The 38th Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK

by Chester S. Geier

  “There is no need to leave.” It was Jimmy, who had apparently recovered from Yeager’s blow. “We have already made certain preparations.”

  I went cold with sudden fear. “My Lord!” I whispered. “You don’t intend to cause further harm?”

  Jimmy shook his head slowly and gravely. “No further harm. Concern yourselves with this no longer.” He pointed at the door. “I must ask you to go. There are certain things that we have yet to do.”

  And somehow, without any further protest, Trane and I were walking toward the door. The next thing I knew, we were in the hall leading to the living room, and Rowe, Johnson, and Harris were crowding about us with anxious questions.

  Trane explained what had happened, trying to make it as easy on Rowe as possible. But when he had finished, Rowe collapsed into a chair, burying his face in his hands.

  I turned quietly to Harris. “Better give the ships a check-over. We may have to leave here unexpectedly.”

  * * * *

  With the approach of evening, a thin, fine snow started to fall, and a cold wind howled about the house. Queer whining and humming sounds came from the workshop below. Trane and I glanced at each other, wondering desperately what the explorers could be doing. Rowe had been given a sedative by Trane and sent to bed. He had been in no condition to bear the tension of waiting for what was to happen next.

  Night fell, and the howl of the wind grew stronger. I paced the living room, while Trane stood at the windows, gazing out into the darkness.

  “Seems to be snowing harder,” Trane commented after a time.

  “The weather may be delaying them,” I said.

  “They’ll come,” Trane assured grimly. “Sooner or later. There are witches to hunt—”

  “Can’t we do something?” I burst out. “Anything but sit around and wait like this?”

  “That’s all we can do, I guess—until they get here. Leaving would only make matters look worse.”

  “But the explorers—”

  I broke off abruptly. A deep, deep sound vibrated suddenly throughout the house, like the plucking of a giant harp-string. It came again—and again. Within ensuing seconds it was repeated many times. Then the howl of the wind once more became the only sound.

  There was a sudden clatter of footsteps, and Harris burst into the room. “They’re coming!” he announced breathlessly. “I saw the lights of their cars down the road. They’re coming fast—and there’s a lot of them.”

  I jerked into motion. The explorers had to be warned.

  I pounded through the hall and down the stairs. Words leaping to my lips, I pushed open the door of the workshop. Then I halted, frozen with utter stupefaction.

  It was a workshop no longer. It was just a playroom again. My amazed eyes passed over ping-pong and billiard tables, dart boards, archery sets. The machinery, the tools, the weirdly shimmering cube—all were gone.

  Of the four explorers, of the bodies of Griffin and Yeager, there was no slightest sign. They had gone with all the rest.

  When I turned dazedly toward the door again, I saw Trane standing there. We stared at each other.

  “Gone,” I whispered. “Gone!”

  Trane nodded slowly. “They went back to the only place where they were understood. They did not need the Spaceward. Their knowledge, given expression by Earthly tools and materials, provided them with something better.”

  And then realization came to me, too. “They returned to Earth because here were tools, materials, countless other things, which could not be obtained on Mars. And now—”

  Trane took a deep breath. “And now they’ve gone—home.”

  A CRYSTAL AND A SPELL

  Originally published in Fantastic Adventures, May 1946.

  Afternoon sunlight, filtering like golden liquid through the leaves and branches of bordering trees, lay in bright puddles along the asphalt path. Amos Burrick hurried on rheumatic legs down the path, toward the small plaza at its end. He had unbuttoned his worn blue jacket, and his shapeless greenish black hat was pushed to the back of his untidy gray head.

  In the somnolent quiet of the park came the many-toned twittering of birds, with an occasional nearby flutter of wings. Somewhere in the distance, a power-driven lawn mower buzzed, and the voices of playing children rang with muted stridence. A cool breeze, tangy with the mingled scents of grass and flowers, stirred fretfully on the warm air. The surrounding foliage rustled with a note of protest in the breeze, as if resentful of being disturbed.

  Burrick squinted his fading brown eyes near-sightedly as he approached the plaza. In the center of it, a granite Lincoln slumped broodingly in a granite chair. The statue was mounted upon a concrete pedestal, and around the sides of this wooden benches had been placed. Nobody was seated on the two benches visible to Burrick. He wondered anxiously if Jon Ten Eyck had come to the park this day.

  Burrick felt a pang of apprehension that had in it all the poignancy of a child about to be deprived of its favorite toy. For a moment that old feeling of unutterable loneliness returned overwhelmingly. He had spent many pleasant hours in Jon Ten Eyck’s company, and he had looked forward to this afternoon with especially keen anticipation.

  Burrick hurried forward to get a view of the other two sides of the pedestal. He knew, if Jon Ten Eyck had come to the park at all, that he was certain to be here, for like Burrick, he had found this portion of the park most to his liking. Though Ten Eyck was a newcomer to the park, Burrick had already learned this much.

  It was on one of the benches around the pedestal a few days before that Burrick had met Ten Eyck. Burrick himself was a frequent visitor to the park, for the simple reason that he had nowhere else to go. He was just in the way at home, as his son’s wife loudly and all too often informed him. A widower, he had come to live with his son several years previously, board payments from a skimpy savings account making him welcome enough. But now the money was gone, and he lived on charity and borrowed time.

  The matter of charity did not bother him, for he felt that his son owed him that much. The matter of borrowed time was a worry, but he had learned not to think about it too often. What really hurt was the fact that he had nobody to talk to. His son was too busy for companionship, his son’s wife too annoyed by his profitless presence to be amiable at any time, and the children had reached that age where they possessed little if any patience with the old. An elderly man is usually garrulous and loves company, and Amos Burrick was more typical than most.

  Burrick slowed his eager pace as he neared the statue. Rounding one corner of the pedestal, he saw an old man seated on a bench, reading a newspaper through gold-rimmed spectacles perched low on his round red nose.

  Burrick sauntered up casually. “Hello, Mr. Ten Eyck,” he said.

  Ten Eyck peered over the top of his spectacles and smiled. “Ah, it is Mynheer Burrick.” He gestured in invitation at his bench.

  Still casually, Burrick seated himself beside the other. He removed his hat, and as if it were new and quite expensive, placed it carefully on the bench at his side. He crossed his legs in their shiny threadbare trousers and leaned back comfortably. He said:

  “A nice day, Mr. Ten Eyck, a nice day.”

  Ten Eyck took off his spectacles and gazed about him as though for the first time. “It is that,” he agreed. “Almost it is like a day in my native Pennsylvania.” White hair grew in a thick fringe around the lower half of his head. His bald crown, like his cherubic face, had a ruddy scrubbed look. His short body was dumpling-like with good living. Well-dressed, his appearance made a strong contrast beside the seedy scrawniness of Amos Burrick.

  Burrick, however, was unaware of the difference. Only one thing made any impression upon him. That was having someone to talk to.

  “You find that relative of yours yet?” Burrick asked conversationally.

  “My cousin Wilhelm?” Ten Eyck gave a so
mber shake of his head. “No, and the whole morning I have spent making inquiries. They told me it was here to this city that Wilhelm had come.”

  “The city’s a big place,” Burrick reminded.

  “That, yes. But it has been a long time, and Wilhelm since may have left.” Ten Eyck’s rosy features became worried. “I know not what I shall do if I do not find Wilhelm. He was of the family the last. I have not much longer, and the crystal must to the next be passed on.”

  “The crystal,” Burrick echoed significantly. He glanced at Ten Eyck with sudden slyness. “I still don’t believe it can do all those thinks like you said the other day.”

  Ten Eyck gave a cherubic smile of confidence. “You do not believe it will cause spells in which you live again the past? But I promised to show it to you, did I not? To see is to believe.”

  “I sure would like to see it,” Burrick said eagerly. He had been leading up to this, and now he reached quickly for his hat before Ten Eyck could change his mind.

  “Come, then. It is but a short walk to my hotel.” Ten Eyck placed his glasses carefully in a leather case and rose. Burrick followed, stifling a gasp as his rheumatic legs responded with a painful twinge.

  Ten Eyck lived on a business street just across the park, in a small third-rate hotel which reflected his characteristic Dutch sense of thrift. The desk clerk payed little notice to either Burrick or Ten Eyck as he handed the latter his key.

  There was no elevator. Burrick and Ten Eyck mounted a flight of stairs to the second floor. Ten Eyck’s room was at the end of a narrow dark hall. He gestured Burrick inside and carefully locked the door.

  “It is a risk I take, to live here,” he told Burrick. “But they charge too much, the other places.” He shrugged plump shoulders, and led Burrick to a chair beside a battered deal writing table. Then he pulled a bulging suitcase from under the bed, and went quickly through its contents. Finally he straightened, holding a small wooden box some three inches square. He stood quietly for a moment, regarding the box with a frown of deep thought.

  “In my family this has been for many generations,” he said at last. “Always it was passed on, from father to son—until now. I had no children, and Wilhelm was of my family the only one left.” His reflective tone lowered. “How old is the crystal, I do not know. It was brought from India by one of my ancestors, a sea captain, at a time when Dutch ships sailed all the trade routes of the world. And already then it was very old.”

  As Burrick watched intently, Ten Eyck opened the box. From its padded interior he withdrew a blazing crystal octagon, which he placed before Burrick on the writing table.

  Burrick stared at the octagon in sudden awe. It glowed in rainbow splendor like some great jewel. Its light did not seem to be reflected, but rather a part of itself, as though its interior were filled with prismatic radiance. Gazing into it, Burrick abruptly discovered that its internal light did not glow steadily as did light from an electric bulb. It waned and brightened rhythmically like the quick pulsing of an excited heart. And with each beat its multitude of glorious colors flashed and changed in a never-ending play of vivid hues. The throbbing flame with its endless chromatic transformation held the eyes hypnotically.

  To Burrick, the room seemed to dim and fade away as he peered with breathless absorption into the depths of the octagon. He heard Ten Eyck speak again, but the other’s voice came as though from a great distance.

  “When one gazes at the crystal, into a spell he falls, and the events of his past life he lives again. If it is just a dream by the strange power of the crystal caused, or if one actually does in the past live again, I do not know. But it seems real—as real as the present.”

  Burrick was motionless in his chair, frozen. The room was gone. There was only the light in the octagon, pulsing, ever-changing, numbing in its sheer kaleidoscopic splendor. Through the last thin crack in the closing door of his awareness, a voice spoke—a thin ghost of sound that might have come from some far end of the universe.

  “But in looking at the crystal, there is a danger. It drinks at the strength. It is as if the energy of the body and mind it uses to cause the dreams. One careful must be not to…”

  The door had closed. The voice was silenced. Burrick floated in a warm pulsing sea of rainbow color. He had a sense of weightlessness, of infinite peace. Time had stopped. Life itself seemed suspended.

  Then the throbbing world of color paled and faded. A grayness came. Through the grayness, far away but coming nearer, sounds stirred. Inchoate and confused at first, but after a moment Burrick was able to make out the crash of rifles and the roar of artillery.

  The sounds seemed poignantly familiar. He strove to place them in memory. All at once recollection came.

  Abruptly the grayness was gone. He crouched, one of a long line of men in battle-stained uniforms, behind the scanty underbrush at the slope of a long hill. His bayoneted rifle was hot in his hands from constant firing, A spot on his shoulder burned where a bullet had grazed him.

  They were waiting he knew, just giving the enemy entrenched on the hill something to think about, and waiting… Then the long-awaited signal came. A sudden thundering of horses hooves, and from off to his left a detachment of cavalry pounded into view, a flag fluttering at their head.

  Even at this distance he recognized the Stars and Stripes. He forgot his burning thirst and the ache of his tired muscles. A fierce vibrant joy shot through him. He gripped his rifle tighter and looked up at the crest of the hill with eager eyes.

  The thunder of the approaching horses shook the earth. A short chunky rider in the lead pounded for the slope, the sun glinting on his pince-nez glasses, his sword upraised. Burrick felt a surging thrill. It was Teddy, right out in front where he always was.

  “Charge!”

  The command rose above the tumult of battle. The shouted roar of exultant voices answered.

  Like a shattering wave, the cavalry dashed itself against the hill and boiled upwards to the crest. Burrick followed through the choking dust, slipping, sliding, yelling like a demon. Then he was on the crest, panting, vibrant with the knowledge that a decisive victory had been won.

  The battle of San Juan hill, and Burrick a teen-aged private in the Spanish-American War.

  He lived it all over again. It was so vivid and real that it was like something happening here and now, instead of something that had taken place in a dim and vanished yesterday.

  One by one, the incidents of that golden era of his youth were recreated. The march into Manila…the return to the States…the parades and music… All was very sharp and clear. It was as though time had never passed beyond the scenes occurring.

  And then the grayness returned. Color and pulsing movement came into it. He was back in the rainbow sea—but it was fading.

  Burrick opened his eyes. For a long moment he gazed about him uncomprehendingly. Then awareness of his surroundings washed over him in a cold wave of understanding. He was once more just a shabby old man in a shabby hotel room. Just a shabby old man without purpose or hope. Realization of this struck into him with bitter sharpness.

  He sat up in his chair. It took quite an effort to accomplish the movement, for he felt strangely listless and weak. His strength seemed to have ebbed during the interval under the crystal’s spell.

  The room brimmed with the shadows of evening. Ten Eyck stood patiently at the window, puffing at a large curve-stemmed pipe. He turned as the sounds of Burrick’s awakening broke the quiet of the room.

  “Well, Mynheer Burrick, are you now convinced?”

  Burrick nodded with feeble vehemence. “That crystal thing is the Devil’s own contraption.”

  “But was it not real?”

  “A mite too real, maybe.” Burrick surveyed wryly his scrawny wrinkled hands and threadbare garments. “Compared to the spell, this is like a bad dream.”

  Ten Eyck chuckled softly,
then sobered. He watched Burrick intently for some seconds. He asked, “You feel all right?”

  “Kind of worn out,” Burrick answered.

  “The crystal, it has that effect,” Ten Eyck said. “As I have explained, one’s own strength it uses to cause the spells.”

  Burrick nodded vaguely and glanced at the window. He felt a wrench of apprehension as he noticed suddenly that it was evening. He rose on unsteady legs and reached for his hat.

  “I’ll have to be going, Mr. Ten Eyck. It’s past supper time, and Alma—that’s my son’s wife—is going to give me hell for being late. You’ll be in the park tomorrow?”

  Ten Eyck nodded. “I shall be in the city a few more days yet. The search for Wilhelm I cannot give up until convinced I am that he is not here.”

  Burrick hurried home anxiously. As he had expected, Alma was shrill with anger over his tardiness.

  “You’re just an old bum,” she accused. “All you’re good for is eating and sleeping and gadding about. If you can’t make yourself useful around the house, Lord know the least you can do is come home to supper on time.”

  To make matters worse, Tom was not there to intercede for him as he usually did. Of course, Tom’s help was rather half-hearted at best, but at least it was better than weathering the storm of Alma’s tirades alone.

  Alma, however, was not without a vestigial sympathy. After a while she calmed down enough to warm up for Burrick the supper leftovers, grumbling throughout the process about having to act as nursemaid to a worthless old man. In a hurry to escape from Alma’s ill-tempered presence, Burrick gulped his food down quickly. He knew why his son, Tom, was absent from home so much. Tom claimed it was business, but the excuse was as good as any.

  Finishing shortly, Burrick went up to his room in the attic. He undressed, donned a patched nightshirt and lay down on the hard cot that served him as a bed. He would have liked to listen to the radio a while, but that would have sent Alma into another fury. He knew only too well what she had to say on the subject of shiftless old men who listened to radios.