Then there was a racking, muffled “Boom!” a mile away. Then the eerie, lunatic whistling of a lifeboat screaming for the sky.
The eight of them gasped. Instinctively, every man counted all the others. But they were all on hand. Then they ran for the Carilya, forgetting the cameras and the hood itself.
The airlock door was open. Smoke welled out. A lifeboat blister gaped wide, and it was empty. They fought their way into the stiffing vapor. It was thickest toward the engine-room. The Skipper himself was first into the compartment which was the heart of the ship.
And the ship’s engines were wreckage. The Carilya would never lift from this unnamed planet without new engines. And the fuel-container gaped wide. The bessendium fuel had vanished. No man was missing. Every one was still at hand. Only a lifeboat was gone—a lifeboat and the unthinkably precious fuel-block. No food. No stores. That was all.
The Skipper’s face went gray. Exactly this thing had not happened before, perhaps, but disasters enough like it were nightmares to spacemen. The Carilya was now missing. Permanently. She would never be searched for. It was not practical. No other ship might touch on this planet for a thousand years. The crew of the Carilya was marooned in absolute helplessness, literally until it rotted. He said hoarsely;
“It—looks like we found more than a relic of the Lost Race. It looks like a survivor of the Lost Race found us! And he—it— took our fuel, smashed our engines, and went off in a lifeboat. Crazy! A lifeboat can’t use bessendium! And its drive is good only for half a light-year or less!”
But Howell said:
“There are other planets. Or maybe there’s a colony of survivors somewhere else on this world.” Then to Jimmy he said wrily: “Maybe one of them with precognition foresaw our arrival, and they made plans ahead of time.”
But something stuck absurdly in Jimmy’s mind. He said bewilderedly:
“But look! That smoke was nitriol—human explosive! Our stuff! An intelligent creature might work out a drive and the controls of a lifeboat blister and a lifeboat itself from inspection. That’s physics! But how’d he know what was explosive? That’s chemistry! How could he know it was an explosive without analyzing it?”
Howell jumped. Jimmy started blindly forward to talk to the Skipper. But Howell caught his arm and drew him back.
“Wait!” he said fiercely. “Hold it! You’ve said something!”
The Skipper was organizing for an unheard-of emergency. A guard at the airlock. Hunting-parties of two each, to comb the area immediately around the ship for signs of intelligent life. They would carry walkie-talkies for reporting. Meanwhile break out cargo and search for weapons and anything else the situation required.
Howell and Jimmy made one of the two hunting pairs. They went cautiously away from the ship. Then Howell said roughly:
“We’re going back to that hood. The cameras are still running. We’ll turn them off—and arrange things.”
Jimmy was beginning to see the situation as it affected all of them. Marooned for all time. With a ship for shelter, and stores, and a full cargo of supplies for a Space-Guard base, but utterly without hope of ever leaving. He’d never see Sally again. She’d never know what had happened to him. She’d imagine the Carilya disabled and floating helplessly until her crew starved or suffocated.
But Howell led the way directly to the shell in which images formed. He turned off the cameras. But he hid two of them, triggering them to the vines by the seat before the shell.
“I’ve got a hunch,” he said grimly, “which does not come from the subconscious. I think you’re right about that explosion. After all, any of us could have set a time-bomb to wreck the engines, and any of us could have set time-controls to open the blister and send the lifeboat off untenanted.”
“But he’d be marooned with the rest!” protested Jimmy. “And what’d he gain?”
“Five pounds of bessendium,” said Howell. “Forty million credits, salable in the black market anywhere. And if he is a certain sort of man—other satisfactions.”
Howell’s face was savagely stern. He put back the vines so they would not seem to have been disturbed. But the cameras would photograph any images formed in the metal shell.
They went on and faithfully searched for signs of alien intelligent beings. They found nothing. Strange enough creatures, to be sure. They saw flightless birds—at least they had feathers—with teeth. Once they saw what looked like a tiny lizard spinning a web of sticky stuff. And once they passed a hole in the ground, two inches across, from which shrill singing of a bird-like quality issued. But there was no sign of intelligent life anywhere.
Back at the ship there was feverish activity. They were dead men, all eight of them. Perhaps in a thousand years a ship might descend again on this planet. It might or might not find the corroded remains of the Carilya. But they were dead to all the rest of humanity. They might as well be dead physically. It was absurd to be mounting blasters to defend the Carilya against the fellows of the assumed Lost Race creature which had smashed the ship’s engines and gone off in a lifeboat. All of them had the look of newly condemned criminals. But each of them differed in his reaction. Danton looked like a madman, with raging eyes. But all worked with desperate haste.
The other searching-party found no sign of intelligent life, either. Toward sunset, two more searching-parties went out.
Danton was in one of them. Jimmy was called on to help the Skipper check over the ship’s manifest for useful articles. With a certain irony he pointed to the notation of a needle-boat carried in the Carilyas hold for the base on Cetis Alpha Two. The Skipper nodded gloomily.
“An explorer,” he said wearily. “The Guard’s trying to find unsmashed traces of the Lost Race. They’re short-handed, because Guard pay is low. So they’re going in for two-man ships. If they don’t go crazy, two men can map a star-cluster as well as a cruiser’s forty. If we had our fuel, we could get back to Earth in that!”
But the fuel was gone. Jimmy and the Skipper went on picking out cases to be opened. They worked until exhaustion stopped them.
Jimmy had just reached his cabin when Howell turned up, smelling of crushed jungle growths. He was deathly pale. He had the rolls of film from the cameras.
“They turned on,” he said harshly, “and I’ve got the film. But you’re not going to look, Jimmy. I look first!”
He threaded the film in the viewer and turned it so that Jimmy could not see. Then there was silence. For fifteen minutes or more he watched, and a deadly fury filled his face. It was a cold and horrible rage. Then he pulled out the film and deliberately touched a light to it. It shriveled, smoked, and fell to ash. Then he sat still, his lips tautened to a thin line.
At long last he stood up. He said tonelessly:
“Danton used the gadget again, to see what he thought his wife was doing. And I’ve just looked into his mind. If you ever get a chance to do that, Jimmy—don’t!” He paused, and added evenly: “Apparently there are two things intelligent people shouldn’t do. They shouldn’t look into the future, and they shouldn’t look into each other’s minds.”
He went out. Jimmy wearily tried not to think of the fact that he would never see Sally again. He was very glad that he’d kept busy so that now he was exhausted. He fell asleep.
When he reported for duty next morning the Skipper seemed strangely abstracted and uneasy. He said shortly: “Howell sprang a queer theory on me just now. How’s his stability? You share a cabin with him. Is he over-imaginative?”
“I don’t think he deludes himself,” said Jimmy tiredly. He’d waked without any feeling of having rested. All night he’d dreamed of Sally. She’d given up hope of ever seeing him again, and she was crying. And he’d been unable to speak to her or comfort her.
“I’m going to send the remaining lifeboat off on an aerial search,” said the Skipper slowly. “Howell suggested it—and he may be right. And we’re going to make a more thorough search in the jungle around here. I’ll leave Danton as sh
ip-guard and the rest of us will hunt the jungle with a fine-tooth comb.”
Jimmy was apathetic. Despair had settled on him. There was no conceivable hope. The Carilya was a wreck, and she could never lift again, and there was no fuel, and none could be improvised, and there were no engines, and there was no faintest chance of any other vessel coming this way, or of landing on this planet if it did, and even then with tens of millions of square miles of surface… .
The rest of the crew members were as numbed as he was. The remaining lifeboat took off and went away across the jungle. There were three men in it. Three more—including Howell and Jimmy—marched away with the Skipper to search in the jungle. Danton stayed behind as ship-guard, with orders to send up sound-bombs in case of any alarm.
But the men on foot did not go far. Once out of sight of the ship, the Skipper halted them.
“I’m taking Howell’s word for something,” he said heavily. “It’s not likely, but I’m clutching at straws. We’re going to get to where we can watch the ship from hiding.”
Howell said briefly:
“I’m sure of part of it. I think the rest, psychologically, is pretty certain.”
He led the way in a long circuit. They came to the back of the hillock which had shielded the amphitheatre and the metal shell from the blasts which had destroyed the city. The life-boat had landed there and the three men were waiting. All seven climbed the hillock’s far side. Presently they could see the Carilya between the canes of the giant grass which covered the hill.
They waited, watching. Around them, the unfamiliar cries of living things filled the air. Wind whispered among the huge grass-blades overhead.
Howell said in a low tone to Jimmy: “Danton used the gadget to see what his wife was doing. He saw his own imaginings only. But he didn’t know it. He thought—still thinks—they were real. So he’s a crazy man. He simply can’t face the prospect of spending a year on the way to Cetis Alpha and back, imagining her acting as he thinks is now proved. He’s got to get back to Earth quick and kill her. For him there’s simply no alternative. Remember .1 said Genghis Khan built a pyramid of skulls? Danton’s got to do that. He’s got to boast. So I think we’ll be called back presently. Also, he’ll have prepared to escape after he kills her, so he can gloat over it afterward.” Howell concluded wrily, “It’s bad business, Jimmy, to coddle oneself by indulging in hate. I’ve done it, and it’s bad!”
There was a stirring. A man pointed, startled.
Down below and far away, a great cargo-panel opened in the Carilya s side. Danton had opened it. Then objects came tumbling out. The cargo unloader was pushing them. The Skipper winced as cases crashed open. Then a long, sharp nose peered out. The needle-ship which was part of the Carilya’s cargo poked out its bow, and then trundled down the slanting cargo-panel to the ground. It was in the open air.
Bewildered babblings up on the hill. Sudden, hopeless hope.
“Stay here!” ordered the Skipper harshly. But he turned a tortured face to Howell. “You’re sure?”
“I’m positive,” said Howell steadily.
Danton appeared, a minute figure. He opened the port of the needle-boat and went in, and came out again and went back to the Carilya. He returned to the needle-boat. After a moment there was the muffled, droning thunder of a bessendium fuel drive in test operation.
Cries broke from the throats of the men on the hill. They would have plunged toward the ship, but the Skipper restrained them. His face was bitter and angry.
“You’re right, Howell!” he snapped. “Now what?”
“The sound-bombs, I think,” said Howell quietly. “He can’t help boasting to us before he leaves. I doubt he intends to kill any of us, though. He’d prefer to leave us alive to hate him. That would be a tribute to his power.”
The droning stopped. Danton moved about. Then there was a small report, and something hurtled skyward and burst with a terrific detonation in mid-air. Two others followed. Sound-bombs. The recall.
The Skipper led the way downhill. But the crewmen could not keep discipline. An oiler ran ahead, babbling. Then there was a stampede. Only the Skipper and Howell and Jimmy descended with any pretense of dignity. When they reached the ship, Danton stood in the port of the needle-boat, snarling triumphantly at his former comrades. -He had a blaster bearing upon them. They pleaded abjectly, hysterically, to be allowed on board.
His face contorted when he saw Howell and Jimmy.
“I wanted to tell you, Howell!” he cried hoarsely. “I’m going back to Earth! I took the fuel and sent off a lifeboat to get my chance. And I’ve got it! That thing you found—it showed me what Jane’s been doing.”
He seemed suddenly to rave, snarling unspeakable things. Howell watched him steadily.
“M land without notice,” raved Danton. “I’ll get to Jane when she doesn’t expect it, and I’ll blast anybody she’s got with her, and then I’ll take her off: I’ll take her off to space in this ship, and I’ll kill her! But not too fast! I’ll keep her strong with stimus so she won’t die, and I’ll kill her slowly, and she’ll take a month to die! And you can picture that while you’re rotting here!”
But Howell shook his head, smiling without mirth.
“Oh, no! The thing I found doesn’t show what’s happening back on Earth! It shows only what’s happening in your own mind, Danton! And I got pictures of that last night, when you went back and looked at your own imaginings for the second time. I got pictures of the needle-boat, too, when you thought you inspected it with that same gadget, and of where you’d hidden the bessendium when you thought you made sure it hadn’t been disturbed. You’re not going to do anything you plan, Danton! You can’t take off: I’ve fixed the controls so you can test-run the engines, but you can’t put on the power! I’ve even got—”
Danton was taken aback for an instant. Then he shrieked with fury. The blaster in his hand came up, aimed at Howell. At that distance it would wipe out the Skipper and Jimmy, too, but—
The Skipper fired first, and Danton seemed to be all flame. And then Howell said mildly:
“You didn’t need to do that, Skipper. I’d switched blasters on him, too. His wouldn’t have fired. But it may be just as well…
The needle-boat took off two days later, duly freighted with adequate photographs of the Lost Race artifact, of the Carilya, of her engine-room, and sworn visirecords of the situation and its origin. The Skipper stayed with his ship, because of course there would be another ship coming now with new engines. Four crew members stayed with him, too, because they had no objection to a vacation with pay—since rescue was sure. Only Howell and Jimmy went back in the needleboat, which meant that they had as much of comfort as anybody can possibly have in space.
In overdrive, headed back, Howell was very quiet. But Jimmy babbled happily. Lifeboat pay is high. On landing, he’d be able to get married and have six months ashore before he needed to ship out again. He was on top of the world, even fight-years above it.
Howell listened patiently enough. But the day before they cut overdrive and saw the stars again, he said:
“I’ve got plans, too, Jimmy. But you ought to know what I learned about the Lost Race. Clearing brush away to take those last pictures, I found a skeleton of one of them. Here’s a picture of it. Take a look!”
Jimmy looked. Mere traces of bones, in a sense, yet fully recognizable. There were rust-streaks, too, of metal objects the member of the Lost Race had had about him when he died.
“Definitely anthropoid,” said Howell drily. “See? But he had a tail. And he was plenty civilized! That’s a belt. You can’t tell much about the skull, because apparently he blew his head off after the city was smashed and he was the only member of his race left. But do you see?”
Jimmy continued to inspect the picture. It was magnificent, of course, to have found not only an artifact but a skeleton of one of the Lost Race. But he was much more concerned about his own romance. Howell looked at him, smiling.
“They
made a wonderful civilization over an area two thousand light-years across. Then they made a gadget that would show, unmistakably, the things one’s brain contains. If they put somebody with well-developed precognition in the seat we saw, they could see the future. They did. What they saw made them smash their civilization and commit suicide. Remember?”
Jimmy said, “Sure, I remember that was your new theory.” “Now I’ve got evidence for it,” said Howell. drily. “I guessed that they found out their atomic power had changed their race so their descendants would be monsters. They killed themselves rather than face it, and smashed their civilization so no later race would suffer the same ghastly fate. Look at this skeleton. What do you see?”
Jimmy blinked.’ So Howell said patiently:
“Remember that mutations, even from radio-activity, are of individual points from mutated individual genes. Now mutate a few familiar features of that skeleton. Make the tail into a coccyx. Shorten the aim-bones and shift the hip-sockets so the creature would walk upright. Those are relatively mild. There must have been others we can’t tell from a skeleton alone. But those would be enough to make a chap like this see descendants so changed as monsters. And he’d rather die, and his whole race preferred to die, rather than live to see their descendants become such ghastly creatures as”—and Howell smiled faintly—“as men!”
The House of Rising Winds - Frank Belknap Long
JIMMY MARLOWE sat on a stump in the wild wood, sobbing and digging his knuckles into his eyes.
The thing that had happened to him was horrible.
He was old enough to realize what murder meant and how close he had come to being the victim of a murderer.
When Jimmy shut his eyes tight he was back in the cellar again. He could smell the dampness and the earth mold, and the vinegar-tartness of the cider vats. He could see the old carpets stacked against the coal bin, tightly rolled and swarming with silverfish. And he could see the dim shadowy trunk, looming out of the darkness overhead, and just the cuffs of his uncle’s trousers.
My Best Science Fiction Story Page 32