Short Fiction

I suppose it started some time back, even before the astronomers discovered it, and certainly long before I found out. How far back I have no idea; thousands of years, perhaps, or more. But the first I knew about it was one March evening, when I opened the newspaper.

Jane was in the kitchen, cleaning up, and I was settled back in the easy chair, reading through the lead articles. I skimmed through all the war talk, price controls, suicides, murders, and then glanced through the rest of the paper. One small article in the back caught my eye.

Astronomers Losing Stars, the caption read. It was a human-interest story I suppose, because it went on in that maddening coy style the newspapers use for that sort of stuff.

“Dr. Wilhelm Mentzner, at the Mount St. James Observatory, says that he has been unable, in recent weeks, to find some of the Milky Way stars. It would seem, Dr. Mentzner tells us, that they have vanished. Repeated photographs of certain portions of space do not show the presence of these dim, faraway stars. They were in place and intact in photographs made as recently as April, 1942, and⁠ ⁠…”

The article gave the names of some of the stars⁠—they didn’t mean a thing to me⁠—and chided the scientists on their absentmindedness.

I don’t know what would have happened if the voice hadn’t been heard then. It would be anybody’s guess. But the voice came the day after Alpha Centauri vanished.

I first heard it on my way to the store. I was walking down Lexington Avenue from the 59th Street station, looking in the dress windows to see what my competitors had to offer. Just as I was passing Mary-Belle’s Frocks, and wondering how soon they’d have their Summer line in, I heard it.

It was a pleasant voice, friendly. It seemed to come from just behind me, about three feet over my shoulder.

“Judgment of the inhabitants of the planet Earth,” it said, “will be held in five days. Please prepare yourselves for final examination and departure. This announcement will be repeated.”

I looked around at once to find out who was speaking. I half-expected to find a tall, cadaverous fanatic at my shoulder, some fiery-eyed fellow with flowing hair and a beard. But there was no one at all. The nearest person was about fifteen feet from me. For a moment I thought I was having a hallucination, hearing voices, that sort of thing. Then I saw that everyone else must have heard it, too.

His arms were very tired, but he lifted the chisel and mallet again. He was almost through; only a few more letters and the inscription, cut deeply into the tough granite, would be finished. He rounded out the last period and straightened up, dropping his tools carelessly to the floor of the cave. Proudly he wiped the perspiration from his dirty stubbled face and read what he had written.

I rose from the slime of the planet. Naked and defenseless, I fashioned tools. I built and demolished, created and destroyed. I created a thing greater than myself that destroyed me.

My name is Man and this is my last work.

He smiled. What he had written was good. Not literary enough, perhaps, but a fitting tribute to the human race, written by the last man. He glanced at the tools at his feet. Having no further use for them, he dissolved them, and, hungry from his long work, squatted in the rubble of the cave and created a dinner. He stared at the food for a moment, wondering what was lacking; then, sheepishly, created a table and chair, utensils and plates. He was embarrassed. He had forgotten them again.

Although there was no need to rush, he ate hurriedly, noting the odd fact that when he didn’t think of anything specific, he always created hamburger, mashed potatoes, peas, bread and ice cream. Habit, he decided. Finished, he made the remnants of the meal disappear, and with them the plates, utensils and table. The chair he retained. Sitting on it, he stared thoughtfully at the inscription. It’s fine, he thought, but no human other than myself will ever read it.

The leech was waiting for food. For millennia it had been drifting across the vast emptiness of space. Without consciousness, it had spent the countless centuries in the void between the stars. It was unaware when it finally reached a sun. Life-giving radiation flared around the hard, dry spore. Gravitation tugged at it.

A planet claimed it, with other stellar debris, and the leech fell, still dead-seeming within its tough spore case.

One speck of dust among many, the winds blew it around the Earth, played with it, and let it fall.

On the ground, it began to stir. Nourishment soaked in, permeating the spore case. It grew⁠—and fed.

Frank Conners came up on the porch and coughed twice. “Say, pardon me, Professor,” he said.

The long, pale man didn’t stir from the sagging couch. His horn-rimmed glasses were perched on his forehead, and he was snoring very gently.

“I’m awful sorry to disturb you,” Conners said, pushing back his battered felt hat. “I know it’s your restin’ week and all, but there’s something damned funny in the ditch.”

The pale man’s left eyebrow twitched, but he showed no other sign of having heard.

Frank Conners coughed again, holding his spade in one purple-veined hand. “Didja hear me, Professor?”

“Of course I heard you,” Micheals said in a muffled voice, his eyes still closed. “You found a pixie.”

“A what?” Conners asked, squinting at Micheals.

“A little man in a green suit. Feed him milk, Conners.”

On the subway, Dennison was absorbed in a newspaper. He was barely conscious of the men sitting on either side of him. He became aware of them only when the man on his right poked him firmly in the ribs.

Dennison glanced over and saw the snub nose of a small automatic, concealed from the rest of the car by a newspaper, resting against his side.

“What is this?” Dennison asked.

“Hand it over,” the man said.

Dennison was stunned. How could anyone have known about his discovery? And how could they dare try to rob him in a public subway car?

Then he realized that they were probably just after his money.

“I don’t have much on me,” Dennison said hoarsely, reaching for his wallet.

The man on his left leaned over and slapped the briefcase. “Not money,” he said. “The immortality stuff.”

In some unaccountable fashion, they knew. What if he refused to give up his briefcase? Would they dare fire the automatic in the subway? It was a very small caliber weapon. Its noise might not even be heard above the subway’s roar. And probably they felt justified in taking the risk for a prize as great as the one Dennison carried.

He looked at them quickly. They were mild-looking men, quietly, almost somberly dressed. Something about their clothing jogged Dennison’s memory unpleasantly, but he didn’t have time to place the recollection. The automatic was digging painfully into his ribs.

The subway was coming to a station. Dennison glanced at the man on his left and caught the glint of light on a tiny hypodermic.