The creature looked at him and asked, “Who are you? Why have you come?”
THE PAIN WAS A laserknife that sliced through his brain, carving it neatly in half in one effortless stroke. One moment Spence had been standing atop one of the taller domed hives searching the underground cavescape for anything resembling an entrance or exit. The next thing he knew he was lying on his side with the pain bursting in fireballs inside his head.
He had plunged through the thin shell of the structure when the portion he was standing on collapsed with a brittle crack under his weight. He landed on his side and when he made an attempt to move, the pain had exploded in dazzling colors.
He lay back panting for a long time until the pain subsided enough for him to roll over and put his hands on the floor to push himself up. The effort left him head down, retching with dry heaves. He fell into a fit of coughing and tasted blood in his mouth when he was finished. He looked down and saw flecks of blood in the thick dust. With a stab of horror he realized that he had broken one or more ribs and that at least one of the broken ribs had punctured his lung. He fell back and a long sobbing wail burst from his throat; tears rolled down his cheeks as he rocked back and forth in the debris around him, howling in despair and agony.
Sometime later, whimpering with pain at every step, he dragged himself back to the first hive and lay down near the water sphere. The hours blurred and ran. The fire in his side increased unbelievably. Spence teetered on the brink of consciousness, often tipping over the edge. Fever raged as he coughed and the lung filled with fluid, threatening to suffocate him. Any but the smallest movement brought crescendos of pain booming through his body. His chest felt as if it were clamped between white-hot pincers.
Spence lay in a dream world, half awake, half swooning in his own sweat. He roused himself periodically to sip water from the sphere and then fell back weakly following each exertion.
Time passed; he had no idea how much time. The already confused hours merged together and he could not easily tell his waking moments from dreaming ones—they all fused and mingled like beads of wax on a heated plate.
It was during one of his rarer waking moments that he heard the pulsing hum of the machine next to him; actually, it occurred to him that he had been hearing it for some time. He turned his head and shifted his body slightly to get a better view.
The gray translucent sides of the coffinlike box had grown murky, as if clouds of vapor swirled within. As he watched he saw tiny flashes, like red lightning arcing from point to point within the plated box, illuminating the interior.
Stirred by this sight he inched himself closer and slowly, painfully edged high enough to press his face against one of the lower plates to peer inside.
He saw a bubbling mass of gelatinous material, glistening in the light of the tiny flashes. The oozing stuff had covered the dry reedy material with a quivering layer that gave off a heavy vapor like a steam. He noticed the dim outlines of a form beginning to take shape—a form that was vaguely familiar.
Spence drifted in and out of consciousness, waking, sleeping, fainting. Weakened by hunger and the agony tearing at him like a ravenous beast, he could not be certain of what he was seeing or when. The room, his thoughts, the pain, the machine—all took on the airy illusory quality of one of his dreams.
Reality dissolved around him.
He moaned, howled, and sang crude songs; he laughed like one demented and wept like a lost innocent. He heard strange sounds: sighs and gurglings, groans and rasps, and long quaking wheezes. He could not be certain that all these did not emanate from himself, but they seemed to come from within the growing-box.
At some point the light from the sarcophagus’s pedestal changed from white to a rosy pink, bathing the room and Spence in the ruddy illusion of vitality. Soon afterward the upper portion of the machine separated from the lower portion. There was a rushing gasp of escaping vapors and the room was filled with an acrid smell like burnt rubber.
He lay with his head lolling on the floor, choking and gagging. But as the interior of the plated box cleared, he raised himself feebly over the edge to look inside.
He saw a body stretched out in deathlike repose—humanoid, with limbs and torso like a man’s, but remarkably elongated. Its features, and the details of its body, remained unformed as if it were made of clay and only partly finished. There was no sign at all of life—the thing could have been a statue whose sculptor had been called away before finishing his work.
Twice more in lucid moments Spence looked into the machine. Each time it seemed that the thing had become more developed, though the exact changes were hard to pinpoint.
By the hour he became weaker and more unstable. The pain in his chest was a constant piercing throb. He lay curled around his water sphere, without the power to raise his head. He slept long and fitfully, his sleep tortured by the torments of a broken body and troubled spirit. He dreamed strange and fantastic dreams and saw things which terrified him.
In one of these frightening visions he ran down a stinking, garbage-filled street pursued by shrieking black demons with flashing teeth and shining eyes. Nowhere could he hide or escape them. They followed him in a pack like wolves, snarling in evil rage.
In what might have been another dream he saw the form of a golden being rise from the gray-plated coffin. He saw the moisture glistening on the smooth, hairless skin, and he heard the swift and sudden inhalation of air drawn into its lungs. He saw the eyelids slowly raise to reveal two large, almost luminous yellow eyes which regarded him with a coldly reptilian stare.
Then he was aware of smooth walls in the lighted corridor sliding past him and he thought he was back at Gotham, riding in one of the trams. He turned his head and saw a long, three-fingered hand gripping his shoulder and he looked up into the huge yellow eyes.
When next he regained consciousness he was in a room filled with odd-looking devices and he was surrounded with a filmy substance which hung over him like a limp tent made of cobwebs. The tent glittered and pulsed with energy. He glanced down and saw a red, ragged gash in his side surrounded by putrid green-black flesh, swollen and disfigured. His flesh was skewered by two long white needlelike objects which caused a tingling sensation in his bones.
Then he dreamed that he stood under a wide blue canopy atop a high mountain and felt the cool air whipping at his clothes. He saw an ancient castle set on a peak just above him and black birds circling slowly in the air, keening their sharp disapproval. A voice formed words inside his head that danced and made sparkling images, but the words had no meaning and the images were utterly foreign to any realm of his experience.
And then there was only darkness—blessed darkness and release.
8
THE MESSAGE HAD BEEN puzzling enough, but the young man standing before her was no less cryptic. Ari regarded his smiling face suspiciously and answered slowly, “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen Dr. Reston for several weeks.”
Kurt nodded reassuringly. “I understand. Dr. Reston wished his whereabouts to be kept secret, but he has communicated with us and wanted me to contact you.”
“You said you had a message from him?” Ari stated firmly, not giving away her sudden flourish of hope.
“Yes, I was just getting to that. He said that he was fine and to tell you that he missed you very much. He was looking forward to getting back and seeing you.”
“Is that all? Did he say anything about his work?”
“Oh, yes. He said that his work was going very smoothly, and that he was very glad he’d gone—apart from missing you, that is. I take it he likes you very much.”
Ari ignored the comment, but the young man smiled so sincerely she felt like an ogre for suspecting him. He obviously was telling the truth.
“I think so,” Ari admitted.
“And you like him—I can tell. Did you know he was going to Mars?”
“Certainly, I—” Ari paused, glancing quickly at the cadet’s face.
He seemed genuinely interested. “That is, I suppose I did. He doesn’t confide in anyone very much, you know.”
“You can say that again. I just figured he might have told you—that birthday gift and all. We didn’t even know he’d gone. Don’t you think that was odd of him to sneak off like that?”
“Was it that big a secret then?” asked Ari. “I assumed he told those who needed to know.”
“It must have slipped his mind,” Kurt laughed. “Well, I better be going.” The panel slid open and the young man made to leave. “By the way, is there anything you want me to tell him for you—in case he contacts us again?”
Ari smiled and shook her head. “No, nothing that can’t wait. Just tell him to be careful and that I’m anxious to see him again.”
“Will do. Goodbye, Miss Zanderson. See you around.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Millen.” The portal slid shut.
The whole visit seemed innocent enough, but she could not help feeling that something more, something unspoken, lay behind it. After all this time, why had he come? Why now? Furthermore, something he said sounded suspicious to her. What was it?
She hoped she had not given Spence’s secret away. Perhaps she was just being overly protective. Perhaps Spence had resolved his problem as he hoped he would and wanted to let her know. He would have sent his cadet with a message. It was plausible enough.
Then why couldn’t she accept it? Surely, there was something more here than simple female vanity. Ari had had the impression that when Spence decided to break silence she would be the first one he contacted. She felt betrayed, but told herself she was just being silly. Beside, she should be happy that he was all right.
But was he all right? Why did she question it? The thought nagged at her the rest of the day, whereupon she decided that since she had no reason to doubt the sincerity of the young man or his message she should forget it.
SPENCE VIEWED HIS SURROUNDINGS with a kind of groggy half-awareness, as if he had been drugged and then beaten senseless and left in a congealing heap. What or who had done the beating he did not recall. Assuredly it had been something large and mechanical; perhaps he had mixed it up with a shuttle scrubber.
Oddly, he felt no pain; in fact, he felt nothing at all. It seemed as if he had been disconnected from his body and hovered somewhere very close to it, but far enough away not to have to share its misery. A thin, gauzy veil separated him from his senses, as if he were visiting a sick friend for whom he had only slightly more than the usual amount of empathy. The sensations he felt seemed more properly to belong to someone else. He was more than happy to let them go; they had not held particularly pleasant associations.
A sound like a crystal chime reached his ears and he felt himself enveloped in a snowy white cloud which shut out all sight, all sound, all thought. He knew himself to be conscious, but beyond that he had no thought at all—a state like sleep, only brilliantly light rather than dark.
He floated in this feathery state of unknowing for an eternity.
Then, tinning in the distance far away he heard the chime again, and the blazing white cloud which had held him for so long began to dissipate. He was back in the strange room again, covered with the filmy energy tent. Spence glanced down at his side and saw that the needles were gone and all that remained of his vaguely remembered injury was a rosy pink scar along his ribs.
He looked around the oval-shaped room for his surface suit, but could not see it anywhere. Only then did the full impact of what had happened break in on him. He had been carried to this place, ministered over, and nursed back to health. The dreams of his delirium had not been dreams at all. The creature from the growing-machine had cared for him.
He lifted the clinging web and was about to stir from the nest where he lay when he glanced up and saw a humanoid well over two meters tall watching him from a doorway. The thing gazed at him steadily with keen interest, its long, triple-jointed arms crossed over its narrow chest.
Spence recognized the golden, finely pebble-grained skin, the huge yellow eyes, and the elongated body as the being from his dreams. He felt no fear of the creature, only amazement that this meeting should actually be taking place.
The creature, clothed in a loose-fitting garment of a sandy color that glinted in the light, came to him in graceful strides. It stood towering over him, its eyes burning as if it would devour him with its hungry look. Spence realized he was looking into the face of a Martian.
Feeling a little like a character out of a corny old science-fiction movie, he raised his hand in greeting.
The Martian opened his wide, thin-lipped mouth and a sound like a sustained and fluid chirp issued forth. Ringing, reverberating, the liquid tones reminded him of a treeful of nightingales breaking into song at once.
The Martian stared at him, expecting some kind of response. But before he could think of a suitable reply the Martian, still staring intensely, made some physical adjustment in its speech organs and then said, in a voice that trilled like bubbling water, “Who are you? Why have you come?”
Spence passed a hand before his eyes in disbelief. When he looked again the being still loomed over him, its spare features almost sparkling with fierce intensity. He decided that the harsh, reptilian quality of the Martian’s aspect was due to the fact that it had no hair, that the face, with its thin, almost nonexistent nose, was dominated by the huge brilliant eyes. Also, he saw a narrow double row of gill slits along either side of the Martian’s exposed chest.
They stared at one another for several minutes before Spence, realizing he had not answered, managed to croak out, “I am Spencer Reston. I am from Earth.” He had almost forgotten how to speak.
The Martian then turned with a dry rustle of his clothing and scooped something off a nearby pedestal table. He turned back arid held out the flat, ovoid object. Spence took it and looked at it and saw that it was a three-dimensional photograph of astonishing depth and clarity. It showed a grouping of stars as viewed from ground level; low brown hills showed on the horizon. It could have been any grouping of stars in the galaxy, but Spence guessed it was a constellation viewed from Mars. Still, it meant nothing to him. He shrugged and handed the object back.
The alien did not take it but pushed it at him once more and when Spence looked the picture had changed to another scene; this one he recognized easily. In remarkably vivid holographies— so lifelike it was as if he held a window which opened onto the universe—he saw the Sol system.
He nodded enthusiastically and pointed to the third planet from the sun. “Earth,” he explained as he might to a dull-witted child. Immediately the scene shifted once more and he was peering at Earth’s great blue globe with its swirls of frilly white cloud encircling it.
The alien loosed a low whistling word which rose at the end; then with but a moment’s pause said, “Earth.”
Spence realized he had just received his first lesson in Martian. He was mystified.
“Who are you? How do you know my language?” he asked slowly.
“I am Kyr. I have … assimilated,” the word rolled out oddly, “your language skills while you were healing. I hope this causes you no anxiety. It is easier.”
The creature, as alien as anything Spence could have imagined—not so much in appearance as in character and bearing— stood conversing with him like a native. It passed all comprehension.
“You saved me. Why?”
“Life is precious and must be conserved. You had nearly ceased to be.”
“Thank you. I am grateful.” He hoped the alien understood him well enough, for he meant it sincerely. “Are there more like you?”
The Martian reflected for a moment and something like a smile flitted across the thin lips. “Yes. Many seedings by now.”
The creature—for some reason Spence considered it a male creature—allowed that this was not what Spence wanted to know. “But that is not what you asked. You wished to know if there are more of my kind here now. No, not for many Earth years. I am the only
one. I am the last.”
“Why? Where are they? Where did they go?” There were so many questions he wanted to ask, they gushed like a fountain into his mind; he could not ask them all at once.
The alien handed him the picture generator and Spence saw a bright array of stars slanting across the center of the field. It could have been the further rim of the spiraling Milky Way galaxy.
“To other stars?”
“Yes.” The Martian nodded.
“Why?”
“Ovs could no longer support her people. Our atmosphere shrank, the waters dried up. To survive we built the underground cities and then, when we became skilled enough to venture to nearby stars, we left in search of other worlds.”
“Migrated to the stars … but why? What caused your atmosphere to change?”
Kyr indicated the picture device and Spence saw once more the solar system he had seen before, but on a closer inspection he saw that it contained ten planets orbiting the sun in orderly fashion, rather than the nine he knew.
“Our neighbor, Res, was struck by a large mass that passed close by Earth and Ovs, causing disturbances in the atmosphere and rotation of the planets. Debris rained down, and clouds of dust from the explosion covered both planets for many Earth years. Ovs suffered more serious damage.”
“Where was this Res?”
“Here.” A long multijointed finger pointed to the fifth planet from the sun.
“The asteroid belt!” said Spence with some excitement. “We’ve long theorized a planet there.”
“We were struck by many of the pieces; so was Earth. Your planet has been struck many times in the past, but luckily was not much populated during these events. Each time it has been recreated.
“Here it was”—no human word seemed adequate—“catastrophe. Very much life was destroyed—plants, animals. Whole cities died. Ovs could not recover.”
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