There was no answer but he felt suddenly very light, almost completely weightless. He took the orange-sized sphere of neutronium out of his pocket and put it down. Then as he stood up, his weight returned to Earth-normal.
“Damn clever,” Crag said. “Do you do that without machinery?”
“I never heard of machinery, Crag, until I learned about it from your mind and memory while you were asleep. From your mind I learned—”
“Damn you,” said Crag viciously. “Get out of my mind.”
There was abrupt silence, a sense of withdrawal. And, after a moment, the voice spoke again, but this time Crag heard it as a sound, not thought; a vibratory manipulation of the air inside his helmet. “I am sorry,” it said. “I should have realized that you would resent my sharing your thoughts. But without reading your thoughts, when I first returned you to life and while you slept, I could not be communicating with you now. I shall not enter your mind again.”
Crag frowned. “Why didn’t you leave me dead? What do you want of me?”
“I did not know then; it was only curiosity, the wish to find out about you and your race, that caused me to do what I did. Now, it is more. I would like your companionship—a concept which I did not know existed. I learned a word from your mind, the word friend.”
“A word I thought I had forgotten,” Crag said. “I want no friends. Let me alone.”
“If you wish again to die—?”
Crag laughed. “Twice in one day? No, thank you. But how am I going to get back to Mars? You got me into this, damn you, by bringing me back to life. Now get me to Mars. Or get that spaceship back and I’ll get there myself.”
“I was afraid that would be your decision,” said the voice. “The spaceship is already back, is orbiting about me right now. Shall I bring it down?”
“Yes,” Crag said.
It bumped gently to the ground beside him and he stepped into the still open door, slammed it shut after him. He turned on the airmaker and, while giving it a chance to build up atmosphere so he could take off his space suit, sat down at the controls and started making the observations that would enable him to set a course back toward Mars. Without too much surprise he saw from the reflector for the down view port that the asteroid—or whatever it had been—was gone; he floated free in space.
Half an hour later, on course and with nothing to do until, two days later, he’d be nearing Mars, he relaxed and found himself wondering: Was he really sorry he’d been brought back to life? In a way, yes; he’d died once and that ought to be enough for any man, and dead men have no problems. On the other hand, he had half a million dollars, part of it on him in cash and the rest in banks back in Mars City, and it seemed a shame to die and leave it unspent. It was more money by far than he’d ever had at one time before; it would last him for years no matter how prodigally he spent it.
And why miss those years? Wasn’t money what he wanted?
Or was it? He remembered those few minutes when he and Judeth had been alone, after Olliver’s death and before hers—and then, with an oath, thrust the thought from his mind. He’d let himself get soft in those few minutes, but he didn’t have to let himself stay that way.
“Good-by, Crag,” said a voice in his ear, startling him.
He looked in all the viewports, saw nothing. “Where are you?” he asked.
“Where you left me. But in a few minutes you’ll be out of my extreme range for doing this, so I thought I would tell you now what I have decided.”
Crag said, “I don’t care what you’ve decided. Let me alone; that’s all I ask of you.”
“I shall, but I want you to know my plans. I am going to make a world.”
“All right, go ahead.”
“Thank you.” Crag thought the voice sounded amused. “I will. And you’ll know about it when it happens. I think possibly you may decide to come to me. I’ll wait and see.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Crag said. “All right, good-by.” And then: “Wait, if you’re still there. What the hell do you mean, you’re going to make a world? You can’t create matter, can you?”
“No need to. The matter is here—the millions of small and large asteroids in this belt between Mars and Jupiter. It was a planet once, a few million years ago, before it broke up. Some chunks of it have been lost, but there’s still enough rock here to make a planet almost the size of Mars.
“All I have to do, Crag, is use myself as a nucleus for it and gather it together. And it will be a new world and a raw one; it’ll need tough colonists. Crag, I hope you’ll decide to gather some people like yourself, ones who are tough and not soft and weak like the others, to come to me. I want men who, like you, would not take orders even if I should give them. I do not want to be a god, Crag, even though I have some powers beyond mankind’s; I would not let my new world be colonized by people who might even be tempted to obey me.”
“Most people will—if you reward them. How are you going to keep them away?”
There was a sound that might have been laughter. “I’ll take care of that, Crag. Whenever you’re ready, come. And if you know any others besides yourself who are like you, bring them. I’ll make them welcome.”
Crag laughed. “I’ll think it over—after I’ve spent that half million.”
“That is all I ask. Good-by, Crag.”
And suddenly there was a sense of emptiness in the spaceship and Crag knew that whatever projection of force and thought had been there was gone.
He was alone; suddenly it was a strange feeling, and it was strange that it should be strange for, in all the years he had been a criminal, he had been alone and had wanted to be alone. Was it because for those few minutes after Olliver’s death and before Judeth’s he had forgotten to hate her because they were both dying so hatred no longer helped or even mattered? Or was it because it was lonelier to have died and been brought back to life? Or was it because an alien mind had probed and shared his mind and now—knew him.
Another man, a character in mythology, had once died and been brought back to life, and had life ever again been the same for him? Damn him, he thought of the alien, the sentient rock; why didn’t he leave me alone? Isn’t it enough for a man to die once?
The two days it took him to get back to Mars seemed an interminable length of time. But he had to curb his impatience for at least a week longer than that if he wanted to be safe. It would have been very unwise to have landed Olliver’s ship at Marsport or any other spaceport. The ship’s papers, which would be checked, showed its last clearance had been from Mars City’s Marsport with three abroad; it would have been impossible for him to have told any story to account for their disappearance that would not have led to an investigation, and an uncomfortable degree of official interest would have focused on Crag. Far better for the ship itself and all three of its occupants to be presumed never to have returned from space.
He landed the ship and lowered it to the horizontal position in the shadow of a high sand dune in the New Lybian desert; it might have been undiscovered there for years. But he took no chances; he walked—it took him four days—to the nearest town, a small mining community. There, claiming to be a prospector, he rented a sand-cat with a bulldozer attachment. It took him less than a day to drive back to the spaceship with it and another day to shift enough of the dune to cover the ship with sand. Another day to return to the mining town, return the sand-cat, and buy air passage to Mars City.
He was safe now. With his fingerprints and records destroyed, there was nothing left to connect him with the Crag who would be presumed dead along with Olliver and Judeth when, within another week, their spaceship would be reported missing and presumably lost, since a ship of its class carried supplies for two weeks at maximum loading—and that much only when there were two people aboard instead of three.
It was evening when he reached Mars City but all the shops were open, as were all the bars and everything else, twenty-four hours a day, so he was able to buy himself a complete new
wardrobe and swanky luggage to put it in. He hadn’t bothered to take his old luggage out of the spaceship; it wouldn’t have fitted his new-found status of wealthy man.
Oddly, he was no longer in a hurry to begin his debauch. He was tired, for one thing; after his herculean labor in burying the spaceship, he needed a long sleep worse than he needed a drink. But he was in no hurry, even for that.
He asked the clerk from whom he had made his purchases, “What’s the top luxury hotel now? Is it still the Luxor?”
“It’s still the best one, I hear. There are a few newer ones in the last year, but none of them quite so expensive.”
“Will you have the clothes packed in the luggage and sent there, right away?”
“Of course, Sir. But unless you have a reservation—?”
“Have them sent there,” Crag said.
He went out of the shop. It was late evening by now, but the streets were as crowded as at noon. Mostly with expensively dressed men and women—and with people who didn’t quite fit either category. Crag was expensively dressed himself now, in clothes he had changed into after he had bought them, although his costume was somber and modest compared to most of the others.
The Luxor was ten blocks away; the walk, he thought, might cure him of his restlessness and make him sleepy. But walking bored him; halfway there he decided to take a cab the rest of the way and then decided to stop in at a bar before he took the cab.
He put a bill on the bar and decided to start with a highball, an old-fashioned alcoholic drink that antedated by centuries the newer and more potent drug-based liquors. He sipped it slowly and wondered why he didn’t feel exhilarated. He had what he’d always wanted—money, half a million dollars of it. And perfect safety; not only wasn’t he wanted but his records and fingerprints had been expunged from criminal files everywhere.
He was simply tired, he thought. He’d feel better tomorrow.
And stared at himself in the backbar mirror; strange—or was it?—for how many centuries bars had had mirrors behind them so their patrons could stare at their own reflections—and reflect.
Crag stared at his own reflection, and reflected. I am Crag, he thought. But who was Crag, now? Crag had been someone, as a criminal. But now he was a rich man, one of millions of rich men, with no need to steal or kill, or to run or to hide. His only need was to enjoy himself, and he was making a bad start of it; the highball didn’t taste right.
He puffed a cigarette into flame and inhaled deeply.
Someone was sitting beside him at the bar, a girl. She said. “May I have—?” and Crag handed her a cigarette. He didn’t turn to face her, but in the mirror he could see that she had bronze hair the color of Judeth’s and of his ex-wife’s. But there was no further resemblance to either of them.
“Thanks, Mister,” she said. “Would you buy me a drink, huh?”
He pushed a ten-dollar bill in front of her, from his change. “Buy one and keep the change. But please let me alone and don’t talk.”
It was cheap at the price. There were other prostitutes in the bar, a dozen or so of them, of both sexes. As long as she sat there, he’d be left alone; if she went away another would try, and another, and his thoughts would be interrupted each time. His thoughts? What had he been thinking about, anyway? Nothing.
He needed sleep; that was all that was wrong with him.
He looked down into his drink between sips because now if he looked into the mirror he’d see the girl sitting beside him, and the color of her hair would make him think about Judeth. But why shouldn’t he think about Judeth if he wanted to? She was dead now, and he didn’t need to be afraid of her any more. Afraid? How had that word come into his mind? He wasn’t afraid of anything. What he had meant in his thoughts was that now he didn’t need to hate her any longer.
Inadvertently he looked up and his eyes caught those of the girl, in the mirror. She said, “ ’Scuse me for talking once, Mister. But you look lonesome. Aren’t you? Or are you just mad at someone?”
Instead of answering Crag downed the rest of his drink and left. Outside, he started to hail a cab and then changed his mind and walked the rest of the way to the Luxor Hotel.
It was small compared to the buildings around it, only six stories high, but it was set back in the middle of a full city block of garden—all Earth trees, flowers and grass growing in soil brought from Earth, not the dull scrubby vegetation on Mars.
He walked back to it, and into the gilded and silvered lobby, across it to the polished marble desk.
“Got a suite open?” he asked. Nothing less than suites were available at the Luxor.
The desk clerk stared at him disdainfully through pince-nez glasses on a gray silk ribbon. His head was the shape of an egg, and as bald. “You have a reservation, Mr. —ah?”
“You have the name right,” Crag said. “Mr. Ah. No, I haven’t any reservation.”
“Then there is nothing—”
“I’m a friend of the manager’s,” Crag said. “If you take my card in I’m sure something can be arranged.” Crag put a hundred-dollar bill on the counter.
A corner of the man’s mouth twitched, and his eyes warmed somewhat behind the pince-nez glasses; they became no colder than hailstones. He said, “I am the manager, Mr. Ah. My name is Carleton. But I could have erred; I’ll check the register.” He didn’t touch the bill, but he brought up a crocodile-bound ledger from under the desk and covered the bill with it while he thumbed through pages.
After a moment he said, “Yes, there is a suite open, sir. Number Fourteen.”
“Is it your best suite?”
“One of our best. Two hundred and thirty dollars a day.”
“I’ll take it,” Crag said. He peeled bills off his roll and put them on the desk atop the open ledger. “You register for me, please. My luggage is being sent here but won’t arrive until tomorrow. You can have it sent up when it arrives.”
“Certainly, Mr. Ah.” The manager touched a button and a bellboy sprang up as though by magic. “Suite Fourteen,” he said, handing the boy a key.
In the thirty- by forty-foot beautifully furnished living room of the suite, Crag tipped the bellboy and assured him that he wanted nothing at the moment. He stood looking about him. Doors indicated that he had at least five other rooms at his disposal but before entering any of them he walked out on the balcony and stood a moment in the cool Martian night air looking out over the fabulously lighted streets and buildings that surrounded him. Quite a bit different from the spacemen’s quarter, north of the city proper. But he was much safer here; in the luxury places like this one, no one who spent money freely was ever asked questions and it was almost impossible to get into trouble that you couldn’t buy your way out of. If you threw money around they figured you were an important politician or a labor leader and expected you to be incognito as a matter of course.
He went back inside and tried a door. It led to a small but well-stocked bar. He studied the array of bottles and finally poured himself a small drink of woji; it would be more likely than any of the others to make him sleepy, and sleep was what he needed. It might even make him more cheerful. But its immediate effect seemed to be neither and it tasted bitter.
He went out into the main room and tried another door. It led to a library that was well stocked with books, records and tapes. He glanced over the books on the shelves, noticing that except for a few standard reference works that a traveler might want to refer to they were all pornographic; that meant that the tapes and records would be pornographic too. He didn’t try any of them.
A double door in front of a pneumatic divan turned out to open on a video screen eight feet wide and six feet high. Crag turned on the switch and sat down on the divan. Bright colors flashed on the screen and settled into a picture, a musical show originating in London on Earth. Before a three-dimensional chorus undulating in full color a pale and slender tenor was singing:
Jet up! Jet down! On a slow ship to Venus!
Honey-wunny-
bunny, how’d you like my…
Crag got up and turned off the switch. He went back and had another drink at the bar. This time he tried estaquil, one of the strongest of the hemp-derived drinks, supposed to be soothing and soporific. It tasted sickeningly sweet and seemed to have no effect on him otherwise.
He tried another door. It led to a room well supplied with gambling equipment of all kinds, one wall lined solid with solitaire gambling machines. Crag knew that all the machines would be rigged with high percentages against him and didn’t bother trying them. Besides, what would be the fun in gambling when he already had more money than he knew what to do with. But one of the solitaire machines was an antique fifty-cent-piece one-arm bandit and Crag, for the hell of it and knowing that it would probably be set to pay off the first time, found a half dollar in his pocket, dropped it in and pulled the lever. The cylinders spun, one by one came to rest; a cherry, a cherry, an orange. Four half dollars clinked into the pay-off receptacle. Crag wandered on without bothering to take them out. He wandered back to the main salon and opened another door.
It led to the master bedroom, which was even larger than the living room or salon, whichever it was. It was much more richly furnished. Especially more richly furnished was the eight-foot-wide ebony bed; a blonde, a brunette and a redhead, all naked, lay upon it. For a second Crag thought that the redhead looked a little like Judeth, but she didn’t.
She was the one, though, that caught his eye. She sat up and raised her arms above her head, stretching like a kitten as she smiled at him. “Hello,” she said. The other two sat up and smiled at him too.
Crag leaned against the jamb of the door. He said, “Pardon my ignorance, but I’ve never had a suite here before. Are you standard equipment?”
The redhead laughed. “Of course. But you needn’t keep all of us, unless you wish.” She looked demurely at her gilded toenails.
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