S Is for Space Read online

  Rockwell didn't wait to hear more. He went downstairs with Hartley close after him. McGuire puffed down a few moments later.

  Rockwell moved wildly down the hall, halted at the wide windows that overlooked the desert and the mountains with morning shining over them. He squinted out, and wondered if there was any chance at all of finding Smith. The first superbeing. The first perhaps in a new long line. Rockwell sweated. Smith wouldn't leave without revealing himself to at least Rockwell. He couldn't leave. Or could he?

  The kitchen door swung open, slowly.

  A foot stepped through the door, followed by another. A hand lifted against the wall. Cigarette smoke moved from pursed lips.

  "Somebody looking for me?"

  Stunned, Rockwell turned. He saw the expression on Hartley's face, heard McGuire choke with surprise. The three of them spoke one word together, as if given their cue:

  "Smith."

  Smith exhaled cigarette smoke. His face was red-pink as he had been sunburnt, his eyes were glittering blue.

  He was barefoot and his nude body was attired in one of Rockwell's old robes.

  "Would you mind telling me where I am? What have I been doing for the last three or four months? Is this a—hospital or isn't it?"

  Dismay slammed Rockwell's mind, hard. He swallowed.

  "Hello. I. That is— Don't you remember—anything?"

  Smith displayed his fingertips. "I recall turning green, if that's what you mean. Beyond that—nothing." He raked his pink hand through his nut-brown hair with the vigor of a creature newborn and glad to breathe again.

  Rockwell slumped back against the wall. He raised his hands, with shock, to his eyes, and shook his head. Not believing what he saw he said, "What time did you come out of the chrysalis?'*

  "What time did I come out of—what?"

  Rockwell took him down the hall to the next room and pointed to the table.

  "I don't see what you mean," said Smith, frankly sincere. "I found myself standing in this room half an hour ago, stark naked."

  "That's all?" said McGuire, hopefully. He seemed relieved.

  Rockwell explained the origin of the chrysalis on the table.

  Smith frowned. "That's ridiculous. Who are you?"

  Rockwell introduced the others.

  Smith scowled at Hartley. "When I first was sick you came, didn't you. I remember. At the radiations plant. But this is silly. What disease was it?"

  Hartley's cheek muscles were taut wire. "No disease. Don't you know anything about it?"

  "I find myself with strange people in a strange sanitarium. I find myself naked in a room with a man sleeping on a cot. I walk around the sanitarium, hungry. I go to the kitchen, find food, eat, hear excited voices, and then am accused of emerging from a chrysalis. What am I supposed to think? Thanks, by the way, for this robe, for food, and the cigarette I borrowed. I didn't want to wake you at first, Mr. Rockwell. I didn't know who you were and you looked dead tired."

  "Oh, that's all right.'' Rockwell wouldn't let himself believe it. Everything was crumbling. With every word Smith spoke, his hopes were pulled apart like the crumpled chrysalis. "How do you feel?"

  "Fine. Strong. Remarkable, when you consider how long I was under."

  "Very remarkable," said Hartley.

  "You can imagine how I felt when I saw the calendar. All those months—crack—gone. I wondered what I'd been doing all that time."

  "So have we."

  McGuire laughed. "Oh, leave him alone, Hartley. Just because you hated him—"

  "Hated?" Smith's brows went up. "Me? Why?"

  "Here. This is why!" Hartley thrust his fingers out "Your damned radiations. Night after night sitting by you in your laboratory. What can I do about it?"

  "Hartley," warned Rockwell. "Sit down. Be quiet."

  "I won't sit down and I won't be quiet! Are you both fooled by this imitation of a man, this pink fellow who's carrying on the greatest hoax in history? If you had any sense you'd destroy Smith before he escapes!"

  Rockwell apologized for Hartley's outburst.

  Smith shook his head. "No, let him talk. What's this about?"

  "You know already!" shouted Hartley, angrily. "You've lain there for months, listening, planning. You can't fool me. You've got Rockwell bluffed, disappointed. He expected you to be a superman. Maybe you are. But whatever you are, you're not Smith any more. Not any more. It's just another of your misdirections. We weren't supposed to know all about you, and the world shouldn't know about you. You could kill us, easily, but you'd prefer to stay and convince us that you're normal. That's the best way. You could have escaped a few minutes ago, but that would have left the seeds of suspicion behind. Instead, you waited, to convince us that you're normal."

  "He is normal," complained McGuire.

  "No he's not. His mind's different. He's clever.'*

  "Give him word association tests then," said McGuire.

  "He's too clever for that, too."

  "It's very simple, then. We take blood tests, listen to his heart, and inject serums into him."

  Smith looked dubious. "I feel like an experiment, but if you really want to. This is silly."

  That shocked Hartley. He looked at Rockwell. "Get the hypos," he said.

  Rockwell got the hypos, thinking. Now, maybe after all, Smith was a superman. His blood. That super-blood. Its ability to kill germs. His heartbeat. His breathing. Maybe Smith was a superman and didn't know it. Yes. Yes, maybe—

  Rockwell drew blood from Smith and slid it under a microscope. His shoulders sagged. It was normal blood. When you dropped germs into it the germs took a normal length of time to die. The blood was no longer super germicidal. The x-liquid, too, was gone. Rockwell sighed miserably. Smith's temperature was normal. So was his pulse. His sensory and nervous system responded according to rule.

  "Well, that takes care of that," said Rockwell, softly.

  Hartley sank into a chair, eyes widened, holding his head between bony fingers. He exhaled. "I'm sorry. I guess my—mind—it just imagined things. The months were so long. Night after night. I got obsessed, and afraid. I've made a fool out of myself. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He stared at his green fingers. "But what about myself?"

  Smith said, "I recovered. You'll recover, too, I guess. I can sympathize with you. But it wasn't bad ... I don't really recall anything."

  Hartley relaxed. "But—yes I guess you're right. I don't like the idea of my body getting hard, but it can't be helped. I'll be all right."

  Rockwell was sick. The tremendous letdown was too much for him. The intense drive, the eagerness, the hunger and curiosity, the fire, had all sunk within him.

  So this was the man from the chrysalis? The same man who had gone m. All this waiting and wondering for nothing.

  He gulped a breath of air, tried to steady his innermost, racing thoughts. Turmoil. This pink-cheeked, fresh-voiced man who sat before him smoking calmly, was no more than a man who had suffered some partial skin petrification, and whose glands had gone wild from radiation, but, nevertheless, just a man now and nothing more. Rockwell's mind, his overimaginative, fantastic mind had seized upon each facet of the illness and built it into a perfect organism of wishful thinking. Rockwell was deeply shocked, deeply stirred and disappointed.

  The question of Smith's living without food, his pure blood, low temperature, and the other evidences of superiority were now fragments of a strange illness. An illness and nothing more. Something that was over, down and gone and left nothing behind but brittle scraps on a sunlit tabletop. There'd be a chance to watch Hartley now, if his illness progressed, and report the new sickness to the medical world.

  But Rockwell didn't care about illness. He cared about perfection. And that perfection had been split and ripped and torn and it was gone. His dream^ was gone. His supercreature was gone. He didn't care if the whole world went hard, green, brittle-mad now.

  Smith was shaking hands all around. "I'd better get back to Los Angeles. Important work for me to d
o at the plant. I have my old job waiting for me. Sorry I can't stay on. You understand."

  "You should stay on and rest a few days, at least," said Rockwell. He hated to see the last wisp of his dream vanish.

  "No thanks. I'll drop by your office in a week or so for another checkup, though. Doctor, if you like? I'll drop in every few weeks for the next year or so so you can check me, yes?"

  "Yes. Yes,'smith. Do that, will you please? I'd like to talk your illness over with you. You're lucky to be alive."

  McGuire said, happily, "I'll drive you to L.A."

  “Don't bother. I’ll walk to Tujunga and get a cab. I want to walk. It's been so long, I want to see what it feels like."

  Rockwell lent him an old pair of shoes and an old suit of clothes.

  "Thanks, Doctor. I'll pay you what I owe you as soon as possible."

  "You don't owe me a penny. It was interesting.”

  “Well, good-bye, Doctor. Mr. McGuire. Hartley."

  “Good-bye, Smith.”

  “Good-bye."

  Smith walked down the path to the dry wash, which was already baked dry by the late afternoon sun. He walked easily and happily and whistled. I wish I could whistle now, thought Rockwell tiredly.

  Smith turned once, waved to them, and then he strode up the hillside and went on over it toward the distant city.

  Rockwell watched him go as a small child watches his favorite sand castle eroded and annihilated by the waves of the sea. "I can't believe it," he said, over and over again. "I can't believe it. The whole thing's ending so soon, so abruptly for me. I'm dull and empty inside."

  "Everything looks rosy to me!" chuckled McGuire happily.

  Hartley stood in the sun. His green hands hung softly at his side and his white face was really relaxed for the first time in months, Rockwell realized. Hartley said, softly,

  "I'll come out all right. I'll come out all right. Oh, thank God for that. Thank God for that. I won't be a monster. I won't be anything but myself." He turned to Rockwell. "Just remember, remember, don't let them bury me by mistake. Don't let them bury me by mistake, thinking I'm dead. Remember that."

  Smith took the path across the dry wash and up the hill. It was late afternoon already and the sun had started to vanish behind blue hills. A few stars were visible. The odor of water, dust, and distant orange blossoms hung in the warm air.

  Wind stirred. Smith took deep breaths of air. He walked.

  Out of sight, away from the sanitarium, he paused and stood very still. He looked up at the sky.

  Tossing away the cigarette he'd been smoking, he mashed it precisely under one heel. Then he straightened his well-shaped body, tossed his brown hair back, closed his eyes, swallowed, and relaxed his fingers at his sides.

  With nothing of effort, just a little murmur of sound, Smith lifted his body gently from the ground into the warm air.

  He soared up quickly, quietly—and- very soon he was lost among the stars as Smith headed for outer space ...

  Pillar of Fire

  I

  He came out of the earth, hating. Hate was his father; hate was his mother.

  It was good to walk again. It was good to leap up out of the earth, off of your back, and stretch your cramped arms violently and try to take a deep breath!

  He tried. He cried out.

  He couldn’t breathe. He flung his arms over his face and tried to breathe. It was impossible. He walked on the earth, he came out of the earth. But he was dead. He couldn’t breathe. He could take air into his mouth and force it half down his throat, with withered moves of long-dormant muscles, wildly, wildly! And with this little air he could shout and cry! He wanted to have tears, but he couldn’t make them come, either. All he knew was that he was standing upright, he was dead, he shouldn’t be walking! He couldn’t breathe and yet he stood.

  The smells of the world were all about him. Frustratedly, he tried to smell the smells of autumn. Autumn was burning the land down into ruin. All across the country the ruins of summer lay; vast forests bloomed with flame, tumbled down timber on empty, unleafed timber. The smoke of the burning was rich, blue, and invisible.

  He stood in the graveyard, hating. He walked through the world and yet could not taste nor smell of it. He heard, yes. The wind roared on his newly opened ears. But he was dead. Even though he walked he knew he was dead and should expect not too much of himself or this hateful living world.

  He touched the tombstone over his own empty grave. He knew his own name again. It was a good job of carving.

  WILLIAM LANTRY

  That’s what the gravestone said.

  His fingers trembled on the cool stone surface.

  BORN 1898—DIED 1933

  Born again…?

  What year? He glared at the sky and the midnight autumnal stars moving in slow illuminations across the windy black. He read the tiltings of centuries in those stars. Orion thus and so, Aurega here! and where Taurus? There!

  His eyes narrowed. His lips spelled out the year:

  “2349.”

  An odd number. Like a school sum. They used to say a man couldn’t encompass any number over a hundred. After that it was all so damned abstract there was no use counting. This was the year 2349! A numeral, a sum. And here he was, a man who had lain in his hateful dark coffin, hating to be buried, hating the living people above who lived and lived and lived, hating them for all the centuries, until today, now, born out of hatred, he stood by his own freshly excavated grave, the smell of raw earth in the air, perhaps, but he could not smell it!

  “I,” he said, addressing a poplar tree that was shaken by the wind, “am an anachronism.” He smiled faintly.

  He looked at the graveyard. It was cold and empty. All of the stones had been ripped up and piled like so many flat bricks, one atop another, in the far corner by the wrought iron fence. This had been going on for two endless weeks. In his deep secret coffin he had heard the heartless, wild stirring as the men jabbed the earth with cold spades and tore out the coffins and carried away the withered ancient bodies to be burned. Twisting with fear in his coffin, he had waited for them to come to him.

  Today they had arrived at his coffin. But—late. They had dug down to within an inch of the lid. Five o’clock bell, time for quitting. Home to supper. The workers had gone off. Tomorrow they would finish the job, they said, shrugging into their coats.

  Silence had come to the emptied tombyard.

  Carefully, quietly, with a soft rattling of sod, the coffin lid had lifted.

  William Lantry stood trembling now, in the last cemetery on Earth.

  “Remember?” he asked himself, looking at the raw earth. “Remember those stories of that last man on Earth? Those stories of men wandering in ruins, alone? Well, you, William Lantry, are a switch on the old story. Do you know that? You are the last dead man in the whole world!”

  There were no more dead people. Nowhere in any land was there a dead person. Impossible! Lantry did not smile at this. No, not impossible at all in this foolish, sterile, unimaginative, antiseptic age of cleansings and scientific methods! People died, oh my God, yes. But—dead people? Corpses? They didn’t exist!

  What happened to dead people?

  The graveyard was on a hill. William Lantry walked through the dark burning night until he reached the edge of the graveyard and looked down upon the new town of Salem. It was all illumination, all color. Rocket ships cut fire above it, crossing the sky to all the far ports of Earth.

  In his grave the new violence of this future world had driven down and seeped into William Lantry. He had been bathed in it for years. He knew all about it, with a hating dead man’s knowledge of such things.

  Most important of all, he knew what these fools did with dead men.

  He lifted his eyes. In the center of the town a massive stone finger pointed at the stars. It was three hundred feet high and fifty feet across. There was a wide entrance and a drive in front of it.

  In the town, theoretically, thought William Lantry,
say you have a dying man. In a moment he will be dead. What happens? No sooner is his pulse cold when a certificate is flourished, made out, his relatives pack him into a car-beetle and drive him swiftly to—

  The Incinerator!

  That functional finger, that Pillar of Fire pointing at the stars. Incinerator. A functional, terrible name. But truth is truth in this future world.

  Like a stick of kindling your Mr. Dead Man is shot into the furnace.

  Flume!

  William Lantry looked at the top of the gigantic pistol shoving at the stars. A small pennant of smoke issued from the top.

  There’s where your dead people go.

  “Take care of yourself, William Lantry,” he murmured. “You’re the last one, the rare item, the last dead man. All the other graveyards of Earth have been blasted up. This is the last graveyard and you’re the last dead man from the centuries. These people don’t believe in having dead people about, much less walking dead people. Everything that can’t be used goes up like a matchstick. Superstitions right along with it!”

  He looked at the town. All right, he thought, quietly, I hate you. You hate me, or you would if you knew I existed. You don’t believe in such things as vampires or ghosts. Labels without referents, you cry! You snort. All right, snort! Frankly, I don’t believe in you, either! I don’t like you! You and your Incinerators.

  He trembled. How very close it had been. Day after day they had hauled out the other dead ones, burned them like so much kindling. An edict had been broadcast around the world. He had heard the digging men talk as they worked!

  “I guess it’s a good idea, this cleaning up the graveyards,” said one of the men.

  “Guess so,” said another. “Grisly custom. Can you imagine? Being buried, I mean! Unhealthy! All them germs!”

  “Sort of a shame. Romantic, kind of. I mean, leaving just this one graveyard untouched all these centuries. The other graveyards were cleaned out, what year was it, Jim?”