RGL e-Book Cover 2019©
RGL e-Book Cover 2019©
Astonishing Stories, October 1940, with first part of "Quicksands Of Youthwardness"
HIS face set in lines as grim as granite, stocky old Captain Yphon sat slumped, strapped fast in the master control chair of the dizzily-falling Thuban. Not once did his tired old eyes stray from the congested rows of gauges and indicators before him. There was no need of their wandering elsewhere, for every port and outlet was double-shuttered and screened against the beating rays of Sirius.
Except for the tough instruments that measured the invisible but all-pervading lines of magnetic force, the ship was blind. Long since that fierce radiation had vaporized the subchromatic plates in Ulberson's special cameras, hooded though they were in protective turrets overhead. Cameras and periscopes alike had collapsed, their molten lenses dribbling away to spread like so much honey over the plates of the hull.
It was the gravimeter gauges that caused Yphon grave concern. For seconds now their telltale gongs had been tapping ominously—clamoring for attention. The reading of Absolute Field Strength was bad, unbelievably bad—double that against which the ship had been designed to operate. But far worse, the needle indicating the rate of acceleration was quivering hard against its final stop-pin. The situation had passed being dangerous. It was desperate.
Captain Yphon, without turning his head, called quietly,
"Mr. Ronny. Step here please—quickly."
The haggard chief engineer stumbled the few feet from his station and presented himself at the Captain's side. The Captain did not speak at once. He was still scanning the warning instruments. Before issuing his drastic order, he must be very sure.
In that brief moment of hesitation, the other men in the room turned their heads toward him, dully anxious to catch the words of hope. There were Sid Daxon, the lanky Mate, clinging by straps to the control board, flanked by his four helpers. Beyond were Ronny's men, another four, each tending a segment of the intricate switchboard. In the background the ship's surgeon, the efficient and friendly Dr. Elgar, hung to a stanchion with one hand while he strove with the other to safeguard a trayful of hypodermics filled with the potent Angram Solution, that blessed specific against the tetany of excessive gravity.
Profusely sweating and with startling eyes, panting laboriously, they awaited the Captain's decision. Absent only was Ulberson—the great Ulberson, explorer—at whose insistence they had approached so close to Sirius. He lay in another room, whimpering in his bunk, imploring the air. "Somebody do something, do something," was the refrain. But he was unheard, or if heard, disregarded. Those others were too busy doing that something. For those frantic-appearing men in the control room were not frightened. Not one of them knew the meaning of the word "fear." Their harried, anxious looks were due solely to the uncontrollable reflexes of straining muscles and tortured glands.
"Ronny," said the Captain, "throw in your reserves—all of them. Cut over the auxiliaries—except the air-pump, we can't spare that. Everything, mind you, to the last erg—even the lights."
"Aye, aye, sir," gasped Ronny. Then hesitantly he added, "for your information, sir, the Kinetogen is already carrying a hundred per cent overload. It'll blow, sure as hell."
"We'll blow, then," was all the Captain said, still looking at his meters. Better to be blasted than to be slowly crushed and roasted with it, was his thought, but he saw no need to voice it.
Ronny made a gesture to his men at the board, knowing they had heard and understood. Swiftly, silently, they pulled open switches—closed others. Warning buzzers sounded in the after corridors and passages of the ship. Men braced themselves for the inevitable shock. Ronny himself was back at the board by the time the change-over was complete. He grasped the main feed lever—pushed it firmly shut.
Abruptly the lights went out. Like dumb ghosts in the stifling room lit only by the eerie glow of the tiny battery-fed lamps on the indicator panels, the sufferers waited. The hull trembled more, and then yet more, as increment after increment of powerful counterthrust was hurled out against the greedy grasp of Sirius. Even through the many feet of passages and the several safety doors that separated the engine room from them, they could hear the whine of the excited Kinetogen rising to a wild scream and feel it quiver, tearing at its bedplate.
"Thank you Ronny," came the Captain's steady voice, "if she'll hang together ten minutes we'll be all right."
Neither Ronny nor anyone else in the room believed the Kinetogen could stand up two minutes, let alone ten. Nor did they think ten half enough, but they were grateful to the Captain for saying so. No one responded. There was nothing to say. They could only wait.
The vibration worsened, and throughout the room, matching the terrible crescendo of the runaway Kinetogen, rose an answering chattering chorus as metal screws, loose papers, furniture, everything joined the mad dance.
Except for their heavy breathing, the throbbing, oppressed humans made no sound. Then, in a momentary lull in the wild cacophony of the hurtling ship's internal noises, as it rested, so to speak, before swelling into yet louder howls, a muffled wail penetrated to the control room. It came from the passage leading to the sleeping rooms, and plaintively stated a grievance. "My lights are out—send a man."
Daxon struggled with his safety belt, freed himself. He staggered through the darkness until he found the passage door, slammed it shut and leaned against it. "What we can't help, we have to take," he muttered through clenched teeth, "but by G...."
It was merciful in its abruptness. No one could know certainly when it happened or how. The Kinetogen, secluded in its wholly mechanical, remote controlled engine room, did all it could, and being a mere machine, could do no more. It blew up.
SID DAXON became vaguely conscious. It was utter dark and the
heavy air was foul with the fumes of volatilized metals. And it
was hot—terribly hot. He eased a limp human form off his
pinned legs and passed a trembling hand over his face and head.
Hair? Yes. Hair yet, nose, eyes—everything. Stiffly he
rolled over and managed to move a little on his hands and knees.
Crawling, he groped about the floor plates trying to orient
himself. He encountered other bodies there, scattered about, and
felt of them, listening. They were alive, all of them!
In time, he attained the pedestal of the master control chair. A swift exploration with cautious hands told him Captain Yphon lived, too, still firmly lashed to his post of duty. Now he remembered that in the base of the indicator panel stand there was a little locker. In there should be some portable hand-lamps. He fumbled the smooth face of the door until he had it open. They were there—he had a light!
Before he made any attempt to arouse the others, he flashed the light across the faces of the gauges. As was to be expected, the engine room indicators were dead. There could be nothing left back there. But impulses from the outside void were still being received, appraised and reported. The gravimeters showed a field force of nearly zero, and that diminishing. They must be going away from Sirius at a stupendous pace—must already be a long way away! A glance at the ray-sorters and the spectograph confirmed it. That one desperate effort, the dumping of all their power concentrated into one colossal dose, had done the trick. They were free.
He found Dr. Elgar face down among the litter of his overturned tray and shattered tubes. He must wake Elgar first. He was the one who would know best what to do with the force-stunned victims. Furthermore, Elgar was his buddy—they made their liberties together whenever they hit a good planet.
In a moment. Dr. Elgar gasped and regained his senses. One by one, they revived the others, last of all the Captain. Other than simple bruises or cuts acquired in falling, none was hurt.
In a short while, Ronny found the breaks in the emergency lighting circuit and had a few dim lights burning forward. As soon as he was unstrapped, stiff with age though he was and cramped from the untold hours spent tied to the hard saddle, Captain Yphon proceeded at once to the inspection of the damaged Thuban. His officers led the way, lighting the path with their hand lamps.
The wreckage of the engine room was complete. The inner bulkheads were torn and twisted like crumpled paper, and the intermediate ones pierced in many places by the hurtling splinters of the gigantic Kinetogen, but nowhere had the hull been breached. Ronny looked at the scattered fragments of his great force engine with a wry face. The auxiliaries he could repair or replace from the spare stores, but there was nothing to be done about their motive power unless somehow they could make a planetfall. And even if that unlikely feat could be accomplished, it would have to be on a civilized planet—a rare body in these parts.
Coldly and with a stern face, Captain Yphon took stock of the situation. When he had seen it all and realized how helpless they were, he slowly removed his glasses, and meticulously wiping them, said simply,
"I'm glad nobody was hurt. You are all good boys and behaved well." He screwed up his bulldog face and spat, "But that bout with Sirius was only a skirmish—now the fun begins."
In the first relief at finding themselves living and their ship intact, the last remark did not weigh heavily on the Thuban's personnel. Anyhow, in the space-ways the motto "One thing at a time" is the only tolerable rule of life. They had got out of one jam, they would get out of the next.
All hands turned to cleaning up the wreckage aft and repairing the punctured and riven bulkheads. There were warped doors to straighten and rehang, ruptured pipe and severed conduit to underrun and replace, and much else. As to the Kinetogen, there was nothing could be done about it except to sweep its parts together and stack them in bins, out of the way. In the meantime, the Thuban, with whatever residual velocity she had when she escaped the greedy embrace of the Dog Star, was drifting through space.
Observing the serene resumption of the routine, Ulberson, the charterer and nominal head of the expedition, easily regained his composure. "I knew you could pull out of there—I shouldn't have advised going in otherwise," he said blandly to Captain Yphon. "Too bad I lost my cameras. And it was too bad somebody got panicky and wrecked the main."
"Mr. Ulberson," the Captain made not the least effort to conceal his disgust, "if and when we return to Earth, you are at liberty to make any charges you choose in regard to my handling of this vessel. In the meantime, I have resumed full command. Hereafter, you will be treated as a passenger, and as such I must ask you to refrain from interfering with my crew."
As the Captain stalked out of the room, Ulberson began to sputter, but glimpsing the unsympathetic faces about him, he changed it to an airy whistle and sauntered away to his own room. Ulberson was one of those people who thought of himself as a "star," an attitude that received scant respect from the tough old skipper of the Thuban. Old Yphon's ideal was teamwork. On his ships it was "One for all, all for one." There was no place in his scheme of things for the solo performer.
ANOTHER day came when Captain Yphon sat in the master control chair and gazed forward with set face and a hint of anxiety in his eyes. This time the screens were down and the ports uncovered. Ahead lay the incomparably beautiful velvety black of the void with its untold billions of sparkling points of light. Far to the left were three cloudy patches —nebulae—gorgeously tinted in reds, greens and yellows, one of them studied with faintly glowing globules where its condensing gases were forming new flaming suns.
Those colorful nebulae, attractive enough to tourists' eyes, were not what fixed the attention of the Captain. It was the black spot dead ahead, that hole in the sky that kept on growing, eating the stars as it spread. In there was no color, not any. A month before it had been but a few degrees wide, now it was sixty —and growing. Its edge was marked by an irregular circle of ruddy stars, obliterated one by one as the Thuban approached. Yphon had been watching the occultation of those stars for many days. Always they would twinkle awhile, at first, then redden, to fade away finally to nothing as the great globular nebulae swelled up before them.
The Thuban was out of control—there was no blinking that fact. Propelled by the titanic kick of the expiring Kinetogen, she was hurtling onward at terrific speed, and must go on so forever, or until some impeding sun laid its gravitational tentacles on her and dragged her in to fiery destruction or else imprisoned her in an endless orbit. That murk before them could not be evaded, no matter what its nature. They must dive on into it and face what lay there.
IN the control room behind, Yphon could hear the drone of a
voice reading. It was Daxon, and the volume he held was that one
of the "Space-pilot and Astragator" for this quadrant of the
celestial hemisphere. The section he was reading dealt with the
supposed nature of the dark nebula ahead, as compiled from
reports of earlier voyagers. Elgar, Ronny and Ulberson sat in
various attitudes about the chart table, listening.
When Daxon came to the end of it, he tossed the book to the table.
"It's tough—but now you know what we're up against," he shrugged. "No ship that ever went into the middle of that was ever seen again. A few cut through near the edge and came out on the other side, all right, but the people in them didn't know what it was all about—they couldn't remember—not anything, either going in, or what it was like on the inside."
"So they went home and wrote accounts of it," sniffed Ulberson, with a trace of his characteristic supercilious smile.
Daxon, nettled, shot him a hard look, but for the benefit of the others, replied.
"Yes—and why not?" he snapped. "The dope was in their logs, entries showing when they sighted the cloud, their approach, the moment of entering—all about it. The chronometers and the other instruments kept on recording and there were all their cards, complete. It was only the human mind that failed. They remembered, some of them, seeing the cloud far ahead, and then, like a flash, it was just astern of them. When they were convinced of the lapse of time and saw their own handwritings in the logs, they knew their consciousness had played some kind of trick on them. They must have done all the usual things as they went along, yet none of it registered on their memories. It was something like being under an anaesthetic, I guess."
"So that's why they call it Amnesion?" remarked Dr. Elgar, in mock cheerfulness. "Fog of Forgetfulness—poetic, eh?"
"If you've got that kind of mind," admitted Daxon, with a quick grin. "But don't forget, it's near the center of that thing we're headed for, not the edge, and it's about as far through as our solar system is wide. If a touch of it wipes out all you've learned for months, were apt to be pretty doggone ignorant when we come out on the other side, if we come out."
"Must be a property of the gas," speculated Elgar, more seriously, "or--"
"Or rays," interposed the Captain, still staring ahead. "Mr. Daxon! Kindly have all outward openings closed off with ray- shields and rig the spare periscope. I don't like the looks of things ahead."
While the crew were scrambling to carry out the order, Dr. Elgar picked up the book thrown aside by Daxon. He thumbed through it to the chapter on Amnesion and read it for himself, footnotes and all. Among the lost were the Night Dragon and the Star Dust, carrying more than a thousand passengers each —two of Rangimon's transports with whole families bound for Tellunova in Hydra. Then, a few decades later, about 2306, Sigrey took his Procyon in there with a relief expedition, but failed to return. In subsequent centuries several small freighters disappeared in the vicinity and were thought to have been swallowed up by the nebula.
ULBERSON, annoyed at the ill-concealed contempt of these
hardboiled spacemen, felt he must make some gesture to
reestablish his prestige.
"A bit of luck, I'd say. Since they make such a mystery of a little black gas, it may be worth looking into. As long as we're here, I might as well solve their puzzle for them." He yawned elaborately, as if getting at it was all there was to it.
"Oh, by all means," said Elgar, amiably, and threw a wink to Daxon, who had wheeled angrily at Ulberson's words, "if you can manage it. As for myself, speaking as a medical man, I anticipate some difficulties. Explorers may be above such considerations, but I was just thinking how astonished I am going to be, say, to observe the effects of some drug I've given, having forgotten that I gave it, or what for. It is the sort of thing that is likely to make the practice of medicine uncertain. Given time, I daresay, I may develop a technique along those lines, but at the moment it looks to me as if trying to live with memory not functioning is as foggy a proposition as that smoky cloud itself."'
Ulberson glared at him, faintly suspicious that Elgar was pulling his leg, but the doctor's face was a study in innocent seriousness. Then, as the full import of what had just been said began to dawn on him, Ulberson's self-assurance sagged a little. He had braved the perils of cold on dim lit planets, and fought their bizarre fauna, but never under the handicap of amnesia. What Elgar seemed to envisage was not the forgetting of things far past, but of things in the happening—the occurrences of a few minutes ago—an instant ago!
Ulberson twisted uneasily in his chair. The implications were not pleasant. Why, that might mean that he could not retain the memory of what he started out to do he might wander around aimlessly, like an imbecile observing things, to be sure, but without linkage to their causes and then forgetting observations in the very moment of making them. That would be a horrible situation—unthinkable—intolerable.
Captain Yphon, having overheard, chuckled savagely within himself. "You hired us, my fine bucko," was his grim thought, "to take you into the Great Unknown. Well, by God, you'll get your money's worth."
IN another week the whole sky ahead was devoid of light. Lacking any reflective power, the great nebula did not appear the gaseous sphere they knew it to he. It was rather a circular emptiness in the heavens, bordered by the ever-widening ring of reddish stars that shone unsteadily on its misty circumference in the brief interval before their final extinction.
Daxon maintained a close vigil at the instrument panel. Gravity was beginning to be registered again, though lightly. The photometer indicator crawled slowly—yet rays of terrific intensity impinging on the ray-detectors—and what rays! If they did fall beyond the range of the sorters, they must be of wave shapes and frequencies unheard of—theoretically nonexistent, impossible.
Dr. Elgar stood there, too, keenly interested. Whatever the emanations of the inky fog, he wanted to see and weigh them. Since steeping himself in the accounts of Amnesion, he had been alert for any symptom of forgetfulness, but as yet there had been no evidence of amnesia within the Thuban. Everybody had been instructed to keep a minute diary, and every day scraps from them were picked at random and read to their writers. If there was forgetting, it was of so subtle a type that neither victim nor physician could detect it, although Elgar was not unaware that the seeming ability to remember might itself be an illusion. Yet it might be, since they were forewarned and the ship made tight against gases and so well screened that no ray, unless of some unknown hull-piercing type, could enter, that they could pass through the cloud with immunity.
"We must be well inside now," said the Captain, when he saw the gauges, "I'll take a look around and see how dense this nebula really is." He laid aside his glasses and seized the guiding bar of the periscope, intently watched by Dr. Elgar. If the peril lay in the rays, they might enter through the eye-piece of the periscope, and magnified by it to what would surely be a dangerous intensity at that.
Captain Yphon swung his gaze first astern, where the mist would be its thinnest. If stars could still be seen, it would be there. "All black," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, and began to swing forward, scanning as he went. "Not a glimmer anywhere," he added, his left eye squeezed shut as he squinted with his right, "except there is a queer greenish luminosity on the hull—faint, like from a glow-worm. I can only see it for about ten yards, then it fades out."
As he spoke, a tiny glint of clear violet light began dancing on the surface of his staring eyeball. The astounded Dr. Elgar saw it brighten, then flare out into a semblance of flame—feathery sheaves of dazzling violet rays, jumping from the Captain's eye into the periscope like the flame of an arc. "Still dark," the Captain was saying, in the same ordinary tone, swinging the periscope from dead ahead on toward the port beam.
Elgar laid a restraining hand on Daxon, who was springing forward with the impulse to drag the Captain away from the periscope. "We must know," he whispered. "It doesn't seem to hurt him—he doesn't even suspect it."
Captain Yphon relinquished the periscope and picked up his glasses. He put them on and made an effort to adjust them, then snatched them off disgustedly. "What the Hell," he growled, "the right lens has gone opaque—I can't see a thing."
"Let me look at your eye," ordered Elgar, gently, "because nothing has happened to your lens."
The Captain turned full toward him, amazement on his usually composed features, opening and shutting his eyes alternately and looking dazedly about the control room. Elgar halted him and peered into his face. The left eye was normal, the dull, faded, yellowed eye of age. But the other! The right eye glowed with the soft warmth of youth. Its cornea gleamed with the firm smooth whiteness of the very young; the crystalline lens was finely transparent; the iris magnificently colored. Hastily Elgar tested it for its visual qualities. It was perfect—according to the standard for a boy of twenty!
"Captain," he said, huskily, for he felt the weight of his responsibility. "Look through the periscope again, but with the left eye this time."
"The periscope?" echoed the Captain, vaguely, "Yes, yes—we must be well inside now. I must look around and see how dense it is."
ELGAR and Daxon exchanged significant glances. Yphon had forgotten having been at the periscope, yet he had been looking through it for a full seven minutes. The amnesia of the nebula was not a myth, and that reversed ray seemed to be its avenue of infection.
Again the Captain put his eye to the periscope and again there was the strange play of violet light from the eyeball. Daxon and Elgar stood close on either side and watched its dancing brilliance. It was unreal, immaterial, like the fire from a diamond manipulated in strong light. Spectacular though the display was, Yphon appeared unaware of it. He went on as before, making an occasional calm remark about the gloom outside. When the seven minutes were up, Elgar grasped him by the shoulders and pulled him away from the eye-piece.
"What's wrong? Why did you interrupt me, doctor?" demanded the Captain, "somebody hurt?"
Earnestly staring at the doctor from beneath shaggy white eyebrows and imbedded in the wrinkled, baggy pouches of an old, old man, were two vibrant, piercing eyes, the eyes of a strong- minded, vigorous adolescent. There was something almost terrifying in its incongruousness. Elgar's judgment had been confirmed, practically, but the fundamentals of the mystery were as elusive as ever.
"How do you see?" inquired Elgar, shakily. The Captain brushed his face with his hand, looked about him, then picked up a table of haversines and examined its tiny agate type. "Why, why, fine-- better than I have in years better than I can remember ever seeing."
Dr. Elgar's relief was immense, but he saw potential danger. "Sir," he urged, "You must not use the periscope any more, nor anybody else, unless through a strong filter and under my supervision. The rays of Amnesion do effect forgetfulness, and apparently rejuvenation as well. It may not be prudent to overdo it."
It was with some difficulty that the two younger officers convinced Yphon of his lapse of memory. By careful questioning they established that as far as his time sense was concerned, he had lost nearly an hour. It was not only that he failed to remember what had passed while he was at the periscope, but it was as if during the same time his previously stored memories began to unravel, unwind, as it were, and vanish.
After that the periscope was sparingly used, and then with filters. There was not much need of it, for outside nothing could be seen except the eerie fire-fly glow of the hull, ghostly in the smoky fog. Once, Elgar induced old Angus, the steward, to expose both his eyes for a brief period to the unfiltered rays, but otherwise the phenomenon of the eye-flame was not observed again. Angus, who was quite as old as the Captain, had begun to develop cataracts, and as in the case of the Captain, a few minutes of exposure had distinctly beneficial results. And like the Captain, Angus had to be told of the experience afterward, and of what had immediately preceded it.
ELGAR pondered the remarkable therapeutic power of the queer
rays, dealing amnesia and rejuvenation with an equal hand. There
was a connection, he did not doubt. He was beginning to formulate
a theory, but that theory, although logical, was counter to all
experience.
He knew that under the stimulus of light, living cells sometimes altered themselves, that light provoked chemical action—and, as in fireflies and the phosphorescent organisms of the sea, cells sometimes produced light. But in his experience, the cells of the human body did not produce light, and the changes produced by metabolism were invariably in the direction of greater specialization, the simple to the intricate—towards senility, in other words—and that that process was irreversible. Normally, a? the cells become more and more specialized, they end by losing their adaptability, and old age and eventually death ensue. Gerocomists, he knew, could sometimes retard those changes, but never arrest them, let alone reverse them.
Yet he had just seen it done—twice. And although the rays seemed to originate within the eyes, obviously the stimulus came from the nebular gas about, with its curious, invisible rays. Could it be that that black fog had unique refractive powers that twisted the light it so completely absorbed into inverted, even negative forms? Was its absorptive power so great that it reached out, so to speak, and pulled light into itself?
And if so, did the living 'cell, under the compulsion of giving back the light it had hitherto absorbed, readjust its structure to the simpler form it used to have? If so, the structures would appear younger. Perhaps it was the simplification of the cortex of the brain that caused the memories stored there to vanish. There was no precedent in physiology or mathematics for such assumptions, but neither was there a precedent for the amazing ocular rejuvenation he had twice witnessed.
Those other ships had plunged in here, unsuspecting, and therefore unprepared. Once in the grip of the amnesiac rays, they would be helpless, for they could not reason, since reason is a cumulative process. And equally as they forgot, did they grow younger? Under unlimited pressure in that direction, how far would they go?
Dr. Elgar saw no way to approach the answers to those questions without assuming unwarranted risks. At least so far, the Thubanites appeared to be effectively insulated from the outside, and it would be reckless to invite forces within that were so unpredictable in their action.
FOR many months they plunged on through gloom- enshrouded space, guessing at their progress by dead reckoning. Yphon and Daxon had computed their most probable path. Allowing for some deceleration due to the friction of the enveloping gas, there were indications that they might have enough momentum to escape the nucleus, as their trajectory would pass about one- third of the way between it and the periphery of the nebula. There had been a steady increase in the gravity readings, but the total force indicated was not alarming. They might eventually escape the cloud entirely and emerge once more into the outer void.
This was not as heartening a hope as it might have been under other circumstances, for Ronny had reported that in spite of reclamation, there was less than a year's supply of oxygen left, and old Angus had already begun rationing out the food. Beyond Amnesion were many parsecs of empty space. Escape to it meant only the hollow advantage of dying outside in the clean clearness of inter-stellar vacuum, rather than in the depths of the dirty black mist.
Occasionally Daxon would sweep the darkness with the periscope. It had always been utter night outside, but one day he felt a thrill of surprise as he noted an unmistakable lightening of the gloom. Broad on the starboard bow, widely diffused but clearly distinguishable, was a lurid crimson glow. Hour by hour the red increased in intensity and lightened in hue, until in time it looked as if all that part of the universe to starboard was in vast conflagration, half-smothered under a pal! of smoke. Then the black mists seemed to be clearing, as a terrestrial fog lifts, and the initial glow came to be a well-defined circular patch of intense orange light which in a little while revealed its source—a sun! Here at the center of the globular nebula was a fiery yellow sun, lying unsuspected within the opaque shell of absorbent gases.
Once more the instruments recorded normal, positive light, and the spectrum of the inner sun proved to be much like that of Sol, except that it was somewhat richer in the violet band. Quick tests showed there was no further need of the elaborate system of screens. The bizarre properties of the nebular system were apparently to be encountered only in its outer husk.
But although they were no longer in the fog and were in the presence of a normal sun, their-surroundings were no less uncanny. In place of the black backdrop of space, spangled with its myriads of glittering stars and glowing nebulae, everywhere was a dull, angry, smoky red. The starless heavens of inner Amnesion resembled the interior of some cosmic furnace. Either because the inner layers lacked the absorptive powers of the outer, or were saturated by reason of their proximity to the sun, they dully reflected a ruddy glare that gave the whole region the appearance of an inferno.
Puzzled over the existence of such an open space in the heart of the nebula, for Daxon had supposed its density would increase as they neared the nucleus, he asked the Captain about it.
"Young man," said the Captain, turning his strangely youthful, burning eyes on the Mate, "when you are as old as I am and have wandered as widely in the southern void, you'll accept things as you find them. But since you want an explanation, you are welcome to my guess.
"Presumably that sun represents the condensation of what formerly occupied this space. After it became so compact that it was forced to radiate, its light pressure naturally forced the outer gases back. Those gases, caught between two forces—light pressure pushing out and gravity pulling in—necessarily were compressed, as we have seen, into a sort of shell, like the hull of a walnut, if you can think of stuff as thin as that in solid terms."
The old man grunted, and there was just the suggestion of a twinkle in his boyish eyes. "But then, I never was inside a globular nebula before—they may all be hollow, for all I know."
Daxon had to accept the tentative explanation. He could think of no better. In any case, there they were, and there was now a sun to worry about. He began measuring its apparent diameter, at first twenty minutes, then more, forty, fifty, as they approached it. Then a day came when the diameter began to lessen. They had passed perihelion, but on what shaped trajectory he could not know with any certainty. If it were hyperbolic, now, if ever, was there chance of escape.
Dr. Elgar had his own reasons for being relieved at putting more distance between them and the energetic sun. Appetites had grown voracious, animal spirits high, but with it signs of rapid aging, as shown by the graying at the temples of even the younger members of the ship's company. It was only by replacing the ray- screens that he could keep their rate of metabolism at normal. Amnesion seemed to be a region opposite extremes.
SHORTLY after perihelion, Daxon was casting about to port
with the periscope, scanning the lurid walls of the nebular
envelope. He was seeking some identifiable spot that he might use
as a point of reference to determine the extent of their
deflection by the inner sun. Suddenly the occupants of the
control room were electrified by his cry of "Planet-ho!"
Ahead and a little to the left, was a brilliant point of light, much in appearance as Jupiter viewed from Earth. Officers and crew crowded to the forward ports to look at the find.
In a few more hours, Daxon was able to announce that the angle between it and the sun was steadily opening—the planet was heading for its aphelion. If a little bit of maneuvering were possible, the Thuban might be made to intercept it. Yphon came and looked at the figures. He examined the newfound planet, and scowled at the hot little sun and the sultry background all about. He thought of their failing oxygen supply, and the dwindling stocks in the pantry. He sent for Ronny.
"Here's where we try out your jury-rigged auxiliaries, Ronny. Hook 'em up, and bring the juice up to the board here. I mean to land on that planet, if we can. We ought to be able to slow down a little, and the atmosphere there can do the rest—if there is an atmosphere."
He did not need to say that if there was no atmosphere, it didn't matter. Everybody understood the situation, it was a case of grasping at any straw.
What with the retarding effect of the millions of miles of gas they had traversed and Ronny's skillful adaptation of his surviving machinery, the Thuban's speed had been reduced to manageable proportions by the time they were in position for their planetfall. Coming in on a tangent about a hundred miles above the estimated surface, Yphon encircled the cloud-wrapped orb three times on a slowly tightening spiral, gliding swiftly through the tenuous stratosphere, braking as he went.
Elgar was quick to sample the clear gases outside. At first he found an equal mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen, but a little later there were traces of oxygen. When they were down to the level of the high cirrus, the proportion of oxygen had grown and the hydrogen content gone. One of their worries could be laid aside.
The planet not only had an atmosphere, but one that closely resembled air. It was a haven. They could go on down.
IT was not until they were below the level of the highest clouds that the milky, violet haze beneath thinned enough for them to see the details of the terrain. Lower were patches of other clouds, fleecy cumulus, and to the left the peaks of an extensive mountain range stuck up through them like the rocks of an offshore reef. Far ahead, glimpsed through rifts in the lower clouds, was the familiar blue of the sea, though tinged slightly toward purple.
As they drew closer to the ground, they could make out extensive stretches of vegetation, brown and yellow for the most part, indicating autumn. The Thubanites felt pangs of homesickness in looking down on the fair planet that was so much like their homeland. And the nostalgia was heightened by their first sight of what was unmistakably a town—then another, and they could see the threads of the highways between. Far ahead were the glittering domes of a great city just coming into visibility, a city lying by the side of an arm of the sea.
Wild excitement ran through the cabins of the Thuban. No one had forgotten the accounts of the disappearance in this region of Rangimon's two ships. If the Thuban had found her way through the encircling nebula here, why not they? Perhaps the population below were descended from those earlier Earthmen. As the talk buzzed, the ship slid on down, ever slower.
The city looming before them was quite extensive and entirely covered by a system of crystal domes, like those used on the airless planets, except that these were variously tinted in greens, ambers, pinks, yellows and blues. In the distance the aggregation looked like a mass of colossal soap-bubbles, iridescent in the noonday sun. Opposite, across the inlet, was a wide, barren patch of ground—probably a landing field, but at that distance they could not make out the characteristic slag flows of a rocket ship port.
But even as they were speculating as to the uses of the cleared area, small silvery objects could be seen rising from it into the air, hundreds of them. Through powerful glasses, Yphon and Daxon watched them take the air, wheeling and swirling like a flock of birds as the swarm headed for the oncoming Thuban. They were planes, planes of the primitive airborne type used so extensively on Earth in the pre-rocket days. A momentary apprehension that they might have hostile intent was quickly dissipated, for in a few minutes they were peaceably passing the ship on both sides, as well as above and below, and having passed, looped suddenly and turned to accompany her.
One, evidently a leader, swooped by the bow ports and as it did, a very old man leaned out over the side and made a gesture with his arm for the Thuban to follow him. The startled pilots of the space ship had only a glimpse of the steely blue eyes, the glistening bald head, and the whiskers flying flat in the hurricane of the propeller stream; but the ancient who had hailed them, apparently to make sure he was understood, shot on well ahead, went into a vertical loop, and swooped by again, repeating his signal to follow.
"Holy Comets!" exclaimed Daxon, as his second glimpse confirmed the first, "Father Time himself come out to meet us!"
But when the Earthmen peered out the ports at the machines pounding along at their sides, every pilot they could see was the same bewhiskered, aged, venerable type as the patriarch who lead them.
"WHAT a planet!" said the amazed Daxon to Elgar, as they
crouched, a half hour later, just within the open entry port of
the grounded Thuban. "But one thing's
certain—they're human."
"And another thing's certain," amended Elgar, dryly, "they've been human, from the looks of them, a darn sight longer than either you or I have."
The Thuban was lying where she had been led, in the midst of the great landing field opposite the city. Captain Yphon had slid open the entry port and was standing outside, ten paces in front of it, awaiting the representatives of the locality. The planes that had escorted them in were landing in successive waves all about, bouncing and rolling to stops. But unlike the custom of most friendly planets, where the natives rush to surround a newly landed ship, these people of Amnesion had moved with exasperating slowness.
The two officers had watched them climb out of their planes. That, it appeared, was an exceedingly laborious operation, and, once on the ground, their progress toward the waiting T hub an was equally difficult. They came on, though, tottering and stumbling, supported by staffs or canes, and finally stopped, forming a ragged semi-circle facing Yphon, as if awaiting someone yet to come. Some, too decrepit to remain standing, unfolded little portable stools, and sat. It was the air of incredible age about them all, the universal senility, that had prompted Daxon's exclamation. Toothless, wrinkled, many of them woefully bent, that strangely homogenous crowd made an almost unbelievable picture.
Presently a number of small cars sped across the field, rolling to a screaming stop just behind the assembled octogenarians from the plane squadron. A lane was opened in their ranks, and after considerable delay, a wheel-chair containing a venerable patriarch and attended by a small group who were scarcely younger, was haltingly pushed through it and brought up to where Captain Yphon was standing.
"That must be the grand-daddy of them all," whispered the irreverent Daxon, as the old man coughed, painfully cleared his throat, and began to speak. In a quavering, high cracked voice, he said, "Wall-kampt Athnaty."
The opening words were not at first understood, but as the old man continued, his auditors noticed that the language sounded strangely like English—English of an obsolete dialect, perhaps, but still English. They very quickly observed that its apparently garbled sounds were due to the queer cadences with which it was delivered. As soon as the knack of rhythm was had, understanding was easy.
"Welcome to Athanata," was what the patriarch had said, "the Planet of the Immortals. Gladly we receive the noble Earthborn, for like you, our pioneers fell from out the sky." He went on to say that he himself was Tolva, captain of the Star Dust, and that he was proud of his earthly birth, having been born near New Denver, in the shadow of "Paekpik." The astonished Thubanites knew from their study of the records, that a Captain Taliaferro had commanded one of Rangimon's transports, but that had been a cool two thousand years earlier, yet.
"Well, he looks his age," was Daxon's grunted comment.
After offering citizenship and the freedom of the city to the newcomers, Captain Tolva, if such he was, said that a guide and mentor would be assigned to each pair of men in the ship's company and that they would at once proceed to the city where all would be made comfortable. Yphon's interruption to ask for information as to the availability of mechanics and machine tools for the repair of the Kinetogen was dismissed as of no moment. "Not now," was the substance of the reply, "we are on the eve of the Great Holidays. In the coming Era, all things will be taken care of."
Yphon, seeing he would have to bide his time, made a dignified response to the address of welcome, couching his words as best he could in the same odd rhythm the oilier had used. Then the old man bowed acknowledgment and clattered on the ground with his staff. At the signal, a dozen of the waiting centenarians tottered forward and saluted. Those were to be the companions and tutors of the Thubanites.
CAPTAIN YPHON, choosing old Angus to accompany him, was driven off toward the city in the official car of Captain Tolva, leaving the others to pair off as they chose. Daxon and Elgar naturally fell together, leaving Ronny no choice but to team up with Ulberson. Two by two the crew fell in and met their guardians, grinning sheepishly as the testy old men ordered them about as though they were children.
The one told off to take care of Elgar and Daxon was somewhat spryer than the rest, fie led them to one of the little cars, managing rather better than most as to locomotion, but his millions of wrinkles, sunken cheeks and knotted linger joints told plainly enough that he had been living a long, long time. The two officers got into the car, noting with amusement that its driver was, if anything, a couple of decades older than their guide.
"Say, Sid, if the girls in this town match the boys," laughed Elgar, "you're going to find night life pretty tame."
Any reply Daxon might have made was cut off with a grunt as his head hit the back of the seat. The driver had started the machine and it leaped ahead like a rowelled bronco. They were tearing across the landing field at dizzy speed, zig-zagging wildly among dozens of other such cars, each racing and jockeying for position, dodging parked planes with an agility that would be astonishing in any driver. In a very few minutes they were climbing the ramp that led across the elevated causeway over the lagoon that separated them from the crystal domed city. Elgar caught a glimpse of what probably was a park beneath, but at this season its grasses and trees were uniformly yellowed and sere.
Daxon, leaning back, gripped his hat with one hand and tried to fend off the whipping beard of their antediluvian jehu with the other. Once, he glimpsed the startled faces of Ronny and Ulberson as they were whisked by, gaining a lap in the race of toothless madmen. Daxon attempted a hail, but the others were too occupied with hanging on to their own seats to notice.
"Phew!" whistled Elgar, as they eased through a great semi- circular opening in the first of the great crystalline domes. "These old dodos are rickety enough on their feet, but boy, how they cut loose when they have machines to carry them."
Once within the city, the ancient driver relaxed his pace, and it was well he did, for the streets were crowded with people, none of them agile enough to move faster than a walk. Like those at the landing field, all were unguessably old. Among them were many women, centenarians like the men. Some were skinny hags, others stupendously fat with multiple chins, and in between was every intermediate grade of crone and beldame. Dr. Elgar looked at them all in blanket astonishment—thousands of people, all senile. He wondered why there were no young, how the race was carried on.
The dome they were under was of a dull moss green hue, giving everything beneath it a sort of under water aspect. The buildings appeared to be of stone or brick and were reminiscent of old prints of Earth cities of several millenia before. Some houses were windowless, copies of the architectural monstrosities erected in America City during the first century or so of air- conditioning.
They had hardly become accustomed to the green, lighting when they passed through another arch into a quarter of the city under a rose-colored dome, and after that into a third where the light was a mild amber. Their car turned a corner and pulled up in front of a building bearing the black-lettered sign, "Conservation Unit No. 3."
"FOR examination and registry," croaked their guide,
laconically, "the branding will come later."
The latter phrase caused the two officers to exchange inquiring glances, but they got out of the car and followed their tutor into the building. Passing down a wide and rather crowded corridor, they caught sight of Captain Yphon through an open door. He was protesting something earnestly to a smallish, bespectacled old man in white, and gesturing toward his eyes as he talked. Before the boys could see what the controversy was about or catch the Captain's eye, they were led on past and ushered into an office.
In what was evidently a sort of anteroom to more offices beyond, they found to their astonishment a railed off enclosure filled with benches upon which sat scores of old men and women. Over their heads was the incredible sign, "Newborn Assemble Here."
"Never mind those," said their guide, rather contemptuously, "being Earthborn you are in a favored class. Follow me, if you will."
In an inner office they were confronted by a huge desk behind which sat a jovial, fat old Santa Claus, presiding over a gigantic ledger. He greeted them with a twinkle of the eye, and at once began asking questions as to name, date and place of birth, and so on, writing all the answers down. When he found that both candidates had been living less than forty earth years, he banged a bell for his messenger, waggling his head sadly.
"I am afraid," he said, apologetically, "that we will have to postpone the rest of this until after the doctor has passed on you. Get Dr. Insun," he said, more sharply, to the messenger, an emaciated old gaffer of some hundred and ten years at the very least.
Presently the bespectacled little man whom they had seen arguing with Yphon came in. He wore the white smock of his profession, but he did not have the cheerful manner that many doctors maintain. His bearing was that of a man who expects the worst of human nature and thinks there must be deception if he doesn't at once find it.
Quite briskly, for he seemed to have fewer disabilities than most, he proceeded with a cursory physical examination of the two Thubanites, pursing his lips and frowning all the while, giving vent as he went to mournful "Hm-m's" and "Tut-tut's." Finally he turned to the benign registrar and said rather jerkily, "not good specimens like the other two have to take it up with the High Priest..." then he glowered at the two young men again as if to assure himself he was making no mistake "all wrong—everything. Now, that one called Angus was perfect, and the other—Captain Yphon—if we can get his eyes fixed up he will be a valuable addition to the community. But these two..." his voice trailed off into a mournful silence.
"Won't live through the Long Night, eh?" added the jovial one, with an air of commiseration. Then he suggested, "Why not put them under the big lens on No. 7?"
The doctor shook his head gloomily. "Not time enough—only forty-four more days, you know. Sorry, but they're hopeless. May as well turn them loose and let them enjoy themselves while they can. They can't possibly survive—why, they're barely mature, mere children, too young!" And with that cryptic pronouncement of unworthiness, the doctor left the room with "the air of a man washing his hands of a bad business.
"Old Angus a perfect specimen!" muttered Daxon, looking blankly to Elgar, "but we are too young to survive. Say, what kind of screwy outfit is this, anyway?"
But Dr. Elgar was thoughtful. He suspected it was not the utter nonsense it sounded.
And yet—what else but nonsense could it be?
Astonishing Stories, December 1940, with second part of "Quicksands of Youthwardness"
THE exploring space-ship Thuban, coming within range of Sirius' dangerous gravitational pull by order of its domineering supercargo, the explorer Ulberson, blows out its motors in the struggle to get away. The ship escapes from Sirius, but wanders aimlessly through space, at a vast speed, for months. In that time the crew is able to jury-rig some auxiliary motors, but they will last only a short time, and cannot therefore be used to get the ship back to Earth.
In its wandering, the Thuban approaches a "coal-sack" in space, a dark cloud through which no light is visible. They are powerless to alter the course of the ship without ruining the auxiliaries as well as the main motor, so are forced to pass into the cloud.
Examination of the space-atlases shows that this cloud has been christened Amnesion by the few persons who have ever been inside it, because of its curious property of causing those who enter into it to lose their memories. Captain Yphon of the Thuban believes that some radiation from the cloud docs this, and has the entire ship ray-screened. But he himself looks at the cloud through an unshielded telescope, and his eye suffers a remarkable transformation. A cataract on the eye disappears and his sight becomes as good as it was when he was thirty years younger. Simultaneously he forgets everything that occurred for an hour before he peered into the telescope.
After they have penetrated almost to the center of the space- cloud, the radiation vanishes, and they spy a planet. Using the auxiliaries, they effect a landing. They are surprised to find that the planet is inhabited by incredibly aged Earthmen, descendants of marooned spacemen or in some cases the wrecked spacemen themselves. They speak a clipped, slurred form of English, and hold everything that comes from the Earth in deep reverence.
As soon as the crew has landed, they are subjected to a medical examination. The older members of the crew are treated with great respect, having come from Earth. But the younger Thubanites, though also from Earth, are disregarded.
When pressed for an explanation, one of the patriarchs of the planet, which is called Athanata, tells them that there is no point in treating them with any respect, as they are too young to live long on the planet.
IN the days immediately after their landing, the boys took in the sights. There was little else to do, for the old people were very definite that nothing could be done about repairing the Thuban during the holidays, which were of a religious nature.
Captain Yphon was living with the Prizdint, as the chief magistrate was quaintly called, after an old title formerly borne by the chief executives of America. The others were billeted in various quarters of the city, each pair being taken care of by some local family.
Elgar and Daxon were quartered with one Pilp Tutl (or Philip Tuthill, for he claimed to be one of the Earthborn) in a pleasant house in a quiet district under a pale rose dome. Tutl and his wife were far better preserved than the run of the inhabitants of Hygon, as the city was called, and so were their neighbors. The old couple were very considerate hosts, and after a brief chat at dinner, showed the boys to their rooms and then left them to themselves.
The apartment, to Elgar's delight, since he was something of an antiquarian, reminded him of the Twenty-Second Century Wing in the great museum at America City. It had the same tile-lined water bath, an elementary television set in a little cabinet, and the primitive system of lighting by means of small glowing wires enclosed in exhausted glass containers.
"Pretty soft, even if it is old-fashioned," commented Daxon, looking around. "Beats zipping through the void with nothing to breathe and less to eat."
In the morning, Tutl went out with them long enough to acquaint them with the lay of the city, then left them to their own devices. He saw that being so young and active, they could get along much faster by themselves. Furthermore, as superintendent of the power plants, he had his own work to do. He apologized for leaving, explaining that he must attend to the laying up of the machinery in preparation for Sealing Day, which was close at hand. With that, which meant nothing to his guests, he was off.
Despite the generally feeble condition of the population, there was much activity in the streets. Gangs of fairly spry old men were at work everywhere, boarding up ground floor windows, erecting heavy crating about exposed statuary, and bolting signs to buildings. It was as if preparations were being made for an approaching hurricane. The signs most noticed bore arrows and the words "Food Depot", and they were placed at frequent intervals along the street.
At a good store itself, they saw truck after truck roll up and discharge its cargo of packages, each of the same size, like picnic lunches. Craning so they could see into the door, Elgar noticed that inside there were no tables or counters—only rows and rows of deep bins, almost all of which were already full of the uniform packages.
IT was the museum that interested them the most. Beyond the
interminable rows of showcases containing bits of flora, fauna
and minerals of Athanata, was a great bay in which were housed
the space ships of the pioneers. The ships sat on concrete skids
with wooden stairways built up to their entry ports. A gang of
workmen were busy laying out a rectangle beyond the last one,
taping off distances and making blue chalk-marks on the
floor.
There were four ships there. The two tremendous transports of Rangimon, in which the first-comers had arrived, filled the center of the hall, while at one side of them was Sigrey's somewhat smaller Procyon, and on the other the wreck of a little freighter bearing the embossed name Gnat. The last was badly pitted and scored, and its bow bashed in, but intact. Behind the ships, lining the walls, were additional rows of showcases containing displays of the material found in the ships.
Elgar looked over the cases first, much interested in the medical supplies and first-aid kits furnished ships two millenia before, while Daxon was equally eager to examine the antique astragational equipment. The cases contained a queer hodge-podge of stuff, all the way from nuts and bolts to can-openers. They found Ronny back there, with one of his men, making lists of stuff they could use, in case a little burglary seemed expedient.
There was a reading room in a small bay back of the Night Dragon where the ships' libraries had been put, and there were more cases containing the logs, the muster-rolls, manifests, and other ship's documents. They noted that the Gnat was laden with telludium and other rare ores, bound from Tellunova to Earth. Among the papers of the Night Dragon, they saw their host's name, Tuthill. He had said he was her chief engineer, that is how he came to have charge of the city's powerhouses. But oddly, he knew nothing whatever of the installation on board her. Said he couldn't remember, but it was all in the books. They could find out about it, if interested, by going there and reading the engine room log. That is the way he found it out himself, he admitted, blandly.
They inspected the ships, all of which were of the obsolete rocket-propelled type. They had been pretty well gutted, as was to be expected, considering the yards of well-filled cases out on the floor, but they found that most of the Gnat's cargo was still in her.
"You know what I think?" demanded Daxon, replacing the manhole cover of the cargo hatch of the Gnat, and sniffed the heavy odor of telludium quintoxide that had welled up to him, "these old galoots can't know what this stuff's good for, or they'd have used it. From the looks of this town, there hasn't been a new idea in it since the year 2300, and that's funny, because they're human. They ought not to stand still this way for two thousand years."
But Elgar did not answer. He was on ahead, staring down into a long showcase set on trestles in the control room. In that case, neatly wired up, were twelve tiny human skeletons. All were complete, except that one lacked a left arm.
"Children—fifteen months to two or three years," said Elgar, in a low voice, and pointed to the label stating, "This vessel found early in the 14th Era in Province of Nu Noth Klina, evidently having fallen out of control. These skeletons were found huddled in control room. There is no evidence as to when or how the crew abandoned ship, or why they left these infants behind to starve."
"MY GOLLY, Sid>" exclaimed Elgar, tense, with excitement, "I
have a hunch we're about to get the lowdown on this queer planet.
You remember that old billygoat that examined us the first
day—he said we were too young to survive. Well, that is
what he meant..." pointing a trembling finger at the display of
little bones. "Come on, let's ransack this Gnat's
papers."
Somewhat mystified, Daxon followed Elgar back into the alcove library, where they pulled down the log, the muster roll, and other documents of the vessel. Elgar found the crew to number eight, with four officers. "Look for something about losing an arm," he urged Daxon, while he himself began searching the library for the ship's binnacle lists.
The last entry in the deck log said simply, "Expect to enter dark nebula at about five bells." That was all. There were no notations for months before to indicate any distress or fear of it. Daxon found nothing until he had gone back to the second week after clearing Tellunova. Then, there was this entry, "...at six- teen-fifty-three, Tubeman Simok became entangled in pericycloid mesh: left arm badly mangled. At seventeen-twenty, Lt. Tosson amputated arm. Simok resting comfortably with fair chance for recovery. Severed arm ejected through port tube."
"That's it!" ejaculated Elgar. "Twelve men on board, one of them one-armed. Twelve skeletons, one of them one-armed. That's the crew there, Sid, what's left of them."
"You're crazy," said Daxon, "you know nobody'd send out a shipload of tricky telludium ore with only a crew of kids. Why, hose weren't even kids, they're babies."
"No," said Elgar, soberly, "I'm not crazy. This all ties up with what we've already seen—forgetfulness, coupled with rejuvenescence—we see signs of it everywhere. We'll get younger and younger, and then finally go out like a candle, unless we starve first. The skipper is old enough to take it, he has the years to spare, and so has Angus, but you and I and the others are too young."
"You may see it, but it's thick as mud to me," retorted Daxon, thinking of their Earth-like surroundings and their own safe passage through the outer envelope of nebula.
"I may be wrong," hesitated Elgar, "but I think we'd better split up and each of us go on a still hunt. Find out what you can about the Athanata's orbit, and their calendar. I'll tackle the medical and historical angles."
THE evidence of the tendency toward forgetfulness of which Elgar spoke was mainly in the abundance of signs all over the city telling in utmost detail the uses and ownership of every building and thing. Not only did public buildings, such as libraries, carry brass markers setting forth what they were and how they should be used, but dwellings were similarly labelled.
Tutl's house, for an example, had an intaglio set in the wall beside the entrance stating it to be the home of Filp Tutl and Febe Tutl, and also gave their description and identifying marks and the information as to where spare keys were kept, and references to file numbers in the city's archives where additional information could be found. Besides that, one morning the two officers were astonished to find a pair of aged workmen affixing a bronze tablet alongside the Tutl marker. It stated, "Dr. Elgar—Sid Daxn—your home, come in." And below was their description and spaces left for their serial number which had yet to be assigned.
They blinked when they read it. That was hospitality with a vengeance. But now they were beginning to understand the significance of the branded or tattooed marks on people's forearms, giving their names and other data. It was preparation for a spell of amnesia. The sufferer, or his finder, had but to look at the marks, and he knew where he belonged and where his history was filed.
There was also the matter of keeping notebooks. Just as the Thubanites had started diaries in coming through the fog, so did the Athanatians record everything they did. Houses were filled with filing cases, and duplicate copies were placed with the priests in the Temple.
One day a priest came and carted away the records of Tutl and his wife, but returned a few days later with them. "Hardly any deletions," said Tutl proudly, showing the diaries to Elgar. Occasional passages had been blocked out, as by a censor, but in general the record stood.
"That's why we are such a perfect race," Tutl continued. "Here is everything worth while I've ever done. Mistakes which teach no lesson are blotted out, and we forget them. In the new Era we will start off with only the best experience to guide us. Those are grand books," and he affectionately patted the filing case, as he twirled the combination lock.
ELGAR'S research in the library was not particularly illuminating. There was a copious literature dealing with the history of Athanata and the city of Hygon, but the more of it he read, the less was his understanding. It seemed to require a key.
There were detailed accounts of this Era and that Era, but except from their numbering, it was nearly impossible to say whether a given Era preceded or followed the next one to it. It was as if a single history existed that had been run through many editions, each differing from others by minor additions or deletions. Always there were the same personalities, doing much the same things. Except that the earlier periods told of the construction of the city, while the later ones dealt only with repairs and slight additions, one Era was much alike any other, yet they were evidently distinct periods, though unconnected in any way. It was as if Time, in Amnesion, was not only discontinuous, but repetitive.
Daxon had even less success in his efforts. There was no planetarium, and people looked blank and just a little shocked when he questioned them about their relation to the sun. It was as if there was something sacrilegious in the inquiry. If there was any knowledge of astronomy, it was a secret of the priesthood, whom Daxon found singularly uncommunicative.
As to the calendar, it was nearly meaningless. Athanata did turn about an axis, but other than days the units were arbitrary and unrelated to astronomical realities. Thirty days made a month, and twelve months made a year—perhaps a tradition brought from Earth. But how many such years it required to make the circuit of the sun was unknown. Maybe the natural year was what they called an Era, but an Era appeared to be roughly eighty Earthly years, although the beginnings of each was hazy and indefinite, like the dawn of human history.
But Daxon resolved not to let the ignorance or superstition of the old men get the best of him. He took a run out to the Thuban where she still lay as she had landed in the midst of the field. He picked up his old file of observations on the sun. Day by day he made new shots and plotted them in curves. Given a little time, and he would work out Athanata's orbit for himself, although it didn't really make much difference.
IN the meantime, the business of securing the city against
whatever was to come was about finished. The food depots were
filled, their doors opened wide and secured at the tops so that
they could not be easily closed. At night the populace gave
itself over to a carnival of pleasure and merry-making, much in
the fashion they formerly did on Earth at the approach of the New
Year. Old men and aged women mingled in the streets, hilarious
and gay, or filled the cafés, grotesquely attempting to dance,
cackling all the while in high glee. Elgar would wander among
them, tremendously curious, marveling at what he saw.
Hearing that Ronny had renounced the city and gone back to the hulk of the Thuban to live, Elgar went out there one day with Daxon to see him. Ronny had found the companionship of Ulberson distasteful, and the antics of the ancient couple where he was quartered disgusted him. Ulberson had wangled a plane, somehow, out of the authorities and gone off into the interior of the country with a bagful of notebooks and chart-paper to do some exploring. As soon as he went, Ronny rounded up most of the ship's crew and went back to live in it. To amuse themselves, they pottered about in the engine room, piecing together bits of the blasted Kinetogen, welding them into bigger fragments.
"Anything to keep from going nuts," was the way Ronny put it. "I couldn't stand that wizened old galoot they boarded me with or the harridan that keeps him company. When a couple of octogenarians start making whoopee, I'm done. Didja ever see a couple of superannuated scarecrows try to jig?" he demanded, in righteous indignation. "And then when I found out what the old bird's occupation was, I walked out. He's in charge of the delumination plant, if that means anything to you. It's a field south of town where they have all those black balls and bolts of black velvety stuff parked in the sun. Absorbs light, he says, but what the use of it is, he didn't even know himself. But he's proud of his job—says it is important, as we'll see, on final Sealing Day. Rats!"
Elgar and Daxon chatted with him a little while, amused at his contempt for the Hygonians. As they left the ship, they encountered a group of the old codgers just outside the entrance. Beyond them a truck was parked and there was a post-hole digger nearby. The old men had just finished setting a post opposite the Thuban and attached to it was a sign bearing these words:
"Earth skyship Thuban. Fell 87th year, 17th Era. DO NOT OPEN until sun half high. Place in museum on blue X's. For instructions see Folio BH-446, Locker R-29, Little Temple. By order, High Priest."
"So that's what they were laying out on the floor by those other ships," grunted Daxon. "They mean to add this one to their collection."
"Like Hell!" snorted Ronny, dashing among the quavering oldsters, shooing them away. He seized the half tamped post and pulled it up by the roots and cast it out into the field. The boss of the post-setting party tried to remonstrate, but made no headway against youth and vigor. Shaking his head and muttering something about the heinousness of resisting the High Priest's order, he gathered his gang together, and after mouthing a few more protests, drove away at the mad rate always affected by the old men when they handled machinery.
ELGAR looked significantly at Daxon.
"These people don't mean for us to leave—not if they've already picked a spot in the museum for the old Thuban."
"This ship don't go into anybody's museum. Not yet, anyway," blurted Daxon, with considerable heat. "She's my ticket home, and not all the tottering old dodos in this crazy city can take it away from me."
They discussed with Ronny the chances of getting the ship off. He shook his head gloomily.
"I inspected those old wrecks at the museum—thought we might swipe one, but it's no go. They're the old atomic powered type, and there's not an ounce of fuel left aboard any of them. That's why they're stuck here. If we had the makings... I know it's dark, but I guess the planet will turn around when she comes to the end of her orbit and go back. That's all I know so far."
"I was afraid of that," remarked El-gar, thoughtfully, but it was the unguessable hazards of amnesia and the unnatural rejuvenation of the light-hungry fog that troubled him, not the dark or cold that any spaceman knows how to deal with. "Let's go see the skipper and put it up to him."
AS they drove through the streets, Ronny nudged them, calling their attention to the men setting black spheres on low brackets of the city's street lighting poles. They were the "deluminants" he had spoken of so contemptuously.
"Can you tie that?" he snorted. "Deluminants! Supposing black does absorb all the light that falls on it? So what? The dimming effect in this street you can put in your eye—anyway, what's the idea?"
But farther down the street they saw more of the deluminant stuff being rigged. At one of the big food emporiums, men were at work inside the widely opened doors, draping black velvety cloth on the inner walls, like the preparation for some grand state funeral. The doors to the food building had been secured at their tops so that they could not be closed easily. On the other hand, when they passed the museum and the main library, they noticed that their doors were closed and covered with great seals, and barricades built in front of them. Mystified by these unaccountable preparations, they hurried on to the place Yphon was.
They found him lying in an easy chair on the roof of the Presidential palace, his eyes covered with goggles having heavy clear lenses. He was looking up at the sun through an opening in the heliotrope dome, and was evidently dictating something to a black-robed little priest who sat by him taking copious notes. Behind the chair stood the wizened and bent old gerocomist who had been assigned him to affect the "restoration" of his eyes. The two Athanatians, at the unmistakably determined order of the three younger and vigorous men, flutteringly withdrew a little way toward the parapet, the priest clutching up his notes in palsied hands.
The Thuban's officers saw with their first glance that the Captain's forearms were elaborately branded with the tattoo- like markings worn by all Hygonians, and through the open front of the robe he wore they could see much other information inscribed on his chest, starting with the words. "Pol Yphn, Capt. Thubn. B. Earth—4333 E.T." and so on, even to the cumbersome serial number assigned each citizen, together with the usual cryptic references to files and lockers.
"What's the dope, skipper?" asked Daxon, affectionately, noting the branding and the Captain's attitude of resignation. "Gone native?"
"Part way," said the Captain, attempting a feeble grin. He took off his goggles and held them in his lap. "I was just about to send for you, though. There are some things you should know."
Elgar was shocked at the Captain's eyes. They were in almost the condition they had been the day they pulled out of the fall onto Sirius—faded, dull and yellow, the eyes of an aged man. But he said nothing about it, the Captain had cleared his throat and was talking.
"You boys must round up all the crew and take them aboard the ship. Dig in there behind screens, like you did coming in here, for I am afraid there is real danger ahead. Maybe you'll be immune there. As for me, and Angus, we'll be all right outside, so don't worry about us. Take care of yourselves, that's all I ask.
"It seems that they are at the end of an Era here—day after tomorrow is the last day, the day of the Final Festival. Then comes the Dark. And in the dark, so the priests say, everyone's sins are washed away and forgotten; their physical disabilities and decrepitudes removed; they will all come out at the beginning of a new Era young and strong. I know that sounds like a lot of poppycock, but on these planets of the south weird things do happen—impossible things, by any Earthly mathematics—I have seen plenty of queer ones long before we fell into Amnesion.
"The fact that the race here is controlled by the priesthood makes me think they only partially understand it themselves. It is a peculiarity of the human race, whether at home or on the farthest flung planet, that when faced with the Unknowable, they make it into a religion. I have an idea that they knew here what happens, but not why. However that may be, we see millions of people living and thriving under the conditions of this system. We have to believe them, follow their advice.
"To put it briefly, we are going into the Dark—that nebula, probably—and in there we will grow younger. And we will lose some of our memory."
ELGAR nodded his understanding. He had already guessed that
much. Yphon looked very worn and tired, but in a moment he went
on.
"For the best interests of the ship, I've taken their advice. The Prizdint assures me that it is impossible to do anything about repairs until the new Era. That is why I am dictating these notes. They want a record of everything I know—all our newer inventions and the later developments at home. When the next Era comes, I can reread what I have written and refresh my memory. In here are the plans for getting the Thuban back in commission, and taking her home. The Prizdint promises he will give us every help, if after seeing this city in the new Era, we will want to go back."
"An easy promise... seeing that he will forget it, and so will we, along with the desire," interrupted Elgar, bitterly. He was thinking not only of the preparations made in the museum for the display of the ship, but of the blacked out passages in the Tutl diaries. "Your notes have been put in a safe place, I hope?"
"Oh, yes... the Big Temple. See..." and he pulled his robe open wider and pointed to the "ZR-688". "My personal file. This priest is my amanuensis. He writes it all down and takes it over there every day and files it. If I slow down, or run out of words, he prompts me—asks questions. Smart fellow, that little old priest."
"Smart. Too smart," thought Elgar, anxiously. The Captain was in greater peril than he realized. The hierarchy that ruled Athanata would be only too glad to wring his store of knowledge from him. And equally, they would want to entrap a man of that caliber and add him to their stagnant population. Elgar saw his brother officers shared his feelings, but with a quick gesture of the hand he indicated to them to let it pass. They could discuss it later, among themselves.
"This process of rejuvenation in the dark, as I understand it," the Captain continued, "goes on evenly all over the body. That's why they're aging my eyes again. That concentrated dose of rejuvenation I got through the magnifying lens of the periscope put them out of step with the rest of me. The doctors say that if I left them that way I would be blind in the end. While I am getting younger, they would degenerate to nothing—or embryonic eyes at best—wouldn't develop afterward.
"There ought to be nothing harmful about getting young again. Not if you're old enough at the outset. But when I was down at the Registrar's to get my number and have them print the records on me with that ray-machine, I watched them running all those newborn—the ones born during the current Era—through. They number everybody indelibly, because they forget. They would lose their identity in the dark. I asked about you, but the old man in charge there just shook his head and said it was no use. It didn't matter. You were all too young to bother with. They don't want your names in the ledger because it would make their statistics look bad. Since they regard themselves as immortal, records of people who die are blots on the system."
"Immortal my eye!" rasped Ronny, with a short laugh. "Why, coming through South Portal the other day, I saw one of those old buzzards—you know how they drive—wrap his Leaping Lena around that statue that stands in the middle of the concourse. If he wasn't dead, I don't know what it takes. They must have picked him up with a blotter."
"ACCIDENTS don't count," said Yphon, with a return of his old,
grim humor, "they can't be blamed on the priests or doctors. It's
age they worry about, and that's why they have this system of
tinted domes. They are really ray-filters to regulate metabolic
rates. With recurring rejuvenation, it is important that
everybody reaches the end of an Era at the same equivalent
age. They start off the new Era all alike. The original pioneers,
the colonists on the two first ships, are almost all alive,
although in talking with them I find they have forgotten coming
here, or anything about the Earth, although some retain
very clear memories of their childhood there.
"In each Era since, the population has expanded, but at perihelion and for awhile after, by exposing them to more of the rays of the sun, they can bring their physical age up to match the pioneers. Calendar age means nothing here—it's physical condition that counts. People who mature slowly live under the paler domes. The prematurely old they keep in twilight. Last week I heard the case of a gerocomist who had had one of his charges—an old woman—die. It was a great scandal, because she died of old age. They have reduced him to the rating of a laborer and destroyed the records of his past."
"I think I know our danger, Captain," said Elgar. "We will take steps. It is all a matter of arithmetic. Apparently you will lose three-quarters of a century, more or less, of equivalent age. But you have plenty to spare. About ninety, aren't you?"
"Ninety-six."
"What a spot for us," said Daxon, with a big grin. "Take seventy-five from ninety-six and you have a nice age. Only I start with thirty-six. Beginning taking seventy or so from that and... pouf! Out I go like a candle before I get halfway. Sweet place, this!"
The old-time twinkle came into Yphon's weary eyes, and he smiled his famous cynical smile. "At least you know what you're up against—I won't worry about you boys."
He relapsed into a fatigued silence and closed his eyes. The others stood uneasily around, wondering whether the interview was terminated. The marks of the long trip were plain on the skipper. He should have remained on Earth, retired. But presently he stirred and spoke again.
"About Ulberson... off in the mountains somewhere... great find, won't come back until it is all written up. He's an opinionated ass... don't risk your lives for him... but keep an eye open, he may come back. After all, he is a shipmate... we have a responsibility. Good luck—take care of yourselves. I can live on this accursed planet, if I have to... get used to anything in space... that's what I've always said..."
The old man's words trailed away as he dropped off into senile slumber. His devoted officers waited a moment then tiptoed away. As they left, the little priest and the gnarled doctor swooped back like a pair of Harpies to resume their guard. A man like Yphon was a great find to them. They meant to keep him.
THAT night they hauled out every space suit there was in the Thuban. The ones of the lighter type they stripped of their fleece linings and heating coils, and swabbed them well on the inside. Delicately wielding his tools, Ronny applied a plating of magnalium foil to their inner surfaces. The outside of them he sprayed with antilux.
"Ray-proof as I know how to make 'em," he asserted, grinning up through his running sweat. "They can't get out and they can't get in. If this isn't the answer, we're stuck. You fellows go ahead and prowl around. If you don't come back, we'll know they leak."
"Thanks," said Elgar, tersely, picking up two of the suits and starting for the parked car outside. "Sid and I mean to have a look at the big show in the Temple tomorrow. After that, we'll come back. I've read so many of the edicts of that High Priest, I want to see the old boy in action. See you after church."
On the way in, they noticed with mild amusement that the old men had finally succeeded in planting their post with the sign about moving the Thuban. It was located near the end of the causeway, a good mile out of Ronny's reach, and right where a person coming from the city would encounter it.
They found Tutl on his doorstep, anxiously awaiting their return. A commissioner had been there worrying him about the car. It should have been turned in and sealed along with all other machinery before the advent of the dark. Greatly relieved, their host drove off to get rid of the machine.
They carried their space suits up into their apartment and hid them in a closet. The inside of the house had a most funereal aspect, as it was draped throughout with runners of the black cloth they had seen put up in the food stores. They had to go to bed that night by candle-light, an astonishing relic of antiquity, because Tutl said that he had had to close down the city's power plants and seal them for Last Day. There would be no more light until the new Era came. Asked when that would be, Tutl only shook his head.
"May as well come along," invited Tutl, in the morning, "you will find it dreary here. They haven't registered you, I know, but everybody is welcome at the Temple on Last Day."
Elgar had some misgivings about having left their armor off when he passed out the front door. The door itself had been unhinged and removed, leaving only a gaping portal. Through it an ominous red glow could be seen, as if distant parts of the city were being swept by conflagration. Outside, they saw that the sky, which heretofore had been blue, nearly as on Earth, and not admitting the reddish rays they knew existed beyond, was today tinged with the same color they remembered from breaking through the outer shell of Amnesion. The sun was up, but its shape was vague and misty, and surrounded by a crimson halo. Daxon shrugged. It would take ten hours or more before they were really within the nebula.
Unheeding the angry light, everywhere throngs of the tottering Hygonians were converging on the Temple. Many managed without canes or staffs, but from the darker zones came others in caravans of wheelchairs. But notwithstanding their decrepitude and the ominous flush of the heavens, there was a holiday atmosphere. Neighbors exchanged airy farewells, gay almost to the point of hilarity. It was like the old New Year's Eve custom on Earth, or Soaring Day at some great space-port when a super-liner takes off for a gala cruise.
THE great Temple was approached across a vast plaza filled
with the hurrying crowds, if such a word could be applied to the
pathetic senile efforts at speed on foot. It was a circular
building of hewn granite blocks, surmounted by a dome of the same
material. On the meridian, on the south face of the dome, was a
small dormer window, otherwise the building had no outward
openings except three doors, the central one huge and flanked on
either side by small ones.
Tutl led the way to the left hand door.
"The right is the priests' entrance—this is for the Earthborn. Everybody else uses the middle one."
But at the door they were stopped by a pair of surly, testy guards. "Can't help it," the old man snapped, turning back the two officers, "but you are not registered. This floor is for first-class citizens only. Go in, if you must, but use the main entrance."
Tutl was quite embarrassed and started apologies, but the boys waved him on.
It did not matter to them. The fact that the rulers of Hygon regarded them as non-existing persons was already something of a joke with them. They entered the main door and climbed an interminable flight of steps, marvelling as they did so at the fortitude of the elderly ones puffing and struggling along beside them.
At the top, they found it led out into a gallery that was divided into many segments. Choosing the one with the best view of the altar below, they entered it and sat down in empty seats beside an astonished looking patriarch. The other aged in the vicinity gaped and buzzed, nudging one another, but after a moment, the rustle subsided.
"It is an honor to have Earthborn sit in this section," said the old man next to them, with elaborate courtesy. "We here are of the 14th Era, and you are most welcome."
The Thubanites bowed their acknowledgement of the old gentleman's salutation and then began the study of the great hall. It was an amphitheater, the building apparently being cut in half from east to west by a flat wall. They were facing north, where in the center of the wall was a high opening in which stood a tall monolith or obelisk surmounted by a golden sphere. About its pedestal were four great bronze vessels, woven of flat bands and standing on tripods. Apparently they were huge censers. Immediately in front of the obelisk was a small stage on which was the altar. Behind was a reredos carved with an odd design of bewhiskered old men and cherubs engaged in some sort of play. The entire hall was illumined by myriads of candles.
On the main floor, in front of the altar, on semi-circular marble seats, a number of the Earthborn—those individuals who had first come to this planet on the ships in the museum—sat like the elders in some Senate of remote antiquity. In the gallery, to the right and left, stretched the other segments for seating those born in subsequent Eras. The ones at the far right were narrow', and each successive one as the eye moved around to the left was larger, increasing seemingly in harmonic progression. The left-most two sections, largest of all, were quite empty.
"Each Era's children sit apart," whispered their volunteer host. "Those of the Second over there—and on the other side is room for two more. Then we shall have to build a new Temple."
Daxon was curious about the single opening in the dome and he turned around and looked up at it. There was a circular hole there, and the bloodily misty light that shone through it was in strange contrast to the gaily lit interior. But he knew that the sun was still fighting its way through the smoky sky.
Just below the spring of the dome was a high frieze richly decorated with marching, prancing figures moulded in low relief. As the design on the reredos, it consisted of an alternation of boys and old men in constant mutual pursuit. The symbolism was clear. The rhythm was stated as well as a plastic art could state it.
"There," said Elgar quietly to Daxon, "is the whole story—the history of this people. Life, sweeping back and forth like the ebb and flow of the tide, from youth to senility. A vicious circle, to my thinking."
"Wonder what the backtrack is like?" remarked Daxon.
"We'll soon know," answered Elgar, grimly.
JUST then the ancient who had spoken to them before politely called their attention to the inscriptions, one above the other, on the face of the obelisk.
"It will be a great day when we see those again, in the light of the sun, and know what to do. Well do I remember, early in this era, when the sun kissed the fifth command from the bottom, and the priest called out my name. It was then they appointed me to be supervisor of transport, and gave me the instruction books and permission to break the seals. Each of three eras, now, I have been supervisor."
The old man beamed proudly on them, while the officers murmured their congratulations. His remarks made them understand a little better how the machinery for reorganization worked in the land of amnesia. That obelisk was a sort of calendar stone, or device such as employed by the Egyptians to regulate their plantings. As the declination of the sun changed in the beginning of an era, it automatically confirmed the orders carved onto the slender monolith. Undoubtedly each such order had appended the usual references to files elsewhere, and those the priests could interpret. In this way, the population could leave their notes and their plans, and forget. The sun would order their life for them, as prearranged.
But the vivacious, gay chatter suddenly hushed. Craning to see what was happening below, they saw Captain Yphon, solemn and dignified and with old Angus at this side, being escorted down the aisle of the main floor to a seat of honor in the very first row.
The moment they were seated, the noisy multitudes in the galleries hushed their babble. Waggling beards ceased moving; there was a momentary twinkling as tens of thousands of shiny bald heads stopped their nodding and turned their eyes to the altar. The High Priest and his attendants were taking their places. Soft music was wafted into the hall from some unseen gallery.
The High Priest spoke for a long time. He recounted the accomplishments of the Era, the improvements to the city, the augmentation of the population. He spoke of the newcomers who had brought new ideas, and had Captain Yphon stand up and receive the tumultuous cheers of the assembly. After that there was a pause.
The almost inaudible music turned from its triumphant major mode to a throbbing minor. As soon as the changed mood had had its effect, the Priest launched into a dirge-like recital of the woes of age, the infirmities, the pains, and the fatigue.
He raised an arm. The music took on a more strident, martial aspect, and swelled to fill the vast hall. It was Noon. A single shaft of ruddy light struck through the sun's portal in the roof and fastened itself glitteringly on the symbol of the sun atop the stone shaft. Sonorously and passionately the Priest reviled the sun for being the cause of all their griefs, and cursed it ponderously. As the music rose to clamorous volume, the entire audience rose and began chanting in furious, querulous voices, "Shun the Sun! Shun the Sun! Shun the Sun!" The High Priest struck a gong and responded, "So be it!"
Assistants with fire-brands stepped from behind the obelisk and lit the censers. At the same instant, the abused sun slid past the meridian. The shaft of light faded, and the glittering crimson ball at the apex of the monolith ceased to shine. Heavily scented smoke welled up from the censers, swallowing up the obelisk, and as it rose still higher, the very symbol of the sun itself. Quietly, a priest slid a cover over the aperture in the dome. For a moment nothing could be seen but the rising clouds of black vapor, dimly lit beneath by the scarlet coals of the braziers. A tremendous sigh ran through the multitude.
THEN, by some ecclesiastical legerdemain, an effigy of a child, modeled from some glowing white substance, suddenly appeared in a rift in the smoke before the stone. It slid forward and came to rest surmounting the altar.
The galleries and the floor below now rang with the cacklings and shrill laughter as the frenzied oldsters staggered to their feet once more, abandoning themselves to unrestrained rejoicing, orgies of back-slapping, and wild cries. The old man beside Elgar was up, pounding the floor with his cane.
"Ah, isn't it wonderful to be young again!" and he threw away his cane and tried to dance. But even in that flickering half- light it was easy to see that he was not young again.
"Let's rescue the skipper and get out of here," Daxon urged
Attendants were now making their way through the aisles carrying large wicker-covered demijohns slung on poles between pairs of them. They were stopping everywhere and pouring goblets of the peculiar torlberry wine, the sticky green drink loved so by the Athanatians. The people were mad with delight. They had come to the end of time. Nothing mattered now.
Fighting their way through the hysterical devotees. Elgar and Daxon sought a stair to the lower floor, but there seemed to be none. They went clown the same stairs by which they had come up and found themselves entirely outside, in the plaza. The haze had thickened to a deadly red quality and the two officers knew there was no time to lose.
The guards at the door of the Earth-born again refused them passage, but considerations of courtesy were now thrown to the winds. Firmly they pushed the old codgers back against the wall and strode past them.
Pandemonium reigned on the main floor of the Temple. The lowering smoke of the incense of the altar made vision difficult, while the joy-maddened old men had knocked down and extinguished many of the candles in their exuberance. Once they glimpsed Yphon, surrounded by his captors, all eagerly telling each other about their childhood on Earth—the only permanent memory they had to share. But in the milling crowd and the smoke they lost him, and twice even were separated.
But getting out was not so easy as getting in. The indignant guards, smarting not only from what they regarded as a personal affront, but in high rage at the sacrilege of forcible entry onto the floor of the Temple, had summoned aid. In the corridor there were now scores of the old men, and more pouring in from every direction.
Slugging ruthlessly, bowling their aged opponents over like ten-pins, the two officers smashed their way through the crowd. The screams of the guards brought excited, now partially drunk old men, tumbling down out of the galleries by the hundreds. Feeble though they were and unsteady on their feet, not a few of them were quite strong of arm. Daxon learned that when he tripped over a fallen one and found himself pinned under a pile of others clinging tenaciously to him. Striking out with his fists and kicking viciously, he extricated himself from that group but only to be felled by another.
ELGAR fared better. He was ahead and succeeded in fighting his
way to the door. Assuming Daxon was close behind, he flung
himself through it onto the plaza. Once there, he perceived there
was not a moment to lose, for although scarcely an hour past
noon, the air was a thick bloody haze and where the sun should be
was only a brighter blotch. Athanata was almost within the
nebulous envelope of Amnesion.
He could not wait for Daxon or afford to go back to aid him. One of them must retain his faculties. As long as one did, there was hope for the rest. He ran down the street, concentrating fiercely on the thought of reaching the Tutl house, knowing full well the peril that threatened if his attention faltered for a single instant. In that way he managed to traverse some two- thirds of the distance to where the ray-proofed suits were waiting.
He kept always in what sunlight remained, avoiding the shadows. But to reach the Tutl house he suddenly found he had followed a route that forced him to choose between the hazard of several blocks of shaded diagonal street, or else make a long and uncertain detour. Mustering all his will power he plunged into the gloomy street, intent on his destination.
Then, without warning, he became vaguely conscious that something was wrong. He was sitting in the dark on what he felt to be pavement, and it also seemed to be outdoors, for a breeze fanning his cheek gave that suggestion. He wondered if he had fainted... ah, just now he was engaged in battering a withered, bearded face and tearing away the clutching talons of some frenzied old devil who was trying to stop him... fighting—that was it... he must have been knocked out.
But he could not follow through with the thought... a lazy indifference, a sort of stupor had hold of him. What may have been hours, or merely seconds, passed. Time was eternal, time was momentary—either meant the same thing now. But again he struggled to think. A moment ago they were watching the lighting of the censers and the billowing smoke... this smoke... when it cleared, they must get Yphon and get out... beat that insidious amnesia... wouldn't do. Amnesia—ah... can this be it? No—can't be... I know perfectly well who I am....
But he could not think. His thoughts wandered in the most baffling and exasperating fashion. If he could only think... but he could remember Amnesia—Bosh! Why, I am Elgar... but where is Sid? It could not have been more than a minute since he helped me take those space-suits out of the car... Tutl drove off right after... silly to call this amnesia.
Ahead was a reddish blur of light, higher than his head. Five uncertain steps took him close enough to see it stood like a flower on its stalk at the top of a slender greenish thing—a rod. And when he was that close, the ruddy color paled to reveal a ghastly white sphere, dim and eerie above him, glimmering just enough to show the swirling wisps of greyish fog. He put his bare hand forth and touched the green stem, only to withdraw it with a jerk. The stem was iron—a lamp post —and deathly cold. Why so cold? He must be dreaming. But his hand shone faintly with a spooky greenish-violet radiance, he noticed, and the sight of it made him nauseated.
He sat down and stared at his hands. Both were glowing—nearly imperceptibly, to be sure—but when he waved them about, he could see them, even in the dark. And his tunic sleeve, which should have been a deep blue, was a horrid salmon color. Then, as a ship looms abruptly out of the mist, a man, shimmering with pale lights of many colors, stumbled over him, nearly fell—staggered on.
Elgar saw and did not care, and knew that he did not care. Not caring made him feel stupid. It's not right... I should care... ghosts trampling you like that... I'm a ghost, too. Oh, I see now... I'm radiating ... but hold on! That's a symptom of amnesia—supposed to be... a lot of rot .. . what have I forgotten? I am Elgar, and I have taken precautions... in one more hour we'll be finished with those suits... bring on your fog....
Astonishing Stories, February 1941, with third part of "Quicksands of Youthwardness"
THE space-explorer Thuban, coming within range of Sirius' dangerous gravitational pull, blows out its motors in the struggle to get away. The ship escapes from Sirius, but drifts aimlessly through space for months.
In its wandering, the Thuban approaches a "coal-sack" nebula in space, which the atlases show to have the curious property of causing those who enter it to lose their memories. The ship drifts directly into the space-cloud, but since it is well shielded, the radiations have no effect on the crew. At the center of the cloud the radiations vanish, and the explorers see a planet. They land on it with the aid of jury-rigged auxiliary motors, and are surprised to find that the planet is inhabited by incredibly aged Earthmen, descendants of marooned spacemen and in some cases the wrecked spacemen themselves.
The explorers discover that not only will the radiations from the inside of the nebula affect memory, but it will also cause a person subjected to them to become actually younger! Every eighty years, approximately, the planet passes into the nebula on its orbit, and its entire population is rejuvenated.
Only the older inhabitants of the plant, however, can endure the passage through the nebula—those who are too young to start with become younger and younger still, until they die of their youthfulness, reaching an embryonic stage. The younger members of the crew of the Thuban, therefore, are treated with disrespect. Wishing to escape from the planet, they try to get all the crew together. But the planet passes into the nebula and the mysterious rays begin working, robbing people of their memories while they are being rejuvenated.
Dr. Elgar, a member of the Thuban's crew, is caught out in the unshielded open when the planet goes into the dark cloud. Immediately he loses control of his body as his memory slips from him, operating in reverse, and he wanders aimlessly around until he is found.
IT was dark in the space-lock. Daxon pushed Elgar ahead of him through the inner door and followed down the passage toward the control room, watching him narrowly. Suddenly, as he expected him to, Elgar whirled.
"What the Hell? Is this a dream—or what?" and he rubbed his chin, puzzled. "A minute ago I was shaving in our apartment at Tutl's. How did I get here?"
Then he noticed Daxon's rig of armor. "Masquerade? Joke?"
"Take it easy, kid," said Daxon, whipping off his helmet. "You've had a little stroke, but you're all right now. Go on into the control room and I'll tell you the whole story."
Elgar went ahead into the familiar control room, mystified. One of the crew there, the ship-keeper, said hello, but no more.
"Play I'm doctor and you're the patient," said Daxon, getting out of the awkward suit. "Tell me—what did you do today?"
"Quit kidding. You know damn well what I did today—I just finished telling you. I was at the library, digging through the history of the 15th Era."
"Yeah? And yesterday?"
"Well, in the morning I went to the Main conservation Unit and was talking to old Dr. Haarsn there. Then, in the afternoon, I was at the library, as usual— more history. Last night we played tuku-ht with Tutl, and I won twenty Athanatian dollys. You ought to remember that, you yelped enough over losing."
"That's all I want to know. All right. Now hang on to yourself and take aboard some bad news. For a doctor, you've certainly made a spectacle of yourself. Supposed to guard us against amnesia and the other cuckoo ailments of this dizzy planet. But what do you do? Get infected yourself!
"What you think was yesterday was over a week ago—ten days, to be exact. Since then, plenty has happened. This ship, the town, the planet—the whole damn works—is out in the black nebula again. The population has gone nuts, as far as I can see, and are spending their time wandering around in the dark. It doesn't seem to hurt 'em, so we haven't lost any sleep over them.
"But you —you who saw it coming— advised us—cautioned us—made up suits. You slipped. You've been lost two days." and believe me, I had a tough time finding you. I hung out at one of those food joints all day today, because I noticed that whatever else those old babies forget, they don't forget to eat. Sure enough, in you come, sorta dazed, and grab a package of chow out of the bin and a flask of tori-berry juice just like one of the natives.
"I came up and spoke to you. You knew me all right. Said something about how funny it was the way Ronny was mad over the post-setting business and his chasing those... remember that?"
"Post-setting? Chasing what? No. Nor the food store thing, either."
"Anyhow, you acted like you were a little tight. What you were saying about Ronny faded out in the middle. You commenced eating like that was the only thing in the world. Then I dragged you along with me. You trailed like a lamb, babbling once in awhile about something that had just happened. Only every time you did that, it was something else—always a little further back. Now it's ten days.
"All right. Now that you are yourself again, I'm going to give you a play-by-play description of what's gone on while you were out. After that, you can bring your medical mind to bear on it and tell us the answer—if there is any."
DAXON told of his fight in the hall V of the temple. The
embattled ancients got the best of him, must have knocked him
out, for when he regained consciousness he found himself in a
room in another part of the Temple. He was bound, but there was a
priest sitting in the room, writing in a ledger. At his call, the
priest looked at the clock, then came over and released him.
To his demand that he be let out, the priest merely said, "As you will," and led him down a corridor. He indicated a door, and started to withdraw. Daxon's suspicions were aroused. They had put up such stubborn resistance earlier, yet now their representative was quite willing to let him out at his first request. Daxon insisted that the priest open the door for him, and when the old man showed signs of fright, he seized him and bound him.
Suspicious of the door, suspecting a trap, Daxon hastily searched the building for other exits, and other priests. He found none. Most of the structure was filled with endless rows of filing cases or shelves of bound manuscripts. It was not until he reached the top floor that he found the habitation of the priests, but it had all the appearance of having been evacuated. In an upper hall he heard a trap door being lifted, followed by the crash of an empty wicker hamper flung down the steep staircase that led to it. Following the hamper, a man in a space- suit, evidently moving with some difficulty, started descending the steps, clinging to its rail with both hands.
Thinking it was one of his shipmates come to rescue him, Daxon rushed to the man. Getting no intelligible answer from him, he peered into the helmet and saw it was a total stranger. He managed to strip the space-suit off. It was another of the priests. Like the first one, Daxon left him bound, and although examination showed the suit was not one of the Thu-ban's, he put it on and mounted to the roof to see what the priest had been up to.
The first thing that struck him was the darkness. The sun had gone, and up there was the black fog of the nebula. The dome of the Temple, once his eyes became adapted to the gloom, shimmered beside him, as the hull of the Thuban had done, but the color was a pale straw. He thought he must have come out on the flat roof of an annex to the Temple, probably of a monastery.
Reclining on couches about the roof were hundreds of old men—priests—in the same condition of stupid lethargy in which he was later to find Elgar. Then he saw the purpose of the visit of the one whose suit he wore. Stacked on a low table were food packages, that inevitable ration of the Hygonians while in the dark. The priests, too, were submitting to rejuvenation, but with the difference that it was apparently under some control. They had left at least two on watch below.
When he went below, the last priest he had encountered pleaded with him to release him and return his space-suit. Daxon untied him, but declined to return the armor. Sobbing and wringing his hands, the priest implored, moaning that their very civilization was at stake. After a brief parley, during which he promised to return later, if he found his own shipmates unharmed, Daxon hurried downstairs. He unbound the priest there and left by the door first shown him.
THE passage to the Tutl apartment was not easy, dark as it was
and the street so full of dazed wanderers, but he found it
without mishap. Finding both the space-suits there, he knew that
somehow Elgar had fallen victim, either to the mob in the Temple,
or of the murk outside. Daxon made his way back to the Temple and
bullied the two frightened priests some more, but they swore they
had detained but one—Daxon. Since the visibility was rarely
more than a yard or so, Daxon gave up the search for the
time.
Groping his way through the haze, bumping into straggling Hygonians, he at last reached the ship and informed the others of the situation. All of them, except one left to keep the ship, donned armor and went back to the city. There, as the most efficient way to search, they scattered and picketed the food shops. The others were still there, hoping to pick up Captain Yphon, knowing that he must eat like the rest.
Elgar was hard put to accept what was told him. Yet he knew about the amnesia; he had seen it occur to the Captain. But even then, accepting every word that Daxon had just told him as the unalloyed truth,-it was impossible for him to feel that the events of those other days that he had lived consciously and then forgotten were a part of his own experience.
The episode of the post-setting attempt—their visit to the Captain—the preparing of the space-suits—the final ceremonies at the Temple, and the subsequent fight: those things were credible, but no more real to him than if he had read them in a book. He figured in the action, certainly, but as a name only.
"Memory," murmured Dr. Elgar, thoughtfully, "is a damn sight more valuable asset than I ever quite realized."
WHEN they had rested and Daxon felt he had brought Elgar fully up to date on himself, they climbed back into their armor and went to town to help Ronny find the Captain. They took some powerful hand-lights, thinking they would be of assistance, but to their disappointment they were not. The mist, while greedy of the weak, phosphorescent illumination it drew from every object, seemed to have a fairly low saturation point. The rays of the lamps lit up the path for only a few feet. Beyond that, the fog actually reflected the light as a deep crimson, effectively blinding them as to what lay beyond. They turned the lights off.
They stopped on the causeway to rest, over the lagoon it bridged. The autumn treetops in the park which bordered it, brown and red but a few days ago, were barely visible now as green, brilliant in hue, even if the intensity was very low. Through the murk, they could not see the water, but following the rule of complementary colors every other substance seemed to follow, they assumed it to be a yellow.
"I found out what that deluminant stuff was for," remarked Daxon. "It has a use after all. Those balls they put on the lampposts shine white now. They are not much help as illumination, because the nebular gas is so absorptive, but they do enable you to steer a course. Inside the houses, though, where they hung the black cloth, you can see pretty well. But I warn you, don't touch anything that looks white. The air is warm enough, but those things are cold. I wonder why?"
"There can't be any nebular gas this low," speculated Elgar. "It's far too tenuous to penetrate below the stratosphere. But it is all around us, and the negative gradient is so great that substances here behave as if they were immersed in it.
"I've thought all along that this reverse metabolism is due to the negative nature of the light. Under the demand to give back the light it formerly absorbed, a cell, by an inversion of its growth process, could manufacture it and deliver it. With inorganic matter, like those black balls, we have different conditions. No amount of exposure to light would enable them to store light. They absorb it, convert it to heat, and radiate it as such. Now place it in a strong negative field such as this, and what is the natural reaction? Topsy-turvy, mind you—we have to accept that?"
"Why, I guess it would absorb heat and radiate it as light," hazarded Daxon. "But say, if these old galoots are living backwards, unliving—why do they eat? Why don't they manufacture food and heave it up at the old meal times? Huh?"
"Your logic is swell," laughed Elgar, "but your premise is wrong. Work, no matter in what direction, requires energy. A shipyard requires power to break up a ship as well as assemble one. Friction is against you whether you pull the trunk here, or back again. So—a cell, whether evolving or degenerating, needs food for the work it does in reorganization."
THEY might have said more, but at A that moment they heard a
commotion in the direction of the city end of the causeway.
Listening, they soon made out the stentorian voice of Captain
Yphon, raging—threatening. In the lulls there would come
the sound of more persuasive voices, silences, then a renewal of
the outbursts. The party was approaching. It was Ronny and a
couple of the men bringing the skipper home.
Out of the mist loomed first the stocky, well-knit form of the old captain. He was staggering like a drunken man in his aimless walk, veering from side to side, and now and then turning completely around. His purple robe of aristocracy gleamed dully in the dark as gold. Whenever his blind attempts at walking headed him back toward the city, the three men following him would turn him straight and push him forward again. It was then that the skipper would vent his wrath, bellowing that he wanted no interference from young whippersnappers. And almost in the same breath, he would forget all about it and stumble on blindly forward.
Like a group of drovers rounding up a sick bull, the Thubanites trailed him in an open semi-circle, heading him off on the turns, steadily herding him forward to home and safety. Elgar could not help grinning to himself in the dark at the rugged old man's individualistic attitude. Accustomed to command, but not in command of himself, he resented an interference which he could not understand. But it did not matter. He forgot each episode in the happening.
Once at the ship, Yphon, reacting as was expected, became normal the moment he entered the well-lit interior. He expressed the usual surprise at suddenly finding himself in an unexpected environment. He thought that an instant before he had been lying on the roof with his goggles on, giving dictation. Like Elgar's case, the date was established at ten days before.
There followed what was getting to be routine—the arguments to convince a victim that he had had amnesia. But the indelibly branded marks on arms and chest was irresistible evidence. Staring at them incredulously, he listened more and more patiently to the details.
With characteristic vigor, the moment he had all the facts, he began aggressively to plan how to escape the planet they were all anxious to leave, despite its alluring promise of immortality. It was apparent that the Hygonians either could not or would not aid them. Their best course was to help themselves. The duration of the dark period they could only guess at. No one wanted to sit and idly wait.
"Ronny," decided the Captain, "you say there is a shipload of telludium ore here. Take it. There is a power plant here. Break the seals and start it up. Build a furnace. Reduce the telludium. Among us we can make a pattern and cast a new spider. What with welding and patchwork, I think we can lift her—given enough time."
"TIME," observed Dr. Elgar, dryly, "is the one thing we have
the most of. Here where we can be immortal if we choose, time has
no meaning. So let's get going."
"What do you mean by that, Elgar?" asked Yphon sharply. "I haven't much time left—nor Angus, poor soul. And the local doctors have already condemned you. It seems to me that time is the very essence of our emergency."
"So it would be, if we submitted stupidly to natural forces like the old men here. But with careful control, we can make time stand still, turn back, or go ahead, as we need."
"Kindly drop the riddles, doctor. Make your point."
"Very well, Captain, I'll speak plainly. Ronny says, with so few men and light conditions being what they are, he cannot get the Kinetogen in working order under five years—perhaps not that soon. Telludium, you know, is a very intractable metal, even under ideal conditions. And after that, we have a ten-year voyage back to Earth. You can't make it, sir, as you are. Rejuvenation is just outside the door, and you, at least, must indulge yourself."
"No!" bellowed the Captain. "Not that way. I have never evaded anything yet—If I have lived my time and am to die, let me. Daxon can take over. But I want no immortality at the price of losing myself. Bah! Read of what you did—be told of what you did. Great Quivering Equinoxes! Is that life?" He snorted in disgust. "Why, Hell's Bells—on that basis, any damn fool that can read can make himself believe he has been through as many reincarnations as there are published biographies. No! I'll do my best to the last. That is all you have any right to ask me."
Yphon, with a last grunt of indignation, subsided into angry silence. Unknown to him, his rage at his tormentors on the long walk from the food store was still alive. He had forgotten the provocation, but the coursing blood and adrenalin in his veins had not.
Suavely, persistently, Elgar pursued his intent.
"How about your 'one for all—all for one' motto, skipper?" he asked, softly. "Aren't we all in the same boat—shipmates? This calls for teamwork. Will you let us down?"
Yphon growled. He knew what was coming. He had used it himself, demanding readiness for death, on occasion. Now, on this topsy-turvey planet, they were demanding life. But he ruled himself as rigidly as he did his subordinates. Appealed to in the name of the ship, he knew he must accede... Elgar was still talking.
"I have been in the fog, too, Captain. It is as simple as taking an anaesthetic. Hours, days, centuries I suppose, go like a flash. You have only to sleep outside. We will watch over you, and when the time comes we will bring you in—to take us home. It will mean but a second's oblivion, as far as you are concerned. Then you'll be back, hale and hearty, ready for your job."
The Captain glared at him, shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He could not say no. These men had just rescued him from such a sleep—one that if allowed to continue unchecked might take him back to childhood.
"Promise," he said gruffly, in tacit acceptance, "that you will bring me in soon. I do not want to go back a single day more than necessary—not to the place where I do not know you. I have lived this cruise; it is a part of me. I do not want to lose it. And give me time to prepare. I want to write in a little book, in my own hand, some very personal things. Things I could not tell you, and you would not ever tell me—things I must not forget. It will be a sacred little book that I will entrust to you."
There was no pretense of being hard-boiled among any of the circle of grim-faced spacemen standing about the control room. Neither moist eye nor furtive gulp brought the gibe it might on another occasion.
"I think we are selfish enough, skipper," said Elgar, evenly, "to want to keep you as we've known you. You can go into the moonshine with every confidence."
WORKING in the dark of Hygon proved to be distinctly difficult. They found the power plant without much waste effort, but the barricades about it were so strongly constructed that they had to return to the ship for tools to break them down. Behind them they encountered the door with its imposing seal and a posted proclamation invoking terrible curses on any rash enough to enter before the date to be set by the priests.
Once on the floor of the cluttered plant, even as experienced an engineer as Ronny found it next to impossible to trace the multitude of leads and connections between the many generators, pumps, transformers and switchboards. Weirdly luminous though everything on Athanata was, nothing could be seen whole—nature had come to be a jigsaw puzzle of bits of pastel lights within the three-or four-foot circle about one. But after a week of patient search, Ronny at last located the ubiquitous locker of detailed instructions. Robbing it of its contents, he carried them off to the Thuban for study. Blueprints, machine details, wiring and pipe diagrams, and operating instructions couched in the simplest language—everything was there. With those in hand an intelligent child could have started the plant—in the light.
While Ronny was groping in the dark of the plant interior, Daxon and his men broke into the Museum and ransacked its showcases for the small accessories and tools that Ronny had listed. Then they tackled the heavier job of unloading the battered Gnat. Trip by trip, staggering through the murk under the burden of sixty-pound bags, they transported a ton of the precious telludium quintoxide and dumped by the outer door of the powerhouse.
Elgar, in the meantime, had kept Capt. Yphon company. While the latter was busily writing his memoirs, Elgar was secretly making a harness for him. When at last Yphon resignedly announced that he was ready, Elgar led him out the entry port into the dark. Unarmored, Yphon instantly fell under the hypnotic rays of the negative light. Helpless and unwitting as a somnambulist, he offered no resistance while Elgar hooked his harness about him and tethered him like a grazing horse to a stake. A comfortable cot was brought out, and a taberet loaded with food. Elgar carefully noted the hour and day in the Thuban's log, and instructed the ship-keepers in the care they were to keep.
It had been decided that for the immediate present Angus would be let be. He was far advanced in years and it did not seem possible that he could survive many months of forward living. For more than half a century he had accompanied Yphon to whatever ship he was commanding, always as his steward. It was with Yphon's consent they had abandoned him to the dark. Branded with full information, after the fashion of the Hygonians, there would be no trouble in identifying him, no matter how young he might become.
IT was a month before Ronny was ready to light off boilers in
the plant. As soon as steam was up, he cut in a generator and
turned on the lights. With the windows barricaded, the artificial
light soon saturated the entrapped atmosphere. There were a few
minutes when the plant was filled with red fog, but then it
cleared. There, as inside the Thuban, they had normal
light. At once the black gang went into the fire-boxes of a
battery of spare boilers and began tearing out their linings of
fire-brick. These they piled in an unoccupied space on the main
floor where they meant to erect their electric furnace.
Dr. Elgar and Daxon, being of little help here, turned their activities toward the Temple. They entered it through the same door by which Daxon had quit it. Inside, they found the halls dimly lit by a few candles, and on the top floor they found one of the priests asleep.
When they woke him, he was the picture of grief and despair. His companion had attempted to make a spacesuit to replace the one taken by Daxon. In the makeshift ray-stopper he had gone to the topside with a hamper of food for the brothers undergoing rejuvenation up there. But he had not returned. Seme crevice in his improvised armor must have leaked and allowed his radiation to escape and amnesia had seized him.
The priest's anguish was so great and so genuine that Elgar listened sympathetically to his appeals for the return of the suit. The fear was not that the man above would die of starvation, but that they would not become youthful at the rate they should. Their source of energy would be cut off, and as normal metabolism is arrested by diminishing the food supply, so was the inverse. Their backward metabolism simply ceased. They failed to radiate, or radiated but faintly as inorganic matter did, with the result that at the dawn of a new era they would be old—too old to survive to its end. Later many would die of old age half way through the era—a disgraceful fate on Athanata.
Furthermore, the priest tearfully urged, without the superior knowledge of the priests to guide them, evil things would be done by the people in the first years of the Dawn. He pictured a world of children, playing thoughtlessly in the streets, hurling stones through windows, setting fires. In that day there would be no elders, no one to reprove—the city would be ruined, there would be deaths by accident, and in the absence of a strong guiding hand, starvation for most. Such a calamity would set back their civilization for many eras.
"Let 'em have it," suggested Daxon, all his hostility gone. After all, the Hygonians had treated the Thubanites decently. It would be cruel and unnecessary to injure them so deeply. All the Earth-men wanted was to be able to leave the place—to go home.
But though that was also Elgar's attitude, he saw here the golden opportunity to piece out the missing parts of the puzzle.
"On one condition," said he, sternly, to the suppliant priest. "Get your High Priest—I want to talk to him."
The priest's face had at first lighted, joy breaking through the myriads of wrinkles about his eyes, but when he grasped the condition his face fell. To depart from the schedule laid down for him was a great offense—to disturb His Holiness while recuperating was sacrilege. He feared his superior's wrath.
"O.K." shrugged Daxon, seizing the cue. "No big shot—no suit!"
The withered little priest trembled. His dilemma was a terrible one. Here were these young brutes who held the very existence, almost, of his race in their hands. Frail as he was, he could not resist them. Should he call his chief—for advice? His mental struggle was obvious to the two younger men who regarded him stonily.
"I will call him... but I must have a suit... I could not come back. But you must not try to talk to him now... he won't know who you are... he will not have heard of your ship. It will be better if you return in a few days; then he will have had time to study the record, will know all about your case and what to say to you."
WHILE the priest was gone, accompanied by Daxon to see that he
played no tricks, Elgar considered whether he should force the
interview now, or later. He would have the advantage of surprise
on the one hand, but on the other he was anxious to learn the
basis of the priestly reaction to the newly arrived space-ship.
That could not be learned at once, for the dark had endured for a
month. From his observations to date, it looked as if the ratio
of effect was about three to one... that is, for every unit of
time spent under its influence, the memory of three such units
would be erased. By that reasoning, when the High Priest was
brought into the light he would imagine himself to be in a period
some weeks earlier than the landing of the Thuban. Elgar
would therefore be a total stranger to him and time would be lost
in explanations.
Yet he had to remember that the priests, while feeble, were numerous and crafty. The battle in the Temple corridor (which he had learned of from Daxon's account) had taught him respect for them. There was the chance that if he deferred the interview, he might return to find a trap set for him.
His thoughts were interrupted by a noise at the hatch overhead and he glanced up to see the two armored figures thrust a tall, gaunt man onto the ladder. The latter, as soon as his feet touched the floor below and his mental processes once more started forward, drew himself up haughtily and glared at Elgar.
"How came this barbarian within the sacred precincts?" he called out sternly, as if expecting his minions to come swarming to his aid.
But his frightened subordinate who had followed him down the ladder had tugged his helmet open and whispered something agitatedly in his ear. The High Priest listened, frowning, and when he straightened up again, his belligerence was gone. He regarded Elgar in dignified silence, waiting for him to speak.
"We are Earthmen stranded on your planet," said Elgar, deciding that little could be gained by talking then. "We are about to leave it. Your people have been friendly and it is our wish to go with the least possible damage to you—perhaps we may even find a way to partially pay for your hospitality. Your own records will tell you about us. In two days I shall return to discuss these things with you."
As he spoke, Elgar was studying the man before him. He was obviously a man of the highest personal ability and magnetism. No doubt he was the real ruler of this country. His expression, necessarily under the circumstances, was one of repressed astonishment, but there was no mistaking the keen intelligence of his face. Elgar had made his decision though, not on the strength of his estimate of the man, but on his recollection that he held the high trump—the priests' space suit.
The little priest had gotten out of it, and Elgar was about to resume it. Without that, the ones above could not be summoned down, nor the two already below venture out onto the street. The threat to withhold it permanently ought to be a great lever in getting information out of this capable man before him.
Evidently similar thoughts were coursing through the mind of the man confronting him, for he smiled affably and said that it would be a pleasure to receive the visitors from Earth at their convenience.
GROPING their way through the streets as they left, Daxon was full of questions.
"What I want to know, is why do they forget? I think I get your inverse metabolism idea all right, the getting young part. But as you get younger, why do you have to get dumber? And you call it amnesia—I always thought when you had amnesia you forgot everything."
"Memory is probably a term to describe a certain group of brain cells. As a person experiences things, and the sensations reach the brain, changes occur in the cells. 'Calling to memory' perhaps is a term to describe the looking over of those cells by some perceptive power in the brain. By the evolution of them—the changes in them—the perceptive power knows what happened outside. That presupposes cells which differentiate and specialize, as we know ours do, normally.
"Turn the whole operation upside down, like here, and all that is undone. The cells, likewise in inverse order, simplify themselves and... pouf! your memory is out the window. The things recorded there never happened, so far as you know. It is like writing on a sheet of paper, then erasing it word by word, beginning with the last one."
"All right—I can believe that. But here's the hard thing. Take the skipper—take you. You knew me, you knew everything about yourself—your past, your medicine, the trip here—everything up to ten days before I picked you up. Why did you act so dumb? Why, boy—you were dopey—groggy. You'd fade away in the middle of a sentence like a sleepy drunk. Why weren't you at least as smart as you were ten days before?"
Elgar laughed, and fended off a glimmering Hygonian who had just bumped into him. "I was, but I couldn't think, any more than that old guy. My memories were all there, most of them, but they were static. Thinking, Sid, believe it or not, is dynamic—and more than that, it is synthetic.
"Analytic is a pretty word to apply to the mind, but the truth is you can't analyze without previous synthesis—you have to have the data. If you ever knew what two is, you can arrive at four as being a pair of twos. But it would take you a long time to guess that four was made up of two twos if you had no inkling there was a smaller number. You might guess it, as our pioneer scientists did about most things, and then by persistence prove it—but it would not be apparent to you right off.
"These people stagger because they don't know where they want to go. If one did, a moment ago, he forgot it before he was ready to point the second step. When you see one going straight, it is not because he has hold of a fixed idea—he can't have. It's because the same idea keeps on hitting him, like being hungry and wanting to find food. He is moved by a series of shoves, not by a steady pull."
THE space-suit of the priests Daxon had left at Tutl's house
the day he escaped from the Temple. He had changed there to his
own. They picked it up and took it with them to the Temple.
Outside the door, they hid it well beyond the reach of any stray
Hygonian by tucking it behind an ebony black statue standing in a
niche. In the light, they surmised, the statue was white
marble.
They found the High Priest in the same ceremonial robes he had worn for the ritual of the Shunning of the Sun. If he was impatient, he concealed it cleverly, for they had deliberately waited an additional day before calling. On the contrary, he was urbane and courteous in the extreme. The junior priest seated them in comfortable chairs in a sort of audience room and gave them each a beautifully chased golden goblet filled with rare tori-berry wine. Then he discreetly withdrew to a corner of the room.
After the formal greetings, the Priest waited. It was Elgar who had demanded the interview.
His opening was brief. He stated that they were about to return to Earth, and upon arrival there would of course report on conditions on Athanata. There were some features of local life that were not understood. Perhaps, in the interests of a correct report, the High Priest might like to clear up some of those points.
The Priest bowed politely, signifying he would.
Furthermore, as an astragational aid, the Thubanites would appreciate data, if such existed, on Athanata's orbit. At that, the High Priest smiled.
"By good fortune, my assistant here happens to be one of our astronomers." Without further ado, he sent the priest to fetch the desired information. Then, with an engaging smile, he placed the tips of his fingers together and began to talk. It was obvious that he either was kindly disposed toward the young officers, or desirous of giving that impression.
"Since your recent call, I have carefully read the record. I am gratified that through your own initiative and energy you have managed to repair your ship. We regret your departure, for we need such qualities here. I assure you we would have liked to have helped you, but it was impossible. Equally, we would have welcomed you as citizens, but that likewise seemed impossible, as you will shortly see for yourselves.
"From what we have learned from your Captain, you Earthly cousins have progressed far beyond what we have. We are in a rut here, I see, and I hope that more of you will come to join us. You can help by spreading good reports of us. Our civilization needs new blood. But you will see when my son returns with the diagrams that our problems are rather special, which accounts for some of our shortcomings. Fortunately, we succeeded in persuading your Captain and one other to remain with us—I trust much to our mutual benefit. One of you, I presume, has succeeded him?"
Daxon, without batting an eye, nodded. Elgar was looking hard at his own feet. The entrance of the astronomical priest with an armful of books and a roll of maps relieved the tension. He spread the maps out.
"We have been unable to compute all the orbit... here only, from about the first quarter of the Era to the end... in the dark we can only interpolate. Roughly half of it is correct. Assuming symmetry, this dotted remainder may be taken as approximately true."
DAXON stared at the plan of the orbit.
He would not have believed a planet could follow such a path without catastrophic climatic changes. It closely resembled that of the great comets of the solar system—elongated extremely—something near three billion miles in length. Its closest approach to the sun, adjusted for sun intensity, was equivalent to the nearness of Venus. Its outer edge must lie very near to the external face of the nebula. Apparently eighty years were spent within sight of the sun—another thirty in the dark. Thirty years!
"I marvel," said Elgar, "that stumbling onto such a bizarre planet without preparation or warning you managed to survive at all."
"Providence—luck—fate. Choose your term," said the High Priest, frankly. "Those in the Gnat were not so fortunate. She hit in the dark.
"I was in the Night Dragon, on my way to Tellunova to take the post of viceroy. I speak from the record, of course, as I remember nothing of it. We took the nebula to be thin and harmless. It lay in our path, so we cut through it. We blundered onto this planet just as you did, except that then it was over here..." and he pointed to a spot early in the Era, just after the emergence of Athanata from the cloud.
"During the passage through the outer mist, we not only lost our memories, but became much younger, children many of us. In those days, travel was slow, so fortunately there were no really young among us at the start. By a singular stroke of fortune, our doctor was ill at the time with an eye infection and had to be kept in a dark room. He escaped the effect of the inrays, and was able to take charge after we landed. The ship that was with us came down close by, and those on board her had undergone a similar experience. Under the direction of the doctor, we established this city.
"So began what we call Era One. Shortly after passing perihelion, the good doctor died—of old age. The rest of us lived on, attained great age. Then one day, the sky reddened, and we were plunged into darkness. And in what seemed like the next instant, we were in the light again, but all young once more. By young, I mean what you call 'in the thirties'.
"During the second Era we were joined by another ship, one that had come to rescue us. Toward the end of it many of the pioneers died of old age, in spite of our care. We had noticed in the beginning that during the previous dark spell we had eaten every scrap of stored food, so the next time we stored much more. We came out in the Dawn of the Third Era much younger. Then we hit upon the idea of shielding ourselves from the sun, especially when we were closest to it. By degrees, and by experimentation, we established the delicate balance of youth and age—the rhythm we live by. The sun and the nebula are exactly balanced, and so must we be, if we are to live among them. We age, speaking in earthly terms, about eighty years in the sun and lose as much in the dark.
"The slender margin we have against death at either end of the cycle you can readily see. Senile death on the one hand, or excessive youthfulness on the other."
"Excessive youth? That is a new term to me," queried Elgar.
"Yes. If the body is allowed to continue its retrograde development, it eventually reaches the infant stage. We have never discovered a way to make fresh milk available for use twenty-five or more years after open storage. And even if they had milk, it would help the infants little—they would continue to dwindle. There is a limit, you must see, to practical rejuvenescence."
"Oh, quite," observed Dr. Elgar.
"I AM curious," said Elgar, after hearing the details of the
building of the city, and the colonizing of other portions of the
planet, "to know what your reactions are when you suddenly find
yourself in the Dawn—quite young, and with most of your
recollections lost."
"After the first shock—and I imagine there is always such a shock, it is quite pleasant. It is pleasant, you know, merely to be alive when you are young. Speaking now from memory—for I do remember the current Era, all but recent months —I will tell you how I felt in the beginning, and that will enable you to understand some of our customs.
"My memories had all been erased except of my childhood spent on your planet, in old Boston—I suppose you know the city. I was skating in the Fenway—and in a twinkling I was sitting here in this very room, a lad of sixteen, while another lad of the same age in a monk's robe was telling me that I was High Priest and supreme arbiter of the lives of millions of people. It was hard to believe—but he showed me books—long memoranda in my own hand, telling of power exercised in other years, and what I must do next.
"We evolved this system to minimize the chaos that plagues us in the beginning of every Era. There are four hundred priests in this unit. We keep two on watch—at the end of two months, they call two others, and so on through the Dark period. A year before the Dawn they call me. I have three months in which to convince myself of my mission and begin my self-education. Then we call the cardinals, and later other section leaders. By the time Dawn comes, we are aware of our identities and know the terrific responsibilities resting on us, youths though we will be.
"Outside, if you can imagine it, the coming light finds our whole population lying about the streets or in the open houses—children from ten to twenty. Like all populations, ours is a mixture of the intelligent, the stupid, and the vicious. With no elders to control, gangs of thoughtless youths—some you would term hoodlums—play havoc with the city. That is why we barricade things and seal the important places and the machinery before the Dark comes on.
"The control of such hordes of children is difficult. It was only by establishing the system you have seen—erecting the high authority of a mystic religion—that we could hope to cope with the mobs of young ravagers. At that, the first half of every era is lost in repair and elementary education. That is why our progress is so slow, by your standards.
"You' see now why we must have our ray shield—we will lose control without it. There is no other power to assume it, if we fail. Utter chaos will result."
When the suit had been brought in and handed over to him, he concluded with, "You may wonder why we did not invite you younger men into the temple for the Dark period. It is true we could have adjusted your age by keeping you in here part of the time, but I assure you the risks attached are greater than the probable gains. It is a hazardous matter to bring a young and vigorous man into the light and subject him to what appears to be an abrupt and magical change in his environment. The danger threatens not only the one who awakes him, but the sanity of the subject. No one can know at what crucial point in his life he might be dwelling at the moment chosen to awake him. It was a risk we dared not take."
TWO months passed after that interview with the High Priest. They had left him satisfied that the priests would attempt no injury. Presumably His Holiness returned to his rooftop to resume his youthward course.
They were two months of dreary back-breaking work, carrying material from storehouses and the museum to the powerhouse where Ronny had set up temporary living quarters for himself and crew. The furnace was growing, brick by brick, and the huge electrodes were being fashioned. Daxon's men were moving, a few pounds at a time, provisions from one of the city's reserve storehouses to the Thuban. The supply of compressed oxygen was being repleted.
Elgar stayed close to the ship in order to release the ship- keeper for heavier work. He spent many anxious hours in the dark outside, watching the writhing, muttering Captain. Although not one bit of it could register on his memory, the old man was unhappily living backward, his "present" always slipping into the deeper past, and his efforts to grasp it futile, his utterings incoherent. The last remark of the High Priest weighed heavily upon Elgar—about the peril of awaking a man in his prime. What would happen when Yphon came to Where would he think he was, and what doing? He had always been an active man—a violent man, even. And was the three to one rule dependable? Might not the ratio be greater, further within the nebula?
One night when all the others were off in the city sweating with the crank telludium ore, Elgar became unable to bear the suspense longer. He undid the leash that held Yphon, and gently propelled him into the passage of the Thuban. As the Captain walked on in, Elgar closed the door and snatched off his helmet.
The skipper's back was to him, but he saw him suddenly go tense, as if galvanized by a lightning bolt. Like an angry tiger, he sprang into the deserted control room. A swift sweep of his glance took in the fitted ray screens, the periscope... and the vacant chairs before the switchboards.
"Where is Daxon—Ronny!" he bellowed, and his eyes were filled with anxiety—high indignation glared there, too. "How dare they leave their posts at a time like this! Are they insane? We are falling into Sirius!"
With one great stride he reached the indicator panel, and his jaw dropped. The photometer needle bent awkwardly, trying vainly to record negative light, while the ray-sorters danced madly in no-man's land. The gravimeter stood at .95, practically Earth gravity, when a moment ago it had been 24 and increasing. With a hoarse cry he snatched at the power controls standing at "Off" and threw them full forward, but there was no answering thrill from aft. Nature had gone crazy, or....
Believing his ship falling dead, his instruments awry, and their posts deserted by his trusted crew, the anguish of the Captain was terrifying to behold. With a groan of anguish he started in great bounds for the engine room. Elgar tried to stop him.
"Out of my way!" shouted the Captain, and in the urgency of what he regarded as their extremity, he hurled the doctor against the bulkhead and leapt down the passage. Bruised and frightened, the doctor picked himself up and hurried after. The Captain was standing on the threshold of the engine room door, weaving about on his feet. Astounded, incredulous, his amazed eyes were fixed on the empty floor where once the mighty Kinetogen had purred. Nor was there a human being in the room. Aghast, the veteran space skipper trembled with rage at the unaccountable treachery of his crew—or of his own senses.
"You have been ill," urged Elgar, clutching him by the elbow. "We are safe, all of us. We have landed on a planet—the others are ashore."
Dazed, the Captain dumbly stood, while Elgar made frenzied appeals. In time, the Captain began to understand. Blank astonishment succeeded his anxious rage of a few minutes before.
"Read the log, first, Captain. I will show you where to start—it has been a long time. Then I will tell you more."
PERSPIRING profusely, frightened to his very marrow, Elgar
huddled in a chair while the Captain hurried jerkily through page
after page of the Thuban's log. When he finished that,
Elgar silently handed him the diary which he himself had kept on
the way into Athanata. After that had been eagerly, but almost
incredulously read, without a word Elgar gave him the little
sealed book in which the Captain had recorded his innermost
thoughts.
While the Captain read, Elgar paced the deck. The High Priest was right. It was a rash thing to cut blindly into a man's past without knowing what is there. Supposing the Captain's mind had been back in the days before the Thuban, in the famous old Alicia, where he knew none of these here, barring old Angus. It was a matter of history the thrilling crises through which the Alicia passed. "Typhoon Yphon" the old man had been called in those days, "Hell on Wheels"—competent, yes, and beloved by those close to him, but a devilish hard man to approach. Elgar shuddered.
Awe-stricken at the possibilities, he drew a sigh of relief as the Captain came to the end of his notes and laid the book aside.
"I'm damned," said Yphon, softly and there were tears in his eyes. "And I missed all that ."
The doctor could not answer. There was a lump in his throat that was choking him. There was a tense five minutes of silence, then Yphon slowly arose. He walked over and patted Elgar on the shoulder.
"No reproaches, boy. The idea was all right. I like the natural way best—that's all. Come on now, give me a space- suit. I want to see this famous city of tidal life. I'm going for a little walk."
RONNY—Ronny the morose, the taciturn, the
unassuming—was working like a beaver. Uncomplaining, with
the patience and dogged persistence of a Sisyphus, he plugged at
his smelting. One year it took his improvised furnace to produce
the first batch of telludium. Then, ironically, as they poured it
into the homemade mold of the starboard sector of the Kinetogen
spider, the whole squirming mass blew up. Ronny was the best
operating engineer in the galaxy, but as a production man he had
to learn as he went. He had not allowed enough vents.
He surveyed the ruined bay of the powerhouse, his dispersed metal and shattered mold. There was only one thing to do. Recharge the furnace, redesign his mold, try again.
So it went—delay, vexation, setbacks, failure. The stark arithmetic of the situation could not be ignored, as the fifth such year passed. It would take another three—it might take another five. The youngest of them was now past forty, some beyond fifty. And after the takeoff, there were ten years yet to come.
Though all the while rejuvenation was theirs for the acceptance, yet each shrank from it. Yphon's mournful remarks deterred them.
"Why not take it in little doses?" suggested Elgar, one night. "The shock is in proportion to the time traversed, and the things you miss. Our days now are all alike, and who minds missing one of them? Let's not go back, but try to hold our own. Let's write our orders for tomorrow, then sleep outside, with one man on watch inside to bring us in, like the priests do."
Several tried it. In a few days all of them were doing it. Eight hours sleep, in the dark, was their ration. It wiped out the twenty-four hours before; each night they went back one day. There was no shock, because like the Athanatians, they knew the phenomenon; it was a part of their memory before losing control.
So, with piecemeal rejuvenation, they made time stand still during the long, tedious years all hands were engaged in the struggle with the refractory telludium and the difficult spider castings. Ten in all had gone by when the glad day arrived when all the Kinetogen parts were standing about the engine room. There was nothing left but assembly and the tests; then they would go home, quit this accursed planet with its miscalled immortality.
There remained one thing left to do outside. They must retrieve the wandering Angus. He should be about sixty, now— probably not too much changed to recognize, and furthermore, he was branded with his name. But the Captain had known him for the past fifty years, and would recognize him at sight, and he himself insisted on conducting the search.
He found him in the usual place, a food store. Back at the ship, his awakening followed the regular pattern—astonishment at seeing his Captain grown so old... the unfamiliar ship and her personnel. He thought he was in the old Alicia, out on the fourth planet of Achernar. He cried like a baby when he learned the truth.
For many days the Captain stayed close to him, relating yarns from their joint experience. Captain and steward—there was a gulf of rank between them, but they were both men, had been shipmates and shared a thousand heavens and hells. And the background of their talks was the steady tink-tink of hammers, the clang of metal against metal, as the cursing Ronny pieced the welded fragments of his great machine together to let them out of this last one.
ON his last trip to the plant, as a matter of decency, Ronny tidied the place up as best he could. Outside, men were putting up the barricade again.
"It's an unholy mess," he said, ruefully, looking over the wrecked engine room, the shattered machines and the frozen flows of diamond-hard telludium slag. "It's a dirty shame to leave anybody's engine room like this—but what else can we do?" He pulled the switch for the last time and hauled fires from the boilers. Daxon thought, too, of the disordered condition in which he had left the looted food store, and the rifled museum cases. The Hygonians had been decent to them—it seemed ungrateful.
"I know what to do," volunteered Ronny, suddenly, "there's a lot of stuff left in the Gnat, worth its weight in radium. Why not write the old bozos a thank-you letter and tell 'em what to do with it. It'll more than pay for what we've spoiled."
That night they drew up a resolution of thanks and apology. To it they appended a treatise on the use of the rare ores in the museum, and added three technical books from their own ship's library. Taking the offering, Elgar and Daxon started out for the Temple, but before they had gone far, Elgar darted back to the ship. He wanted the notebook in which long ago he had transcribed the cryptic code numbers branded on Yphon and Angus. That must be their file designation in the secret archives of the priests.
The trek to the Temple was uneventful. The door they had used before they found sealed, but they broke the seal and entered the familiar candle-lit hall. No one met them. Unmolested they climbed to the top floor, where both the priests of the watch were asleep. These were not rheumy-eyed centenarians, but men in advanced middle age, their hair was thicker, and blackening. Quietly the officers laid their offering beside one of the sleeping priests and as quietly withdrew from the room.
Five minutes later they were on a lower floor, searching the lockers of the "ZR-17" series, the letters which appeared in both their numbers. A little later they were on hands and knees poring over the batches of papers they had found and dumped onto the floor. There were the Hygonian diaries of both the men, edited with many interlineations and notations in priestly red. They found a large dossier on the Thuban's crew in general, a sort of Athanatian secret service report. Daxon chuckled to find his every movement and utterance had been noted and filed. He had had no idea that he was being watched so closely.
SUDDENLY his eyes started. He was about to throw out a folder
marked "Ark-Bishp, Nu-Teksis" as not belonging to this file. But
the folder did belong there. The letters dealt with the
activities of one Earthman—Ubsn—doing some exploring
in the mountainous west. They were complaints to the High Priest
of the arrogance and lack of deference shown by the nosey
Earthman. He had evidently ridden the local elders with a high
hand. The last letter in the jacket was:
Temple of the Ark-Bishp, Nu-Teksis, Greetings:
In compliance with your orders, we have drugged the upstart Ubsn, and while so drugged, secured him. We send him to you by special plane. Please acknowledge. No. 87. AB.
Great Temple, Hygon.
Endorsement. Acknowledge to 87. Confine prisoner in unit K of prison ward, sub-temple 9, Hygon. Release with other prisoners fourth hour of Dark. Order of No. 1. H.P.
"So now we know what they do with their prisoners," commented Daxon.
"Yes," ejaculated Elgar, excitedly, "but don't you see? Ulberson's up here somewhere—lost in the dark. Why, he must be a little boy—he wasn't any older than you—wonder we haven't bumped into him."
"So what?" said Daxon, indifferently. "At any age, he'd be a pain in the neck."
"I know, but the skipper'd never feel right if we went off and left him here. He prides himself on never having abandoned a man anywhere."
BUT that find was nothing compared to their next. It was a
memo attached to the bottom of Yphon's personal file. It
read:
After careful analysis of this man's diary and record, it is ordered that in the 18th Era he be given the dossier of the Prizdint to study and instructed in the duties of that office. As soon as ready, place him in charge. The said Yphn shall be assigned numerical designation No. 2. Prizdint of 17th Era will be shifted to governorship Mexko province—No. 245. Alter his records to that effect. By order No.l. H.P.
"I ALWAYS did think that High Priest was a smart egg,"
observed Daxon, as Elgar tucked the order away inside his
armor.
"But look how they push them around like pawns," said Elgar, as the full implications of the document became clear to him. "Unless they told him, the skipper would never know he had ever had anything to do with the Thuban. I wonder if they tell the deposed Prizdint who he used to be?"
On the way out, they stopped long enough in a room where they had seen a map of Hygon to locate Temple No. 9. They ceased to wonder why they had never seen a little boy in the street—it was in an out-of-the-way part of town.
Two hours later, they had established their vigil in that locality's food store. Their wait was long, but not uninteresting. It was to be their last view of the Athanatians in all the glimmering weirdness of their auto-illumination. In the end, they were rewarded by the entrance of a boy of perhaps eight years.
He had thrown away his undergrown clothes and was wrapped in a cloth that must have been very dirty, judging from the varied scintillescence of it. He toddled to a bin and reached. His stature was against him. Twice he failed to reach the coveted food package, and as often he would kick the bin and scream, and roll about on the floor, bawling.
"That's him," Daxon muttered grimly, and grabbed the child.
"MY name is Hubert Ulberson," he told them, under the cabin
lights of the ship, "and when I grow up I'm going to be a famous
explorer. Where's my mama—I wan' some candy."
"We will take you to your mama. But there is no candy—not now," said Yphon, kindly, much affected by the child.
"YOW! Wan' candy... gimme some candy—you dirty old man."
"Take him away," said Yphon, and there was sadness in his voice. "I'll reason with him later."
The Kinetogen was humming. Screens were set, all was ready. About the Kinetogen were banks of neutralizers, killing its powerful thrust as it spun in its dock-trial. 10, 15, 20, 25... at half throttle. Plenty of anti-gravity, enough even to tackle the Dog Star with, if it had to be done. Ronny had done a swell job.
"Standby to lift," said the Captain. At his feet lay the High Priest's order, the bit of paper that would have made him Prizdint of Athanata. He had glanced at it, and discarded it with an impatient snort. To his mind it was an empty compliment.
"Ready, sir!" reported his officers in unison.
"Take off."
In an hour, Athanata would be well below. Once clear of her faint pull, their gravimeters would show them which way to go—it could not be far to where they would once more see the fair, white stars and the decent black of the clear void. The Kinetogen thrilled—the ship was alive again—they were lifting.
But the little boy, pouting and whining, was back in the room, pulling at Ronny's tunic.
"Wah! I don't wanna go. Wanna play out there!"
"Come here, son," said Yphon, gently.
"Nasty old man—I hate you. Ol' fish-face! Yaa-a," and an impudent red tongue stuck out.
"Come here!" A heavy paw seized the squirming neck of little Hubert and dragged him toward a waiting lap.
"I learned one thing in Athanata," said the skipper, firmly, as he turned the kicking, biting brat over his knee, "and that is that out here you can always get another chance..."
Hard-faced spacemen were at their taking-off posts, hands on controllers or rheostat knobs. Their eyes did not waver from the dials before them, but their ears were trained backward to catch every sound in the room behind, nor did any face lack an exultant grin.
"Now, son..." and the hairy right hand had tugged away a nether garment, revealing a patch of quivering pink flesh... "this time, if you don't grow up to be a MAN... it won't be old Pol Yphon's fault."
Smack! (yow!) SMACK! (BAW!) SMACK!