The Reel Stuff

by Brian M. Thomsen

  "Royd," she said, "your mother… could she move… she couldn't move anything… teke it… in this high a gravity… could she?"

  "Maybe," he answered, "…if… concentrate… all her… power… hard… maybe possible… why?"

  "Because," Melantha Jhirl said grimly, "because something… someone… is cycling through the airlock."

  * * *

  The volcryn ship filled the universe.

  "It is not truly a ship, not as I thought it would be," Karoly d'Branin was saying. His suit, Academy-designed, had a built-in encoding device, and he was recording his comments for posterity, strangely secure in the certainty of his impending death. "The scale of it is difficult to imagine, difficult to estimate. Vast, vast. I have nothing but my wrist computer, no instruments, I cannot make accurate measurements, but I would say, oh, a hundred kilometers, perhaps as much as three hundred, across. No solid mass, of course, not at all. It is delicate, airy, no ship as we know ships. It is— old, beautiful— it is crystal and gossamer, alive with its own dim lights, a vast intricate kind of spiderwebby craft— it reminds me a bit of the old starsail ships they used once, in the days before drive, but this great construct, it is not solid, it cannot be drive by light. It is no ship at all, really. It is all open to vacuum, it has no sealed cabins or life-support spheres, none visible to me, unless blocked from my line of sight in some fashion, and no, I cannot believe that, it is too open, too fragile. It moves quite rapidly. I would wish for the instrumentation to measure its speed, but it is enough to be here. I am taking our sled at right angles to it, to get clear of its path, but I cannot say that I will make it. It moves so much faster than we. Not at light speed, no, far below it, but still faster than the Nightflyer and its nuclear engines, I would guess. Only a guess.

  "The volcryn craft has no visible means of propulsion. In fact, I wonder how— perhaps it is a light-sail, laser-launched millennia ago, now torn and rotted by some unimaginable catastrophe— but no, it is too symmetrical, too beautiful, the webbings, the great shimmering veils near the nexus, the beauty of it.

  "I must describe it, I must be more accurate, I know. It is difficult, I grow too excited. It is large, as I have said, kilometers across. Roughly— let me count— yes, roughly octagonal in shape. The nexus, the center, is a bright area, a small darkness surrounded by a much greater area of light, but only the dark portion seems entirely solid— the lighted areas are translucent, I can see stars through them, discolored, shifted towards the purple. Veils, I call those the veils. From the nexus and the veils eight long— oh, vastly long— spurs project, not quite spaced evenly, so it is not a true geometric octagon— ah, I see better now, one of the spurs is shifted, oh, very slowly, the veils are rippling— they are mobile then, those projections, and the webbing runs from one spur to the next, around and around, but there are— patterns, odd patterns, it is not at all the simple webbing of a spider. I cannot quite see order in the patterns, in the traceries of the webs, but I feel sure that the order is there, the meaning is waiting to be found.

  "There are lights. Have I mentioned the lights? The lights are the brightest around the center nexus, but they are nowhere very bright, a dim violet. Some visible radiation, then, but not much. I would like to take an ultraviolet reading of this craft, but I do not have the instrumentation. The lights move. The veils seem to ripple, and lights run constantly up and down the length of the spurs, at differing rates of speed, and sometimes other lights can be seen traversing the webbing, moving across the patterns. I do not know what the lights are or whether they emanate from inside the craft or outside.

  "The volcryn myths, this is really not much like the legends, not truly. Though, as I think, now I recall a Nor T'alush report that the volcryn ships were impossibly large, but I took that for exaggeration. And lights, the volcryn have often been linked to lights, but those reports were so vague, they might have meant anything, described anything from a laser propulsion system to simple exterior lighting, I could not know it meant this. Ah, what mysteries! The ship is still too far away from me to see the finer detail. I think perhaps the darker area in the center is a craft, a life capsule. The volcryn must be inside it. I wish my team was with me, my telepath. He was a class one, we might have made contact, might have communicated with them. The things we would learn! The things they have seen? To think how old this craft is, how ancient this race, how long they have been outbound! It fills me with awe. Communication would be such a gift, such an impossible gift, but they are so alien."

  "D'Branin," the psipsych said in a low, urgent voice. "Can't you feel?"

  Karoly d'Branin looked at his companion as if seeing her for the first time. "Can you feel them? You are a three, can you sense them now, strongly?"

  "Long ago," the psipsych said. "Long ago."

  "Can you project? Talk to them. Where are they? In the center area?"

  "Yes," she replied, and she laughed. Her laugh was shrill and hysterical, and d'Branin had to recall that she was a very sick woman. "Yes, in the center, d'Branin, that's where the pulses come from. Only you're wrong about them. It's not a them at all, your legends are all lies, lies, I wouldn't be surprised if we were the first to ever see your volcryn, to ever come this close. The others, those aliens of yours, they merely felt, deep and distantly, sensed a bit of the nature of the volcryn in their dreams and visions, and fashioned the rest to suit themselves. Ships, and wars, and a race of eternal travelers, it is all— all—"

  "What do you mean, my friend?" Karoly said, baffled. "You do not make sense. I do not understand."

  "No," the psipsych said, her voice suddenly gentle. "You do not, do you? You cannot feel it, as I can. So clear now. This must be how a one feels, all the time. A one full of esperon."

  "What do you feel? What?"

  "It's not a them, Karoly," the psipsych said. "It's an it. Alive, Karoly, and quite mindless, I assure you."

  "Mindless?" d'Branin said. "No, you must be wrong, you are not reading correctly. I will accept that it is a single creature if you say so, a single great marvelous star-traveler, but how can it be mindless? You sensed it, its mind, its telepathic emanations. You and the whole of the Crey sensitives and all the others. Perhaps its thoughts are too alien for you to read."

  "Perhaps," the psipsych admitted, "but what I do read is not so terribly alien at all. Only animal. Its thoughts are slow and dark and strange, hardly thoughts at all, faint. The brain must be huge, I grant you that, but it can't be devoted to conscious thought."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The propulsion system, d'Branin. Don't you feel? The pulses? They are threatening to rip off the top of my skull. Can't you guess what is driving your damned volcryn across the galaxy? Why they avoid gravity wells? Can't you guess how it is moving?"

  "No," d'Branin said, but even as he denied it a dawn of comprehension broke across his face, and he looked away from his companion, back at the swelling immensity of the volcryn, its lights moving, its veils a-ripple, as it came on and on, across light-years, light centuries, across aeons.

  When he looked back to her, he mouthed only a single word: "Teke," he said. Silence filled their world.

  She nodded.

  * * *

  Melantha Jhirl struggled to lift the injection gun and press it against an artery. It gave a single loud hiss, and the drug flooded her system. She lay back and gathered her strength, tried to think. Esperon, esperon, why was that important? It had killed the telepath, made him a victim of his own abilities, tripled his power and his vulnerability. Psi. It all came back to psi.

  The inner door of the airlock opened. The headless corpse came through.

  It moved with jerks, unnatural shufflings, never lifting its legs from the floor. It sagged as it moved, half-crushed by the weight upon it. Each shuffle was crude and sudden; some grim force was literally yanking one leg forward, then the next. It moved in slow motion, arms stiff by its sides.

  But it moved.

  Melantha summoned her own reserv
es and began to crawl away from it, never taking her eyes off its advance.

  Her thoughts went round and round, searching for the piece out of place, the solution to the chess problem, finding nothing.

  The corpse was moving faster than she was. Clearly, visibly it was gaining.

  Melantha tried to stand. She got to her knees, her heart pounding. Then one knee. She tried to force herself up, to lift the impossible burden on her shoulders. She was strong, she told herself. She was the unproved model.

  But when she put all her weight on one leg, her muscles would not hold her. She collapsed, awkwardly, and when she smashed against the floor it was as if she had fallen from a building. She heard a sharp snap, and a stab of agony flashed up the arm she had tried to use to break her fall. She blinked back tears and choked on her own scream.

  The corpse was halfway up the corridor. It must be walking on two broken legs, she realized. It didn't care.

  "Melantha… heard you… are… you… Melantha?"

  "Quiet," she snapped at Royd. She had no breath to waste on talk.

  Now she had only one arm. She used the disciplines she had taught herself, willed away the pain. She kicked feebly, her boots scraping for purchase, and she pulled herself forward with her good arm.

  The corpse came on and on.

  She dragged herself across the threshold of the lounge, worming her way under the crashed sled, hoping it would delay the cadaver.

  It was a meter behind her.

  In the darkness, in the lounge, there where it had all begun, Melantha Jhirl ran out of strength.

  Her body shuddered, and she collapsed on the damp carpet, and she knew that she could go no further.

  On the far side of the door, the corpse stood stiffly. The sled began to shake. Then, with the scrape of metal against metal, it slid backwards, moving in tiny sudden increments, jerking itself free and out of the way.

  Psi. Melantha wanted to curse it, and cry. Vainly she wished for a psi power of her own, a weapon to blast apart the teke-driven corpse that stalked her. She was improved, she thought angrily, but not improved enough. Her parents had given her all the generic gifts they could arrange, but psi was beyond them. The gene was astronomically rare, recessive, and—

  —and suddenly it came to her.

  "Royd!" she yelled, put all of her remaining will into her words. "The dial… teke it. Royd, teke it!"

  His reply was very faint, troubled. "…can't… I don't… Mother… only… her… not me… no…"

  "Not mother," she said, desperate. "You always… say… mother. I forgot… forgot. Not your mother… listen… you're a clone… same genes… you have it, too. The power."

  "Don't," he said. "Never… must be… sex-linked."

  "No! It isn't. I know… Promethean, Royd… don't tell a Promethean… about genes… turn it!"

  The sled jumped a third of a meter, and listed to the side. A path was clear.

  The corpse came forward.

  "…trying," Royd said. "Nothing… I can't!"

  "She cured you," Melantha said bitterly. "Better than… she was… cured… prenatal… but it's only… suppressed… you can!"

  "I… don't… know… how."

  The corpse now stood above her. Stopped. Pale-fleshed hands trembled spastically. Began to rise.

  Melantha swore, and wept, and made a futile fist.

  And all at once the gravity was gone. Far, far away, she heard Royd cry out and then fall silent.

  The corpse bobbed awkwardly into the air, its hands hanging limply before it. Melantha, reeling in the weightlessness, tried to ready herself for its furious assault.

  But the body did not move again. It floated dead and still. Melantha moved to it, pushed it, and it sailed across the room.

  "Royd?" she said uncertainly.

  There was no answer.

  She pulled herself through the hole into the control chamber.

  And found Royd Eris, master of the Nightflyer, prone on his back in his armored suit, dead. His heart had given out.

  But the dial on the gravity grid was set at zero.

  * * *

  I have held the Nightflyer's crystalline soul within my hands.

  It is deep and red and multifaceted, large as my head, and icy to the touch. In its scarlet depths, two small sparks of light burn fiercely and sometimes seem to whirl.

  I have crawled through the consoles, wound my way carefully past safeguards and cybernets, taking care to damage nothing, and I have laid rough hands on that great crystal, knowing that it is where she lives.

  And I cannot bring myself to wipe it.

  Royd's ghost has asked me not to.

  Last night we talked about it once again, over brandy and chess in the lounge. Royd cannot drink of course, but he sends his specter to smile at me, and he tells me where he wants his pieces moved.

  For the thousandth time he offered to take me back to Avalon, or any world of my choice, if only I would go outside and complete the repairs we abandoned so many years ago, so that the Nightflyer might safely slip into stardrive.

  For the thousandth time I refused.

  He is stronger now, no doubt. Their genes are the same, after all. Their power is the same. Dying, he too found the strength to impress himself upon the great crystal. The ship is alive with both of them, and frequently they fight. Sometimes she outwits him for a moment, and the Nightflyer does odd, erratic things. The gravity goes up or down or off completely. Blankets wrap themselves around my throat when I sleep. Objects come hurtling out of dark corners.

  Those times have come less frequently of late, though. When they do come, Royd stops her, Or I do. Together, the Nightflyer is ours.

  Royd claims he is strong enough alone, that he does not really need me, that he can keep her under check. I wonder. Over the chessboard, I still beat him nine games out of ten.

  And there are other considerations. Our work, for one. Karoly would be proud of us.

  The volcryn will soon enter the mists of the Tempter's Veil, and we follow close behind. Studying, recording, doing all that old d'Branin would have wanted us to do. It is all in the computer. It is also on tape and on paper, should the computer ever be wiped. It will be interesting to see how the volcryn thrives in the Veil. Matter is so thick there, compared to the thin diet of interstellar hydrogen on which the creature has fed for endless eons.

  We have tried to communicate with it, with no success. I do not believe it is sentient at all.

  And lately Royd has tried to imitate its ways, gathering all his energies in an attempt to move the Nightflyer by teke. Sometimes, oddly, his mother even joins him in those efforts. So far they have failed, but we will keep trying.

  So the work goes on, and it is important work, though not the field I trained for, back on Avalon. We know that our results will reach humanity. Royd and I have discussed it. Before I die, I will destroy the central crystal and clear the computers, and afterwards I will set course manually for the close vicinity of an inhabited world. I know I can do it. I have all the time I need, and I am an improved model.

  I will not consider the other option, though it means much to me that Royd suggests it again and again. No doubt I could finish the repairs. Perhaps Royd could control the ship without me, and continue the work. But that is not important.

  When I finally touched him, for the first and last and only time, his body was still warm. But he was gone already. He never felt my touch. I could not keep that promise.

  But I can keep my other.

  I will not leave him alone with her.

  Ever.

  HERBERT WEST— REANIMATOR

  by H. P. Lovecraft

  This story formed the basis for the 1984 film Re-Animator, starring Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Bruce Abbott, and David Gale, and directed by Stuart Gordon.

  I. From the Dark

  Of Herbert West, who was my friend in college and in other life, I can speak only with extreme terror. This terror is not due altogether to the sinis
ter manner of his recent disappearance, but was engendered by the whole nature of his lifework, and first gained its acute form more than seventeen years ago, when we were in the third year of our course at the Miskatonic University medical school in Arkham. While he was with me, the wonder and diabolism of his experiments fascinated me utterly, and I was his closest companion. Now that he is gone and the spell is broken, the actual fear is greater. Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities.

  The first horrible incident of our acquaintance was the greatest shock I ever experienced, and it is only with reluctance that I repeat it. As I have said, it happened when we were in medical school, where West had already made himself notorious through his wild theories on the nature of death and the possibility of overcoming it artificially. His views, which were widely ridiculed by the faculty and by his fellow-students, hinged on the essentially mechanistic nature of life; and concerned means for operating the organic machinery of mankind by calculated chemical action after the failure of natural processes. In his experiments, with various animating solutions, he had killed and treated immense numbers of rabbits, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, and monkeys, till he had become the prime nuisance of the college. Several times he had actually obtained signs of life in animals supposedly dead; in many cases violent signs; but he soon saw that the perfection of his process, if indeed possible, would necessarily involve a lifetime of research. It likewise became clear that, since the same solution never worked alike on different organic species, he would require human subjects for further and more specialized progress. It was here that he first came into conflict with the college authorities, was debarred from future experiments by no less a dignitary than the dead of the medical school himself— the learned and benevolent Dr. Allan Halsey, whose work on behalf of the stricken is recalled by every old resident of Arkham.

  I had always been exceptionally tolerant of West's pursuits, and we frequently discussed his theories, whose ramifications and corollaries were almost infinite. Holding with Haeckel that all life is a chemical and physical process and that the so-called 'soul' is a myth, my friend believed that artificial reanimation of the dead can depend on the condition of the tissues; and that unless actual decomposition has set in, a corpse fully equipped with organs may with suitable measures be set going again in the peculiar fashion known as life. That the psychic or intellectual life may be impaired by the slight deterioration of sensitive brain cells which even a short period of death would be apt to cause, West fully realized. It had at first been his hope to find a reagent which would restore vitality before the actual advent of death, and only repeated failures on animals had shown him that the natural and artificial life-motions were incompatible. He then sought extreme freshness in his specimens, injecting his solutions into the blood immediately after the extinction of life. It was this circumstance which made the professors so carelessly skeptical, for they felt that true death had not occurred in any case. They did not stop to view the matter closely and reasoningly.