Astounding Science Fiction Stories: An Anthology of 350 Scifi Stories Volume 2 (Halcyon Classics)

by Various

  "Claybridge, this is Mortimer," came the almost hysterical response. "For God's sake, come over to the laboratory at once!"

  "What has happened?" I demanded, instantly wide awake. It would take something unusual to wring such excitement from the unemotional Mortimer.

  "It's Williams," he answered. "I can't bring him back. He got awake about an hour ago, and still believes that he is living in the future. Physically, he is the same as he was when last you saw him this afternoon."

  "I'll be over at once," I fairly shouted, and slammed the receiver down upon its hook. As I scrambled into my clothes, I glanced at the clock. Two fifteen. In half an hour I could reach the laboratory. What would I find waiting for me?

  Mortimer was in the lead room with Williams when I arrived.

  "Claybridge," he said, "l need someone else's opinion in this case. Look at him, and tell me what you think."

  Williams still occupied the chair in the middle of the room. His eyes were wide open, but it was plain that he saw neither Mortimer nor me. Even when I bent over him and touched him, he gave no sign of being conscious of my presence.

  "He looks as if he were suffering from some sort of catalepsy," I said, "yet his temperature and pulse are almost normal. I should say at he is still partially in a state of hypnosis."

  "Then it is self-hypnosis," said Mortimer, "for I have entirely withdrawn my influence."

  "Perhaps," I suggested lightly, "you have transported him irretrievably into the future."

  "That," Mortimer replied, "is precisely what I fear has happened."

  I stared a him dumbly.

  "The only way out," he went on, "is to rehypnotize him, and finish the experiment. At its conclusion, he may return to his natural state."

  I could not help thinking that there were certain things which it was forbidden man to know; and that Mortimer, having wantonly blundered into them, was now being made to pay the penalty. I watched him as he worked over poor Williams, straining all his energies to induce a state of hypnotic sleep. At last the glassy eyes before him closed, and his subject slept. With hands that trembled visibly, he adjusted the earphones, and we went back to the laboratory.

  "Williams," Mortimer called into his transmitter, "do you hear me?"

  "I hear you," replied the odiously familiar voice.

  "You are now living in the fourth day. What do you see?"

  "I see reptiles; great lizards that walk upon their hind legs, and birds with tiny heads and bats' wings, that build nests in the ruins of the deserted cities.

  "Dinosaurs and pterodactyls!" I gasped involuntarily. "A second age of reptiles!"

  "The Polar caps have retreated until there is but a small area of ice about each of the poles," continued the voice. "There are no longer any seasons; only a continuous reign of heat. The torrid zone has become uninhabitable even by the reptiles. The sea there boils. Great monsters writhe in their death agonies upon its surface. Even the northern waters are becoming heated.

  "All the land is covered with rank vegetation upon which the reptiles feed. The air is fetid with it."

  Mortimer interrupted: "Describe the fifth day."

  After the customary interval, the voice replied. There was a sticky quality about it that reminded me of the sucking of mud at some object struggling in it.

  "The reptiles are gone," it said. "I alone live upon this expiring world. Even the plant life has turned yellow and withered. The volcanoes are in terrific action. The mountains are becoming level, and soon all will be one vast plain. A thick, green slime is gathering upon the face of the water; so that it is difficult to tell where the land with its rotting vegetation ends and the sea begins. The sky is saffron in color, like a plate of hot brass. At night a blood red moon swims drunkenly in a black sky.

  "Something is happening to gravitation. For a long time I had suspected it. Today I tested it by throwing a stone into the air. I was carried several feet above the ground by the force of my action. It took the stone nearly twenty minutes to return to earth. It fell slowly, and at an angle!"

  "An angle!" cried Mortimer.

  "Yes. It was barely perceptible, but it was there. The earth's movement is slowing: Days and nights have more than doubled in length."

  "What is the condition of the atmosphere?"

  "A trifle rarefied, but not sufficiently so to make breathing difficult. This seems strange to me."

  "That," said Mortimer to me, "is because his body is here in the twentieth century, where there is plenty of air. The air at the stage of the earth's career where his mind is would be too rare to support organic life. Even now the mental influence is so strong that he believes the density of the atmosphere to be decreasing."

  "Recently," Williams' voice went on, "the star Vega has taken Polaris' place as centre of the universe. Many of the old stars have disappeared, while new ones have taken their places. I have a suspicion that our solar system is either falling or traveling in a new direction through space."

  "Listen to me, Williams." Mortimer's voice sounded dry and cracked, and his forehead was besprinkled with great gouts of sweat. "It is the sixth, the last day. What do you see?"

  "I see a barren plain of grey rock. The world is in perpetual twilight because the mists that rise from the sea obscure the sun. Heaps of brown bones dot the plain near the mounds that once were cities. The dykes around Manhattan long ago crumbled away; but there is no longer any need for them even were men here, for the sea is rapidly drying up. The atmosphere is becoming exceedingly rarefied. I can hardly breathe. . . .

  "Gravitation is giving out more rapidly. When I stand erect I sway as though drunk. Last night the curtains of mist parted for a time, and I saw the moon fly off into space.

  "Great lightnings play about the earth, but there is no thunder. The silence all around is plummetless. I keep speaking aloud and striking one object against another to relieve the strain on my eardrums. . . .

  "Great cracks are beginning to appear in the ground, from which smoke and molten lava issue. I have fled to Manhattan in order that the skeletons of the tall buildings may hide them from my sight.

  "Small objects have begun to move of their own volition. I am afraid to walk, as each step hurls me off my balance. The heat is awful. I cannot breathe."

  "There was a short interval, that came as a relief to our tightly screwed nerves. The tension to which the experiment had pitched us was terrible, yet I, for one, could no more have torn myself away than I could have passed into the fourth dimension.

  Suddenly the voice cut the air like a knife!

  "The buildings!" it shrieked. "They are swaying! They are leaning toward each other! They are crumbling, disintegrating; and the crumbs are flying outward instead of falling! Tiny particles are being thrown off by everything around me. Oh, the heat! There is no air!"

  Followed a hideous gurgling; then:

  "The earth is dissolving beneath my feet! It is the end. Creation is returning to its original atoms! Oh, my God!" There was a sickening scream that rapidly grew fainter with the effect of fading on radio.

  "Williams!" shouted Mortimer. "What happened?"

  There was no answer.

  "Williams! Williams!" Mortimer was on his feet, fairly shrieking into the instrument. "Do you hear me?"

  The only response was utter silence.

  Mortimer clutched me by the arm and dragged me with him from the laboratory and down the hall.

  "Is—is he dead?" I choked as we ran.

  Mortimer did not answer. His breath was coming in quick, short gasps that would have made speech impossible even had he heard me.

  At the door of the lead room he stopped and fumbled with his keys. From beyond we could hear no sound. Twice Mortimer, in his nervousness and hurry, dropped the key and had to grope for it; but at last he got it turned in the lock, and flung the door open.

  In our haste, we collided with each other as we hurried into the room. Then as one man we stopped dead in our tracks. The room was empty!

>   "Where—" I began incredulously. "He couldn't have gotten out! Could he?"

  "No," Mortimer answered hoarsely.

  We advanced farther into the room, peering into every crack and corner. From the back of the chair, suspended by their cord, hung the earphones; while dangling from the chair's seat to the floor were the tattered and partially charred remains of what seemed to have been at one time a suit of men's clothing. At sight of these, Mortimer's face went white. In his eyes was a look of dawning comprehension and horror.

  "What does it mean." I demanded.

  For answer, he pointed a palsied finger.

  As I looked, the first beam of morning sunlight slipped through the light above us, and fell obliquely to the floor. In its golden shaft, directly above the chair where Williams had sat, a myriad of infinitesimal atoms were dancing.

  * * *

  Contents

  THE CALM MAN

  By Frank Belknap Long

  Sally watched the molten gold glow in the sky. Then knew she would not see her son and her husband ever again on Earth.

  Sally Anders had never really thought of herself as a wallflower. A girl could be shy, couldn't she, and still be pretty enough to attract and hold men?

  Only this morning she had drawn an admiring look from the milkman and a wolf cry from Jimmy on the corner, with his newspapers and shiny new bike. What if the milkman was crowding sixty and wore thick-lensed glasses? What if Jimmy was only seventeen?

  A male was a male, and a glance was a glance. Why, if I just primp a little more, Sally told herself, I'll be irresistible.

  Hair ribbons and perfume, a mirror tilted at just the right angle, an invitation to a party on the dresser--what more did a girl need?

  "Dinner, Sally!" came echoing up from the kitchen. "Do you want to be late, child?"

  Sally had no intention of being late. Tonight she'd see him across a crowded room and her heart would skip a beat. He'd look at her and smile, and come straight toward her with his shoulders squared.

  There was always one night in a girl's life that stands above all other nights. One night when the moon shone bright and clear and the clock on the wall went tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. One night when each tick said, "You're beautiful! Really beautiful!"

  Giving her hair a final pat Sally smiled at herself in the mirror.

  In the bathroom the water was still running and the perfumed bath soap still spread its aromatic sweet odor through the room. Sally went into the bathroom and turned off the tap before going downstairs to the kitchen.

  "My girl looks radiant tonight!" Uncle Ben said, smiling at her over his corned beef and cabbage.

  Sally blushed and lowered her eyes.

  "Ben, you're making her nervous," Sally's mother said, laughing.

  Sally looked up and met her uncle's stare, her eyes defiant. "I'm not bad-looking whatever you may think," she said.

  "Oh, now, Sally," Uncle Ben protested. "No sense in getting on a high horse. Tonight you may find a man who just won't be able to resist you."

  "Maybe I will and maybe I won't," Sally said. "You'd be surprised if I did, wouldn't you?"

  It was Uncle Ben's turn to lower his eyes.

  "I'll tell the world you've inherited your mother's looks, Sally," he said. "But a man has to pride himself on something. My defects of character are pretty bad. But no one has ever accused me of dishonesty."

  Sally folded her napkin and rose stiffly from the table.

  "Good night, Uncle," she said.

  When Sally arrived at the party every foot of floor space was taken up by dancing couples and the reception room was so crowded that, as each new guest was announced, a little ripple of displeasure went through the men in midnight blue and the women in Nile green and lavender.

  For a moment Sally did not move, just stood staring at the dancing couples, half-hidden by one of the potted palms that framed the sides of the long room.

  Moonlight silvered her hair and touched her white throat and arms with a caress so gentle that simply by closing her eyes she could fancy herself already in his arms.

  Moonlight from tall windows flooding down, turning the dancing guests into pirouetting ghosts in diaphanous blue and green, scarlet and gold.

  Close your eyes, Sally, close them tight! Now open them! That's it ... Slowly, slowly ...

  He came out of nothingness into the light and was right beside her suddenly.

  He was tall, but not too tall. His face was tanned mahogany brown, and his eyes were clear and very bright. And he stood there looking at her steadily until her mouth opened and a little gasp flew out.

  He took her into his arms without a word and they started to dance ...

  They were still dancing when he asked her to be his wife.

  "You'll marry me, of course," he said. "We haven't too much time. The years go by so swiftly, like great white birds at sea."

  They were very close when he asked her, but he made no attempt to kiss her. They went right on dancing and while he waited for her answer he talked about the moon ...

  "When the lights go out and the music stops the moon will remain," he said. "It raises tides on the Earth, it inflames the minds and hearts of men. There are cyclic rhythms which would set a stone to dreaming and desiring on such a night as this."

  He stopped dancing abruptly and looked at her with calm assurance.

  "You will marry me, won't you?" he asked. "Allowing for a reasonable margin of error I seriously doubt if I could be happy with any of these other women. I was attracted to you the instant I saw you."

  A girl who has never been asked before, who has drawn only one lone wolf cry from a newsboy could hardly be expected to resist such an offer.

  Don't resist, Sally. He's strong and tall and extremely good-looking. He knows what he wants and makes up his mind quickly. Surely a man so resolute must make enough money to support a wife.

  "Yes," Sally breathed, snuggling close to him. "Oh, yes!"

  She paused a moment, then said, "You may kiss me now if you wish, my darling."

  He straightened and frowned a little, and looked away quickly. "That can wait," he said.

  * * * * *

  They were married a week later and went to live on an elm-shaded street just five blocks from where Sally was born. The cottage was small, white and attractively decorated inside and out. But Sally changed the curtains, as all women must, and bought some new furniture on the installment plan.

  The neighbors were friendly folk who knew her husband as Mr. James Rand, an energetic young insurance broker who would certainly carve a wider swath for himself in his chosen profession now that he had so charming a wife.

  Ten months later the first baby came.

  Lying beneath cool white sheets in the hospital Sally looked at the other women and felt so deliriously happy she wanted to cry. It was a beautiful baby and it cuddled close to her heart, its smallness a miracle in itself.

  The other husbands came in and sat beside their wives, holding on tight to their happiness. There were flowers and smiles, whispers that explored bright new worlds of tenderness and rejoicing.

  Out in the corridor the husbands congratulated one another and came in smelling of cigar smoke.

  "Have a cigar! That's right. Eight pounds at birth. That's unusual, isn't it? Brightest kid you ever saw. Knew his old man right off."

  He was beside her suddenly, standing straight and still in shadows.

  "Oh, darling," she whispered. "Why did you wait? It's been three whole days."

  "Three days?" he asked, leaning forward to stare down at his son. "Really! It didn't seem that long."

  "Where were you? You didn't even phone!"

  "Sometimes it's difficult to phone," he said slowly, as if measuring his words. "You have given me a son. That pleases me very much."

  A coldness touched her heart and a despair took hold of her. "It pleases you! Is that all you can say? You stand there looking at me as if I were a--a patient ..."

  "A p
atient?" His expression grew quizzical. "Just what do you mean, Sally?"

  "You said you were pleased. If a patient is ill her doctor hopes that she will get well. He is pleased when she does. If a woman has a baby a doctor will say, 'I'm so pleased. The baby is doing fine. You don't have to worry about him. I've put him on the scales and he's a bouncing, healthy boy.'"

  "Medicine is a sane and wise profession," Sally's husband said. "When I look at my son that is exactly what I would say to the mother of my son. He is healthy and strong. You have pleased me, Sally."

  He bent as he spoke and picked Sally's son up. He held the infant in the crook of his arm, smiling down at it.

  "A healthy male child," he said. "His hair will come in thick and black. Soon he will speak, will know that I am his father."

  He ran his palm over the baby's smooth head, opened its mouth gently with his forefinger and looked inside.

  Sally rose on one elbow, her tormented eyes searching his face.

  "He's your child, your son!" she sobbed. "A woman has a child and her husband comes and puts his arms around her. He holds her close. If they love each other they are so happy, so very happy, they break down and cry."

  "I am too pleased to do anything so fantastic, Sally," he said. "When a child is born no tears should be shed by its parents. I have examined the child and I am pleased with it. Does not that content you?"

  "No, it doesn't!" Sally almost shrieked. "Why do you stare at your own son as if you'd never seen a baby before? He isn't a mechanical toy. He's our own darling, adorable little baby. Our child! How can you be so inhumanly calm?"

  He frowned, put the baby down.

  "There is a time for love-making and a time for parenthood," he said. "Parenthood is a serious responsibility. That is where medicine comes in, surgery. If a child is not perfect there are emergency measures which can be taken to correct the defect."

  Sally's mouth went suddenly dry. "Perfect! What do you mean, Jim? Is there something wrong with Tommy?"

  "I don't think so," her husband said. "His grasp is firm and strong. He has good hearing and his eyesight appears to be all that could be desired. Did you notice how his eyes followed me every moment?"