One tower still stood—a gutted shell, white under the stars, rising in a filigree of columns and arches which seemed impossibly airy, as if it were built of moonlight. Jorun settled on its broken upper balcony, dizzily high above the black-and-white fantasy of the ruins. A hawk flew shrieking from its nest, then there was silence.
No—wait—another yell, ringing down the star ways, a dark streak across the moon’s face. “Hai-ah!” Jorun recognized the joyful shout of young Cluthe, rushing through heaven like a demon on a broomstick, and scowled in annoyance. He didn’t want to be bothered now. Jorun was little older than Cluthe—a few centuries at most—but he came of a melancholy folk; he had been born old.
Another form pursued the first. As they neared, Jorun recognized Taliuvenna’s supple outline. Those two had been teamed up for one of the African districts, but—
They sensed him and came wildly out of the sky to perch on the balcony railing and swing their legs above the heights. “How’re you?” asked Cluthe. His lean face laughed in the moonlight. “Whoo-oo, what a flight!”
“I’m all right,” said Jorun. “You through in your sector?”
“Uh-huh. So we thought we’d just duck over and look in here. Last chance anyone’ll ever have to do some sightseeing on Earth.”
Taliuvenna’s full lips drooped a bit as she looked over the ruins. She came from Yunith, one of the few planets where they still kept cities, and was as much a child of their soaring arrogance as Jorun of his hills and tundras and great empty seas. “I thought it would be bigger,” she said.
“Well, they were building this fifty or sixty thousand years ago,” said Cluthe. “Can’t expect too much.”
“There is good art left here,” said Jorun. “Pieces which for one reason or another weren’t carried off. But you have to look around for it.”
“I’ve seen a lot of it already, in museums,” said Taliuvenna. “Not bad.”
“C’mon, Tally,” cried Cluthe. He touched her shoulder and sprang into the air. “Tag! You’re it!”
She screamed with laughter and shot off after him. They rushed across the wilderness, weaving in and out of empty windows, and broken colonnades, and their shouts woke a clamor of echoes.
Jorun sighed. I’d better go to bed, he thought. It’s late.
The spaceship was a steely pillar against a low gray sky. Now and then a fine rain would drizzle down, blurring it from sight; then that would end, and the ship’s flanks would glisten as if they were polished. Clouds scudded overhead like flying smoke, and the wind was loud in the trees.
The line of Terrans moving slowly into the vessel seemed to go on forever. A couple of the ship’s crew flew above them, throwing out a shield against the rain, They shuffled without much talk or expression, pushing carts filled with their little possessions. Jorun stood to one side, watching them go by, one face after another—scored and darkened by the sun of Earth, the winds of Earth, hands still grimy with the soil of Earth.
, Well, he thought, there they go. They aren’t being as emotional about it as I thought they would. I wonder if they really do care.
Julith went past with her parents. She saw him and darted from the fine and curtsied before him.
“Good-by, good sir,” she said. Looking up, she showed him a small and serious face. “Will I ever see you again?”
“Well,” he lied, “I might look in on you sometime.”
“Please do! In a few years, maybe, when you can.”
It takes many generations to raise a people like this to our standard. In a few years—to me—she’ll be in her grave.
“I’m sure you’ll be very happy,” he said.
She gulped. “Yes,” she said, so low he could hardly hear her. “Yes, I know I will.” She turned and ran back to her mother. The raindrops glistened in her hair.
Zarek came up behind Jorun. “I made a last-minute sweep of the whole area,” he said. “Detected no sign of human life. So it’s all taken care of, except your old man.”
“Good,” said Jorun tonelessly.
“I wish you could do something about him.”
“So do I.”
Zarek strolled off again.
A young man and woman, walking hand in hand, turned out of the line not far away and stood for a little while. A spaceman zoomed over to them. “Better get back,” he warned. “You’ll get rained on.”
“That’s what we wanted,” said the young man.
The spaceman shrugged and resumed his hovering. Presently the couple re-entered the line.
The tail of the procession went by Jorun and the ship swallowed it fast. The rain fell harder, bouncing off his force-shield like silver spears. Lightning winked in the west, and he heard the distant exuberance of thunder.
Kormt came walking slowly toward him. Rain streamed off his clothes and matted his long gray hair and beard. His wooden shoes made a wet sound in the mud. Jorun extended the force-shield to cover him. “I hope you’ve changed your mind,” said the Fulkhisian.
“No, I haven’t,” said Kormt. “I just stayed away till everybody was aboard. Don’t like good-byes.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” said Jorun for the— thousandth?—time. “It’s plain madness to stay here alone.”
“I told you I don’t like good-byes,” said Kormt harshly.
“I have to go advise the captain of the ship,” said Jorun. “You have maybe half an hour before she lifts. Nobody will laugh at you for changing your mind.”
“I won’t.” Kormt smiled without warmth. “You people are the future, I guess. Why can’t you leave the past alone? I’m the past.” He looked toward the far hills, hidden by the noisy rain. “I like it here, Galactic. That should be enough for you.”
“Well, then—” Jorun held out his hand in the archaic gesture of Earth. “Good-by.”
“Good-by.” Kormt took the hand with a brief, indifferent clasp. Then he turned and walked off toward the village. Jorun watched him till he was out of sight.
The technician paused in the air-lock door, looking over the gray landscape and the village from whose chimneys no smoke rose. Farewell, my mother, he thought. And then, surprising himself: Maxine Kormt is doing the right thing after all.
He entered the ship and the door closed behind him.
Toward evening, the clouds lifted and the sky showed a clear pale blue—as if it had been washed clean—and the grass and leaves glistened. Kormt came out of the house to watch the sunset. It was a good one, all flame and gold. A pity little Julith wasn’t here to see it; she’d always liked sunsets. But Julith was so far away now that if she sent a call to him, calling with the speed of light, it would not come before he was dead.
Nothing would come to him. Not ever again.
He tamped his pipe with a homy thumb and lit it and drew a deep cloud into his lungs. Hands in pockets, he strolled down the wet streets. The sound of his clogs was unexpectedly loud.
Well, son, he thought, now you’ve got a whole world all to yourself, to do with just as you like. You’re the richest man who ever lived.
There was no problem in keeping alive. Enough food of all kinds was stored in the town’s freeze-vault to support a hundred men for the ten or twenty years remaining to him. But he’d want to stay busy. He could maybe keep three farms from going to seed—watch over fields and orchards and five-stock, repair the buildings, dust and wash and light up in the evening. A man ought to keep busy.
He came to the end of the street, where it turned into a 175 graveled road winding up toward a high hill, and followed that. Dusk was creeping over the fields, the sea was a metal streak very far away and a few early stars blinked forth. A wind was springing up, a soft murmurous wind that talked in the trees. But how quiet things were!
On top of the hill stood the chapel, a small steepled building of ancient stone. He let himself in the gate and walked around to the graveyard behind. There were many of the demure white tombstones—thousands of years of Solis Township, men and women
who had lived and worked and begotten, laughed and wept and died. Someone had put a wreath on one grave only this morning; it brushed against his leg as he went by. Tomorrow it would be withered, and weeds would start to grow. He’d have to tend the chapel* yard, too. Only fitting.
He found his family plot and stood with feet spread apart, fists on hips, smoking and looking down at the markers, Gerlaug Kormt’s son, Tama Huwan’s daughter; these hundred years had they lain in the earth. Hello, Dad, hello^ Mother. His fingers reached out and stroked the headstone of his wife. And so many of his children were here, too; sometimes he found it hard to believe that tall Gerlaug and laughing Stamm and shy, gentle Huwan were gone. He’d outlived too many people.
I had to stay, he thought. This is my land, I am of it and I couldn’t go. Someone had to stay and keep the land, if only for a little while. I can give it ten more years before the forest comes and takes it.
Darkness grew around him. The woods beyond the hill loomed like a wall. Once he started violently; he thought he heard a child crying. No, only a bird. He cursed himself for the senseless pounding of his heart.
Gloomy place here, he thought Better get back to the house.
He groped slowly out of the yard, toward the road. The stars were out now. Kormt looked up and thought he had never seen them so bright. Too bright; he didn’t like it.
Go away, stars, he thought. You took my people, but I’m staying here. This is my land. He reached down to touch it, but the grass was cold and wet under his palm.
The gravel scrunched loudly as he walked, and the wind mumbled in the hedges, but there was no other sound. Not a voice called; not an engine turned; not a dog barked. No, he hadn’t thought it would be so quiet.
And dark. No lights. Have to tend the street lamps himself —it was no fun, not being able to see the town from here, not being able to see anything except the stars. Should have remembered to bring a flashlight, but he was old and absent-minded, and there was no one to remind him. When he died, there would be no one to hold his hands; no one to close his eyes and lay him in the earth—and the forests would grow in over the land and wild beasts would nuzzle his bones.
But I knew that. What of it? I’m tough enough to take it.
The stars flashed and flashed above him. Looking up, against his own will, Kormt saw how bright they were, how bright and quiet. And how very far away! He was seeing light that had left its home before he was born.
He stopped, sucking in his breath between his teeth. “No,” he whispered.
This was his land. This was Earth, the home of man; it was his and he was its. This was the land, and not a single dust-mote, crazily reeling and spinning through an endlessness of dark and silence, cold and immensity. Earth could not be so alone!
The last man alive. The last man in all the world] He screamed, then, and began to run. His feet clattered loud on the road; the small sound was quickly swallowed by silence, and he covered his face against the relentless blaze of the stars. But there was no place to ran to, no place at all.
INTERPLANETARY EPICS
The most thrilling things to come will be the daring exploration and conquest of distant worlds. Here, in this brand-new science-fiction anthology, are five unforgettable novelettes which contain all the different types of excitement and peril that will follow the opening up of the universe to the rocket men.
Ralph Williams tells the strange story of the first break-away from Earth. Fox B. Holden introduces us to Mars and the incredible inheritance that waits there. Clifford D. Simak presents a mystery of one world’s inhuman inhabitants. Poul Anderson spins a cosmic web of the coming galactic empire. And L. Ron Hubbard tears through the veil of space itself to pose a turning point in humanity’s interplanetary epic.
TALES OF OUTER SPACE is an original collection of top science-fiction by top writers.
DOORWAY IN THE SKY
They thought their ship was the first to break into outer space until they spotted that derelict!
HERE LIE WE
The Martians had power, science, and experience— yet they were helpless before a fate that left Earthmen fearless!
OPERATION MERCURY
No one knew whether the weird mimic of the Sunward Side was harmless—or crazy like a fox!
LORD OF A THOUSAND SUNS
He was just a man without a world until a certain space soldier blundered!
BEHIND THE BLACK NEBULA With all the resources of super-science behind them, they still fought a losing war against that leaderless horde!
TALES OF OUTER SPACE
Edited by DONALD A. WOLLHEIM
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.
Copyright, 1954, by ACE BOOKS, INC. All Rights Reserved
* * *
COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Bertha (Doorway in the Sky) by Ralph Williams. Copyright, 1953, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., for Astounding Science Fiction.
Here Lie We by Fox B. Holden. Copyright, 1953, by Better Publications, Inc., for Startling Stories.
Masquerade (Operation Mercury) by Clifford D. Simak. Copyright, 1941, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., for Astounding Science Fiction.
Lord of a Thousand Suns by Poul Anderson. Copyright, 1951, by Love Romances Publishing Co., Inc., for Planet Stories.
The Invaders (Behind the Black Nebula) by L. Ron Hubbard. Copyright, 1941, by Street & Smith Publications, Inc., for Astounding Science Fiction.
Doorway in the Sky
By Ralph Williams
THE THING in the sky circled unobserved about the Earth. It may have just been there, as the Moon is there, and as stars are there. Or it may have been waiting.
Below in New Mexico, men prepared to launch the first manned rocket—
During the takeoff, the three men of the crew lay on their acceleration couches, as helpless as the mice that had preceded them, while the rocket piloted itself.
Tiny steel teeth gnawed stolidly and harmlessly at a tape, springing back weakly when they met resistance, transforming the punched patterns in the tape into electrical impulses which activated various relays. The perforated tape gave commands: “Do this and then do that, and if so-and-so happens, then do thus—”; and the activated relays denoted acceptance and readiness to perform these commands. A certain altitude was reached and the ship, knowing this, altered its course to the east as instructed by the tape. The first stage was dropped, as the tape directed, at the exact instant the last few drops of fuel in its tanks were exhausted, and then the second. A few minutes later, the ship realized it had attained the goal set by the tape. With a final triumphant clacking of relays, it shut off the engine.
The human crew now took over, devising new tasks for the machines. McKay, moving clumsily without the accustomed restraint of gravity, and feeling an inward queasiness which became acute when he moved his eyes suddenly, took sights on the stars and on landmarks on the Earth below. Brown pushed switches which activated small flywheels to turn the ship. Goodrich, the captain, performed further calculations on the navigator’s figures, and from these prepared another tape which he fed into the autopilot. By the time this was done, it was a few minutes less than an hour after takeoff time, and the ship was halfway around the globe from its point of departure.
At the proper moment, the captain tripped the firing switch.
The engine caught with a whoosh, slamming the men back into their couches, and the autopilot nibbled precisely at the tape, clucking abstractedly to itself. After seventeen seconds it shut off the engine again. The rocket was now in a roughly circular orbit, a little over five thousand miles from the Earth’s center, one thousand miles above its surface.
The other thing in the sky was now only five hundred miles above them; but the men in the rocketship did not know this, and might not have cared if they had known. They were busy with a more urgent problem.
The weightlessness, sudden heavy acceleration, and weightlessness again had been too much for Brown
. He was suddenly and violently sick, groping blindly for a container. Goodrich thrust it against the man’s face. He reached for another container and followed suit.
After a while, the convulsions began to wear themselves out. The men wiped at their streaming eyes and slimy faces. Goodrich saw that they had almost circled the Earth, their takeoff point was coming up over the horizon. There was a tiny squeaking in his headphones.
“Rubberneck, this is Thumbtack. Rubberneck, Rubberneck, Thumbtack calling. Do you hear me? Is something wrong? Rubberneck, this is Thumbtack. Give us a count, over.”
Goodrich spat, wiped his mouth, and plugged in his mike. “Thumbtack Control, Rubberneck,” he said. “Do you hear me now?”
“I hear you fine now. Is everything O.K.?”
“O.K. now,” Goodrich said. He paused. “We were sick,” he said reluctantly.
“Roger.” There was a long pause. “Did you know you were off course? We have you about twenty minutes ahead of schedule and thirty degrees off course. Also too high. We’ve been trying to get you for twenty minutes, since we got your first track.”
“Roger, wait.” Goodrich turned to McKay. The navigator shook his head negatively and pointed at the forward view screen. The coast of California stood clear and sharp ahead of them, but New Mexico was still only a thin line on the horizon. Goodrich nodded. “Get a fix,” he said.
He clicked the mike switch. “Thumbtack, Rubberneck. There must be a mistake. We’re just coming up over the visual horizon now, on course as nearly as we can tell.” “Roger. Well, we have a good track on you, I don’t see how we could be mistaken—” the voice broke off. “Just a minute,” it said presently. “I think we’re getting another track now … that’s it, we’ve got you O.K. now, right on course. The first track was a bogey.” There was another pause. “Mr. Welsh wants to talk to you now.”
Adventures in the Far Future Page 17
