Sutton resumed his stroll and now he saw the bush, four paces away, no more.
One step.
I wonder what it’s all about.
Two steps.
Cut out your wondering. Act now and do your wondering later.
Three steps.
There he is. I see him.
Sutton was off the walk in a sudden leap. The gun whipped out of his pocket and it talked, two quick, ugly words.
The man behind the bush bent forward to his knees, swayed there for a moment, then flattened on his face. His gun fell from his fingers and in a single swoop, Sutton scooped it up. It was, he saw, an electronic device, a vicious thing that could kill even with a near miss, due to the field of distortion that its beam set up. A gun like that had been new and secret twenty years ago, but now, apparently, anyone could get it.
Gun in hand, Sutton wheeled and ran, twisting through the shrubbery, ducking overhanging branches, plowing through a tulip bed. Out of the corner of one eye, he caught a twinkle . . . the twinkling breath of a silent flaming gun, and the dancing path of silver that it sliced into the night.
He plunged through a ripping, tearing hedge, waded a stream, found himself in a clump of evergreen and birch. He stopped to get his breath, staring back over the way that he had come.
The countryside lay quiet and peaceful, a silvered picture painted by the moon. No one and nothing stirred. The gun long ago had ceased its flickering.
Johnny’s warning came suddenly: “Ash! Behind you. Friendly . . .”
Sutton wheeled, gun half lifted.
Herkimer was running in the moonlight, like a hound hunting for a trace. “Mr. Sutton, sir . . .”
“Yes, Herkimer.”
“We have to ran for it.”
“Yes,” said Sutton, “I suppose we have. I walked into a trap. There were three of them laying for me.”
“It’s worse than that,” said Herkimer. “It’s worse even than you think. It’s not only Morgan, but it’s Adams, too.”
“Adams?”
“He has given orders that you are to be killed on sight.”
Sutton stiffened. “How do you know?”
“The girl,” said Herkimer. “Eva. The one you asked about. She told me.”
Herkimer walked forward, stood face to face with Sutton.
“You have to trust me, sir. You said this morning I’d put the finger on you, but I never would. I was with you from the very first.”
“But the girl,” said Sutton.
“Eva is with you, t00, sir. We started searching for you as soon as we found out, but we were too late to catch you. Eva is waiting with the ship.”
“A ship,” Sutton grimly repeated. “A ship and everything.”
“It’s your own ship, sir. The one you received from Benton’s estate with the hunting asteroid and me.” Sutton scowled. “And you think I’m stupid enough to come with you and get into this ship and . . .”
“No, sir, I didn’t think so,” said Herkimer. “I’m sorry.”
He moved so fast that Sutton couldn’t do a thing.
He saw the fist coming and he tried to raise his gun. He felt the sudden fury grow cold within his brain. But that was before there was a sudden crushing impact. His head snapped back so that for a moment, before his eyelids closed, he saw the wheel of stars against a spinning sky. He felt his knees buckle under him.
He was out, stone cold, when his body hit the ground.
—CLIFFORD D. SIMAK
CONTINUED NEXT MONTH
Part 2 of a 3 part serial
It was an attractive offer. All Sutton had to do was modify an idea to live in wealth. But he had died for the truth once before!
SYNOPSIS
In the 80th Century, the status quo of Earth’s galactic empire must be maintained at any cost, and no human may be killed without a fearful penalty. Yet Christopher Adams, chief of the Dept. of Galactic Investigation, has learned that several men on Aldebaran XII have been killed in an impossible accident, thus breaking both supreme rules.
As Adams worries, a stranger appears and states that he is Adams’ successor, returned from the future to warn him. Adams know of only one insignificant experiment in time travel and does not believe hint. The stranger says that Asher Sutton, art agent of Adams’, is about to return from 61 Cygni after 20 years . . . and must be killed when he lands.
Sutton does return, the only man ever to penetrate a strange force shield around Cygni’s planetary system. His return is as weird as his visit to the unapproachable star . . . the ports of his ship are smashed, there is no air aboard, nor food and water. And, odder yet, he is not breathing. He forces his lungs and heart to function, then whispers, “Johnny,” and there is a comforting stir in his mind. “We are home,” Sutton says. “We made it. This is my home, Johnny.”
But Sutton, back at his old hotel, finds that his suite has been kept waiting for him for 20 years, and as he enters it, he is knocked out and his mind pried into, the contents of his attache case photostated. Adams, behind the attack, receives this startling report: Sutton’s ship could not be flown; Sutton has a rebuilt body with alien organs added; Sutton’s attache case contains a MS in a language unknown in the galaxy.
Sutton, recovering, is visited by an android—a synthetic human—named Herkimer, who carries a challenge to a duel with Geoffrey Benton, Earth’s foremost duelist. Then an android lawyer calls to explain that Buster, an old family robot, has pled a homestead on a distant planet, and has left an old trunk for Sutton. Finally a beautiful girl, Eva Armour, makes a dinner date with Sutton, promising that they will make an evening of it. Sutton is gloomily sure they will.
Going with Eva to Zag House, where dreams are made to order, Sutton kills Benton, although shot at first. Eva hurries him out and informs him that Benton was psychologically conditioned to kill Sutton. He is bewildered by all this mysterious attention, including Eva’s assurance that she is on his side and has studied him for 20 years.
The trunk arrives from Buster, the family robot, containing a queer wrench and a letter 6,000 years old, addressed to John H. Sutton, apparently a remote ancestor. Before he can open it, the android Herkimer appears and announces that Sutton has inherited him and a hunting asteroid and a small spaceship, under the dueling laws, from Benton.
Sutton reports to Adams, his old chief, that the Cygnians are not dangerous to Man . . . and that no other human will ever visit the system again. The inhabitants are not humans, not even beings, he tells Adams; they are symbiotic abstractions, forming closely joined partnerships that help each partner, like the bacteria and plants that support each other chemically. Adams, unsatisfied, promises grimly to keep in touch with Sutton.
Leaving Adams, Sutton visits Dr. Raven, his old professor in comparative religions. Dr. Raven admits to him that he has never found evidence of an actual force of destiny. Sutton states that he has. Not a new religion, not faith or a hunch, but genuine, true destiny.
Adams, meanwhile, talks by mentophone—communication at the infinite speed of thought—with an agent on Aldebaran XII. The only clue to the mysterious slayings there is a book, found at the wreck, so destroyed that only “by Asher Sutton” can be made out. A telecall from the man claiming to be Adams’ future successor states that the killings on Aldebaran XII are an incident in a war in time . . . and Sutton is responsible for that war. He insists that Sutton be killed. Adams decides reluctantly it might be best for the status quo to liquidate Sutton.
Driving home from Dr. Raven’s office, Sutton rescues a man from a crashed ship. The man seems to recognize Sutton, makes a cryptic sign, and, mumbling about a battle back in ’83 and time-jumping, dies with a proud grin. Sutton, searching him for a clue to identity, finds a worn book: “This Is Destiny by Asher Sutton.” It is the book Sutton plans to write, but has not yet written.
Near his hotel, Sutton is ambushed. Johnny, the entity in his mind, teams him and he escapes. But Herkimer, the android Sutton had won from Benton in the duel,
appears and says anxiously that they must flee Earth. Eva Armour is waiting with Sutton’s spaceship. Sutton harshly replies that he is not stupid enough to walk into another trap. Herkimer, apologizing, knocks him out.
PART TWO
XVI
SUTTON lay with his eyes tight shut and listened, heard the muted mutter of the coasting rocket tubes, sensed the walls of a ship around him, an air-filled shell hurtling through space.
“Johnny,” Sutton’s mind called silently. “Where are we?”
There was a gentle movement within his brain, as reassuring as a cheek laid against his own, and a voiceless voice answered:
“We’re in a ship, Ash, somewhere beyond Mars.”
“How many are in the ship with us?
“The android and the girl. And they are friendly. I told you they were friendly. Why didn’t you pay attention?”
“I can’t trust anyone.”
“Not even me?”
“Not your judgment, Johnny, You’re new here.”
“Not new, Ash. I know Earth and Earthmen. Much better than you know them. You’re not the first Earthman I’ve known.”
“I’m sorry. I keep forgetting.”
“And we should be as one. We were before. Why has it been different lately?”
Sutton’s brain squirmed guiltily. “I don’t know. Things have happened. So many things.”
“One mind, Ash. One mind, one body. Not two, but one. Not you, nor I. Us, singular.”
Eva said: “You’re awake, Ash. No use playing possum.”
Sutton kept his eyes firmly shut. “You understand any of this, Johnny? This Morgan business?”
“No, Ash.”
“But you see a pattern?”
“I’m beginning to.”
“Then you’re doing better than I am. Let me in on it.”
“Not yet, Ash. You’re not ready.” Eva Armour shook him. “Wake up,” she said.
Sutton opened his eyes. He was lying on a bunk and the girl was shaking him and she was angry and not at all gentle. Herkimer stuck his head out of the door of the pilot shell. “Coming around?” he asked.
“Sure,” said Sutton. “I’m all right.”
He swung his legs off the bunk and sat on its edge. His hand went up and felt the lump on his jaw.
“I had to hit you hard,” said Herkimer regretfully. “I tried to calculate it as closely as I could. Hard enough to knock you out, not hard enough to cause any real damage.”
“You should have pasted him,” said Eva sharply, “with everything you had. I never saw a more exasperating person. He’s been lying here awake for the last five minutes.” Herkimer squinted at the jaw with professional pride. “I do believe I got you on the button. First try, too.” The ship, Sutton saw, was small. But it was clean and comfortable and there would have been room enough for four or five on a short trip. Herkimer, talking his precise, copybook speech, had said it was small, but serviceable.
“I suppose,” said Sutton, “you wouldn’t consider telling me where you are taking me.”
“We don’t mind at all,” said Eva. “We’re going to an asteroid.”
“The hunting asteroid,” added Herkimer. “The one you won from Benton. It has a lodge and a good supply of food and it is comfortable.”
“It will be pleasant,” Sutton said, “to do a little hunting.”
“You won’t be doing any hunting,” Herkimer replied.
Sutton raised his head, glanced sharply from one to the other.
“You’re going to write a book,” said Eva. “Surely you know about the book. The Revisionists are . . .”
“Yes,” Sutton told her.
“I know about the book—”
He stopped, remembering, and his hand went involuntarily to his breast pocket. The book was there, all right, and something that crinkled when he touched it. He remembered that, too. The incredibly old letter that John H. Sutton had forgotten to open six thousand years before.
“NO,” said Eva. “We didn’t even search you.”
“About the book,” said Sutton, and then stopped again. He had been about to say he needn’t bother about writing the book, for he already had a copy. But something stopped him; he wasn’t certain that it was smart just then to let them know about the copy he had.
“I brought along the case,” said Herkimer. “The manuscript’s all there. I checked through it.”
“And plenty of paper?” asked Sutton, mocking him.
“Oh, yes. More than enough.”
Eva Armour leaned toward Sutton, so close that he could smell the fragrance of her copper hair. “Don’t you see,” she asked, “how important it is that you write this book? Don’t you understand?”
Sutton shook his head. Important, he thought. Important for what?
He remembered the mouth that death pried open, the teeth glittering in the moonlight, and the words of a dying man still ringing sharply in his ears.
“No, I don’t understand,” he said. “Maybe you can tell me.”
She shook her head. “You write the book. That’s your job.”
XVII
THE asteroid was enveloped in the perpetual twilight of the far-from-Sun and its frosty peaks speared up like sharp, silvery needles stabbing at the stars.
The air was sharp and cold and thinner than on Earth and the wonder was, Sutton told himself, that any air could be kept on the place at all. Although at the cost that it had taken to make this asteroid habitable, it would seem that anything should be possible. The price of the atomic plants alone would run to the national debt of a medium-size planet, and without atomics there would be no power to run the atmosphere generators and gravity machines that supplied the air and held it in place.
Once, he thought, Man had been content—had been forced to be content—to End his solitude at a lakeshore cottage or a hunting lodge or aboard a pleasure yacht. But now, with the wealth of a galaxy to spend, Man fixed up an asteroid at a fabulous cost or bought out a solar system at a bargain price.
“There’s the lodge,” said Herkimer, and Sutton looked in the direction of the pointing finger. High up on the jigsaw horizon, he saw the shining metal building with its one pinpoint of light.
“What’s the light?” asked Eva. “Is there someone here?”
Herkimer shrugged indifferently. “Someone forgot to turn it off when they left.”
Evergreens and birches, ghostlike in the starlight, stood in ragged clumps, like marching soldiers storming the height where the lodge was set.
“The path is over here,” said Herkimer.
He led the way and they climbed, with Eva in the center and Sutton bringing up the rear. The path was steep and uneven and the light was none too good, for the thin atmosphere failed to break up the starlight. The stars themselves remained tiny, steely points of light that did not blaze or twinkle, but stood primly in the sky like dots upon a map.
The lodge, Sutton saw, apparently sat upon a small plateau, and he knew that the plateau would be the work of Man. Nowhere else in all this jumbled landscape was it likely that one would find a level spot much bigger than a pocket handkerchief.
A movement of air, so faint and tenuous that it could be scarcely called a breeze, rustled down the slope and set the evergreens to moaning. Something scuttled from the path and skittered up the rocks. From somewhere far away came a screaming sound that set Sutton’s teeth on edge.
“That’s an animal,” Herkimer said quietly. He stopped and waved his hand at the tortured, twisted rock. “Great place to hunt,” he added, “if you don’t break a leg.”
SUTTON looked behind him and saw for the first time the true, savage wildness of the place. A frozen whirlpool of star-speckled terrain stretched below them . . . great, yawning gulfs of blackness, above which stood brooding peaks and spirelike pinnacles.
Sutton shivered at the sight. “Let’s get on,” he said.
They climbed the last hundred yards and reached the Man-made plateau, then stood and stared across
the nightmare landscape, and as he looked, Sutton felt the cold hand of loneliness reach down with icy fingers to take him in its grip. For here was sheer, mad loneliness such as he had never dreamed. Here was the very negation of life and motion. Here was the stark, bald beginning when there was no life, nor even thought of life. Here anything that moved was an alien thing.
A footstep crunched behind them and. they swung around. A man moved out of the starry darkness. His voice was pleasant and heavy as he spoke to them: “Good evening. We heard you land and I walked out to meet you.”
Eva’s voice was cold and just a little angry. “We had not expected anyone to be here.”
The man’s tone stiffened. “I hope we are not trespassing. We are friends of Mr. Benton and he told us to use the place at our convenience.”
“Mr. Benton is dead,” said Eva frostily. “This man is the new owner.”
The man’s head turned toward Sutton. “I’m sorry, sir. We did not “know. Of course, we’ll leave the first moment that we can.”
“I see no reason,” Sutton told him, “why you should not stay.”
“Mr. Sutton,” said Eva, “came here for peace and quiet. He expects to write a book.”
“A book,” the man repeated. “An author, eh?”
Sutton had the uncomfortable feeling that the man was laughing, not at him alone, but at the three of them.
“Sutton?” asked the man, apparently thinking hard. “I don’t seem to recall the name. But, then, I’m not a great reader.”
“I’ve never written anything before,” explained Sutton.
“Oh, well,” said the man, laughing as if he were relieved, “that explains it.”
“It’s cold out here,” Herkimer said abruptly. “Let us get indoors.”
“Certainly,” said the man. “Yes, it is cold, although I hadn’t noticed it. By the way, my name is Pringle. My partner’s name is Case.”
No one answered him and after a few seconds he turned around and trotted ahead of them, leading the way.
The lodge, Sutton saw as they approached it, was larger than it had seemed from the valley where they had brought the ship in. It loomed huge against the starlit backdrop. If one had not known that it was there, it might have been mistaken for an odd rock formation.
The Complete Serials Page 23