Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  And Clarissa had been changing rather alarmingly when he saw her last. The fever had seemed to speed things up.

  Well, suppose it were all true. Suppose she belonged to the superrace. Suppose she impinged upon Lessing’s world with only one facet of her four-dimensional self. With that one facet she had loved him—they had that much of a meeting ground. Let her have a deeper self, then, than he could ever comprehend; still she could not yet be fully developed into her world of solid geometry, and while one facet remained restricted into the planar world which was all he knew, she might, he thought, still love him. He hoped she could. He remembered her tears. He heard again the sweet, shy, ardent voice saying, “I’ll always love you—”

  Firmly he pressed the bell.

  The room was changed. Mirrors still lined it, but not—not as he remembered. They were more than mirrors now. He had no time to analyze the change, for a motion stirred before him.

  “Clarissa—” he said. And then, in the one brief instant of awareness that remained to him, he knew at last how wrong he had been.

  He had forgotten that four dimensions are not the outermost limits of conceivable scope. Cabell had unwittingly led him astray: there are dimensions in which a cube may have many more than six sides. Clarissa’s dimension—

  Extensions are possible in dimensions not entirely connected with space—or rather, space is merely a medium through which these extensions may be made. And because humans live upon a three-dimensional planet, and because all planets in this continuum are three-dimensional, no psychic tesseract is possible—except by extensions.

  That is, a collection of chromosomes and genes, arranged on earth and here conceived, cannot in themselves form the matrix for a superman. Nor can a battery give more than its destined voltage. But if there are three, six, a dozen batteries of similar size, and if they are connected in series—

  Until they are connected, until the linkage is complete, each is an individual. Each has its limitations. There are gropings, guided fumblings through the dark, while those in charge seek to help the scattered organism in fulfilling itself. And therefore the human mind can comprehend the existence of a superbeing up to the point that the connection is made and the batteries become one unit, of enormous potential power.

  On earth there was Clarissa and her nominal aunt—who could not be comprehended at all.

  On a remote planet in Cygnae Taurus, there was a Clarissa too, but her name there was something like Ezandora, and her mentor was a remote and cryptic being who was accepted by the populace as a godling.

  On Seven Million Four Twenty Eight of Center Galaxy there was Jandav, who carried with her a small crystal through which her guidance came.

  In atmospheres of oxygen and halogen, in lands ringed with the shaking blaze of crusted stars beyond the power of our telescopes—beneath water, and in places of cold and darkness and void, the matrix repeated itself, and by the psychic and utterly unimaginable power and science of homo superior, the biological cycle of a race more than human ran and completed itself and began again. Not entirely spontaneously, at the same time, in many worlds, the pattern that was Clarissa was conceived and grew. The batteries strengthened.

  Or to use Cabell’s allegory, the Clarissa Pattern impinged one facet upon earth, but it was not one facet out of a possible six—but one out of a possible infinity of facets. Upon each face of that unimaginable geometric shape, a form of Clarissa moved and had independent being, and gradually developed. Learned and was taught. Reached out toward the center of the geometric shape that was—or one day would be—the complete Clarissa. One day, when the last mirror-facet sent inward to the center its matured reflection of the whole, when the many Clarissas, so to speak, clasped hands with themselves and fused into perfection.

  Thus far we can follow. But not after the separate units become the complete and tremendous being toward which the immaturity of Garissa on so many worlds was growing. After that, the destiny of homo superior has no common touching point with the understanding of homo sapiens. We knew them as children. And they passed. They put away childish things.

  “Clarissa—” he said.

  Then he paused, standing motionless in silence, looking across that dark threshold into that mirrory dimness, seeing—what he saw. It was dark on, the landing. The staircases went up and down, shadowy and still. There was stasis here, and no movement anywhere in the quiet air. This was power beyond the need for expression of power.

  He turned and went slowly down the stairs. The fear and pain and gnawing uneasiness that had troubled him for so long were gone now. Outside, on the curb, he lit a cigarette, hailed a taxi, and considered his next movements.

  A cab swung in. Further along the street, the liquid, shining blackness of the East River glissaded smoothly down to the Sound. The rumble of an El train came from the other direction.

  “Where to, sergeant?” the driver asked.

  “Downtown,” Lessing said. “Where’s a good floorshow?” He relaxed pleasantly on the cushions, his mind quite free from strain or worry now.

  This time the memory block was complete. He would go on living out his cycle, complacent and Happy as any human ever is, enjoying life to his capacity for enjoyment, using the toys of earth with profound satisfaction.

  “Nightclub?” the driver said. “The new Cabana’s good—”

  Lessing nodded. “O.K. The Cabana.” He leaned back, luxuriously inhaling smoke. It was the children’s hour.

  THE END.

  THE BLACK SUN RISES

  “We have slowly begun to realize that this is the end of a day—and there will be years, perhaps, of darkness before another morning.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Viking of the Lakes

  LAUGHTER shook Garson’s deep chest and made firelight run redly on his black beard. Head thrown back, strong teeth bared, he looked like the primitive tyrant he was—Firstman Bob Garson, unquestioned ruler of the Lake Country. And through the window behind him I could see the lights of the Viking fleet on Michigan, glittering pale stars that should have been blood-scarlet, for the lives that mighty armada had spilled since Firstman Garson rose to power.

  Against my doeskin tunic a small knife swung; the misericordia all freemen carried. I took it from its sheath and, with a quick snap of my wrist, flung it into the desk where Garson sat.

  He sobered. His eyes, and mine, watched the knife as it sang, quivered, and finally stood at rest.

  Then he looked up, his brown eyes masked and unreadable.

  “Meaning what, Dale?”

  I said viciously, “I’m through. This is my resignation, Firstman. You gave me that knife ten years ago—”

  He touched a scar on his bearded cheek. “I remember. The cold winter of nineteen-eighty. I’d have died then if you hadn’t put your blade into that Kodiak bear. And so I gave you the knife.”

  His eyes were warm, remembering.

  “It meant something once,” I said to him. “Friendship. And a man I thought I could trust and believe in. The Firstman of the Great Lakes! A damned—murderer!”

  Briefly Gar son’s eyes filmed with a cold, deadly glaze I knew well. His left arm came into view; it ended at the wrist, and a steel hook took the place of his hand. He tapped his hook against the misericordia, while a brown flush crept up his neck and as slowly receded.

  “A man forges with fire and iron,” he said steadily, “Not with talk, Dale Heath. I’ve trusted you, too, because I thought you understood my plans.”

  “Conquest and pillage—fire and iron. Yes, I understand, now. If we go southward now, into the Indiana country and the Lesser Lakes, I’ll know. They’re peaceful folk down there, agriculturalists and scientists, of a sort—they’re working for civilization and rebuilding more than we are. Bob, if you go through with this, you’ll do it without me!”

  He thrust out his good hand and caught my arm in a grip like a python’s, He dragged me toward him, so that I sprawled half across the desk, my eyes glaring angrily into h
is own. His breath was hot on my cheek.

  I said, “Okay, rip out my throat with your hook. A good way to settle arguments.”

  “No. No. You try my patience sometimes, but I know you’re the only friend I have.”

  “Good reason. You’re the best hated man in the country.”

  “And the strongest,” he said somberly, releasing me. “I don’t think you can ever understand. Rebuilding the world—you can’t do that with a soft hand. I’ve been rough, sure, and in twenty years I’ve drawn together an empire. It won’t fall apart now—if I have to kill you and all the southerners to boot!”

  “You’ll rule a world of corpses,” I snarled.

  He pointed up to the great, vivid tapestry, bright with purple and green and gold, hiding the walls of the room.

  “There’s the past. Read it. What do you see there?”

  It was dear to read. Even a man from another planet could have gathered the import of those scene. The world in the 1940’s, growing, building, reaching out toward ultimate civilisation. Then great cannon bellowing smoke and flame, juggernauts of the skies blasting cities into ruin—war, a war of attrition that had persisted for decades. The earth had not realized that social cancers cannot be nursed back to health, that surgery was the only answer. So sentimentalism bud triumphed—and, after a while, after a troubled period of false peace, Armageddon had come. This time it was a battle to the death.

  More than thirty years of it. Across that monstrous tapestry the tale wound its grim course: new weapons that unleashed the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and drenched a planet it! blood. Then—Darkness.

  From Japan to the British Islet.

  New York to California, almost from pole to pole, there was peace—a dying man might be peaceful. Ruins . . .

  New York City was a seething volcano of radioactive poison. London and Moscow were volcanoes. And there were others.

  The years of darkness had come.

  But at the end of the tapestry was the symbol of Firstman Bob Garson: a black sun rising in a golden sky. A sun that might have been made of black, cold iron. For Garson had gathered the reins of empire into his single hand and fought his way to leadership of the lakes, built himself a city north of the holocaust that had been Milwaukee—and ruled.

  TEN years I had been with him, his lieutenant. I had watched him, helped him grind his juggernaut along the road to civilization. It hadn’t been easy. We fought with nature as well as man. From the Canadian fastness came wolf-packs and the gigantic Kodiak bears. Cats gone wild, small treacherous demons with razor claws, made the woods perilous. And we had few weapons.

  Carson drove his men mercilessly. Pirate though he was, be knew the values of science, and, if the rest of his people starved, his technicians would be well fed in their warm laboratories. To rebuild, science was needed. But too often Garson demanded weapons.

  The City—it had no other name—w as for him the seed from which mankind would rise again. Other tribes and nations must eventually lend their aid, or be crushed. Meantime—he must be strong.

  Then, some day, the Black Sun would rise indeed, Garson’s golden banner floating over all the world, a world where tall cities towered once more, and there would be peace. But the peace must be won.

  So the Viking fleets went forth! Like winds of flame we raged through the Lake Country, bringing tribute back to the City. Our swords flashed; our guns thundered. And on the western shore the scientists toiled—and other nations watched us, and feared.

  One unit, homogeneous and able to protect itself—that was Carson’s aim; after that, absorption and amalgamation. But for a long time I had wondered whether this was the way.

  Now he thrust out his heavy boots toward the fire and watched me side-wise beneath his shaggy brows.

  “We’ve got to have food, or we’ll starve this winter. There’s food In Indiana.”

  “Why don’t we practice agriculture?”

  “We do.”

  “Damned little,” I said. “You can’t spare the men.

  He glowered at me. “We need men for other purposes—in the shops, in the laboratories, for special training, and to fight. Even the hydroponic gardens aren’t enough this year. I’m not going to have another bad winter because of your soft-heartedness, you damned fool. We’re working for mankind; they should be glad to feed us.”

  “Not when we take their crops with a gun at their heads.”

  “We’ve tried arbitration. They want too much. Products from our laboratories—weapons! We have a chance to rebuild civilization because we’re strong. Let another tribe get on equal footing with us and there’ll be war.”

  “There’s war now.”

  “No,” he said with a flash of wry humor, “our enemies haven’t the weapons for that. Later, when we’re self-supporting, we’ll leave them alone—till we’re ready to invite them to join us. But the ruling nation must have no schisms. There’ll be amalgamation till that nation is the world. It won’t come in my time. I know that. Yet—the Black Sun banner will float over the Earth some day, Dale.”

  It was the wrong way. I knew that; I knew, now, that there could never be peace as long as Garson had his way. He was honest; he thought he was right. That was the tragedy of it—I could never convince him.

  I said—and my voice must have betrayed my desperation—“Let me mediate, Bob! Let me try to find some other course!”

  He swung around, staring, “Snap out of it, Dale!” he said. The brown, hairy hand closed on my dagger; he sprang tip and, leaning across the desk, slipped it back into the scabbard. “The fleet sails as soon as it’s ready; we’re delaying in hopes Wellingham gets his ray finished in time. You’re in command—”

  “No.”

  Again his heavy face flushed. I thought he would slip out the dagger and use it on me. I didn’t move. I saw Carson’s gaze go past me, and, with an effort, he relaxed and dropped back into the chair.

  “Well, Horsten?” he said. “I’m busy.”

  “I’m leasing,” I flung at him, and, turning, met the calculating, pale eyes of John Horsten, the geopolitician. He was a dwarfed, large-headed man with thick lips, and his brows were ah ways lifted as though in skeptical astonishment. I made no attempt to conceal my dislike of the warped, vicious little creature; I never had, since the day I’d caught him practicing torture on a prisoner, and had slashed him with his own whip. But he was capable, and his knowledge was valuable to Carson.

  I went out without looking back and stood in the antechamber, by the window, glowering down at the ships. A full moon had risen, picking out the tall towers of masts as they swayed gently with the tide. A fresh wind blew in from Lake Michigan, heralding winter. A cold winter, with little food in the storage chambers. Short rations, unless our Viking fleet struck at the peaceable southerners.

  After a while Horsten came out and offered me a cigarette. I shook my head. He lit one of the perfumed green cylinders, watching me under his pale lashes.

  “There’s nothing amiss, I hope, Ser Heath.”

  “Why should there be?” I snapped. He dry-washed his hands. “The Firstman is—eh—upset. The raid on Indiana—it is about that?”

  “Maybe.”

  Horsten chuckled drily. “If Wellingham’s ray is finished—”

  The anger in me flashed up. I whirled on Horsten, white to the lips. “You’d like that,” I said. “A heat-ray—men burning and screaming and dying slowly as you watched! Torture’s one of your specialties’, isn’t it?”

  “Ser Heath! Have. I offended you?” I looked at him in silence, and he wriggled uncomfortably. “The heat-ray can destroy in an instant, if it’s turned to full power. But—for the psychological effect—a slow, painful death might prove salutary at times. Don’t you agree?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and left him. As I went down the ramp into the open air I discovered that the misericordia was in my hand, and that, gripping it, I had drawn blood from my palm. It didn’t matter. I wrapped a pocket cloth about it and went on. />
  Warm golden light spilled from the window far above me, fading into darkness toward the beach. Searchlights shot spears of white upward from the plaza, on my left, trained on the great flagpole that held the banner of Firstman Bob Garson. Here in the Lake Country, amid the ruins of a desolated world, the first stirrings of civilization were alive.

  But too fast—and growing warped! The Black Sun was rising, but when it reached its noonday the fury of the gods would be unleashed on an Earth already too long racked with anguish.

  And yet—this was the birthplace of new civilization. Here was the man I had known and trusted, the man at whose side I had fought so often, the man who was more than brother to me . . .

  I thought, And I must betray him!

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lilith

  FROM the Pavilion came the murmur of low music and the flicker of lanterns. The swaying figures of dancers made silhouettes there. It was, I remembered, the birthday of Joanna, Firstman Carson’s wife, and both Bob and I should have been at that celebration. But our work came first.

  As I circled the Pavilion I glimpsed Joanna, tall, lovely, ash-blonde, surrounded by a dozen Viking officers in their light dress-armor and golden cloaks, emblazoned with the Black Sun. Joanna’s headdress, too, bore the same insigne: a jet-black pearl set in gold. Her tinkling laughter sounded in the cool wind from the lake.

  I went on toward Wellingham’s laboratory. Under my tunic I wore the usual bullet-proof shirt, and the sword at iffy side was heavier than the one I generally wore in the city. From a pocket I drew a knuckle-gun and made sure it was charged: a dangerous weapon, this, made both for striking and shooting.

  The portico of Wellingham’s blocklike house loomed ahead. I mounted the terrace and touched the bell. A drop of sweat, ice cold, trickled down my side. For I knew I must get the secret of the new ray from Wellingham, and make sure that he would never duplicate his experiment. Till now I had not let myself think of this. To murder the harmless, gentle old man—!