Stanley Mullen

“ There was a beam, invisible with nothing to reflect its tight radiance or diffuse it. But as before, when leaving his own ship, he avoided the beam.
Cruising closer, Braun began to make out details.
It was a ship, no doubt about that. A phantom glow hovered about its forward compartments as if the metallic shell caught and reflected faint light from a distant source. It was a ship, all right. A ship painfully like the Venture IV. A philosopher might have meditated upon parallel evolutions, but Braun was too deeply shocked for delvings into the deeper relations between man and his environments. ”

“ If you were dealing with me, we'd go off to some empty asteroid and camp out for the rest of your life."
Brooding over the immensity of the plain below was Canal City 4. Covering the entire city like a tremendous bubble was the iridescent dome of fused-quartz. The tiny fleet of ore-lighters nosed through the valves of airlock after airlock and headed across town toward the sprawling terraces of the freight docks. Like a chain of brightly silvered pumpkin seeds, the clumsy craft wound in and out among the towers of the 7th level, down to the freight docks. ”

“ Newlin sighed. Did it show so much? From the gutter that spawned him, he had fought and gouged and elbowed his way up. To him all men were enemies. As a spacebum, he had explored the raw, expanding frontiers as Man surged from planet to planet. As a hunted outlaw he had existed perilously on the twilight fringes of civilization. Ruthless and savage, a thief and despoiler, a criminal and adventurer, he had found his way back to Earth, Mars, Venus and wrested a niche of sorts within the citadels he had attempted to overthrow. ”

“ Denver laughed. "Then the money will make a difference if we live through this? You mean you'll stay with me?"
Darbor answered too quickly. "Of course." Then she hesitated, as if something of his distaste echoed within her. She went on, her voice strange. "Sure, I'm mercenary. I've been broke in Venusport, and again here on Luna. It's no fun. Poverty is not all the noble things the copybooks say. It's undignified and degrading. You want to stop washing after a while, because it doesn't seem to matter. Yes, I want money. Am I different from other people?"
Denver laughed harshly. ”

“ Ferris was one of the two survivors.
Four people stood paralyzed while the hammering resounded at the gate. This was no human fist demanding attention, but an odd, robot-like clanking, as if a mechanical beast nosed in determined rooting against the metal leaves of the gate.
It was just such a beast. A burring whine rose into notes of shrill frustration. Metallic and electronic frustration, for the tracker was a bloodhound of vacuum tubes and relays and switches and batteries and transformers. ”

“ One broke and gouts of molten metal streamed down and spattered in a puddle. An uneasy suggestion of flow, of readjustment, of movement ran over the metal facing. More plates were grunting and buckling. They fell softly inward. More followed, dissolving rapidly as they came pelting down.
"Watch yourself!" Norman screamed. "She's going."
The place was an inferno. "She's going!" Norman yelled.
Liquid metal bubbled and spit. Runnels of magma pursued the retreating crewmen. A fiery surface lapped at the foot of the ladder.
Failles made an aimless gesture. "Get your men out of here," rasped Norman. ”

“ Approaching the alien ship, he braced himself. There was the light. Then the ship, with its metallic shimmer of reflected light dimmed by distance.
Again he circled, studying the contours of the immense fabrication. He remembered an old French proverb about the more a thing changes the more it remains the same. The ship was the same. It was the Venture IV. He would stake his life and his sanity on it.
No matter. In a way he was relieved. Once inside the ship, he would let the experts explain it to him. At least he had tried. Nobody could say this time that he funked the job. ”

“ Blind eyes and hands can never reach the light. Most of our emissaries, of that kind, die horribly, and their message is distorted to serve the ends of madness and corruption."
"Is there no hope for us?"
She stared at him. The pale glow of her moonbright eyes softened and intensified.
"One hope, and only in yourselves. We have tried and failed. If you feel so strongly, why have you done nothing?"
Bitter hatred snagged in Newlin's throat, making his laugh a sound of horror. "Not me. I can pity the masses of poor and down-trodden, but only as masses. ”

“ Grannar was restless with the pain in his leg. His squirming infected Torry, who leaned out above the barrier of rocks waving his hand violently. As he hoped, he attracted attention. A thin wire of light kissed the rocks of the barrier. Chips pelted like hail, and the force of the blast set up thunderous echoes in his helmet.
"He must have rigged a scanner of some sort. Such shooting is too good for a man with mirages in his eyes. Would something like infra-red help?" ”

“ Jumbles of neo-plastic architecture, rising tier on tier above the series of terraces on which the city was built, whirled upward past the descending car.
On the street level, all was bustle and confusion. A polyglot crowd composed of every human and near human species in the universe jammed the streets. Stares followed the I.P.S. uniform as Heydrick pushed out of the elevator. A few people gave nods of respect, but in most faces burned a sullen hatred and resentment. ”

“ The moondog drooped from disappointment. With Charley, any emotion always reached the ultimate absurdity. He was a flowing, flexible phantom of translucent color and radiance. But now the colors faded like gaudy rags in caustic solution. Charley whined as Denver went through the grotesque ritual of donning space helmet and zipping up his glass cloth and metal foil suiting before he dared venture outside. Charley even tried to help by pouring himself through the stale air to hold open the locker where the tool-belts and holstered heat guns were kept. ”

“ Without argument, one at a time, Ferris and Pao Chung walked gingerly across the perilous, swaying bridge. Kneeling, Ferris made sure the ladder hooks were secure on the other parapet. He cried out.
Angel relaxed his kneeholds, beating his wings furiously and climbing like a bird on a breaking treelimb. The ladder swung in giant's pendulum. Angel moved with lightning speed and miraculous precision, maintaining balance with threshing pinions while his lithe legs and powerful arms carried him upward. ”

“ He just kept banging his helmet face-plate on one of those rock pegs till it smashed. Have you ever seen a man smash his face plate in space? The horror of eyes squeezed out, flesh bursting to bloody pulp from the pressure of liquid blood inside, then in a second frozen steel-hard from the cold. It makes you all sick inside and you dream about it the rest of your life. ”

“ Long, curvings ramps led downward into a complex of subsurface workings far below New Chicago.
They descended and slipped quietly across large, echoing platforms whose dimensions were lost in gloom. Metal-shod stairways spiraled upward and downward into invisible infinities. Deep shafts vibrated with strange sounds the ear could not catch or identify. Freight tunnels were yawning maws of darkness, like the staring, sightless eyes of some mythical monster created on too large a scale for man to understand.
Torry grew tense and nervous. ”

“ For the moment, he had been part of the screen.
Newlin could not tear his eyes from that glaring plane of illusion. Something about the glare played havoc with nerves, and a faint hint of diabolical sound tortured his brain. No such world could exist in a sane universe. Not even with its terrible and heartbreakingly poignant beauty. It was a vision of Hell, bright with impossible octaves of light, splendid with raging infernos of blinding color, some of it beyond the visible range of human sight. ”

“ Banded together by their common hatreds, these outlaws had built up a strong organization known as the Wildings. There was some talk that numbers of them had infiltrated the City's government; men of dangerous ability, infinite cunning, and vicious philosophy, whose sole aim was the overthrow of the Government of Scientists.
Heydrick's heart turned suddenly to ashes as he realized that Ria Tarsen must have been a Wilding. Surely no group would have gone to the trouble of instigating riots merely to rescue an outsider, however innocent. ”

“ Wherever men gather and talk, someone is sure to mention Khaljean's, on Venus. Men will always be fascinated by tales of the strange and wonderful and fantastic, and Khaljean's—zoo, petshop, wild animal supply house—is the stuff from which legends are made. One hears of the place on Mars or Earth, on Titan or Rhea, on Callisto or Ganymede, even in the subsurface mines of Pluto or the curious twilight outposts on Mercury, and some of the yarns will probably lessen the tedium of light-year watches when the first manned spacer pushes beyond the frontiers of the solar system. ”

“ Here, the possibilities of sin and evil splendor dazzled the eye.
Pressured atmosphere within the domed city was richer than Tod Denver was used to. Oxygen in pressure tanks costs money; and he had accustomed himself to do with as little as possible. Charley helped slightly. Now the stuff went tingling through nostrils, lungs and on to his veins. It swept upward to his brain and blood piled up there, feeling as if full of bursting tiny bubbles like champagne. He felt gay and feckless, light-headed and big-headed. ”

“ Torry smiled with bruised, pulpy lips. "Look who's talking. You're getting soft, Ferax. Last time your boys worked over Roper and me we couldn't walk or talk for a week. And I hear you're in fast company yourself since you gave up strike-breaking and took over union racketeering. You may be a big name now, but you're as ugly as ever. And to me, you'll always smell like the skunk in the perfume works."
Ferax bellowed happily. "Smells are more subtle in higher brackets, that's all. In a stinking world, nobody smells too pretty. Not even you, and certainly not your girl friend—or is she Roper's?" ”

“ Khaljean's daughter, Teucrete, herself something of a legend.
A woman can be described in terms of anatomical rhapsody. Or one may dwell endlessly upon sweetness of disposition, upon quaint and unique charms of personality. A potential lover may fashion poetic conceits upon the lilting moonbeam qualities in her voice, compare her skin to flower-petals, her eyes to gemfires, liken the graceful movements of limbs and body to the liquid symphonies of swirling water. ”

“ Maybe you talk about the things men talk about. Life and death. Men and spaceships. Life on distant worlds. Braun had knocked around the galaxy like a lot of people since the DuMont space-time drive came into general use. He had seen more than the ordinary man even dreams about, but there was always a restless and curious wondering about more distant stars and their planets. On one classic occasion, you even helped him wonder about other galaxies, and if the new drive would ever take men out into the far, dark spaces where ships never ventured. ”

“ Harald shrugged. "Six hours. Maybe seven. Why'd you join up if you can't stand acceleration?"
"I didn't. They transferred me into it. They say you get used to it."
"Some never do. The old man's a killer that way."
Norman set his teeth grimly. "I'll get used to it."
Exactly five hours and twenty minutes later (Earth Time) a fleck of mirrored sunlight in the star-sprinkled darkness ahead gave evidence that the Tellus was still holding out. The Scorpio hammered up in a long, staggering glide, forward rockets bathing her nose with lurid glare at full negative acceleration. ”

“ The screen was a surrealist painting, come alive, solid and real. And the solid, physical body of Genarion was part of it. He was dead, but real. His alien form was a bridge between two worlds, and now dead, Genarion was alien to both of them.
It was madness. The madness of the screen communicated itself to Newlin. Before his shocked eyes, Genarion's body began to steam and rise in a cloud of vaporous, glittering crystals. Swiftly the haze dissipated. It was gone, gone invisibly into the alien world. Whatever Newlin had killed, it was not human, not a man. ”

“ It was a typical boom town of the Lunar mining regions. Mining and a thriving spacefreight trade in heavy metals made it a mecca for the toughest space-screws and hardest living prospector-miners to be found in the inhabited worlds. Saloons and cheap lodging-houses, gambling dens and neon-washed palaces of expensive sin, the jail and a flourishing assortment of glittery funeral parlors faced each other across two main intersecting streets. X marked the spot and life was the least costly of the many commodities offered for sale to rich-strike suckers who funneled in from all Luna. ”

“ Angel writhed and was gone.
Ferris did not look back. Hand in hand with Teucrete he walked slowly toward the forest of crystal shafts. There was much damage, and his heart quailed from the task ahead.
"Can you still find the way?" he asked numbly.
"I'm not sure," the girl faltered. "I'm not sure we can ever get back. Exact alignment is so terribly important."
"We can try," said Ferris grimly.
Hand in hand, young men and women, with the dream still fresh within them, will always seek the ultimate answer to the ultimate questions. ”

“ But Grannar's return to the police car cut short his reverie. Torry watched the official cross the spaceport toward him, impressed by the lithe grace and sureness of movement over treacherous sand. Mars does something to a man who stays there. The body dries up and the soul withers, but if he survives, a man grows into something lean and leathery with pantherish strength and easy, poised motions. ”

“ Windbells chiming, jangled; tinkling, shimmering, exploding inside his brain. Windbells shattering in a hurricane of sound and ecstasy.
With his fists, Newlin pounded at his bursting skull. Pain deadened perception, gave him a moment's relief.
He was not changing, he shouted in loud defense. He was not!
Songeen poised, watching. Her body-outlines swirled and altered in swift mutations before his eyes. She was not woman now. Not even human. She danced and flickered and gibbered at him. She was jeweled movement. Change. She was as crystalline as the forest, as molten emerald as the sky. ”

“ The race was neck and neck. Death sniffed at their heels in the guise of mechanical trackers. On Venus, life is to the swift and cunning. To Newlin, life was perilous, but sweet.
Their helmet microphones picked up and amplified a curious droning buzz. It was the deathsong of the electronic tracker and it seemed closer than it was. ”

“ First, Laird Martin, with his last tragic thoughts of a tiny girl on Earth, now orphaned. Then the three men down the slope, hideous in their bulged and congealing death. Himself and Darbor next on the list, with not much time to go. All for a few crystals of—Salt!
he end was as viciously ironic as the means had been brutal, but greed is an ugly force. It takes no heed of men and their brief, futile dreams.
Denver shrugged and rejoined his small garrison. The girl, in spite of the comradeship of shared danger, was as greedy as the others outside. ”

“ I've made a deal with Grannar. You can die now, or you can go back to Earth to the clinic."
"The clinic!" shrieked Roper. "You know what that means. I wouldn't be the same person. Maybe not even human."
Torry steadied his eyes on his brother. "I'm not sure you ever were human. But you need treatment. They'll knock out your thymus, drug you and shock you and carve you till you'll never know yourself. You won't be an antisocial monster with the emotional stasis of a child. You won't be anything you've ever been. But you may be a man. And you'll stop hurting people, or they'll stop you for good. ”

“ North, between the fugitives and the older native quarters of Castarona, were the gigantic systems of airlocks, and below that, the sprawling tangles of dockland.
Ferris led his companions in a tortuous route that covered miles of angled and uneven rooftops. Realizing that his ident-cards must have come through, he knew that police and security officials must be turning the city inside out in a wild scramble to locate and deal with him. Speed was essential, and more than his personal safety depended upon the outcome of the wild chase over the jagged skylines. ”

“ A twilight, silvery, unreal as the trans-Lunar dreams of drugged poets. Songeen moved ahead slowly, making no effort to regain her clasp of his hand. Almost she seemed to avoid him, waiting until he almost overtook her, then skimming lightly away from him. Her slim, pale witchery was both taunt and challenge. She appeared to float rather than walk.
One by one she dropped her clinging robes. She became part of the mad forest, part of its dreamy gray enchantments.
Light grew steadily, and with it came more color, more magic, and more confusion of senses. ”

“ Pao Chung sneered. "One vote for law and order from the fallen Angel, if it can be believed. Like Khaljean, my preference is for chaos, as it furnishes more opportunities for a man of my interests. However, my soul revolts at this talk of destroying gems of presumably unique properties. They must have value. Perhaps you can dismantle this machine, without harming its parts. As a business man, with time on my hands, I would like to go with you and see if something can be arranged."
"I don't trust you," Ferris said frankly. ”

“ The matter transmitter was already set up. Upon its folding framework the screen glittered like woven quicksilver, vibrating to the hum of electro magnetic flow.
"Will this take us directly to Roper?" asked Grannar.
"Not quite," said Torry, grinning. "It's a delicate adjustment. Mars and Neptune both in motion, and Triton's orbit and axial rotation to consider. We'll be somewhere on Triton—"
"But Triton has more land surface than Earth. Can we find—"
Torry gestured. "She'll find him for us. Have your men stand by and switch on the transmitter every three hours." ”