The Creature from Beyond Infinity
Henry Kuttner
Like a great, lethal snake, plague creeps through the galaxies. No conscious entity can halt its progress, and life is slowly draining from planet after planet.
Only one super-intelligence is capable of preventing cataclysm. To do it, he must penetrate far beyond infinity—to the formless, deathless creature out to kill the universe.
The Creature from Beyond Infinity
by Henry Kuttner
CHAPTER I
The Beginning
Ardath opened his eyes, trying to remember why a blinding pain should be throbbing within his skull. Above him was a twisted girder of yellow metal, and beyond that, the inner wall of the space ship. What had happened?
It seemed scarcely a moment ago that the craft had been filled with a confusion of shouted orders, quickly moving men, and the shriek of cleft atmosphere as the ship drove down. Then had come the shock of landing—blackness. And now?
Painfully Ardath dragged his slight, fragile body erect. All around him were ruin and confusion. Corpses lay sprawled and limp, the bodies of those who had not survived the terrible concussion. Strange men, slim and delicate, their skins had been darkly tanned by the long voyage across space. Ardath started hopefully when he saw that one of the bodies moved slightly and moaned.
Theron! Theron, the commander—highest in rank and wisdom—had survived. A wave of gratefulness swept through Ardath. He was not alone on this new, unknown world, as he had feared. Swiftly he found stimulants and bent over the reviving man.
Theron's gray, beardless face grew contorted. His pallid blue eyes opened. He drew a lean hand over his bald head as he whispered.
"Ardath—"
A rocking shudder shook the ship, then suddenly died.
"Who else is alive?" Theron asked with painful effort.
"I don't know, Theron," Ardath replied softly.
"Find out."
Ardath searched the huge golden ship. He came back with despair on his drawn harrowed features.
"You and I are the only ones left alive, Theron."
The commander gnawed at his lips.
"So. And I am dying." He smiled resignedly at Ardath's sudden protest. "It's true, Ardath. You do not realize how old I am. For years we have gone through space, and you are the youngest of us. Unshield a port. Let me see where we are."
"The third planet of this System," Ardath said.
He pressed a button that swung back a shutter from a nearby port in the golden wall. They saw nothing but darkness at first. Then their eyes became accustomed to the gloom.
The ship lay beached on a dim shore. Blackly ominous the strange world loomed through the gray murk of vague light that filtered through the cloudy sky. A slow drizzle of rain was falling.
"Test the atmosphere," Theron commanded. Ardath obeyed. Spectroscopic analysis, made from outer space, had indicated that the air here was breathable. The chemical test confirmed this. At Theron's request, Ardath opened a spacelock.
Air surged in with a queerly choking sulphurous odor. The two men coughed rackingly, until eventually they became accustomed to it.
"Carry me out," the commander said quietly. His glance met and locked with Ardath's as the younger man hesitated. "I shall die soon," he insisted gently. "But first I must—I must know that I have reached my goal."
Silently Ardath lifted the slight figure in his arms. He splashed through the warm waves and gently laid Theron down on the barren beach. The Sun, hidden behind a cloud blanket, was rising in the first dawn Ardath had ever seen.
A gray sky and sea, a dark shore—those were all he actually saw. Under Ardath's feet he felt the world shudder with the volcanic fires of creation. Rain and tide had not yet eroded the rocks into sand and soil. No vegetation grew anywhere. He did not know whether the land was an island or a continent. It rose abruptly from the beach and mounted to towering crags against the inland skyline.
Theron sighed. His thin ringers groped blindly over the rocky surface on which he lay.
"You are space-born, Ardath," he said painfully. "You cannot quite realize that only on a planet can a man find a home. But I am afraid…"
His voice died away. Then it rose again, strengthened. "I am dying but there is something I must tell you first. Listen, Ardath. . You never knew your mother planet, Kyria. It is light-years away from this world. Or it was. Centuries ago, we discovered that Kyria was doomed. A wandering planetoid came so close that it would inevitably collide with us and destroy our civilization utterly. "Kyria was a lovely world, Ardath."
"I know," Ardath breathed. "I have seen the films in our records."
"You have seen our great cities, and the green forests and fields—" An agonizing cough rocked the dying commander. He went on hastily. "We fled. A selected group of us made this space ship and left Kyria in search of a new home. But of hundreds of planets that we found, none was suitable. None would sustain human life. This, the third planet of this yellow Sun, is our last hope. Our fuel is almost gone. It is your duty, Ardath, to see that the civilization of Kyria does not perish."
"But this is a dead world," the younger man protested.
"It is a young world," Theron corrected.
He paused, and his hand lifted, pointing. Ardath stared at the slow, sullen tide that rippled drearily toward them. The gloomy wash of water receded. And there on the rocky slope lay something that made him nod understandingly.
It was not large. A greasy, shining blob of slime, featureless and repulsive, it was unmistakably alive, undeniably sentient!
The shimmering globule of protoplasm was drawn back with the next wave. When Ardath's eyes met Theron's, the dying man smiled triumphantly.
"Life! There's sun here, Ardath, beyond the clouds—a Sun that sends forth energy, cosmic rays, the rays of evolution. Immeasurable ages will pass before human beings exist here, but exist they will! Our study of countless other planets enables us to predict the course of evolution here. From the unicellular creatures will come sea-beings with vertebrae, then amphibiae, and true reptiles.
"Then warm-blooded beasts will evolve from the flying reptiles and the dinosaurs. Finally there will be ape-like men, who will yield the planet to—true men!"
"But it will take millennia!"
"You must remain here," Theron stated. "How many of us survived the voyage from Kyria? You must wait, Ardath, even a million years if it is necessary. Our stasis ray kept us in suspended animation while we came across space. Take the ship beyond the atmosphere. Adjust it to a regular orbit, like a second satellite around this world.
"Set the controls so you will awaken eventually, and be able to investigate the evolutionary progress of this planet. You will wait a long time, I admit. But finally you will find men."
"Men like us?"
Theron shook his head regretfully.
"No. Super-mentality is a matter of eugenically controlled breeding. Occasionally a mental giant will be born, but not often. On Kyria we bred and mated these mental giants, till eventually their progeny peopled the planet. You must do the same with this world."
"I will," Ardath consented. "But how—" "Go through the ages. Do not stop till you find one of these mental giants. He will be easily recognized, for, almost from infancy, he will be far in advance of his contemporaries. He will withdraw from them, turning to the pursuit of wisdom. He will be responsible for many of the great inventions of his time. Take this man—or woman, perhaps—and go on into time, until you have found a mental giant of the opposite sex. "You could never mate with a female of this world, Ardath. Since you are from another system, it would be biologically impossible. The union would be sterile. This is
your duty—find a super-mentality, take him from his own time-sector, and find a mate for him in the more distant future. From that union will arise a race of giants equal to the Kyrians. In a sense, you will have been their foster-father."
Theron sighed and turned his head till his cheek lay against the bare rock of the shore.
"May the great Architect guide you, Ardath," he said softly.
Abruptly his head slumped, and Theron was dead. The gray waves whispered a requiem. Ardath stood silent, looking down at the worn, tired face, now relaxed in death. He was alone, infinitely far from the nearest human being. Then another feeling came, making him realize that he was no longer a homeless wanderer of space.
Never in his life had Ardath stood on a world's surface. The others had told him of Kyria, and on the pictorial library screens he had seen views of green and sunset lands that were agonizingly beautiful. Inevitably Ardath had come to fear the black immensity of the starlit void, to hate its cold, eternal changelessness. He had dreamed of walking on grassy, rolling plains…
That would come, for he knew Theron had been right. Cycads and ferns would grow where Ardath now stood. Amphibiae would come out of the waters and evolve, slowly of course, but with inexorable certainty. He could afford to wait.
First, though, he needed power. The great atomic engine of the ship was useless, exhausted.
Atomic power resembled dynamite in that it needed some outside source of energy to get it started. Dynamite required a percussion cap. The engine of the golden ship needed power. Solar energy? Lenses were required. Besides, the cloudblanket was an insurmountable handicap, filtering out most of the necessary rays. Coal? It would not exist here for ages.
A tremble shook the ground, and Ardath nodded thoughtfully. There was power below the power of seething lava, enormous pressures, and heat that could melt solid rock. Could it be harnessed?
Steam… a geyser! That would provide the necessary energy to start the atomic motor. After that, anything would be possible.
With a single regretful glance at the dead Theron, Ardath set out to explore the savage new world.
For two days and nights he hunted, growing haggard and weary. At last he found an area of lava streams, shuddering rock, and geysers. Steam feathered up into the humid air, and to the north a red glow brightened the gray sky.
Ardath stood for a while, watching. His quest was ended. Long weeks of arduous work still lay ahead, but now he had no doubt of ultimate success. The steam demons would set the atomic motor into the operation. After that, he could rip ores from the ground and find chemicals. But after that?
The ship must be made spaceworthy again, though not for another long voyage. Such a course would be fruitless. Of all the planets the Kyrians had visited, only this world was capable of supporting life.
As yet, mere cells of blind, insensate protoplasm swarmed in the sullen seas, but those cells would develop. Evolution would work upon them. Perhaps in a million years human beings, intelligent creatures, would walk this world. Then, one day, a super-mentality would be born, and Ardath would find that kindred mind. He would take that mental giant into the future, in search of a suitable mate. After dozens of generations there would arise a civilization that would rival that of Kyria—his home planet now utterly destroyed without trace.
Time passed as Ardath worked. He blasted out a grave for Theron on the shore where the old Kyrian had died. He repaired the golden craft. Tirelessly he toiled.
Five months later, the repaired space ship rose, carrying its single passenger. Through the atmosphere it fled. It settled into an orbit, became a second, infinitesimal moon revolving around the mother planet.
Within it Ardath's robot machinery began to operate. A ray beamed out, touching and bathing the man's form, which was stretched on a low couch.
Slowly consciousness left Ardath. The atomic structure of his body was subtly altered. Electrons slowed in their orbits. Since they emitted no quanta, Ardath's energy was frozen in the utter motionlessness of stasis. Neither alive nor dead, he slept.
The ray clicked off. When Ardath wakened, he would see a different world older and stranger. Perhaps it would even be peopled by intelligent beings.
Silently the space ship swept on. Far beneath it a planet; shuddered in the titanic grip of dying fires. The rains poured down, eroding, endless. The tides flowed and ebbed. Always the cloud veil shrouded the world that was to be called Earth. Amid the shattering thunder of deluges, new lands rose and continents were formed.
Life, blind, hungry and groping, crawled up on the beaches, where it basked for a time in the dim sunlight.
CHAPTER II
Youth
On August 7, 1924, an eight-year-old boy caused a panic in a Des Moines theater.
His name was Stephen Court He had been born to a theatrical family of mediocre talent—the Crazy Courts, they were billed. The act was a combination of gags, dances and humorous songs. Stephen traveled with his parents on tour, when they played one-night stands and small vaudeville circuits. In 1924, vaudeville had not yet been killed by the films. It was the beginning of the Jazz Age.
Stephen was so remarkably intelligent, even as a child, that he was soon incorporated into the act as a "mental wizard." He wore a miniature cap and gown, and was introduced by his parents at the end of their turn.
"Any date—ask him any historical date, my friends, and he will answer! The gentleman in the third row. What do you want to know?"
And Stephen would answer accurately. When did Columbus discover America? When was the Magna Charta signed? When was the Battle of Hastings? When was Lafayette born?
"Mathematical questions? You, there—"
Stephen would answer. Mathematics was no riddle for him, nor algebra. The value of pi? He knew it. Formulas and equations slipped glibly from his tongue. He stood on the stage in the spotlight, his small face impassive, a small, dark-haired child with curiously luminous brown eyes, and answered all questions.
He read omnivorously every book he could manage to obtain. He was coldly unemotional, which distressed his mother, and he hid his thoughts well.
Then, on that August night, his Me suddenly changed.
The act was almost over. The audience was applauding wildly. The Courts stood on each side of the boy, bowing. And Stephen stood motionless, his strange, glowing eyes staring out into the gloom of the theater.
"Take your bows, kid," Court hissed from the side of his mouth.
But the boy didn't answer. There was an odd tensity in his rigid posture. His expressionless face seemed strained. Only in his eyes was there life, and a terrible fire.
In the theater, a whisper grew to a murmur and the applause died. Then the murmur swelled to a restrained roar, until someone screamed:
"Fire!"
Court glanced around quickly. He could see no signs of smoke or flame. But he made a quick gesture, and the orchestra leader struck up a tune. Hastily the man and woman went into a routine tap dance.
"Steve!" Court said urgently. "Join in!"
But Stephen just stood there, and through the theater the roar rose to individual screams of panic. The audience no longer watched the stage. They sprang up and fought then-way to the exits, cursing, pushing, crowding.
Nothing could stop it. By sheer luck no one was killed. But in ten minutes the theater was empty—and there had been no sign of a fire.
In his dressing room, Court looked queerly at his son.
"What was wrong with you tonight, kid?" he asked, as he removed greasepaint from his face with cold cream.
"Nothing," Stephen said abstractedly.
"Something funny about the whole thing. There wasn't any fire."
Stephen sat on a chair, his legs swinging idly.
"That magician we played with last week—" he began.
"Yeah?"
"I got some ideas from him."
"Well?" his father urged.
"I watched him when he hypnotized a man from the audience. That's all it
was. I hypnotized the entire audience tonight."
"Oh, cut it out," Court said, grinning.
"It's true! The conditions were right. Everyone's attention was focused on me. I made them think there was a fire."
When Court turned and looked at the boy, he had an odd feeling that this was not his son sitting opposite him. The round face was childish, but the eyes were not. They were cold, watchful, direct.
Court laughed without much conviction.
"You're crazy," he said, turning back to the light-rimmed mirror.
"Maybe I am," Stephen said lightly. "I want to go to school. Will you send me?"
"I can't afford it Anyway, you're too big an attraction. Maybe we can manage later."
Stephen did not argue. He rose and went toward his mother's dressing room, but he did not enter. Instead, he turned and left the theater.
He had determined to run away.
Stephen already knew that his brain was far superior to the average. It was as yet unformed, requiring knowledge and capable training. Those he could never get through his parents. He felt no sorrow or pity on leaving them. His cool intellect combined with the natural cruelty of childhood to make him unemotional, passionlessly logical.
But Stephen needed money, and his youth was a handicap. No one would employ a child, he knew, except perhaps as a newsboy. Moreover, he had to outwit his parents, who would certainly search for their son.
Strangely there was nothing pathetic about Stephen's small figure as he trudged along the dark street. His iron singleness of purpose and his ruthless will gave him a certain incongruous dignity. He walked swiftly to the railroad station.
On the way he passed a speakeasy. A man was lying in the gutter before the door, an unshaved derelict, grizzled of hair and with worn, dissolute features. He was mumbling drunkenly and striving helplessly to rise.
Stephen paused to watch. Attracted by the silent gaze, the man looked up. As the two glances met, inflexible purpose grew in the boy's pale face.
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