The 38th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK

by Chester S. Geier

  “Come on!” Reid barked. He set off at a bounding run for the spot where he knew the auxiliary would come down, a charred expanse of meadow that Norlin always used as a landing field. The Arkites were already running in the same direction, their voices swelling into a clamor of excitement.

  The airlock was already open by the time Reid and Lain reached the little ship. In the dusk they could make out the figure of a man just emerging.

  Steve Norlin waved nonchalantly at the gathering crowd as though nothing at all had happened. His strong, white teeth flashed in a confident grin.

  Panting, perspiration trickling down his face, Reid looked at the scout. In that moment he was struck as forcefully as always by the neat, almost immaculate appearance which Norlin somehow managed to keep up. His pilot’s uniform was just as natty as it had been back on Earth when he was earning a living shuttling passenger rockets through the stratosphere. It fitted just as snugly, too, over his tall, lithe form with its broad shoulders and narrow hips. Norlin pulled off his flying helmet, and hi«f bronze hair, just a shade darker than his skin, tumbled in curls about his forehead.

  “Where have you been?” Reid demanded. “Why were you gone so long?”

  “Easy, skipper, easy! One question at a time, please.” Norlin held up a mockingly imploring hand. He dropped it suddenly; there was an eager cry of “Steve! Oh, Steve!” and Susan came running into his arms.

  Sight of the two embracing was a raging fire in Reid’s heart; he looked away, biting his lips. But as though under the pressure of something vastly important, Norlin cut the reunion mercifully short.

  “All right, baby, save it for later. Papa’s got news right now.” He released the girl. He looked at Reid, then at the Arkites standing all around.

  “Folks, the reason why I’ve been gone so long is because I’ve made a terrific discovery.” Norlin leaned forward, his eyes glistening. “I’ve found a city here on New Terra!”

  Silence dropped over the meadow, a complete and utter silence. It was as though the air had vanished to be replaced by the chill vacuum of interstellar space, taking away all sound, freezing all motion.

  The figures about Reid blurred crazily. A sudden, unexpected slap in the face from Doug Lain couldn’t have stunned him more.

  A city—here on New Terra! It meant that the planet was not, as he had hoped, uninhabited after all. The disillusionment was as bitterly keen as though some object of a life-long quest had turned to dust in his hands; for it spelled the destruction of all his plans.

  Reid forced his shock aside. The Arkites had gotten over their own amazement at Norlin’s announcement, and their voices now rose in an excited babble of sound. Reid could feel their eyes upon him as they watched for what action he would take.

  He looked at Norlin. The words were difficult to form, but he got them out.

  “Where is the city?” he asked. “What—what is it like?”

  Norlin grinned as though the question had called forth some mysterious inner satisfaction. He was facing Reid, but when he spoke, it was more to the Arkites who were eagerly pressing forward.

  “Remember that great ocean to the west that I discovered on my last trip?” he began. “Well, I’d have no more than a glimpse of it, and this time I decided to go clear across to see what lay beyond. That spread of water is big; even with the auxiliary eating up the miles the way it did, it took me a long time to get across.

  “This world seems to be made up mostly of mountains; the country I found on the other side was no better, except that the peaks there towered higher than any I’ve yet seen. There wasn’t much use in crossing them, since I’d have had to keep to the stratosphere most of the time where accurate observation would have been impossible. So I flew along the shoreline with the hope that somewhere along it I might find a comparatively level area which would enable me to get inland.

  “It was a lucky thing I did, too, though I almost gave up several times. That shoreline seemed endless; I followed It for the greater part of two days. And then, suddenly, the shoreline and the mountains which paralleled it curved inward to form a tremendous bay, and within this, dim on the shores of its extreme end, stood the city.”

  Norlin paused, and though Reid knew that the scout’s nature was not sensitive enough for a true appreciation of beauty, he could have sworn that a vast awe glowed in the other’s eyes.

  “Sight of it so startled me,” Norlin continued, “that I almost lost control of the ship. I landed in a convenient canyon just within the bay, and then climbed a high ridge for a better look. The city is something to see, I can tell you. Even at that distance, it was a thing of soaring spires and mighty domes that gleamed with every imaginable color. And the location is ideal; in fact, it’s just the spot I’d have suggested as a site for our own settlement.

  “It was already about time that I started getting back to camp, but I couldn’t leave without learning more about the city first. I decided to approach it for a closer inspection, without, however, using the auxiliary, since I thought it safest not to be seen. I packed a two-day supply of food and then set off along the shore.

  “But I was fooled all the time; the city was much further away than it had seemed. It was so big that its size had merely made it seem close. In a day and a half of almost constant traveling I got no nearer and so had to give up. I’d already been gone too long. But I did learn one thing—the people who live in the city are a lot like us. I saw a few working on outlying farms in the distance, and I watched them long enough to make certain that they are erect bipeds like ourselves.”

  Norlin gestured. “Well, that’s about all. I returned to the auxiliary in the canyon and flew back here.”

  * * * *

  The figures clustered on the meadow were very still. It had grown dark; Alpha Centauri had set behind the northern mountains, leaving only a few crimson streaks in the sky. The heat pressed like a blanket over everything. Somewhere the voice of a child sounded in a plaintive cry of hunger.

  Reid glanced covertly at the Arkites near him, and suddenly he felt a sinking sensation. Their faces were dim in the dusk, but he could make out unmistakably the hope and eagerness which glowed upon them.

  Reid turned back to Norlin. “In the morning we’ll service the auxiliary, and then you’ll fly me over to see the city. As for the rest of you, you’ll remain here in camp and continue your activities as though nothing had happened.” His voice was harsh and authoritative.

  The Arkites woke suddenly back into sound and motion. They started back to camp, gathered thickly about Norlin, their voices making a din of eager questions. Reid remained behind on the meadow with Doug Lain, thinking with a detached bitterness that the ruin which Norlin’s discovery had brought to his plans had, on the other hand, made the scout a hero in the eyes of the Arkites.

  “What a rotten break,” Lain muttered. “All along we thought we were the only ones on this world, and now, after all we’ve done, we find out different. A city! That means civilization, John—intelligent beings.” He paused a moment. Then his voice sounded again. “Well, what do you intend to do now, John? This end of the affair was always more yours than mine.”

  Reid looked up to the stars which glittered in their strange constellations in the sky. His tones were heavy with weariness.

  “We’ll have to start all over again, Doug. You know that I’ve always wanted to do something with people as a civilization. Back on Earth, I’d hoped that our invention of interstellar travel would pave the way for a mighty galactic culture—but the war ended that. Here on New Terra I saw my chance to get civilization started again. With a settlement near all the necessary resources, with books and teachers, I’d hoped to give the Arkites one great push would keep them going forward for all the years to come.

  “But discovery of the city has changed all that. The Arkites remember only too well the easy life they led on Earth before the war. Machine
s did all their work; the merest push of a button satisfied every want. Norlin’s city offers many temptations—especially so since the people there seem to resemble ourselves. The Arkites would want inevitably to live in the city. Once there, they’d lose their identity as a race, become submerged in another culture. There might be intellectual differences, too, which would lead to war and death. No, Doug, we’ll just have to leave New Terra. On some world circling another star, we’ll begin all over.”

  “But do you think the Arkites will want to leave New Terra, John?” Lain asked slowly. “The city does offer many attractions, as you’ve said. They’ve suffered a lot already, and they may not want to go through it again.”

  “I’m sure they’ll see it my way,” Reid answered. “They must have enough pride of race left to want to build a civilization of their own.”

  But Reid felt a return of his earlier premonition. For the first time he wondered just how far the Arkites would follow him up that long, hard road which led to a new beginning. He realized now that his dream could not possibly appear as rich and real to them as it was to him, so that they would make every sacrifice to give it substance. They lived too much in the present, were too concerned with the comforts of their bodies and the satisfaction of their petty desires to give their all for a vision as intangible as the very air they breathed.

  Reid shoved these doubts aside for the present. He touched Lain’s arm, and together they walked toward the camp, bright now with its supper fires.

  Morning dawned with the sky as brightly cloudless as ever. The rays of Alpha Centauri struck down with a heat whose intensity was almost like the impact of something solid.

  After breakfast, Reid, Lain, and Norlin began their task of servicing the auxiliary. Shortly before noon, they were finished, and after supplies had been loaded aboard, Reid and Norlin were ready to leave.

  “Too bad there’s no room for you, Doug,” Reid said. “I’m sure you’re curious enough to want a look at the city yourself.”

  Lain shrugged his bony shoulders. “I can do without it, I guess. Wouldn’t be much sense in just taking a look at it, anyway.” He looked significantly at Reid.

  Norlin’s head popped out from the airlock. “We’re all ready, skipper. Let’s go!”

  Only a few Arkites had come to the meadow to see them off. The others had remained in camp where there was shade from the fiery heat of the sun. Reid took his place beside Norlin in the tiny control room and they blasted off.

  It was one of the few times Reid had been up in the auxiliary, and he absorbed himself in watching the landscape crawl away far below. He said nothing to Norlin; the scout himself was preoccupied with thoughts of his own.

  By evening they were within sight of the western ocean, and when night fell the continent they had left was far behind. The steady drumming of the rockets and the peacefulness of the star-strewn night through which they sped lulled Reid to sleep. When he awoke it was to see the sun edging above the watery horizon and lighting the sky with its first, feeble crimson rays.

  Norlin pointed through the forward observation port. “We’re almost there. You can see the tips of the mountains beginning to appear.”

  Reid nodded, then watched them swell into size. Soon they were within sight of the white sand of the shore, and Norlin sent the ship slanting downward to take up a course parallel to it. In the afternoon of the third day out, Norlin leaned suddenly forward in his seat, peering ahead tensely.

  “The bay!” he announced, after a moment. “See it?”

  Reid narrowed his eyes against the glare of the sand. In the distance, the white ribbon of shoreline ended as suddenly as though cut by a knife.

  “That’s where the shoreline curves inward to form the bay,” Norlin explained. “Great cliffs rise out of the water on the other side of the inlet.”

  Shortly they were entering the inlet itself. This was nothing more than a vast slit in the mountains which towered up fifteen miles and more on either side. Reid gasped at the vista revealed. The bay was a vast one, enclosed on both sides by sky-high peaks. But it was not this that held his attention. His eyes were fixed upon the multicolored towers and domes that glittered at the opposite end.

  “There it is!” Norlin said. “Want me to land now?”

  Reid took a deep breath. “No. I’d like to get as close as possible. Skim a hundred feet or so above the shore until we’re within sight of the farm lands you spoke of. If you hug the mountain walls, we won’t be seen.”

  Norlin sent the ship down until the blast from the underjets was churning the sand. He cut speed for a more cautious approach. Reid watched the city grow, every atom of his being concentrated upon the sight of it.

  “There’s the farmlands,” Norlin said, finally, pointing ahead.

  “Land, then,” Reid answered.

  Norlin landed on the shore close to the mountain wall. He and Reid left the ship, then climbed their way up to a convenient ledge of rock. They looked in silence.

  Reid’s face softened into lines of deep admiration at what he beheld. The city was like a jewel in a flawless setting.

  It rested on a tremendous plain, within a semi-circle of titanic mountains. At its foot spread great farmlands, a vast patchwork of green, yellow, and brown. Mighty forests rolled away on either side.

  The location, Reid thought, was not only ideal; it was perfection itself. The dwellers in the city could look out to the waters of the bay. They were sheltered and protected by the mountains. They had ready access to timber and ores. Reid felt a depthless sorrow that this could not be for the Arkites. He knew that even though a lifetime were spent to accomplish it, it was not likely that he would find another spot like this.

  Dominating the scene was the city itself. It was still too far away for Reid to make out any amount of detail, but he knew the heights to which the mountains towered on New Terra, and from the way the city balanced those that soared into the sky behind it, he knew, that it was very big. And from what little he was able to make out, he knew that it was very beautiful. His eyes followed the tracery of delicate spires and leaping arches, and he felt at once a deep sadness and a great respect that another people could build so well. He turned away, embittered.

  “Look,” Norlin said suddenly. “Let’s go down there. Let’s go into the city.” His eyes were eager and reckless.

  Reid shook his head with somber slowness. “No. We can’t do that.”

  “But why?” the other protested. “There’s no danger. There can’t be any danger. People who can build a city like that just couldn’t be bad.”

  “No!” Reid said again. He faced the scout squarely. “Norlin, it’s about time you awoke to the realization that this city is not for us. The people who built it have made real their own racial dream of power and greatness. We must leave them to their glory. It would not be fair either to them or to us to share in it. We are another, different race—and at one time a mighty one. We should have enough pride in this knowledge to build and achieve for ourselves.”

  Norlin’s face was bewildered. “I don’t think I get you, skipper. Do you mean we’re never going to have anything to do with the city or the people who live in it?”

  Reid looked away, nodding. “And not only that,” he said huskily, “but as soon as we get back to camp, we’re going to pack everything into the Parsec and leave New Terra.”

  “What!” Norlin’s shout was a cry of utter amazement. “But that’s insane, skipper. It’s positively stark, staring mad!”

  “Nevertheless, it’s the thing we’re going to do.”

  “Now look, skipper, you must surely know of the hardships we’ve all gone through in camp. We’re all soft—I might as well admit it. We’re not frontiersmen, and haven’t been for over two hundred years. That kind of life is killing us—and it will kill a lot of us before we get a permanent settlement established elsewhere.” Norlin became despera
tely pleading.

  “To space with racial achievement, skipper! It’s ourselves, here and now, that counts—not those who come after us. They wouldn’t appreciate it anyway. Down there is an advanced city, inhabited by people like ourselves. Why, all we have to do is walk right in and make ourselves at home! There just isn’t any sensible reason for passing up an opportunity like this to go to another world and suffer all over again.”

  Reid whirled on the scout, eyes blazing, his body shaking with fury. “Well, by all the powers, if that isn’t the vilest bit of drivel I’ve ever heard.” His voice became slow and concise with contempt and loathing.

  “Gone soft? Gone soft, hell I It’s just that you’ve all gone rotten lazy to the core! You’ve pushed buttons so long that you can’t get your mental patterns adjusted to any other system of behavior. You’ve actually degenerated to the point where you’d be willing to crawl over to another race on your bellies, whining for the food and shelter that you’re too shiftless to obtain for yourselves.

  “Well, I’ll change that, all right! If you all have lost your pride and ambition, I’ve got more than enough for the lot of you. I said we’re going to leave New Terra—and we’re going to. I said we’re going to build and achieve for ourselves—and we’re going to do just that. And I don’t want to hear another word to the contrary, understand me?”

  For a moment Reid’s angry eyes locked with Norlin’s sullen ones; then the scout’s gaze dropped, and Reid made his way down from the ledge and back into the auxiliary. Norlin paused to throw a last, lingering look toward the city. When he turned to follow, his brows were drawn together thoughtfully.

  The return trip was made in strained silence. Shortly after noon of the sixth day, they were back in camp.

  Reid found conditions in a bad way. The rains still hadn’t come, and the terrific heat of Alpha Centauri had made its effects felt heavily. A strange fever had broken out in camp, and almost a dozen Arkites lay sick with it. The spring, which was their source of water had dried up, and now arduous trips to a distant lake had become necessary. Those of the Arkites who had yet the strength to move about were listless and dull-eyed, sullen.