Captain Future 25 - Moon of the Unforgotten (January 1951)

by Edmond Hamilton

He said with an odd sort of courtesy, “There is no passage here for strangers.”

  Captain Future smiled. “Come now, father — surely a thirsty man may refresh himself with wine.”

  The old man shook his head. “You do not come for wine. Return to your own kind — there is nothing for you here but sorrow.”

  “It has been told to me,” said Curt slowly, “that others have come here seeking joy.”

  “Does not all mankind seek for joy? That is why I tell you — return to your own!”

  CURT looked over the heads of the old man and the other men who were old and the men who should have been young but were not. He looked at the sign of the Three Red Moons and he said quite softly, “Will you stop me, father?”

  The old man’s eyes were very sad. “No,” he said, “I will not stop you. I will only tell you this, that no man nor woman has yet been harmed nor will be harmed — but that he who comes in search of death shall surely find it.”

  “I shall remember,” Curt said and began again to walk forward against the crowd, with Otho close beside him.

  The ranks held unbroken, the rows of silent hostile faces, until he was almost touching them. Then the old man raised his hand and let it fall again in a gesture of finality. The crowd broke and the way was open. Curt passed on and behind him the men vanished one by one into the shadows again, like old leaves caught by the wind and whirled away.

  Curt and Otho entered the Inn of the Three Red Moons.

  The common room was large, with a vaulted roof of stone, black as though carved from jet. Lights flared in the corners and a score of men sat around antique massive metal tables. They glanced at the two strangers, then ignored them.

  Curt and Otho sat down in an empty place and presently a dark girl came and brought them wine and slipped away again.

  They sipped the strong spicy brown liquid. They might have been no more than two spacemen off from the port for a night’s pleasure in old Europolis. And yet they knew that eyes watched them, that the inn was too quiet. Captain Future’s muscles quivered with anticipation and Otho’s gaze was very bright.

  Presently Otho said in a language not likely to be understood, “That young chap at the next table hasn’t taken his eyes off us since we came in.”

  “I know.” The dark fierce young face and hungry glance were only too obviously turned toward the strangers. Curt thought that if anything happened it would be men like this they would have to deal with, men still free of the withering taint of age that seemed to overtake the Europans in their prime.

  He beckoned to the girl again. “We’re minded to take a ride into the hills,” he said. “Can we hire mounts here?”

  The girl’s face was expressionless. “That is Shargo’s province.”

  “And where may we find Shargo?”

  “Through that passageway. The paddocks are behind the inn.”

  Curt laid a coin on the table and rose. “Come on, Otho, it’s getting late.”

  They crossed the common-room and entered the passage. Without seeming to notice, Curt saw that the young man who had watched them left swiftly by the front door and that the others bent together in a sudden murmur of guarded talk.

  The girl glanced after them. Her face held bitter resentment.

  The passage was long and shadowy. They traversed it swiftly, hearing nothing to warn them of any danger. At its end it opened into a court containing ruined outbuildings and a stone-walled paddock in good repair. The wall was high, for the Europan beasts are good jumpers, and the gate was of iron bars.

  A man came toward them from one of the ruined sheds. He was old and not nimble. He wore the leather tunic of a hostler and it was not even clean. But still there was about him the same look that Curt had seen before, the look of pride and inward vision, as though he saw the flaunt of silken banners in the wind and heard the trumpets sounding far away.

  Captain Future repeated his request for two mounts.

  He had expected refusals, at the least arguments and evasions. There were none. The old man shrugged and answered. “You will have to bridle them yourselves. In the day there is a young man here to hold the brutes and rein them — but the fools who wish to ride at night must catch their own.”

  “Very well,” said Curt. “Give us the halters.”

  The old man produced two arrangements of leather straps, bitted with iron. “Get them by the combs,” he grunted, “and watch their forefeet.”

  He led the way to the paddock gate.

  Curt looked around. The court was empty. It was very still. Otho whispered, “What are they waiting for?”

  “Perhaps they want us clear of the city,” Curt answered. Another disappearance in the shadowy hills would be preferable from the Europans’ viewpoint.

  Otho nodded. “The trap could be at the other end. These beasts have been there before. They must know the way without being guided.”

  “One thing sure,” said Captain Future, “they’ll have to stop us somewhere.”

  The old man lifted the heavy bar of the gate.

  The paddock was not too large for the herd of twenty or so Europan mounts that it contained. They were huddled together, drowsing in the Jupiter-light — serpentine scaly creatures with powerful legs and tails like wire lashes. Their narrow heads were crowned with fleshy yellow combs. They blinked and peered at the men with shining wicked eyes as red as coals.

  “Take your choice,” said the old Europan, standing by the gate.

  Curt and Otho went forward with the bridles.

  AT THEIR approach the beasts hissed softly and backed away. Their padded feet made a nervous thumping on the ground. Curt spoke softly but the herd began to shift.

  “I don’t think they like the smell of us,” said Otho.

  Curt reached out swiftly and caught one golden comb. The creature plunged and whistled as he fitted the rude bridle. Then suddenly from behind them there came the clang of the gate-bar dropping and he knew that there would be no waiting for the silence of the dark hills, that this, here and now, was the trap — and that they were in it.

  Otho had spun around, holding his bridled mount. He was cursing the old man. Curt kept his grip on his unwilling mount, turning with it to keep clear of the clawed forefeet. The paddock walls were high, worn smooth as glass by the rubbing of many flanks. There was no escape that way.

  The herd was stirring uneasily, moving with a hiss and flickering of scaly tails, a quivering of muscles. Curt cried out a warning to Otho but it was already too late.

  A makeshift torch of flaming rags whirled in over the gate, leaving a trail of oily smoke. Curt heard the old man’s voice lifted in a cracked Hai-hai, urgent, shrill. A second wad of burning cloth shot in, dropping in the middle of the herd with a burst of sparks. Instantly there was brute panic, pent up and turned upon itself by the paddock walls.

  Plunging, trampling, screaming, the penned beasts tried to flee the smoke and the stinging fire. Curt’s mount reared and dragged him and he clung to its comb with the grip of a man who knows he is lost if he lets go. He dug his heels into the dusty ground, twisted the brute’s head until its neck-bones cracked and leaped up, clamping his legs around the slender belly.

  Dimly through the dust and turmoil he saw Otho. An ordinary man would have been trampled to death in those first seconds. But Otho was not a man. Swift, sure-footed, incredibly strong, the android had imitated Curt’s example and had swung himself to the back of his plunging mount, getting an iron grip on its comb.

  It was only temporary escape. The maddened beasts had turned to fighting among themselves. Curt knew it was only a matter of time and not much of it before his creature would fall or be thrown. The paddock was a swirling madness of leaping bodies and tearing jaws and dust and noise. Nothing could stand for long in that.

  The old Europan remained beyond the gate. He held another of the makeshift torches in his hands, waving it slowly back and forth so that all the beasts shied away from the opening.

  A solemn proud f
ine-cut old man. Later he would be very sorry for this tragic accident. He would know nothing more than that two spacemen had drunk wine in the tavern and had then gone staggering in among the beasts and frightened them and been most regrettably slain.

  Even in that moment of fury Curt found time to wonder what strange madness drove these men — the madness of the mysterious Second Life that urged them to any length.

  He was trying to reach the gate when his mount stumbled over another that was down and kicking its life out in the dust and blood. He heard a wild yell from Otho and a commotion by the gate. The straining body under him staggered and fell. Desperately he pulled the creature’s head back, forcing it up, forcing it on its feet again, and suddenly there was a rush past him of slaty backs and outstretched necks, a squealing stampede outward and the gate was open.

  He fought his mount to keep it back. Over the wall, Otho was riding a frantic demon, twisting its comb until it shrieked. In a matter of seconds they were alone in the paddock and the herd was stamping through the courtyard, scattering away down the dark alleys.

  The old man was gone, presumably to cover in one of the sheds.

  “The young one,” Otho panted. “Stand still, you son of a worm’s egg! The young one that watched us inside the inn — he drove the old man off. He opened the gate.”

  The court was clear now. From the shelter of a broken wall a figure leaped and ran.

  “Get him!” Curt yelled. “Get him!”

  He sank his heels in the scaly flanks and the creature hissed and went hard after the running shadow.

  Chapter 3: The House of Returning

  THEY caught him. They rode him down in a narrow alley, the dark young man with the fierce eyes, and he fought them but he did not draw any weapon.

  Curt had no time for pleasantries. He leaned over and struck the young man hard on the side of the jaw, and pulled the limp body up before him.

  “Out of the city,” he said to Otho. “This way, toward the hills. After that we can talk.”

  They found their way out of the maze of alleys into a broad avenue spanned by massive arches, broken now, their heroic carvings shattered by the slow hammers of time. Curt and Otho sped beneath their shadows, alone with the wind and the blowing dust.

  Beyond the arches there were no more buildings but only the straight road that ran into the hills between two rows of ancient stelae, stark and rigid under the glow of the great planet. Beyond the stelae there was nothing, only the gaunt slopes and the sighing in the stiff dry grass.

  There had been no alarm behind them and there was no pursuit. The warning night was blank and still. Captain Future led the way at random until he found a place that suited him. Then he stopped and motioned Otho to dismount.

  The young man was conscious. Curt thought he had been conscious for some time but he had made no move. He was breathless now from the jolting of the beast. He crouched where Curt had set him, shaking his head, gasping.

  Presently Curt asked, “Why did you open the paddock gate?”

  The young man answered, “Because I did not wish for you to die.”

  “Do you know why we were supposed to die?”

  “I know.” He looked at them and his eyes were hot and angry. “Yes, I know!”

  “Ah,” said Curt Newton. “Then you do not worship the Second Life.”

  Otho laughed. “He doesn’t need rejuvenation.”

  “It is not rejuvenation,” said the young man bitterly. “It is death, the death of my world and my people. Almost before our beards are grown the Second Life takes hold of us and we forget the first life that we have not yet lived. Our walls fall about us stone by stone and we have not cloth to wrap our bodies in and the great change in other worlds does not touch us — but all that is nothing so long as we live the glorious life, the Second Life!”

  He sprang up, glaring at Curt and Otho as though he hated them, but it was not their faces he saw. It was the sere and sterile faces of men grown old before their time, dead men on a dying moon.

  “You of the other worlds are not like us. Life goes forward for you. Men learn and grow and the fields are rich and the cities are bright and tall. Even your oldest worlds have young minds — is that not so?”

  Captain Future nodded. “It is so.”

  “Yes. But on Europa what is there for a young man? Dust and dreams! There is a wall against us and after a while we learn that we cannot break it down. Then we too grow old.”

  He turned away. “Go back to your own world. You have life. Keep it.”

  Curt caught him by the arms. “What is the Second Life?”

  “Death,” said the young man, “to those who live it — and to those who would destroy it. We know. We have tried.”

  A sharp light came suddenly into Curt Newton’s eyes. “Then there are others in the city who feel as you do?”

  “Oh, yes — all of us who are still young.” He laughed. It was not pleasant laughter. “We banded together once. We went up to the valley, angry, full of hate — we were going to make our world free. And they shot us down in the pass — the old men shot us down!”

  He shook himself free of the Earthman’s grasp. “I have told you. Go back to your own while you still live.”

  “No,” said Captain Future softly. “We are going to the valley. And you will guide us.”

  The eyes of the young man widened. He stepped back and Otho caught him from behind, holding him helpless. He turned his head from side to side and cried out, “Three men, where a hundred of us failed? You don’t know Konnur, the Guardian of the Second Life. You don’t know the punishment. I am a proscribed man! I am forbidden in the valley!”

  “Proscription, punishment!” Curt Newton’s voice was heavy with contempt. “You don’t deserve your youth. Your bones are already crumbling.” He reached out and slapped the young man’s face, lightly, deliberately, one cheek and then the other.

  “You will guide us to the valley. After that, you’re free to tuck your tail and run. We can end the Second Life without such help as yours.”

  Captain Future saw the flame of anger leap in the young man’s eyes, the dark flush in his cheeks. He strained against the android’s grip and Curt laughed.

  “So there’s still a bit of pride left if a man can find it! Set him up here, Otho.” He swung up onto the scaly back of his mount and received the Europan between his arms, where Otho lifted him as though he had been a child.

  “Now,” said Curt, “which way?”

  The young man pointed.

  They rode on through the dark hills, and after awhile the dawn came and found them before the shadowy throat of a pass — the dawn of a pale far Sun that was only a little lighter than the night.

  Curt dismounted and stood holding the bridle. He said to the Europan. “Go back to the spaceport, to the Patrol base. Tell those who wait there for us where we are.”

  A gleam that was almost a light of hope began to show in the young man’s eyes. “And you?” he asked.

  Curt nodded toward the blind notch of the pass. “We are going in.”

  “Perhaps,” whispered the young man softly, “perhaps it is true that you can end the Second Life — you and those who wait for you. We know of you even here, where we know so little. I will go. And after I have said your message I will go into the city to gather those who fought once and who can fight again!”

  CAPTAIN FUTURE let go the rein. The young man wheeled the squealing beast around and sent it flying back toward the city. Otho’s mount ran with it.

  “Let us hope,” said the android dryly, “that our boy doesn’t come to grief along the way.”

  He turned and walked with Curt up into the darkness of the pass.

  “If the Second Life isn’t rejuvenation, what is it?” Otho asked. “Some kind of pleasure-dream by artificial sensory stimuli? No, Ezra wouldn’t stoop to that.”

  “No, it isn’t that,” Curt said. “I’m beginning to think that it’s something more pitiful and terrible than that.”<
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  It was quiet in the pass. The screes of broken rock rose up on either side, with here and there a stunted tree. An army might have hidden there and been unseen but even Curt’s keen ears could detect no sound of life.

  And yet he was not surprised when, as they reached the end of the pass, he looked back and saw men closing in behind them.

  He waited for them. They were youngish men and strong but in their eyes already was the shadow of decay. He could see why the young Europan had called these “the old men” too.

  “I have come to speak to Konnur,” Captain Future said to them.

  The one who seemed to be the leader nodded. “He is waiting for you. You will give us your weapons, please.”

  They had weapons of their own and there was not much point in arguing. Curt and Otho handed them over. Then they walked on and the men with the old eyes came close behind them.

  The valley was deep and there were forests in it and a thin stream. Not far from the pass was a massive house of stone, very long and wide, that looked as though it might have been a place of learning in the days when the moon was young.

  “There,” said the leader, and pointed to a gateway of which the valves were fine-worked gold, bright as the day they were hung there. Captain Future passed between them with Otho at his side.

  Inside there was the soft gloom of vaulted chambers, cool and dim, with old flagged floors that rang hollow under their striding boots. The great house was only a shell of stone, stripped of all but its enduring bones. It was empty and very still.

  They waited and presently a man came walking toward them down a long passage, a tall man, erect and very proud. An aging man but not dusty, not decayed. His eyes were bright and clear, the eyes of a fanatic or a saint.

  Looking at him, Curt knew that he was faced with the most dangerous kind of an enemy — a man with a belief.

  “You are Konnur?” he asked.

  “I am. And you are Curt Newton and — ah, yes, the one who is called Otho.” Konnur made a slight inclination of his head. “I have expected you. The man Gurney was afraid the girl would send for you in spite of his message.”