Modern Masterpieces of Science Fiction

by Sam Moskowitz

  "He—is—made—of—softness.”

  "He—is—alive—in—some-strange—way.”

  "An—an—im—al."

  And then the booming voice from the center of the tower floor.

  "I hunger."

  Rising on an iron throne from the floor, the Master. Just a great iron trap, with steel jaws like those on a steam-shovel. The jaws clicked open, and the horrid teeth gleamed. A voice came from the depths.

  "Feed me."

  They threw Clayton forward in iron arms, and he fell into the trap-jaws of the monster. The jaws closed, champing with relish on human flesh.

  Clayton woke screaming. The mirror gleamed as his trembling hands found the light-switch. He stared into the face of an aging man with almost white hair. Clayton was growing old. And he wondered if his brain would hold out.

  Eat pills, walk cabin, listen to the throbbing, put on air, lie on bunk. That was all, now. And the rest—waiting. Waiting in a humming torture-chamber, for hours, days, years, centuries, untold eons.

  In every eon, a dream. He landed on Mars and the ghosts came coiling out of a gray fog. They were shapes in the fog, like slimy ectoplasm, and he saw through them. But they coiled and came, and their voices were faint whispers in his soul.

  "Here is Life," they whispered. "We, whose souls have crossed the Void in death, have waited for Life to feast on. Let us take our feasting now."

  And they smothered him under gray blankets, and sucked with gray, prickling mouths at his blood....

  Again he landed on the planet and there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. The ground was bare and it stretched off into horizons of nothingness. There was no sky nor sun, merely the ground; endless in all directions.

  He set foot on it, cautiously. He sank down into nothingness. The nothingness was throbbing now, like the ship throbbed, and it was engulfing him. He was falling into a deep pit without sides, and the oblivion closed all about him....

  Clayton dreamed this one standing up. He opened his eyes before the mirror. His legs were weak and he steadied himself with hands that shook with age. He looked at the face in the glass—the face of a man of seventy.

  "God!" he muttered. It was his own voice—the first sound he had heard in how long? How many years? For how long had he heard nothing above the hellish vibrations of tins ship? How far had the Future gone? He was old already.

  A horrid thought bit into his brain. Perhaps something had gone wrong. Maybe the calculations were at fault and he was moving into Space too slowly. He might never reach Mars. Then again—and it was a dreadful possibility—he had passed Mars, missed the carefully charted orbit of the planet. Now he was plunging on into empty voids beyond.

  He swallowed his pills and lay down in the bunk. He felt a little calmer now; he had to be. For the first time in ages he remembered Earth.

  Suppose it had been destroyed? Invaded by war or pestilence or disease while he was gone? Or meteors had struck it, some dying star had flamed death upon it from maddened heavens. Ghastly notions assailed him—what if Invaders crossed Space to conquer Earth, just as he now crossed to Mars?

  But no sense in worrying about that. The problem was reaching his own goal. Helpless, he had to wait; maintain life and sanity long enough to achieve his aims. In the vibrating horror of his cell, Clayton took a mighty resolve with all his waning strength. He would live and when he landed he would see Mars. Whether or not he died on the long voyage home, he would exist until his goal was reached. He would fight against dreams from this moment on. No means of telling Time—only a long daze, and the humming of this infernal spaceship. But he'd live.

  There were voices coming now, from outside the ship. Ghosts howled, in the dark depths of Space. Visions of monsters and dreams of torment came, and Clayton repulsed them all. Every hour or day or year—he no longer knew which—Clayton managed to stagger to the mirror. And always it showed that he was aging rapidly. His snow-white hair and wrinkled countenance hinted at incredible senility. But Clayton lived. He was too old to think any longer, and too weary. He merely lived in the droning of the ship.

  At first he didn't realize. He was lying on his bunk and his rheumy eyes were closed in stupor. Suddenly he became aware that the lurching had stopped. Clayton knew he must be dreaming again. He drew himself up painfully, rubbed his eyes. No—the Future was still. It had landed!

  He was trembling uncontrollably. Years of vibration had done this; years of isolation with only his crazed thoughts for company. He could scarcely stand.

  But this was the moment. This was what he had waited for ten long years. No, it must have been many more years. But he could see Mars. He had made it—done the impossible.

  It was an inspiring thought. But somehow, Richard Clayton would have given it all up if he could only have learned what time it was, and heard it from a human voice.

  He staggered to the door—the long-sealed door. There was a lever here.

  His aged heart pumped with excitement as he pulled the lever upward. The door opened—sunlight crept through—air rushed in—the light made him blink and the air wheezed in his lungs—his feet were moving out--

  Clayton fell forward into the arms of Jerry Chase.

  Clayton didn't know it was Jerry Chase. He didn't know anything any longer. It had been too much.

  Chase was staring down at the feeble body in his arms. "Where's Mr. Clayton?" he murmured. "Who are you?" He stared at the aged, wrinkled face.

  "Why—it's Clayton! he breathed. "Mr. Clayton, what's wrong, sir? The atomic discharges failed when you started the ship, and all that happened was that they kept blasting. The ship never left the Earth, but the violence of the discharges kept us from reaching you until now. We couldn't get to the Future until they stopped. Just a little while ago the ship finished shuddering, but we've been watching night and day. What happened to you, sir?"

  The faded blue eyes of Richard Clayton opened. His mouth twitched as he faintly whispered.

  "I—lost track of Time. How—how long was I in the Future?"

  Jerry Chase's face was grave as he stared again at the old man and answered, softly.

  "Just one week."

  And as Richard Clayton's eyes glazed in death, the long voyage ended.

  WAKE FOR THE LIVING

  by

  Ray Bradbury

  There was any amount of hanging and hammering for a number of days along with deliveries of metal parts and oddments which Mr. Charles Braling took into his little workshop with feverish anxiety. He was a dying man, a badly dying man, and he seemed to be in a great hurry, between racking coughs and spitting, to piece together one last invention.

  "What are you doing?" inquired his younger brother, Richard Braling. He had listened with increasing difficulty and much curiosity to that banging and rattling about, and now he stuck his head through the workroom door.

  "Go far, far away and let me alone," said Charles Braling, who was seventy, trembly and wet-lipped most of the time. He trembled nails into place and trembled a hammer down with a weak blow upon a large timber and then stuck a small metal ribbon down into an intricate machine, and, all in all, was having a carnival of labor. Richard looked on, bitter-eyed, for a long moment. There was a hatred between them. It had gone on for some years and now was neither better nor worse for the fact that Charlie was dying. Richard was delighted to know of the impending death, if he thought of it at all. But this busy fervor of his brother's stimulated him.

  "Pray tell," he asked, not moving from the door.

  "If you must know." snarled old Charles. fitting in an old thingumabob on the box before him, "I'll be dead in another week and I'm—I'm building my own coffin!"

  "A coffin, my dear Charlie; that doesn't look like a coffin. A. coffin isn't that complex. Come on now, what are you up to?"

  "I tell you it is a coffin! An odd coffin, yes, but, nevertheless—" the old man moved his fingers around within the large box—"nevertheless a coffin!"

  "But it would be easier to
buy one."

  "Not one like this! You couldn't buy one like this any place, ever. Oh, it will be a really fine coffin, all right."

  "You're obviously lying." Richard moved forward. "Why, that coffin is a good twelve feet long. Six feet longer than normal size!"

  "Oh, yes?" The old man laughed quietly.

  "And that transparent top, who ever heard of a coffin lid you can see through? What good is a transparent lid to a corpse?"

  "Oh, just never you mind at all," sang the old man heartily. "La!" And he went humming and hammering about the shop.

  "This coffin is terribly thick," shouted the young brother over the din. "Why, it must be five feet thick; how utterly unnecessary!"

  "I only wish I might live to patent this amazing coffin," said old Charlie. "It would be a Godsend to all the poor peoples of the world. Think how it would eliminate the expense of most funerals. Oh, but, of course, you don't know how it would do that, do you? How silly of me. Well, I shan't tell you. If this coffin could be mass-produced—expensive at first, naturally—but then when you finally got them made in vast quantities, ah, but the money people would save."

  "To hell with it!" And the younger brother stormed out of the shop. It had been an unpleasant life. Young Richard had always been such a bounder he had never had two coins to clink together at one time; all of his money had come from old brother Charlie, who had the indecency to remind him of it at all times. Richard spent many hours with his hobbies; he dearly loved piling up bottles with French wine labels, in the garden. "I like the way they glint," he often said, sitting sipping and sipping and sitting. He was the man in county who could hold the longest gray ash on a fifty-cent cigar for the longest recorded time. And he knew how to hold his hands so his diamonds jangled in the light. But he had not bought the wine, the diamonds, the cigars—no! They were all gifts. He was never allowed to buy anything himself. It was always brought to him and given to him. He had to ask for everything, even writing paper. He considered himself quite a martyr to have put up with taking things from that rickety old brother for so long a time. Everything Charlie ever laid his hand to turned to money; everything Richard ever tried in the way of a leisurely career had failed.

  And now, here was this old mole of a Charlie whacking out a new invention which could probably bring Charlie additional specie long after his bones were slotted in the earth!

  Well, two weeks passed.

  One morning the old brother toddled upstairs and stole the insides from the electric phonograph. Another morning he raided the gardener's greenhouse. Still another time he received a delivery from a medical company. It was all young Richard could do to sit and hold his long gray cigar ash steady while these murmuring excursions took place.

  "I'm finished!" cried old Charlie on the fourteenth morning, and dropped dead. Richard finished out his cigar and, without showing his inner excitement, he laid down his cigar with its fine long whitish ash, two inches long, a real record, and arose.

  He walked to the window and watched the sunlight playfully glittering among the fat beetle-like champagne bottles in the garden.

  He looked toward the top of the stairs where dear old brother Charlie lay peacefully sprawled against the banister. Then he walked to the phone and perfunctorily dialed a number.

  "Hello, Green Lawn Mortuary? This is the Braling residence. Will you send around a wicker, please? Yes. For brother Charlie. Yes. Thank you. Thank you." As the mortuary people were taking brother Charles out in their wicker, they received instructions. "Ordinary casket," said young Richard. "No funeral service. Put him in a pine coffin. He would have preferred it that way—simple. Good-bye."

  "Now!" said Richard, rubbing his hands together. "We shall see about this 'coffin' built by dear Charlie. I do not suppose he will realize he is not being buried in his 'special' box. Ah."

  He entered the downstairs shop.

  The coffin sat before some wide-flung French windows, the lid shut, complete and neat, all put together like the fine innards of a Swiss watch. It was vast, and it rested upon a long long table with rollers beneath for easy maneuvering. The coffin interior, as he peered through the glass lid, was six feet long. There must he a good three feet of false body at both head and foot of the coffin, then. Three feet at each end which, covered by secret panels that he must find some way of opening, might very well reveal—exactly what?

  Money, of course. It would be just like Charlie to suck his riches into his grave with himself, leaving Richard with not a cent to buy a bottle with. The old tight-wad!

  He raised the glass lid and felt about, but found no hidden buttons. There was a small sign studiously inked on white paper, thumb-tacked to the side of the satin-lined box. It said:

  THE BRALING ECONOMY CASKET.

  Simple to operate. Can be used again and again by morticians and families with an eye to the future.

  Richard snorted thinly. Who did Charlie think he was fooling?

  There was more writing:

  DIRECTIONS: SIMPLY PLACE BODY IN COFFIN.

  What a fool thing to say. Put body in coffin! Naturally! How else would one go about it? He peered intently and finished out the directions:

  SIMPLY PLACE BODY IN COFFIN—AND MUSIC WILL START.

  "It can't be!" Richard gaped at the sign. "Don't tell me all this work has been for a—" He went to the open door of the shop, walked out upon the tiled terrace and called to the gardener in his greenhouse. "Rogers!" The gardener stuck his head out.

  "What time is it?" asked Richard.

  "Twelve o'clock, sir," replied Rogers.

  "Well, at twelve-fifteen, you come up here and check to see if everything is all right, Rogers," "Yes, sir," said the gardener. Richard turned and walked back into the shop. "We'll find out—" he said, quietly.

  There would be no harm in lying in the box, testing it. He noticed small ventilating holes in the sides. Even if the lid were closed down there'd be air. And Rogers would he up in a moment or two. Simply place body in coffin—and music will start. Really, how naive of old Charlie. Richard hoist himself up.

  He was like a man getting into a bathtub. He felt naked and watched over. He put one shiny shoe into the coffin, and crooked his knee and eased himself up and made some little remark to nobody in particular; then he put in his other knee and foot and crouched there, as if undecided about the temperature of the bath-water. Edging himself about, chuckling softly, he lay down, pretending to himself; "for it was fun pretending that he was dead, that people were dropping tears on him, that candles were fuming and illuminating and that the world was stopped in mid-stride because of his passing. He put on a long pale expression, shut his eyes, holding back the laughter in himself behind pressed, quivering lips. He folded his hands and decided they felt waxen and cold.

  Whirr! Spung! Something whispered inside the box-wall. Spung!

  The lid slammed down on him!

  From outside, if one had just come into the room, one would have imagined a wild man was kicking, pounding, blathering and shrieking inside a closet! There was a sound of a body dancing and cavorting. There was a thundering of flesh and fists. There was a squeaking and a kind of wind from a frightened man's lungs. There was a rustling like paper and a shrilling as of many pipes simultaneously played. Then there was a real fine scream. Then—silence.

  Richard Braling lay in the coffin and relaxed. He let loose all his muscles. He began to chuckle. The smell of the box was not unpleasant. Through the little perforation he drew more than enough air to live comfortably on. He need only push gently up with his hands, with none of this kicking and screaming, and the lid would open. One must be calm. He flexed his arms.

  The lid was locked.

  Well, still there was no danger. Rogers would be up in a minute or two. There was nothing to fear.

  The music began to play.

  It seemed to come from somewhere inside the head of the coffin. It was fine music. Organ music, very slow and melancholy, typical of Gothic arches and long black tape
rs. It smelled of earth and whispers. It echoed high between stone walls. It was so sad that one almost cried listening to it. It was music of potted plants and crimson and blue-stained glass windows. It was late sun at twilight and a cold wind blowing. It was a dawn with only fog and a far away fog-horn moaning.

  "Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, you old fool, you! So this is your odd coffin!" Tears of laughter welled into Richard's eyes. "Nothing more than a coffin which plays its own dirge. Oh, my sainted grandma!"

  He lay and listened critically, for it was beautiful music and there was nothing he could do until Rogers came up and let him out. His eyes roved aimlessly; his fingers tapped soft little rhythms on the satin cushions. He crossed his legs, idly. Through the glass lid he saw sunlight shooting through the French windows, dust particles dancing on in. It was a lovely blue day with wisps of clouds overhead. The sermon began.

  The organ music quieted and a gentle voice said:

  "We are gathered together, those who loved and those who knew the deceased, to give him our homage and our due—"

  "Charlie, bless you, that's your voice!" Richard was delighted. A mechanical, transcribed funeral, by God! Organ music and lecture, on records! And Charlie giving his own oration for himself!

  The soft voice said, "We who knew and loved him are grieved at the passing of—"

  "What was that?" Richard raised himself, startled. He didn't quite believe what he had heard. He repeated it to himself just the way he had heard it:

  "We who knew and loved him are grieved at the passing of Richard Braling." That's what the voice had said.

  "Richard Braling," said the man in the coffin. "Why, I'm Richard Braling." A slip of the tongue, naturally. Merely a slip. Charlie had meant to say, Charles Braling. Certainly. Yes. Of course. Yes. Certainly. Yes. Naturally. Yes.