The 7th Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK®: Manly Banister

by Banister, Manly

  She squeezed his hand.

  Kor looked at her askance. “I know. You would have me wait—wait! Well, I have been waiting! When I graduated from the Institute, I thought wonderful things were in store for me. You know the story of my father—how I’ve dreamed all my life of joining the Searchers. If anyone can find out where the Trisz come from, I can! And I’ve told you how I can hurl the Fire. I am the only one who can do it, Soma. It takes my mind to do it. Nobody else can even be trained to do it. You should see the Fire! I’ve seen it melt half a planet away before you could blink your eyes. I’ve seen molten, coruscating gobs of matter sputtering in space like the most beautiful fireworks—and the most deadly you can imagine! It—it’s a beautiful sight, Soma— It’s power! And what power for a Man to wield with the naked might of his mind! Just think, to be able to hurl a sun with your bare hands, so to speak.”

  She closed her eyes, her face mirroring his own internal suffering.

  “Please forget it for now, Kor, and let us enjoy the show. Perhaps soon the time will come.”

  “Soon—bah!” he growled.

  She snatched her hand away from his.

  “I’m sick of it, Kor!” she snapped. “All you can think of is going away, out to the very edge of the Universe! How about me? Haven’t you considered how I would feel about it?”

  Kor’s expression slowly lost its exalted look. He could not hear Soma’s sobs for the sudden swell in the music as the dancers pirouetted off-stage.

  “Soma, you’re crying!”

  “Your mighty mind!” she blazed at him in sudden fury. “That’s all you think of! A hundred generations of Men have fought the Trisz in silence, without glory. And what have you to say for it all? Your mind—what you could do—you’d lick the Trisz single-handed, of course! Shame on you, Kor! You can whip the Universe all by yourself, but you can’t do one little thing about me!”

  She jumped to her feet, eyes blazing through her tears.

  “I’ve had enough, Sir Kor! Go tell Tor Shan how mighty you are! Perhaps he hasn’t found it out yet. And when he lets you out of this—this prison, go to the farthest end of space and stay there! See if I care!”

  Kor sat stunned. Nineteen years of institute training failed him in this moment. This was a situation that had remained untouched in the text books and lectures. As Kor came to think of it, the Institute had been careful to teach him nothing at all about women.

  * * * *

  Soma had reached the lighted street in a precipitate rush before Kor caught up with her. She shook his placating hand from her arm, kept her head held high and avoided looking at him.

  “Soma!” he cried. “I—I don’t understand. Please don’t run! Stop now!”

  Soma stopped. Her expression was grim, tear-streaked.

  “All right, I’m stopped. Now what, Mr. Scarlet Saint?”

  Kor hesitated, trying to master the turmoil her action had awakened in him. He was puzzled, confused, angry, and unbelievably happy, all at once.

  He said, “My dear, I’m sorry.”

  “Is that all?” She whirled to go.

  He caught and held her, oblivious of the passing crowd that eyed them with amused understanding.

  “Wait!” Kor looked around. “In the name of the Sun, let’s get out of this public place! I have something to say to you.”

  She unbent a trifle. “Very well, let us go back inside.”

  “Oh no,” he rejoined quickly. “Not after the flurry we made getting out of there! Come with me. I have just the place in mind.”

  In the center of the cavern city was a large park. Everything grew in it from shrubs to pines. An artificial breeze swept through it now, rustling the foliage, whispering among the pine needles. They came out upon a small lake, ruffled and reflecting the glow of the artificial moon in the sky. There were many about on the dim-lit paths, but Kor finally found a bench fronting the lake. He sat and drew Soma down beside him. He did not let go of her hands.

  “If I had not stopped you, you would have kept on going, wouldn’t you?”

  She looked away, across the dancing wavelets of the artificial lake. Her voice was small and frail.

  “What difference would it have made if I had? You would go if your orders came through.”

  Kor caught himself on the verge of arguing the difference. Humility became him now, and he was intent on practicing it.

  He said, “Soma, I’ve been an idiot! I can’t say I didn’t know. I’ve known all along, I guess. I just didn’t know what I knew…” He stopped uncertainly.

  Soma dabbed a handkerchief at her eyes and attempted a smile.

  “Go on, Sir Kor.”

  Kor stumbled lamely. “Well, when you left me like that, it—it all came home to me. I’ve been very selfish, Soma. I’ve thought of nobody but myself. Oh, I’ve thought of you, too,” he hastened to correct himself, “but I just didn’t think of what you have given up for the Men, your friends, your father, your home. I was so interested in being a Man, I—well, I forgot what it is to be human, too!”

  She leaned expectantly toward him. Kor caught her face suddenly between his palms and kissed her. She did not draw away. The tiny sigh she uttered could never have been called a cry of victory, but it served the same purpose.

  “Soma, as long as we both have to stay here, we could, why, we could—!”

  She frowned … then burst out laughing at his suddenly crestfallen look.

  “We could what, Kor?”

  “Please marry me, Soma!”

  Kor breathed with sudden exultation.

  “Darling, Kor!”

  “I love you, Soma.”

  “I love you, Kor.”

  “Surprised, dearest?”

  “I never, never would have expected it, darling! When I shall it be? It could be next Chapel day, of course.”

  “Certainly it would take you more than three days to get everything you need.”

  “I have everything already, Kor!” she beamed happily. “I have my gown and my tiara…it’s the loveliest thing! You should see it—but you can’t, of course. Not until the ceremony. That’s custom, you know. And then there are the household items we will need—I’ve been getting them together for months! You’d never dream… I’ve spent nearly all my salary… I—!”

  Kor sat back and eyed her with mock astonishment.

  “So surprised! You of course never expected it! You’ve been feverishly getting ready for months!”

  Soma bowed her head in pretended shame, but her eyes sparkled.

  “Well, I could hope, couldn’t I? Though you gave me little cause.”

  “You knew I was under an oath of chastity, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, that. It expired forty-seven days ago. I’ve been keeping track, you see.”

  The music swelled, died, and swelled again. Neither noticed that the program had changed to a comedy skit. They looked into each other’s eyes, lips clinging. Their world of this moment was private.

  Tor Shan was pleased with the arrangement.

  He said, “I have been hoping for something like this, Kor. I am rather inclined to go along with the theory that your divisible type of mind represents a mutational element. It is possible that it can be passed on to future generations.”

  “That thought didn’t occur to me,” Kor replied.

  “It wouldn’t,” smiled Tor Shan. “If the future of the race were left to the conscious considerations of the individuals concerned, I’m afraid the race would have ceased to have a future long ago. Naturally, we wouldn’t consider you in the light of a breeding stud or anything of that kind, but the prospect of your having children opens up agreeable possibilities. However, that is still in the future. Of course, you know that as soon as you and Soma registered your intentions, the inf
ormation was given me at once. That is why I have called you in for a talk, Kor.”

  Kor remained politely attentive.

  “I hope you have recalled often our last talk together. It appears to me that you have. You have changed a great deal since you first came to Sub-den. It will not be necessary to keep you here much longer.”

  “The Searchers!” Kor exclaimed.

  Tor Shan shook his head. “Not yet, Kor. Perhaps never, now that you are undertaking the obligations of family life. I have something else in mind equally interesting and active. As soon as you are married, come and see me again. I have a honeymoon planned for you.”

  Kor looked blank.

  “What is a—what did you call it?”

  Tor Shan laughed.

  “A honeymoon is an ancient expression signifying travel by newlyweds. A journey all alone. You will understand its meaning…” he paused to smile slowly … “before the trip is over.”

  The ceremony did not take place the following Chapel day. There was too much to be done, in spite of Soma’s preparations. Getting married was a more intricate process than Kor had thought…or Soma, either. There was Soma’s father to be contacted; Lord Roen Gol had been taken in by the Organization and transferred to another subterranean city. And there was Sir Ten Roga, whom Soma was overjoyed to find still alive. He was returning from a Searcher Battalion to be present at the ceremony. Then, too, there were certain ritual formalities to be taken care of, such as publication of the announcement and posting of the date. It was two Chapel days later before all was in readiness.

  Kor had never seen Soma looking so beautiful. He swallowed a large lump in his throat and pantomimed his way through the ceremony like a straw man on a stick.

  No amount of training could have prepared Kor for this. Fortunately, his active participation was not necessary. He followed where Soma led and others pushed him. Like bridegrooms since the beginning of time, he merely stood on his feet, did as he was told, and ended in possession of the most beautiful girl in the world. And for this he should have been willing to stand so and let others direct.

  CHAPTER XV

  “Have you heard of the Colonization Survey?” Tor Shan wanted to know. The term was a vague one to Kor. All his research had been concerned with the activities of the Search Battalions.

  “Do you mean searching for the human colonies planted by the Trisz?”

  “No. That is part of the Search Battalion work. We have another activity, which is listed as the Colonization Survey. It consists of preliminary survey work on worlds uncovered by the Search Battalions. When the Searchers discover a new planetary system, it is explored briefly and the planets classified according to their ecological aspects. These reports are filed here and scanned for the possibility of human habitation on the various worlds. When the time comes to remove the People from Rth, we intend to scatter them as widely as possible, colonizing the younger worlds throughout space. With more room to expand in, the race will grow more rapidly, and we can expect less trouble from adaptation. However, before the People can be moved to any of these worlds, a lot of field work must be done.”

  The older man’s words filtered through Kor’s shroud of disappointment. He had felt certain Tor Shan was about to assign him to the Searchers. But this, at least, he thought with a brightening of his faculties, was freedom. He would be able to leave Sub-den. But what about Soma? “I plan to send you out as a field researcher,” Tor Shan went on smoothly. “It may not be quite as exciting as life in the Search Battalions, since the worlds you will visit have already been charted and explored slightly by the Searchers. We know that none of these planets present dangerous conditions. What you will be required to do is make a detailed analysis of living possibilities on all the worlds of which a list will be supplied to you. Your first sortie will take perhaps a year.”

  “A year!” Kor sat upright. “But, Sir—”

  Tor Shan smiled, “You are thinking of Soma. So am I. You may take your wife with you.”

  “But she can’t—”

  “No, she can’t teleport herself as you or I could, Kor. Therefore, you will have to teleport her, along with an analytical laboratory. A space ship, in effect.”

  Tor Shan stepped to the wall of his office and pressed an invisible stud. The room lights dimmed almost to extinction as the wall slowly parted to disclose a dazzling vista of the star-strewn immensities of space.

  Kor recognized the device. What appeared to be a three-dimensional model of the galaxy built into the wall was actually a view into the depths of space itself. The instrument was extremely powerful and capable of wonderful selectivity. Its view was not confined to the overhead heavens, but any sector of the sky was available for viewing at any time.

  Countless stars blazed before Kor’s eyes as if he floated free in space, far from any sun. Before he could recognize the area, however, Tor Shan operated the device. The stars shifted their positions, streamed away to both sides. The broad, glowing streak of the Milky Way rose and centered itself. Stars drifted toward them, faster and faster, winking out as they seemed to come abreast and pass behind. The luminous streak across the ebon backdrop of space broadened, thinned, resolved itself into individual stars.

  “Out here, at the edge of the galaxy,” said Tor Shan, “there is a host of young worlds, many of which have never been touched by the Trisz. They are perfect worlds—much like Rth was a million years ago, perhaps. They have sunny, equable climates, an abundance of moisture and vegetation. Some are sparsely inhabited, others have no inhabitants other than primitive types of animals and plants. The analytical laboratory is complete with equipment for recording the ecological data you will be required to gather.”

  “What sort of a ship is this analytical laboratory?” Kor wanted to know.

  “It is simply a plastic bubble, loaded with instruments. It requires no drive mechanism, like the ether ships of the Trisz, because it goes right along with you in your own teleportation field. Its purpose is to provide a convenient repository for the analyzing and recording instruments, and living quarters for you and Soma. Are you pleased with my idea of a honeymoon?”

  Kor was more than pleased. He was overcome. He followed with divided interest the panorama of stars that passed in review, while Tor Shan pointed out system after system as desirable for further exploration.

  “As soon,” Tor Shan concluded, “as you can be briefed in the operation of the analyzing and recording instruments, you will be given your orders and a summary of the technique of procedure. You will not have to hurry the work. You will need at least a year—take longer if you want. When you return, we will see then if you still want to join a Search Battalion, and if you do…well, we shall see.”

  * * * *

  A plastic bubble floated in the stratosphere of the planet Karel IV. It gleamed like a droplet of mercury against the blue-black sky in which brighter stars shot gleaming pencils of light. The GO-type sun of this system, a yellow dwarf as Rth’s sun had once been, blazed at a distance of 112,000,000 miles from the planet. The bubble dropped slowly toward the cloud-wreathed face of Karel IV, a sparkling mote in the immensity of the upper air.

  Soma was in an ecstasy of excitement at the view-port.

  “Look, Kor, how thick the air is! You can hardly see the surface at all. It’s all blue and stringy looking…will we be able to breathe it?”

  Kor’s mind automatically controlled the descending bubble. Strange fields of force bathed every molecule of the vessel and its occupants, held them hovering in defiance of gravity, or permitted them to move in whatever direction Kor willed.

  “That is the effect of water vapor in the air,” Kor told her aside. “Those fluffy bits and the strings are clouds of water droplets. Under certain conditions, the droplets condense and fall as rain. Have you ever seen rain?”

  She looked at
him round-eyed.

  “I’ve heard of rain some places on Rth, but it has never rained at Ka-si since I can remember.”

  “You will see plenty of it here,” Kor laughed.

  He jockeyed the vessel down to an altitude of only a few thousand feet and hovered over the white-capped, dark blue expanse of a heaving sea. The bubble drifted on the wings of a swift sea-wind.

  Karel IV was an Rth-type planet of slightly larger diameter than Rth itself, but the pull of gravity at the surface was only negligibly greater. It was a young planet, plentifully watered, possessing a profusion of vegetation and animal life. Kor checked through the original Searcher report on Karel IV. The planet possessed plains, jungles, and mountainous areas that swarmed with wild animals. The human-type indigents consisted of a few widely separated tribes of cave-dwellers, probably in the dawn of Stone Age culture.

  The plastic bubble drifted with gathering speed over feathering whitecaps far below. The Searchers had only mind-explored the planet and had recorded their mental impressions before passing on to more difficult problems than any presented by Karel IV. Information on the planet was not complete.

  “We might spend a month here, or longer,” Kor decided. “We can take as long as we please, and I for one, am in no hurry! I am beginning to understand what Tor Shan meant by that word…honeymoon!”

  He caught Soma to him and held her close.

  The bubble drifted over a creamy coastline. A few small islands dotted the blue-black seascape a few miles from shore, surf-ringed, glinting in the yellowish glow of this alien sun.

  “There is a river,” Kor pointed out.

  The river cut almost a straight streak through the lush green savannahs bordering it. Its mouth broadened where it met the sea, fanning out deltiform in a surf-edged splotch of muddy water.

  “We may as well start our investigation by following the river to its source. We have already photographed this continent from space…we can now subdivide it into habitable areas. A river like this would be a useful means of transportation for future colonies.”