In the Beginning: Tales From the Pulp Era

by Robert Silverberg

  Abruptly the booming stopped. That meant, Marshall thought, that the monster had to be very close—and perhaps was pausing a few yards away, searching for the small creatures it had seen from the distance. He held his breath and warily looked over his shoulder.

  Two legs were planted like treetrunks no more than twenty yards from him. He caught his breath sharply. Lois turned to see what he was looking at; her mouth widened as if she were about to scream, and Marshall instantly slapped his hand over it.

  She relaxed. He lifted his hand from her mouth and put a finger to his lips, indicating silence.

  They turned round to see the creature.

  It did not seem to notice them. Marshall’s gaze rose, up the giant legs, past the thick midsection of the body, to the head. Yes, there was no doubt about it—there was intelligence in those eyes. But an alien intelligence. And it was the face of a carnivorous creature that would hardly stop to wonder before devouring them.

  It had come to a halt and was peering round, spreading the brush apart with its monstrous paws, hunting for the hidden Earthmen. Marshall prayed that Garvey, on the other side of the creature, would not decide to open fire with his bow. The monster evidently had a poor sense of smell, and the humans were well hidden under the shrubbery. With luck, they might avoid being seen. Perhaps the creature, cheated of its prey, would simply continue on its way through the jungle, allowing them to move along toward New Lisbon without harm.

  Long moments passed. The creature, with seemingly cosmic patience, was still standing there, probing the underbrush with its enormous fingers. Marshall kept the blaster cocked and ready in case he should be uncovered. No doubt Garvey was waiting, too, with his wife.

  How about Kyle? Marshall remembered the way Kyle had choked up when the sea-serpent had risen from the depths of the river. How was the financier reacting now, with hideous death looming not far overhead?

  Marshall found out a moment later.

  Kyle began to scream.

  “Help! Help me! It’s going to find me! Marshall! Garvey! Kill it before it catches me!”

  His pitiful wails rang out loudly. Marshall saw the feet of the monster rise and move in the direction of the sound.

  “No! No!” Kyle yelled.

  “Stay here and don’t move from the spot,” Marshall told Lois. “I’ve got to protect Kyle. The idiot! The absolute idiot!”

  He moved in a half-crouch through the underbrush. Kyle was still yelling in hysterical fear. Marshall kept going until he reached Garvey. The solidly built colonist had his bow drawn tight and was looking around.

  “The creature’s just over to the left,” Garvey informed him. “It heard Kyle squalling and now it’s going to have a look.”

  Marshall craned his neck back. Yes, there was the creature, hovering high above the forest floor.

  “Help me! Please don’t let it get me!” Kyle was still wailing.

  The creature stopped suddenly. It reached into the underbrush; its fingers closed around something. Then it straightened up. Marshall saw something impossibly tiny-looking held in the monster’s hand, and he had to force himself to realize that the kicking, squirming creature the monster held was a human being.

  “Let’s go,” Marshall said. “It’s caught Kyle. Maybe we can kill it.”

  The monster was staring at Kyle with deep curiosity. The Earthman blubbered and screamed. Gently, the huge creature touched Kyle with an inch-long fingernail. Kyle moaned and prayed for release.

  “Should we fire?” Garvey asked.

  “Wait a minute. Maybe it’ll set him down. It seems fascinated by him.”

  “It’s never seen an Earthman before,” Garvey said. “Maybe it’ll decide Kyle isn’t edible.”

  “He deserves whatever he gets,” Marshall grunted. “But it’s our duty as Earthmen to try to save him. Suppose you take a pot-shot at the hand that’s holding Kyle. Think you can hit the alien without nailing Kyle?”

  “I’ll do my best,” Garvey said grimly.

  He drew the bowstring back and let the arrow fly—straight and true, humming through the air and burying itself deep is the wrist of the hand that grasped Kyle round the middle.

  The creature paused in its examination of Kyle. It probed with a forefinger of the other hand at the arrow that was embedded in its flesh. Suddenly, it tossed Kyle to the ground like a doll it had tired of, and advanced toward the place where Marshall and Garvey crouched hidden behind two gigantic palm-fronds.

  “Here it comes,” Marshall muttered. “We’d better shoot to kill. You go for the eyes with your arrows, and I’ll aim for the legs and try to cut the thing down to our size.”

  The ground was shaking again. Marshall’s hand gripped the blaster butt tightly. Suddenly the monster emitted an earsplitting howl of defiance and kicked over the tree that had been sheltering them.

  Marshall fired first, aiming his blaster bolt straight into the thick leg in front of him. The energy beam was opened to the widest possible aperture. It played on the leg for a moment but barely seemed to pierce the surface. The creature was virtually armor-plated. Marshall glanced back at Garvey. The colonist had already shot two more arrows—Marshall saw them sticking out of the creature’s face—and he was nocking a third arrow.

  The monster stooped over, slapping at the foliage as if irritated by the sudden attack rather than angry. One paw swept inches over Marshall’s head. He fired a second bolt into the same place as the first had gone, and saw a break in the scales now. The monster roared in pain and lifted its wounded leg high.

  The leg thrashed around, kicking and trampling. Suddenly a sidewise swipe of an open hand caught Marshall and sent him sprawling, half unconscious. He landed near Kyle. The financier, Marshall saw, was not in good shape. Blood was trickling from his mouth and one of his legs was grotesquely twisted. Kyle’s face was a pale white with fear and shock. He did not seem to be conscious.

  Marshall struggled to his feet. He became aware that the alien’s struggles had slackened somewhat. Running back to Garvey’s side, he looked up and saw an arrow arch upward and bury itself in the center of one huge yellow eyeball.

  “Bullseye!” Garvey yelled.

  The scream of pain that resulted seemed to fill the entire jungle. Marshall grinned at the colonist and gripped his blaster again.

  He fired—three times. The charges burrowed into the weakened place in the monster’s leg, and suddenly the great being slipped to one knee. Unafraid now, the two men dashed out into the open. Garvey’s final arrow pierced the remaining eye of the giant. A shrill cry of pain resulted. Marshall raised his blaster, centering the sights on the monster’s ruined eye, hoping that his shot would supply the coup de grace.

  “Yes,” a deep, throbbing voice said. “Kill me. It would be well. I long to die.”

  Marshall was so stunned he lowered his blaster. Turning to Garvey he said, “Did you hear that?”

  “It sounded like—like a voice.”

  “I was the one who spoke. I speak directly to your minds. Why do you not kill me?”

  “Great Jehosaphat!” Garvey cried. “The monster’s talking!”

  “It’s a telepath,” Marshall said. “It’s intelligent and it’s able to communicate with us!”

  “I ask for death,” came the solemn thought.

  Marshall stared at the great being. It had slumped down on both its knees now, and it held its hands over its shattered eyes. Even so, its head was more than twenty feet above the ground.

  “Who—what are you?” Marshall asked.

  “I am nothing now and soon will be even less. Twenty thousand years ago my people ruled this world. Today I am the only one. And soon I too will be gone—killed by tiny creatures I can hardly see.”

  Marshall heard a rustling sound behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see Lois and Garvey’s wife come hesitantly out of hiding, now that the danger seemed to be past.

  Marshall felt a twinge of awe. To think of a world ruled by beings such as these—and to t
hink of them all gone except this one, their cities buried under thousands of years of jungle growth, their very bones rotted by the planet’s warmth and lost forever. What a sight it must have been, a city of titans such as these!

  “Why do you not kill me?” the being asked telepathically.

  “What’s happening?” Lois asked.

  Marshall said, “Garvey hit the creature in the eyes with arrows and I knocked him down by blasting his legs. But he seems to be intelligent. And he’s pleading with us to put him out of his misery.”

  “That thing—intelligent?”

  “Once we had sciences and arts and poetry,” came the slow, mournful telepathic voice. “But our civilization withered and died. Children no longer were born, and the old ones died slowly away. Until at last only I was left, eating animals and living the life of a beast in the jungle…”

  “How can you be sure you’re the last?” Marshall asked. “Maybe there are other survivors.”

  “When others lived my mind was attuned to them. But for many years I have known nothing but silence on this world. I did not know beings your size could be intelligent…I beg your pardon if I have injured the companion of yours who I seized in my curiosity. Will you not give me the satisfaction of death at last?”

  Marshall felt deep sadness as he watched blood stream down the alien’s face—yellow-brown blood. If only they had known, if only the being had not been so fearsome in appearance, if only it had made telepathic contact with them sooner—

  If. Well, it was too late now.

  “Isn’t there some way we can help it?” Lois asked.

  Marshall shook his head. “We’re hundreds of miles from civilization. We’ll be lucky to get back alive ourselves. And I crippled it with my blaster.”

  “Only thing to do is put it out of its misery,” Garvey said flatly.

  “Yes. I am in great pain and wish to die.”

  Marshall lifted the blaster regretfully. Only a few moments before he had been shooting to kill, shooting what he thought was a ferocious and deadly creature. And, he thought, unwittingly he had destroyed the last of an ancient and awe-inspiring race.

  Now he had no choice. It was wrong to permit this noble creature to suffer, to be eaten alive by the blood-hungry jungle creatures.

  His finger tightened on the blaster.

  “I thank you for giving me peace,” the alien telepathed. “My loneliness at last will end.”

  Marshall fired.

  The energy bolt pierced the already broken eye of the monster and seared its way through to the brain. The vast creature toppled forward on its face, kicked convulsively as the message of death passed through its huge and probably tremendously complex nervous system. In a moment it was all over except for a quivering of the outstretched limbs, and that soon stopped.

  Marshall stared at the great body face down on the jungle floor. Then he turned away.

  “Let’s go see how Kyle is,” he said. “The alien picked him up and dropped him again when we opened fire. I think he’s in bad shape.”

  The four of them stepped around the corpse of the fallen alien and made their way to the place where Kyle lay. The financier had not moved. Marshall bent over him, pointing to the livid bruises that stood out on Kyle’s body.

  “Fingerprints,” Marshall said. “The big boy had a pretty strong grip.”

  Kyle’s eyes opened and he looked wildly around. “The monster,” he said in a thick, barely intelligible voice. “Don’t let it touch me! Don’t—”

  Kyle slumped over, his head rolling loosely to one side. A fresh trickle of blood began to issue from between his lips, but it stopped almost at once. Marshall knelt, putting his ear to Kyle’s chest.

  After a moment he looked up.

  “How is he?” Garvey asked.

  Marshall shrugged. “He’s dead, I’m afraid. The shock of the whole thing, and the internal hemorrhage caused by the creature’s grip on him—”

  “And he fell about twenty feet,” Garvey pointed out.

  Marshall nodded. “We’d better bury him before the local fauna comes around for their meal. And then we’ll get back on the path to New Lisbon.”

  They dug a grave at the side of the clearing and lowered Kyle’s body in. Garvey bound two sticks together crosswise with a bit of vine, and planted them at the head of the grave. No one even suggested a burial for the dead alien. It would have been totally impossible to move a creature of such bulk at all. Its weight was probably many tons, Marshall estimated.

  It was nearly nightfall by the time they were finished interring Kyle, but the party moved along anyway, since no one was anxious to camp for the night close to the scene of the violence. Few words were spoken. The brief and tragic encounter with the huge alien, and Kyle’s death, had left them drained of emotion, with little to say to each other.

  The next day, they continued to forge onward. Marshall was still obsessed with the thought of the dead alien.

  “Imagine,” he said to Lois. “An entire planet full of giants like that—can you picture even a city of them? Fantastic!”

  “And all gone,” Lois said.

  “Yes. Every one. Not a fossil remains. If we ever get back to civilization, I hope to be able to organize a search party to bring back the skeleton of that giant. It’ll be quite an exhibit at the Galactic Science Museum, if we ever find it.”

  In the distance, a hyena cackled. A huge shadow crossed the path in front of them—the shadow of an enormous flying reptile winging its solitary way over the jungle. Far away, the rhythmic bellowing of some jungle creature resounded echoingly.

  Marshall wondered if they ever would get back. They had covered many miles, sure enough, but they had not yet even reached the halfway point in their journey to New Lisbon. And who knew what dangers still lay ahead for them?

  They marched on, through that day and the next, and the one after that. Heat closed in around them like a veil, and the rain was frequent and annoying. But they managed. They killed for meat, and fished when they came to water, and by this time they had all become experts on which vegetables were edible and which were likely to provide a night of indigestion and cramps.

  Day blurred into day. Marshall’s beard became long and tangled. They looked like four jungle creatures rather than Earthmen.

  And then one day shortly after high noon—

  “Look!” Garvey yelled shrilly. “Look up there, everyone! Look!”

  Marshall could hear the droning sound even before he could raise his eyes. He looked up, feeling the pulse of excitement go through him. There, limned sharply against the bright metallic blueness of the afternoon sky, a twin-engine plane circled the jungle!

  For a moment they were all too numb, too stupefied with joy to react. Marshall was the first to break from his stasis.

  “The flare-gun—where is it?”

  “In the survival kit!” Garvey exclaimed.

  Hasty hands ripped open the fabric of the kit that had served them so long. Marshall hurriedly jerked out the flare-gun, inserted a charge with fumbling fingers, lifted the gun, fired.

  A blaze of red light blossomed in the sky. Shading his eyes, Marshall saw the plane wheel round to investigate. He inserted another flare and fired it.

  “Shirts off, everyone! Signal to them!”

  They waved frantically. Minutes passed; then, the hatch of the plane opened and a small dark object dropped through. A parachute bellied open immediately. The plane circled the area and streaked off toward the east.

  Through some sort of miracle the parachute did not become snagged in the trees on the way down, and the package came to rest not far from where the four stood. Marshall and the others ran for it. They found a note pinned to the wrapping:

  We were just about to give up hope of ever finding any of the crash survivors when we saw the flares go up. Your area is too heavily wooded to allow for a landing, and so we’re returning to New Lisbon to get a ’copter. Remain exactly where you are now. We expect to be back in about t
wo hours. In the meantime we’re dropping some provisions to tide you over until we return.

  “We’re going to be rescued!” Lois cried. “They’ve found us!”

  “It’s like a miracle!” Garvey’s wife exclaimed.

  The two hours seemed to take forever. The four squatted over the provisions kit, munching with delight on chocolate and fruit, and smoking their first cigarettes since the day of the crash.

  Finally they heard the droning sound of a helicopter’s rotors overhead.

  There it was—descending vertically, coming to a halt in their clearing. Three men sprang from the helicopter the moment it reached the ground. One wore the uniform of a medic. They sprinted toward the survivors. Marshall became uncomfortably aware of his own uncouth appearance, and saw the women attempting to cover the exposed parts of their anatomy in sudden new-found modesty.

  “Well! I’m Captain Collins of the New Lisbon airbase. I certainly didn’t expect to be picking up any survivors of that crash!”

  “My name’s David Marshall,” Marshall said. He introduced the others.

  “You the only survivors?”

  Marshall nodded. “A fifth man was thrown from the plane alive, but he died later. We’re the only ones who survived. How far are we from New Lisbon?”

  “Oh, three hundred fifty miles, I’d say.”

  Marshall frowned. “Three hundred fifty? That means we covered better than six hundred miles on foot since the crash. But aren’t you a little far from home base? How come you searched for us here?”

  The New Lisbon man looked uncomfortable, “Well, to tell the truth, it was a kind of a hunch. We got this crazy message—”

  “Message?”

  “Yes. A few days back. Damn near everyone in the colony heard it. It was a kind of telepathic voice telling us that there were still a few survivors from the crash, and giving an approximate position. So we sent out a few scouts. Say, any one of you folks a telepath?”

  “No, not us,” Marshall said. “It must have been the alien.”

  “Alien? There’s an alien here?”