were correcting a recalcitrant student. “The basic laws of physics and
biology must apply to everything on this planet, and life, being energy, is subject at least to entropy—by which I mean the Alien cannot be invulnerable. It fears sound, anyway.”

  “You hope to conquer it with noise?” Flande’s voice was contemptuous.

  “We’ve held it at bay with noise, at any rate.”

  Flande’s brows lifted. “Indeed? Tell me about it.”

  Sir Colin hesitated. “No harm in that,” he said at last. “If we’re to join forces I suppose ye’ll have to know what’s happened. Here it is.”

  Quickly and concisely he recounted what had been taking place in the cavern of the Terasi. When Sir Colin had finished, Flande’s face hung motionless, the lids lowered. Then with surprising suddenness the lids rose and a furious blaze of anger lighted the eyes beneath.

  “So!” Flande’s voice burned in their minds. “You will lie to me, will you? Stupid human fools! Did you think I was not aware that you were heading toward the fountain when you reentered Carcasilla? All I needed was the knowledge of where you’d been—and now I know. You come from the cavern of the great machines, useless for want of power. You come back to the only source of power left along the Way of the Gods. You even carry a box of lead. Do you think I need ask why?”

  Sir Colin shrugged as the thunderous anger beat away to silence in their brains.

  “So now ye know. What next?”

  Cool detachment dropped once more over Flande’s angry face. The lids drooped.

  “I need not gamble. Here in my tower I can wait until the Light-Wearer starves.”

  Alan gave a harsh bark of laughter. “You’ll have a long wait. It’ll reach the Terasi soon, and there are nearly a hundred of them.”

  “No matter. I can sleep. When I waken it will be another century, and the Light-Wearer will be dead.”