The Worlds of Edmond Hamilton

by Edmond Hamilton

  * * * * *

  Lights had blazed up in the area near the building. The car sped toward them.

  Kieran said slowly, "Why don't you just exterminate the hunters and have done with them?"

  "In your day, Mr. Kieran--yes, I've heard all about you--in your day, did you on Earth exterminate the predators so that their natural prey might live more happily?"

  Bregg's long muzzle and sloping skull were profiled against the lights.

  "No," said Kieran, "we didn't. But in that case, they were all animals."

  "Exactly," said Bregg. "No, wait, Doctor Ray. Spare me the lecture. I can give you a much better reason than that, one even you can't quarrel with. It's a matter of ecology. The number of humans destroyed by these predators annually is negligible but they do themselves destroy an enormous number of small creatures with which the humans compete for their food. If we exterminated the hunters the small animals would multiply so rapidly that the humans would starve to death."

  The car stopped beside the hill, at the edge of the lighted area. A sort of makeshift corral of wire fencing had been set up, with wide wings to funnel the people into the enclosure, where a gate was shut on them. Two Sakae were mounting guard as the party from the car approached the corral. Inside the fence Kieran could see the people, flopped around in positions of exhaustion. They did not seem to be afraid now. A few of them were drinking from a supply of water provided for them. There was food scattered for them on the ground.

  Bregg said something in his own language to one of the guards, who looked surprised and questioned him, then departed, springing strongly on his powerful legs. "Wait," said Bregg.

  They waited, and in a moment or two the guard came back leading one of the black hunting beasts on a chain. It was a female, somewhat smaller than the ones Kieran had fought with, and having a slash of white on the throat and chest. She howled and sprang up on Bregg, butting her great head into his shoulder, wriggling with delight. He petted her, talking to her, and she laughed doglike and licked his cheek.

  "They domesticate well," he said. "We've had a tame breed for centuries."

  * * * * *

  He moved a little closer to the corral, holding tight to the animal's chain. Suddenly she became aware of the people. Instantly the good-natured pet turned into a snarling fury. She reared on her hind legs and screamed, and inside the corral the people roused up. They were not frightened now. They spat and chattered, clawing up sand and pebbles and bits of food to throw through the fence. Bregg handed the chain to the guard, who hauled the animal away by main force.

  Paula said coldly, "If your point was that the people are not kind to animals, my answer is that you can hardly blame them."

  "A year ago," Bregg said, "some of the people got hold of her two young ones. They were torn to pieces before they could be saved, and she saw it. I can't blame her, either."

  He went on to the gate and opened it and went inside. The people drew back from him. They spat at him, too, and pelted him with food and pebbles. He spoke to them, sternly, in the tone of one speaking to unruly dogs, and he spoke words, in his own tongue. The people began to shuffle about uneasily. They stopped throwing things. He stood waiting.

  The yellow-eyed girl came sidling forward and rubbed herself against his thigh, head, shoulder and flank. He reached down and stroked her, and she whimpered with pleasure and arched her back.

  "Oh, for God's sake," said Kieran, "let's get out of here."

  * * * * *

  Later, they sat wearily on fallen blocks of cement inside a dusty, shadowy room of the old building. Only a hand-lamp dispelled the gloom, and the wind whispered coldly, and Bregg walked to and fro in his curious prance as he talked.

  "It will be a little while before the necessary medical team can be picked up and brought here," he said. "We shall have to wait."

  "And then?" asked Kieran.

  "First to--" Bregg used a word that undoubtedly named a city of the Sakae but that meant nothing to Kieran, "--and then to Altair Two. This, of course, is a council matter."

  He stopped and looked with bright, shrewd eyes at Kieran. "You are quite the sensation already, Mr. Kieran. The whole community of starworlds is already aware of the illegal resuscitation of one of the pioneer spacemen, and of course there is great interest." He paused. "You, yourself, have done nothing unlawful. You cannot very well be sent back to sleep, and undoubtedly the council will want to hear you. I am curious as to what you will say."

  "About Sako?" said Kieran. "About--them?" He made a gesture toward a window through which the wind brought the sound of stirring, of the gruntings and whufflings of the corralled people.

  "Yes. About them."

  "I'll tell you how I feel," Kieran said flatly. He saw Paula and Webber lean forward in the shadows. "I'm a human man. The people out there may be savage, low as the beasts, good for nothing the way they are--but they're human. You Sakae may be intelligent, civilized, reasonable, but you're not human. When I see you ordering them around like beasts, I want to kill you. That's how I feel."

  Bregg did not change his bearing, but he made a small sound that was almost a sigh.

  "Yes," he said. "I feared it would be so. A man of your times--a man from a world where humans were all-dominant--would feel that way." He turned and looked at Paula and Webber. "It appears that your scheme, to this extent, was successful."

  "No, I wouldn't say that," said Kieran.

  Paula stood up. "But you just told us how you feel--"

  "And it's the truth," said Kieran. "But there's something else." He looked thoughtfully at her. "It was a good idea. It was bound to work--a man of my time was bound to feel just this way you wanted him to feel, and would go away from here crying your party slogans and believing them. But you overlooked something--"

  He paused, looking out the window into the sky, at the faint vari-colored radiance of the cluster.

  * * * * *

  "You overlooked the fact that when you awoke me, I would no longer be a man of my own time--or of any time. I was in darkness for a hundred years--with the stars my brothers, and no man touching me. Maybe that chills a man's feelings, maybe something deep in his mind lives and has time to think. I've told you how I feel, yes. But I haven't told you what I think--"

  He stopped again, then said, "The people out there in the corral have my form, and my instinctive loyalty is to them. But instinct isn't enough. It would have kept us in the mud of Earth forever, if it could. Reason took us out to the wider universe. Instinct tells me that those out there are my people. Reason tells me that you--" he looked at Bregg, "--who are abhorrent to me, who would make my skin creep if I touched you, you who go by reason--that you are my real people. Instinct made a hell of Earth for millennia--I say we ought to leave it behind us there in the mud and not let it make a hell of the stars. For you'll run into this same problem over and over again as you go out into the wider universe, and the old parochial human loyalties must be altered, to solve it."

  He looked at Paula and said, "I'm sorry, but if anyone asks me, that is what I'll say."

  "I'm sorry, too," she said, rage and dejection ringing in her voice. "Sorry we woke you. I hope I never see you again."

  Kieran shrugged. "After all, you did wake me. You're responsible for me. Here I am, facing a whole new universe, and I'll need you." He went over and patted her shoulder.

  "Damn you," she said. But she did not move away from him.

  The End.

  THE LEGION OF LAZARUS

  (1956)

  Being expelled from an air lock into deep space was the legal method of execution. But it was also the only way a man could qualify for.

  Prelude

  It isn't the dying itself. It's what comes before. The waiting, alone in a room without windows, trying to think. The opening of the door, the voices of the men who are going with you but not all the way, the walk down the corridor to the airlock room, the faces of the men, closed and impersonal. They do not enjoy this. Neither do the
y shrink from it. It's their job.

  This is the room. It is small and it has a window. Outside there is no friendly sky, no clouds. There is space, and there is the huge red circle of Mars filling the sky, looking down like an enormous eye upon this tiny moon. But you do not look up. You look out.

  There are men out there. They are quite naked. They sleep upon the barren plain, drowsing in a timeless ocean. Their bodies are white as ivory and their hair is loose across their faces. Some of them seem to smile. They lie, and sleep, and the great red eye looks at them forever as they are borne around it.

  "It isn't so bad," says one of the men who are with you inside this ultimate room. "Fifty years from now, the rest of us will all be old, or dead."

  It is small comfort.

  The one garment you have worn is taken from you and the lock door opens, and the fear that cannot possibly become greater does become greater, and then suddenly that terrible crescendo is past. There is no longer any hope, and you learn that without hope there is little to be afraid of. You want now only to get it over with.

  You step forward into the lock.

  The door behind you shuts. You sense that the one before you is opening, but there is not much time. The burst of air carries you forward. Perhaps you scream, but you are now beyond sound, beyond sight, beyond everything. You do not even feel that it is cold.

  CHAPTER I

  There is a time for sleep, and a time for waking. But Hyrst had slept heavily, and the waking was hard. He had slept long, and the waking was slow. Fifty years, said the dim voice of remembrance. But another part of his mind said, No, it is only tomorrow morning.

  Another part of his mind. That was strange. There seemed to be more parts to his mind than he remembered having had before, but they were all confused and hidden behind a veil of mist. Perhaps they were not really there at all. Perhaps--

  Fifty years. I have been dead, he thought, and now I live again. Half a century. Strange.

  Hyrst lay on a narrow bed, in a place of subdued light and antiseptic-smelling air. There was no one else in the room. There was no sound.

  Fifty years, he thought. What is it like now, the house where I lived once, the country, the planet? Where are my children, where are my friends, my enemies, the people I loved, the people I hated?

  Where is Elena? Where is my wife?

  A whisper out of nowhere, sad, remote. Your wife is dead and your children are old. Forget them. Forget the friends and the enemies.

  But I can't forget! cried Hyrst silently in the spaces of his own mind. It was only yesterday--

  Fifty years, said the whisper. And you must forget.

  MacDonald, said Hyrst suddenly. I didn't kill him. I was innocent. I can't forget that.

  Careful, said the whisper. Watch out.

  I didn't kill MacDonald. Somebody did. Somebody let me pay for it. Who? Was it Landers? Was it Saul? We four were together out there on Titan, when he died.

  Careful, Hyrst. They're coming. Listen to me. You think this is your own mind speaking, question-and-answer. But it isn't.

  Hyrst sprang upright on the narrow bed, his heart pounding, the sweat running cold on his skin. Who are you? Where are you? How--

  They're here, said the whisper calmly. Be quiet.

  Two men came into the ward. "I am Dr. Merridew," said the one in the white coverall, smiling at Hyrst with a brisk professional smile. "This is Warden Meister. We didn't mean to startle you. There are a few questions, before we release you--"

  Merridew, said the whisper in Hyrst's mind, is a psychiatrist. Let me handle this.

  Hyrst sat still, his hands lax between his knees, his eyes wide and fixed in astonishment. He heard the psychiatrist's questions, and he heard the answers he gave to them, but he was merely an instrument, with no conscious volition, it was the whisperer in his mind who was answering. Then the warden shuffled some papers he held in his hand and asked questions of his own.

  "You underwent the Humane Penalty without admitting your guilt. For the record, now that the penalty has been paid, do you wish to change your final statements?"

  The voice in Hyrst's mind, the secret voice, said swiftly to him. Don't argue with them, don't get angry, or they'll keep you on and on here.

  "But--" thought Hyrst.

  I know you're innocent, but they'll never believe it. They'll keep you on for further psychiatric tests. They might get near the truth, Hyrst--the truth about us.

  Suddenly Hyrst began to understand, not all and not clearly, something of what had happened to him. The obscuring mists began to lift from the borders of his mind.

  "What is the truth," he asked in that inner quiet, "about us?"

  You've spent fifty years in the Valley of the Shadow. You're changed, Hyrst. You're not quite human any more. No one is, who goes through the freeze. But they don't know that.

  "Then you too--"

  Yes. And I too changed. And that is why our minds can speak, even though I am on Mars and you are on its moon. But they must not know that. So don't argue, don't show emotion!

  The warden was waiting. Hyrst said aloud to him, slowly. "I have no statement to make."

  The warden did not seem surprised. He went on, "According to your papers here you also denied knowing the location of the Titanite for which MacDonald was presumably murdered. Do you still deny that?"

  Hyrst was honestly surprised. "But surely, by now--"

  The warden shrugged. "According to this data, it never came to light."

  "I never knew," said Hyrst, "where it was."

  "Well," said the warden, "I've asked the question and that's as far as my responsibility goes. But there's a visitor who has permission to see you."

  * * * * *

  He and the doctor went out. Hyrst watched them go. He thought, So I'm not quite human. Not quite human any more. Does that make me more, or less, than a man?

  Both, said the secret voice. Their minds are still closed to you. Only our minds--we who have changed too--are open.

  "Who are you?" asked Hyrst.

  My name is Shearing. Now listen. When you are released, they'll bring you down here to Mars. I'll be waiting for you. I'll help you.

  "Why? What do you care about me, or a murder fifty years old?"

  I'll tell you why later, said the whisper of Shearing. But you must follow my guidance. There's danger for you, Hyrst, from the moment you're released! There are those who have been waiting for you.

  "Danger? But--"

  The door opened, and Hyrst's visitor came in. He was a man something over sixty but the deep lines in his face made him look older. His face was gray and drawn and twitching, but it became perfectly rigid and white when he came to the foot of the bed and looked at Hyrst. There was rage in his eyes, a rage so old and weary that it brought tears to them.

  "You should have stayed dead," he said to Hyrst. "Why couldn't they let you stay dead?"

  Hyrst was shocked and startled. "Who are you? And why--"

  The other man was not even listening. His eyelids had closed, and when they opened again they looked on naked agony. "It isn't right," he said. "A murderer should die, and stay dead. Not come back."

  "I didn't murder MacDonald," Hyrst said, with the beginnings of anger. "And I don't know why you--"

  He stopped. The white, aging face, the tear-filled, furious eyes, he did not quite know what there was about them but it was there, like an old remembered face peeping up through a blur of water for a moment, and then withdrawing again.

  After a moment, Hyrst said hoarsely, "What's your name?"

  "You wouldn't know it," said the other. "I changed it, long ago."

  Hyrst felt a cold, and it seemed that he could not breathe. He said, "But you were only eleven--"

  He could not go on. There was a terrible silence between them. He must break it, he could not let it go on. He must speak. But all he could say was to whisper, "I'm not a murderer. You must believe it. I'm going to prove it--"

  "You murdered MacDonald. An
d you murdered my mother. I watched her age and die, spending every penny, spending every drop of her blood and ours, to get you back again. I pretended for fifty years that I too believed you were innocent, when all the time I knew."

  Hyrst said, "I'm innocent." He tried to say a name, too, but he could not speak the word.

  "No. You're lying, as you lied then. We found out. Mother hired detectives, experts. Over and over, for decades--and always they found the same thing. Landers and Saul could not possibly have killed MacDonald, and you were the only other human being there. Proof? I can show you barrels of it. And all of it proof that my father was a murderer."

  He leaned a little toward Hyrst, and the tears ran down his lined, careworn face. He said, "All right, you've come back. Alive, still young. But I'm warning you. If you try again to get that Titanite, if you shame us all again after all this time, if you even come near us, I'll kill you."

  He went out. Hyrst sat, looking after him, and he thought that no man before him had ever felt what tore him now.

  Inside his mind came Shearing's whisper, with a totally unexpected note of compassion. But some of us have, Hyrst. Welcome to the brotherhood. Welcome to the Legion of Lazarus.

  CHAPTER II

  Mars roared and glittered tonight. And how was a man to stand the faces and lights and sounds, when he had come back from the silence of eternity?

  Hyrst walked through the flaring streets of Syrtis City with slow and dragging steps. It was like being back on Earth. For this city was not really part of the old dead planet, of the dark barrens that rolled away beneath the night. This was the place of the rocket-men, the miners, the schemers, the workers, who had come from another, younger world. Their bars and entertainment houses flung a sun-like brilliance. Their ships, lifting majestically skyward from the distant spaceport, wrote their flaming sign on the sky. Only here and there moved one of the hooded, robed humanoids who had once owned this world.