Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  Now that he had given voice to the thought he had previously evaded, he felt oddly relieved. A sense of strain was, somehow, gone now. And after all it was surely best to face the darkest side of the situation, rather than cling to false hope. So many of his hopes had already been shattered—when the cable and telephone line had broken during the storm, ending all possibility of communication with the Adventurer, riding the gale fathoms above this Caribbean deep. Each time it had been worse.

  Rescue was impossible, Dawson realized. No divers could reach this depth. Yet it was impossible for him to resign himself to death. More than thirty hours had passed, he guessed. Purposely he had not looked at the chronometer since opening the fifth oxygen tank. It was not pleasant to watch the slow progress of the hour-hand, crawling inexorably toward doom.

  The man took out a cigarette, hesitated, and finally lit it. Why not? He could afford the gesture—there were so few that he could make now. He sat on the floor, his back against the curving wall, staring at the port.

  Outside, through the midnight black of the ocean floor, a spot of dim light swam into view and was gone. Some luminous-organed fish. If all had gone well, he would be cataloguing these denizens of the abyss now, capturing some through the special valves for delivery to the Adventurer. And then, within a few days, the ship would head back to Florida, and he would return to New York where Marian would be waiting—

  Mustn’t think of that. Think of something else—anything else . . .

  The museum expedition. The scientists, with their specially-built bathysphere, and their newly-discovered gas that would preserve safely the undersea life of the lower depths. Always before deep-sea fish would explode when brought to the surface and pressure removed. But this new gas, Dawson remembered, had the property of somehow preserving, of “freezing” tissue.

  It was simple enough. The bait was already in the various valve-compartments. Dawson merely had to open one, let the fish swim in, and close it again, afterward releasing the preservative gas that arrested all decay. His gaze slid toward the rows of dull metal cylinders that held the strange stuff. They would not help him now. Only the tubes of oxygen would prolong his life—for a little while. And then would come death, and he would lie in this ocean tomb. Life above would go on. Marian—

  Forget Marian! The marriage could never take place now. Forget Marian, with her soft, sweet lips, and her curling brown hair, and—and—

  Dawson found that he was shaking. He crushed out the cigarette, trying to battle down the abysmal loneliness that rose within his mind. He went to the port and stared out through the thick, reinforced glass, a tall, lean figure with a brown, thin face that had grown very haggard in the last few hours.

  It was so utterly black out there, so far removed from anything alive.

  The lights flickered. The batteries were low. On an impulse Dawson turned a switch, plunging the bathysphere into darkness. His eyes strained through the sub-sea depths, searching for some hint of illumination. But there was nothing.

  The oxygen was low. Dawson turned on the lights again and twisted a valve, bending to inhale the life-giving gas. He breathed too much, and felt a heady sense of exhilaration . . .

  Intoxication mounted to his brain. What was the good of dragging out the last pitiable minutes of his existence? He wasn’t living down here. He was waiting . . . Dawson, staggering with the effects of oxygen-drunkenness, went to the next cylinder and turned it on. The gas hissed out. He went to the next, and the one after that. Turn them all on! One last gesture . . .

  He did not know that he had released the preservative gas as well. He turned all the release-cocks he saw, toward the end scarcely conscious of what he was doing. But now there was a strange, sweetish odor in his nostrils and he felt weak and giddy. The lights nickered again.

  Marian . . . Mustn’t think of her . . . Better open a port and let the sea rush in . . . Why wait for death? Let it come swiftly . . .

  Dawson reeled across the floor of the bathysphere. His foot caught in a tangle of cordage, and he came down heavily, smashing his forehead against an oxygen tank. The metal floor rose to meet him.

  He lifted a dazed hand, felt the lips of a raw wound cutting his skin to the bone, a gash that ran from brow to temple. Blood was hot on his fingers. He—he—

  The walls of the bathysphere began to spin around slowly, and then increased their velocity till the ports were dark streaks. The light was flickering insanely. The hissing of escaping gas rose to a shrill scream. He was passing out—no, dying.

  And now he could see nothing. The spinning walls merged into a chaos that slowly darkened. He felt that he was sinking into black velvet.

  This was death. And after thirty hours of tortured imprisonment and stark loneliness, it was good to die . . .

  He was not dead. The pain in his eyes told him that. He felt a sharp sense of disorientation, as though his brain moved in his skull. It was the same feeling that had come whenever he had been knocked out. Realization and memory came back.

  He tried to open his eyes, and failed. They were gummed tightly together, and Dawson attempted to lift his hand to them. But a surge of tingling pain rushed through his arm as he moved.

  He relaxed. Why try to awaken? It would be merely postponing the end. Better just to lie here in darkness, until he slipped back into unconsciousness.

  And yet—yet there was something wrong. The light! It filtered between his closed eyelids, and, somehow, had the quality of moonlight. Then he felt very light blows upon his face, and the wetness of spray. It reminded him of rain beating upon him. He smelled the sea, and the tangy fresh air.

  It was incredible, and so, too, was the distant booming and crashing that came to his ears. It sounded like surf breaking upon a beach. But how could all this be happening in a bathysphere under the Caribbean Sea?

  It couldn’t. Dawson moved his arm again, and lifted it, not without pain. His fingers were stiff, but he managed to pry open his eyelids. He was instantly blinded by a glare of intense light, and the lids snapped shut in automatic reaction.

  The thought came to him that he had been rescued. Perhaps he lay in a hospital bed, and a nurse would come hurriedly at his call. He tried to cry out, and a shock of pain paralyzed his dry throat.

  Dawson’s eyes gradually accustomed themselves to the light as he blinked them. Distorted outlines swam into visibility. The glow was coming in through the ports of the bathysphere. It was for the most part in deep shadow, yet Dawson could see that the interior was chaos, with gas-cylinders and equipment tossed about helter-skelter. He tried to rise, but his left arm gave beneath his weight with a sickening lance of pain. It was broken, he realized.

  He went unsteadily to the broken port, through which fresh air was gusting, and stared out. The scene was unfamiliar, and yet comforting. It was raining lightly, and moonlight was coming through dissipating clouds. The bathysphere rested on the sands of a beach.

  Still puzzled, Dawson found a wrench and finished the task of smashing the glass of the port so that he could crawl through the aperture. The substance was unexpectedly friable, for some reason, and it was not long before Dawson emerged. He collapsed on the sand, gasping with exhaustion. He was weaker than he had realized.

  WHAT had happened? On the beach fish were flopping about, and the bulk of a dead octopus lay not far away. Staring around at the silvery-green ocean, Dawson decided that a tidal wave, providential to him, had struck the shore, bearing the bathysphere with it. He turned his head to look at the sphere. Then Dawson went cold with amazement.

  The globe was the same, and yet not the same. From outside the bathysphere was now scarcely recognizable. It looked like a round boulder encrusted with sea-life. Molluscs clung to its sides, which were overgrown with weeds and polyps. And—good God!—coral! Dawson sprang up to examine his find. The coral had actually grown to the hull—and the sea polyp grows only over a long stretch of years, he knew. How long had the bathysphere been under water?

  Dawson
looked around. There was no clue. The beach seemed deserted. But to the left, southward, he saw a faint glow in the night sky. A village, perhaps, or a camp, though it did not look like firelight.

  He’d investigate. There would be food, liquor. Dawson felt the need for brandy. He was very weak. He began to walk southward.

  The breakers boomed monotonously. The wind was warmer now. Dawson’s hopes rose as the glow in the sky grew brighter. He’d have to send telegrams the moment he could. To Marian, first of all. She’d have worried . . .

  The ground rose. Dawson topped a rise and paused, staring down at the little city that lay beneath him. He blinked.

  It was like a Hollywood studio set. The fragile, delicately-tinted buildings were small and delicate, looking as though a wind might blow them over. Yet they had weathered the storm that must have just passed. An incredible toy village!

  There were towers and minarets and swooping ramps and arches, all in those delicate pastel tints, with streets and parks, the whole illuminated with a soft light that seemed to come from the substance of the city itself. And, strangely, the place seemed to be—under glass! No, not glass, but a shimmering, translucent hemisphere that glittered faintly in the moon-glow. The vast dome covered the entire city.

  DAWSON shook off a queer sense of uneasiness. There were movie studios in Florida—and there were always experimental villages being built. A government project, perhaps, though he had not heard of it before. It had unusual lighting facilities—so what?

  He went on, descending into the valley. The sea roared at his left, for the bowl was open in that direction. Hills bounded it on three sides. As he advanced he saw less and less of the city, for he lost his aerial view and saw only tall buildings towering above him. He was staggering with weakness, but kept on doggedly.

  A park ringed the city. It was a blaze of colorful blossoms, though Dawson could not smell the flowers’ perfume. It was curious that they should be blooming at night . . .

  The air flickered before him. Suddenly he was standing before a shimmering, translucent veil in the air. That dome he had seen from above—he was at its edge. But it was not a barrier. Just light. He could step through it easily.

  He made a move forward. Simultaneously there was a shrill, urgent cry, and a form hurled itself at Dawson. Taken off guard, one foot in the air, he fell back heavily, agony lancing through his broken arm. For a second he was blind with the pain.

  Then he looked into the eyes of a girl, small and slim and lovely, with crisp golden hair curling about her face in an odd coiffeur. The cornflower-blue eyes were wide with fright.

  “What the devil’s the idea?” Dawson snapped.

  “Are you a madman?” the girl whispered. “Do you—” She cast a glance at the shimmering wall of light and looked back at Dawson with a little gasp.

  Her voice held shocked disbelief.

  “You were going to touch—the Barrier!”

  CHAPTER II

  Shadow Over Utopia

  UTTERLY amazed, Dawson remained flat on his back, looking up at the girl. Now he realized that there had been something strange about her words, a slurring of consonants and a prolongation of vowels that gave them a curious accent. Gutturals were softened, breathed out instead of being formed deep in the throat. And her clothes—She was dressed in an almost skin-tight, elastic fabric of pale-blue material, covering her to wrists and ankles. On her feet were glass slippers. Perfectly transparent, they were flexible, and bent as the girl moved and rose from the ground.

  Dawson also got up.

  “What’s the gag?” he asked quietly.

  She frowned at him, puzzled.

  “I do not understand—gag?” She made the gutturals sound like vowels. “Wait. The Barrier will pass in a sec.”

  Dawson followed her gaze. A shimmer of brighter opalescence rippled across the strange veil. And suddenly, the Barrier was gone. It vanished without trace.

  “What was that?” Dawson asked. “And just where am I, lady?”

  The cornflower-blue eyes examined him. “The Barrier? It—it—why, you must know that! Everyone knows about the Barriers!” The girl’s soft lips parted in surprise, showing small, perfect teeth.

  “Yeah? Well, I don’t. I’m a stranger here—”

  “We make the Barrier whenever storms come,” she explained. “It keeps the oorican from Dasonee—from hurting the city. And when the wind dies, we turn off the power, of course.”

  “Oorican?”

  She made a wide gesture seaward.

  “The big winds—the rain—”

  “Oh. Hurricane. And this city’s named Dasonee? I never heard of it.”

  The girl smiled.

  “No. It isn’t large. You must be from the great cities—or even from Europe. Those are strange clothes you wear.” She touched Dawson’s sleeve, and he flinched with pain. “Oh—your arm! It’s hurt.”

  “Broken, I think. Listen, lady, is there a doctor in this burg?”

  “Doctor . . . doctor? The medics will mend your arm for you. Come!” She led him forward into the park. “I am Bethya—Bethya Dorn.”

  “Let’s get a taxi, Miss Dorn,” Dawson said.

  She paused and turned, confronting him.

  “Wait. Miss Dorn—and a while ago you called me lady. Why do you use those archaic terms? I don’t understand . . .” She shrugged small shoulders. “I’ll get you a car. I cannot go with you. I must tell Fered about the strange metal globe I saw on the beach.”

  “That’s a bathysphere,” Dawson said. “Even if it doesn’t look like it. I just crawled out of the thing.”

  BETHYA Dorn’s face went white. She looked at the man as though she had never seen him before.

  “You—but it must be centuries old!”

  “It looks like it, sure. But it was built just last year.”

  “When? What date?”

  “April—”

  “The year!”

  “Nineteen-forty.”

  Bethya’s reaction was astonishing. She glanced around hurriedly, almost furtively. No movement stirred in the glowing flower-gardens of the park.

  “Who are you?” she said.

  “Stephen Dawson. I—”

  “S’ephen Dawson . . . Come with me. Hurry!”

  She began to pull the man forward. He resisted for a moment, a queer presentiment growing in his mind. Why had the girl asked him the year?

  “Come! I must take you to Fered!”

  “What year is this?” Dawson ventured. Bethya hesitated, bit her lip, and finally answered, not without reluctance.

  “The twenty-sixth century. Twenty-five thirty-three.”

  Dawson stood motionless. It was true, then. He had not previously allowed himself even to guess at the incredible thing that might have happened. His strange awakening—the coral growth on the bathysphere—this amazing city—

  “I—I need a drink,” he said hoarsely. “I won’t let myself believe—”

  “Come! Fered will know—he’ll help you. I do not understand how—but he will know. Your arm needs attention, too.”

  Dazedly Dawson let Bethya pull him through the park. They came out at the edge of a deserted road, paved with a shining white substance, that wound among the underbrush. Parked before them was the twenty-sixth century substitute for an automobile—it looked like an oval cup of gleaming plastic, not more than a dozen feet long, supported by three wheels.

  The cushioned seats were arranged familiarly enough, but a single handle, ending in a small ball, comprised all the instruments. The edge of the car was so low that Dawson stepped over it easily at Bethya’s hurried gesture.

  She slipped in beside him. “Don’t try to talk. Just relax, S’ephen Dawson.”

  “Yeah . . . yeah.” He obeyed, feeling the padded seat give beneath his weight. He leaned back, staring up. The same sky . . . Had the constellations changed in six hundred years? Not much, he thought. It was incredible. Well, he would soon know. He could see the city of Dasonee as they d
rove through it.

  But a plastic shell slid up and formed walls and roof about them, leaving only a small horizontal slit through which the girl peered.

  DAWSON could see little. The vehicle turned, and there were flashing glimpses of other conveyances drifting along like clouds. He rested, closing his eyes. The sense of movement reminded him of days long past, when he and Marian had driven together through the Berkshire hills . . .

  Marian—dead six hundred years! Gone back to dust, resting in a grave he could never know now, never find. A sickening pang of loneliness shot through Dawson. The faint pastel glow that came through the window-slit, the silence of this alien city, were suddenly horrible to him. Never again to see the sun sinking behind the towers of New York, to hear the deafening roar of the subway and the rush of wind as trains passed . . .

  Marian—dust! All that had bound him to life, all his friends, his cities, his world, dissolved into gray dust. There was emptiness within Dawson’s chest. He did not want to open his eyes.

  The car stopped. Bethya hustled him out so quickly he had time for only a brief glance at a broad, winding street, lined with gardens and houses that there were symphonies in flowing curves and luminous, pastel tints. The vague light seemed to shimmer up from the paving itself. Dawson’s head was throbbing. He was feverish. His arm ached.

  “Come, Dawson. Fered will be back soon. He’ll help you.”

  The door had slid up and vanished noiselessly as they reached it. Dawson had a brief impression of an oddly-furnished, large room. Bethya helped him to a seat, where he relaxed. Hurriedly she went to a table, returning with what resembled a small metal egg.

  She held this under Dawson’s nose and broke it. A cloying, sweet perfume rushed into his nostrils. Unconsciousness took him instantly.

  HE awoke, conscious instantly of a warm, pleasant lassitude. The dull, oppressive headache, and the pain, were gone. It was the relaxation that comes after a hot shower and a sound night’s sleep. He lay quietly, remembering.