Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  Loten! A wave of sick loneliness swept over him.... A point in the sky, obscured by a weird curtain of blue—his home!

  Certainly, no man had ever suffered thus! A surge of self-pity welled up within him. Certainly no being had ever been forced to long for the world—the globe which gave it birth! This horror was reserved for him alone....

  He clenched his fists. Reason returned to rescue him from emotion. Loten did not exist for him. He was outside of the world—a tiny flame of consciousness in space. And what did that amount to, after all, he asked himself.... What, but Death?...

  For a long time he lay there in the sand, quite motionless.

  The sun was sinking. Its blazing heat was abating somewhat; its face was large, and red. For miles, across the surface of the sand, the shadows of the dunes were stretching out.... And out of the sunset a tiny speck of black appeared.

  Where he lay the man heard the sound of it—a steady drone, or buzz. At first it did not catch his attention, its inception was so gradual; but soon it became a roar, and he opened his eyes with a start. He had heard no sound since the departure of the space ship—had expected none. An uneasy excitement gripped him. He strained his eyes upward....

  Suddenly, over the dune against which he lay, there shot a something, roaring thunderously. He cowered down, stunned by the terrific sound of it; but he watched it with wide eyes, as it moved across the sky.

  It was T-shaped; with the cross-piece going before. Beneath it hung two wheels. It gleamed metallically.

  Without attempting to rise, he howled shrilly, time after time, catching his breath in gasps—while the thing moved steadily away.

  Following an undeviating line, it left him far behind, diminished to a speck, and disappeared. The sound of it lingered when he could see it no longer.

  His breath came quickly, spasmodically, through parted lips; his throat was tight, and his heart pounded. The staggering surprise of what he had seen and heard left him incapable of thought. His mind was a racing turmoil of questions. His contentment, his resignation were gone—destroyed in a moment; and in their place rose a great uneasiness.

  The return of Hope, to a man who has definitely put it away from him, is a joy closely akin to pain in its intensity. His whole body shook as he struggled with the sand, attempting to rise.

  He had seen a machine, he knew. It could not have been an animal. It was not alive, and it was made of metal.... A machine meant reasoning beings. There must be reasoning beings on Toon—where Loten's scientists had argued that they could not be! And machines that travelled through space! Perhaps....

  As the new possibilities of his situation burst upon him, his homesickness returned a thousandfold; and he knew that he could rest no longer—could not wait in the sand for death. He must struggle—he must strive, until the end came—because there was a chance!

  Immediately, his mind became purposeful, and he took stock of his position. He knew that the whole of Toon was not like this great stretch of sand. Thousands of years of observation of the bright planet had convinced the scientists of the Loten that it bore vegetation—and probably animal life of some sort....

  But rational beings! His astonishment re-asserted itself. Five thousand years of systematic signalling had brought no response, and the project had lately been abandoned. Yet....

  He shook his head, and returned to his problem. He must not waste time now.

  He had food enough in his stomach to last three days at least, and he would not need water for even longer. He suddenly realized, with enormous satisfaction, that the pain in his head was considerably less than at first. Perhaps his system would be able to adjust itself to the atmospheric pressure....

  The great question was where—and how—to go. He must go somewhere. Only motion would satisfy his craving for accomplishment of some sort. He would get no help on this great, sterile plain. He had no guarantee that another of the flying machines would come near him, and even if it did there was not much hope of attracting its attention. No, he must move....

  He decided to follow in the direction the machine had taken. Its destination might be near-by—or it might be thousands of miles away. The probability seemed to be in favor of the former hypothesis, because the machine had been moving so very slowly.... Anyway, it was a chance!

  Pulling his legs up under him, he made another determined attempt to rise; and finally succeeded in standing erect. But it made his legs ache terribly; and when he tried a step he slipped, falling back with a jarring thud.

  He would have to crawl.

  Ridding himself of the parachute, and with no further hesitation, he set out, crawling slowly and laboriously, keeping the sun at his back.

  The heat was less oppressive now. The sun had sunk to a point where its rays were no hotter than at midday on his Loten; and he marvelled at the similarity of the two climates. He had seen none of the water vapors that astronomers described as almost constantly enveloping Toon. Toon—what he had seen of it—seemed to be as dry as the Loten, if not more so.

  He climbed the long, gradual slope of a dune; and, after surveying the endless stretch of sand which met his view at the top, slid down the steep side, and crawled doggedly on.

  Night was falling. The blue dome above him steadily darkened until it began to take on the appearance of his own native sky.

  He was dead tired within an hour. He lay still for a time, breathing deeply—marshalling his strength. He was in excellent physical condition, but here his body was so heavy that the slightest motion was a strain. Soon, however, his eager spirit drove him onward.

  At the end of another hour, happening to raise his head, he uttered an involuntary cry. Points of light glimmered in the sky.... So he was to see the stars after all!—though only at night, it seemed. He was relieved. In the back of his mind had been the ever-growing certainty that he would not be able to keep a direct course. He rested again, and picked out certain designs that would be helpful as guides.

  He wondered if one of them were Loten. They were very dim and they blinked strangely; and their arrangement was meaningless to him. He fixed upon one of them—the brightest—and imagined that it might be his world—where his friends were, and his enemies; where his wives grieved for him perhaps; where his children laughed and played; where he might one day return....

  He crawled along through the sand.

  It was not really dark—only twilight. He wondered if this were night on Toon. It must be. Almost directly ahead of him—just a little to the right—was a radiance close to the horizon. It puzzled him. Soon it was spreading over the sky—a pale, ghostly light. Then a bright point appeared—a line; it grew. He stared in abject wonder while a great, white disk mounted into the sky, illuminating the scene around.

  He rested a while, and watched it. It was Toon's satellite. It could be nothing else. But beside it the two luminaries of his own world were as pygmies. He was still watching it, fascinated, when he resumed his journey.

  CHAPTER II.

  Signs of Life

  All through the night he travelled; and into the rising sun. The noonday heat forced him to take a prolonged rest, but he fought on as soon as possible; and sunset found him crawling weakly onward. The cool of night revived him somewhat. He knew that the strain under which he labored would hasten his time of sleep, and that worried him. Even now, he was often in a semi-conscious state. Still, he could not stop.

  When the sun rose again, it shone through trees; and far across the yellow sand his tired eyes saw green hills. The sight invigorated him—spurred him on to stronger efforts. Soon after midday he lay panting in the shade of trees.

  The trees astonished him. They towered above him, fully five times as high as any he had ever seen. Their stems were of enormous girth—rough and hard to the touch. There seemed to be something moving in their heavy foliage, far above him, and he heard faint, sharp whistling sounds. He looked around uneasily.

  The size of the trees worried him. If there were animal life, it mi
ght be proportionately large. He shuddered. The desert, although uncomfortable, had had one advantage: he had been alone there.

  Still, it was not loneliness that he was seeking, he thought grimly. Obviously, he....

  He stiffened. He had been staring abstractedly at the coarse grass which grew thickly around him. Now his eyes became focussed upon a movement there—not three feet away. The grass was waving strangely, in a peculiar, uneven line; and he caught sight of something slim and green, that was not the grass. His throat contracted painfully. The thing did not seem to move, yet it was coming nearer. Whenever he caught sight of a part of its body, it appeared stationary; yet the waving of the grass was closer, and ever closer. It was very close now....

  Suddenly his power of locomotion returned. He rolled over backward, and scrambled along the ground to a tree. Grasping the rough trunk, he pulled himself erect; and held himself in that position, panting.

  He could see the thing more plainly now. It was like a long, green whip in the grass. Its forepart was raised in the air, and terminated in a triangular head, with two bright eyes whose steady, unwinking stare made him tremble weakly. With an effort he took his eyes from the creature; and, pushing himself away from the tree, ran desperately, as far as his legs would carry him. When he fell, he continued to crawl—farther, and ever farther into the green woods.

  He wondered if all creatures crawled in this world of Toon. Perhaps the great gravitational pull made erect postures impossible.

  For a long time he climbed steadily, threading his way through the underbrush, skirting fallen trees. He felt increasingly drowsy. His sleep period would come soon, he knew. He could not stave it off much longer. And when he had slept, he must eat....

  He came to level ground. Ahead was an opening in the trees, where a wide ledge of stone was revealed. Out upon this he crawled, and gazed at the scene that opened out below. Miles of waving tree tops met his view; but what held his attention was a strip of silver cutting the green.

  He felt a warm glow of satisfaction. Water, in his mind, was closely associated with organization, transportation facilities, reasoning beings....

  Yet he must be wary. He had no idea what sort of beings they might be. This might be a canal, but it was strangely irregular in its course. At least he was making progress....

  A peculiar, ringing sound came from the trees below. It was utterly unfamiliar to him. Nerving himself, he determined to discover what it was. He climbed down from the stone, and began the journey down the hill.

  As he progressed the sound became louder, and others were added. He was puzzled by a low, intermittent muttering. It made him vaguely uneasy, and with every moment his agitation increased. The muttering was now very definitely spaced into irregular but continuous tones.

  And he knew that he was listening to a conversation.

  He was frightened. Now that he was so near to what he had been seeking, his courage left him; and he lay trembling, flat on the ground, awed by the booming voices of the creatures.

  They must be very large, he thought, to utter such deep tones.

  He had lain there for perhaps five minutes, when, suddenly, there came a rending crash; and, peering ahead, he saw the green top of a tree sway violently, sink, and disappear from sight. At the same time there came a louder cry, followed by the blending of two thunderous voices, speaking simultaneously.... Then a heavy thud, and another cry....

  He crawled cautiously forward. He reached the fallen tree. Its trunk was suspended above the ground by the projection of a number of its large branches. He peered beneath it.

  Directly before him, in a small clearing, two creatures were struggling together. They stood erect upon their huge legs, using their crudely bulky arms and hands to strike and tug at each other. They were tremendous in size—fully three times human stature; yet their heads were smaller than men's. Their erect posture gave them a weirdly half-human look, which was belied by the brutal savagery of their aspects. Their brows were low; their heads were covered with long hair; and in their gaping mouths he saw rows of sharp, white fangs. Their skin, instead of being golden, was a dirty grey in color, and was covered with short curling hair or fur.

  But he could see very little of their bodies, because—and this sight seemed to him the strangest of all—they were almost entirely covered with cloth. This woven material was brown in color, and shaped to hang close to their bodies, even over the arms and legs. He lay very still, watching the titanic struggle with ever growing wonder.

  They appeared to be evenly matched. Once, one of them was hurled heavily to the ground, but he leaped effortlessly to his feet. Both of them grunted and uttered sharp exclamations at intervals. They tramped back and forth, tearing up the grass, crushing down the small bushes.

  They must greatly hate each other, he thought—or perhaps it was natural for them to fight like this. Now one of them was tiring—the smaller. Its movements were slower, and it stepped almost constantly backward. Suddenly from its bulbous nose spurted a red stream. He shuddered. The sight of these two strangely man-like creatures beating and tearing at one another sickened him.

  The larger creature was pressing its advantage, advancing upon the other with cruel, flailing blows. Suddenly the smaller one crumpled to the ground, and lay still. The other turned away. It seemed satisfied. It grasped an object which was leaning against a tree—a cutting tool apparently, consisting of an edged block of metal attached to a long handle of wood; and without a backward glance at its fallen foe, made off through the trees.

  The creature on the ground was alive. He could see the rise and fall of its breathing under the cloth covering of its breast. But the bright, red blood was still running out of the nose. It had lost an astonishing amount; and he feared that, unassisted, it would soon die. He must try to help.

  With wildly beating heart, he crawled under the tree trunk and out into the clearing.

  As he moved through the grass, he made a slight rustling sound, which the creature heard. It turned its head, and stared directly at him. He stopped fearfully....

  The creature uttered a loud cry, and scrambled to its feet. He raised one hand, attempting a friendly gesture; but the creature, after watching him for a moment with wide eyes, bounded swiftly away into the woods. He heard the thumping and crashing of its passage through the underbrush long after it had disappeared from sight.

  His first sensation was one of immense relief. He had been desperately afraid.

  Evidently the thing had been afraid of him, too. And that was surprising.... Clearly, these could not be the reasoning things that had built the flying machine he had seen. His relief was quickly followed by disappointment. For a moment he had imagined that his first objective had been reached. Now he realized that he might be as far from it as ever. Toon was immense. Probably, now, he was in a country inhabited by inferior beings—beings that would be constantly hostile and dangerous to him. If that were so, his quest would end here, he knew. Sleep could not be warded off any longer. He could not protect himself. Soon he must eat—and there was no food.

  He crawled into the bushes; and lay down, lonely and sick. He would stay here. This was failure—and the end. But he was not sorry for having tried....

  Above him the sky was not blue, now; but a strange, dead grey. Nowhere could he see the sun. The wind sighed mournfully in the trees.

  He slept.

  CHAPTER III.

  In Confinement

  He awakened in shivering terror. His entire body was wet. Water was falling on him. It was falling on the ground all around and on the trees—thousands, millions of drops. He choked, as he tried to breathe the damp, saturated air. Desperately he looked around for some protection, but there was none. He covered his face as best he could with his folded arms, and cried out in fear.

  There came a shout; and he heard something moving toward him, but he did not care. Horror of the falling water crowded all other emotions from his mind.

  One of the creatures was standing ove
r him. He heard others approaching. They were shouting loudly back and forth to one another. In a moment, there was a circle of them, all around him.

  He was too distressed to pay them any attention. After a time one of them bent down and grasped him under the armpits. He felt himself lifted into the air. He did not struggle, even when their faces were all around him—very close.

  Now they were walking through the trees, one of them carrying him in its huge arms, quite gently. He was scarcely conscious of his surroundings. It was becoming more and more difficult to breathe.

  Then he felt himself laid down on something soft and dry. The water was not falling on him now. He opened his eyes.

  They had placed him under a shelter. He could hear the water on the black covering above him. There was one of them on each side of him, where he lay on what seemed to be a cushioned seat....

  Suddenly there came a rumble, and the seat beneath him quivered and shook. He struggled to sit up. One of the creatures aided him, and wrapped a dry cloth about his body. He was grateful.

  The seat was bumping up and down violently. On each side, he could see the trees moving slowly backward. He realized that he was in a vehicle. It jolted constantly, and he imagined that it must run directly on the rough ground. It made a continuous and tremendous noise. But it was a machine of transportation, however crude; and he quickly forgot his bodily discomfort, as the implications of this fact crowded through his mind.

  He looked with a new interest at his captors. They were talking together excitedly—evidently about him, for they never removed their eyes from him. In spite of their strangeness and savagery, they must have reasoning minds. He could be pretty sure of that, now....

  The vehicle came to rest, and to either side he saw structures, made, evidently, of cut trees. Then his heart leaped again, as he saw that they had glass. So they knew how to make that! There were only a few pieces of it let into the walls—but it was certainly glass, and his hopes rose a bit higher.

  They carried him into one of the houses. It was quite dark. They set him down upon a large table. They were increasing rapidly in numbers, jostling in through the door and crowding around the table.