The First Science Fiction Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  And now Amaterasu lay on the sandy, rock-strewn surface of another world, while Isis struggled to return, not to her place of birth on Luna but to the home planet Tellus. The engineers had calculated that a landing on Tellus was possible, abut only at the hands of the greatest of naviculari.

  Lucius turned to address his three chief officers. Sabbina, Gubernatrix; Septimus, Machinator; Drusilla, Nunciatrix. “Dear friends, you have come through Hades with me.” He reached to clasp the hands of each in turn. “Now we face our final test.” He turned his back to them and gazed through Isis’ glass once again.

  A junior gubernator sat at the controls. Junior at the beginning of our great adventure, Lucius thought. After four years and the greatest voyage in the history of humankind, Antoninus was far from junior, save in comparison to Sabbina.

  “Sabbina,” Lucius asked, “have you full confidence in the course you have plotted for us?”

  The gubernatrix smiled wryly. “The mechanical computator has spoken, O Navicularis. The holy oracle says that the odds are in our favor.”

  “And the state of the navis itself, Septimus?”

  “She’ll not fly to pieces before we touch solum. After that, I imagine that Isis will wind up in a museum. I wouldn’t want to try to fly her again, but she’ll get us to Pratum Grandis all right.” He paused. “If we’re lucky.”

  Lucius made a low, inarticulate sound. Septimus’ assurance was actually greater than he’d hoped for. “And you, Drusilla. You’ve been speaking with Novum Ostia?”

  Drusilla said, “Caesar Viventius himself will welcome us back to Tellus.”

  Lucius smiled. “Of course.”

  “Of course, Navicularis. I suppose they’re planning a hero’s welcome for us all. A triumph in the grand old fashion.”

  Drusilla, her skin the burnished copper hue and her neatly braided hair the black of her own ancestors, nodded.

  “All right.” Lucius inhaled deeply, pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and motioned Antoninus from the spatiumnavis’s controls. Isis had crossed Tellus’ terminator into darkness. Beneath her electrum and diorite coated hull province after province flashed by in blackness. The great cities of Tellus had illuminated their buildings and roadways and open air stadia, knowing that Isis was to pass overhead.

  This was the welcome home of a planet whose dreams and prayers had ridden into the ocean of space with the navia Isis and Amaterasu, whose tears had been shed at the loss of Amaterasu, whose masses had thrilled at word of the rescue of Amaterasu’s survivors, who waited now with bated breath to receive the men and women who had blazed their trail through the universe and returned to tell the tale.

  Lucius’ sure hands needed no testing to get the feel of Isis’ controls. He was no remote commander. He had handled the spatiumnavis through her most difficult maneuvers, including the landing on Martes’ mossy plain after the crash of Amaterasu and her takeoff and escape after the attack of the barbarians who had already slaughtered most of Amaterasu’s brave nautae.

  Maybe it was Rome’s success that had led to those nautae’s deaths. None on Tellus challenged a roman citizen. Oh, there was the occasional robbery late at night when some unwary celebrant left a tavern reeling and defenseless. And of course there were the gladiatorial contests where outlandishly costumed and vaingloriously titled performers mocked the once serious combat of swordsmen and netmen.

  But the majesty of Rome was respected everywhere. The notion that a Roman navis—spatiumnavis, he reminded himself—could be attacked by a gang of howling thugs... It was as much shocking as offensive.

  “Machinator Septimus, the engines seem a trifle sluggish. Are you sure we have full power and function?”

  Septimus studied his own console. “We are running on very lean fuel, Navicularis. There’s none to spare. If I enrich the mixture we may not have enough to land safely.”

  Lucius nodded. Through Isis’ glass he could see the spatiumnavis’s engine nacelles, left and right, mounted on pylons beyond the ship’s main edificium. Glittering with polish and enameled proudly with the eagles of Rome four years ago, the nacelles were now pitted with meteorites, scarred by Isis’ passage through even the thin atmosphere of Martes, and, most shameful of all, gouged by the rocks and spears of the savages of an alien planet.

  “We’ll do what we must, then.” Lucius shot a glance at Drusilla. “Nunciatrix, what is the state of our passengers?”

  “As well as can be expected. Aside from the two we lost in passage, all still survive.”

  “Still in shock?”

  “Resting, Navicularis.”

  Lucius smiled. The Greeks had contributed much to Roman culture, even to the language of the world state. One of Lucius’ favorite words came from the Greek. Euphemism. He nodded, gazed downward. Isis screamed low over the western ocean. Terra Australis appeared on the horizon. It was afternoon in Novum Ostia. He made a conscious effort to relax, closing his eyes for a brief moment and rolling his shoulders to loosen muscles. He inhaled the ship’s stale atmosphere, anticipating with pleasure the fresh, clean air of Tellus.

  He caught a glint of the glassed towers of the Pratum Grandis and smiled in anticipation.

  Avita finished her description of Caesar Viventius’s arrival at Pratum Grandis and wiped her brow with a light cloth. Aelius never ceased to be amazed at her ability to look cool and elegant in the hot sunlight, blustery wind, or moments of plain or fancy stress.

  Maybe that was the difference between talent and the rest of us, he though. We can write, we can direct, we can make the pictures and capture the sounds and deliver them to millions of Roman citizens and subjects all over the world. But we’re not talent. That was a term reserved for people like Avita.

  Caesar Viventius had made his expected speech to the assembled purveyors of information to the people of Tellus. Celadus had supervised his minions, Aelius and Avita among them, jostling for position and angles with the gatherers and disseminators of rival organizations, and he seemed pleased with Aelius’ and Avita’s performance.

  Now Caesar Viventius and his party mounted the ceremonial stand from which they would observe the landing of Isis and to which the nautae would be escorted to be greeted by Caesar Viventius himself. Senators, magistrates and quaestors in their distinctively marked togas, lictors carrying their ceremonial bundles of rods, the procurator of Terra Australis and the praefectus of Novum Ostia jostled for position near Viventius.

  Caesar’s caelumvola stood nearby, guarded by legionaries in sparkling ceremonial armor. No sooner had Caesar and his party descended to the pratum than the aircraft was rolled to a covered shelter and rubbed and polished to a dazzling brightness. Then it was rolled back to stand near Caesar’s pavilion, as much a symbol of his authority and the majesty of the state as had been the ancient Caesars’ chariots with their curried and pampered teams of geldings.

  Avita stood beside Aelius and lay her hand lightly on his arm. He looked down at the gesture but did not move his arm away. Avita followed his gaze toward the east. She knew that tracking instruments and recording devices had homed on Isis before this, but now she was able to make out the spatiumnavis’ approach to the Pratum Grandis.

  Isis’ shape bespoke the strengths and traditions of Roman engineering. Avita could almost feel the solid strength of the craft as it dropped toward the field. She had looked at pictures of its departure for Martes and admired its lines and the fine sheen of its skin. The newly launched Isis had looked and moved like an Aegyptian goddess. Now the spatiumnavis looked and moved like an old woman, tired by a lifetime of labor and burdened with a lifetime of suffering.

  The spatiumnavis circled the Pratum Grandis, dropping steadily toward the ground. The movement of the ship was deceptive. It seemed at any moment that Isis would touch the ground, but her skids, blackened and pitted, remained separated from the surfa
ce.

  A glow like waves of heat rising from the sun-baked desert into the tired air emanated from Isis’ engines. The navicularis must have touched the ship’s controls, for the glow assumed a darkish color, then faded.

  Isis touched the solum of Terra Australis, trembled like a creature in despair, then settled onto her skids. Squads of legionaries marched toward the ship. They surrounded Isis on all sides. A double column formed between the ship and Caesar Viventius’s reviewing stand.

  An ostium slowly swung open in Isis’ hull, and legionaries hastened to station themselves in position to help nautae to the ground. The first to debark from Isis was the navicularis Lucius. He stood blinking in the bright sunlight of Terra Australis. For a moment his knees buckled and it seemed that he might fall, but he took the arm of a legionary and steadied himself. He turned and looked over his shoulder, into the darkness of Isis’ interior, then swung back, smiled determinedly, and advanced between the rows of legionaries. Ahead of him stood Caesar’s pavilion, and in it, Caesar himself.

  Viventius watched the opening of the ostium in silence. The functionaries who surrounded him watched him like hawks, eager to pick up the first clue to Caesar’s reaction and to show on their faces the emotions that Caesar felt.

  Caesar turned his attention from his endlessly squabbling entourage to the men and women emerging from the spatiumnavis. No longer was he so certain that today’s ceremony had been wisely planned. Indeed, it was the Ides, the five hundredth anniversary of the proclamation of the Roman province of Terra Australis and the millennial anniversary of the failed attempt upon the life of Caesar Julius.

  It would be a close shave, but Viventius could greet these brave sailors of the sea of space and still return to Italia, to Rome herself, and preside over the grand jubilee celebration in the Eternal City. But it might have been better to send a delegation to welcome the brave nautae, to invite them to Rome for a triumph of their own.

  Viventius rubbed his clean-shaven chin. Too late to change plans now. He strained his eyes against the bright southern sun and peered into the face of the leader of the Martes expedition, Lucius Navicularis. The man looked haggard, exhausted, on the verge of collapse. The reports that Isis had sent back, and Amaterasu before her destruction, did not bode well for Roman colonization of Martes.

  The planet of the god of war had lived up to its sanguinary tint and its bloodthirsty name. Amaterasu had landed safely while Isis remained in orbit around the planet. Amaterasu’s officers and her nautae had behaved according to instructions, according to plan. They had maintained precautions, surveyed the area surrounding their landing site, determined whether Martes in general, and this region in particular, was inhabited.

  And Martes was inhabited. Amaterasu had messaged to Isis and hence to both Luna and Tellus that Martes was inhabited. But by whom? By what? Had men of Tellus visited the red planet in the distant past, established colonies there, then been cut off from the mother planet as history’s wheel slowly turned?

  Such an event would not be unprecedented. There were records of lost and rediscovered colonies on Tellus. Why not on other worlds? Caesar’s head reeled with the thought. What ancient states had arisen upon Tellus, what marvels had their machinators devised, and all lost to the modern world state?

  The people of Terra Nipponsis, of Uwajima—suppose they were not truly native to those lands, but were the descendants of ancient visitors from Rome? What if Atlantis was a reality, and not merely a figment of the Greek imagination? What if the Hebrews’ myth of a Garden of Eden was not wholly a myth, but an attenuated and distorted memory of—of what? What if the denizens of Martes were not descended from ancient visitors from Tellus, but in fact the very opposite was the case?

  A senator—what was his name?—took Caesar’s elbow? “Are you all right, sir?’

  Viventius shook his head.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Yes. It was the glare, that was all. Thank you.”

  The senator, looking concerned, retreated.

  Lucius Navicularis stood before Caesar’s reviewing stand. He looked into the face of the chief of the world state, the leader of the Universal Republic. Caesar’s cheeks were smooth and his hair, an alloy of silver and iron, was carefully curled and oiled. Lucius felt his own staleness and filth. Once he would have quivered at the thought of being received by Caesar Viventius himself. Now he would give his laurels and his triumph all for a long, hot soak.

  To one side of Caesar’s stand he could see a group of men and women in eccentric garb. He recognized them by their facial features and their clothing as Uwajimae. A violent, restless people who had never fully settled into the comfortable discipline of Roman citizenry.

  A band was playing, horns blaring and drums pounding. Lucius felt heavy. He knew that returning to Tellus’ gravity would have this effect, but still it was an effort to remain upright. He looked behind him and saw Sabbina, Septimus, Drusilla, his three chief officers, struggling to maintain a proper bearing in the presence of Caesar himself.

  The band ceased its blaring and its pounding. Caesar was speaking. The words were meaningless to Lucius. He knew they would be the platitudes of Roman patriotism, steadfastness, courage, but while he could see Caesar’s lips forming the words, all he could hear was a grating bleating sound like a goat making a speech.

  The sun glinted off the musicians’ instruments and off the armor and the weapons of the legionaries. Caesar’s caelumvola shone like a sculpture of obsidian and electrum.

  A trio of persons had broken from the crowd beyond Caesar’s reviewing stand and were running toward the twin lines of legionaries that marked the path from Isis to the stand and that surrounded the stand itself.

  The tallest of the Uwajimae pointed a object at the three who were running. A blocky, muscular man. A tall woman, little more than dark skin stretched over long, thin bones. A fat man, staggering and sprawling behind them.

  A bright light flashed from the object that the Uwajiman had pointed. Lucius had never seen anything like it. The blocky man exploded like a knot in a fireplace. Bits of flesh and spatters of blood flew. The light flashed twice more and the tall woman and the fat man exploded as well.

  Legionaries were already running to stop the three, but they arrived in time only to be splattered with blood and gore. A centurion had taken the Uwajiman in custody, had seized the object that had sent the bright flash toward the three who were now dead.

  Pandemonium reigned on the Pratum Grandis.

  Aelius and Avita had trained their gear on Caesar Viventius and Lucius Navicularis, but now they too were running to the site of the sudden carnage, recording the event for the audience who depended on them for their daily news. Celadus was screaming at them but Aelius and Avita had anticipated his instructions.

  For just a moment, Aelius swung back toward Caesar. He was surrounded by aides. A thousand years had passed, and this time it was not Caesar’s own trusted friends but those who hated the Universal Republic who had attempted to assassinate the master of Rome.

  A different plan, a different tactic, but the same outcome. Caesar lived.

  FINAL CALL, by John Gregory Betancourt

  The last man in the world sat alone in a room, contemplating suicide. What did he have left to live for? He began adding up good and bad points in his life; the score depressed him.

  Then the telephone rang. He leaped to his feet, staring in surprise. Perhaps he wasn’t the last, he thought. It rang again. This time he grabbed it.

  “Hello? Hello?” he called.

  “Hello,” breathed a soft, silky, feminine voice. His heart skipped a dozen beats. “Do you have a moment?”

  “Yes!” he cried. “This is Roger Thomas—I can’t believe you found me! Thank God! And just in time—”

  “I’m glad,” she said. “My name’s PATSI, your Persona
l Automated Telephone Survey, Inc., and I’d love to interview you about new improved TastyFlakes®—”

  He slammed down the receiver. And once more he took up count of all the good and bad things left in his lonely world.

  * * * *

  An hour later, he hanged himself with the telephone cord.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  “Unknown Things,” by Reginald Bretnor, was first published in Twilight Zone magazine, February, 1989. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.

  Captives of the Flame, by Samuel R. Delany, originally appeared in 1963.

  “Expediter,” by Mack Reynolds, originally appeared in Analog Science Fact & Fiction, May 1963.

  “One-Shot,” by James Blish, originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction August 1955.

  “Shipwreck in the Sky” by Eando Binder originally appeared in Fantastic Universe March 1954.

  “Zen,” by Jerome Bixby, originally appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1952.

  “Lancelot Biggs Cooks a Pirate,” by Nelson Bond originally appeared in Fantastic Adventures, Feb. 1940.

  “Sentiment, Inc.,” by Poul Anderson, originally appeared in Science Fiction Stories, 1953.

  “The Issahar Artifacts,” by J.F. Bone originally appeared in Amazing Science Fiction Stories April 1960.

  “The Next Logical Step,” by Ben Bova originally appeared in Analog Science Fact & Fiction May 1962.

  “Year of the Big Thaw,” by Marion Zimmer Bradley originally appeared in Fantastic Universe, May 1954

  “Earthmen Bearing Gifts,” by Fredric Brown originally appeared in Galaxy magazine, June 1960.

  “Happy Ending,” by Fredric Brown and Mack Reynolds originally appeared in Fantastic Universe, September 1957.