Short Fiction

I awoke from profound sleep to find two black-swathed forms standing silently beside me, their faces pale blurs in the gloom. As I blinked to clear my sleep-dimmed eyes, one of them beckoned impatiently, and suddenly I realized the purpose of this midnight summons. For years I had been expecting it, ever since my father, the Baron Kralitz, had revealed to me the secret and the curse that hung over our ancient house. And so, without a word, I rose and followed my guides as they led me along the gloomy corridors of the castle that had been my home since birth.

As I proceeded there rose up in my mind the stern face of my father, and in my ears rang his solemn words as he told me of the legendary curse of the House of Kralitz, the unknown secret that was imparted to the eldest son of each generation⁠—at a certain time.

“When?” I had asked my father as he lay on his deathbed, fighting back the approach of dissolution.

“When you are able to understand,” he had told me, watching my face intently from beneath his tufted white brows. “Some are told the secret sooner than others. Since the first Baron Kralitz the secret has been handed down⁠—”

He clutched at his breast and paused. It was fully five minutes before he had gathered his strength to speak again in his rolling, powerful voice. No gasping, deathbed confessions for the Baron Kralitz!

He said at last, “You have seen the ruins of the old monastery near the village, Franz. The first Baron burnt it and put the monks to the sword. The Abbot interfered too often with the Baron’s whims.

The stratoship from Cairo was late, and I was wondering whether the newsreel theatre or a couple of drinks would make time pass faster. It was early dusk. Through the immense, curved wall-window of the Manhattan Port Room I could see the landing field, with a silvery ship being rolled over the tarmac, and the skyscrapers of New York beyond.

Then I saw Arnsen.

It was Steve Arnsen, of course. No doubt about that. No other man had his great breadth of shoulders, his Herculean build. Ten years ago we had been classmates at Midwestern. I remembered rakehell, laughing, handsome Steve Arnsen very well, with his penchant for getting into trouble and out of it again, usually dragging Douglas O’Brien, his roommate, along with him like the helpless tail of a kite. Poor Doug! He was the antithesis of Arnsen, a thoughtful, studious boy with the shadow of a dream lurking always in his dark eyes. An idealist was Douglas O’Brien, as his Celtic ancestors had been. Strong friendship had existed between the two men⁠—the mental communion of laughter and a dream.

Arnsen was looking up into the darkening sky, a queer tensity in his posture. He turned abruptly, came to a table near me, and sat down. From his pocket he took a small box. It snapped open. His gaze probed into the unknown thing that was hidden by his cupped hands.

I picked up my drink and went to Arnsen’s table. All I could see was the back of his sleek, massive head. Then he looked up⁠—

If ever I saw hell in a man’s face, I saw it in Arnsen’s then.

The Arctic blizzard swept needles of stinging ice against Saul Duncan’s face. Doggedly he plowed on, head lowered, heavy shoulders hunched against the fury of the winds. Once he heard the drone of a heliplane overhead, and flung himself flat till the sound had been swallowed by the gale. Then for a few moments his body refused to obey the grim demands of his mind. Deceptive warmth was stealing over him, inviting him to rest. But that, he knew, meant death then and there.

If he kept going, there was a chance of safety and freedom⁠—not much of a chance, though, for few men ever escaped alive from the Transpolar Penitentiary. Situated within the Arctic Circle, the grim, guarded fortress of stone and metal and tough plastics was safer than Alcatraz had been a century and a half ago. Yet Duncan had escaped.⁠ ⁠…

His bitter lips twisted in a harsh smile. Escape! Into a polar blizzard⁠—but that was the only possible time when a prisoner could evade the guard planes that patrolled the frigid waste. And Duncan could not have made his escape without aid from outside.

With stiff fingers he fumbled out a compass-like instrument that had been smuggled to him in the penitentiary. The needle held motionless, pointing directly into the teeth of the gale. If he kept on in that direction, sooner or later he would reach Olcott’s plane. But how long it would take he did not know.

Icy water splashed into Ed Garth’s face and dripped down his tattered, grimy shirt. It was a tremendous effort to open his eyes. Fumes of the native Ganymedean rotgut liquor were swimming in his brain.

Someone was shaking him roughly. Garth’s stocky body jerked convulsively. He struck out, his drink-swollen face twisted with frightened fury, and gasped, “Ylgana! Vo m’trana al-khron⁠—”

The hand on his shoulder fell away. Someone said, “That’s it, Paula! The Ancient Tongue!”

And a girl’s voice, doubtful, a little disgusted.

“You’re sure? But how in the System did this⁠—this⁠—”

“Bum. Tramp,” Garth muttered, peering blearily at the pale ovals of unfocused faces above him. “Don’t mind me, sister. Beachcomber is the word⁠—drunk, right now. So please get the hell out and let me finish my bottle.”

More water was sluiced on Garth. He shook his head, groaning, and saw Tolomo, the Ganymedean trader, scowling down at him. The native’s three-pupiled eyes were angry.

English hissed, oddly accented, on his tongue.

“You wake up, Garth! Hear me? This is a job for you. You owe me too much already. These people come looking for you, say they want a guide. Now you do what they want, and pay me for all that liquor you buy on credit.”

“Sure,” Garth said wearily. “Tomorrow. Not now.”

Tolomo snorted. “I get you native guides, Captain Brown. They know way to Chahnn.”

The man’s voice said stubbornly, “I don’t want natives. I want Ed Garth.”

The man running through the forest gloom breathed in hot, panting gusts, pain tearing at his chest. Underfoot the crawling, pale network of tree-trunks lay flat upon the ground, and more than once he tripped over a slippery bole and crashed down, but he was up again instantly.

He had no breath to scream. He sobbed as he ran, his burning eyes trying to pierce the shadows. Whispers rustled down from above. When the leaf-ceiling parted, a blaze of terribly bright stars flamed in the jet sky. It was cold and dark, and the man knew that he was not on Earth.

They were following him, even here.

A squat yellow figure, huge-eyed, inhuman, loomed in his path⁠—one of the swamp people of Southern Venus. The man swung a wild blow at the thing, and his fist found nothing. It had vanished. But beyond it rose a single-legged giant, a Martian, bellowing the great, gusty laughter of the Redland Tribes. The man dodged, stumbled, and smashed down heavily. He heard paddling footsteps and tried, with horrible intensity of purpose, to rise. He could not.

The Martian crept toward him⁠—but it was no longer a Martian. An Earthman, with the face of some obscene devil, came forward with a sidling, slow motion. Horns sprouted from the low forehead. The teeth were fangs. As the creature came nearer, it raised its hands⁠—twisted, gnarled talons⁠—and slid them about the man’s throat.