The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Ii Part 17

"Yes," she agreed shyly. She caught her breath as she added, "I have been--waiting for you--a long time." Shyly she gazed up at him. The night-breeze had blown her hair partly over her face. Her hand brushed it away so that her gaze met his. "I hoped you would be, well, like you are," she added.

"Oh," he said awkwardly. "Well--thanks."

"And you," she murmured out of another little silence, "you--I hope I haven't disappointed you. I am the way you want--like you wished--"

What a weird thing to say! He smiled. "Not ever having heard of you, Aura, I can't exactly say that I--"

He checked himself. Was she what he had wished? Why yes--surely he had been thinking of her--in his dreams, all his life vaguely picturing something like this for Lee Anthony....

"I guess I have been thinking of you," he agreed. "No, you haven't disappointed me, Aura. You--you are--"

He could find no words to say it. "We are almost there," she said. "He will be very happy to have you come. He is a very good man, Lee. The one, we think, of the most goodness--and wiseness, to guide us all--"

The path had led them up a rocky defile, with gnarled little trees growing between the crags. Ahead, the hillside rose up in a broken, rocky cliff. There was a door, like a small tunnel entrance. A woman in a long white robe was by the door.

"He is here," Aura said. "Young Anthony."

"You go in."

Silently they pa.s.sed her. The tunnel entrance glowed with the pastel radiance from the rocks. The radiance was a soft blob of color ahead of them.

"You will find that he cannot move now," Aura whispered. "You will sit by his bed. And talk softly."

"You mean--he's ill?"

"Well--what you would call paralysis. He cannot move. Only his lips--his eyes. He will be gone from us soon, so that then he can only be unseen. A Visitor--"

Her whisper trailed off. Lee's heart was pounding, seeming to thump in his throat as Aura led him silently forward. It was a draped, cave-like little room. Breathless, Lee stared at a couch--a thin old figure lying there--a frail man with white hair that framed his wrinkled face. It was a face that was smiling, its sunken, burning eyes glowing with a new intensity. The lips moved; a faint old voice murmured: "And you--you are Lee?"

"Yes--grandfather--"

He went slowly forward and sat on the bedside.

CHAPTER IV.

Mad Giant To Lee, after a moment, his grandfather seemed not awe-inspiring, but just a frail old man, paralyzed into almost complete immobility, lying here almost pathetically happy to have his grandson at last with him. An old man, with nothing of the mystic about him--an old man who had been--unknown to the savants of his Earth--perhaps the greatest scientist among them. Quietly, with pride welling in him, Lee held the wasted, numbed hand of his grandfather and listened....

Phineas Anthony, the scientist. After many years of research, spending his own private fortune, he had evolved the secret of size-change--solved the intricate problems of anti-gravitational s.p.a.ceflight; and combining the two, had produced that little vehicle.

A man of science; and perhaps more than that. As old Anna Green had said, perhaps he was a man inspired--a man, following his dreams, his convictions, convinced that somewhere in G.o.d's great creation of things that are, there must be an existence freed of those things by which Man himself so often makes human life a tortured h.e.l.l.

"And Something led me here, Lee," the gentle old voice was saying. "Perhaps not such a coincidence. On this great Inner Surface of gentle light and gentle warmth--with Nature offering nothing against which one must strive--there must be many groups of simple people like these. They have no thought of evil--there is nothing--no one, to teach it to them. If I had not landed here, I think I would have found much the same thing almost anywhere else on the Inner Surface."

"The Inner Surface? I don't understand, grandfather."

A conception--a reality here--that was numbing in its vastness. This was the concave, inner surface, doubtless deep within the atom of some material substance. A little empty s.p.a.ce here, surrounded by solidity.

"And that--" Lee murmured, "then that little s.p.a.ce is our Inter-Stellar abyss?"

"Yes. Of course. The stars, as we call them--from here you could call them tiny particles--like electrons whirling. All of them in this little void. With good eyesight, you can sometimes see them there--"

"I did."

And to this viewpoint which Lee had now--so gigantic, compared to Earth--all the Inter-Stellar universe was a void here of what old Anthony considered would be perhaps eight or ten thousand miles. A void, to Lee now, was itself of no greater volume than the Earth had been to him before!

Silently he pondered it. This Inner Surface--not much bigger, to him now, than the surface of the Earth is to its humans.... Suddenly he felt small--infinitely tiny. Out here beyond the stars, he was only within the atom of something larger, a human, partly on his way--emerging--outward-- * * * * *

It gave him a new vague conception. As though now, because he was partly emerged, the all-wise Creator was giving him a new insight. Surely in this simple form of existence humans were totally unaware of what evil could be. Was not this a higher form of life than down there on his tiny Earth?

The conception numbed him with awe....

"You see, Lee, I have been looking forward to having you become a man--to having you here," old Anthony was saying. As he lay, so utterly motionless, only his voice, his face, his eyes, seemed alive. It was an amazingly expressive old face, radiant, transfigured. "I shall not be here long. You see? And when I have--gone on--when I can only come back here as a Visitor--like Anna Green, you have been aware of her, Lee?"

"Yes, grandfather. Yes, I think I have."

"The awareness is more acute, here, than it was back on Earth. A very comforting thing, Lee. I was saying--I want you here. These people, so simple--you might almost think them childlike--they need someone to guide them. The one who did that--just as I came, was dying. Maybe--maybe that is what led me here. So now I need you."

It welled in Lee with an awe, and a feeling suddenly of humbleness--and of his own inadequacy, so that he murmured, "But grandfather--I would do my best--but surely--"

"I think it will be given you--the ability--and I've been thinking, Lee, if only some time it might be possible to show them on Earth--"

Lee had been aware that he and old Anthony were alone here. When Lee entered, Aura had at once withdrawn. Now, interrupting his grandfather's faint, gentle voice there was a commotion outside the underground apartment. The sound of women's startled cries, and Aura's voice.

Then Aura burst in, breathless, pale, with her hair flying and on her face and in her eyes a terror so incongruous that Lee's heart went cold.

He gasped, "Aura! Aura, what is it?"

"This terrible thing--that man who came with you--that man, Franklin--he talked with Groff. Some evil spell to put upon Groff--it could only have been that--"

Lee seized her. "What do you mean? Talk slower. Groff? The man who served us that meal--"

"Yes, Groff. And two of the men who were to guard there. What that man said to them--did to them--and when old Arkoh found it out he opposed them--" Her voice was drab with stark horror--so new an emotion that it must have confused her, so that now she just stood trembling.

"Child, come here--come here over to me--" Old Anthony's voice summoned her. "Now--talk more slowly--try and think what you want to tell us.... What happened?"

"Oh--I saw old Arkoh--him whom I love so much--who always has been so good to me--to us all--I saw him lying there on the floor--"

Words so unnatural here that they seemed to reverberate through the little cave-room with echoes that jostled and muttered like alien, menacing things which had no right here--and yet, were here.

"You saw him--lying there?" Lee prompted.

"Yes. His throat, with red blood running out of it where they had cut him--and he was dying--he died while I stood there--"

The first murder. A thing so unnatural. Old Anthony stared for an instant mute at the girl who now had covered her face with her hands as she trembled against Lee.

"Killed him?" Lee murmured.

On Anthony's face there was wonderment--disillusion, and then bitterness. "So? This is what comes to us, from Earth?"

Lying so helpless, old Anthony could only murmur that now Lee must do what he could.

"Your own judgement, my son--do what you can to meet this." The sunken, burning eyes of the old man flashed. "If there must be violence here, let it be so. Violence for that which is right."

"Grandfather--yes! That miserable cowardly murderer--"

To meet force, with force. Surely, even in a world of ideals, there is no other way.

With his fists clenched, Lee ran from the cave-room. Frightened women scattered before him at its entrance. Where had Franklin gone? That fellow Groff, and two or three of the guards had gone with him. Cynicism swept Lee; he remembered the look Groff had flung at Franklin. Even here in this realm--because it was peopled by humans--evil pa.s.sions could brood. Groff indeed must have been planning something, and he had seen in Franklin a ready helper--a man from Earth, whom Groff very well may have thought would be more resourceful, more experienced in the ways of violence than himself.

This realm where everyone had all of happiness that he could want! Human perfection of existence. A savage laugh of irony was within Lee as he thought of it. No one had ever held out the offer of more than perfection to these people. But Franklin evidently had done it--playing upon the evil which must lie within every living thing, no matter how latent it may be. Awakening in those guards the pa.s.sion of cupidity--desire for something better than they had now.

What had happened to Vivian? Out in the rose-light dimness, a little way down the path, Lee found himself staring off toward the forest where the village lay nestled. Voices of the frightened people came wafting through the night silence.

"Lee--Lee--"

It was Aura behind him, running after him. "Lee--wait--I belong with you. You know that--"

He gripped her. "That girl from Earth--that Vivian--she was with Franklin. What happened to her?"

"She went. He took her--"

"She went--voluntarily?"

"Yes. The people saw her running out with Franklin, and Groff and the other men. Oh, Lee--what--what are you going to do?"

"I don't know." He stood for a moment dazed, confused--panting, his fingers twitching. If only he could get a grip on Franklin's throat. And so Vivian went too! That was a laugh--girl of the streets, pretty worthless, on Earth. But here--she had seemed to sense what this realm could mean.

"Aura, where would Groff be likely to go?"

"Go? Why--why I do remember, Groff often went up into the hills. He never said why?"

"Would they have any weapons?"

"Weapons?" Her eyes widened as though for a second she did not comprehend. "Weapons? You mean--instruments with which to kill people? No--how could there be? But a knife can kill. A knife cut old Arkoh's throat. We have knives--in the houses--and knives that are used for the harvests--"

She had turned to gaze out toward the glowing hills.... "Oh, Lee--look--"

Numbed, with their breath catching in their throats, they stared. Out by the hills a man's figure rose up--monstrous, gigantic figure.

Franklin! He stood beside the little hill, with a hand on its top, his huge bulk dwarfing it! Franklin, a t.i.tan, his head and shoulders looming monstrously against the inky blackness of the sky!

CHAPTER V.

Combat of t.i.tans "Aura, you think you know where Groff may have gone--those times he went out into the hills?"

"Yes. I think so. Lee--that giant, I think now I understand what must have happened."

The giant shape of Franklin, a mile or two from them, had stood for a moment and then had receded, vanished momentarily as he moved backward behind the hills. Lee and Aura, stunned, still stood beside the little rocky path. Lee's mind was a turmoil of confusion, with only the knowledge that he must do something now, quickly. There were no weapons here in this peaceful little realm. Four or five of these madmen villains--what need had they of weapons? The monstrous power of size. The thought of it struck at Lee with a chill that seemed turning his blood to ice. The monster that Franklin had become--with a size like that he could scatter death with his naked hands.

"I remember now," Aura was gasping. "There was a time when your grandfather was working on his science. Groff was helping him then. Your grandfather taught Groff much."

"Working at what?"

"It was never said. Then your grandfather gave it up--he had decided it would not be wise here."

Some individual apparatus, with the size-change principle of the s.p.a.ce-globe? And Groff had gotten the secret. An abnormality here--Groff with the power of evil latent within him, tempted by this opportunity. What could he have hoped to accomplish? Of what use to him would it be to devastate this little realm? Bitter irony swept Lee. Of what use was vast personal power to anyone? Those madmen of Earth's history, with their l.u.s.t for conquest--of what use could the conquest be to them? And yet they had plunged on.

He realized that with Groff there could have been a wider field of conquest. Groff had heard much of Earth. With the power of size here, he could master this realm; then seize the s.p.a.ce-globe. Go with it to Earth. Why, in a gigantic size there, he and a few villainous companions could master the Earth-world. A mad dream indeed, but Lee knew it was a l.u.s.tful possibility matched by many in Earth's history.

And then Franklin had come here. Franklin, with his knowledge of Earth which Groff would need. Franklin, with his inherent feeling of inferiority--his groping desire for the strength and power of size. What an opportunity for Franklin!

Lee heard himself saying out of the turmoil of his thoughts: "Then, Aura--out there in the hills they've got some apparatus, of course, which--"

His words were stricken away. From somewhere in the glowing dimness near at hand there was a groan. A gasping, choking groan; and the sound of something falling.

"Lee--over there--" Aura's whispered words were drab with horror.

A figure which had been staggering among the rocks near them, had fallen. They rushed to it. Vivian! She was trying to drag herself forward. Her hair, streaming down in a sodden ma.s.s, was matted with blood. Her pallid face was blood-smeared. Her neck and throat were a welter of crimson horror. Beside her on the ground lay a strange-looking apparatus of grids and wires--a metal belt--a skeleton helmet.... She was gripping it with a blood-smeared hand, dragging it with her.

"Vivian--Vivian--"

"Oh--you, Lee? Thank Gawd I got to you--"

Her elbows gave way; her head and shoulders sank to the rock. Faintly gasping, with blood-foam at her livid lips, she lay motionless. But her glazing eyes gazed up at Lee, and she was trying to smile.