The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume VI: An Anthology of 50 Short Stories

by Various

  He awoke ravenous and thirsty, but lay quietly for a time, luxuriating in the feel of the clean soft sheets. He was in a simply but tastefully decorated room. Three of the walls were made of transparent glass and the warm golden rays of a type G sun bathed the room. Outside he could see green rolling meadowland, broken here and there by sylvan groves. A brilliantly colored bird swooped down and preened itself for a moment, then raised its head and flooded the silence with melody. Faintly from a grove of trees came an answering treble. The songbird cocked its head to the side, listening, then swooped upward on wings of flashing color. A small squirrellike creature bounded nervously up to the transparent wall and sat on its haunches, surveying the room with bright beady eyes. As Tee's ears attuned themselves he was suddenly aware of chirpings, trebles, clearpitched whistles, and from somewhere in the depths of the grove, a deep-pitched ga-rooph, ga-roomph.

  * * * * *

  A chubby little man with a round face and alert twinkling eyes entered the room. He seemed to radiate happiness and contentment. "Well, I see the patient's finally come around," he said, cheerfully.

  "What happened?" asked Tee.

  "Your ship crashed just beyond that grove."

  Tee clutched at him. "The ship! How bad is it?"

  "I think you were in worse shape than your ship. You must have had it under control almost to the end, though how you stayed conscious with space fever is beyond me."

  "Space fever? So that's it. I remember getting sick and light-headed and just before I passed out I flipped out of subspace and the automatic finder, of course, took the ship to the nearest planet. I must have landed by reflex action. I sure don't remember anything about it."

  "Well," the man laughed, "I have seen better landings, but not when the pilot had a temperature of one-o-five. Anyway, you're safe now. Welcome to Elysia."

  There it was again. Safe! Safe! Tee raised up, then fell back weakly.

  "Is anything wrong?" asked the little man, alarmed.

  "N ... nothing, I just ... nothing!"

  The man was looking at him questioningly.

  "Elysia," mused Tee. "I seem to remember an old old myth brought from the original Earth." He waved toward the sylvan setting, outside.

  The little man smiled. "Yes, the old settlers named our planet well." He caught himself. "Oh, I'm sorry; I'm Dr. Chensi. This is my home."

  Tee smiled. "Well at least you'll have to admit I showed good judgment crashing next to a doctor's house." Then more seriously, "Thanks, doc, thanks for everything."

  "My degrees aren't in medicine," replied Dr. Chensi. "I'm afraid I had little to do with your recovery. My daughter's the one who nursed you. Oh, here she is now." He raised his voice. "Come in, Lara."

  Since Dr. Chensi was using the only chair she sat down on the edge of the bed.

  "Here," said the doctor, teasingly, "what kind of nurse are you, mussing up your patient's bed?"

  She pouted prettily. "He's my patient." Then looking down at Tee with a smile, "You'll be up and around in no time now."

  "Time!" cried Tee, raising up. "What's the date? I've got to know!"

  "You've been delirious for two weeks," answered the doctor. "Another two weeks of convalescence and you ought to be as good as new."

  "But two weeks, I can't--"

  "Can't leave before then anyway," replied the doctor calmly. "I knew you'd want your ship repaired so I had it hauled to the port. Won't be ready for two more weeks. So you might as well relax."

  Tee bit his lip, and clenched his fists to keep from trembling. It was a moment before he could trust himself to speak without a quaver in his voice. "Nothing else I can do, I guess. Thanks, anyway. And by the way, there's enough credits in the ship's safe to pay for the repairs, I'm sure."

  "I think we should start the patient walking tomorrow," said Lara, in a mock-professional voice. She punched the ends of Tee's pillow. "Now you'd better get some sleep. You're still very weak, you know."

  * * * * *

  The days that followed were like an idyll for Tee. With Lara he wandered through the parklike wooded groves. They sat near shaded pools and ate wild berries while she told him stories of the founding of Elysia. They held hands and ran exuberantly across the grassy meadows, and waded like children in the clear brooks.

  A thousand times, a word, an endearing term, sprang to his lips, and each time the fear clamped his tongue in a vise of steel. A thousand times he wanted to touch her, feel the silkiness of her hair, the warmth of her lips, but each time the fear and uncertainty stood between them like twin specters of doom, pointing and saying, "Fool! Why torture yourself?"

  In the daytime when Lara was with him it wasn't so bad, but at night the fear and uncertainty crowded to the fore and blanked out everything else. It was then he prayed for the courage to kill himself, and despised the weakness that made him draw back from the thought. If only he could stop thinking. Make his mind a blank. But that was death, and death was what he feared. How long ago was it when he'd first realized that hope was an illusion, a false god that smiled and lied, and held out vain promises only to prolong the torture?

  Then one day the word came that his ship was repaired. As though the word were a catalyst the terrible fear overwhelmed him, drowning out every other thought, and he knew he had to leave. When he had no means of leaving the planet he could partially close off his dread and wait resignedly. But now that the ship was ready, every moment he remained was an agony.

  He led Lara to their favorite spot by a quiet pool. She looked radiant, and smiled to herself, as though at a secret. He steeled himself and finally blurted out, "Lara, I'm leaving tomorrow." He hesitated and bit his lip. "And ... thanks for everything."

  "Thanks?" She choked on the words.

  "I'm sorry--" he trailed off, lamely.

  "But ... but I thought--" She looked down.

  He reached out and gently touched her cheek. "Can't you see I want to stay?" he pleaded.

  "Then why? Why?" She was crying now.

  "I ... I just can't. It's no good." He stood up.

  She reached out and caught his hand. "Then take me with you. I've heard you at night pacing in your room. I don't know what it is that drives you on and on, but if space is what you want, let me go with you. I can help you, darling. You'll see. And some day when you grow tired of space, we can come back to Elysia." She was babbling now.

  He pulled roughly away. "No! It's no good. I'm--If only I could stay." He brushed her hair softly with his palm and as she reached out toward him he turned and walked swiftly toward the house, pitying and hating himself by turn, while Lara sat forlornly by the pool looking after him.

  He began to sweat before he reached the house and his knees began to tremble so, he had to stop for a moment, to keep his balance. Determinedly he started forward again and continued on past the house to the highway that wound by half a kilometer away. There he hailed a passing ground car and rode to the spaceport, where a few judiciously distributed credits facilitated his immediate clearance. Before the ship had even left the atmosphere he rammed in the subspace control.

  * * * * *

  MAY 4, 437th Year GALACTIC ERA

  Tantalus lay far out on a spiral arm, well away from the main stream of traffic that flowed through the galaxy. It was a fair planet boasting an equable climate, at least in the tropic zone. But as yet the population was small, consisting mostly of administrative officials who served their alloted time and thankfully returned to their home planets closer to the center of population.

  Tee entered the towering building and after consulting a wall directory stepped into the antigrav chute and was whisked high up into the heart of the building. He stepped out before a plain door and as he advanced the center panel fluoresced briefly with the printed legend--GALACTIC PRISON AUTHORITY, Ary Mefford, Administrator for Tantalus.

  He hesitated for a moment, then squaring his shoulders stepped forward, and as he crossed the beam the door swung open before him. The gray-haired man sitting
at the desk studying a paper, looked up and smiled politely. He indicated a chair with a nod then bent his head again. After a moment he shoved the paper aside and looked questioningly at Tee.

  "I want to give myself up," blurted Tee.

  "I'm the administrator for Hades," said the man calmly. "I think you want the local authorities."

  "You don't understand. I escaped from Hades."

  "No one escapes from Hades," replied the administrator.

  "I escaped!" insisted Tee. "Ten years ago. You can check. I'm tired of running. I want to go back."

  "This is most unusual," said the administrator in a disturbed voice. He looked unbelievingly at Tee. "Ten years ago you say?"

  "Yes! Yes! And I'm ready to go back, before it's too late. Can't you understand?"

  The administrator shook his head pityingly. "It's already too late. I'm sorry." He bent his head guiltily and began to fumble with the papers on his desk.

  Tee started to say something, but the administrator raised his head and said slowly, "It was too late the day you left Hades. Nothing I can do." He looked down again. Tee turned and slowly walked out the door. The administrator didn't look up.

  As Tee walked aimlessly down the deserted corridor, his footsteps echoed hollowly like a dirge. A line from an old poem sprang to his mind: "We are the dead, row on row we lie--" He was the dead, but still he chased the chimera of hope, yet knowing in his heart it was hopeless.

  * * * * *

  JUNE 11, 437th Year GALACTIC ERA

  The Starduster, pocked and pitted from innumerable collisions with dust particles, sped out and out. The close-packed suns of the central hub lay far behind. Here at the rim of the galaxy the stars lay scattered, separated by vast distances. A gaunt hollow-eyed figure sat in the observation bubble staring half-hopefully, half-despairingly at the unimaginable depths beyond the rim.

  * * * * *

  JUNE 12, 437th Year GALACTIC ERA

  On and on past the thinning stars raced the patient electronic bloodhound; invisible, irreversible, indestructible; slowly, but inexorably accelerating. It flashed by the planet Damocles at multiples of the speed of light, and sensing the proximity of the prey on which it was homed, spurted into the intergalactic depths after the receding ship, intent on meshing with and thereby distorting the encephalograph pattern of its target. It was quite mindless, and the final pattern its meshing would create would be something quite strange, and not very human.

  THE END

  * * *

  Contents

  VALLEY of the CROEN

  By LEE TARBELL

  There was a mysterious golden statue that always pointed one way--and it led to sudden death in the valley where flying disks landed.

  They say cross-eyed men are bad luck. He stood there, in my doorway, eyeing me up and down with those in-focused black eyes.

  His face was hideous even if the eyes had been normal. He was slashed with a wide cicatrice of livid scar tissue from one cheekbone across his nose and down to the button of his jaw on the other side.

  He was big, and he looked like bad news to me. I inadvertently moved the door as if to close it, then he spoke:

  "You Keele, the mining man?"

  I nodded, wondering at the mild voice from the huge battered figure.

  "Been looking for you. I've run across something I wouldn't tell just anyone. But I've heard of you, that you are on the level. Here in Korea, you're known already."

  I still didn't step back and swing the door wide. But he had aroused my curiosity as well as my natural desire to acquire things. I had made two fortunes and lost both in mining ventures. My present not small income came from an emerald mine in the Andes. It had been a very dirty and very sick Indio who had led me to that emerald mine. You never know!

  "I'm pretty busy, could you give me some idea...." I hedged. It doesn't do to seem too anxious or eager in any business deal. Too, the sight of his burly figure, even without the nightmare face, was not exactly reassuring. That bulge under the native quilted coat, I knew was nothing but a gun too big for even his bulges to conceal completely. But a man needed a gun, here. Especially if he had something valuable, such as the whereabouts of gold.

  He grinned, and the white, even teeth, and the wrinkles around his eyes took away the sense of impending catastrophe brought by those crossed eyes. I stepped back then, and he walked in. I sat down at my desk. He sat down across from me, and fumbled in one pocket. He lay on the desk an object in wrappings of dirty rags. These he peeled off slowly, his eyes seeming to dart here and there, never looking where they should. As he peeled, he talked:

  "I just landed off a ship from Fusan, up-coast. Y' ever been in Fusan?"

  I shook my head, watching his fingers work at the knots of the strings around his mysterious object.

  "Korea is a funny place. As long as people have been living here, you'd think it would be settled. But it isn't! There're immense forests, great mountains, where no man has gone, places no one enters. They're so dumb they don't even have compasses; they get lost! Think my compass is magic, wonder how I know where to go next, and not get lost. Superstitious, scared to go into the great, dark, damp forests. Scared of the mountains no one has ever climbed. That kind of country is a prospector's meat!"

  I nodded. He had the wrappings off, and I leaned forward, a little breathless at the beauty of the thing in his hand. A curiously wrought little statuette about eight inches high, of gold. It was set with real emeralds, for eyes. About the neck and waist of the exquisite female figure were inset jewels, simulating girdle and necklace. A little golden woman goddess! It was very finely wrought, and what surprised me, it was not oriental, not any style of art I could place. Yet it was alien and ancient. I reached for it. He let me take it in my hands, and as I touched it, an electric tingle of surprise, a thrill of utter delight, ran up my arm, as if the image contained a strong little soul intent upon enslaving me with admiration.

  "Potent little female, isn't she?"

  His crossed eyes were on mine with that queer stare of the cross-eyed. I could make nothing of the facial expressions of this man. He would have been disturbing to play poker against. I would have said he was afraid of that little figure! Afraid, yet very much attached to it. I set it down and he wrapped it up again.

  "Strange thing! Tell me about it."

  "You know we split Korea with Russia, after the war. I thought I'd take a look around. I have done quite a bit of that. It wasn't hard. Up near the Russian line I found something."

  He stopped, looked at me. Whether, he was trying to gauge my credulity or my depth, I don't know.

  "You're young. You're not yet thirty, Keele; you've got time left to enjoy a fortune such as I'm letting you in on. And I saw such women among these unknown people as no man would believe. I spent a lot of time spying on them."

  I figured he was lying about the women to get me to help him finance the trip. But just the same, the hint of unknown and unspoiled beauty of some hidden, weirdly alien tribe of people aroused my curiosity--the old lure of the Savage Princess from kid days, I guess. I hadn't had a real vacation in years--and what would I enjoy more than a jaunt through untouched forests? Toward what didn't matter as long as the hunting was good. And it sounded good!

  "Unknown people, virgin forest, beautiful women and plenty of gold. Sounds too good to be true!"

  He squinted at me, bared his fine teeth. He leaned forward, almost whispered trying to impress me:

  "The people who made that statue are still there. It isn't ancient--they still make them!"

  Now I knew he was lying, but still I was hooked. I had to know! For that statue was an infinite evidence of a refinement of art culture rare on earth! If such a race still remained untouched by white man's modern rot--I could pick up a fortune in art objects. I wasn't too dumb to know what they'd bring in New York. I nodded, and he went on.

  "I found a cache of valuable gold, jewels, and other things. Things I can't understand. I could be better educated,
Mr. Keele. That's why I've come to you. I want some help."

  I leaned back. If he found gold, he should have the wherewithal to get in there and back without my help. So he was lying. I determined to find out why, and just what the lie was.

  "Go ahead," was all I said. Give a liar enough rope and he'll trip himself.

  But he didn't! He didn't ask for money! He only wanted me for advice, for the names of experienced men of the kind he needed, to help him go back there. Men willing to fight if needed. Or else he was too clever. At the end he had me. I was committed to supervising and accompanying that expedition. Or was it the wise emerald eyes of the little golden Goddess that trapped me? I didn't know, then.

  Finally I got it out of him. He hadn't brought back the gold. He had to cross bandit territory, and he didn't have to tell me why he didn't carry his fortune with only his own rifle to guard it.

  I picked two well-known men who were available just then. Hank Polter had led more than one hunting party through country I wouldn't have picked--and come out safe. He knew what a gun was for, and when to use it. And that's the most important part of handling a gun, knowing when you have to shoot, and then doing it first. The man that shoots before he has to is going to get you into more trouble than he can get you out of.

  Lean and tough, he knew the ropes. Around thirty, just under six feet, not bad looking, he was making the most of Seoul's wide-open hot spots. Nearly broke, he jumped at our offer.

  Seoul is the capital of Korea, in case you don't know. Everyone did pretty much as they pleased, for there were few restrictions from the so-recently installed government. There are a number of gold mines around Seoul, which was why I was there. Like the cross-eyed Jake Barto, I knew that something would turn up worth owning where governments have changed three times in as many years.

  Frans Nolti, the other hunter we hired, was more of a fortune hunter, by appearance, than one who knew his way in the jungles of the world. Handsome in his Italian way, he was suave, apparently well educated, very quick in his movements. He gave the impression of extreme cleverness, of intellect held in reserve behind a facade of worldliness, of light clever talk.