Amazi lin t iiml ^i'irnrc f icliofi l-roin the Ruins of Ston To tne Starshlps of Valic "ttiey Soughf the Secret d novel bu Keith Laun^ dashed white foam against the halcony, but she lay there still and silent, her blond hair streaming loose.

And att the while the statues sang a strange song of love . . . and death.

J. G. Ballard, an outstanding British sf writer, creates an unforgettable character and an unforgettable tale of love and terror in THE SINGING STATUES. plus the late Nat Schachne/s DRAGON OF ISKAN- DER, a fantasy about the Lost Race and how they recreated a civilization in the Himalaya Mountains and started a legend of dragons among men.

There's exciting reading in July FANTASTIC! On sale June 21 Still only 35^

AMAZING STORIES, Fact and Science Fiction, Vol. 36, No. 7, Juli, 1962, is published monthly by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, at 434 South Wabash AveMBe, Chicago 5, Illinois. Sub- scription rotes: One year United States and possessions $3.50; ;Canoci'a and Pan American Union Countries $4.00; all other foreign countries $4.50. Second Class postage paid at Chicago, Illinois and at additional mailing offices. JUIY, 19«2 Vol. 3«, No. 7

REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. ZIPP-DAVIS PtTBUSHING COMPANY

William B. ZlfT, Chairman ol the BoirJ "FIRST IN SCIENCE EICTION SINGE 1926" I1916-1853>

NOVELET William ZiS. President w. Bradfora Briggs, BxeiinllTe Tlce THE CHAMBER OF IIFE (A Classic Reprint) President By G. Peyton Wertenbaker 96 Hershel B. Sarbln, Tlce Fiesldeat anil Manager SHORT STORIES General a. T. BlimSngliam. Jr.. Vieft Ptealdent THE BLONDE FROM BARSOOM and Treasurer Robert F. Young .. 62 By Uobert P. Breeding, Circulation Director A PRISON MAKE 71 Ciiarles Housman. Financial Vice By William W. Stuart President THE LAST CLASS Vice President By Richard Banks 87 Stanley B. Oreenfleld. SERIAL A TRACE OF MEMORY Editorial Director (Port one of three parts) By Keith Laumer 6 NORAAAN M. LOBSENZ FACT EcBler THE THREE REQUIREMENTS OF UFE IN ^MBSMITH THE SOLAR SYSTEM By Ben Ben Bova 124 FEATURES Zifl-Davrs Publishing Comvany ... OR SO YOU SAY 4 Eimorial and Executive Ofllees EDlTORlAi: 5 One Park Avenue THROUGH TIME AND SPACE WITH New York IB, New York BENEDICT BREADFRUIT: V 0 Raton 9-7200 By Grandall Barretton 70 Advertisina MaiMier Martin Gluokilwii COMING NEXT MONTH 136 THE SPECTROSCOPE 141

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member of genus Homo Sapiens. These two stories express a dis- gust with people carried so far that it amounts almost to psycho- pathic hatred of Humanity. On Mr. Clifton's showing you, I and everybody else (with the possible exception of Mr. Clifton) hardly deserve to exist. We're more like some kind of pollution on the clean face of the universe. Man Is conceited, contemptible, and ca- pable only of destroying any-^ thing fine and good that he com" face to face with. His tota achievement to date isn't valua- ble enougJi to be worth spitting on. And his hope for future achievement along any worth- ear Editor while lines doesn't seem to be Recently AMAZING (which is a much better. j)retty good sf magazine) has If all this were true, my per- ublished two stories by Mark sonal advice to every single man, Clifton (who used to be a pretty woman and child on this planet good sf writer). These stories would be to go out and shoot have so infuriated me that I have themselves before they could do taken time off from four College any more harm. Mr. Clifton essays that I should be writing would be included in this advice. to send you this letter. I have a As things are, however, I think question that I'd like you to ask that human beings are basically Mr. Clifton on my behalf: Why a pretty nice lot, and that Clifton have you so suddenly taken leave has maligned them to the extent

of the human race? that . . . well, at this point From the two stories, "Pawn of words fail me. What Clifton the Black Fleet" and "Hang seems to have done is to skill-, Head, Vandal !", I get the impres- fully pick 6ut some of our petty sion that Mr. Clifton would get a weaknesses and Hastinesses, lot more pride out of being some combined them all together into kind of jellyfish (if he was one) a stuffed straw figure like the than he does out of being an spacesuit in "Hang Head, Van- advdt and presumably mature (Continued on page 137) — p p EDITORIAL P 1 pOSMOLOGICAL theorists Now two astronomers have de- ^ have for some years now duced, from this information, been arguing about whether the two opposing theories. Dr. Geof- universe began with a "big frey Burbridge, of the Yerkes bang" and has since been ex- Observatory, suggests that the panding and running down, or high kilowatt emission of the whether it had no beginning at "peculiar" galaxies may be all, but is in a process of con- caused by a chain of supernova tinuous creation. It is unlikely explosions triggered off within a that man will ever be able pre- galaxy. On the other hand, a cisely to determine the answer to Soviet physicist, V. L. Ginzburg, this question. But what makes suggests that the cause may be things interesting in the mean- attributed to the formation of a time is the way in which various galaxy, rather than to its partial newly-discovered items of astro- destruction. In the Eussian's nomical import lend themselves view, as gas clouds form stars to one theory or the other, or, within a galaxy, the gravitation- sometimes, to both. al energy released creates cosmic Such a development has re- rays. The collisions between cos- cently occurred with reference to mic rays and atoms of the con- the radio stars, or radio galaxies. tracting gas clouds could result So far, scientists have identified in producing enough high-speed about 100 of the radio sources in electrons necessary to create in- space with various opticaJly-visi^ tense radio emissions. ble galaxies. The "normal" radio galaxy emits energy in the range At any rate, so formidable an of ten billion billion billion kilo- expert as Dr. D. S. Heeschen, of watts per second. The so-called the National Radio Astronomy "peculiar" radio galaxy emits Observatory at Green Bank, W. much more intense radio waves. Va., can only conclude that For example, Cygnus A gives off what's going on in the radio gal- 10 million billion billion billion axies "presents one of the most kilowatts per second & million fascinating and puzzling prob- times more than the "norm." lems in astronomy." N.L.

5 A TRACE OF MEMORY

By KEITH LAUMER

(Part one of three parts)

When Legion signed on as a soldier of fortune he did

not expect to wind up as the master of a private island.

Nor did he expect to cower in ancient Druid pits . , . nor

figfif for fiis fife in the great hall ot Okk-Hamiloth, on

a planet galaxies away. A master story-teller sweeps

you through time and space in a novel of retribution.

Illustrated by BIRMINGHAM

HE opened his eyes and saw a He ran through the libi ary to grey wall where a red light a great echoing hall beyond. This gleamed balefully in the gloom. was not the Sapphire Palace be- He lay on a utility mat on a high side the Shallow Sea. The lines couch, clad in a gown of sti'ange were unmistakeable : he was purple. In his arm there burned aboard a ship, a far-voyager. a harsh pain, and he saw on his Why? How? He stood uncertain. skin the mark of the Hunters. The silence was absolute. Who could have dared? He crossed the Great Hall and He sat up, swung his legs over entered the observation lounge. the side of the narrow cot . . . and Here lay another dead man, by saw the bodies of two men hud- his uniform a member of dled on the floor, blood-splashed. crew. He touched a knob and f. Beyond, at a doorway, lay an- great screens glowed blue. A other, and another. . . . What giant crescent swam into focus, carnage was this? Gently he locked, soft green against the rolled the nearest body on its black of space. Beyond it back—and croxiched rigid in smaller companion hung, bl shock. Ammaerln, his friend. . . . blotched, airless. What worlds Not dead, but the pulse was were these? faint, too faint. And the next corpse? That, too, wore a face WHEN he had ranged the vast that had been dear to him. And ship from end to end he the bodies at the entry—his knew that he alone still lived. faithful men. All were friends! Seven corps os, cruelly slashed, Beyond the door the ranged peopled the silent vessel. In the .shelves of a library gave back control sector the communicator not even an echo when he called. lights glowed but to his call He turned again to his dead. It there was no answer from the was fresh death, the blood still strange world below. wet. Quickly he scanned the He returned to the recording room, saw a recording monitor room. Ammaerln still breathed against a wall. He fitted the neu- weakly. The memory recording rodes to the dying man's tem- had been completed; all that the ples. But for this gesture of re- dying man remembered of cording his life's memories, there long life was imprinted now was nothing he could do. He the silvery cylinder. It remained must get him to a therapist and only to color-code the ti'ace; that his return. quickly. But no one , answered he would do on his calls. Was he alone in these His eye was caught by a small chambers of death? object still projecting from an

8 AMAZING STORIES !

ring ;,|R i tui'e at the side of the high Only the landing and the couch where he had wakened. It clearing around it showed the was his own memory tra<». So he presence of mm. himself had nndergone t&e There was a hollow in the Change earth by a square marker block He thrust the color banded at the eastern perimeter of the cylinder into a gown pocket- clearing. He carried his friend then whirled at a sotmd. A nest tlsere and placed Mm in it, (if Hunters — the swarming scraped earth over the body. globes of pale light used to track He lingered for a moment, then down criminals—clustered at the he rose and turned back toward

door; then they were upon him. the shuttle boat. . . . Without a weapon, he was lielpless. He must escape the A dozen men, squat, bearded, ship—and quickly! While the wrapped in the shaggy hides suffocating horde pressed close, of beasts, stood between him and humming in their eagerness, he the access ladder. The tallest caught up the unconscious Am- among them shouted, raised a maerln. The Hunters trailed bronze sword threateningly. Oth- him like a luminous streamer as ers clustered at the ladder. One he ran to the shuttle boat bay. scrambled up, reached the top, Tluce shuttles lay in their disappeared into the boat. In a cradles. He groped to a switch, moment he reappeared at the his head swimming with the sul- opening and hurled down an phurous reek of his attackers. armful of small bright objects of Light flooded the bay, driving raried shapes and textures. Oth- them back. He entered the life- ers clambered up to share the boat, placed the body on a cush- loot as the first man again van- ioned couch. Perhaps he would ished within the boat. But before find help for his friend below. the foremost had gained the en- It had been long since he had try the port closed, shutting off manned the controls of a vessel, a terrified cry from within the but he had not forgotten. shuttle boat. Men dropped from the ladder THE last of life ebbed from the as it swung up. The boat rose injured man long before they slowly, angling toward the west, reached the planetary surface. dwindling. The savages shrank The boat settled gently and the- back, awed. lock cycled. He looked out at a The man watched until the vista of ragged forest. tiny blue light was lost a^^nst This was no civilized world. the sky.

A TRACE OF MEMORY 9 with CHAPTER 1 one; the sardine-can metal box with the day's receipts in it; THE ad read:. "Soldiers of for- I'd be on my way to the depot tune seeks companion in arms with fare to Miami in my pocket to share unusual adventure. Fos- ten minutes after I cracked the ter, Bos 19, Mayport." door. I'd learned a lot harder I crumpled the newspaper and tricks than petty larceny back tossed it in the general direction when I had a big future ahead of the wire basket beside the with Army Intelligence. That park bench, pushed back a was a long time ago, and I'd had slightly frayed cuff, and took a a lot of breaks since then—^none look at my bare wrist. It was good. just habit; the watch was in a hock shop in Tupelo, Mississippi. I got up and took another turn It didn't matter. I didn't have to around the park. It was a warm know what time it was. evening, and the mosquitos were Across the park most of the out. I caught a whiff of frying store windows were dark along hamburger from the Elite Cafe the side street. There were no down the street. It reminded me people in sight; they were all that I hadn't eaten lately. Th( home now, having dinner. As I were lights on at the Commer watched, the lights blinked off in Hotel and one in the ticket of- the drug store with the bottles of fice at the station. The local po- colored water in the window; lice force was still sitting on a that left the candy and cigar stool at the Bexall talking to the emporium at the end of the line. counter girl. I could see the .38 I fidgeted on the hard bench and revolver hanging down in a felt for a cigarette I didn't have. worn leather holster at his hip. I wished the old boy back of the All of a sudden, I was in a hurry counter would call it a day and to get it over with. go home. As soon as it was dark I took another look at iHj enough, I was going to rob his lights. All the stores were dara store. now. There was nothing to wait I wasn't a full-time stick-up for. I crossed the street, saup- artist. Maybe that's why that tered past the cigar store. There nervous feeling was playing were dusty boxes of stogies in around under my rib cage. There the window, and piles of home- was really nothing to it. The made fudge stacked on plates wooden door with the hardware- with paper doilies under them. counter lock that would open al- Behind them, the interior of the most as easily without a key as store looked grim and dead. I

10 AMAZING STORIES r

is.sed, ! looked around, moved to- stale beer and leather and un- ard the door— washed bedding. I sat and lis- tened to a radio in the distance A BLACK sedan eased around wailing a sad song. the corner and pulled in to It was half an hour before I the curb. A face leaned over to heard a car pull up outside. The look at me through lenses like man who came through the door the bottoms of tabasco bottles, was wearing a light suit that was the hot evening air stirred, and neither new nor freshly pressed, I felt my damp shirt cold against but had that look of. perfect fit my back. and taste that only the most ex- "Looking for anything in par- pensive tailoring can achieve. ticular, Mister?" the cop said. He moved in a relaxed way, but I just looked at him. with a sense of power held in re- "Passing through town, are serve. At first glance I thought you?" he asked. he was in his middle thirties, For some reason I shook my but when he looked my way I head. saw the fine lines around the blue "I've got a job here," I said. eyes. I got to my feet. He came "I'm going to work—^for Mr. over to me. Foster." "I'm Foster," he said, and

"What Mr. Foster?" The cop's held out his hand. I shook it. voice was wheezy, but relentless, "My name's Legion," I said. a voice used to asking questions. The desk sergeant spoke up. I remembered the ad—some- "This fellow says he come here thing about an adventure. Fos- to Mayport to see you, Mr. Fos- ter, Box 19. The cop was stiH ter." staring at me. Foster looked at me steadily. "Box nineteen," I said. "That's right. Sergeant. This He looked me over some more, gentleman is considering a prop- then reached across and opened osition I've made." the door. "Better come on down "Well, I didn't know, Mr. Fos- to the station house with me, ter," the cop said. Mister," he said. "I quite understand. Ser- At Police Headquarters, the geant," Foster said. "We all feel cop motioned me to a chaii-, sat better, knowing you'i-e on the behind a desk, and pulled a phone job." to him. He dialled slowly, then "Well, you know," the cop said. swivelled his back to me to talk. "We may as well be on our way Insects danced around a bare then," Foster said. "If you're light bulb. There was an odor of ready, Mr. Legion."

A TRACE OF MEMORY 11 —

"Sure, I'm ready," I said. Mr. sank back in a seat that seemed

oster said goodnight to the cop to fit me like Foster's jacket fit d we weat out. Oh the pave- him. ment in front of the buildiing I "I hope you won't mind if I stopped. drive fast," Foster said. "I want "Thanks, Mr. Foster," I said. to be home before dark." We "I'll get out of your hair now." started up and wheeled a

from the curb like a torpedo s' 'T'OSTER had his hand on the ing out of the launching tube. door of a deceptively modest- looking cabriolet. I could smell T GOT out of the ear in the dr the solid leather upholstery from at Foster's house, and looke where I stood. around at the wide clipped lawn, "Why not come along to my the flower beds that were vivid place. Legion," he said. "We even by moonlight, the line of might at least discuss my propo- tall poplars, and the big white sition." house. I shook my head. "I'm not the "I wish I hadn't come," I said. lan for the job, Mr. Foster," I "This kind of place reminds me id. "If you'd like to advance of all the things I haven't gotto^ e a couple of bucks, I'll get out of life." • H myself a bite to eat and fade "Your life's still ahead of right out of your life." you," Foster said. He opened the "What makes you so sure slab of mahogany that was the you're not interested?" front door, and I followed "Your ad said something inside. At the end of a short about adventure. I've had my he flipped a switch that flooded adventures. Now I'm just look- the room before us with soft ing for a hole to crawl ini»." light. I stared at a pale grey "I don't believe you, Legion." carpet about the size of a tennis Foster smiled at me, a slow, calm court, decked out with Danish smile. "I think your adventures teak upholstered in rich colors. have hardly begun/' The walls were a rough-textured

I thought about it. If I went grey; here and there were ex- along, I'd at least get a meal pensively framed abstractions. and maybe even a bed for the The air was cool with the heavy night. It was better than curling coolness of air conditioning. up under a tree. Foster crossed to a bar that "Well," I said, "a remark like looked modest in tiie setting, in that demands time for an ex- spite of being bigger than those planation." I got in the car and in most beer joints.

12 AMAZING STORIES "

"Would you care for a drink?" "Music," I answered at once. he said. Foster looked at me, frowning I looked down at my limp, slightly. stained suit, and grimy cuffs. "It's the truth," I said. "I "Look, Mr. Foster," I said. "I wanted to be a conductor. The Just realized something. If army had other ideas. I was in you've got a stable, I'll go sleep my last year when the draft got in it—" me. They discovered I had what Foster laughed. "Come on; they considered an aptitude for

I'll show you the bath." Intelligence work. I didn't mind it. I had a pretty good time for tCAME downstairs, clean, a couple of years." showered, and wearing a set "Go on," Foster said. Well, I'd of Foster's clothes. found him had a bath and a good meal. I .sitting, sipping a drink and lis- owed him something. If be tening to music. wanted to hear my troubles, why "The Liebestod," I said. "A not tell him? little gloomy, isn't it?" "I was putting on a demon- ''1 read Homething else into it," stration. A defective tinier set Foster said. "Sit down and have off a charge of HE fifty seconds a bite to eat and a drink." early on a one-minute setting. A

I sat in one of the big soft student was killed ; I got off easy t:hairs and tried not to let my with a busted eardrum and a hand shake as I reached for one pound or two of gravel imbedded of the sandwiches piled on the in my back. When I got out of coffee table. the hospital, the army felt real "Tell me something, Mr. Le- bad about letting me go—but gion," Foster said. "Why did you they did. My terminal leave pay come here, mention my name—if gave me a big weekend in San you didn't intend to see me?" Francisco and set me up in busi- I shook my head. "It just ness as a private investigator." worked out that way." I took another long pull at a "Tell me something about big pewter tankard of ale and yourself," Foster said. went on. "It's not much of a story." "I had enough left over after "Still, I'd like to hear it." the bankruptcy proceeding a few "Well, I was born, grew up, months later to get me to Las went to school— Vegas. I lost what was left and "What school?" took a job with a casino operator "University of Illinois," named Gonino. "M'hat was your majorF' "I stayed with Gonino for

A TRACE OF MEMORY 13 nearly a year. Then one night a I put a hand up fast and visiting bank clerk lost his head bottle slapped my palm. and shot him eight times with a "Not a bad set of reflexes .22 target pistol. I left towH the man whose adventures are a same night." behind him," Foster said. I tossed the bottle aside. "I I SWALLOWED some more of I'd missed, that would hav Foster's ale. It was the best. knocked my teeth out," I sai Foster was a pretty good egg, angrily. too. "You didn't miss — e" "After that I sold used ears though you're weaving a for a couple of months in Mem- from the beer. And a man ' phis; then I made like a life can feel a pint or so of beer gUard at Daj'tona; baited hooks an alcoholic—so you're elea on a thirty foot tuna boat out of that score."

Key West ; all the odd jobs with "I didn't say I was ready low pay and no future. I spent a the rummy ward," I said. "I'm couple of years in Cuba ; all I got just not interested in your prop- out of that was two bullet scars osition—whatever it is." on the left leg, and a prominent "Legion," Foster said, "marf|d position on a CIA blacklist. you have the idea I put that^d "After that things got tough. in the paper last week, on a A man in my trade can't really whim. The fact is, I've been run- hope to succeed in a big way ning it—in one form or another without the little blue card in —for over eight years." iW plastic cover to back his I looked at him and waited. play. I was headed south for the "Not only locally—I've run it winter, and I picked Mayport to in the big-city papers, and in run out of money." some of the national weeWy and I stood up. "I sure enjoyed the monthly publications. All to- bath, Mr. Foster, and the meal, gether, I've had perhaps fifty too—not to mention the beer. responses." I'd like real well to get in that Foster smiled wryly. "About bed upstairs and have a night's three quarters of them were sleep just to make it complete; from women who thought I but I'm not interested in the wanted a playmate. Several moi-e job." I turned away, started were from men with the same across the room. idea. The few others were hope- "Legion," Foster said. I lessly unsuitable." turned. A beer bottle was hang- "That's sui'prising." I said. ing in the air in front of my face. "I'd have thought you'd have

14 AMAZING STORIES " " —

'xiuijrht half the nuts in the my curiosity, he was succeeding. I'liiiitry out of the woodwork by He was dead serious about what- now." ever it was he was planning. It Foster looked at me, not smil- sounded like something no one ing:. I realized suddenly that be- With good sense would want to hind the urbane fagade there was get involved in—but on the other a hint of tension, a trace of wor- hand, Foster didn't look like the ry in the level blue eyes. sort of ma.n to do anything fool-

ish .. . 'D LIKE very much to interest "Why don't you tell me what I you in what I have to say, this is all about?" I said. "Why— liegion. I think you lack only one would a man with all this " I thing—confidence in yourself." waved—a hand at the luxurious I gave a sort of laugh. "What room "want to pick a hobo like are the qualifications you think I me out of the gutter and talk have? I'm a jack of no trades— him into taking a job?" "Legion, you're a man of con- "Your ego has taken a severe siderable intelligence and more beating. Legion—that's obvious. than a little culture; you've trav- I think you're afraid that I'll ex- elled widely and know how to pect too much of you—or that handle yourself in difficult situa- I'll be shocked by some disclo- tions—or you wouldn't have sur- sure you may make. Perhaps if vived. I'm sure your training in- you'd forget yourself and your cludes techniques of entry and problems for the moment, we " fact-gathering not known to the could reach an understanding average man; and perhaps most "Yeah," I said. "Just forget important, although you're an my problems— honest man, you're capable of "Chiefly money problems, of breaking the law—-when neces- coui-se. Most of the problems of sary." this society involve the abstrac- "So that's it," I said. tion of values that money repre- "No, I'm not forming a mob, sents." Legion. As I said in the ad—this "Okay," I said. "I've got my is an unusual adventure. It may problems, you've got yours. Let's —probably will—involve in-, leave it at that." fringing various statutes and "You feel that, because I have regulations of one sort or an- material comfort, my problems other. After you know the full must of necessity be trivial story I'll leave you to judge ones. Tell me, Mr. Legion: have whether it's justifiable." you ever known a man who suf- If Foster was trying to arouse fered from anmesia?"

A TRACE OF MEMORY 15 "

PX)STEE crossed the room to a my life before that daj-. Accord-, ^ small writing desk, took some- ing to the records made at th thing from a drawer, looked at time, I appeared to be &bou me. thirty years of age." "I'd like you to examine this," "Well," I said, "amnesia's he said. so unusual among war casus I went over and took the ob- ties. You've done well since." ject from his hand. It was a Foster shook his head impa- small book, with a cover of drab- tiently. "There's nothing difficult colored plastic, unornamented about acquiring material wealth except for an embossed design of in this society, though the effort two concentric rings. I opened kept me well occupied for a num- the cover. The pages were as ber of years—and diverted my thin as tissue, but opaque, and thoughts from the question of covered with extremely fine writ- my past life. The time came, ing in strange foreign charac- however, when I had the leisure ters. The last dozen pages were to pursue the matter. The clues in English. I had to hold the I had were meagre enough; the book close to my eyes to read the notebook I've shown you was minute script: found near me, and I had a ring "January 19, 1710. Having on my finger." Foster held out come ni^h to calamity with the his hand. On the middle finger near Ms of the key, I will hence- was a massive signet, engraved forth keep thif journal in the with the same design of concen- ." Englifh tongue. . . tric circles I had seen on the

, "If this is an explanation of cover of the notebook. something, it's too subtle for

I said. WAS badly burned c' me," I ; my "Legion, how old would yoa ing was chai'red. Oddly say I am?" enough, the notebook was quite "That's a hard one," I said. unharmed, though it was found "When I first saw you I would among burned debris. It's made have said the late thirties, may- of very tough stuff." be. Now, fi^nkly, you look closer "What did you find out?" to fifty." "In a word—nothing. No mili- "I can show you proof," Fos- tary unit claimed me. I spoke ter said, "that I spent the better English, from which it was de- part of a year in a military hos- duced that I was English or pital in France. I awakened in a American— ward, bandaged to the eyes, and "They couldn't tell which, with no memories whatever of from your accent?"

16 AMAZING STORIES — " —

"Apparently not; it appears I I thumbed through the book i"ike a sort of hybrid dialect." again. It was no more than an "Maybe you're lucky. I'd be inch thick, but it was heavy liappy to forget my first thirty surprisingly heavy. There were a years." lot of pages—I shuffled through "I spent a considerable sum of hundreds of closely written money in my attempts to dis- sheets and yet the book was less lover my past," Foster went on. than half used. I read -bits here "And several years of time. In and there: the end I gave it up. And it "May 4, 1746. The Voyage waf .\asn't until then that I found not a Succefs. I muft forfake ." I he first faint inkling." thif ,avenue of Enquiry. . . "So you did find something?" "October 23, 1790. Builded the "Nothing I hadn't had all weft Barrier a cubit higher. along. The notebook." Now the fires burn every night. "I'd have thought you would Is there no limit to their infernal liave read that before you did perfiftence?" anything else," I said. "Don't "January 19, 1831. I have tell me you put it in the bureau great hopes for the Philadelphia drawer and forgot it." enterprise. My greatest foe is "I read it, of course—what I impatience. All preparations for

could read of it. Only a relatively the Change are made, yet I con- small section is in English. The fess I am uneasy ..." rest is a cipher. And what I read seemed meaningless—quite un- THERE are plenty of oddities," related to me. You've glanced I said. "Aside from the en- through it; it's no more than a tries themselves. This is sup- journal, irregularly kept, and so posed to be old—^but the quality cryptic as to be little better than of the paper and binding beats a code itself. And of course the anything I've seen. And that

dates ; they range from the early handwriting is pretty fancy for eighteenth century through the a quill pen— early twentieth." "There's a stylus clipped to the "A sort of family record, may- spine of the book," Foster said. be," I said. "Carried on genera- "It was written with that." tion after generation. Didn't it I looked, pulled out a slim mention any names, or places?" pen, then looked at Foster. "Look at it again, Legion," "Speaking of odd," I said. "A Foster said. "See if you notice genuine antique early colonial anything odd—other than what ball-point pen doesn't turn up " we've already discussed." every day

A TRACE PF= MEMORY 17 — " " —s

"Suspend your judgment un- strangely youthful. What would til you've seen it all," Foster be your reaction if I told you said. that I've aged greatly in th "And two hundred years on past few months? That a one refill—that's not bad." I rif- ago I could have passed as fled through the pages, tossed older than thirty without the the book onto the table. "Who's slightest difficulty— kidding who, Foster?" I said. "I don't think I'd believe you,". "The book was described in I said. "And I'm sorry, Mr. Fos- detail in the official record, of ter; but I don't believe the bit which I have copies. They men- about the 1918 hospital either. tion the paper and binding, the How can I? It's—" stylus, even quote some of the "I know. Fantastic. But let* entries. The authorities worked go back a moment to the book it- over it pretty closely, trying to self. Look closely at the paper; identify me. They reached the it's been examined by expex'ts. same conclusion as you—^that it They're baffled by it. Attempts was the work of a crackpot; but to analyze it chemically failed they saw the same book yoti're they were unable to take a sam- looking at now." ple. —It's impervious to sol- "So what? So it was faked up vents some time during the war "They couldn't get a sample?" what does that prove? I'm ready I said. "Why not just tear oil to concede it's sixteen - years the corner of one of the sheets?" ' old—" "Try it," Foster said. "You don't understand. Le- I picked up the book and gion," Foster said. "I told you I plucked at the edge of one of the work up in a military hospital in blank sheets, then pinched hard- France. But it was an AEF hos- er and pulled. The paper held. pital and the year was 1918." I got a better grip and pulled again. It was like fine, tough except that it CHAPTER II leather, didn't even stretch. IPOUEED myself some more "It's tough, all right," I said. beer and glanced sideways at I took out my pocket knife and Foster. He didn't look like a opened it and worked on the edge nut . . . of the paper. Nothing. I went "All I've got to say is," I said, over to the bureau and put the "you're a hell of a spry-looking paper flat against the top mt& seventy." sawed at it, putting nay weight "You find my appearance on the knife. I raised the knife

AMAZING STORIES "

mill brought it down hard. I ticed lights following me. Not tliiln'l so much as mark the headlights—something that •iK'fl. I put the knife away. bobbed along, off in the fields "Tliat's some paper, Mr. Fos- along the road. But they kept »rr," I said. pace, gradually moving along- "Try to tear the binding," side. Then they closed in ahead, Foster said. "Put a match to it. keeping out of range of my head- Shoot at it if you like. Nothing lights. I stopped the ear. I wasn't will make an impresson on that seriously alarmed, just curious. mnterial. Now, you're a logical I wanted a better look, so I man, Legion. Is there something switched on my spotlight and here outside ordinary experience played it on the lights. They dis- or is there not?" appeared as the light touched I sat down, feeling for a ciga- them. After "half a dozen were rette. I still didn't have one. gone the rest began closing in. I "What does it prove?" I said. kept picking them off. There was "Only that the book is not a a sound, too, a sort of high- simple fraud. You're facing pitched humming. I caught a something which can't be dis- whiff of sulphur then, and sud- missed as fancy. The book exists. denly I was afraid—deathly That is our basic point of de- afraid. I caught the last one in parture." the beam no more than ten feet "Where do we go from there?" from the car. I can't describe— the "There is a second factor to be horror of the moment considered," Foster went on. "At "It sounds pretty weird," I some time in the past I seem to said. "But what was there to be have made an enemy. Someone, afraid of? It must have been or something, is systematically some kind of heat lightning." hunting me." "There is always the pat ex- planation," Poster said. "But no I TRIED a laugh, hut it felt out explanation can rationalize the of place. "Why not sit still and instinctive dread I felt. I started let it catch up with you ? Maybe up the car and drove on—right it could tell you what the whole through the night and the next thing is about." day- I sensed that I must put Foster shook his head. "It distance between myself and tarted almost thirty years ago," whatever it was I had met. I he said. "I was driving south bought a home in California and from Albany, New York, at tried to put the incident out of night. It was a long straight my mind—with limited success. stretch of road, no houses. I no- Then it happ^ed again."

A TRACE OF MEMORY 19 " " a

"The same thing? Lights?" familiar characters. None of the "It was more sophisticated the experts who have examined the next time. It started with inter- script have been able to identify ference—static—on my radio. it. Then it affected the wiring in "I necessarily, therefore, con- the house. All the lights began centrated my attention on the to glow weakly, even though they last section—the only part writ- were switched off. I covild feel it ten in English. I was immediate- —^feel it in my bones—moving ly struck by a curious fact I had closer, hemming- me in. I tried ignored before. The writer made the car ; it wouldn't start. For- references to an Enemy, a mys-. tunately, I kept a few horses at terious 'they,' against which de- that time. I mounted and rode fensive measures had to be into town—and at a fair gallop, taken." you may be sure. I saw the lights, "Maybe that's where you got but out-distanced them. I caught the idea," I said. —"When you a train and kept going." first read the book "I don't see— "The writer of the log," Fos-

"It happened again ; four ter said, "was dogged by the times in all. I thought perhaps I same nemesis that now follows had succeeded in eluding it at me." last. I was mistaken. I have had "It doesn't make any sense," I definite indications that my time said. here is drawing to a close. I "For the moment," Foster ^ould have been gone before said, "stop looking for logic in now, but there were certain ar- the situation. Look for a pattern rangements to be made." instead," "Look," I said. "This is all "There's a pattern, all right," Wrong. You need a psychiatrist, I said. not an ex-tough guy. Delusions "The next thing that struck of persecution— me," Foster went on, "was a ref- erence to a loss of memory— IT seemed obvious that the ex- second point of some familiarity planation was to be found to me. The writer expresses frus- somewhere in my past life," tration at the inability to remem- Foster went on. "I turned to the ber certain facts which would notebook, my only link. I copied have been useful to him in his it out, including the encrypted pursuit." portion. I had photostatic en- "What kind of pursuit?" largements made of the initial "Some sort of scientific proj- section—the part written in un- ect, as nearly as I can gather. 20 AMAZING STORIES " " —

'I' he journal bristles •with tan- —^well, the kindest word I can talizing references to matters think of is 'nutty'." that are never explained." "Legion," Foster said, "do you "And you think the man that really beHeve I'm insane?" wrote it had amnesia?" "Let's just say this all seems "Not actually amnesia, per- a little screwy to me, Mr. Fos- haps,'' Foster said. "But there ter." were things he was unable to^ "I'm not asking you just to remember." work for me," Foster said. "I'm "If that's amnesia, we've all asking for your help." got it," I said. "Nobody's got a "You might as well look for perfect memory." your fortune in tea leaves," I "But these were matters of said, irritated. "There's nothing importance; not the kind of in what you've told me." thing that simply slip one's mind." '^PHERE'S more, Legion. Much "I can see how you'd want to -more. I've recently made an believe the book had something important discovery. When I to do with your past, Mr. Fos- know you'i-e M'ith me, I'll tell you. ter," I said. "It must be a hard You know enough now to accept thing, not knowing your own the fact that this isn't entirely a life story. But you're on the figment of my imagination." wrong track. Maybe the book is "I don't know anything," I a story you started to write—in said. "So far it's all talk." code, so nobody would acciden- "If you're— concerned about tally read the stuff and kid you payment about it." "No, damn it," I barked. "Legio^n, what was it you "Where are the papers you keep planned to do when you got to talking about? I ought to have Miami?" my head examined for sitting humoring you. I've The question caught me a lit- here — got tle off-guard. "Well, I don't troubles enough " I stopped know," I hedged. "I wanted to talking and rubbed my hands get south, where it's warm. I over my scalp. "I'm sorry, Mr. used to know a few people— Foster," I said. "I guess what'^ "In other words, nothing," really griping me is that you've* Foster said. "Legion, I'll pay you got everything I think I want well to stay with me and see this and you're not content with it. thing through." It bothers me to see you off chasr I shook my head. "Not me, Mr. ing fairies. If a man with his Foster. The whole thing sounds health and plenty of money can't

A TRACE OF MEMORY 21 —

enjoy life, what the hell is there ter said. "But no matter—mate- for anybody?" rialism is simply another form of Foster looked at me thought- idealism." fully. "Legion, if you could have I looked at Foster. "But I anything in life you wanted, know I'll never have those things what would you ask for?" —or that Justice you were talk- I swirled the beer in the mug. ing about, either. Once you real- ." "Anything? I've wanted a lot of ly know you'll never make it . . different things. Once I wanted "Perhaps unattainability is an to be a hero. Later, I wanted to essential element of any dream," be smart, know all the answers. Foster said. "But hold onto your Then I had the idea that a chance dream, whatever it is—don't to do an honest job, one that ever give it up." needed doing, was the big thing. "So much for philosophy," I I never found that job. I never said. "Where is it getting us?" got smart either, or figured out -Tou'd like to see the papers," how to tell a hero from a coward, Foster said. He fished a key ring without a program." from an inner pocket. "If you "In other words," Foster said, don't mind going out to the car," "you were looking for an ab- he said, "and perhaps getting, straction to believe in—in this your hands dirty, there's a' case, Justice. But you won't find strong-box welded to the fi-ame. justice in nature. It's a thing I keep photostats of everything that only man expects or ac- there, along with my passporti knowledges." emergency funds, and so on. I'vd "There are some good things learned to be ready to travel oia in life; I'd like to get a piece of very short notice. Lift the fioorj them." boards; you'll see the box." "Don't lose your capacity for "It's not all that urgent," I dreaming, in the process." said. "I'll take a look in the "Dreams?" I said. "Oh, I've morning—after I've caught up got those. I want an island some- on some sleep. But don't get the where in the sun, where I can wrong idea—it's just my knot- spend my time fishing and headed curiosity." watching the sea and working "Very well," Foster said. H my way through a carefully se- lay back, sighed. "I'm tired, L

lected harem and an even more gion," he said. "My mind i carefully selected wine cellar." tired." "You're speaking cynically "Yeah," I said, "so is min but you're still attempting to not to mention other portions q concretize an abstraction," Fos- my anatomy."

22 AMAZING STORIES —

"Get some sleep," Foster said. over the obstruction. It was

' We'll talk again in the morn- bulky, with the cold smoothness ing." of metal, and there were small projections with sharp corners. T PUSHED back the light blan- It felt for all the world like A ket and slid out of bed. Under- I leaned over it and squinted. foot, tike rug was as thick and With the faint gleam of moon- soft as mink. I went across to the light from a chink in the heavy closet and pushed the button curtains falling just so, I could that made the door slide aside. almost make out the shape; I My old clothes were still lying on crouched a little lower, and the floor where I had left them, caught the glint of light along but I had the clean ones Foster the perforated jacket of a .30 had lent me. He wouldn't mind calibre machine gun. My eye fol- if I borrowed them for awhile lowed the barrel, made out the longer—it would be cheaper for darker square of the entrance him in the long run. Foster was hall, and the tiny reflection of as looney as a six-day bike racer, light ofl: the polished brass door- but there was no point in my knob at the far end. waiting around to tell him so. I stepped back, flattened The borrowed outfit didn't in- against the wall, with a hollow clude a coat. I thought of putting feeling inside. If I had tried to my old jacket on but it was warm walk through that door. . . . outside and a grey pin-stripe Foster was crazy enough for with grease spots wouldn't help two ordinary nuts. My eyes the picture any. I transferred flicked around the room. I had to my personal belongings from the get out quickly before he jumped grimy clothes on the floor, and out and said Boo and I died of eased the door open. heart-failure. The windows, Downstairs, the curtains were maybe. I came around the end of drawn in the living room. I the bar, got down and crawled could vaguely make out the out- under the barrel of the gun, and line of the bar. It wouldn't hurt over to the heavy drapes, pushed to take along a bite to eat. I them aside. Pale light glowed groped my 'way behind the bar, beyond the glass. Not the soft felt along, the shelves, found a light of the moon, but a milky, stack of small cans that rattled churning glow that reminded softly. Nuts, probably. I reached me of the phosphorescence of to put a can on the bar and it sea water. . . , clattered against something I I dropped the curtain, ducked couldn't see. I swore silently, felt back under the gun into the hall.

A TRACE OF MEMORY 23 ' —

and pushed through a swinging the cob-webbed shadows, my door into the kitchen. There was mouth suddenly dry. The:|^MH a faint glow from the luminous handle of the refrigerator. I The thing for me to do waslH yanked it open, spilling light on get up the stairs fast, batter tn^ the floor, and looked around. "iron trellis out of that kitchen Plenty of gleaming white fix- window, and run like hell. The tures—but no door out. There trouble was, I had to move to do was a window, almost obscured it, and the sound of my own by leaves. I eased it open and al- steps was so loud it was para-i most broke my fist on a wrought lyzing. Compared to this, the! iron trellis. shock of stumbling over the gun was just a mild kick. Ordinarily DACK in the hall, I tried two I didn't believe in things that more doors, both, locked. A went bump in the night, bu.t third opened, and I found my- this time I was hearing the self looking down the cellar bumps myself, and all I could stairs. They were steep and dark think about was Edgar AUaa, like cellar stairs always seem to Poe and his cheery tales abofl be but they might be the way people who got themselves buP out. I felt for a light switch, led before they were thoroughly flipped it on. A weak illumina- dead. tion showed me a patch of damp- There was another sound, then looking floor at the foot of the a sharp snap, and I saw light steps. It still wasn't inviting, spring up from a crack that but I went down. opened across the floor in the There was an oil furnace in shadowy corner. That was the center of the I'oom, with enough for me. I jumped for the dusty duct work spidering out stairs, took them three at a time, across the ceiling; some heavy and banged through the kitchen packing cases of rough wood door. I grabbed up a chair, were stacked along one wall, and swung it up, and slammed it at the far side of the room there against the trellis. It bounced was a boarded-up coal bin—but back and cracked me across the no cellar door. mouth. I dropped it, tasting I turned to go back up and blood. Maybe that was what I heard a sound and froze. Some- needed. The panic faded before a where a cockroach scuttled stronger emotion — anger. I briefly. Then I heard the sound turned and barged along the again : a faint grinding of stone dark hall to the living room against stone. I peered through and lights suddenly went on. I

24 AMAZING STORIES whirled ao€ saw Foster standing "What did you see in the in the hall doorway, fiiHy cellar?" Foster's face loolied dressed. strained, colorless. "OK, Foster!" I yelled. "Just "It looked like ..." I hesi- nhow me th« way out of here." tated. "There was a crack in the ." Foster held my eyes, his face floor, noises, lights. . . tense. "Calm yourself, Mr. Le- "The floor," Foster said. "Cer- jrion," he said softly. "What hap- tainly. That's the weak point." pened here?" He seemed to be talking to him- "Get over there to that gun," self.

I snapped, nodding toward the I jerked a thumb over my ..'50 calibre on the bar. "Disarm shouldei'. "Something funny go-

it, and then get the front door ing on outside your windows, iipen. I'm leaving." too." Foster's eyes flicked over the clothes I was wearing. "So I FOSTER looked toward the .-ee," he said. He looked me in heavy hangings. "Listen care- the face again. "What is it that's fully. Legion," he said. "We are frightened you. Legion?" in grave danger^—both of us. Ifs "Don't act so damned inno- fortunate you arose when you cent," I said. "Or am I supposed did. This house, as you must to get the idea the brownies set have guessed by now, is some- up that booby trap while you thing of a fortress. At this mo- were asleep?" ment, it is under attack. The His eyes went to the gun and walls are protected by some liis expression tightened. "It's rather formidable defense. I mine," he said. "It's an automat- can't say as much for the cellar ic arrangement. Something's ac- floor; it's merely three feet of tivated it—and without sound- ferro-concrete. Well have to go

i ng my alarm. You haven't been now—very swiftly, and very outside, have you?" quietly." "How could I—" "OK—show me," I said. Fos- "This is important. Legion," ter turned and went back along l-'oster rapped. "It would take the hall to one of the locked more than the sight of a ma- doors, pressed something. The chine gun to panic you. What door opened and I followed him have you seen?" inside a small room. He crossed "I was looking for a back to a blank wall, pressed against iloor," I said. "I went down to it. A panel slid aside—and Poster the cellar. I didn't like it down jumped back. there so I came back up." "God's wounds!" he gasped.

A TRACE OF MEMORY 25 He threw himself at the wall, flank of the rakish cabriolet, f^| and panel dosed. I stood stock my way around it, and eased t^fl still ; from somewhere there was door open. I slipped into the s^H a smell like sulphur. and closed the door gently. Be- , "What the hell goes on?" I side me, Foster touched a button said. My voice cracked, like it and a green light glowed in the always does when I'm scared. dash. "That odor!" Foster said. "Ready?" he said. "Quickly—the other way!" "Sure." I stepped back and Foster The starter whined half a turn pushed past me and ran along and the engine caught, and with- the hall, with me at his heels. I out waiting, Foster gunned it, J didn't look back to see what was let in the clutch. The car leaped ' at my own heels. Foster took for the closed doors, and I the stairs three at a time, pulled ducked, then saw the doors snap up short on the landing. He aside as the low-slung car roared went to his knees, shoved back out into the night. We took the an Isfahan rug as supple as sa- first turn in the drive at forty, ble, and gripped a steel ring set and rounded onto the highway at in the floor. He looked at me, his sixty, tires screaming. I took aj face white. look back, and caught a glimpse ]

"Invoke thy gods," he said of the house, its stately facade J hoarsely, and heaved at the ring. white in the moonlight—and 1 ' A section of floor swung up, then we were out of sight. showing the first step of a flight "What's it all about?" I called leading down into a black hole. over the rush of air. The needle Foster didn't hesitate; he touched ninety, kept going. dropped his feet in, scrambled "Later," Foster barked. I did- down. I followed. The stairs n't feel like arguing. I watched went down about ten feet, end- the mirror for a few minutes, ing on a stone floor. There was wondering where all the cops the sound of a latch turning, were tonight. Then I settled and we stepped out into a larger down in the padded seat and room. I saw moonlight through a watched the speedometer eat up row of high windows, and the miles. smelled the fragrance of fresh night air. CHAPTER III "We're in the garage," Foster whispered. "Go around to the IT was nearly four-thirty and a other side of the car and get in tentative grey streak showed —quietly," I touched the smooth through the palm fronds to the

26 AMAZING STORIES " "

»•( Ik* fore I broke the silence. "I've kept myself in readiness

• Hy the way," I said. "What for this emergency," Foster said.

• the routine with the steel "There are disposition instruc-

ii 11 1 1 IM S and the bullet-proof tions for the house on file with a

«'m I in the kitchen, and the legal firm in Jacksonville. There

' ii'i) home model machine gun is nothing to connect me with my

• MTing the front door? Mice former life, once I've changed my I'.kI around the place, are they?" name and disappeared. As for "I'hose things were necessary the rest—we can buy lupgaj^e in and more." the morning. My passport is in "Now that the short hairs the car; perhaps we'd better go along my spine have relaxed," I first to Puerto Rico, until we can •Rid, "The whole thing looks arrange for one for you." pretty silly. We've run far "Look," I said. "I got spooked enough now to be able to stop in the dark; that's all. Why not itiid turn around and stick our just admit we made fools of our- tongues out." selves?" "Not yet—not for a while." Foster shook his head. "The "Why don't we just go back inherent inertia of the human tiome," I went on, "and— mind," he said. "How it fights to "No!" Foster said sharply. "I resist new ideas." want your word on that, Legion. "The kind of new ideas you're .Vo matter what—don't ever go talking about could get both of near that house again." us locked up in the chuckle "It'll be daylight soon." I ward," I said. ; said. "We'll feel pretty asinine "Legion," Foster said, "I ibout this little trip after the think you'd better write down >un comes up, but don't— worry, what I'm going to tell you. It's [ won't tell anybody important—vitally important. I "We've got to keep moving," won't waste time with prelimi- Foster said. "At the next town, naries. The notebook I showed

I 'll telephone for seats on a flight you—it's in my jacket. You must from Miami." read the English portion of it. "Hold on," I said. "You're Afterwards, what I'm about to raving. What about your house? say may make more sense." We didn't even stick around long "I hope you don't feel your enough to make sure the TV was last will and testament coming turned off. And what about pass- on, Mr. Foster," I said. "Not be- ports, and money, and luggage? fore you tell me what that was And what makes you think I'm we were both so eager to get going with you?" away from."

A TRACE OF MEMORY 27 —

"I'll be frank with you," Fos- in bed and call a doctor. We ter said flatly. "I don't know." were at the edge of a small tov|jN| I let the brake off and drcn^ tj^OSTER wheeled into the dark slowly into town, swung around drive of a silent service sta- the corner and pulled in in front tion, eases to a stop, set the of the sagging marquee of a rui^ brakes and slumped back in the down hotel. Foster stirred ast m seat. cut the engine. M "Do you mind driving for a "Foster," I said. "I'm going f| while. Legion?" he said. "I'm get you into a bed. Can y

He moved over and I got in house." the driver's seat. "If you're "My friend is sick," I said. sick," I said, "we'd better find a "Give me _^a double with bath. doctor." And call a doctor." "No, it's all right," he said "What's he got?" the old man ." blurrily. "Just keep going. . . said. "Ain't contagious, is it?" "We're a hundred and fifty "That's what I want a doctor miles from Mayport now," I said. to tell me." Foster turned to me, started "I can't get the doc 'fore in to say something—and slumped the morning. And we got no priv- in a dead faint. I grabbed for ate bathrooms."

- Ms pulse ; it was strong and I signed the register and we steady. I rolled up an eyelid and rode the open-cage elevator to a dilated pupil stared sightless- the fourth floor and went along ly. He was all right—I hoped. a gloomy hall to a door painted But the thing to do was get him a peeling brown. It didn't look

28 AMAZING STORIES inviting; the room inside wasn't I eased his wallet out of his much better. There was a lot of coat pocket, took it to the win- (lowered wallpaper and an old- dow and checked it. It was fat. I fimhioned wash stand, and two took a ten, put the wallet on the wide beds. I stretched Foster out table. I remembered Foster had on one. He lay relaxed, a serene said something about money in expression on his face—^the kind the car. I had the keys in my lUidertakers try for but never pocket. I got my shoes on and let quite seem to manage. I sat myself out quietly. Foster had- down on the other bed and pulled n't moved. ofT my shoes. It was my turn to Down on the street, I waited have a tired mind. I lay on the for a couple of yokels who were bed and let it sink down like a looking over Foster's car to move Krey stone into still water. on, then slid into the seat, leaned over and got the floor- AWOKE from a dream in boards up. The strong box was I ' which I had just discovered set into the channel of the frame.

I lie answer to the riddle of life. I scraped the road dirt ott" the

I tried to hold onto it, but it lock and opened it with a key ulipped away; it always does. from Foster's key-ring, took out Grey daylight was filtering the contents. There was a bun- through the dusty windows. Fos- dle of stifRsh papers, a passport, ter lay slackly on the broad sag- some maps—marked up—and a yrlng bed, a ceiling lamp with a > wad of currency that made my faded fringed shade casting a mouth go dry. I riffled through sickly yellow light over him. It it; fifty grand if it was a buck, didn't make things any cheerier; I stuffed the papers, the

I flipped it off. money and the passport back in

Foster was lying on his back, the box and locked it, and arras spread wide, breathing climbed out onto ' the sidewalk. heavily. Maybe it was only ex- A few doors down the street haustion and he didn't need a there was a dirty window let- doctor after all. He'd probably tered MAE'S EAT. I went in, or- wake up in a little while, raring dered hamburgers and coffee to

1(1 go. As for me, I was feeling go, and sat at the counter with

I I angry again. I'd have to have Foster's keys in front of me, a buck or so for sandwiches. I and thought about the car that went over to the bed and called went with them. The passport l''oster's name. He didn't move. only needed a little work on the

I f he was sleeping that soundly, picture to get me wherever I maybe I wouldn't bother him. wanted to go, and the money

A TRACE OF MEMORY 29 would buy me my choice of is- tion of a lengthy investigation.; lands. Foster would have a nice C. R. Foster, 50, owner of thd long nap, and then take a train property, is missing &nm home. With his dough, he'd hard- feared dead. Police are seeking ly miss what I took. an ex-convict who visited the house last night. Chief Ches- THE counterman put a paper ters stated that Foster may bag in front of me and I paid Tmve been the victim of a him and went out. I stood by the gangland murder." car, jingling the keys on my palm and thinking. I would be I BANGED through the door to M Miami in an hour, and I knew the darkened room and where to go for the passport job. stopped short. In the gloom I Foster was a nice guy, and I could see Foster sitting on the liked him—but I'd never have a edge of my bed, looking my break like this again. I vemhed way. for the car door and a Vioiee "Look at this," I yelped, flap- said, "Paper, Mister?" ping the paper in his face. "Now I jumped and looked around. the cops are dragging the state A dirty-faced kid was looking at for me—and on a murder rap at me. that! Get on the phone and get "Sure," I said. I gave him a this thing straightened out—if single and took the paper, you can. You and your little flipped it open. A Maypoirt date- green men! The cops think line caught my eye: they've stumbled on Al Capone's "Police Raid Hideout. A sur- arsenal. You'll have fun explain- ." prise raid by local police led to ing that one. . . the discovery here today of a Foster looked at me interest- secret gangland fortress. Chief edly. He smiled.

Chesters of the Mayport Po- "What's funny about it, Fos- lice stated that the raid came ter?" I yelled. "Your dough may as an aftermath of the arrival buy you out, but what about in the city yesterday of a no- me?" torious northern gang mem- "Forgive me for asking," Fos- ber. A number of firearms, in- ter said pleasantly. "But—^who cluding army-type machine are you?" guns, were seized in the raid on a house 9 miles from May- There are times when I'm port on the Fernandina road; slow on the uptake, but this was- The raid was said by Chief n't one of them; the implications Chesters to be the culmina- of what Foster had said hit me

30 AMAZING STORIES — —

hard enough to tna^^^^HPes bright enough now to i^cc. doar- iro weak. ly; but the man I was talking to "Oh, no, Mr. Foster," I said. couldn't have been a day over] You can't lose your memory twenty years old. iifriiin—^not right now, not with

I 111' police looking for me. You'i-e 1WENT close to him, staring m.v alibi; you're the one that has hard. There were the same to explain all the business about cool blue eyes, but the lines

I lie guns and the ad in the pa- around them were gone. The per. I just came to see about a black hair grew lower and thick- job, remember?" er than I remembered it, and the My voice was getting a little skin was clear and vibrant, nhrill. Foster sat looking at me, I sat down hard on my bed. M'aring an expression between "Mama mia," I said.

.1 frown and a smile, like a credit "iQue es la dificultad?" Fos- manager turning down an ap- ter said. plication. "Shut up," I moaned. "I'm He shook his head slightly. confused enough in one lan- "My name is not Foster." guage." I was trying hard to "Look," I said. "Your iiame wa.s think but I couldn't seem to get Foster yesterday—that's all I started. A few minutes earlier care about. You're the one that I'd had the world by the tail owns the house the cops are all just before it turned around and upset about. And you're the bit me. Cold sweat popped out on corpse I'm supposed to have my forehead when I thought knocked off. You've got to go to about how close I had come to the cops with me—right now driving off in Foster's car ; every .md tell them I'm just an inno- cop in the state would be looking I'lit bystander." for it by now—and if they found I went to the window and me in it, the jury wouldn't be raised the shades to let some ten minutes reaching a veridct light into the room, turned back of guilty. to Foster. Then another thought hit me "I'll explain to the cops about —the kind that brings you bolt

\ ou thinking the little men were upright with your teeth clenched after you—" I stopped talking and your heart hammering. It and stared at Foster. For a wild wouldn't be long before the local moment I thought I'd made a hick cops would notice the car mist^e—^that I'd wandered into out front. They'd come in after the wrpng room. I knew Foster's me, and I'd tell them it. belonged face, all right;, the light was to Foster. They'd take a look at

A TRACE OF MEMORY 31 —

him and say, nuts, the bird we a middle-aged nut with the fa( want is fifty years old, and of a young kid and a mind like where did you hide the body? blank slate. I had no choice bi I got up and started pacing. to drag him with me; my onl Foster had ah-eady told me there chance was to stick close an was nothing to connect him with hope he got back enough of hi

his house in Mayport ; the locals memory to get me off the hool there had seen enough of him to It was time for me to be figul know he was pushing middle age, ing my next move. I though at least. I could kick and scream about the fifty thousand dollars and tell them this twenty year- I had left behind in the car, an< old kid was Foster, but I'd never groaned. Foster looked coij make it stick. There was no way cemed. to prove my story; they'd figure "Are you in pain?" he said. Poster was dead and that I'd "And how I'm in pain," I said^ killed him—and anybody who "Before I met you I "was a hom^ thinks you need a corpus to less bum, broke and hungr^ prove murder better read his Now I can add a couple mor^ Perry Mason again. items: the cops are after me, I glanced out of the window and I've got a mental case toi and did a double-take. Two cops nursemaid." -ji were standing by Foster's car. "What law have you bro^BH One of them went around to the Foster said. ^il back and got out a pad and took "None, damn it," I barkecM down the license number, then "As a crook, I'm a washout. TvM said something over his shoulder planned three larcenies in thfl and started across the street. last twelve hours, and flunked The second cop planted himself out on all of them. And now TwM by the car, his eye on the front wanted for murder." I of the hotel. "Whom did you kill?" Foste«" I whirled on Foster. "Get your enquired courteotisly. shoes on," I croaked. "Let's get I leaned across so I could the hell out of here." snarl in his face: "You!" Then, We went down the stairs "Get this through your head, quietly and found a back door Foster. The only crime I'm opening on an alley. Nobody saw guilty of is stupidity. I listened us go. to your crazy story; because off you I'm in a mess I'll never ged AN hour later, I sagged in a straightened out." I leaned backl| grimy coach seat and studied "And then there's the question - Foster, sitting across from me of old men that take a nap and

32 AMAZING STORIES «iike up in their late teens; we'll respects. It should not be difficult

Kit into that later, after I've had to amass wealth here." my nervous breakdown." "I never had much luck at "I'm sorry if I've been the it," I said. "I haven't even been nuise of difficulty," Foster said. able to amass the price of a "I wish that I could recall the meal." iliiiigs you've spoken of. Is there "Food is exchanged for mon- thing I can do to assist you ey?" Foster asked. now?" "Everythii;g is exchanged for "And you were the one who money," I said. "Including most

• anted help," I said. "There is of the human virtues." "in; thing; let me have the money "This is a strange world," >c>u've got on you; we'U need Foster said. "It will take me a It." long while to become accustomed Foster got out his wallet, after to it."

I told him where it was, and "Yeah, me, too," I said. "May- handed it to me. I looked through be things would be better oin It; there was nothing ia it with Mars." it photo or fingerprints. When Foster nodded. "Perhaps," he Foster said he had arranged said. "Perhaps we should go matters so that he could disap- there." pear without a ti;ace, he hadn't I groaned, then caught irw been kidding. self.."No, I'm not in pain," I "We'll go to Miami," I said. said. "But don't take me so liter- "1 know a place in the Cuban ally, Foster." •ection where we can lie low, We rode along in silence for a cheap. Maybe if we wait a while. while, you'll start remembering "Say, Foster," I said. "Have

I liings." you still got that notebook of "Yes," Foster said. "That yours ?" would be pleasant. "- Foster tried several pockets, came up with the book. He \'0U haven't forgotten how to looked at it, turned it over, talk, at least," I said. "I frowning. wonder what else you can do. "You remember it?" I said, Do you remember how you made watching him. ftU that money?" He shook his head slowly, then "I can remember nothing of ran his finger around the circles your economic system," Foster embossed on the cover. Huid. He looked around. "This is "This pattern," he said. "It ." II very primitive world, in many signifies- . .

A TRACE OF MEMORY 33 —

"Go on, Foster," I said. "Signi- and when he got home, be bitchet fies what?" about those, too.

"I'm sorry," lie said. "I tton't "It's a funny thing, Foster," '. remember." said. "This is supposed to hav<

I took the book and sat looking been written over a period of : at it. It wouldn't do any good to couple of hundred years, but it's turn myself in and tell them the all in the same hand. That's kind whole story; they wouldn't be- of odd, isn't it?" lieve me, and I wouldn't blame "Why should a man's hand- them. I didn't really believe it writing change?" Foster said. myself, and I'd lived through it. "Well, it might get a little But then, maybe I was just shaky there toward the last, imagining that Foster looked don't you agree?" "Why is that?" younger. After aH, a good uiglifs J rest "I'll spell it out, Foster," 1 I looked at Foster, and almost said. "Most people don't live thai groaned again. Twenty was long. A hundred years is stretchJ stretching it; eighteen was naore ing it, to say nothing of two.'^ like it. I was willing to swear "This must be a very violenii he'd never shaved in his life. world, then," Foster said. "Foster," I said. "It's got to "Skip it," I said. "You talk be in this book. Who you are, like you're just visiting. By the where you came from—Ifs the way; do you remember how to only hope I've got." write?"

"I suggest we read it, then," Foster looked thoughtful. Foster said. "Yes," he said. "I can write." "A bright idea," I said. "Why I handed him the book and the didn't I think of that?" I stylus. "Try it," I said. Foster thumbed through the book to the opened to a blank page, wrote, section in English and read for and handed the book back to me. an hour. Starting with the entry "Always and alwajrs and al- dated January 19, 1710, the writ- ways," I read. er had scribbled a few lines I looked at Foster. "What does every few months. He seemed to that mean?" I looked at the be some kind of pioneer in the words again, then quickly flipped Virginia Colony. He bitched to the pages written in English. about prices, and the Indians, and I was no expert on penmanship, the ignorance of the other set- but this came up and cracked me tlers, arid every now and then right in the eye. threw in a remark about the The book was written in Fos- Enemy, He often took long trips, ter's hand.

34 AMAZING STORIES I T doesn't make sense," I was here, disguised as a casual nick saying for the fortieth time. in the finish. It had to mean Foster nodded sympathetic something. agreement. "How do you know what the "Why would you write this material is?" I asked. yourself, and then spend all that Foster looked surprised. "In time and money trying to have it the same way that I know the deciphered? You said experts window is of glass," he said. "I worked on it and couldn't break simply know." it. But," I went on, "you must "Speaking of glass," I said. have known you wrote it; you "Wait till I get my hands on a knew your own handwriting. But microscope. Then maybe we'll on the other hand, you had am- begin to get some answers." nesia before; you had the idea you might have told something CHAPTER IV ." about yourself in the book . . . I sighed, leaned back and T^HE two-hundred pound sefio- tossed the book over to Foster. *- rita put a pot of black Cuban "Here, you read awhile," I said. coffee and a pitcher of salted "I'm arguing with myself and I milk down beside the two

I an't tell who's winning." chipped cups, leered at me in a Foster looked the book over way that might have been ap-

1 arefully. pealing thirty years before, and "This is odd," he said. waddled back to the kitchen. I

"What's odd?" poured a cup, gulped half of it. 'The book is made of khaff. It and shuddered. In the street is a permanent material—and outside the cafe a guitar cried \et it shows damage." Estrellita.

I sat perfectly still and waited. "Okay, Foster," I said. "Here's "Here on the back cover," Fos- what I've got: The first half of ier said. "A scuffed area. Since the book is in pot-hooks—I can't

I his is khaff, it cannot be an read that. But this middle sec- actual scar. It must have been tion: the part coded in regular placed there." letters—it's actually encrypted I grabbed the book and looked, English. It's a sort of resume of i'here was a faint mark across what happened." I picked up the the back cover, as though the sheets of paper on which I had liook had been scraped on somer transcribed my deciphering of thing sharp. I remembered how the coded section of the book, much luck I had had with a using the key that had been knife. The mark had been put micro-engraved in the fake

A TRACE OF MEMORY 35 ;

scratch on the baiek ootst. ture not again on Hie Eastern I read: continent, but wait, for sooni "For the first time, I am the Northern sailors musv afraid. My attempt to come in numbers into this wil- construct the communicator derness. Seek out their clever- called down the Hunters upon est metal-workers, and when it me. I made such a shield as I may be, devise a shield, and could contrive, and sought only then return to the pit of their nesting place. the Hunters. It lies in the "I came there and it was in plain, 50/10,000-parts of t^ that place that I knew of old, girth of this (?) to the we and it was no hive, but a pit of the Great Chalk Face, an in the ground, built by men of 1470 parts north from the the Two Worlds. And I would dian line, as I reckon. Tl

have come into it, but the stones mark it well with t| Hunters swarmed in their mul- sign of the Two Worlds." titudes. I fought them and killed many, but at the last I T LOOKED across at Foster. fled away. I carae to the west- ^ goes on then with a blow-by^ ern shore, and there I hired blow account of dealings witi bold sailors and a poor craft, aborigines. He was trying to ge| and set forth. them civilized in a hurry. They] "In forty-nine days we came figured he was a god and he set to shore in this wilderness, them t© work building roads and and here were men as from the cutting stone and learning math-j dawn of time, and I fought ematics and so on. He was doing^ tfeem, and when they had all he could to set things up so learned fear, I lived among this stranger who was to foUoj them in peace, and the Bunt- him wofuld know the score, ar ei-s have not found this place. carry on the good work." Now it may be that my saga Foster's eyes were on my ends here, but I will do what I "What is the nature ofl

am able. Change he speaks of?" . "The Change may soon "He never says—but I suppose

come upon me ; I must prepare he's talking about death," I for the stranger who will come said. "I don't know where the after me. All that he must stranger is supposed to come know is in these pages. And I from." say to him: "Listen to me, Legion," Foster "Have patience, for the time said. There was a hint of the old of this race draws close. Ven- anxious look in his eyes. "I

36 AMAZING STORIES " " "

think I know what the Change "If you call this 'ten-thousand was. I think he knew he Would parts to the west of the chalk forget—" face' a location," I said. ' "You've got amnesia on the "We know more than that,'" lirain, old buddy," I said. Foster said. "He mentions a " —and the stranger is—him- plain; and it must lie on a con- self. A man without a memory." tinent to the east— I sat frowning at Foster. "If you assume that he sailed . •'Yeah, maybe," I said. "Go on." from Europe to America, then "And he says that all that the the continent to the ea.st would be stranger needs to know is there Europe," I said. "But maybe he —^in the book." went from Africa to.South Amer- "Not in the part I decoded." I ica, or— said. "He describes how they'i-e "The mention of Northern coming along with the road- sailors—that suggests the Vik- building job, and how i;he new ings—" mine panned out—but there's "You seem to know a little his- nothing about what the Hunters tory, Foster," I said. /'You've got are, or what had gone on before a lot of odd facts tucked away." he tangled with them the first "We need maps," Foster sairi time." "We'll— look for a plain near the "It must be there, Legion ; but sea in the first section, the part "Not necessarily." written in alien symbols." "-—and with a formation called "Maybe," I said. "But why the a ehalk face to the east." hell didn't he give us a key to "What's this 'median line' bus- that part?" iness mean?" I said. "And the "I think he assumed that the bit about ten thousand parts of stranger—himself—^wo'uld re- something?" member the old writing," Fos- "I don't know," Foster said. ter said. "How could he know "But we must have maps." that it would be forgotten with "I bought some this after- the rest?" noon," I said. "I also got a dime- "Your guess is as good as store globe. I thought we might

any," I said. "Maybe better ; you need them. What the hell! let'- know how it feels to lose your get out of this and back to the memory." room, where we can spread out. "But we've learned a few I know it's a grim prospect, things," Foster said. "The pit but ..." I got to my feet, of the Hunters—we have the lo- dropped some coins on the table, cation." and led the way out.

A TRACE OF MEMORY 37 " "

IT was a short half block to the oLis chalk formation there?" fl«a trap we called home. The "We can consult a geology roaches scurried as we passed text," Foster said. "There may up the dark stairway to our not be a library nearby." much brighter room. I crossed "The only chalk deposits I to the bureau and opened a ever heard about," I said, "are drawer. the white cliffs of Dover." ." "The globe," Foster said, tak- "White cliffs. . . ing it in his hands. "I wonder We both reached for the globe if perhaps he meant a ten-thous- at once. andth part of the circumference "125 miles west of the chalk of the earth?" cliffs," Foster said. He ran a "What would he know aboirt finger over the globe. "North of »» London, but south of Birming* "Disregard the anachronistic ham. That —puts us reasonablj' aspect of it," Foster said. "The near the sea man who wrote the book knew "Where's that atlas?" I said. many things. We'll have to start I rummaged, came up with a: with some assumptions. Let's cheap tourists' edition, flipped make the obvious ones: that the pages. we're looking for a plain on the "Here's England," I said, west coast of Europe, lying— "Now we look for a i^ain." He pulled a chair up to the scab- Poster put a finger on the rous table and riffled through to map. "Here," he said. "A large

one of my scinbbled sheets : "50/ plain—called Salisbury." 10,000s of the circumference of "Large is right," I said. "1% the earth—^that would be about would take years to find a stone 125 miles—west of a chalk for- cairn on that. We're getting ex- mation, and 3675 miles north of cited about nothing. We're look- ." a median line. . . ing for a hole in the ground, 1 "Maybe," I said, "he means hundreds of years old—if this the Equator." lousy notebook means anything "Certainly," Foster said. —maybe marked with a few "Why not? That would mean stones—in the middle of miles our plain li«s on a line through of plain. And ifs all guesswork —" he studied the small globe. anyway. ..." I took the atlas, "Warsaw, and south of Amster- turned the page. dam." "I don't know what I expected "But this bit about a rock out- to get out of decoding those; cropping," I said. "Hew do we pages," I said. "But I was hop-^- find out if there^s any conspSea- ing for more than this."

38 AMAZING STORIES " "

"I think we should try, Le- "The journal said the stones gion," Foster said. "We can go were arranged in the sign of the there, search over the ground. Two Worlds," I said. "That means It would be costly, but not im- the concentric circles, I suppose; possible. We can start by gather- the same thing that's stamped on ing capital— the cover of the notebook." "Wait a minute, Foster," I "And the ring," Foster said. .^aid. I was staring at a larger- "Let me read the rest," I said. scale map showing southern "A great sarsen stone stands England. Suddenly my heart was upright in the Avenue; the axis thudding. I put a finger on a through the two stones, when tiny dot in the center of Salis- erected, pointed directly to the bui-y Plain. rising of the sun on Midsummer "Six, two and even," I said. day. Calculations based on this 'There's your Pit of the Hunt- observation indicate a date of ." ers. . . approximately 1600 B.C." Foster leaned over, read the Foster took the book and I sat fine print. on the window sill and looked "Stonehenge." out at a big Florida moon. I lit a

cigarette, dragged on it, and T READ from the encyclopedia thought about a man who long ^ page: ago had crossed the North At- "—this great stone structure, lantic in a dragon boat to be a lying on the Plain of Salis- god among the Indians. I won- bury, Wiltshire, England, is dered where he came from, and preeminent among megalithic what it was he was looking for, monuments of the ancient and what kept him going in spite world. of the hell that showed in the "Within a circular ditch spare lines of the journal he 300' in diameter, stones up to kept. If, I reminded myself, he 22' in height are arranged in had ever existed . . . concentric circles. The central altar stone, over 16' long, is FOSTER was pouring over the approached from the north- book. "Look," I said. "Let's get east by a broad roadway back to earth. We have things to called the Avenue— think about, plans to make. The "It is not an altar," Foster fairy tales can wait until later." .said. "What do you suggest ?" Foster "How do you know?" said. "That we forget the things "Because—" Foster frowned. you've told me, and the things 'I know, that's all." we've read here, discard the

A TRACE OF MEMORY 39 " " — ——

journal, and abandon the at- "We have only one avenue tempt to find the answera?" inquiry," Foster said "We h "No," I said. "I'm no sorehead. no choice but to explore it. W Sure, there's some things here take passage on a ship to £ that somebody ought to look into land—" —some day. But right now what "What'll we use for mone I want is the cops off my neck. and papers ?" It would cost hu " And I've been thinking. I'll dic- dreds. Unless—" I added, \ tate a letter; you write it—your worked our way. But that's no lawyers know your handwriting. good. We'd still need passports Ten them you were on the thin plus union cards and seamen's edge of a nervous breakdown tickets." that's why all the artillery "Your friend," Foster said. around your house—and you "The one who prepares pass- made up your mind suddenly to poi'ts. Can't he produce the otbaft get away from it all. Tell them papers as well?" „«JB you don't want to be bothered, "Yeah," I said. "I gad|[H that's why you're travelling in- But it will cost us." ^^^B esjg&ito, and that the northern "I'm sure we can find a way^B mebster that came to see you pay," Foster said. "Will you sot was just stupid, not a killer. him—early in the moraing?" That ought to at least cool off I looked around the blowsy the cops— room. Hot night air stirred^ Foster looked thoughtful. geranium wilting in a tin can M "That's an excellent suggestion," the window sill. An odor of b&M he said. "Then we need merely to cooking and worse plumbinB arrange for passage to England, floated up from the street. ] and proceed with the investigai- "At least," I said, "it would tion." mean getting out of here." "You don't get the idea," I CHAPTER V said. "You can arrange things by mail so we get our hands on IT was almost sundown when that dough of yours— Foster and I pushed through "Any such attempt would mere- the door to the saloon bar at the ly bring the police down on us," Ancient Sinner and found a cor- Foster said. "You've already ner table. I ordered a pint of pointed out the unwisdom of at- mild-^nd-bitter and watched tempting to pass myself off as Foster spread out his maps and myself." papers. Behind us, there was a " "There ought to be a way murmur of conversation, and the I said. thump of dai-ts against a board.

40 AMAZING STORIES :

"When are you going to give make life a lot easier for me if lip and admit we're wasting our you'd let me rule out a few items time?" I said. "Two weeks of —^like leprechauns who hang out tramping over the same ground, at StoTiehenge." and we end up in the same place Foster looked at me, half-smil- sitting in a country pub drink- ing. It had only been a few weeks ing warm beer." since he woke up from a nap "We've hardly begun our in- looking like a senior class presi- vestigation," Foster said mildly. dent who hadn't made up his "You keep saying that," I said. mind whether to be a preacher or "But if there ever was anything a movie star but he had already in that rock-pile, it's long gone. lost that mikl, innocent air. He The archaeologists have been dig- learned fast, and day by day I ging over the site for years, and had seen his old personality re- they haven't come up with any- emerge and—in spite of my at- thing." tempts to hold onto the ascend- "They didn't know what to ency—dominate our partnership. look for," Foster said. "They "It's a failing of your culture." were searching for indications of Foster said, "that hypothesis be- religious significance, human sac- comes dogma almost overnight. riiice—^that sort of thing." You're too close to your neolithic, "We don't know what we're when the blind acceptance of looking for either," I said. "Un- tribal loi-e had survival value. less you think maybe we'll meet Having learned to evoke the fire the Hunters hiding under a loose god from sticks, by rote, you stone." tend to extend the principle to "You say that sardonically," all 'established facts'." Poster said. "But I don't consider "Here's an established fact for

it impossible." you," I said. "We've got fifteen "I know," I said, "You've con- pounds left—^that's about forty vinced yourself that the Hunters dollars. It's time we figured out were after us back at Mayport where to go from here, before when we ran off like a pair of somebody starts checking up on idiots." those phoney papers of ours." "From what you've told me of Foster shook hia head. "I'm not the circumstances—" Foster be- satisfied that we've exhausted gan. the possibilities here. I've been "I know; you don't consider it studying the geometric relation- impossible. That's the trouble ships between the various struc- with you; you don't consider tures; I have some ideas I i/faM anything impossible. It would to check. I think it might be a

A TRACE OF MfMORY 41 '

good idea to go out at night, "What's the matter—?" I when we can work without the started. usual crowd of tourists observ- Foster ignoi-ed me, waved to ing every move. We'll have a bite the proprietor, a short fat coun- to eat here and wait unlal dark tryman. He came over to the to start out." table, wiping his hands on his apron. T^HE publican brought us plates "A very interesting old build-j of cold meat and potato salad. ing," Foster said. "We've heet I worked on a thin but durable admiring it. When was it built?"! slice of ham and thought about "Well, sir," the publican saidj all the people, somewhere, who "This here house is a many were sitting down now to gra- hundred year old. It were built^ cious meals in the glitter of by the monks, they say, from^ crystal and silver. I was getting the monastery what used t0 farther from my island all the stand nearby here. It were, time— And it was nobody's fault down by the king's men, but mine. that was, what time Ive <

"The Ancient Sinner," I said papists out." "That's me." "That would be Henry Poster looked up. "Curious Eighth, I suppose?" names these old pubs have," he "Aye, it would that. And said. "I suppose in some cases the house is all that were spared, it origins are lost in antiquity." being the brewing-house, as th^ "Why don't they think up king said were a worthwhile in4 something cheery," I said. "Like stitution, and he laid on a tithe,] 'The Paradise Bar and Grill' or that two kegs of stout was to be 'The Happy Hour Cafe'. Did you laid by for the king's use eacl notice the sign hanging out- brewing time." side?" "Very interesting," Fostei "No." said. "Is the custom still "A picture of a skeleton. He's tinued?" holding one hand up like a Yan- The publican shook his head. kee evangelist prophesying "It were ended in my granfer's doom. You can see it through the time, it being that the queen window there." were a tee-totaller." Foster turned and looked out "How did it acquire the curious at the weathered sign creaking name—'the Ancient Sinner'?" in the evening wind. He looked "The tale is," the publican at it for a long time. There was a said, "that one day a lay brother strange look aroand his eyes. of the order were digging about

42 AMAZING STORIES yonder on the plain by the great Stonehenge," the publican said. stones, in search of the Druid's He picked up the empty glasses. treasure, albeit the Abbott had "What about another, gentle- forbid Mm to go nigh the heal^- men r' en ground, and he come on the "Certainly," Foster said. He bones of a man, and being of a sat quietly across fi-om me, his kindly turn, he had the thought features composed—but I could to give them Christian burial. see there was tension under the Now, knowing the Abbott would surface calm.

:ie permit it, he set to work to "What's this all about?" I iig a grave by moonlight in holy asked softly. "When did you get ground, under the monastery so interested in local history?" walls. But the Abbott, being "Later," Foster murmured. wakeful, were abroad and come "Keep looking bored." on the brother a-digging, and "That'll be easy," I said. The

when he asked the why of it, the publican came back, placed lay brather having visions of heavy glass mugs before us. penances to burden him for "You were telling us about the many a day, he ups and tells the lay brother finding the bones," Abbott it were a ale cellar he Foster said. "You say they were were about digging, and the Ab- buried in Stonehenge?" bott, not being without wisdom, The imbMcan cleared his clapped him on the back, and throat, glanced sideways at Fos- went on his way. And so it was ter. the ale-house got built, and "The gentlemen wouldna be blessed by the Abbott, and with from the University now, I sup- it the bones that was laid away pose?" he said. under tiie floor beneath the ale- "Let's just say," Foster said casks." easily, smiling, "that we have a gi"eat interest in these bits of SO the ancient sinner is buried lore^—an interest supported by under the floor?" modest funds, of course." "Aye, so the tale goes, though The publican made a show of

I've not dug for him meself . But wiping at the rings on the table the house has been knowed by top. the name these four hundred "A costly business, I wager," year." he said. "Digging about in odd "Where was it you said the lay places and all. Now, knowing brother was digging?" where to dig; that's important, "On the plain yonder, by the I'll be bound." Druid's stones, what they call ' "Very important," Foster said.

A TRACE OF A/ffiMORY 43 "

"Worth five pounds, easily." The landlord dickered with "Twere my granfer told me of Foster for another five minutes the spot; took me out by moon- before he agreed to guide us to light, he did, and showed me the spot where the skeleton had where his granfer had showed been found, as soon as the pub him. Told me it were a fine great was closed for the night. He secret, the likes of which a sim- took the money and went back to ple man could well take pride the bar. in." "Now tell me," I began. "And an additional five pounds "Look at the sign-board again," as a token of my personal es- Foster said. I looked. The skull teem," Foster said. smiled, holding up a hand. The publican eyed me. "Well, a "I see it," I said. "But it does- secret as was handed down fath- n't explain why— you handed over er to son. . . our last buck "And, of course, my associate "Look at the hand," Foster wishes to express his esteem, said. "Look at the ring on the fin- too," Foster said. "Another five ger." pounds worth." I looked again. A heavy ring "That's all the esteem the was painted on the bony index budget will bear, Mr. Foster." I finger, with a pattern of concen- said. I got out the fifteen pounds tric circles. It was a duplicate tod passed the money across to of the one on Foster's finger. him. "I hope you haven't for- "Don't drink too much," Fos- gotten those people back home ter said. "You may need your who wanted to talk to us. They'll wits about you tonight." be getting in touch with us any time now, I'll bet." THE publican pulled the bat tered Morris Minor to th FOSTER rolled up the bills and side of the highway and set th held them in his hand. "That's brake. true, Mr. Legion," he said. "Per- "This is as close as we bes haps we shouldn't take the take the machine," he said. W ." time. . . got out, looked across the rollin "But being it's for the ad- plain where the megaliths o vancement of science," the pub- Stonehenge loomed against th lican said, "I'm willing to make last glow of sunset. the sacrifice." The publican rununaged in "We'll want to go out tonight," the boot, produced a ragged Foster said. "We have a very blanket and two long four-cell tight schedule." flashligfats, gave one to Foster

44 AMAZING STORIE and tbe other to me. "Do nae use "What's to keep him from just the electric torches until I tell pointing to a spot after awliile," ye," he said, "lest the whole I said to Foster, "and saying county see thete's folks abroad This is it'?" here." We watched as he draped "We'll wait and see," Foster the blanket over a barbed-wire said. -fence, clambered over, and start- "They were a hollow, as it ed across the barren field. Foster were, in the earth," the publican and I followed, not talking. said, "with a bit of stone by it. The plain was deserted. A I reckon it we^e fifty paces from — " lonely light showed on a distant here " he pointed, —yonder." slope. It was a dark night with "I don't see anything," I said. no moon. I could hardly see the "Let's take a closer look." Fos- ground ahead. A car moved ter started off and I followed, along a distant road, its head- the publican trailing behind. I lights bobbing. made out a dim shape, with a We moved past the outer ring d0sj^- depression in the earth he^

if stones, skirting fallen slabs fore it. iwenty feet long. "This could be the spot," Fos- "We'll break our necks," I ter said. "Old graves often sink said. "Let's have one of the flash- lights." "Not yet," Foster whispered. SUDDENLY he grabbed my Our guide paused; we came arm. "Look ... !" up to him. The surface of the ground be- "It were a mortal long time fore us seemed to tremble, then since I were last hereabouts," he heave. Poster snapped on his said. "I best take me bearings flashlight. The earth at the bot- ." off the Friar's Heel. .. . tom of the hollow rose, cracked "What's that?" open. A boiling mass of lumi- "Yon great stone, standing self, rose, bumbling along the alone in the Avenue." We squint- face of the weathered stone. ed; it was barely visible as a "Saints preserve us," the pub- dark shape against the sky. lican said in a choked voice. Fos- "The bones were buried ter and I stood, rooted to the there?" Foster asked. spot, watching. The lone globe "Nay; all by theirself, they rose higher—and abruptly shot was. Now it were twenty paces, straight toward us. Foster threw granfer said, him bein fifteen up an arm and ducked. The ball ." stone and long in the leg- . . of light veered, struck him a The publican muttered. glueing blow and darted off a

A TRACE OF MEMORY 45 few yards, hovered. In an in- around both of us, but it wai stant, the air was alive with the Foster they went for. I though spheres, boiling up from the of the. slab; if I could get my ground, and hurtling toward us, back to it, I might have a chance. buzzing like a hive of yellow- I stooped, got a grip on Foster's jackets. Foster's flashlight coat, and started back, drag- lanced out toward the swarm. ging him. The lights boile<

"Use your light, Legion!" he around me. I swept the beam oi shouted hoarsely. I was still light and kept going until mj standing, frozen. The globes back slammed against the ston< rushed straight at Foster, ig- I crouched against it. Now the; noring me. Behind me, I heard could only come from the front the publican turn and run, I I glanced at the cleft th( fumbled with the flashlight lights had come from. It looket switch, snapped it on, swung the big enough to get Foster intq beam of white light on Foster. That would give him some prd The globe at his head vanished tection. I tumbled him over th( as the light touched it. More edge, then flattened my bad globes swarmed to Foster—and against the slab and settled dowt popped like soap bubbles in the to fight in earnest. flashlight's glare—but more I worked in a pattern, sweep swarmed to take their place. ing vertically, then horizontally Foster reeled, fighting at them. The globes ignored me, drov He swung the light—and I heard toward the cleft, fighting to ge it smash against the stone be- at Foster, and I swept thea hind him. In the instant dark- away as they came. The clou ness, the globes clustered thick around me was smaller now, tl around his head. attack less ravenous. I picke "Foster," I yelled, "run!" out individual globes, snuffe He got no more than five them out. The hum became raj yards before he staggered, went ged, faltered. Then there wei to his knees. "Cover," he croaked. only a few globes around m( He fell on his face. I rushed the milling wildly, disorganized. Th mass of darting globes, took up a last half dozen fled, bumblin; stance straddling his body. A away across the plain. sulphurous reek hung around I slumped against the rocli me. I coughed, concentrated on sweat running down into mj beaming the lights around Fos- eyes, my lungs burning with th ter's head. No more were rising sulphur. from the crack in the earth now. "Foster," I gasped. "Are yoii A suffocating cloud pressed all right?"

46 AMAZING STORIE "

He didn't ans\cer. I flashed "The Hunters—they burst out

I lie light onto the cleft. It showed of the ground—from a cleft in "II' damp clay, a few pebbles. the earth." p-Qster was gona "That's right. You were half- way into the hole. I guess thafs CHAPTQt Vi where they were hiding." SCRAMBLED to the edge of "The Pit of tiie Hunters," j ' the pit, played the light Foster said. round inside. It shelved back "If you say so," I said. "Lucky

' (ine side, and a dark mouth you didn't go down it." 'lowed, sloping down into the "Legion, give me the flash- lith: the hiding place the light." I'Idbes had swarmed from. "I feel something coming on Foster was wedged in the that I'm not going to like," I lu ning. I scrambled down be- said. I handed him the light and I'ie him, tagged him back to he flashed it into the tunnel

N \ el ground. He was still breath- mouth. I saw a polished roof of ng; that was something. black glass arching four feet I wondered if the pUb owner over the rubble-strewn bottom unuld come back, now that the of the shaft. A stone, dislodged lights were gone—or if he'd tell by my movement, clattered away iomeone what had happened, down the 30° slope. iiring out a search party. Soine- "That tunnel's man-made," I iiow, I doubted it. He didn't said. "And I don't mean neolithic if'om like the type to ask for trou- man." lilu with the ghosts of ancient "Legion, we'll have to see •dinners. what's down there," Foster said. Foster groaned, opened his "We could come back later,

' vcs. "Where are . . . they?" with ropes and big insurance lie muttered. policies," I said. "Take it easy, Foster," I said. "But we won't," said Foster. You're OK now.'^ "We've found what we were "Legion," Foster said. He looking for-—

I l ied to sit up. "The Hunters "Sure," I said, "and it serves us right. Are you sure you feel "I worked them over with the good enoagh to make like Alice

I ishlights. They're gone." aad the White Kaibbtt r ." 'That means . . "I'm sure. Let's go." "Let's not worry about what

I I means. Let's just get oiit sf FOSTER thrust his legs into iKM-e." the @p&ntig, slid over the

A TRACE OF MEMORY 47 " "

edge, disappeared. I followed relics," I said. "But if that's no

him. I eased down a few feet, a radar screen, I'll eat it." glanced back for a last look at I sat down in the single chair the night sky, then lost my grip before the dusty control co:i, and slid. I hit bottom hard sole, and watched a red bli. nough to knock the wind out of creep across the screen. Foste me, and found myself lying on a stood behind me. level iloor. "We owe a debt to that An- "What is this place?" I dug cient Sinner," he said. "Who

the flashlight out of the rubble, would have dreamed he'd lea J flashed it around. We <^ere in a us here?" low-ceilinged room ten yards "Ancient Sinner, Hell," I said. square. I saw smooth walls, the "This place is as modernistic as :,dark bulks of massive shapes next year's juke box." that made me think of sareo- "Look at the symbols on phagi in Egyptian burial vaults machines," Foster said. "TheyVi —except that these threw back identical with those in the first highlights from dials and lev- section of the Journal." ers. "All pot-hooks look alike to "For a couple of guys who me," I said. "It's this screen get shy in the company of cops," that's got me worried. If I've I said, "we've got a talent for got it doped out correctly, that doing the wrong thing. This is blip is either a mighty slow air- £ome kind of Top Secret mili- plane—or it's at one hell of an tary installation." altitude." "Impo.ssible." Foster replied. "Modern aircraft operate at "Thi.s couldn't be a modern great heights," Foster said. structure, at the bottom of a "Not at this height," I said. rubble-filled shaft— "Give me a few more minutes to ." "Let's get out of here, fast," I study these scales. . . said. "We've probably set off an "There are a number of con- alarm already." trols here," Foster said. "Obvi- As if in answer, a low chime ously intended to activate mech- ut across our talk. Pearly light anisms— sprang up on a square panel. I "Don't touch 'em," I said. got to my feet, moved over to "Unless you want to start World stare at it. Poster came to my War III." side. "I hardly think the results "What do you make of it?" he would be so drastic," Foster said. said. "Surely this installation "I'm no expert on stone-age has a simple purpose, uncon-

48 AMAZING STORIES " — —

nected with modern wars—but A few weeks ago Umt it very possibly connected with the again. Is that the picture?" mystery of the Joumal-^and of "More or less." nay own past," "And now we're a couple of hundred feet under Stonehenge I^HE less we know about this, after a brush with a crowd of the better," I said. "At least, luininous stinkbombs—and if we don't mess with anything, you're telling me you'll be nine we can always claim we just hundred on your next birthday." stepped in here to get out of the "Remember the entry in the rain— jourpal. Legion? 'I came to the "You're forgetting the Hunt- place of the Hunters, and it was ers," Foster said. a place I knew of old, and there "Some new anti-personnel was no hive, but a Pit built by .'." gimmick," I said. men of the Two worlds . . ,

N "They came out of this shaft, "Okay," I . said. "So you'r" Legion. It was opened by the pushing a thousand. pressure of the Hunters, burst- I glanced at the screen, got ing out." out a scrap of paper, and scrib- "Why did they pick that pre- bled a rapid calculation. "Here's cise moment—^just as we ar- another big number for yoa. rived?" I asked. That object on the screen is at "I think they were aroused," an altitude—give or take a few Foster said. "I think they sensed percent—of thirty thousand the presence of their ancient miles." foe." I swung around to look at 1 TOSSED the pencil aside, him. swung around to frown at "I see the way your thoughts Foster. "What are we mixed up are running," I said. "You're in, Foster? Not that I really their Ancient Foe, now, huh? want to know. I'm ready to go to Just let me get this straight: a nice clean jail now, and pay my that means that umpteen hun- debt to society—" dred years ago, you personally, "Calm down. Legion," Foster had a fight with the Hunters said. "You're raving." here at Stonehenge. You killed a "OK," I said, turning back to batch of them and ran. You hired the screen. "You're the boss. Do some kind of Viking ship and what you like. It's just my re- crossed the Atlanic. Later on, flexes wanting to run, I've got no you lost your memory, and start- place to run to. At least with ed being a guy named Foster. you I've always got the wild

A TRACE OF MEMORY 49. ;,

hope that maybe you're not com- mouth and lay on my bac| pletely nuts, and that some- breathing hard. Foster gro| how—" his way out beside me. I sat upi-ight, eyes on the "We'll have to get to the hig screen. "Look at this, Foster," I way," I said, untying the tea snapped. A pattern of dots foot rope of ripped gannent flashed across the screen, faded, that had linked us during thM flashed again ... climb. "There's a telephone al "Some kind of IFF," I said. the pub; we'll notify the au- "A recognition signal. I won- thorities ..." I glanced up. der what we're supposed to do "Hold it," I said. I grabbedj now." Foster's arm and pointed over^^ Foster watched the screen, head. "What's that?" saying nothing. Foster looked up. A brilliant "I don't like that thing blink- point of blue light, brighte ing at us," I said. "It makes me than a star, grew perceptibly as' feel conspicuous." I looked at the we watched. big red button beside the screen. "Maybe we won't get to notify .." "Maybe if I pushed that . anybody after all," I said. "I Without waiting to think it think that's our bomb—coming over, I jabbed at it. home to roost." A yellow light blinked on the "That's illogical," Fester said. control panel. On the screen, the "The installation would hardly pattern of dots vanished. The be arranged merely to destroy| red blip separated, a smaller itself in so complex a manner.'' blip moving off at right angles to "Let's get out of here." I the main mass. yelled. "I'm not sure you should have "It's approaching us very rap- done that," Foster said. idly," Foster said. "The dis- "There is room for doubt," I tance we could run in the next said in a strained voice. "It looks few minutes would be trivial by like I've launched a bomb from comparison with the killing ra- the ship overhead." dius of a modern bomb. We'll;

be safer sheltered in the cleft ^ y^l-iMHE climb back up the tunnel than in the open." * took three hours, and every "We could slide back down the foot of the way I was listening to tunnel," I said.

t& refrain in my head : This may "And be buried?" 'be it; this may be it; this may "You're right; I'd rather fry

be it . . . on the surface." I crawled out of the tunnel We crouched, watching the

50 AMAZING STORIES " " " —

blue glare directly overhead, silhouetted against the II.kkI of grpwing larger, brighter. I could blue radiance; then abruptly, see Foster's face by its light the glare faded and died. now. "Foster," I said. "Do— you "That's no bomb," Foster said. think it's barely possible "It's not falling; it's coming A slit of yellow light appeared — on the side of the hull, widened down slowly . . . like a "Like a slowly falling bomb," to a square. A ladder eirteiided

I said. "And it's coming right itself, dropping down to touch down on top of us. Goodbye, the ground. Foster. I can't claim it's been "If somebody with tentacles fun knowing you, but it's been starts down that ladder," I said, different. We'll feel the heat any in an unnaturally shriH voice, second now. I hope it's fast." "I'm getting out of here." The glaring disc was the size "No one will emerge," Foster of the full moon now, unbear- said quietly. "I think we'll find. ably bright. It lit the plain like Legion, that this ship of space a pale blue sun. There was no is at our disposal." sound. As it dropped lower, the going aboard disc fore-shoi-tened and I could I'M not that see a dark shape above it, dinaly thing," I said. "I'm not sure of in this world, lit by the glare thrown bade much but I'm sure from the ground. of that." said, "The thing is the size of a "Legion," Foster "this is ferry boat," I said. no twentieth century military "It's going to miss us," Fos- vessel. It obviously homed on ter said. "It will come to ground the transmitter in the under- to the east of us." ground station, which appears to We watched the slender shape be directly under the old monu- dreamlike slow- ment—which is several thousand float down with — ness, now five hundred feet years old above, now three hundred, then "And I'm supposed to believe hovering just above the giant the ship has been orbiting the stones. Earth for the last few thousand "It's coming down smack on years, waiting for someone to top of Stonehenge," I yelled. push the red button? You call that logical?" WE watched as the vessel set- "Given permanent materials tled into place dead center —such as those the notebook is on the ancient ring of stones. For made of—it's not iinpossible a moment they were vividly or even difficult." A TRACE OF MEMORY 51 AMAZING STORJES — —" "— " "

"We got out of the tunnel Two long lines of Arc trncitd alive," I said. "Let's settle for themselves across the sky, curv* that." ing down "We're on the verge of solving I hit the dirt behind the nton* a mystery that goes back in the same instant the rooketn through 'the centuries," Foatisr struck. The shock Wave slammed said. "A mystery that I've pur- at the earth like a monster sued, if I understand the Jour- thunderclap, and I saw the tun- nal, through many lifetimes— nel mouth collapse. I twisted, "One thing about losing your saw the red interior of the jet memory," I said. "You don't tail-pipe as the fighter hurtled have any fixed ideas to get in past, rolling into a climbing the way of your theories." turn. Foster smiled grimly. "The "They're— crazy," I yelled. "Fir- trail has brought us here. I must ing on follow it—^wherever it leads." A second barrage blasted I lay on the ground, staring across my indignation. I hugged up at the unbelievable shape, the muck and waited while nine and the beckoning square of salvoes shook the earth. Then light. "This ship—or whatever the rumble died, reluctantly.

it is," . I said : "It drops down The air reeked of high explo- out of nowhere, and opens its sives. doors—and you want to walk "We'd have been dead noAV if " right into the cosy interior we'd tried the tunnel," I gasped, "Listen I" Foster cut in. spitting dirt. "It caved at the first rocket. And if the ship was r HEARD a low rumbling pen, what you thought, Foster, -L a sound that rolled ominous- they've destroyed something— ly, like distant guns. The sentenfce died unnoticed. "More ships—" I started. The dust was settling and "Jet aircraft," Foster said. through it the shape of the ship "From the bases in East Anglia reared up, unchanged except probably. Of course, they'll have that the square of light was " tracked our ship in gone. As I watched, the door "That's all for me!" I yelled, opened again and the ladder ran getting to my feet. "The secret's out once more, invitingly. out^" "They'll try next time with "Get down. Legion," Foster atomics," I said. "That may be shouted. The engines were a too much for the ship's defenses blanketing roar now. —and it will sure as hell be too "What for? They—" much for us—

A TRACE OF MEMORY 53 —

"Listen," Foster cut in. A chamber. It showed a curved deeper rumble was btrildliig in white line, with a red point as- the distance. cending from it. "To the ship I" Fost^ called. "We're clear," Foster said. He was up and running, and I "We've made a successfful take- hesitated just long enough to off." think about trying for the high- "But we can't be moving way and being caught in the there's no acceleration. There pen—^and then I was rnJining, must be sonnd-preofiog—that's too. Ahead, Foster stumbled why we can't heanthe noise of the crossing the ground that had bombers. been ripped up by the rocket "No sound-proofing would " ursts, made it to the ladder, and help if we were at ground zero," ent up it fast. The growl ©f the Poster said. "This ship is the approaching bombers grew, a product of an advanced science. snarl of deadly hatred. I leaped We've left the bombers far be- a still-smoking stone fragment, hind." took the ladder in two jumps, "Where are we going? Who's plunged into the yellow-lit inte- steering this thing?" rior. Behind me, the door "It steers itself, I would smacked shut. judge," Foster said. "I don't kiiow where we're going, but I WAS standing in a luxurious- we're well on the way. There's no ^

ly fitted circular room. There doubting that." . was a pedestal in the center of I looked at him in amazement. the floor, from which a polished "You like this, don't you, Foster? ar projected. The bones of a You're having the time of your man lay beside it. While I stared, life." Foster sprang forward, seized "I can't deny that I'm de- the bar, and pulled. It slid back lighted at this turn of events,'' asily. The lights flickered, and Foster said. "Don't you see ? This I had a moment df vertigo. vessel is a launch, or lifeboat, Nothing else happened. under automatic control. And "Try it the other way," I it's taking us to the mother elled. —"The bombs will fall any ship." Md " I went for it, hand "Okay, Foster," I said. "I'm ..retched. Foster thrust in with you." I looked at the skele- front of me. "Look!" ton on the floor behind him, and

I stared at the glowing panel added ; "But I sure hope we have e was pointing to—a duplicate better luck than the last passffla- f the one in the 'unSergrouM ger."

i«sMAZING STORIES —

CHAPTER VII "Thi« Is your Mg moment, isn't it'.'" I Hiiid. "I'\c Ki'l to IT was two hours later, and hand it to you, pal; you've won Foster and I stood silent be- out by pluck." fore a ten-foot screen that had The ship appeared to move glowed into life when I touched smoothly closer, looming over

a silver button beside it. It us, fine golden lines of lUvorii showed us a vast emptiness of tive filigree work visible now bottomless black, set thick with against the black. A tiny square corruscating points of poly- of pale light appeared, gn'w in chrome brilliance that hurt to to a huge bay door that swal- look at. And against that back- lowed us. drop: a ship, vast beyond imag- The screen went dark, there ining, blotting out half the ti- was a gentle jar, then motion- tanic vista with its bulk lessness. The port opened, si- But dead. lently. Even from the distance of "We've arrived," Foster said. miles, I could sense it. The great "Shall we step out and have a black torpedo shape, dull moon- look?" lig-ht g-linting along the unbe- "I wouldn't think of goinp lievable length of its sleek flank, back without one," I said. I fol- drifted: a derelict. I wondered lowed him out and stopped dead, for how many centuries it had gaping. I had expected an empty waited here—and for what? hold, bare metal walls. Instead, "I feel," said Foster, "some- I found a vaulted cavern, shad- how—I'm coming home." 9wed, mysterious, rich with a I. tried to say something, thousand colors. There was a croaked, cleared my throat. hint of strange perfume in the

"If this is your jitney," I air, and I heard low music thai said, "I hope they didn't leave muttered among stalagmite-like the meter ticking on you. We're buttresses. There were pools, broke." playing fountains, waterfalls,

"We're closing rapidly," said dim vistas stretching away, lit Foster. "Another ten minutes, by slanting rays of muted sun- " I'd guess . . light.

"How do we go about heaving "What kind of place is it?" 1 to, alongside? You didn't come asked. "It's like a fairyland, or across a book of instructions, a dream." did you?" "It's not an earthly scheme of "I think I can predict that the decoration," Foster said, "but I approach will be automatic." find it strangely pleasing."

A TRACE OF MEMORY 55 " "

HEY, look over there," I yelped "Have you stopped to thinJc, suddenly, pointing. An emp- Foster," I said, fingering a ty-eyed skull stared past me length of rose-violet cloth as from the shadows at the base of thin as woven spider webs. "This a column. boat's a treasure-house of mar- Poster went over to the sfcoH, ketable items. Talk —about the stood looking down at it. wealth of the Indies "There was a disaster here," "I seek only one thing here, he said. "That much is plain." my friend," Foster said; "my "It's creepy," I said. "Let's go past." back ; I forgot to get film for my "Sure," I said. "But just in Brownie." case you don't find it, you might "The long-dead pose no consider the business angle. We threat," said Foster. He was can set up a regular shuttle kneeling, looking at the white rum hauling stuff down— bones. He picked up something, '/You Earthmen," sighed Pos-

stared at it. "Look, Legion." ter. "For you, every new experi- I went over. Foster held up a ence is immediately assessed in ring. terms of its merchandising pos- "We're onto something hot, sibilities. Well, I leave that to pal," I said. "It's the twin to J'OU." yours." "Okay okay," I said. "You go

"I wonder . . . who he was." on ahead and scout around dovra I shook my head. "If we knew that way, if you want—^where that—and who killed him—or the technical-looking stuff is. I what—" want to browse around here for "Let's go on. The answers a while." must be here somewhere." Fos- "As you wish." ter moved off toward a corridor "We'll meet at this emd of the that reminded me of a sunny big hall we passed back there. avenue lined with chestnut trees Okay?" —-thoagh there were no trees, Foster nodded and went on. I and no sun. I followed, gaping. turned to a bin filled with what For hours we wandered, look- looked like unset emeralds the ing, touching, not saying much size of walnuts. I picked up a but saturated in wonder, like handful, juggled them lovingly. kids in a toy factory. We came "Anyone for marbles?" I mur- across another skeleton, lying mured to myself. among towering engines. Finally we paused in a giant storeroom HOURS later I came along a stacked high with supplies. corridor that was like a

56 AMAZING STORIES —

path through a garden that was Foster looked across at the a forest, crossed a ballrooKV like panoramic shot of a procession a meadow floored in fine-grained of shaven-headed men in white rust-red wood and shaded by sarongs, carrying a miniature giant ferns, and went under an golden boat on their shoulders, arch into the hall where Foster descending a long flight of white sat at a long table cut from yel- stone steps leading from a col- low marble. A light the color of lonade of heroic human figures sunrise gleamed through tall with folded arms and painted pseudo-windows. faces. In the background, brick-

, I dumped an armful of books red cliffs loomed up, baked in on the table. "Look at these," I desert heat. said. "All made fxoxQ the same "That's the temple of Hat- stuff as the Journal. And the Shepsut in its prime," I said. ." pictui-es. . . "Which makes this print close to I flipped open one of the four thousand years old. Here's books, a heavy folio-sized vol- another I recognize." I turned ume, to a double-page spread in to a smaller, aerial view, show- color showing a group of beard- ing a gigantic pyramid, its pol- ed Arabs in dingy white djella- ished stone facing chipped in bas staring toward the camera, a places and with a few panels flock of thin goats in the back- missing from the lower levels, ground. It looked like the kind revealing the cruder structure of picture the National Geo- of massive blocks beneath. graphic runs, except that the "That's one of the major quality of the color and detail pyramids, maybe Khufu's," I was equal to the best color said. "It was already a couple transparencies. thousand years old, and falling "I can't read the print," I into disrepair. And look at this said, "but I'm a whiz at looking —" I opened another volume, at pictures. Most of the books showed Foster a vivid photo- show scenes like I hope I never graph of a great shaggy ele^ see in the flesh, but I foxmd a phant with a pinkish trunk up- few that were made on Earth raised between wide-curving God knows how long ago." yellow tusks. "Travel books, perhaps," Fos- "A mastodon," I said. "And ter said. there's a woolly rhino, and am "Travel books that you could ugly-looking critter that must sell to any university on Earth be a sabre-tooth. This book is ." for their next year's budget. Take old . . a look at this one." "A lifetime of rummaging A TRACE OF MEMORY 5 wouldn't exhaust the treasures "I was in some kind of power- aboard this ship," said Foster. house," I said. "There was some- ." — . . "How about bones? Did you thing wrong with ^with . find any more?" "The Quaternary field ampli- Foster nodded. "There was a fiers," Foster said. disaster of some sort. Perhaps "I seemed to be right there," disease. None of the bones was I said. "I understood exactly broken." what it was all about." "These are technical manu- I CAN'T figure fl» one in Hxe als," Foster said. "They'll tell us life-boat," I said. "Why was everj^hing we need to know he wearing a necklace of bear's about the ship." teeth?" I sat down across from "I was thinking about what I Foster. "We've got plenty of was getting ready to do," I said, mysteries to solve, all right, but "the way you do when you're there are some other items we'd starting into a job; I was trou- better talk about. For in^ance: ble-shooting the Quaternary Where's the Mtehen ? I'm getting' whatzits—and I kxiew how. ..." hungry." Foster got to his feet and Foster handed me a black rod moved toward the doorway. from among several that lay on "We'll have to start at one end the table. "I think this may be of the library and work our way important," he said. through," he said. "It will take "What is it ? a chop stick?" us awhile, but we'll get the facts '"Touch it to your head, above we need. Then we can plan." the ear." "What does it do—give you a FOSTER picked a handful of massage?" I pressed it to my briefing rods from the racks temple . . . in the comfortably furnished li- I was in a grey^aUed room, brary and started in. The first facing a towering surface of thing we needed was a clue as ribbed metal. I reached out, to where to look for food and placed my hands over the proper beds, or for operating instruc- perforations. The homings tions for the ship itself. I hoped 0pened. For apparent malfunc- we might find the equivalent of 'on in the quaternary field am- a library card-catalog; then we jMfiers, I knew, auto-inspection could put our hands on what we circuit override was necessary wanted in a hurry. before activation — I went to the far end of the I blinked, looked around at the first rack and spotted a short in my hand. row of red rods that stood out

AAAAZING STORIES : : —

vividly among the black ones. I Needing a xivometer, I keyed took one out, thought it over, de- instruction^complex One, fol- cided it was unlikely that it was lowed with the code— any more dangerous than the others, and put it agaiaist my THREE rods further along, I temple . . . got this: As the bells mng, I applied The situation falling outside neuro-vascidar tension, sv^ my area of primary condition- pressed corticcd areas u^sUon- ing, I reported in eorpo to Tech- zeta and iota, and stood by for— nical Briefing, Level Nine, Sec- I jerked the rod from my tion Four, Sub-section Twelve, head, my ears still ringing with Preliminary. I recalled that it the shrill alarm. The effect of was now necessary to supply my the rods was like reality itself, aeUvity mde . . . my activity but intensified, all attention fo- code . . . my activity code . . . cussed single-mindedly on the (A sensation of disorientation experience at hand. I thought of grew; confused images flickered the entertainment potentialities like vague ba^kgrcmdrMoise; of the idea. You could kill a then a clear voice cut in:) tiger, ride an airplane down in YOU HAVE SUFFERED flames, face the heavyweight PARTIAL PERSONALITY- champion^— I wondered about FADE. DO NOT BE ALARMED. the stronger sensations, Wsb SELECT A GENERAL BACK- pain and fear. Would they seem GROUND ORIENTATION ROD as real as the impulse to check FROM THE NEAREST EMER- the whatchamacallits or tighten ENCY RACK. ITS LOCATION up your cortical thingamajigs? IS . . . I tried another rod. I was moving along the stacks, At the sound of the apex- to pause, in front of a niche tone, I racked instruments, where a U-shaped plastic strip walked, not ran, to the newrest was djam^ed to the wall. J re- transfer-channel— moved it, fitted it to my hetpd— Another {Then:) I was moving along Having assumed duty as Alert the stacks, to pause in front of a Officer, I reported first to coordi- niche— nation Control via short-line, I was leaning against the and confirmed rapport— wall, my head humming. The These were routine SOP's cov- red stick lay on the floor at my ering simple situations aboard feet. That last bit had been po- ship. I skipped a few, tried tent: something about a general again baekground briefisg

A TRACE OF MEMORY 59 "Hey, Foster!" I called, "1 faded personality touched up. ." think I've got something . . And his full-blown, three-di- "As I see it," I said, "this mensional personality was what background briefing should tell we needed to give us the an- us all we need to know about the swers to a lot of the questions ship; then we can plan our next we'd been asking. Though the move more intelligently. We'll ship and everything in it had know what we're doing." I took lain unused and silent for forgot- the thing from the wall, just as I ten millenia, still the library had seemed to do in the phantom should be good. The librarian scene the red rod had projected was gone from his post these for me. thirty centuries, and Foster was "These things make me dizzy," lying unconscious, and I was I said, handing it to Poster. thirty thousand miles from home "Anyway, you're the logical one —but I shouldn't let trifles like to try it." that worry me . . . He took the plastic shape, went to the reclining seat at the I GOT up and prowled the room. near end of the library hall, and There wasn't much to look at settled himself. "I have an idea except stacks and more stacks. this one will hit harder than the The knowledge stored here was others," he said. fantastic, both in magnitude He fitted the clamp to his and character. If I ever got home head and . . . instantly his eyes with a load of these rods . . . gla^; he slumped back, limp. I strolled through a door lead- "Foster!" I yelled. I jumped ing to another room. It was forward, started to pnll the plas- small, functional, dimly lit. The tic piece from his head, then middle of the room was occupied hesitated. Maybe Foster's abrupt by a large and elaborate divan reaction was standard procedure. with a cap-shaped fitting at one In any case whatever harm this end. Other curious accoutre- gadget could do to Foster's ments were ranked along the brain had already been done. walls.. There wasn't much in I might as well let the process them to thrill me. But bone- take its course. But I didn't wise I had hit the jackpot. like it much. Two skeletons lay near the I went on reasoning with my- door, in the final slump of death. self. After all, this was what the Another lay beside the fancy red rod had indicated as normal couch. There was a long-bladed procedure in a given emergency. dagger beside it. Foster was merely having his I squatted beside the two near

AMAZING STORIES the door and examined thesi were spidery-looking metal arms closely. As far as I could tell, mounted above it, and a series they were as human as I was. of colored glass lenses. A row of I wondered what kind of men dull silver cylinders was racked they had been, what kind of against the wall. Another pro- world they had come from, that jected from a socket at the side could build a ship like this and of the machine. I took it out and stock it as it was stocked. looked at it. It was of plain The dagger that lay near the pewter-colored plastic, heavy other bones was interesting: it and amooth. I felt pretty sure it seemed to be made of a trans- was a close cousin to the chop parent orange metal, and its hilt sticks stored in the library. I was stamped m a repeated pat- wondered what brand of informa- tern of the Two Worlds mjotif. tion was recorded in it as I It was the first clue as to what dropped it in my pocket. had taken place among these I lit a cigarette and went back men when they last lived: not a oat to where Foster lay. He was complete clue, but a start. still in the same position as when I took a closer look at an ap- I had left him. I sat down on the paratus like a dentist's ebair fiflor beside the couch to wait. parked against the wall. There (C<>ofmued next month)

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61 the Blonde from Barsoom

By ROBERT F. YOUNG

llliutroted by SUMMERS

file Tarks were tiftaek}ng, the bosomy princess

was clinging to hint in terror, and Harold Smith

realized he was at the end of his plot-line.

What a dilemma! And what an opportunity! I

FOE the most part, all Harold tagonists, he did have an unusu- Worthington Smith's Martian ally vivid imagination. Take this stories ever netted him were very minute, for instance: His standard rejection slips, but ev- main character—Thon Carther ery now and then one or another the Earthman—was standing on of the editors to whom he sub- the ocher moss of the Martian mitted them would pen him a dead-sea bottom beside the big- brief note to the effect that his breasted blond princess whom he writing indicated an unusually had rescued from Tarkia some vivid imagination. However, two thousand words ago, fear- they invariably added, his dia- lessly awaiting the oncoming logue was stilted, his heroines horde of Tarks. But it wasn't were diraensionally impossible, really Thon Carther who was and his stories were wish-fulfill- standing there, it was Harold ment reveries in a Burroughs Worthington Smith—a tall, vein—unredeemed, unfortunate- tanned and handsome Harold ly, by Burroughs' high-flown Worthington Smith, to be sure, puritanical idealism. but Harold Worthington Smith Harold agreed with them just the same. wholeheartedly on point no. 1. On points no. 2 and 3, however Thanks to his ability to achieve —^be it said forthwith—he did Jk0tal identification with his pro- not agree. He had, moreover,

written to the editors in question his sword. Clackety-claclc-clack. and said so. A Burroughs influ- The blond i>i'incess, who hailed ence, he had said, was an essen- from the triple cities of Hydro- tial ingredient in the makeup of gen and whose name was Thejah any science-fiction writer, and he Doris, moved closer to him, and was reasonably certain that he her golden shoulder brushed his didn't exhibit one any more than sinewy arm. A tingling phalanx half a dozen other scribes he of thrills charged up and down could name. And as for his hero- his backbone. Clack^clackety- ines being dimensionally impos- elack. Clack! ible, such an attitude merely "Fear not, my princess," he betrayed an inherent geocentric- said. "This noble sword has ism: simply because 46-21-46 tasted the blood of many a Tark females didn't exist on Earth and is keen for the taste of the was no reason to take it for blood of many more!" gi-ianted that they didn't exist on "My chieftain," she breathed,

Mars. ( He discreetly avoided any moving even closer. reference to point no. 4: there He hefted the big sword, and "were times when he wondered the rays of the declining sun out his dialogue himself.) danced brightly on its burnished surface. For all its size, it was as FT was a warm afternoMfln Au- light as a .yardstick in his big * gust. His wife had gone to brown masculine hand. The fore- visit her sister, giving him tem- most Tark rider was very close »rary respite from her nag- now. Startlingly close, Thon- ing, and there was no sound in Smith realized with a start—and he apartment except the steady startlingly realistic. The malevo- hum of the electric fan and the lent green features stood out sporadic clacking of the ancient with dismaying clarity, and the typewriter. Altogether it was one tusks of the elongated eyeteeth of those i^re moments when- it gleamed with terrifying vivid- was possible for his imagination ness. to take over completely. It was, Wildly Thon-Smith felt for his in fact, though he was not yet typewriter. Next he felt for his ware of it, the climactic mo- desk. Finally he looked around

ment ill his career as a creative him for the familiar walls of the writer. apartment. They, too, had disap- The Tark horde was rapidly peared. A shudder shot through elosing in, and Thon Carther/ his tall, tanned body. Something 'arold Worthington Smith de- awful had happened. 'ded it was high time he drew Something even more awful

AAAAZING STORIES —

was going to happen if he didn't Briefly he referred to his men- do something and do it soon, for tal synopsis of the plot. Oh, yea, the farks, looming building-tall there was an atmosphere boat astride their six-legged mounts, hidden in the mound of desic- were almost upon them. He re- cated algae before which his membered the plot just in time, leap had conveniently ter- and seizing Thejah Doris around miniated. (Another deus ex ma- her slender waist, he gave a eMna stratagem, he thought mighty leap that carried them with annoyance; but again he thanks to the tenuous Martian reminded himself that now was gravity—over the entire green no taaae to be quibbling over the horde to a resilient section of the literary aspects of the situation.) dead-sea bottom a hundred feet "Come, my princess," he said, behind the rearmost rider. It taking Thejah Doris' arm. !" was, he reflected, somewhat of a "Lead on, my chieftain deiis ex mackina stratagem now The atmosphere boat was that he came to think of it; but there, just as he had visualized now was no time to be hyper- it. After uncovering it, they eriticai boarded its narrow deck, and soon they were rising into the 'T'HE Tark horde had become a dariientng sky, once again L milling mass of chlorophyllic thwarting the Tarks, who had bodies, white tusks and squeal- reorganized their ranks and were ing mounts. The warriors in the charging with redoubled ferocity front ranks had tele-reined their toward the mound. toats before those in the middle Thejah Doris lay down beside ranks had wised up to what had him on the comfortable pilot's happened, and those in the rear couch. "At last we are alone!" ranks still hadn't wised lap. Cha- she breathed in her Martian- 0S reigned. Thon-Smith was not Hungarian accent. slow to take advantage of the Reconnaissance could wait, situation which he had so for- Thon-Smith decided quickly. tuitously provided. He was still There were worse fates after all upset over his missing typewrit- than writing oneself so complete- er, his missing desk, and his ly into one's stories that one missing apartment, not to men- could not extricate oneself. "My tion his missing civilization, but princess," he said, directing the there would be time for recon- prow of the atmosphere boat to- naissance later. Right now tkere ward the littoral of an ancient was the little matter of Escape continent and i^lpping his arm to be taken care of. beneath her bare shoulders.

THE BLONDE FROM BARSOOM. 65 Immediately there came a "But I cannot swim, my chief- frenzied scratching from the tain." small forward cabin, and before The externals did not call for he could even gain his feet a a leer at this point; nevertheless, great eight-legged creature with he had a hard time averting one, multi-fanged, slavering jaws "Fear not, my princess," he said. leaped upon him and began ca- "I, Thon Carther, will instruct ressing his face with its long you." tongue. His faithful Droola ! He They walked together to the winced. He'd forgotten all about bank and stood there hand in his faithful watchdog. But a plot hand. Behind them, Droola was a plot, and like any other leaped from the deck and went scheme of things you had to go romping up and down the es- along with it. "Droola," he said. planade. The nearer moon was "Good old faithful Droola!" high in the sky now, and the farther moon was just beginning PRESENTLY the nearer moon to show above the hills. "First," *- appeared and began its hurt- Thon-Smith said, "we must re- ling journey across the night move our accouterments. They sky. Stars winked into cold clean will weigh us down in the water brightness. The atmosphere boat and make movement v/eH nigh reached the mainland, floated impossible." over shadow-filled ravines and "All of them, my chieftain?" moon-kissed hilltops. The argent "Yes, my princess, all of ribbon of a canal showed in the them." distance. She raised her hand to the Thon-Smith's heartbeat quick- gossamer thread that held her ened as he thought of the next Martian equivalent of a halter in sequence. He could hardly wait place. Abruptly the muffled thun- till the canal was beneath them, der of padded toat hooves sound- till the time came to guide the ed in the distance. boat down to the argent sward Her hand dropped like a stone. that bordered the farther bank. "The Tarks!" she cried. "Oh, He stepped lightly down to the my chieftain, the mortal enemies soft turf and lifted Thejah Doris of my people are close upon our down beside him. He answered heels!" her questioning eyes: "A swim He choked back his disap- will refresh us, my princess- It pointment. How could he have will sharpen our senses and re- forgotten? He, the author, the double our chances of eluding creator ! "Quickly," he said, seiz- our persistent pursuers." ing her arm. "Into the atmos-

66 AMAZING STORIES phere boat. The canal willaot done so when Droola, still shiv- stop them!" ering from the wind of fast- flight, bounded forward arid BY the time they gained the snuggled between them. deck the foremost rank of The interruption was essential the Tark horde had reached the to the story's word count, but opposite bank. The green war- just the same it was frustrating. riors did not panse for so much Even Thejah Doris looked put as a second, but goaded their out, though she didn't say any- mounts into the water. Once in thing. Instead, she turned and the canal, Tark and toat became reclined upon her back, hands as one, and the horde took on the clasped behind her head, and let aspect of a school of gigantic the two moons vie with one an- green porpoises, leaping in and other to do justice to her charms. out of the water with incredible It was an interesting contest to swiftness, reaching the other watch, and soon Thon-Smith be- bank in a matter of minutes. But came engrossed. He became so by then Thon-Smith and Thejah engrossed, in fact, that he failed Doris were rising once again into to see the tower till it was too the night sky. The romping late. Dropla discovered their -depar- It was a tall tower—jremarka- ture just in time, and with a bly tall when you considered the mighty leap managed to gain altitude of the atmosphere boat. the after deck and scramble to He yanked the tiller savagely, safety. but their momentum was too As soon as the craft gained great, and a moment later the sufficient altitude Thon-Smith bow crumpled against stone. threw it into "fastflight and The deck tilted abruptly, and he aligned the prow with the canal barely managed to grab Thejah bank. The cool night air became Doris before she tumbled over a cold wind and the countryside the low rail, and it was all he blurred beneath them. He main- could do to maintain his balance tained the speed till he was sure till the rapidly sinking craft their pursuers could no longer came opposite the dark apertuire overtake them, then he cut down of a window. He leaped lightly to to slowflight and returned his the sill, his Martian princess in attention to Thejah Doris. his arms, and stepped into the She was lying on her side, musty gloom of a lofty chamber. gazing at him admiringly. Again he slipped his arm beneath her THE faithful Droola was not shoulders, but he had no sooner so fortunate. It essayed the

THE BLONDE FROM BARSOOM 67 leap, but missed the sill by a ous phraseology to be issuing good two feet. (He'd been plan- from the lips of a blonde who, ning oil getting rid of Droola for for all her royal blood, still a long time.) Dutifully he lis- looked more like a burlesque tened for the sound of the faith- queen than she did a princess. ful body striking the ground, Well, no matter. "You look lovely but when, an appropriate time by candlelight," he said. later, the sound came, he could "You are very gallant, my not summon the emotional re- chieftain." sponse which the plot called for. She lit another candle and All he could manage was a sort went over and placed it in a wall of vague contrition which was niche beside an ancient sleeping immediately negated by the real- couch. She turned and faced ization that at last he and Thejah him. "At last we are alone." Doris were really alone. He started toward her, arms She had discovered tapers on outstretched. Simultaneously' the the dusty shelves that lined one thunder of padded toat hooves wall of the chamber, and now sounded in the distance. she" lit three of them and set "The Tarks!" Thejah Doris them upon the rough wooden cried, eluding him and running table that stood in the middle of to the window. "They've seen the stone floor. "There is nothing our light! Oh, my chieftain, the to fear, my chieftain," she said. mortal enemies of my people "This is one of the deserted lock- threaten us once again!" towers once maintained by the "Oh, for Pete's sake!" Thon- ancient Mii when Mars was Smith said, throwing up his young and great barges plied hands. "No wonder my stories her blue canals. Above us is the get bounced!" control room itself, from which the mighty locks, now rusted and RESIGNEDLY he went over fallen to ruin, were manipulated and' joined her at the win- by the ancient Milan tenders. dow. Sure enough, the Tark Now the towers stand silent and horde was back in the running forlorn, the havens of occasional again. Wearily he explored his wandering bards who ftnd the mind for the next sequence. All lofty rooms and empty echoing he could find were the words, stairways conducive to their END OP PART ONE. That was when search for the ever-elusive he remembered that he'd been Muse." trying his hand at a serial and He stared at her. It was, he had neglected to plot it beyond had to admit, rather incongru- the lirst installment.

68 AMAZINO STORIES !

"Oh, my chieftain, what are he found one and pulled it out. we going to do?" Sure enough, it contained sever- He did not answer. He was al sheets of parchment-like pa- tllinking—thinking furiously. If per, a long quill pen and a small a writer could write himself so vial of black fluid. completely into a story that he The thunder of padded toat

became physically involved in it, hooves was growing louder by was there any reason why he the minute. "Oh, my chieftain, couldn't extricate himself by what are we going to do!" The- writing a factual account of his jah Doris cried again. real life? "We're going to swap serials," It was worth a try. The alter- Thon-Snaith said, and began to native was to plot Installment write. « Two, and somehow he didn't feel « »

quite up to it. Installment .One had been rather an enervating IT was a fine bright morning. experience. Harold Worthington Smith Abruptly another thought awoke late and lay for a while struck Mm: Why a factual ae- watching the robins flitting count? among the branches of the box He remembered his dingy lit- elder outside his bedroom win- tle apartment, his dilapidated dow. Then he got up and slipped typewriter, his collection of re- leisurely into his lounging robe. jection slips, his nagging, flat- Yawning, he stepped across the chested wife — Suddenly he hall to his study. Below him in looked at Thejah Doris standing the kitchen his wife was hum- beside him with heaving breast, ming happily, and he could smell anxiously watching the relent- coffee perking, wheatcakes fry- less approach of the Tarks. ing and sausage sizzling. Why a factual account indeed He entered his study and He concentrated. When he had walked over to the desk. He sat the plot firmly fixed in his mind down. There were three long thin he sat down at the table to write. letters lying beside his solid gold ' A momentary crises arose. There tjTJewriter where his wife had was no paper, no pen, not even a placed them. He opened them pencil. Then he remembered nonchalantly. The first one was what Thejah Doris had saM from The Edgar Rice Burroughs about the wandering bards, and Reader and contained a check he began searching for a draw- for $750.00, the second was from er. Even Martian poets needed Dead^Sea Bottom Stories and something to write on. Presently contained a check for $2500.00,

THE BLONDE FROM BARSOOM 69 and the third was from Red accumulate. He threw the three Planet Stories and contained a long thiij envelopes into the cheek for |S00O.0O. wastebasket marked "Long Thin The phone rang. He picked it Envelopes." It was full again, up. "HWS speaking." he noticed. He could have sworn "Good morning, sir. This is he'd just emptied it a day or two Parker, of Mammalian Blonde ago. Stories. Regarding that last His wife came running up the piece you were kind enough to stairs. "Harold, two more edi- let us have a look at, would tors just drove up! Shall I let $10,000.00 be—" them in, too?" "Sorry," Harold Worthington "You might as well," Harold Smith said, "I never discuss Worthington Smith said. "If you business matters before break- don't, they'll just hang around fast. Call me back later." the door all day and make a nui- Click. sance of themselves." He looked "Harold," his wife called from at her critically. She'd come, the foot of the stairs, "there's an through remarkably well. If any- editor outside." thing she was even better "Another one?" stacked than she'd been before.

"Yes. Shall I let him in?" "Tell them I'll be down present- "I suppose so. Tell him I'll try ly, princess. And put some to give him a minute while I'm clothes on. For now," he added. having my coffee." After she had gone he looked He stacked the checks neatly the study over carefully. When, and placed them on the large he was sure that no traces of his pile of checks to the right of the previous reality were present he gold typewriter. He made a men- descended slowly and majestical- tal note to try to make the bank ly to the hall where the three today. Checks were a nuisance editors humbly awaited him. when you let too many of them THE END

Through Time and Space With Benedict Breadfruit: V ON the planet Tenta I, plants of the melon and related families were so rare that the king himself had issued a royal ijat to protect them. Not knomng this, Benedict Breadfruit's young son started to pick a pumpkin. Fortunately, his father stopped him in time. "But why can't I pick a pumpkin, father?" asked the child. "It would be a violation of the Gourd Edict, son." —GEANDALL BAREETTON

7P AMAZING STORIES By WILUAM W. STUART

inustrated by HNUY

Any similarity between tlie hero at this Kaflia-esque

tale and Everyman who chooses the security of the

horrible known rather than face the unknown,

is not by any means coincidental.

'T'HE man on the bunk woke, a man. Not an old man, either. A but not up. Not up at all. He man and still at least reasonably didn't move, except for a sort of young. general half-twitch, half-shrug; These things he felt he knew didn't even open his eyes. Just but he could take no very great past the black borderland of satisfaction in them. It didn't sleep in the miasmic, grey fog in seem a very extensive knowl- which he found or failed to find edge; basic, but not extensive. himself, two things only seemed What about other, collateral data sure. One of these was that there —such as his name, status, situ- was no hurry whatever about ation, condition and present "pening his eyes to his immedi- whereabouts? ±e surroundings. That cotild He couldn't seem to think. No, ait. He didn't know why but he HO, he hadn't lost his memory. new it could wait. He felt confident that all those He knew that. He knew also things were clearly recorded ,,hat he was a man. No doubt there someplace. Only they were ^^ere. Not for an instant did he obscured, out there in that mist, o much as suspect that he might out where it was hard to grasp be a small boy, a girl, woman, or them just now. After a bit, it some nameless beast. No ; he was would all come back to him.

71 — ;

In the meantime he lay there. walls of solid steel plate. To the He twitched again, a reflective rear? He lifted his head and thing, no volition entering into turned it— damp, dirty con- it. The surface under him gave a crete wall. Oh it was a jail all little; a bed of some sort, must right. He was in jail, in a cell. be. It seemed rather too firm, a He didn't, at once, move any harder bed than he felt he was more. From where he lay oil the properly accustomed to. Not too cell's single bunk hung by chains bad though. He could—he had, from the right side wall, he could apparently, rested well enough see a narrow, concrete corridor on it. Sheets? He couldn't feel through the bars in froEt. A any sheets, only something bare light bulb shone tiredly in a scratchy; a blanket. And it did- dirt-crusted metal reflector in n't, come to notice, feel as though the corridor's high ceiling; grey he were wearing pajamas ; more light oozed in thr6ugh a high, Ifke ordinary clothes. And^ he barred window. It must be early wiggled his toes—socks, yes. morning, he figured. Shoes? No, at least he wasn't Probably it was morning, at wearing shoes. that. But, as he found in later Now where would a man, not time, you couldn't judge it from drunk, of course he wasn't that window. It had only two drunk, be likely to go to bed in a tones, grey light or black; night hard bunk, blanket, no sheets, all or day. It was a window remote or most of his clothes on except from any gun and the grey day- his shoes? Could be some sort of time quality was subject to no an Armed Forces outpost or . . . variations^ or at least none that jail? The situation seemed to fit he could ever classify or use as a the pattern of a jail all too close- basis of measurement. ly. And how would the fine young Well, assuming as he did then man he was sure he must be that it was morning in jail, what know all this about a jail pat- was he, whoever he was, doing in tern? Must have read it some- jail? The detail of his past was place; seen it in a show. Well still solidly fogged in. But he wasn't a—a criminal. Anything like that he would surely know HE opened his eyes to a fur- about, remember. It must be a ther greyness, only less mistake of some sort. Or could thick than that inside. And there he be in jail for some justifiable, were bars in this greyness, there thoroughly respectable sin? In- in front of him, heavy steel bars come tax, price fixing, collusion, on the sides, he turned his head, something like that, actually

72 A/MZING STORIES creditable rather than other- But his suit was of good quality. wise? No. He hadn't been Shirt—no necktie, of course—^too. through a trial, cowldn't have He might very well have been a been; and nobody ever went to young executive, caught in a non- jail for things like that except, executive moment. Probably, he perhaps, for a month or so and was, or had been. But in jail that after years of trials and ap- there are no executives. He was peals iirst. only a prisoner rattling a jail Nevertheless, he was in jail. cell door. So? It must be an accident, a mistake of some sort. Of course. fpURNING his head and press- J- That would be it. ing against bars, he could He sat up then, on the bunk. look up and down the corridor Shoes? He swung his stocking outside. To his right, sighted feet over the edge of the bunk through the left eye, it stretched, and felt; bent down and looked. maybe a hundred feet, maybe No shoes in sight. Well ... he more, to end in a right angle stood up. Ow ! That concrete floor turn and a blank wall. The other was cold. But he wouldn't have way, some indeterminate, dim to stand for it—on it—^for long. distance of£, he could barely Whatever the mistake or misun- make out another barred door. derstanding had put him in jail, There were, he could sense rather he would straighten it out quick- than see, other cells in neat, ly enough. He walked to the penal line on either side of his. front of the cell to grasp bars, Occupied? Yes. There were one in each hand, the conven- noises; grunts, yawns, mum- tional prisoners' pose. bling, nothing distinguishable in "Hey!" he shouted, "hey!!" the way of conversation but He rattled the cell door, doing all clear enough evidence that there the normal, conventional things. were other prisoners. He was And, standing there shaking his glad of that. cell door, he was a conventional, "Hey !" he yelled again, "hey, non-remarkable looking young somebody. Come let me out of man. Middling height, not short, here, damnit." But nobody did. not tall. Young, not more than After a bit he went back to his thirty or so; not bad looking. bunk and sat. Eoutine, he sup- Slim enough of waist so the lack posed, and rules. Probably it was of a belt didn't endanger the se- too early yet. But certainly be- curity of his pants. Naturally, fore long someone would come. they drooped and, naturally, he They would have to let him see looked unshaven, dishevelled. someone in authority; straight-

A PRISON AAAKE 73 ,

squawked then, crowding to the imn. front of his cell to look, exchang- He stood and went through his ing viciously obscene guesses re- .pockets. Not much; but, at least, garding his probable past his- a crumpled pack with three ciga- tory of despicable crime, present rettes and one book of matches. intimate personal condition, and He sat again and smoked. Pa- future possibilities, all singular- liemce. ly unattractive. He gaped at Later, not long probably, he them a moment in shocked dis- was roused from a dull torpor by gust and then backed from the a metallic clatter from the corri- door of his cell to sit on the bunk, dor He leaped to his feet—damn head down, not looking, trying that cold floor—^and to the front not to listen, of his cell. Outside, just one or two cells down from his own was ^V7"EAH, that's the way it goes.

a rig of some sort ; some kind of ^ He don't like our service; a steam table on wheels, appar- don't think what we got is sweet ently. Anyway, it was steaming enough and pretty enough for greasily. There were metal trays his fine taste; not now, he don't. .stacked at one end; buckets of It's gonna surprise him some, me thing or another in apertures ain't it, dears, how he'll learn to [along its eight foot length. like our dishes and our room Breakfast? Something, anyway, service after a little time, hah?" being served up by four hopeless The first charmer hummed an slatterns dressed in sack-like, unrecognizable non-musical bar brown and dirty white striped or two and lifted straggling denim uniforms. The women skirts high, higher to prance a whined and mumbled at each misshapen dance step. The oth- other as they dragged along, fill- er's cackled wildly. ing trays and tin cups from the "Show him Belle. Show him containers in their steam table, something to put in his dreams. passing them into cells, dispens- He'll come around fast enough." ers of the state's bounty, no He squeezed his eyelids tighter benediction. shut. "Well now look at here, girls," "All right then, Sweetie, Jail- said the lead witch, coming Birdie Boy," said Belle, dropping abreast of the man's cell, "looks skirts. "Your appetite for our like we got us a real juicy young cell block service'll change. How ffeuster, a nice gentleman prisoner ,d'you want your eggs, Bird- type. Fresh meat, hah?" Boy?" She laughed. They all screeched and He raised his head, dully. "Any

74 AAAAZING STORIES way you feel like laying them, them down beside him. "Break- goddamnit," he snarled. fast. Bread's your lunch. Maybe The harsh amusement dis- you'll be gladder to see us by solved. "A funny one? Did I say supper. No? Then tomorrow, or fresh meat, dears? Too fresh, the next day; or the next." She hah? All right. Should we serve backed out and clanged the cell him a chef's special?" door shut. ''No tipping," she said. The others cackled. "Please THE other two gruntingly push- ... no tipping." ed the steam table forward. They moved on down the row One lifted a metal plate, some- of cells. The man sat. Maybe he thing between a dish and a bowl, should have been more friendly; and scooped a ladle full of a grey- played up to them. Then he could ish mess of whatever, mush of have asked them . . . something some sort. Edible? Conceivably. . . . about seeing somebody, some-

Then she reached into some body in charge, a lawyer . . . any- nauseous recess of the table and body. He sat a while, ignoring brought out a stout roach, legs the filthy bread, the noisome moving feebly. She dropped it mush and the grey-tan coffee into the mush. Number two drew slush with the yellowish blob of a steaming cup of muddy liquid spittle on top. But it bothered from an urn. Coffee ? Well, it was him. Not that he wanted to eat. a brown-grey, it had a smell, it God no. His stomach growled; wasn't soup. Coffee. The hag let it growl. He was too nervous, with the cup hawked gurglingly too upset to eat anything, let and spat into the cup. The third alone . . . that. But his mouth, grinned evilly and dropped three his throat were parched, cotton slices of grey-white bread—grey dry, a desert, a burned out waste was in everything—on the gritty of dehydrated tissue. Liquid . . . irridor floor; stirred them damn them. He went back again

pound with her bunion cut left to the cell door. Shook it. Yelled, picked them up. a hoarse croak. No answer, ex- "Breakfast is served. Birdie. cept a croaking echo, the sub- Juicy worms for the early jail dued mutter from other cells. bird." Belle opened the cell door. He quit trying to yell. His throat The man sat still on his bunk, was too dry; it hurt. staring fixedly at the floor. The stout slattern laughed, slopped FIE the first time since waking the filthy bread on top of the ex- then, he really looked around, piring roach and Belle took the checked over the rest of the cell. plate-bowl and the cup to slap It wasn't fancy. The bunk, hard

76 AMAZING STORIES mattress, blanket. Bars, walls. emptied, slowly to a blank, clear, And, at the rear of the cell, unreflecting lucidity of, not stark, yellow-white, unadorned thought, of direct motor re- and unlovely, was one toilet bowl, sponse. A minute, two. Then, no wooden seat, just the stained moving deliberately, not think- enamel. To it and through from ing deliberately, he turned back the dim concrete ceiling above to his bunk. A dish. A cup of ran a heavy iron water pipe. Just nauseating muck. where the pipe met the bowl was A little later he wiped his the handle. He had seen it all mouth with his sleeve and lit one before without taking real no- of his two remaining cigarettes. tice. A toilet. Hell no, he didn't The cup, rinsed, clean and filled need a toilet. He was all dried with water, he had placed care- out, tensed, frozen inside. But fully do"wn at the foot of the ... he walked the three short bunk on the inboard side. He paces to the rear of the cell. He sighed. His stomach rumbled. reached out, down ; took the han- Food ... no, not that. He wasn't dle, pressed it. Water rushed out really hungry. Even if, maybe, a in a roaring flood, bubbling and piece or two of the bread might swirling in stained bowl. Slowly be cleaned off a bit . . . no. the flow cut down and stopped. He lay back on the bunk look- He pressed the handle again; ing upward. Hm-m. There was again the rush of water. His something he hadn't noticed. Up tongue stuck to the roof of his there, maybe eight feet above the mouth. Water. floor level, four under the ceiling, Sure, there was water, plenty was a black box, about eight of water. Water, water . . . nor inches square by three deep. any drop ... to drink? No, Good Standing on the bunk in his Lord no; it was unthinkable. A stocking feet, he could get to it man couldn't, not conceivably, easily enough. A wire ran from drink water that came from such it into the ceiling. A speaker. At a thing. He would choke on it, the bottom was a button. He strangle, die. But water. . . . He pressed it. First, nothing but a would die. The iron pipe above faint hum. Then . . . the bowl was sweating, tiny "Click. Good morning." It droplets. He pressed his tongue, spoke with a coolly feminine- his face against it. Water. metallic voice, "welcome to the Damned little water there. He Kembel State Home of Protec- hugged the pipe for a while, tive Custody, Crime Prevention breath coming in harsh gasps. and Correction Number Otte- And, as he gasped, his mind One-Seven." A PRISON MAKE 77 '

"Jail." said the man, sitting "Click." The box spoke out lek down on the bunk. "All it again. "You have no expressed is, it's a crummy jail." It pleased choice of counsel. You have him to tell the voice that, firmly therefore opted to avail yourself and clearly. of the privilege of representa- "This," continued the speaker, tion by State appointed counsel. "is a recording." The man You are now represented, with shrugged. So what about it? full power of attorney, by State "You have been admitted to pro- PubUc Defenders, Contract 34- tective custody here pending in- RC, HoUingsworth, Schintz and vestigation, trial, review and ul- Associates, Attorneys at Law. timate disposition of your case. Counsel will consult with client This is—click—Sunday morn- twice weekly. Sunday and Thurs- ing. Sunday is a rest day. Cell day between the hours of 1500 block therapeutic work schedules and 1600." are in effect Monday through Well, at least he'd get to see Friday—click." some kind of a lawyer. Work? What kind of work? "And now," the voice seemed "You, as a custodial ward of to take on the faintest note of en- the State, are entitled by law to thusiastic interest, "you, as a representation of your own, free- custodial ward of the State will ly selected legal counsel." need a clear understanding of- Ah! His lawyer would clear how we live here at Kembel State ' this mess up quickly enough. Home One-One-Seven. A clear "If you wish to name counsel understanding of the rules and you may do so now. Speak clear- policies applicable to custodial ly, directly into your home-room wards of the State will enable sound box. Spell out name of you to avoid difficulties and mis-

counsel, home and business ad- understandings during your , in- dress, code, phone, and qualifica- stitutional life. Please listen tions before the bar of this State. carefully." Click." He didn't, however, listen very carefully. HIS lawyer? Did he have a "Code One," said the voice, lawyer? Who? Think, damn- relapsing into a sing-song drone, it, think. The sound box was si- "Section A, 1, (a) : Internal, lent except for a faint hum, closed circuit broadcast of in- waiting. But he couldn't think. struction and entertainment. The name Lucille came into his Broadcast is continuous, daily mind, but it seemed unlikely that from 0500 through 2300. Music Lucille could be a lawyer." and entertainment material, 1800

78 AMAZING STORIES ,

through 2300. Custodial wards the second "say," and was at the are urged to listen to instruc- front of the cell clinging to the tional material provided by the bars before the voice paused. State for their benefit. Failure "What?" he asked, "What; to listen to a minimum of seven- what, what?" ty-two hours of said material What? It was still daylight. weekly shall result in penalty, Still jail, too, no doubt about four credits for each hour of that. This must be the lawyer short-fall. Code One, section A, then. He blinked and stared

1, (b) : Care of home-rooia fa- through the bars; it was hard ." cilities . . for a moment to focus in the The voice droned on. The hell grey light. The figure outside

with that noise. The man got up the cell looked something like . . . and pushed irritably at the but- what ? A wheel chair ? A man in ton under the speaker. It faded a wheel chair ? A . . . now what out in a faint, protesting whine. in hell kind of a so-called lawyer A lawyer. The damned voice had was this? There was no man in said a lawyer would come on the more or less wheel chair out Sunday afternoon. And this was there; only hardware, piled and Sunday. This afternoon then. He assembled in a very roughly hu- should be out by dinner tinle. He man shape. At the top were two ... he was thirsty again. He got lenses, eye-like except for being his cup from the foot of the bunk in a vertical line, mounted in a and drained the cool water with rounded, metallic container with luxurious satisfaction. Plenty a speaker and, presumably, more where that . . . never mind sound receivers. Under that was that. He closed a door of his a big, square, torso-sized, faintly mind with determination. Then humming black box. This rested he used the toilet hurriedly and on a—uh—conveyance, not un- flushed it three times. The law- like a wheel chair. Under the yer, his lawyer would come. He box was an electric motor and a lay back down on the bunk. reel of black wire. Attached to Nothing to do but wait; one side of the main box section was a single metal arm, a sort of SAY! Say there, boy. Up, up! skeletal framework of steel rods, Nothing to do but sleep? Eh? jointed and with an arrangement Up, up. My time is valuable." of tiny wheels, pulleys and belts. The voice was harsh, rasping, "Now what, for God's sake ?" but with an unsubtle touch of . . . educated superiority in it. "Whup ! Excuse me a moment, The man in the cell sat up at my boy," rasped the speaker. A PRISON MAKE 79 "Almost forgot my cord. Mustn't of those things. I know I didn't." run down my battery here, and "Ah?" inquired the speaker, with two more clients after you." "Splendid. It might make an in- The motor under the black box teresting defense. How do you ^whined. The wheels turned and know you didn't?" the rig backed away from the "I-uh-hell, I just know, that's cell. It rolled some ten paces aE. Murder? Ridiculous. Rape? I back up the corridor; stopped; mean actually using force, real the metal arm reached, caught a force to . , . no. I never dreamed plug at the end of the wire on of such a thing, of any of them." the reel and plugged it into a "Never dreamed of such socket in the far wall of the things? Oh come now." ." building. Then the thing rolled "Of course I never. . . Of back to the cell, the wire unroll- course he had never done any of

Ing from the reel to trail behind those things. Of course . . . well. it. Dreams, hell, a man could have "There!" said the speaker with all kinds of crazy dreams. That a note of satisfaction. "Now, the didn't mean anything. A man case . , . let's see ... oh yes. J7- couldn't control dreams. They OP-7243-E. Arrested on suspi- didn't mean anything. cion, vice and homicide squad "Fact is, boy, you must have random selection, brought in for done those things or dreamed subjective interrogation at 2200, them. Where do you suppose night of the 14th last." they got your charges?" The prisoner's mouth opened "What?" and closed again. He had a few "They put you through shock, things to say to this mess of ma- electric and drug, and went ehinery. But this information through your mind. Amazing concerned him. He would listen technical advances have been first. made recently. They extract vir- "On the basis of clear data ex- tually everything now. The proc- tracted, recorded and interpret- ess may have left your own cir- ed, charged with larceny; grand cuits somewhat blurred—did you larceny; extortion; felonious as- notice that?—but the accuracy sault; lewd and lascivious con- of information obtained is com- duct; assault with intent to plete; legal evidence, my boy. ." rape; rape; . . And these things with which "No, no." The man gripped you have been charged were all !" the bars. "No taken right from your own ". . . and murder in the first." mind." •No! I didn't. I didn't do any "But a dream doesn't mean

A/AAZING STORIES anything. I never did any of "You almost forgot to plug in those things." that silly extension cord." "Service naen are not what OF course the dividing line they should be. Some of those between fact and fantasy is back motor circuits of mine, not indeterminate and the law does properly rewired at all. But recognize a distinction, when it those are minor areas, non-legal. can be proven, although the Why is your cell speaker cut off, trend is decidedly toward equat- boy?" ing the intent with the act. Elim- "That thing? It got on my inates confusion, as you can see. nerves so I cut it off, that's why. Well, never mind boy. We shall So?" make a fine case of this, legal "Turn it on at once. You can't history. Yoii are in good hands." afford to lose credits, boy."

"We . . . you Now look here, "Credits?"

damnit, you're nothing but a "Boy . . . m-mph. Your cir- confounded robot." cuits are in bad shape, aren't "Computer, Pinnacle, Legal they? You are going to want Model X 27, working title, Mr. things, boy. Cigarettes—here's a Boswell. Boy, you are extretaely pack for now, by the way. Books. fortunate. You couldn't get a Other-ah-little extras from the finer legal mind anyplace. Pro- trustees from the women's divi- grammed through the State Su- sion. With that mind of yours, preme Court library, shades of from the charge sheets . . . you interpretation, judgment and buy things here with your cred- emotional factors drawn from its and you are going to need the minds of Mr. Hollingsworth them." ?" and Judge Schintz, both very "How do I get . . . eompassidnate men. Circuits "Do your work. Follow the overhauled only last month." rules. You earn credits. Turn on "I want a real lawyer." your speaker." "I am your lawyer, boy, by He turned it on. "You talfe law. Fortunate thing too, for like I'd be here forever." you. I can see your case through. "Eh? Oh no. It will be less Mr. Hollingsworth—^wonderful than that, eh? Eh, eh. Don't gentleman, of course—but even worry, boy. I'll be taking care of now he is, well, not as young as you. So. This is all the time my he used to be. Bad thing, to programming permits me to give change lawyers in mid-case, eh? you now. Till Thursday, eh? You are lucky, boy. You know the Good night, boy." human mind is fallible." The wheel chair rig backed

A PRISON AAAKE 81 tie, four more. All right, he had for further continuance pending ." them. Tonight he was really go- a review of the transcr . . ing to make a night of it. Yeah. Yeah? OUDDENLY, it was all too Yeah. And the next day, *^ much. Jay 7 was mad, furious.

Thursday, all day . . . yeah ! His He, in a word, blew his gin-throb- head ached, stomach churned; bing top. He was on his feet, shak- that burning back of the eye- ing hands, white-knuckled, grip- balls; the awful, tight-drawn ping bars. "Goddamnit!" he humming of nerves. And on just shouted, "Goddamnit, you rotten one bottle? God, that acid-bum old fraud, I've had enough, you gin. No, old Belle had been in hear me? I got a by-God-bellyfull rare form and he got two bot- enough." tles instead of one. But even, so "Oh?" inquired Mr. Boswell,

. . . must be that stew the night mildly. "Enough is enough, eh? before. Oh death! But how can we be sure that al- ." He fought the day, his work, ternatives . . all day. He missed quota. The "All right, all right." Jay 7 fingers were just a blistering wouldn't get anything out of mist before his eyes. He drank him by shouting, he knew that.

water and gagged on it. He He was still tense and shaking paced his cell. He sweated. God! but he managed to lower his Could a man live like this? voice to a tense, confidential "Boy! Say there, boy. Look whisper of appeal. "But I can't alive, eh?" take much more of this. And the Mr. Boswell, the old electronic uncertainty. I've got to know. shyster. It was afternoon, final- How much longer, huh? Please, ly, of the everlasting, miserable please, Mr. Boswell, man to man

day. Jay 7 looked up to watch . . . when will the trial come? sullenly as, the usual after- How much longer before we go thought, Mr. Boswell rolled on to court, I—we—get my acquit- off to plug in his cord; and al, huh? Man to man, when can rolled back. Made a noise, a har- I walk out of here a free man?" rumph-type, throat clearing, in- "Man to man? You are just a troductory noise. Mr. Boswell boy, boy. Show it all the time.

had no throat but he was a be- Man to man ? Well . . . perhaps it liever in certain niceties, form is time you did grow up a bit. So. and procedure. You want to know when you will "Well now, boy. Let me see, leave here a free man? I'll tell where aie we? Oh yes. Bring you. Never." you up to date. My latest petition "Never?!?"

84 AA^ZING STORIES — .

ing propei'ly on the page. It was- cell to the next. But tapping? It n't ap easy. He earned his cred- made no sense either. It was an its; made his quota, too, every annoyance and the hell with it. day. Mr. Bo.swell was pleased Except . . . with him. So. He looked around him at his JAY 7 reached up over his head home-room with a certain clear and brought down his mess

satisfaction, if not pride. Now gear ; put it on his bunk in front his nics.s kit, clouii of him his knife he kept own ; picked up blunt and shining. He had the uhelf and spoon. Overhead, the squawk with ketchup, mustard ; soap and box wound up a stirring speech shaving gear; tobacco and ciga- on something by the governor rette papers; a nice white enamel and lamu'hed into the 1800 re- basin. And something more, too. \ it \\ mI I lie rules. The sing-song Set into his water pipe, above voice started. Jay 7 began to rap the toilet bowl was a real luxury a rhythm, simple at first, build- item—a faucet. Not many cus- ing into more iiitriciile patterns, todials earned that privilege but following the How of the .speaker. he had had it now for . . . how "Code One— lap, tap—Section ." long ? Hard to say, to keep track. A, 1 (a) —tap-tappety tup— Quite a while now, anyway, but His head nodded. That wntt the the pleasure in having it, in not only tapping that meant .•my- having to use the bowl of the thing, a beat with a lift thai u toilet for . . . everything, hadn't man could put himself into, His worn off. He put his mess kit on head nodded and he listened, ab- his shelf, took his cup and went sorbed, to his pattern of rhythm. to draw a cup of water, for the He felt pretty good. Later he joy in being able to do it, mostly. would feel better. He drank luxuriously; carelessly Sure. Sure he would. This was spilled a half-cup of water into Wednesday, a Rec. night. To- the bowl. night, after supper, Belle and There was a tapping on the her Three Graces would make a wall, left side, across from his night round. "Personal service" bunk. He frowned and ignored —^if you had the credits. He had it. That tapping from other cells the credits. He'd take a fall never amounted to anything, hell, a couple, why not—out of never seemed to make any sense. old Belle herself. Not that Belle He'd tried it himself, at first. looked any better than the oth- For some reason, a vibration ers, but at least she put a little barrier, it wasn't possible to talk life into it. A couple of hours and distinguish words from one with Belle, twelve credits ; a bot-

A PRISON MAKE 83 tie, four more. All right, he had for further continuance pending ." them. Tonight he was really go- a review of the transcr . . ing to make a night of it. Yeah. Yeah? OUDDENLY, it was all too Yeah. And the next day, *^ much. Jay 7 was mad, furious.

Thursday, all day . . . yeah ! His He, in a word, blew his gin-throb- head ached, stomach churned; bing top. He was on his feet, shak- that burning back of the eye- ing hands, white-knuckled, grip- balls; the awful, tight-drawn ping bars. "Goddamnit!" he humming of nerves. And on just shouted, "Goddamnit, you rotten one bottle? God, that acid-bum old fraud, I've had enough, you gin. No, old Belle had been in hear me? I got a by-God-bellyfull rare form and he got two bot- enough." tles instead of one. But even, so "Oh?" inquired Mr. Boswell,

. . . must be that stew the night mildly. "Enough is enough, eh? before. Oh death! But how can we be sure that al- ." He fought the day, his work, ternatives . . all day. He missed quota. The "All right, all right." Jay 7 fingers were just a blistering wouldn't get anything out of mist before his eyes. He drank him by shouting, he knew that.

water and gagged on it. He He was still tense and shaking paced his cell. He sweated. God! but he managed to lower his Could a man live like this? voice to a tense, confidential "Boy! Say there, boy. Look whisper of appeal. "But I can't alive, eh?" take much more of this. And the Mr. Boswell, the old electronic uncertainty. I've got to know. shyster. It was afternoon, final- How much longer, huh? Please, ly, of the everlasting, miserable please, Mr. Boswell, man to man

day. Jay 7 looked up to watch . . . when will the trial come? sullenly as, the usual after- How much longer before we go thought, Mr. Boswell rolled on to court, I—we—get my acquit- off to plug in his cord; and al, huh? Man to man, when can rolled back. Made a noise, a har- I walk out of here a free man?" rumph-type, throat clearing, in- "Man to man? You are just a troductory noise. Mr. Boswell boy, boy. Show it all the time.

had no throat but he was a be- Man to man ? Well . . . perhaps it liever in certain niceties, form is time you did grow up a bit. So. and procedure. You want to know when you will "Well now, boy. Let me see, leave here a free man? I'll tell where aie we? Oh yes. Bring you. Never." you up to date. My latest petition "Never?!?"

84 AA^ZING STORIES [VTEVER. Hasn't that been ob- shameful thing. And not at all -'-^ vious from the start? Look. fair to my firm." You know the charges, the evi- "No, not suicide. I—I'll break dence against you. In your ac- out. Damn yoU, I will. I'll grab tions, in your mind, either way your damned wire—I can reach you are guilty, boy. Regardless it from here ; I'll pull your plug. of the degree, you are guilty. You'll have to take me out of The evidence is undeniable. You here or I'll let your juice run out know better than I how guilty and you'll die. Boswell, you're you are." going to hide me under that ma- "No !" chinery of yours and take me "You are so eager to leave out." here? Why?" "Oh? But my boy—^what "Just to get out. To be free. then?" Isn't that enough?" "Then I'll be out, that's what."

"Nonsense, lad; nonsense. You , "Then you will be out. Out of are doing fine here, just fine. here; out in the street; out of Look at it this way. You are here protective evistody; outside the for the common good, yours and law. You would be alone then, society's, in protective custody. lad; alone with your guilt, cast You have made rather a nice ad- out, apart from society and the justment. Quite nice, really. To sound, stable order you find accept it gracefully, gratefully, here. And would not every de- is best. And, with me as your cent man's hand be against you ? counsel, there is no reason why Think, my boy, what that means." we cannot hope to continue your Could you face it?" During these case indefinitely—for years, for remarks, as Jay 7 clung, hot- ." decades. Why . . eyed and shaking to the bars,

"No ! No, they can't, you can't Mr. Boswell had backed prudent- do that to me." A highly unorigi- ly well away, out of reach from nal protest. Mr. Boswell made a the cell door. mild sound of disapproval. At "Yes! I don't care. To hell such times he regretted the limi- with you; to hell with all of tations of construction that did them. I've got to get out of here. not permit him a shake of the Come back, you coward. I tell head. you I've got to get out, out, out!" "Years? Decades? No! I can't Mr. Boswell backed across the stand it; I can't, I won't. I'll find corridor and pulled his plug from a way out. I'll make a way." the socket. The wire rolled back "Suicide? Oh now, my boy, neatly on the spool. "Time—no please. To take your own life? A more time; other clients." He A PRISON MAKf 85 ;

ered myopically through thick bddy ever unlocks that door, isn't lenses back toward the cell. that right? They all just push it "Please, lad—it pains me to hear open. Eight? Eh? It opens in." you talk so wildly." "You lie. It's a damned, rotten, "I've got to get out, yon h

come such a phobia with "easy now. If you say so . . . per- you and you feel you have got to haps you are right after all. So.

do so foolish a thing . . . why We adjust, eh? See you Sunday. don't you just walk out?" There are some details, ques- "Walk out? What in hell are tions of improper punctuation in you talking about? How can I the transcript of your involun- walk out of this cell?" tary confession we must go over "Now, now., boy. You are only something we can use in the next in protective custody, to protect preliminary hearing. Eh? Good you from yourself, from an out- night, boy." Mr. Boswell rolled raged society, you understand. olf, smoothly as always, down That cell isn't locked. Never has the corridor. been. You know that." Jay 7 quit pushing then, all at

"That's a lie!" The man. Jay 7, once and completely, and hung threw himself against the bars, limply, two hands circling two pressed against them, every solid bars, leaning heavily muscle straining. "It's locked, against the cell door. He sobbed locked. You can see. It won't once and then sniffed. He felt open." thirsty. So . . . well, he had his "Now, now," said Mr. Boswell cup, his own faucet. He could again, starting to swing around get a nice, cold drink of water on his wheels, "that door opens any time he wanted it. He sniffed inward. You get yoar food again and turned away from the through it, your work; the other- barred door. ah-amenities, girls ... eh? No- THE END

For as little as $2.50 (25^ per word; lO-word minimum) your classi- fied message will be read by more than 50,000 active buyers each month. Test them today! You'll be delighted with the results! For compfefe details, write: MARTIN LINCOIN, Classified Adverfising Manager AMAZING One Park Avenue, New York 16, New York (Wi^ Apologies to EMh Zola)

By RICHARD BANKS

lllusfraied by ADKINS

Many years ago Emile Zola wrote a tale, by this same

title, of a French schoolmaster who was forced to leave

his pupils by the victorious Germaa troops after the

Franco-Prossiciii Won ffie schoofinaster's last words weres

Vive la franeel Miss Hippiness, in this story, had no final

words. But if she had, they might have been:

"long live the 20th Century!"

AND now, children," said Miss straight chair she aflt'ected, Hippiness, her smile shoot- "have you all. put away your ?" ing deep wrinkles across her face atomic blocks . like the cracks up the scarred "Yes, teacher," came the cho- sides of' the ancient, empty sky- rus of sweet young voices. scrapers of New York. "Your electronic jackstraws? The twelve children in the cozy Your pencil-iiinestics ?" classroom came to attention. It "Yes, teacher." was not her words, it was the "And have you all put the tone, the creaking smile. pretty little activator pills in "And now, children," said your mouths?" Miss Hippiness again, sitting They nodded. Miss Hippiness down on the old-fashioned raised her hand for silence.

87 "

"Thirty dear, dear seconds, Another small hand jerked up, children," she said. eagerly. A sigh of pleasure suddenly "Yes?" said Miss Hippiness. oked up from the twelve "Can we talk about wars and young faces as the pills took ef- bombs and things?" Henry Six- fect, and they remembered. Poor henry asked. little darlings, to be so terribly Miss Hippiness beamed on fooled, said Miss Hipjpims to them. "Children, children," she herself. scolded in fake sternness, "of If it was only possible for course we can. But we've talked them to remember this part of about them all so often. Isn't the day, outside—and not to have there something else you'd rath- it blacked out by the pills half an er hear?" hour from now. To remember The little hands sprouted like this part of the day, above all fast weeds. other parts, on into adulthood. "Miss Hippiness—" "Miss What a different world they Hippiness— would create. . . . She was called Miss Hippiness, "So we come to the nice nice even to her face now, and she ' rt of our day," she said. "We didn't dislike it. Somewhere in- are going to talk again about the side her the name had begun to 20th Century." give out a pulsing warmth like a The children fidgeted in pleas- tiny real sun. Fifty years ago she ure. She had turned on the sun would have disintegrated any five minutes ago and its beams ebiM who would have dared to through the window highlighted call her such a name. the youngness, the eagerness of Her eyes flicked at the disin- their faces, turned so trustingly tegrator, still standing in its to her. corner opposite the matter trans- Here and there the sunlight mitter. But it was a dusty, dirty flashed silver glints for instants old thing. She hadn't used it in on the tiny identification discs, years. At home, she still had the smaller than 20th Century dimes hair ribbon—they had been in in their foreheads and half hid- style briefly that year among den in the hairlines where they certain types of families—the were inset in each person now- last little girl had been wearing adays at birth. the day she had walked ^' de- A small hand shot up. fiantly into the disintegrator. "Yes?" said Miss Hippiness. "Can we talk about the gang- ILfOEE frequently, the last ers ?" Marymarymary askedf. -t*-* year or so, Miss Hippiness

AMAZING STORIES had been troubled by nightmares the massiveness really bloom. in which the little girl's face Never again had she given in peppei'ed everything. Strange. to the pressures of fashion in a She didn't remember the faces world where hips and breasts of those other children she had came and went on women like forced to march into the ma- hemlines of the 20th Century. chine. But then, she had been The 20th Century! much younger in those days, so Miss Hippiness let a dreami- much more a part of this contem- ness invade her eyes. porary world. And of course, "Children," she said in her that was before she had begun fond voice, "the 20th Century delving so avidly into history. has never been duplicated. It Miss Hippiness had been stands unique in history. Think teaching the first grade in the of the richness of that far age same school—Official Learning when a person could actually Dome 111, called old Triple-One choose what he was going to do —for almost sixty years and she in life, and where there were still had been a great teacher. She hunger and sickness and want had never been a really large and— woman or a fat one. It was just "And wars," said little Charley that she tended to massiveness Tencharles. in the one part of her anatomy, "Yes," said Miss Hippiness. and ten years ago she had let "And accidents hurting people faster than seconds in a clock.

THE LAST CLASS 89 —

And people fighting each other raised her massive hips off the and cursing each other with straight chair and began pacing words we don't even know any up and down the room, her face more." like an ancient television screen. "Like someday-vitch*" emd And the children's eyes followed Marymarymary. her like hungry puppies after a Miss Hippiness rolled her eyes mama dog. in joy. "It was son of a bitch, dear," she said. "It was a string IT was the final splurge, chil- of tiny real words that slished dren, of the individual man," off the tongue like a string of she said. "Nowadays we have a bright little silver daggers." world of people, all the same, all "Yes, teacher," the children dull, all safe and healthy and se- chorused, squirming in wonder. cure. Then it was a world of per- "And there were the gang- sons. And in between every bit of sters, those wonderful, wonder- violence there was a cozy bit of ful eccentric persons, like the restful safety. In between every i-obinhoods and beowulfs I've bit of anger there was a silent told you about. And yes, there bit of cozy peace. For every trag- were the bombs that went bam ic moment there was a moment and boom and wham, and made of sunny happiness." beautiful colors and high gor- "And were people really, really geous mushrooming clouds allowed to die by themselves?" like the pictures in the ancient asked Charley Tencharles. book I smuggled in to ntmn 3K)U She stopped and bent a loving the other day." glance on him. In the 20th Cen- "And people blown to bits," tary be would have been called said Stan Thirtyatanley in a fake Teacher's Pet. He was a dear and grownup voice. a doll and an angel. "To little itsy-bitsy bits," Miss "Oh, many, many good peo- Hippiness cried. "The 20th Cen- ple," she said, a catch in her tury, children. Ah, what happi- voice, "died by themselves. Im- ness to have lived then, the whole agine, some were taken by old world violent and dangerous and age! And, as we said last week, seething and exciting like a there were those wonderful sick- A'ing of storybooks every inch nesses. A person could die of one m the way around the equator. of those. Nobody in the whole But where you could be an indi- 20th Century had a card in the vidual—your own boss, they central bureau which had on it used to call it." the date of their death. Think of he couldn't sit now. Sbe it, cltipdren."

AMAZING STORIES — — "

SHE was wound up now, com- would be called in to a police sta- itig to &e new part she had tion- and his wiretap taken out to tell them. The part about and everything you said was re- electronics, which had been an corded on a tiny spool inside infant science at the start of the him." 20th Century. Matter transmit- "Ah," said the children, relish- ters were not known, nor disinte- ing the shudder of it all. It was grators. Robots were just on the like a prehistoric ghost story, horizon. Radio and television possible but weird because it had came to flower. Man was just no connection t& known life. beginning to step oif the face of "But the homan wiretaps the world into deep space. Anil ^dSa't last long," said Miss Hip- there were so few people on piness, making a serious-comic earth that there were open fields face which brought a ripple of all over every continent. Fine laughter to the twelve young- blowing trees everywh^e, and sters. "By early in the 21st Cen- real, liv© wild flowers. tury every part of the world had "Mam started the 20th Century passed laws so nobody ever again in complete privacy," she said, could be wiretapped." her vast hips quivering as she She looked at the clock. In two paced. "Then came the time minutes the pills would wear olf. this was during the years of "Enough for today, children," the gangsters—when electronics she announced. helped man put tiny ears in "But how about the gang- rooms, behind pictures on the sters?" Marymarymary asked in walls, so private speech cmM be a petulant voice. "Please,— Miss recorded. And telephones—did I Hippiness, you said tell you what telephones were? "Enough for today," Miss Hip- could be tapped, as they called it, piness said sternly. "It's time to so other people emW listen in go home. We'll tell more stories when you had secrets to tel' a tomorrow." friend." She said it just in time. The And then, she told them, late sun blinked out. A bell tinkled, in the 20th Century came the and the school day was over. The best part of the story i^e disi- children stood up and waited. covei-y that man could "wiretap" "All right," said Miss Hippi- other men so secretly that no- ness with a smile. "Single file, body knew. children. To the transmitter in "Think of it," she cried. "Tou your right order." could be tdMag yovar secrets to The children walked, like chil- Papa. And thess, later, Faget 6tsm sim^ Mve, with spurtinir

THi LAST CLASS 91 —

giggles and sudden scuiBes, to- it wasn't pretty. But it some-

ward the gleaming wire cage, how fit whatever had been hap- festooned with pretty cutouts of pening inside her the last year colorful animals and buildings or two. and trees. She glanced at the faint shim- Marymarymary was always mer inside the transmitter where the first, this year. She stood in Charley had been swupped. He front of the transmitter open- was such a darling. Quiet, shy, ing, let the electronic beam play adorable. If they had allowed her on her forehead identification to have a son, instead of decree- disc, then stepped in. ing that she be a childless teach- Swup. She was gone, delivered er, she said. But she couldn't to her home, delivered to her finish the thought. mama and papa—and she would- n't remember a thing of the TT was when the children went "story hour," Miss Hippiness J- that she felt the growing anger thought 'happily. But maybe and unrest and sickness inside when she grew up, maybe when her. It was terrible when the they all grew up, things would children left. She wondered how erupt here and there from thtsir long it had been now since she subconscious and had seen the real surface of the They each stood their moment earth. She swupped back and for the beam to catch their discs, forth, morning and night, from stepped in and were swupped off. her sleeping room to her class- At last only Charley Tencharles room. They were a thousand was left and he scurried around, miles apart, actually, but an in- like teacher's pets immemorial, stant apart through the trans- helping Miss Hippiness do the mitter. last things a classroom needs to And she had been swapping to put it to rest for the night. that old library in the south of Miss Hippiness gave his what had been France to browse shoulders a last motherly squc^e in the forgotten ancient books and pushed him in front of the there. But she never went out- matter transmitter. doors. She never saw the sky "Tomorrow?" she said. His anymore. young grin was like wine in her "Why, it must be spring," she blood. He stepped in and was said aloud, "and I've not seen a swupped instantly. creek or a river in—how long?" Miss Hippiness sighed and If she had been allowed to went back to sit on her straight have a son, and that son had chair. It wasn't cojiifortable and been Charley Tencharles, what

92 AMAZING STORIES "

fun it would have been to leave tronic symbol. Too secret to school every afternoon and be naffie; It was said in high circles. swupped to seashores, to brooks, to mountain peaks, to the moon, MISS Hippiness dropped her to the tiny parks that still re- hands from little Charley's mained occasionally in cities. shoulders and covered her face. She sat on her hard straight Things twitched and twirked chair, uncomfortable but unmov- like little knives somewhere deep ing, for a half hour, deep in the inside her. Fear? Horror? reveries that so ©ften beset her "You were my greatest, my now. very best teacher," said Holmes And then the beeper on the Oneholmes on the recording com- matter transmitter sounded. ing through little Charley's open With a puzzled frown she got up lips. "And I have treasured your to press the atoittance button. memory. So you know how hate- Little Charley materialized ful is my task this afternoon." and came out of the wire cage. Miss Hippiness peeked at "Charley," she cried. "Does Charley's face through her fin- your mama know you've come gers. His little blue eyes were back?" blank, fastened to a spot high on He didn't answer. He went to the classroom wall behind her. stand in front of the straight There was no tiny bit of expres- chair and she followed him, sit- sion on his face. ting down and putting her hands She heard Holmes Oneholmes on his shoulders. c&K^h and; his voice went on, of- "Charley," she said in her fake ficial this time, all pupilness stern voice, "you should always erased. ask your mama before you— "Susan Fiftysusan," he said, Charley's lips came open but "the latest recording from inside it wasn't Charley's little voice Charley Tencharles, which we which came out. have just heard, convicts you be- "Susan Fiftysusan," said a yond reprieve. Where you found deep grownup voice, "this is the human-wiretap information Holmes Oneholmes. Remember? we do not know. But we'll find it, I was one of your pupils forty and destroy it. It is the order years or more ago." that your future disintegration Miss Hippiness remembered date is hereby superseded. In- instantly. She remembered stead of disintegration two years Holmes as a child, but she knew and ten days from now, you will what he was now. He headed the proceed to the nearest disintegra- bureau knowif^ oBiy by sm eHec- tor within the houi?."

THE LAST CLASS 93 " —

Miss Hippiness lowered her Holmes Oneholmes' voice face and her old eyes began changed texture. sparking. Nobody ever knew "Miss Hippiness they call you their disintegration dates which now," he said, almost fondly. the computers put on the card at "We had another name for you birth. Nobody ever knew when years ago." Almost a chuckle. "It they had to march into one of was even better than Miss Hippi- those horrid machines and cease ness. Don't hate little Charley, living. But to learn that her own Miss Hippiness. He is an an- had been set a mere two years droid, naturally. We had him away—and she in the prime of made last year after the Freud- life. ... ists began picking up trouble- "Son of a bitch," she said, some things in the dreams of the using the first 20th Century children you've had in class. epithet that came to mind. Chai-ley has been our wiretap, "You are convicted," Holmes Miss Hippiness." Oneholmes was saying, "of The old teacher's eyes clamped spreading sedition and danger to on Charley Tencharles. But then our entire world in an unthink- they softened. She shook her able way, tampering with the head. It made no difference. If inds of our children— they had allowed her to have a "As if YOU don't tamper with son children," she shouted. "We caught an affection be- " —and it is the order that yond affection," Holmes One- there be no appeal from this ver- holmes was saying, "in your let." voice when you talked to our an- Miss Hippiness sat straighter. droid. So, since he has finished In the 20th Century, no matter his service to us, we— I—de- what—for gangster, for states- cided to send him back to you. man, for teacher—there would Miss Hippiness. He will march have been an appeal, and even into the disintegrator with you." another appeal, and perhaps an- other appeal. Life was still rich A FAINT click told her the and treasured in the 20th Cen- recording inside Charley tury. had played itself out. Charley So she held the 20th Century moved almost immediately. His before her angry eyes, letting it eyes came down from the high blot out the dirty old disintegra- wall to her face. tor in its corner. How had they He grinned. learned what she was doing to And she grinned back. the sweet childresa ? "Charley Tencharles," she said

94 AMAZING STORIES — —

gruffly, "can't you stay away "You know what?" she cried. from Miss Hippiness? What a "There was something else in the boy you are. You should be out 20th Century, Charley. It was playing, maybe in a park, maybe kissing." in a boat." "Kissing?" he said. "Or on a horse like in the 20th "Yes, and I'm going to kiss Century?" he asked. you, Charley Tencharles. Just She almost laug-hed, "Yes," like back then." she cried, "maybe like on a horse. He grinned as her lips came at With a gun on your hip " him. "Aw, Miss Hippiness," he "And a lasso at said. to throw , things?" There is an odd difference in Miss Hippiness got up, from the minute sounds made by mat- the straight chair. It was so ter transmitters and disintegra- sweet, why wait? She took little tors. The transmitter goes swup, Chai'ley's hand and they walked no matter who steps in. But the toward the disintegrator. disintegrator goes schup, no There was a dreadful moment matter who. of hesitation in front of it. Miss Miss Hippiness stood up and Hippness had heard of that last took a deep breath, holding Char- dreadful moment and she let it ley tight in her arms, almost like wrack her. Maybe this was a last a baby. She didn't have to look. relic of the 20th Century, a last Having sent so many naughty real-for-sure relic. children into the disintegrator Charley's hand moved in hers years ago, she knew the way. and she stooped quickly, ^foW- She took the last three steps. ing him in her arms. Schup. THE END SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY OFFER

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95 G Reprint from AMAZING STORIES, October, 1929

Ittustrated by BRIGGS

96 The CHAMBER of LIFE

By G. PEYTON WERTENBAKER

Introduction by Sam Moskowitz

Readers of. amazing stobies of the complexity of the method. have already read The Com- The creation of a dream world, ing of the Ice by G. Peyton Wert- through scientific means, which rnhaker reprinted in the July, would prove more real and more 1961 issue of this magazine. desirable, in certain ways than Though only 19 at the time it was the real worlds, was not original published in the June, 1926 AMAZ- with the author, but it was new ZING STORIES, the imaginative to the science fiction magazines. drive and youthful pawer of the Eventually it became a standard- young author had combined to ized concept in science fiction, but compensate for its stylistic crud- in The Chamber of Life G. Pey- ities and make it a memorable ton Wertenbaker was doing it story. early and with considerable skill. Three years later, at the ma- The "dream" world that his ture age of 22 he made his next protagonist enters is an objective appearance in amazing stories yet devastating projection of an with The Chamber of Life. The impersonally planned scientific promise displayed by The Coming civilization. This is not a deliber- of the Ice and the even earlier ately cruel or vicious world in The Man From the Atom was fid- the sense of 1984, but it is a near- ly justified. Few modern authors .perfect communistic-socialistic could have liandled the theme of state where the rights of the in- The Chamber of Life ivith great- dividual are secondary and where er maturity or stylistic finish the pattern of every individual is than G. Peyton Wertenbaker. If planned hundreds of years in ad-

the story has any fault, it rests vance of his birth . He is born in- in the realm of over sophistica- to a world where his education, tion and subtlety. occupation, marriage and life ex- The extraordinarily difficult pectancy have been carefidly cal- flashback technique is employed culated. This is no room for ran- throughout, demanding alertness dom factors. from the reader to keep abreast The message of the vltitimte

Copyright 1S29 by B. P. Ine. 97 a

technological system is still sec- caping reality, even temporarily, ondary to the adroit allegory but we must resist it at the risk Wertenbaker projects. We have of even greater unhappiness. here what amounts to a message within a message. We all dream G. Peyton Wertenbaker wrote of a different life or a different very few works of science fiction. world. But th ere is no permanent One of these, The Ship That place for lis in the world of Turned Aside (amazing stories, dreams. Like the perfect scien- March, 1930) was reprinted in tific state of tomorrow, our intru- Graff Conklin's anthology Big sion will not he permanent if it Book of Science Fiction under the is not part of the plan. Therefore, pen name of Green Peyton. One

, we must always return from our other outstanding tale remains dreams to contend with hard re- unreprinted, Elaine's Tomb from ality. The temptation is always AMAZING STORIES QUARTERLY, present to find some means of es- Winter, 1930.

A Strange Awakening hand of a benign god. Floating gently, I lay there for MY first sensation was one of a long while before I even looked sudden and intense cold— about me. There was a vague con- chill that shot through my body fusion in my head, as if I had and engulfed it like a charge of just awakened from a long sleep. electricity. For a moment I was Some memory seemed to be fad- conscious of nothing else. Then I ing away, something I could still knew that I was sinking in cold feel but couldn't understand. water, and that I was fighting Then it was gone, and I was instinctively against the need to alone and empty, riding on the gasp and breathe fresh air. I water. kicked weakly and convulsively. I I glanced about, puzzled. Only opened my eyes, and squeezed a few yards away rose the gray them as the bright green water stone side of the embankment, stung them. Then I hung for an with its low parapet, and behind instant as if suspended over the that the Drive. There was no one depths, and began to rise. It in sight—not even a car—and seemed hours before I shot up the open windows of the apart- into the open air again, and was ment houses across the Drive dirinking it deeply and thankfully seemed very quiet. People slept Mx> my tortured lungs. The son behind them. touched my head warmly like the It was only a little after dawn.

98 AAAAZING STORIES a

The sun, blazing and tinted with was as though I had slept for pink, had hardly risen fi'om the months. We had had a few drinks horizon. The lake was still lined —could I have been drunk, and with dai-k shadows behind glitter- fallen into the lake on my way ing ridges of morning sunlight, home? But I never took moi'e and a cool breeze played across than two or three drinks. Some- my face, coming in from the east. thing had happened. Over the city, the sound of a Then I remembered the strang- street car rumbling into motion, er. We had all been 'sitting about rising and dying away, was like the lounge, talking of something. the crowing of a rooster in the What had we been diiscussing? country. Franklin had mentioned Ein- I shivered, and began to swim. stein's new theory—^we had A few strokes brought me to the played with that for a while, none enbankment, and I clambei'ed up, of us with the least idea what it almost freezing as I left the wa- was about. Then the conversation ter. I was fully clothed, but with- had shifted slowly from one topic out a hat. Perhaps I had lost It to another, all having to do with in the lake. I stood there, drip- scientific discoveries.

ping and chill, and suddenly I re- Somewhere in the midst of it, alized that I had just waked up in Barclay had eome in. He brought

the water. I had no recollection of with him a guest—^-a straight, falling in, nor even of being there. fine-looking man with a military I could remember nothing of the carriage, about fifty years old. previous night. Barclay had introduced him as A glance along the Drive told Mr. Melbourne. He spoke with a me where I was, at the corner ef slight southern accent. Fifty-third street. My apartment In some way Melbourne and I was only a few blocks away. Had gravitated into a corner. We went I been walking in my sleep? My on with the conversation while ' mind was.a blank, with turbulent, fee others left it. They drifted dim impressions moving confus- into politics, drawing together edly under the surface. about the table where the whisky stood, leaving us alone. TREMBLING in the chill air, I Melbourne had been a fascinat- started up the Drive. I must ing man to talk to. He discussed go home and change at once. topics ranging from theories of Something came back to me— matter to the early Cretan cul- memory of talking to some ture, and related them all to one friends at the Club. But was that dominant scientific thread. He last night? Or months ago? It spoke like a man of wide knowl-

THE CHAMBER OF LIFE 99 edge and experience. ... As I "I can talk to you about that walked up the Drive, bits of his later," he replied cryptically. conversation came disjointedly "Tell me about your work." back to me with the clarity and So I told him the conception I significance of sentences from had of the motion pictures to be Spengler. made in the future. He listened An early-morning taxi went by with keen interest. slowly as I crossed the Drive to "I visualize a production going my apartment. The driver beyond anything done today," stopped a moment, and looked at I said, "and yet one that would me in astonishment. be possible now, if there were

"What*s the matter, buddy," someone capable of creating it. he said, "you look all wet. Fall in A picture with sound and color, the lake ?" I smiled, embarrassed. reproducing faithfully the ordi- "Looks that way, doesn't it?" nary life about us, its tints and I answered. voices, even the noises of the city "Gan I take you anywhere?" —or traffic passing in the street "No," I said, "I live here." He and newsboys crying the scores grinned, and started off again. of the afternoon games—vividly "Wish I'd been in on that par- and naturally. My picture would ty !" he e^ed back, as he drove be so carefully constructed that away. the projector could be stopped at I frowned, once more with that any moment and the screen would puzzled feeling, and went in. show a scene as harmonious in design and composition and color-

Melbaurii«*s Story ing, and as powerful in feeling, as a painting by Rockwell Kent." i^LIMPSES of last night came After a pause I added, "And I'd ^ back to me and pieced them- give almost anything if I could selves together slowly while I do it myself." undressed and drew the water for Melbourne looked at me sym- my bath. pathetically, reflectively. Melbourne had been interested "It might be possible," he said to know that I worked for after a time. Bausch, the motion picture pro- "What do you mean, Mr. Mel- ducer. bourne?" He puffed at a cigar, "Perhaps you could be of aid and considered. to me some time," he said "Ifs not something I could ex- thoughtfully. plain to you off-hand," he said. "In what way, Mr. Mel- "It's strange and it's new. It bourne?" I asked him. needs preparation."

100 AAAAZING STORIES ,

ready to listen," I said than a toy. But, like yourself, I with eager interest. He smiled. had vision. And enthusiasm. And "Perhaps I had better tell you an intense desire to create. a little of my life." "After I had taken my degrees,^ "Go on," I answered briefly. I went to work with almost ab- "I had ideas much like yours normal intensity. With sufficient when I was a boy," he began his income to live as I desired, I fit- story. "In high school and college ted up my laboratory and con-^ I had believed myself an artist. centrated on the thing I wanted*" I was a good musician, and I dab- to do. I spent years at it. I gave bled with painting and literature. my youth—or, at least, the best ' t imMed to come back for post- of my youth—to that labor. Long graduate work, though, and before sound and color pictures something attracted me to sci- were perfected commercially, I

ence. I had put off studying math- had developed similar processes ematics until my graduating for myself. But they were not year, only to find that it fasci- what I wanted. The real thinj nai^ me. And I was curious was beyond my grasp, and I albout physics. couldn't see how to attain it. "I woi-ked feverishly. I think I I was studying for my must have worked myself into a WHILE j Master's degree and my Doc- sort of frenzy, a sort of madness.^ torate, I felt the need of some in- I never mingled with people, and terest to merge all the divergent I became bitter and despondent. sides of my nature. Something One day my nerves broke down.. that would give me a chance to I smashed everything in my lab- be both the artist and the man oratory, all my models, all my of science. That was a quarter of apparatus, and I burned the plans a century ago. The motion pic- and papers I had labored over for ture and the phonograph were years. just coming into the public eye. "My physician told me that I They seemed to supply just the must rest and recuperate. He field for which I felt a need. told me I must interest myself "I had much the same idea as again in daily life, in people and

' yourself, except that there were inanimate things. So I went no discoveries to back it—no col- away. For the next few years I or pliotography, no method for traveled. I tore myself away from harmonizing sound and sight. In- everything scientific and plunged

1, neither the screen nor the into the business of living. Al- gbonograph had come -to be re- most overnight I became an ad- 3ed yet as essentially more venturer, tasting sensations with

^CHAMBER OF LIFE 101 — I

the same ardor I had once given ing widely developed, and there

to my work. I went back to art, . were many features of it that ap- to painting and literature and pealed to me. With the knowledge music. I was a connoisseur of I had gained during my first fe- wines and of foods and of wom- verish years of experiment, how- en. I was an experimenter with ever, I was able to go far beyond life. what has been done in recent "Little by little, though, the times with radio. zest of that passed away. I grew "I used a system diifering in tired of my dilettantism. And many respects from that of the eventually I found that, even commercial radio. We haven't while I had been moving about time now to go into all that— the world and experiencing its can tell you later, and it involves «Mrious values, my mind had been much that is highly technical and ppling quietly, subconscious- still secret. It is sufficient if I ex- ifith my old problem. The plain that my object was to evolve -cSatife in my life had given me and fuse methods for doing with the wider outlook, the keener un- each of the senses what radio derstanding necessary to the ac- does with sound. Telephotog- ecattplishment of my task. Ih the raphy was the simplest problem end, I went back to it again with —the others required an almost renewed vigor. With greater pow- superhuman amount of labor. er, too, and greater sawty." "But my biggest job was to combine them. And, to do that, I MELBOURNE paused here. had to use knowledge I had Sensing his need, I brought gained not only in the laboratory him a highball, and one for my- but in my wanderings about the self. He tasted it with a quizzica] earth—not only in the colleges expression. and salons of Europe and Ameri- "They call this whisky nowa- ca, but in the bazaars and temples days!" he observed absently, of India, Egypt, China. I had to with quiet irony. I wanted to unite the lore of ancient and li^r the rest of his account. modern civilizations, and I creat- "Go on with your story, sir," ed a new factor in electrical sci- I begged him. ence. I suppose the simplest and

"The rest is simple enough most intelligible name for it but it's the meat of the narrative. would be mental telepathy. But it Yen see, I bad to revise the way is more than that, and basically I was going about my work, and I it is as simple and material as went at it at a new angle. By this your own motion pictures." time wireless telegraphy was be- I think Melbourne would have

102 AAAAZING STORIES —

gone on and told me more about I bathe and dress. I think the his discoveries. At that moment, record was a Grieg nocturne however, he paused to reflect, something cool and quiet, with a and we looked up to find the oth- touch of acutely sweet pain and ers leaving. The bottle of Scotch melancholy. was empty. Then I happened to glance at "Ready, Melbourne?" Barclay a mirror for the fii-st time. I stood called. We rose. amazed and transfixed. Overnight "I didn't realize it was so late," I had grown a beard such as Melbourne answered. "Mr. Bar- wanderers bring back with them rett and I have found each other from the wilderness. Under the most interesting." beard, my face seemed to have al- We all found our hats and went tered somehow, to have changed out. Melbourne and Barclay, each in some peculiar way. Physically apologizing for having neglected it appeared younger, with an ex- the other, said good-bye. Barclay pression of calm and repose such was tired and wanted to go to as I had never before seen on a bed. He went off with the others, man's face. But the eyes were but Melbourne turned my way. wise and old, as if—ovei'night ! "If you're not too weary of my the mind behind them had company," he said, "I'll go with leax-ned the knowledge of all time. you a little way." Or was it overnight? I could "You know I'm not," I an- not lose that feeling that time swered. "I've never been so in- had passed by since my last con- terested in anything before. It tact with ordinary life. It was as sounds like a chapter from Wells, though, somewhere and some- or Jules Verne." how, I had lived for weeks or He smiled, with a little shake months in some new plane, ,ind of his head, and we walked on forgotten it. I felt richer and or awhile in silence toward the older than I had once felt, and lake. ... the things I had been renaember- ing seemed remote. ALL this came back to me At that moment, a chance swiftly and with an effect of strain from the machine in my incoherence, much as a dream living room brought back a whole moves, during the few moments new group of vivid impressions, when I was getting ready for my strange and yet in a sense moi'e bath. I laid out my shaving familiar than my memories of things, and put a record on the Melbourne. They opened up to me .'fctrola. I have never quite con- a different life in which I seemed uered my need for masie white to '|>artlcit>ated by chance.

Hi CHAMBER Of LIFE 103 nd a life which had, at firat without sleeves and loose—^both sight, no point of contact witfe of them indescribably soft and the reality to which I had rie- comfortable. turned. . . . I was aware of the strangeness of my awakening, but I seemed

A Chance Str«'m frem 6rieg to have no definite recollection of falling asleep. I felt that I had I RECALLED waking up in an- come there during my sleep un- other place, on a long slope of der unusual circumstances and green hill that overlooked a val- from a very different life, but the ley. It was dawn again. The sun thought didn't disturb me or was just rising over the crest of trouble my mind in any way. My the hill behind me, and it threw chief emotion was a curious feel- long shadows across the grass ing of expectancy. I knew that I from the tall, slender trees along was about to have some new and the summit. Down in the valley a curious experience, something broad, clean river of clear water not trivial, and I was eager to followed the curve of the hill un- meet it. til it disappeared from sight. I lay there for awhile, drink- Inhere were other hills beyond the ing in the beauty of the morning, river, all with the same long, sim- and breathing an air of miracu- ple slope of grass; and, beyond lous purity and freshness. Final- the hills, there were the tops of ly I stood up, light and conscious blue mountains, swathed in white of a sudden grace, aware for the morning mist. first time, in its departure, of the It was a strange place. Its awkwardness and weight which strangeness consisted in a subtle ordinarily attend our movements appearance of ordelr and care, as on earth. It was bs if some of the though a gardener or an army of earth's gravity had been lost. gardeners had arranged and For a while I examined the t^dei tlie whole vast sweep of valley, but I saw no sign of life landscape for years. It was un- there. Then I turned and went cultivated and deserted as waste stewly up the hill, the sunlight land, but as well trimmed, in falling warmly on my body, and spite of its spaciousness, as a my feet sinking sensuously in lawn. the deep grass. The morning was very warm. I was not conscious of any chiH in WHEN I came to the crest and the air. I was clothed only in looked over, I saw another short trousers, such as athletes valley before me, deeper than the wear, and a beltod taMc first. The hill rt>lled away, down

AAfliAZING STORIES and down for miles, to a long, followed closely by another and wide plain. More hills rose from then another, like a flight of the plain on every side, as simply birds. They shot up swiftly, cir- as if they had been built there by cled once or twice, and moved the hand of some gigantic child away in different directions, playing in a wilderness of sand. straight and purposeful. One of And the river, coming around the them came toward my hill. base of the hill on which I was standing, but several miles away, IT was only a few moments be- swept out upon a great aqueduct fore the thing sped up to me of stone, hundreds of feet high, and swooped down as I waved my which crossed the plain through arms. It was, of course, a ma- its very center, a straight line of chine, slender and long, with breath-taking beauty, and disap- wide arching wings. It seemed al- peared far away into the pass be- most light enough to float. It had tween two mountains. The whole a deck, shielded from the wind by scene was too perfect to be whol- a shimmering transparent thing ly natural. like a thin wire screen, and under At the center of the plain stood the deck a cabin made, it seemed, a tall, white building. Even in the of glass. A man and a woman

distance from which I viewed it, stood on the deck, the woman it looked massive—larger than handling the controls. They were any skyscraper I had ever seen. both dressed much like myself. But it was delicately and intri- The machine came to rest on cately designed, terraced much as the hill near me. I stepped for- most modern office buildings in ward, and the man leaped down New York are terraced, but more to meet me. His first greeting elaborately. Its base stood about .was curious. the aqueduct, which passed "So you are here," he said. His through it, and it swept up mag- voice was small but cool, penetrat- nificently to a slender peak al- ing and metallic. I thought of most level with the crest of the fine Steel wires. And, when I re- hill where I was standing. It was plied, my own voice had some- the only building in sight. thing of the same quality. I don't know how long I stood "Were you expecting me?" I there, admiring the clean sweep said. He nodded, shaking my and vastness of the scene, before hand briefly and quietly. I saw something rise sharply, "We know all about you," he with a flashing of bright wings, answered. I was pleased—it from some Mdden courtyard or made things simpler—but I terrace of the building. It was wanted to ask him who I was. I

THE CHAMBER OF LIFE 105 —

didn't remembei* anything up to "How has it changed, Baret?" the moment of my awakening on the girl, Selda, asked me. I the other side of the hill. Instead, glanced at her absentiy aod I asked him: closed my eyes. "Shall I go aboard?" He nod- "Why ... I don't know," I ded again, and waved his hand stammered, "I don't remember." toward the ladder. I went aboard For a few moments there was si- lithely, and he followed. The girl lence, except for the shouting of and I glanced at each other; I the wind past our ship. Then was surprised and rather dis- Selda asked me another question. turbed by her beauty and clean- "Where are you from?" I ness of body. I turned to the man, shook my head helplessly, and a little embarrassed, as she ma- answered again, "I don't know nipulated some controls and set I don't remember." tihe ship in motion again.

. "You'll have to forgive me," I A MOMENT later we dipped said. "Something has happened, into the shadow of the build- and I don't know things. I've ing, which they called Richmond. completely lost my memory." We slipped by a succession of They understood at once* vast and intricate fagades until "Your name is Baret." He pro- we came to a court-like terrace, nounced it oddly. "I am Edvar, hundreds of feet above the and this girl is Selda." We all ground and sheltered on three looked at each other intently, and sides by walls that leaped up to- I went on hesitantly. ward the sky for hundreds of "I don't know where I am. Can feet more. The effect of height you tell me something about my- was dizzying and magnificent. self ?" Edvar shook his head. Selda brought the ship to a "Only this," he said, "that we quick and graceful landing. I were notified of your presence found that we were in a large and your name. This city is Rich- paved court like a public square, mond." I glanced about quickly. facing the east and the sun, "Richmond!" I exclaimed. which bathed it in cool bright "Virginia?" But he shook his light. It was still early in the head. morning. Innumerable windows "I don't understand you," fee looked down upon us, and a num- replied. ber of doorways led into the I went on, with a puzzled building on all sides. From one of ." frown. "It has changed. . . these a girl stepped forward. Ed- Both of them looked at me curi- var spoke to her, evidently re- ously. povting himself and Selda. The

AMAZING STORIES gii'l pushed several buttons on a ourselves upon our departure and small cabinet which hung from upon our return. If we visit an- her shoulder. It rang, low and sil- other city, oujr arrival there is "fery, twice. Then she pointed to eicpected and 'reportei here, as me. well as our departure." "Who is that?" she asked. "Is all that necessary?" I asked "His name is Baret," Edvar him. "Is there a war, perhaps?" told her. "I was sent to meet "No," he said, "it's customary. him." It prevents confusion. Every- "But where is he from? He is thing we do is recorded. This not registered." conversation, for instance, is be- "We don't know. It's an un- ing recorded in the telepathic usual circumstance, he ex- laboratory at this moment—each plained, while the girl examined of us has a record there. They us all carefully. "Very well," she are open to the public at any said finally, "you must attend time. It makes dishonor impossi- him until he is registered. I'll no- ble." tify Odom." Edvar nodded, and We paused at a doorway, and we turned away. Edvar spoke a word. It opened Glancing back as we crossed noiselessly and we went into his the court, I saw the ship descend- apartment. ing noiselessly, on the square of "We are assigned to you this pavement where it had landed, morning," Edvar said. "We are into the depths of the building, at your service." while the girl made other ges- tures with her little cabinet. Then THE apartment was hardly we passed through a doorway very different from what I into the subdued glow of artifi- had unconsciously expected. It cial lighting. seemed to have two rooms and a "Why was she so worried?" I bath. The room we entered was a. asked Edvar. "I don't understand sort of study. It was hung with anything, you know." drapes closely woven from some "You were not registered," he light metal, with cold designs said. "We are all registered, of that were suggestive of mechani- course, in our own cities. The au- cal, mathematic conceptions, but thorities know where to find us inspiring in much the way that at any moment of the day during the lines of the building were in- our routine. If we leave the city, spiring. There were no pictures or depart from our usual pro- and no mirrors. All the furniture gram, naturally we note down was made in straight lines, of where we are going, registering me4ial, and somewhat futuristic

THE CHAMBER OF LIFE 107 "

In design. The chairs, however, with a keener appetite than I were deep and comfortable, al- thought I had. It was a simple though the yielding upholstery meal with a slightly exotic flavor, appeared at first sight hard and but without any strange dishes.

brittle as metal sheets. The room During the course, of it, I asked was perfectly bare, and the color Edvar questions. scheme a dull silver and black. To "Your life is amazingly cen-

;me it. seemed extremely somber, tralized," I said. "Apparently all Tjut it pleased Edvar and his com- the things you need are supplied panion. at your rooms on a moment's no- The first thing I noted when tice." we sat down was the absence of "Yes," he smiled, "it makes any small articles—books or pa- life simpler. We have very few pers or lamps—and I remarked needs. Many of them are satisfied on this, somewhat rudely per- while we sleep, such as cleansing haps, to Edvar. and, if we like, nourishment. We "Whatever you wish is accessi- can study while we sleep, acquir- ble," he explained with a smile. ing facts that we may want to He rose and went to the draped use later from an instrument wall. Drawing back the folds of which acts upon the subconscious the curtains in several places, he mind. These dials you see are ^owed the metal wall covered mainly to give us pleasure. If we with dials and apparatus. I noted care to have our meals served in especially a small screen, like a the old-fashioned way, as you are motion picture screen. Later I having yours, we can do so, but «f?as to find that it served not only we reserve those meals for the oc- "0r amusement, showing sound- casions when we feel the need of .pieti^res projected automatically eating as a pure sensation. We from a central office, but also for can have music at any time— news and for communieation, like He paused. "Would you care for a telephone. some music?" "Would you care for break- "There's nothing I'd like bet- fast?" Edvar asked me. I ac- ter," I told him. He went to the cepted eagerly, and he manipu- wall and turned the dials again. lated some dials on the wall. A In a moment the room was filled moment or two later a small sec- with the subdued sound of a cool, tion of the wall opened, and a melancholy music—Grieg, or tray appeared. Edvar placed it on some other composer, with whom the table by my chair. I was unfamiliar, exotic and rem- "We have had our breakfast," iniscent in mood, cool, and quiet e explained, and I began to eat with a touch of acutely sweet

08 AMAZING STORIES pain. I listened to it in silence for fessions, who watch and direct a -while. It was so subtle and per- the machines. It is a matter of a vasive, however, that it seemed few hours a day, devoted to fine to play directly upon the subcon- problems in mechanics or build- scious mind, so that the listener ing or invention. The rest of our could go on thinking and talking time is our own, and the ma- uninterruptedly without losing chines go on moving automatical- any of the feeling of the melody. ly as we have directed them to move. If every man on earth HAVE you no private posses- should die this morning, it would sions?" I asked. "Things be perhaps fifty years or a cen- that you share with no one? Your tury before the last maehme own books, your own music, your stopped turning." own jewelry, perhaps?" "And the rest of the time?" "We have no need of them," he It was Selda who answered replied. After a moment's this time. "We live. We devote thought, he added, "We have our ourselves to learning and crea-. own emotions, and our own work tive thought. We study human re- —that's all. We do not care for lations, or we wander through jewels, or for decoration for its the forests and the mountains, own sake. The things we use and increasing the breadth and sig- see daily are beautiful in them- nificance of our liiinds and emo- selves, through their perfect util- tions." Selda's voice, rising sud- ity and their outward symbolism denly after her long silence, star- of utility and creation. Our tools tled me, and I looked at her, dis- and our furniture are beautiful turbed again by some subtle at- according to our own conceptions traction exercised over me by her of beauty—as you can see." He body. We were silent a while, made a gesture about the room. then I relapsed into my inner "And who serves you with questioniiigs, and turned to Ed- those meals, and the music, and var. the knowledge you learn in your "You must live under a sort of sleep? Who does the work?" socialistic system," I said "We all do the work. Each of us thoughtfully. "Even a sort of has his own work. Each of us is a communism?" craftsman and a creative artist. "In a sense. Rather it is an au- The real work is done by machine tomatic life. The soul of the ma- —our machines are the basic cfaine pervades us all, and the structure of our life. But we have machines are beautiful. Our lives men, highly trained and fitted are logically and inevitably di- temperamentally for th^r pro- rected by environment and he-

TH£ CHAMBER OF LIFE 109 redity just as the machines are T LEARNED innumerable de- inevitably directed by their func- tails of that life from Edvar, tions and capabilities. When a and occasionally Selda would add child is born, we know already some fact. They are not impor- what he will do throughout his tant now. It is the narrative life, how long he will live, what which I must tell, not the details sort of children he will have, the of a social system which, as I woman he will marry. The Ba- would discover later, was purely reau could tell you at this mo- hypothetical. ment when my great-grandson The three of us spent the will be born, when he will die, morning in conversation there, and what his life will do for the until the entrance of another man State. There are never any acci- I had not seen before. He came in dents in our lives." without knocking, but Edvar and Selda did not seem to be sur- BUT how did you develop so prised. He was the representative highly technical a civiliza- of the Bureau. tion?" I asked. "You are Baret?" he said, "We came to it gradually from looking at me keenly. the last government system. It "Yes," I replied. was called the phrenarchic sys- "I have been directed to tell tem—the rule of the mind. It was you that your visit here is tem- neither democracy nor monarchy porary, and that you will be re- nor dictatoi'ship. We found that turned to your previous life at we could tell the temperament the end of a certain period of and characteristics of a child time which we have not yet cal- from his early years, and we culated precisely. You have been trained certain childi-en for gov- registered with the Bureau, and ernment. They were given power you are free to come and go as according to the qualities of their you see fit, but you are not to in- minds and according to the tasks terfere with anything you see. for which they were fitted. We You are an observer. You will be even bred them for governing. expected to comply with our Later, when the machine began methods of living as Edvar or to, usurp the place of labor all Selda will explain them to you." the-world and gave men free- With a slight bow, he turned dojti- and peace and beauty, the to go. But I detained him. task of government dwindled "Wait," I said. "Can you tell away little by little, and the me who I am, and where I've phrenarchs turned gradually to come from?" er occupations." "We are not yet certain. Our

AMAZING STORIES —

knwledgre of you has come to us come to the ©rive. At th in an unusual manner, through a ment Melboui-ne had said BOitie»- series of new experiments now thing—^what was it? being conducted at the Bureau. If He had said, "Tell me, Mr. Bar- possible, we will explain them to rett, would you care to see that you later. In any case you may be dream of yours come true?" assured that your absence from your usual life will not cause you The Chairiber of Lifa any harm, and that you will re- turn after a definite time. Rest T DIDN'T know what Melbourne here, and keep your mind at meant, and I looked at him in- peace. You will be safe." quiringly. Then he turned and left. I was He explained: "I have in my puzzled for a while, but I forgot home a model—or rather a com- that shortly in the strangeness plete test-apparatus. It was fin- and wonder of the life I was liv- ished only a few days ago. I have

ing in a strange world. . . . been i>ostponing my trial of it from day to day, afraid that it AND the lake? Melbourne? might be a failure—although, of The Grieg nocturne came course, it can't be. I have verified to an end. I frowned as I set my work dozens of times, step by down my razor, and went into the step. living room to change the record. "If you care to see it, I should

Conflicting memories . . . be glad to have you come with where did they meet ? On the one me. Now that I have reached the hand was the awakening in the end of iny search, I need someone cold waters of the lake—only an to share my triumph with me;" I hour or less than an hour ago. glanced at him eagerly, but hard- And there was Melbourne, and ly understanding that his offer the strange conversation at the was serious. Club. Finally there was this "But, Mr. Melbourne," I said, amazing and isolated recollec- "why have you chosen me tion, like a passage from a dream. man you've only met this eve- Suddenly, as I went back to my ning?" He smiled. bath and plunged into the cool "I am a lonely man, almost a water, my mind returned to Mel- recluse, Mr. Barrett," he an- bourne. I had been walking home swered. "I have many friends in with him that night from the many countries—but no inti- Club—perhaps last night. We mates. It is the penalty of a had gone on a while in sil^ce, man's devotion to ose single and both of us thinking. Then we had absorbing task. And, too, I think

THE CHAMBER OF LIFE HI —

night—especially when they are yards, up to Melbourne's home. returning from parties. I sup- It was a large house, dark at the pose they manage it somehow moment, like the colonial houses perhaps by signs cut in the trees, you see in Virginia—^the real like primitive Indians. ones, not the recent imitations "Even after I had worked oat that consist of little except the the machine," Melbourne con- spotless white columns, which tinued, "it was a year's job to put Jefferson adopted from the together a record for a thorough Greelss. . trial. That was a matter of syn- chronization like your talking WE went up some steps to a pictures, except that everything wide porch as the t;ixi drove had to be synchronized—taste away, ,and Melbourne unlocked touch as well as sound and vision. the door. The hall inside was a And thought-processes had to be hint of quiet, fine furnishings, included. I had this advantage, with the note of simplicity that however—that I could record ev- marks real taste. Mcll)()urne him- erything by a process of pure self took my hat, and put it away imagination, as I shall explain meticulously with his own in a later, just as everything is re- cloak-room at the end of the hall. ceived directly through the mind. Then he led me up the stairs, And I worked out a way of going deeply carpeted, to his study. I back and cutting out the extran- glanced around the study with eous impressions. Even so, it was interest, but I saw nothing that all amazingly complicated. could, conceivably, have been "I've gotten around the diffi- what he called the Chamber of culties of this, my first record, by avoiding a story of ordinary life. "It's not here, Mr. Barrett," he Indeed, what I have made is said, noticing my eagerness with hardly a .story at all. You can a smile, "we'll go to it in a mo- readily see how hard it. would ment. I thought you might care have been to use the medley of for a highball fiirst." From a clos- noises in traffic, or the infinite et he selected a bottle of Scotch, variety (if subtle country-sounds. some soda, and glasses. Before Instead, I made a story of an he poured the whisky, he re- ideal life as I have visioned it moved a small box from a cabi- the future, if you like, or the life net, opened it, and extracted two on another planet." small capsules. He dropped one At this niDmont we turned into of them into each glass. a dark ilriveway and skirted a "This is a harmless drag," he large lawn for .several hundred explained. "It will paralyze some

THE CHAMBER OF LIFE 113 —

of the nerves of your body so that pi'essions and the heat and cold you won't feel the chair you'll be stimuli of the instrument. That sitting in nor any extraneous is the only reason vpe have to be sensation that might interfere confined here in this room, be- with the impressions you must cause it is especially adapted to jiet from the instrument. It's a the reception of these impres- sort of local anesthetic." He sions. handed me my glass. "The instrument, you see, like We drank the highballs rather a radio, is operative at a dis- hastily, and rose. Melbourne tance. I am going to test you in a went to a door at one end of the moment for your wavelength.

room and opened it, switching on When I have that, and set the in- a light. Following him, I looked strument, you could receive the past the doorway into a small story, so far as I know, anywhere room something like the concep- in the world. No receiving set is tion I had of the control-room in necessary, for it acts directly a submarine. It was a small upon the brain. But you must chamber with metal walls. It had have these ideal conditions for no windows, and only the one pure reception." door through which we entered. Around the walls were a series I SEATED myself in one of the of cabinets with innumerable chairs, yawning a little. Mel- dials, switches, wires, and tiny bourne, working at the dials, no- radio tubes. It was like a Veri- ticed my yawn and observed ap- fied radio, but there were no loud provingly. speakers and no ear-phones. Two "That's good. The more dead- very deep and comfortable chairs ened your body is to real sensa- stood side by side in the center tions—the nearer it is to sleep of the room. the better and more vivid will be "The ejcperience will be very your impressions." He pressed simple," Melbourne said softly. several buttons, and twisted a "I'm not going into any detail dial with sensitive fingers. about this instrument until we "Now, concentrate for a mo- see how it works. I may as well ex- ment on the word Venus," he di- plain, though, that the room is rected. I did so, and shortly I absolutely sound-proof, so that heard a faint humming which no trace of noises outside can en- rose within the instrument. Then

ter it. Furthermore, I maintain Melbourne turned a switch with it at an even body temperature. a nod of satisfaction, and the These precautions are to prevent humming ceased. interference with the sound im- "That gave me your wave-

114 AAAAZING STORIES :

length," he explained. "I have set batiied that niorm'iipr wlicii I it for my own as well—I can came out of the lako, 1 l)(>Kaii to broadcast at one time two or understand more cU'arly what more different lengths. I can had happened to me. Evidently, broadcast more than one part in then, it had been last night that I the drama, too. Whereas you, for saw Melbourne, and the slr;inKf instance, will be the man waking other-life I had been recalling up in a strange world in the re- earlier had been the experience cord we are going to receive, I in the Chamber of Life. have connected my wavelength But there was more yet. My to receive the emotions and the mind raced back to the awaken- sensations of the girl, Selda." ing on the hill, and to the landing He came forward to the other in the city of Richmond. I re- chair, and sat down. membered the conversation with "Everything is in readiness Edvar in hia apartment, the place now," he said. "When I press this where I had left off and gone button on the arm of my chair, back to my recollections of Mel- the lights will go out. A moment bourne. later we shall be under the stimu- Now, as I stepped out of the lus of the machine. I don't think tub and dried myself and dressed, an3^bing can happen." He smiled. I returned mentally to the curi- "If anything does, and you are ous, mythical adventure in the conscious enough to know it, you mythical city. It was still impos- can call my butler by means of an sible for me to feel that it was electrical device I have perfected unreal, it had been so vivid, so simply by speaking his name, clear, Peter, in an ordinary conversa- tional voice. But I don't see how Boret and Salda anjrthing can go wrong." We reached for each other's 1 REMEMBER that I lived hands, and shook them quietly. nearly two months—or so it "Good luck," I said. "The out- seemed—in that other world. I come of this means almost as was assigned an apartment near much to me as it does to you." to Edvar's—Selda was between With another smile, Melbourne us. Edvar instructed me in the answered details of the life I was to lead.

"Good luck to you, then, too." Bat he was a rather cold sort : Kis At that moment the lights interests were ancient history went oS, and we sat there a few and archeology, and ho would moments in total darkness. . , . spend his mornings at Avork in Remembering this scene, as I the Library of History or in his

THE CHAMBER OF LIFE 115 study, the rest of his time flying forest. Toward the north, the about the world on curious ex- mountains crept out from under peditions of discovery—examin- the forest and moved down to the ing the soil, I suppose, and in- sea, rising until they became a vestigating the customs and re- vast wilderness of cliffs and cords of other cities. rocks, and hid the sea, with peak Selda devoted most of her time after peak rising as far as the to me. It was she who took me eye could reach into the snow from place to place, showing me and the mist. Then the hills the natural beauties of that sloped down westward into a se- world. There were, you see, not ries of wooded valleys, through only gentle slopes and hill-tops. which ran the wide river I had There were mountainous crags as seen at my awakening, coming high and as wild as the Alps, for- down from the mountains and ests as impenetrably deep and through the valleys until it flat- stin as the jungles of the Ama- tened broadly out into the low zon, and rivers that rushed and plains in the south and moved tumbled over rocks, or fell for eastward to the sea. Everywhere thousands of feet from ftioun- in the valleys and over the plains. tain cliffs. I knew that cities were scattered, The first time I went with her, lonely and tall like the one they she took me to a gigantic peak called Eichmond. But we were so that overlooked the sea. There high in the mountains that they was, of course, a small level pliace were invisible to us—^perhaps a for the airship to land. We left it keen eye could have found them, there, and climbed on foot the tiny white dots crouching upon last hundred yards or so. Our the earth. way lay through the heavy snow, I turned to Selda—^and caugh but it was not too cold to be more my breath. The wind, swoopin than gloriously bracing, exhilar- up from the sea, whipped her ating. We wore our usual cos- thin covering against her body tume of trunks and tunic. and fluttered it like the swift We stood at the top and looked wings of a butterfly behind her. out over the grandest horizon I Her short, dark hair, too, was had ever seen. To the east there lifted and blown back from her lay the sea, deep and very blue in forehead, revealing the clea the sunlight. The shore was just soft profile of her face. I ha a dark line far away and below never seen a girl who stood so us. There was a long strip of clean, so straight. I watched her grass and field bordering the sea until she turned, too, and met my for miles, and behind that the eyes. In them I thought I de-

116 AMAZING STORIED tected something stax'Ued and "But one can't. One has to follow unfathomable. one's program." "My God!" I cried across the We returned to the airship, wind, "you are beautiful!" She and rose into the cool, thin air. I frowned a little, but her eyes stood behind her on the way still looked searchingly into mine. back, watching her slender body I stepped forward, facing her. as she guided the plane. Once in

But I didn't touch her. I was a while she would turn her head afraid to touch anything so clean. and look up at me over her shoul- "You belong here, Selda," I der, then quickly look away added. "The wind is a part of again. you, and the mountains, and the "Why is it," I asked her as we sea. You shouldn't have to live in passed over the valleys and the the midst of all those people in river on our way home, "why is the city. Yon belong here." She it that these hills have such a smiled faintly, looking up at me. cultivated look—as though they "You belong here more than I had been laid out?" She glanced do, Baret," she said. "You came back, and smiled. to us, not from the city, but from "They have been laid out," she the hills." said. "The hills, and the rivers, and the tallest mountains have WE stood there, examining all been constructed by our land- each other's eyes, for a long scape artists in order to achieve while. I wanted to take her in my their various effects. Even the arms, but I didn't. I looked away line of the sea has been deter- at last, back at the sea, puzzled mined and arranged by the ar- and disturbed. I had never been tists." aware of anything so fine as this "But why?" I said. "Wasn't it before, nor of anything so pain- a frightful waste of energy?" ful. Suddenly I found myself "It didn't seem so to us," she wanting to be something, to do answered. "We had no further something—not for myself, but need to cultivate the land except for her. It was strange. in small patches, vrhen we learned "Come," she said at last, "we the secret of artificial food. And had better go back." we wanted to have perfect beauty "I'd like to stay here forever," about us. So we remodeled the I answered moodily, glancing outlines of the earth, and elim- around a last time at the versatile inated the insects and the harm- horizon. ful animals and the weeds. We "So would I," she admitted. made the land clean and fine as it

Then, in a low voice," she added. had never be^ before." .

THE CHAMBER OF LIFE 117 "It must have been a terrific tween night and day. Then the labor." darkness went away, the sun- "It pleased us. Our instinct is light brightened. I looked around, to arrange and remoM tMngs, and found Selda watching me to order our life so that we know curiously, a little alarmed. what it is and what it will always "What happened, Baret?" she be." She paused for a moment, asked, puzzled. I shook my head and added in a low voice, "One is in bewilderment. necessarily a determinist here." "I seemed to stumble—" I We said no more until our ar- said. There was nothing under- rival in Richmond. foot but the soft sand, and where It is not my purpose to detail I had flung ray baud against a here all that happened during the sort of i-ailing, there was nothing time I spent on that world.- Most either. We went back to the air- of it had to do with Selda, and ship in silence, both of us con- our daily expeditions about the fused. world. This is not, after all, a lovie story, but the account of a AFTER that, with increasing very strange experience; and, frequency, there would come too, none of it was real. interruptions, like iron bars During my last week, a series striking dark, jagged holes in the of strange mood.s and happen- tissue of life. From time to time ings complicated my. life. One I heard inexplicable noises—the day, after a visit to the sea with whirring of motors, the skid-skid Selda, we were walking back to of tires on invisible streets, the our plane across the sand. With- rumble of carts around corners out aay warning, surrounded by of a world where there were no the brilliant morning sunlight carts. Again and again those mo- and the miles of sea and beach, I ments of confusion would come struck my knee against some- over nie, when I seemed to be thing hard and immovable, and, looking into two worlds at once, flinging out my hand to catch one superimposed upon the other, myself from falling, I dung to a one bright, the other dark with hard surface like an iron railing. faint points of light in the dis- For a moment I was stunned and tance. Once, walking along the "onfused. The sunlight seemed to corridor beyond my room in ade, and there was a vague hint Richmond, I collided with a man. of darkness all about me, with For a moment the corridor faded black walls looming up on all completely. I stood on a street sides. It was as though I stood in with dark houses about me. Over- two worlds at once, transfixed be- head was the glow of a street-

118 AMAZING STORIES ]amp, and a milk-cart was just other, and he went away. Selda rattling away around a corner. A and I stepped aboard our ship man with a frightened face stood in silence. before ma, his hat on the pave- That time we flew up the river ment, his eyes staring. We looked until we came to the foothills of at each other in astor.ishro.ent. I the mountains in the north. We started to speak. Then he reached landed in a little clearing by the for his hat quickly, and brushed river at the foot of a waterfall by me, muttering close to my hundreds of feet high, towering ear. over us. The forest stood about "For God's sake, look whtrare us on all sides, coming down to ." you're going. . . the river's brim on the opposite I stood in the corridor again, bank and meeting it not far staring. Down the corridor, from us on the near bank. The coming toward me, was a single precipice, covered with moss figure—Selda. Behind me there sisM small bushes, stood above was nobody. I went to meet Sel- us. da, dazed and uneasy. I could still hear, close to my ear, an WE sat a long while in si- echo of that muffled, hoarse lence, before I said bitterly: vefee that I had never heard be- '**So I must go." fore. She didn't look at me, but an- That was two days before the swered quietly, "Yes, you must end. We were leaving the cil^r m go." that final bright morning, when "I don't want to go," I cried, a representative of the Bureau "I want to stay here!" stopped us. I looked at him ia^ "Why?" she asked me, avert- quiringly. ing her face. "I have come to tell you, "Don't you know?" I said Baret," he said, "that your de- swiftly. "Haven't you under- parture is scheduled for this stood long ago that I love you?" evening." I drew back, startled, She shook her head. and looked at Selda, "Love is something that we "My departure?" I repeated don't know here—^not until we in a low voice, hardly under- have been married and lived standing. "So soon?" I had for- with our men. Sometimes not gotten that one day I jdimild then." But she looked at me, have to leave. and I thought there were tears "It has been arranged," be in ber eyes. Suddenly the im- said impersonally. pulse I had been resisting ever We bowed slightly to each since the morning on the moun-

THE CHAMBER OF LIFE 119 tain became insupportable, and Everything is known and pre- I caught her in my arms almost determined." 'roughly. Her face was close to mine, and she closed her eyes. I SUDDENLY, in the midst of kissed her, forgetting every- what she was saying, close thing but the knowledge that I behind me there sounded even had stumbled upon the sort of above the roaring of the water- love that doesn't pass away, no fall a raucous noise like the toatter how long a man lives. hooting of a taxi horn. It was After a while, though, she followed by a shrieking of drew away as if she resisted not brakes, and a hoarse voice near my desire, but her own. by shouted something angry "No—" she said in a low and profane. A rush of air swept ." and I voice, "no. . . by me, heard faintly the "But Selda!" I stammered, sound of a motor moviHg away,

'I love you—I want to marry with a grinding of gears. I shook her head. looked at Selda. , you." She "No," she said again, "didn't "Did you hear that?" you undei-stand? I ana ^h&3- She nodded, with wide, fright- uled to marry Edvar." ened eyes. "Yes. It's not the At first I didn't know what first time." Suddenly she rose, she meant. frowning, as if with pain. "Scheduled?" I repeated dully. "Come," she added, "now we "I don't understand." must go back." "It has been arranged for There was nothing else to do. years. Don't you remember what We went back silently to the Edvar told you about our mar- airship, and turned its nose riages here, the very first day toward the city. you came? I was destined to But when I left her at her marry Edvar long before any of apartment, promising to see her us were born, before our par- later, I had one last hope in my ents, even, were born. It's the mind. I went to the Bureau. way they order our lives." The Bureau was a vast system "But I love you," I cried in of halls and offices, occupying amazement. "And you love me, two floors of the great building. too. I know you love me." I was sent from one automatic "That means nothing here," device to another—there were ohe said. "It happens sometimes. no human clerks—in search of One has to accept it. Nothing the representative who had can be done. We live according spoken to me before. Finally I to the machinery of the world. found him in his apartment,

120 AMAZING STORIES down the corridor only a hun- "No," he said coldly, "the dred feet or so from my own. He thing was as definite as every was pouring over a metal sheet event that takes place here. We on his table, where innumerable do not let things happen hap- shifting figures were thrown by hazardly. We do not alter what some hidden machine, and he has been arranged. And even if was calculating with a set of it were possible to let you stay hundreds of buttons along its —whieh I am inclined to doubt edges. He spoke to me without —fthey would not permit it." pausing or looking up, and throughout my interview he WHY not?" I asked dully. continued with his figuring as "Because there is no place if it had been entirely automatic for you. Our social system has —^as perhaps it was. been planned for hundreds of

"What is it, Baret?" he said years ahead. Every individual of I felt like a small child before today and every individual of the the principal of the school. next six generations has his "I have come to ask you definite place, his program, his whether it is necessary for me work to do. There is no place for to go," I answered. He nodded you. It is impossible to fit you slightly, never looking up. in, fwe you have no work, no "It is necessary," he said. training, no need that you can

"Your visit was pre-arranged fill. You have no woman, and and definite." I made a gest<^ there are no women for your of remonstrance. children or ybur children's chil- "But I don't want to go," I In- dren. You are unnecessary. To sisted. "I like this place, and I fit you in, one would have to am willing to fall into its life if disrupt the whole system for I can remain under ai^ condi- generations ahead. It is impo tions." sible." "It is impossible," he objected I thought a moment, hope- angrily. lessly.

"I have never been told why "If I made a place?" I. sug- or how I came here. You said gested. "Suppose I took some- you would tell me that." one else's place?" He smiled, a "I have never been told my- faint, cold smile. self. It is a matter known to the "Murder? It is impossible. men who handled it." You are always under the con- "If I went to. them, surely trol of the Bureau in some way, they could find seme way to let whether you are aware of it or me stay?" »ot."

THE CHAMBER OF LIFE J21 T TURNED away, a little dazed. Selda before my eyes. It was a The whole thing was inevita- dream-like moment. ble and clear as he put it. I Then I slipped over the river's knew there was nothing to be bank, into the water, and the done. swift current, catching me up I left his apartment, and went and whirling me around dizzily, down the corridor to the landing carried me toward the edge of stage. No one interfered with the waterfall. my movements, and my com- mands were not questioned. I And So to Work ordered a plane, and gave my name to the girl in charge. T GLANCED at the clock on "Your destination ?" she ^ the mantel. It was five min- asked. utes to eight: time to leave, if I "I said, "I am only going for was to get a decent breakfast leasure." before I went to the office. I "Your return?" found an old hat in the closet "Expect me in an hour." and put it on. It would do until I had watched SeMa pilot the I had time to buy another. planes for so many weeks that Last night—and this morn- I was familiar with the con- ing. Last night, after supper, I trols. I rose swiftly, circled the had dropped by the Club for a building, and headed north to- drink. And met Melbourne. This ward the mountains. I hadn't morning I woke in the water of the courage to see Selda again. the lake, and came home, and It was only a little while before dressed. And went to work. I came to the place by the river Twelve hours—and in that time ..here we had spent the morn- I had lived two months. I bad ' g. I slowed down, And flew fallen in love, and died. Now I over it, just above the water- must go to work. fall. As I left the apartment, and There was a landing-spot by turned west away from the the river just beyond the top of Drive, toward the sti-eet cars, I the fall. I came to rest there, was whistling over and over a and left the machine. brief snatch of music. Was it I stood looking at the river Grieg? Or some composer never W a moment. I don't remember heard on earth? that any thoughts or emotions There were people on the came to my mind. I simply stood street now. They went by with there, a little dazed, and very frowning, intent faces—on their quiet, with a vague picture of way to work. And cars rolling

122 AMAZING STORIES —I

by, pausing at the cross streets I LEFT the car, and walked with little squealings of brakes. down the street, lost in the Everything was so simple midst of the crowds httrj*ying now. I went over it all as I wait- about me. It was all over, gone ed for the street car, and as I like one of those old dreams of rode down town. It was strange my childhood. I could never for- that Melbourne had n^ver fore- get it—never forget Selda—but seetv that one possibility among it v/aa gone. It had never ex- so" many. isted. It had been cruel of Mel- We had sat down in our bourne, cruel and ironic, to put chairs, and then the adventure Selda in the dream. But perhaps had begun. I had felt the sensa- he had never realized that it tion of moving about, of going would last over into reality. from place to place. When I was I had no hope of seeing her a child I used to have dreams of again, even in the Chamber. I walking about the house and knew I could never find Mel- about the streets. I would wake bourne's home: I had paid no up on the stairs, or at the door attention to the way the taxi- —sleep-walking. Reflexes did it. driver took. And I wasn't very I had left the chair, under the much interested now. It was influence of the story in the only a dream. I had lost the only Chamber of Life, and gone out girl I had ever loved, in a dream. of the room. I remembered now I pushed open the door of the all those brief moments, when I Norfolk Lunch. It was late— had seemed poised on the brink had only a little while for of the real world—^the stumbling breakfast. I sat down at one of against some hard object, the the tables, and spoke to the face under the street-lamp, the waiter in much the usual man- taxi, the voices. I had been go- ner. ing through the dark streets, "HelTio, Joe. I'm in a hurry with closed eyes, going toward bring me bacon and eggs, as the Drive—sleep-walking. And usual." when I slipped over the bank of "Coffee, Mr. Barrett?" the river, in the dream, and "Yes, coflfee too. And hurry it down into the water—in reality up." I had gone oyer the side of the It wouldn't do to be late at Drive, and down into the cold the office, where I, too, was a lake. maker of sometimes cruel It had been dawn. dreams.

THE END

THE CHAMBER OF LIFE 123 kond of a series of |s ii| which

sses the possiliiiities < rottier worlds.

The Three Requirements of

LIFE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM By BEN BOVA

IHuArat«d by FINLAY

[N our first look at the possibili- but none of the solvents listed ties of alien life, last month, could possibly be in liquid fown we considered the origin of life on Mercin-y, where the bright &n Earth, and contemplated a side averages 530° F, and the 15-ton, fluorine-breathing extra- dark side is near absolute zero terrestrial. The purpose behind (-459° F). this exercise was to try to un- Let's take a broad look at how cover the fundamental require- the Solar System's planets stack ments of life—requirements that up against the Three Eequire- hold trut! anywhere and every- ments. (See Table 2, page 127.) where. The most striking feature of We came up with three basic Table 2 is that all the planets, requirements, which we can except Pluto, are known to pos- visualize in tabular for'm. (See sess ample carbon. Require-

Table 1, page 127.) ment 1 will be no difficulty. As The altern3,tives listed in Col- you can see, though, there are umn 3 depend largely upon the~~ plenty of question marks star- environment under considera- ing at us. We'll try to answer tion, and mostly on the tempera- them as we go along. tures and pressures of that en- 1 vironment. We might, for in- YVT'E must rule out at once both ^ stance, expect to find liquid am- » Mercury and Luna as likely monia in vast quantities m abodes of life. Mercary's tem- Jupiter, where pressures are peratures are too extreme for a high and temperatures are low; reasonable solvent-medium to Artist's rendition of author's conception of Jovian sea-creature. 125 —

form. Any decent solvent would likely cold gases escaping from be evaporated in short order on the Interior. Mercury's bright side, and would What about life inside the eithei' escape directly into space, Moon? Sorry, we must again or would be sucked across to the say no. There would be no en- dark side, where it would be ergy source beneath the Moon's frozen solid in a twinkling. Thus surface except radioactivity, we can't postulate the forma- which is no doubt much too low tion of complex molecules that to support biochemical reac- would need an energy-exchange tions. Solid-state life is seem- reacticm. Indeed,^ Mereury's ingly out of the question alto- chemistry must be limited to l&e gether. Life depends on chemi- inorganic variety. cal reactions that must proceed Earth's Moon is in- at Similarly, a fairly brisk pace ; reactions apable of supporting life on its in solids aren't fast enough. airless, waterless, barren sur- "Stone cold dead" is no acci- face. Luna's very appearance dental juxtaposition of words. bare rock and dust—makes it We'll have to eliminate Pluto seem an unlikely plaee to seek from our list of candidates, too, life. We saw in our previous simply because we don't know article that life on Earth inter- enough about it. Pluto is so far acted strongly with the plane- from us that all we can say for tary environment, changing an certain is that there's nothing ammonia/methane atmosph€ire we can say for certain. That to nitrogen/oxygen, transform- leaves Mars, Venus, and the ing barren rock to fertile soil, giant planets—-Jupiter, Saturn, stocking the seas and covering Uranus and Neptune. We'll the lands with life. The Moon is tackle the giants a little later. apparently as barren as the mo- Bigltt now, let's, take a closer ment it was created; no feature look at our searest planetary of the lunar landscape is at- neighbor. tributable to life. The Moon's big problem is lack of gravity. Invisible Vemn It cannot hold a usable atmos- phere. Thus its surface Is either DEEPETUALLY shrouded by boiling hot in sunlight, or im- ^ clouds, beautiful jewel of our possibly cold in shadow. Liquids night skies, shining, mysterious, cannot exist there. From time tantalizing and frustrating—^the to time, observers report seeing planet Venus lives up to her strange color changes in some namesake in every way. What lunar craters. These are most we know definitely about Venus 426 AMAZING STORIES Table 1 UNIVERSAL REQUIREMENTS FOR LIFE

Requirement Met on Earth By Possible Alternatives

1. Building block atom Carbon atoms. Silicon, phosphorus, boron for construction of and germanium atoms. large molecules.

2. Solvent-medium in Liquid water. Ammonia, hydrogen fluoride, which large mole- hydrogen chloride, hydrogen cules can be built. bromide, hydrogen sulfide, carbon disulfide, etc.

3. Energy-exchange Biochemical Biochemical reactions in which

reaction hydrogen- either hydrogen or oxygen is oxygen substituted for (ex., hydrogen reactions. fluorine). Other reactions pos- sible, but not enough known at present to postulate them in detail.

Table 2 PLANETARY ENVIRONMENTS

Require- Require- Require-

Temperature Range ment 1 ment 2 ment 3 Planet Max. Min. Met by: Met by: Met by: Mercury 700°P —459°F corbon none Venus 600 —35 carbon ? hydrogen- oxygen reactions(?) Earth 135 — 120 carbon liquid hydrogen- H2O oxygen reactions Luna 220 —240 carbon none none Mars 80 —140 carbon liquid hydrogen- H.O(?) oxygen reactions Jupiter — 150 —240 carbon liquid ? ammonia Saturn —225 —297 carbon liquid ? ammonia(?) Uranus —297 —350 carbon ? ? Neptune —333 —369 carbon ? ? Pluto —350 —400 ? ? ?

LIFE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM 127 n be summed up quickly. She's the Venusian atmosphere car- nearly the same size as Earth ries heat very effectively from (surface gravity=0.85 g). She's bright to dark regions (as does

some 25 million miles closer to our Earthly atnio.sphere) ; sec- the Sun than we. Her atmos- ond, Venus does not present phere is thick, hut lacks free only one side of itself to the oxygen. It contains mostly car- Sun, as does Mercury—the plan- bon dioxide, with some carbon et may rotate only once a month, "onoxide, nitrous oxide, meth- but all parts of the planet face ne and ammonia. Also present sunward for equal amounts of n the Venusian atmosphere are time during the Venusian year. ethane, ethylene, and ivater va- por. These are extremely im- f\F the many theories postu- portant substaaces, as we'll see ^ lated about Venus' surface in a moment. conditions, only two seem able Because Yenus is closer to the to survive the 600° F surface Sun than Earth, it has long temperature. E. J. Opik visual- been supposed that beneath her izes Venus as a "dust-bowl" clouds the planetary surface was planet, where solar-powered quite hot. Venus' surface is in- winds of ultra -hurricane force visible to our eyes, but the radio whip particles of dust and sand telescope can "see" it well from the utterly dry ground enough. "Quite hot" turns out to with such violence that the fric- be a conservative statement in- tion of their rubbing together deed; recent radio measui'e- adds to the planet's already- ments have shown that Venus' high temperature. Not a pleas- surface temperature is about ant aspect for life—or visiting 600° F. astronauts, Fred Hoyle is more On this sharp edge of fact optimistic. He thinks Venus bursts a beautiful bubble that may indeed be covered by a pictured Venus as a water-cov- planet-wide ocean—not of wa-

ered planet. All the water on ter, but of oil ! The eyes of Texas, Venus must be in the form of he concludes, should be upon vapor. The only compounds like- Venus. ly to remain liquid at that tem- perature would be certain types What about life on Venus? of mineral oils. Incidentally, the Requirement 1 is easy to meet; high surface temperatures hold there's carbon a-plenty on the good for the night side of the planet. Requirement 3 would planet as well as the day side. seem to be no great problem ei- This means two things: first. ther. Venus must receive an

128 AMAZING STORIES enormous amount of solar en- paragraphs back, and their com- ergj' on its surface, even though position (Table 3 below), we the cloud layer reflects a con- can see that Venus' atmosphere siderable amount of sunlight. contains carbon, nitrogen, OKy- This solar energy can be the gen and hydrogen. driving force behind a myriad of Can the gases of an atmos- chemical and biochemical reac- phere take the place of a liquid tions. solvent-medium ? Can Venus' at- The real question of Venusian mosphere perform the same life revolves around Require- service in the formation of life ment 2: the need for a solvent- that Earth's oceans did? Can medium in which the chemicals the chemical reactions that led basic to life can meet and inter- up to the evolution of living act. If Venus is really a dust- molecules take place in a gase- bowl. Requirement 2 cannot be ous state? met on the surface of the planet. There is no wholly satisfac- The situation that might arise tory answer to those questions. if Venus is covered with an There seems to be no •'obvious

Table 3 COMPOSITION OF ATMOSPHERIC GASES

1. Carbon dioxide (CO:) C = Carbon 2. Carbon monoxide (CO) O = Oxygen 3. Nitrous oxide (N2O) N = Nitrogen 4. Methane {CH,) H = Hydrogen 5. Ammonia (NHJ 6. Water Vapor (H:,0) ocean of oil is hazier—the chem- reason why "chemical evolution" ical reactions likely to take place reactions cannot take place in a in such an ocean are difficult to mixture of gases. On the other envision. But that 600° F surface hand, the chemical reactions temperature makes even an oil- we're talking about are just ocean seem unlikely. tricky enough to make one un- On the other hand, all the certain of whether they could chemical requirements for life take place in anything but a are present on Venus. Not on liquid. the surface. In the atmosphere. There's a possibility, then, Considering the constituents of that life may have evolved in the atmosphere, given a few Venus' atmosphere. The killing

LIFE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM 129 —

eat of the surface eases con- Naturally, we shouldn't ex- siderably with helglit, mA tem- pect to find life forms with peratures as low as —85° F structures and chemistries iden- have been measured at the top tical to those of Earth. Plant of the Venusian atmosphere, life might well store oxygen in- *above the cloud layer. Surely ternally instead of breathing it somewhere in those clouds is a out. Animal forms could obtain temperature level friendly to the "breathing" oxygen by eating «yolsjtioiJ of life. the plants, just as desert ani- mals on Earth obtain water by WHAT would the Venusians eating moisture-hoarding vege- look like? Aerial bacteria, tation. The lack of free oxygen probably; we have plenty of shouldn't be a lethal blow to our them on Earth. Insect-type life, speculations. In fact, there are airborne plants a large vari^ life forms on Earth that get

life , along . of lighter-than-air is pos- quite well without any sible. It doesn't seem feasible to oxygen at all. Various species of expect heavier-than-air crea- anaerobic bacteria live on nitro- teres (such as birds or flying gen, iron and even sulfur com- reptiles and majnmals) to de- pounds. The presence of free velop in an environment where oxygen will kill some of them!

they'd - have to spend their en- Even the nuclei of our own body tire lives aloft. For, remember, cells are anaerobic, harking a descent to the scorching tem- back to the earliest living forms peratures of the surface (or on Earth which evolved and de- even to the lower atmosphere) veloped in an oxygen-less atmos- would kill the kind of life we're phere. ^visioning just as certainly as An interesting point that eat will hardboil an egg. might be in our favor is the 'We can picture, then, a sort presence of ethane (CjH,,) and of aerial Sargasso Sea, with ethylene (CjH,) in the Venusian many types of pMlit and animal atmosphere. These are quite forms floating in the cloudy at- simple hydrocarbons, but they mosphere of Venug. While they are organic compounds, none- would have the entire circum- theless. If we can observe sig- ference of the planet to roam in, niiicant amounts of organic *ey "WoTild be strictly limited compounds in Venus' atmos- in their vertical wanderings: phere from 25 million miles straying either below or above away, what will we find when we their optimum temperature-alti- send instrumented rocket probes tude would be fatal into that atmosphere?

130 AMAZING STORIES :

Hm Planet Of UH sions on Jupiter and leave the other giants and their platoons WT'E needn't really speculate of satellites to only minor refer- ences. are rea- " about the presence of life There two main on Mars. Even the most con- sons for this: first, Jupiter is servative astronomers will now representative of all the giants; grudgingly admit that some and second, Jupiter is the closest giant planet to Earth, and there- form of plant life no doubt exists fore in the greenish areas of the Red the one that we know most Planet. Therefore, we're going about. probably that to skip over Mars for the pres- You know we can't see the surface of any ent, in the hope that we can re- of the giant planets. Indeed, there turn at a later date and present might not be a solid surface in a full story on the subject. Too the sense that ordinarily much has been observed, and too we think of. Their frigM atmos- many theories formulated, to pheres gradually thicken, capsulize here. may liquify, and finally become solid The important point is that with depth. It was once believed Mars—arid, frigid, nearly air- that Jupiter's atmosphere must less—seems to bear a hardy be thousands of miles thick. But plant life. As for the possibili- more recent estimates, based on ties of animals, and those in- better knowledge of Jupiter's triguing canals . . . well, some temperatures and of the physi- other day. Bear one fact in mind cal behavior of gases, show that Mars is the only planet in the the atmosphere must be less than Solar System whose surface we 500 miles deep, at best. It is can see with anything approach- composed predominantly of hy- ing clarity. And we see life! drogen and helium, with large Can it be a coincidence, or is it amounts of ammonia and meth- that life will take root wherever ane, plus smatterings of many it can find the barest favorable other elements and compounds. conditions? From Earth we can see only the top of this atmosphere. It is Jupiler and the GianU tijick with clouds—ammonia crystals, methane vapor, clouds THE giant planets—Jupiter, of sulfur and iron compounds. Saturn, Uranus and Neptune Now, while Jupiter is about 11 —and their respective satellites times l&rgep than Earth, are totally alien worlds. We're "day" is slightly less than ten going to concentrate our discus- hours long! This extremely rap-

LIFE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM 131 d rotation must ehitrn the at- 500 miles below the clouds, mosphere into violent motion. of the atmospheric gases must The bright-colored bands cir- have reached the liquid phase. cling Jupiter's disc must in real- We can picture a planet-wide "ty be wind streams of a strength ocean, predominantly of hydro- andreamed-of on Earth. gen, but with significant The temperatures at the top amounts of ammonia. Below the of those clouds average around liquids come the solids—^watei* — 190°F, but the temperatures ice, solid hydrogen, and then existing beneath the clouds are possibly (but not certainly) still an open question. Jupiter's dense core of rock and metal. gravitational pull at the top of Would there be any solid the cloud deck is 2.65 g, or nearly "land" jutting above the surface three times the gravitational of the ammonia-laden ocean? force at Earth's surface. These Not likely. Those super-powerful two conditions of temperature winds would erode an ice-moun- and gravity are the chief factors tain in short order. And the "o consider in our speculations ocean currents themselys Itout life on Jupiter. While 2.65 which are also whipped I not a crushing gravitational frenzy by the planet's fren '"pau, in itself, Jupiter's gravity rotation, would be hard at w field is nothing to scoff at. The knocking down anything pull gets steeply stronger as you rose to block their path. go from the top of the atmos- So we have a completely a phere inward. And it has an in- planet: heavy gravity, unbear- creasingly powerful effect on the able pressures, poisonous atmos- pressure of the atmosphere. phere, corrosive seas, killing cold. Can life exist on Jupiter? If AT the top of the cloud level, our answer is no, then, we'll atmospheric pressure has have to rule out the possibilities been estimated at about one of life on the other giant plan- •'arthly atmosphere (nearly 15 ets as well, because they are all pounds per square inch). But smaller and colder than Jupiter, only some 60 miles below this and therefore less likely to con- level, pressure probably rises to tain the necessary ingi-edient.« six atmospheres and continues and the energy source of thdy^ to go up steeply with increasing bigger brother. But we mustffli depth. The gases soon begin to automatically eliminate Jupiter liquify, partly because of the in- from consideration simply be- tense pressure, and partly due cause it's alien. That kind of to the low temperature. At about anthropomorphic thinking leads

132 AMAZING STORIES OBly to a blind alley. Let's con- ultraviolet light simulated UV sider Jupiter in relation to the radiation from the Sun, and the three fundamental requirements electrical discharges represent- for life. ed lightning flashes in the Jo- Requirement 1 is easily ful- vian atmosphere, which have filled. There's plenty of carbon been deduced from radio tele- *4 available, combined with hydro- scope observations of Jupiter. gen to form methane, which is Dr. Sagan's experiment pro- present in the atmosphere and duced simple organic molecules. doubt exists in the liquified This leads him to believe that f% no form, too. So carban can be the the same chemical processes building-block atom. could be taking place in Jupi- Requirement 2 is also met: ter's atmosphere. the planet-wide ocean, with its Moreover, he found that Jupi- healthy share of liquid ammonia, ter's atmosphere exhibits a can serve as a solvent-medium "greenhouse effect." Sunlight very nicely. A bit chilly and cor- penetrates the atmosphere and rosive for our tastes, perhaps, is absorbed by the (presumably bat to a would-be Jovian it liquid) surface below. The sur- might feel like a relaxing warm face re-radiates practically all bath. the energy it receives from the Sun, but it radiates this energy THE stickler is Requirement 3 as infra-red light. Jupiter's at- —an energy-exehange reac- mosphere traps infra-red light tion. At first glance, biochemical (as do the atmospheres of Earth reactions of the type we've seen and Venus) and prevents it from on Earth, Venus and Mars seem escaping back into space. Thus to be out of the question. Condi- the atmosphere is heated. Dr. tions are too alien. But let's Sagan theorizes that tempera- face the problem on its own tures near the surace of Jupiter terms. What kind of chemistry might be as high as 70"" F! would be possible under Jovian This is isarprising news, but ** conditions? Dr. Carl Sagan of not altogether without support- the University of California ing evidence. Radio astrono- took just that approach recent- mers have been attempting for ly. He created, in the labora- some time now to get a measure- tory, a miniature replica of Jia- ment of the temperatures below piter's hydrogen-helium-ammo- Jupiter's cloud deck. Their ef- nia-methane atmosphere, and forts have been confounded by subjected it to ultraviolet light the presence of Van Allen belts and electrical discharges. The of radiation around the planet,

LIFE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM 133 Rwhieh give off spurious radio free state in Jupiter'is frigid noise. But even considering the cloud layers, then even if Jupi- obscuring effects of the Jovian ter is as cold as it is usually Van Allen belts, there is some presumed to be, free radicals reason to believe that Jupiter can form the basis for a cryo- may be considerably warmer be- genic biochemistry. The low low the clouds than was previ- -temperatures might slow down ously believed. their explosive reaction rates to Dr. Sagan's experiments have a pace suitable for life processes.

Jied to is him think that simple or- . Cryogenic biochemistry a janie compounds may be "rain- long, tall, wild speculation, of ing" out of Jupiter's atmos- course. But so was the notion phere into the ammoniated sea that man evolved from tree below. There, in that solvent- shrews—once. Assuming that i^naedium, the complex chain of we can postulate living crea- "chemical evolution" might have tures in Jupiter's ammoniated liiken place and lead to the exist- ocean, what might they look ence of life. like? Living in the sea, they would be in a practically grav- COMPLETELY aside from Dr. ity-free environment. But the Sagan's work, there is an- pressures of that tightly other interesting .avenue of spec- squeezed liquid would be some- ulation about life on Jupiter. thing else again. On Earth, •^Several observers have rejported whales have been known to fight that the Jovian atmosphere con- and feed at depths of 3000 feet, tains significant amounts of a where the pressure must be family of chemical compounds more than a ton per square inch. LiCaUed "free radicals." A radical In Jupiter's all-pervading ocean, is simply a molecule that has pressures like that must seem somehow acquired a surplus trivial. electi'ical charge, either positive Our Jovian sea-creatures must or negative. At Earth's tempera- be sturdy characters, probably ture range, radicals cannot re- with thick external shells and main free for very long. They strong internal bracing. Unless combine almost immediately they are willing to be swept with other chemicals. Their com- along passively on Jupiter's rac- binations are in some eases so ing ocean currents, they must powerful that rocket engineers have developed some powerful have considered using certain swimming ability. Flexible fins types of radicals as rocket pro- and tails seem unlikely, but pos- pellants. But if they exist in the sibly they've developed a form

134 AMAZING STORIES of jet-propolsion, like the squids somewhat colder, hence less like- of Earth. ly to attain the necessary tem- Eyes of any sort would be peratures for the critical bio- useless inside that darkened chemical reactions. Uranus and ocean, beneath Jupiter's cloudy Neptune apparently have less , atmosphere. Our Jovian cuttle- ammonia available, which casts fish probably would depend on doubts about their ability to touch-receptors mounted flush form a solvent-medium and meet along his shell, iseixsitive to the Requirement 2.

slightest ripple, to tell him The satellites of all the giant . where food, friend and foe is. planets are little more than frozen ice-balls. Only Titan and A THICK-SHELLED cuttle- (possibly) Ganymede have at- fish, blind, possibly with mospheres that might serve m grasping claws. Intelligent? heat-absorbers. The presence of Hardly. Its world would be too liquid ammonia is doubtful for featureless, too limited for true all of them, which makes it hard intelligence to arise. The Jovians to postulate life beginning on would have no way of knowing any of #ie satellites: anything existed outside their * ocean. They could never sense * • the stars. Their thoughts—if any—would never be directed SO we have a variety of proba- any further than the next meal, bilities: Mars almost cer- or the next mating. After all, tainly has life; Venus quite pos- this is the intellectual climate sibly does; Jupiter might, while of the ocean-dwellers of Earth. the other giants and their satel- Even the frisky dolphin, for all lites probably don't; the Moon, his potential intelligence, has Mercury and Pluto seemingly never used his fine brain to solve are barren. problems more sophisticated What about the minor chunks than eating, escaping enemies, of metal and rock called the and procreation—unless he re* j^anetoid belt? Orbiting for the ceives an outside stimulus from most part between Mars and man. There's no reason to sup- Jupiter, the planetoids probably pose that Jovian sea-creatures represent the raw material for a would behave much differently. planet that never coalesced. Jupiter probably represents Many planetoids swing past the best bet for life in all the Earth's orbit and countless of giant planets and their satellites. them have flashed through our Saturn is much like Jupiter, but skies as meteors.

LIFE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM 13S At first impression, a plane- complex organic chemical com- toid would seem too small even pound, called cytosine. Cytosine to be considered as a possible is one of the vital building harbor of life. But science has a blocks of DNA—the basic chem- long history of contradicting ical of life on Earth! first impressions. In 1959, Dr. The tremendous implications Melvin Calvin of the University of this discovery are just begin- of California examined a meteor- ning to make themselves felt in ite that had landed a few years the worlds of biochemistry and earlier in Kentucky. Astrono- astronomy. In our next article, mers had deduced that the me- we'll examine these implications, teorite, vsfhich was of the rocky, and see how the evolution of life carboniferous type, originated now seems inextricably bound in the planetoid belt. Dr. Calvin up with the formation of the discovered that the meteorite Solar System. contained miiiute amonnts of a THE END

COMING NEXT MONTH Jack Vance returns in the August issue of AMAZING. In his powerful novelet of ad- venture in the spaceways, a young crew of astronauts makes a test flight with a solar -wind -powered ship. Titled Gateway fo Sfrange-

ness, it is illustrated by one of Schomburg's visually exciting, technically precise covers. Sam Moskowitz profiles

his first female sf writer; C. L. Moore. ALSO; A new novelet, Rogue Psi, by James H.

Schmitz; part II of the Lau- mer novel; the third article in Ben Bova's fact series on

extra-terrestrial life; And, if there's room, a short story or two, plus all our regular fea- tures. August AMAZING will be on sole at your newsstand July 10.

136 AMAZING STORIES —

(Continued from pagre i-) a similar evolution in Mr. Clif- A&1\", pointed at it and said ton. I hope I'm wrong. Because "This is Humanity," and then if I'm nofl'Il be forced to consign started sniping wildly at it with Clifton to the same realm where a rusty blunderbuss, not even I've already consigned the later bothering to take aim as he does Ralph Kennedy—and which is so. Under the circumstances, it's approximately the same limbo to hardly surprising that he misses which, I suspect, he'd consign his real target, who's sitting me. somewhere behind him and de- Clifton, in short, seems to have riving considerable amusement succumbed to the same disease from his oh-so-ridiculous antics. with which he claims everybody But is it really funny ? else is infected—and it's more or I don't think so. The very fact less the Greek hybris, overween- that someone like Clifton cow ex- ing pride. If Clifton is Kennedy ist, apparently blinded by his and tfii^e versa, as I'm inclined own hatred to the everywhere- to suspect, then God help his obvious signs of human decency, friends if he still has any! And is a much more scathing com- if Kennedy is the ideal towards mentary on our times than any- which Man is striving, then I'd thing Clifton ever wrote. Espe- advise us to quit striving right cially since, to judge from his here and now. Despite Mr. Clif- stories, he once possessed consid- ton's contentions, we most of us erably more sympathy for our do know something of humility— little (or even our big) human and thank God for that! frailties. (We are frail too The worst of it is that Clif-

there's no point in denjing it. ton's viewpoint is self-evidently But this doesn't mean, as Clifton completely inadequate. Let's face seems to think it does, that every it: the oB^ standards Clifton or child born is rotten through and anyone else has to judge us by through from the moment of its are human staindards, set up and conception.) Ralph Kennedy, in maintained by human beings. "What Thin Partitions" and the The very fact that we possess other early psi-man stories, was such standards and consistently a pretty nice guy. In "Pawn of treat them as desirable is a posi- the Black Fleet" he's become a tive achievement of sorts. If we pretentious prig whose only no- were as bad as Clifton makes us tion seems to be that he's always out to be, the two stories I'm right and everyone else arouni talking about would never have him stinks. To judge from his been written. Clifton just would- stories, I'd be inclined to suspect n't have had any standards to

137 condemn us by—and if he had, for the human race in her own they wouldn't mean anything to right, though she wouldn't agree us. with me there. (This is the kind In FANTASTIC ADVENTURES of humility that Ealph Kennedy, about ten years back you ran a if not Clifton himself, lacks.) Paul Fairman story called, if I She isn't just about everything 'fimember rightly, "Witness for that Clifton says everybody is. he Defence." In that story the She's not perfect, of course. But human race was, not actually but perfection, by its nature, is un- figuratively, put on trial. The attainable: if it weren't, it'd be prosecution's case bore striking synonymous with stagnation. resemblances to Mr. Clifton's, What right has Mark Clifton or though at far shorter length. anyone else to expect it? Then the witness for the defence Maybe I'm being as intol- arrived: Christ. His testimony erant as Clifton in my own dia- was short, sweet and simple. In metrically opposite way. In that the last million years Man has case, ignore me. But I leave yoti learned to distinguish between with this one scrap of food right and wrong. Period. The de- for thought: where everything's fence rests. being blackened indiscriminate- Mr; Clifton should've read this ly, except for certain phony bits story. It's an oversimplification, of flim-flammery set up just for sure, but a lot less so than his the purpose of being white, the hag-ridden viewpoint. resulting product will be none Of course, maybe the people too convincing. And good fiction Mr. Clifton comes into contact should convince the reader. with don't have any such things "Pawn of the Black Fleet" and as ethical codes or consciences. "Hang Head, Vandal!" don't. If If so, some of his wild accusa- Mr. Clifton must vituperate fte tions are justified—as long as human race—and he has a perfect they're aimed at this particular right to do so—then make him group of mindless savages. But I do so in a readable fashion next evidently move in different cir- time. These two stories are just cles than Mr. Clifton does. Near- "pretentious balderdash", as ly everyone I know I'd rate as your Mr. Cotts described Strang- nice, though some of them have er in a Strange Land (which, in- their off moments. But so did cidentally, I liked). And I don't nearly everybody, up to but not want to read pretentious balder- including Jesus Christ Himself. dash, in AMAZING or anywhere And there's at least one girl here else. If Clifton must be conten- who I think is a sufficient defence tious, then let him be contentious

138 AMAZING STORIES :

ill the vein of his "What Now, it. By its very nature, lampoon Little Man?" I didn't agree with faiakes a big deal out of a very his views there, but that, at least, minor one ; it is written cartoon- was a good story. ing. When a cartoonist draws a Julian Reid huge nose, attaches a tiny face 322 Plaskett Place and body, and calls it Jimmy Victoria, B. C, Canada Durante; does this mean to Mr. Reid that the cartoonist really • And Mr. Clifton replies believes all there is to Mr. Du- In practicing the art of human rante is a huge nose; or that relations, my profession for thir- noses ate nasty and the cartoon* ty years in which I have worked ist hates human beings for hav- individually with a quarter mil- ing them? This is precisely the lion people, and for which many substance of Mr. Reid's com- honors have been given me, both plaint of me. national and local, we have our Yes, I lampooned a lot of own version of Murphy's law. things, and I, with my readers, "If there is any possible way to had a ball. Many of them did no- misinterpret what is said, some- tice that I poked more fun at the one will." Clifton manner of story telling I cannot defend "Pawn Of The than anything else. Quite a few, Black Fleet" or "Hang Head, those who have learned through Vandal!" against Julian Reid's experience that it is my especial charges that in his judgement delight to draw all sorts of faces these stories are ^oor writing. hidden in the shrubbery which No author has any defense you don't see unless you turn against that. Still, I am not en- the story around and look at it tirely disintegrated. For two let- from a particular angle, also no- ters I have seen which take ex- ticed that Kennedy came in for ception to either of these stories, satire, too; that hidden down I have almost a hundred praising beneath the broad farce of his them, with fully half saying they super-hero front, he was Strick- are the best work I have done to land in a different light. One so- date. Mr. Reid is as entitled to very, very right all the time— his opinion as they, and I think the other so very, very wrong alt we can all agree on that. the time—and both the same As to their content, "Pawn Of man seen from differing angles. The Black Fleet" was a broad Why should the reader, him- lampoon, an intended farce, writ- self, escape? Again and again I ten in fun and meant to be read plainly told him, "Don't take in fun—as most people did read this seriously. It's all in fun. It's

OR SO YOU SAY 13 :

a farce, a phony from start to way they knew protesting my finish." And then I said to my- decision to resign my job and self, "All right, I'm going to leave them. Mr. Rejd will need to lampoon him a little, too. I've learn a thing or two about how played fair and warned him. one really shows his love for hu- Now I'm going to catch him up man beings before he may, I in the drama in spite of himself. trust someday, earn such a He'll know he's being had, I've tribute. plainly told him that right along, I have not changed since then. and so he'll wind up laughing at I was then the same wry and the joke I've pulled on him, too." often caustic man that I am now. Is this the bothersome thing? I am the same man, well known That we have forgotten how to in my area as a strict and often laugh at ourselves? Leading harsh disciplinarian, who for the comedy writers and performers latter twenty years consistently say yes, that one of the most be- had a long -waiting list of college wildering developments of our gradua:tes hoping to get on my time is for comedy to have be- staff where they, too, might come a dying art—^that people learn something of how one have become so petulantly iirita- really goes about serving man- ble they have all but forgotten kind. They and the factory work- especially that wholesome, ers alike knew that love for hu- ^cleansing, hearty laughter at man beings is not necessarily self. Still, fifty to one did laugh expressed in kindly little pats ©n with this book. the head. I reserve ihat treat- As for hating the human race ment for (Jogs. I resi»ect man While I was reading Mr. Keid's too much to give him the same letter, I experienced that well treatment. known flashback of memories, In particular, I so greatly re- all those banquets given in my spect the science achievements honor, the citations and scrolls of man that perhaps I grow es- given by service clubs, mayots, pecially harsh in trying to in- and even one from the Labor De- sure against slackness in an partment of the National Gov- area where any slackness at all ernment, and centered on one means certain failure—failure aemory I hadn't thought of for not only for the person involved fears. A memory of five thou- in it, but failure for ail mankind fsand people who shut down the who might have benefitted so 'factory one morning, one cold greatly had there been success, and rainy morning, and stood in instead.

the street for hours ; in the only (Continued on page Hi)

140 AMAZING STORIES o THE SPECTROSCOPE

by 5. E. COTTS

A Century of Science Fiction. taste as an editor is no surprise. Edited by Damon Knight. Simon But that in itself would not be omd Schuster, Inc. $U.9S. enough to make a superior an- •' Though Damon Knight is a thology. (Far too often, the .same ' onder," he is not magician few distinguished stories have Bough to have condensed a cen- the habit of turning up in every tury of science fiction between single collection. There ought to

the covers of a single book. (Af- be a law ! ) In the current volume, ter all, even S-F's detractors however, not only are the selec- won't argue about the quantity tions almost uniformly excellent, of our output.) In fact, I'm hap- but unhackneyed as well. This is py to say, he hasn't tried. What surely a prodigious feat, fiecon he has done, rather, is to take to none. some subjects that science fic- Of course, a volume such as tion ha.s uncii.spatedly made its this i.s bound to raise a hue and own, and give notable examples cry. Some people will scream of the way different authors have about the omissions of many il- interpreted them during the past lustrious names. Some will howl hundred years. Even as he has about the inclusion of those they not confined himself to a single consider unillustrious. I am loath subject or a single period, so too to join these noisy shouters and he has not limited himself to au- screamers, but I feel that one thors of one area. English and name does need to be mentioned. European writers share the stage After Mr. Knight refers to Theo- with their American counter- dore Sturgeon as "one of the parts. field's living giants," it is shock- I have long been an admirer of ing to find no story or even ex Mr. Knight's own work, and, cerpt by him included here. In therefore, the excellence of his collection so meticulously pre- —

pared, this is a gross oversight. categories are we to put such The real core of my personal landmarks as The Space Mer- hue and cry, however, lies not in chants by Pohl and Kombluth. Mr. Knight's choice of authors, or Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.

but in Tiis arbitrary catalogue of Another missing division is, I subjects. While some scheme is believe, that which concerns it- obviously necessary for any col- self with the future evolution of lection that aspires to be more mankind. At first, I thought it than the "Fireside Book of Fav- was under the label, "Super- orite Fables," there are several man," but the stories there are whopping deficiencies in his list. not really what I mean. One He has the following sections doesn't take place on Earth, and —"Robots," "Time Travel," the other two deal more with "Space," "Other Worlds and Peo- freaks or chance mutants than ple," "Aliens Among Us," "Su- with a coordinated philosophy. perman," and "Marvelous Inven- There are such outstanding ex- tions." Even these are not iron- amples of this type that I'm sure clad, however. One could make a that other readers will miss fafrJy good case for taking PouJ them, too : works Jike More Than Anderson's story, "Call Me Joe," Human by Sturgeon, Re-Birth out of the "Superman" chapter by Wyndham, and that truly and dropping it into "Other great example, Childhood's End, Worlds and People," or even by Arthur Clarke. These are nov- "Marvelous Inventions." (This els about people here, on this latter category, by the way, is Earth, in the future. Will Mr. the weakest in the book. Neither Knight try to wriggle out by of the contemporary selections calling them fantasies? But thrill me ; certainly stronger ones they're not; they're science fic- could be found to go alongside tion by his own definition, specu- the Mark Twain and the Jules lative content and all. Perhaps Verne.) this is one of his few delusions The first of his deficiencies is he thinks that he can "cleanly the absence of the satire or, the divide" science fiction from what other side of the coin, the utopia. isn't. If he didn't make this Even if I hadn't read the au- claim, one could excuse his omis- thor's introduction, I would find sions. Having made it, however, this a strange blank. But after he seems to be leaving himself in Knight bothers to give us a long the rather indefensible position quote from C. S. Lewis that in- of implying such categories as I cludes satire, the reader can only have named don't belang to sci- wonder. In which of Knight's ence fiction.

142 AMAZING STORIES But in the end, all criticism wh must bow before the candor of you want an essay." Mr. Knight's remark that he picked the stories he liked best The Lani People. By J. F. Bone. " imself . As I said earlier, his 152 pp. Bantam Books. Paper: aste is exemplary—so much so that I wish he had carried his What is advertised on the cov- andor a little further and in- er as being "the daring science Qded some of his own fine sto- fiction novel of a race of beauti- ful females that were called non- » « » human," turns out to be an en- P.S. I cannot resist making tertaining novel by a writer who ige of some sentences from Mr. is already known to us for his .^night's introduction as a de- contributions to amazing. The fense against J. Tilton's accusa- only thing "daring" about it, tions in the April letter column however, is that the women don't of this magazine. This irate wear clothes. eader disagrees with my blast For generations, the Lani have

iT Hobert Heinlein's Stranger in been considered aliens because •$trange Land. Tilton writes they had tails and were unable at the work is major and ma- to bear human young. Therefore, ture and doesn't have to be a theii's was the lot of all exploited whole; indeed, that its religious creatures whether animal or hu- and philosophical content are of man—they were selectively bred, such import as to make purely sold into slavery or used for literary considerations unimpor- menial labor. All this made a tant and impossible. thriving isaiastry for Mr. Alex- I gratefully take Mr. Knight's ander and his family, controllers words as my own. They're tailor- of Outworld Enterprises. This made for the purpose. "I like a state of affairs probably would story that persuades, if at all, have continued for generations without seeming to do so; mes- to come were it not for one of sianic science fiction is less Mr. Alexander's employees—Jac agreeable to me, and not only be- Kennon—a veterinarian who had cause your typical self-appointed been hired by Alexander to care messiah can't write his way out for this valuable "livestock." of a paper bag: I don't like to From the very first, Kennon see science fiction degraded into couldn't accept that these "Lani" a vehicle for anything. The were non-human. But after many story, I think, should always be arguments, he kept his opinions more important than the idea; to himself while he hunted for

THE SPECTROSCOPE 143 ;

dence to support his belief. original one. After all, one of sci- The final clues came from the ence fiction's favorite topics has Lani themselves, out of the oral long been the mutants, and Stur- folklore passed down through geon, van Vogt and Wyndham generations. They themselves no (to name a few) have all fur- longer even realized the signifi- nished notable exaniples of this ^ance of these tales of their genre. But I doubt if any of them origins, but when Kennon heard had as much fun doing so as

it, he did. He discovered that J. F. Bone. After all, the battle of they were mutants rather than the mutant who happens to be non-humans, descended from the beautiful, willing and nude to survivors of a crash on their boot is much easier to wage than planet. that of the one with strange This is not a profound or seri- mental powers or three eyes or ous story—^nor even a highly six toes.

(Continued from page HO) Who am I, with mandate to And so it was in "Hang Head, needle and challenge? Well, for Vandal!" I was saying, "Let os that matter, who is anybody? iHot be so all fired hasty in some When we are children, we wait &t these ill-considered solutions for permission. When we are to a problem. Let us think out men, we step in and do a job- the potential consequences first, which needs doing. and if we want to call ourselves With or without mandate, i scientists, then let us follow the am so very proud of mankind, precepts of science and consider and have so much faith in him, all the evidence, not just that that I shall go right on needling,, rtion which happens to suit coaxing, shaming and challeng- r expedient purpose." ing him, however insignificant It was naughty of me to say my attempt may be, ti'ying to get this? When it so often demon- him to grow up, to reach. strates its need for saying, even From my appreciated mail, in science? This makes me a apparently there are quite a few hater of mankind? The simplest readers in many languages in logic defeats that. For if I hated many parts of the world who man, why should I bother to find this in my stories. Probably write stories for him? Why there was nothing in either of needle him, shame him, coax and these which Mr. Eeid needed cajole him, challenge him to but if there had been, it's too reach, reach for the stars—-both bad he missed it. physically and in spirit. Mark Clifton

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