The Black Flame

by Stanley G. Weinbaum

  "What of it?"

  "It means, Thomas Connor, that we are in utter privacy."

  He frowned, puzzled. Abruptly he started back in his chair as a flash of iridescence flickered. A Messenger! And almost with his start the thing was upon him.

  "Tell!" it creaked in his brain. "Tell! Tell! Tell! Tell!"

  He sprang erect.

  "Take it off!" he roared.

  "When I have your knowledge of Venus," his tormentor said carelessly.

  "Take it off, or"

  "Or what?" Her smile was guileless, sweet, innocent.

  "This!" he blazed, and covered the space between them in a bound, his right hand clutching the delicate curve of her throat, his left pressing her shoulders fiercely down against the cushions.

  "Take it off," he bellowed.

  Suddenly there was a sound behind him, the grating of doors, and he was torn away, held by four grimfaced guards. Of course! The operator of the Messenger could hear his words. He should have remembered that.

  The Black Flame pushed herself to a sitting position, and her face was no angel's but the face of a lovely demon. Green hell glittered in her eyes, but she only reached shakily for the vision switch.

  "Tell Control to release," she choked huskily, and faced Tom Connor.

  The Messenger tingled and vanished. The Princess rose unsteadily, but her glorious eyes burned cold as she snatched a weapon from the nearest guard.

  "Get out, all of you!" she snapped.

  The men backed away. Connor faced her.

  "I should have killed you!" he muttered. "For humanity's sake."

  "Yes, you should have, Thomas Connor." Her tones were bitterly cold. "For, then you would have died quickly and mercifully for murder, but nownow you die in the way I choose, and it will be neither quick nor merciful. I cannot"her voice shook"bear the touch of violence!" Her free hand rubbed her throat. "For thisyou suffer!" He shrugged. "It was worth it. I know your character now! I no longer have to guess." Mockery gleamed.

  "Do you?" Her face changed suddenly, and again it was soft and pure and wistful. "Do you?" she repeated, in tones that were sad, but held that belllike quality he so well remembered. "You don't. Do you think the Black Flame is the true Margaret of Urbs? Do you realize what immortality means?" Her exquisite face was unutterably mournful as she thrust the weapon into her belt. "You think it's a blessing, don't you? You wonder, don't you, why Joaquin has withheld it from everybody?"

  "Yes, I do. I think it's tyranny. It's selfish."

  "Selfish! Oh, God!" Her voice shook. "Why, he withheld it from his own mother! Blessing? It's a curse! I bear it out of my duty to Joaquin, else I'd have killed myself centuries ago. I still may, do you hear. I still may!" Her voice rose.

  Appalled, he stared at her. "Why?" he cried.

  "You ask why! Seven hundred years. Sevenhundredyears! Denied love! How do I dare love a man who ages day by day, until his teeth yellow and his hair falls out, and he's decrepit, senile, old?

  Denied children! Immortals can't have children. Don't you think I'd trade immortality for motherhood?

  Don't you?"

  Connor was speechless. Her voice rose to a tense pitch. "Do you know what seven hundred years mean? I do! It means seven centuries of friendlessness. Do you wonder that I run away to the woods sometimes, seeking the companionship, the friendship, the love, that everywhere else is denied me?

  How can I make friends among people who vanish like ghosts? Who among the dry scientists of the Immortals is aloneand I'm boredboredbored!" Her green eyes were tearbright, but when he opened his lips to speak, she stopped him with an imperious gesture. "I'm sick to death of immortality!

  I want someone who loves me. Someone I'd love to grow old with, and children to grow up beside me. I wantI wanta friend!"

  She was sobbing. Impulsively he moved toward her, taking her hand.

  "My God!" he choked. "I'm sorry. I didn't understand."

  "And youwill help me?" Her exquisite features were pleading, tearstreaked.

  "The best I can," he promised.

  Her perfect lips were two rosy temptations as she drew him toward her. He bent to kiss her gentlyand sprang back as if his own lips had in truth touched a flame.

  Laughter! He looked into mocking eyes whose only tears were those of sardonic mirth!

  "So!" she said, her red lips taunting. "There is the first taste, Thomas Connor, but there will be more before I kill you. You may go."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE DESTINY OF MAN

  "YouDEVIL!" Connor choked, and then whirled at a soft click behind him. A white envelope lay in a wire basket by the elevator.

  "Hand it to me," said the Flame coolly.

  He snatched it and thrust it at her, in a turmoil of emotion as he watched her read it.

  "Indeed!" she murmured. "My esteemed brother orders me to keep well away from youwhich I shall not doand commands you to his quarters at once." She yawned. "Take the elevator to any floor below the Tower and ask a guard. That's all."

  Yet, as the cage dropped, Connor could not forget that there had been something wistful about the Princess, at his last glimpse of her. Somehow, try as he would, he couldn't hate her quite wholeheartedly, and he frowned as he found his way to the West Chambers. A guard admitted him to an inner room, and then retired quietly, leaving him facing the Master, who sat behind a paperlittered desk.

  "Well, what do you think of me?" the Master greeted him abruptly.

  Connor was taken aback, unprepared for the question.

  "Why," he stammered, "what would I naturally think of you? You dragged me back here by torture.

  You nearly killed Evanie. Do you think I can easily forget or forgive such things?"

  "After all, Thomas Connor, you participated in a revolt against me," the Master said suavely. "You wounded eleven of my men. Did the governments of your day deal so leniently with treason?"

  "I've wondered why you are so easy on the rebels," he admitted. "Frankly, in my time, there'd have been a good many of us lined up against a wall and shot."

  The Master shook his head. "Why should I do that? The Weeds are the finest of my people. / made the only mistakethat of giving leisure to a race not ready for it. Leisure is what has bred all these minor revolutions. But does a father kill his favorite children?"

  "Does a son kill his mother?" retorted Connor.

  The Master smiled bleakly.

  "I see my sister has been talking to you. Yes, I refused immortality to my mother. She was an old womanill, infirm. Should I have condemned her to added centuries of misery? Immortality does not restore youth."

  The point was incontrovertible.

  "Yet you withhold it from those who have youth," Connor protested. "You keep it selfishly as a reward, to bind to yourself all men of ability. You've emasculated the rest of humanity."

  "You feel that immortality is a highly desirable reward, don't you?"

  "I do! In spite of what your sister says."

  "You don't understand," said the Master patiently. "We'll pass the question of its desirability; it doesn't matter. But suppose I were to open it to the race, to instruct all the doctors in its secrets.

  Wouldn't it immediately halt all development? How can evolution function if no one dies and no children are born?" That was a puzzler.

  "You could permit it after the birth of children," Connor said.

  "I could. But at the present birthrate, the land areas would provide bare standing room in just a century and a half. I could then kill off ninetenths of the population, presumably, but what of the famines and food shortages intervening?"

  Connor was silent for a long moment. "The fault's with immortality itself!" he burst out vehemently.

  "Men should never have learned that secret!" "But they have learned it. Would you have me destroy the knowledge because fools envy itand envy it mistakenly?"

  "Did you summon me here merely to justify your acts?" Tom Connor snapped in reply.

  "Exactly.
You possess knowledge invaluable to me. I'd like to convince you of my sincerity." "You never will."

  "See here," said the Master, still in tones of calm gravity. "Don't ever doubt that I could steal your knowledge. I know ways to encompass it, and if I failed, others would not fail."

  "The Princess tried that," said Connor grimly. "She will not try it again." He fingered a small bronze bust on the desk before him. "And incidentally, what's to prevent me from flinging this bronze through your skull right nowkilling you, instead of waiting for you to kill me?" "Your word to make no move against me in the Palace," reminded the Master gently.

  Connor's lips tightened. In that moment he realized suddenly what it was that had perturbed him so violently. He was beginning to believe the Master and he didn't want to! The memory of the Messenger's torture was too recent; the picture of Evanie's helplessness was too burning. He was being won over against his will, but

  "You win," he growled, releasing the bust. "Go ahead. Tell me what all this is leading up to. You must have some objective other than the indefinite perpetuation of your own power."

  The Master smiled. "I have. I plan the ultimate destiny of Mankind." He held up a hand to still Connor's quick, unbelieving protest. "Listen to me. I have bred out criminals by sterilizing, for many centuries, those with criminal tendencies. I have raised the general level of intelligence by sterilizing the feebleminded, the incompetent. If we have fewer supreme geniuses than your people, we have at least no stupid nor insaneand genius will come.

  "I try, to the best of my knowledge, to improve the race. I think I'm succeeding. At least we're far advanced over the barbarians of the Dark Centuries, and even, I believe, over the average of your mighty, ancient people. I think we're happier." He paused. "Do you?"

  "In a way," Connor conceded. "But even happiness isn't always a fair exchange forliberty!"

  "Liberty? Suppose I granted liberty? Suppose I abdicated? How long do you think it would be before every sort of Weed village was at war with every other sort? Do you want the world to break up into another welter of quarreling little nations? That's what I found; out of it I've created an empire."

  He drummed a finger on the desk, thoughtfully eyeing Connor.

  "Moreover, I've preserved what differences I could. The yellow race was a remnant; I've bred it strong again. The red race has gone, but the black is growing. And the tagends of nationsI've nourished them."

  "Why?" Connor demanded. "Differences are only grounds for future trouble, aren't they?"

  "Civilization grows out of differences. No race can produce a high culture by itself. There must be an exchange of ideas, and that means that there must be differences."

  "You're very sure, aren't you?" Connor taunted. "I've spent centuries thinking of it. I'm confident I've found the truth. And I do the best I can."

  "I wish" Connor paused. "I wish I could believe you!"

  "You can. I never lie."

  "I almost feel I can. You're not the mocking devil your sister is. I rather like you."

  A queer smile nickered on the Master's lips.

  "I have instructed her to cease tormenting you. I assume she has been, but she'll keep away from you hereafter. . . Won't you, my dear?"

  Connor spun around. Lounging carelessly in the far doorway, a halfsmoked cigarette in her hand, was the exquisite form of Margaret of Urbs.

  "Perhaps," she drawled slowly and advanced leisurely into the room, seating herself casually on the desk regardless of its litter of papers.

  "Joaquin," she remarked, "this man neglects to kneel in rny presence. In yours as well, I perceive.

  Shall I command him?"

  "Try commanding the statue of Olin," snapped Connor.

  "We could persuade him," insinuated the Princess. "After all, Evanie Sair is our hostage."

  "Be still!" the Master said sharply. "You know I never impose a custom on those who reject it."

  The Princess turned taunting eyes on Tom Connor and was silent. "With your permission I should like to retire," he said. "We seem to have covered the ground."

  "Not entirely," said the Master.

  "What more do you want of me?"

  "Two things. First, your knowledge. Your understanding of the ancient mathematics, and whatever else we need."

  "Grantedon condition." At the Master's inquiring look he said boldly: "On condition that any knowledge I impart be made public. You have enough secretsthough some of them are apt not to remain so!"

  "I'll agree," the Master said promptly. "That was always my intention. But what secret of mine is in danger of exposure?"

  Connor laughed. "What else was it you wanted of me?"

  "Your blood. Your strain in the race, like an infusion of bulldog blood to give greyhounds courage. I want you to marry and have children."

  "And that," said Connor bluntly, "is my personal business. I refuse to promise that."

  "Well," the Master genially remarked, "we'll let Nature take its course. I'll trade you that indulgence for the revelation of what secret you suspect."

  "Done! It's the Triangle rocketblasts."

  "The rocketblasts!"

  "Yes. I've heard your craft in flight. I've listened to the blasts." He turned sardonic eyes from the Master to the Princess. "The blast isn't steady. It throbs. Do you understand? It throbs!"

  The Master's face was stern. "Well?" "I know you can't control the rate of power. You've had the whole world looking for a means of controlling the rate. That's impossible. Hydrogen has its natural period like radium. You can release the energy at that single rate or all at once, as in our riflesbut you can't control it otherwise!" There was silence.

  "I know what you do in the blast. You detonate your watera little at a time in an enormously strong firing chamber, and release the blast gradually. It's no more continuous than the power of a gasoline engine!"

  "You're endangering your life!" whispered the Master. "You can't live now!"

  "With her Satanic Majesty, the Goddess of Mockery, to intercede for me?" Connor jeered, staring steadily into the graygreen eyes of the Princess. In her features now was no slightest trace of a taunt, but something more like admiration. "If I'm to die, it had better be here and now, else I'll find a way to tell what I know!"

  "Here and now!" said Margaret of Urbs.

  "Not yet," said the Master. "Thomas Connor, long ago in my youth I knew men like you. They're dead, and it's a great loss to the world. But you're living. I don't want to kill you. I'd rather trust the fate of my empire to your word. Having heard my side, then, will you swear allegiance to me?"

  "No. I'm not sure of your sincerity." "If you were, would you?"

  "Gladly. I see more with you than with the Weeds." "Then will you swear not to oppose me until such time as you are sure? And will you swear to keep that knowledge you have to yourself?"

  "Fair enough!" Connor said, and grinned. He took the bronzed hand the Master extended. "I swear it." He glanced coolly at the Princess. "And by the three kinds of metamorphs, I'm glad to swear it!"

  "Two kinds," corrected the Master mildly. "Panate and amphimorph."

  But Margaret of Urbs caught his meaning. A faint trace of anger glinted in her eyes.

  "The Immortals," she said coldly, "do not consider themselves metamorphs."

  "Then I don't consider myself Irish," said Thomas Connor. "Any freak that comes out of Martin Sair's ray is a metamorph to me."

  "Enough," said the Master. "That's all, Connor."

  But at the door the Princess halted Connor, and he gazed down into her upturned face.

  "Do you believe," she said coldly, "that Joaquin's promise will protect youor Evanie Sairfrom me? I have my own debt to collect from you."

  He glanced back at the impassive figure at the desk.

  "I traded my knowledge for your word," he called to the Master. "Is it good?"

  "I am the Master," said that individual calmly.

  Connor gazed again at the perfect features of the Flame. Slowly he raised
his hand, holding her eyes with his. And then, with a sharp gesture, he snapped his finger stingingly against her dainty nose, grinned and strode away.

  At the outer door he turned. The Black Flame, her lovely face a pale mask of fury, held a beampistol in her hand, but she made no move as he grinned back at her. Behind her the Master smiled cryptically.

  But back in his room, an amazing realization came to Connor. Under the guise of his mildness, the Master had won every single point! He had extracted from Connor the promise of his knowledge, the promise of secrecy concerning the Triangle blasts, his alienation from the Weed cause, and more than half an oath of allegiance to himself!

  And all forwhat? The right of Thomas Connor to bear his own children, and the same promise of safety given at their earlier meeting!

  He swore softly and lay thinking of the mocking loveliness of the Black Flame.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE SKYRAT

  CONNER AWOKE fully rested, with the ache from muscles strained by Evanie's weight almost vanished. He arose, bathed, donned his glittering Urban costume, and looked into Evanie's room.

  The girl was awake at last, and apparently well on toward recovery. He breathed a deep sigh of relief. At least in one matter, then, the unpredictable Princess had been sincere.

  "Evanie!" he murmured. "Are you really all right? Are you better?"

  She smiled and nodded. "I feel almost myself."

  "Well, we misjudged the Princess in one respect, then. I'll have to thank her for pulling you through."

  Evanie's eyes widened in horror.

  "Thank her! What do you mean? Tomhave youdid you see her while I"

  He was taken aback.

  "Why, I had dinner with her."

  "After I warned you!" she wailed. "I tell you she's like a madness that gets into your blood. A man can't even look at her without sufferingand she's cruel and utterly inhuman." She compressed her lips firmly and whispered:

  "There's a scanner hereright under the light. I mustn't talk like this."

  "Who cares? She won't get into my blood, Evanie. I've met only two Immortals. The Master I like.