1
2
MOON of the
UNFORGOTTEN
A Captain Future Novelet By Edmond HAMILTON
Curt Newton and Otho plumb the perilous secrets of the Jovian Moon Europa--where
Ezra Gurney, friend of the Futuremen, has fallen prey to a mystic cult !
CHAPTER I
The Second Life
The machines hummed and whispered
and a man's life changed. He was an old
man, with an old man's burden of
weariness and sorrow. But now that burden
dropped from him and his years dropped
from him and he was young again.
He felt the hot blood burst along his
veins and the singing excitement in his
nerves, the pulse and throb of long-
forgotten youth. For youth was his once
more and once more a whole universe of
adventure lured and beckoned, far-off
worlds calling and calling to him.
And Ezra Gurney, he who had been old,
shouted a glad young cry that was answer
to that call.
*****
A message went to Earth's Moon,
flashing across the millions of empty
miles. It went by a secret wave-frequency
that only a half-dozen people knew.
Back across the empty leagues of the
void, in reply to that urgent summons,
came a ship, driving hard for Europa,
moon of Jupiter. There was a man in the
small ship and one who had been a man
and two who were manlike but who were
not truly human.
The ship came down toward the dark
side of Europa with the rush of a shooting
star and landed in the rigidly restricted
Patrol area of Europolis spaceport. The
four came out of it and looked around in
the magnificent glow of Jupiter. Then they
heard the light running steps and the urgent
voice.
"Curt !" And again, with a desperate
gladness, "Curt, I knew you'd hurry !"
Curt Newton took the girl's tense
outstretched hands in his own. He thought
for a moment she was going to weep and
he spoke to her with an affectionate
roughness, not giving her time to be
emotional. "What's all this nonsense about
Ezra ? If anyone but you had sent that
message ..."
"Its true, Curt. He's gone. I think--I
think he won't ever come back."
Newton shook her. "Come on, Joan !
Ezra ? Why, he's been up and down the
System since before you and I were born,
first in the old space-frontier days of the
3
Patrol and now with your Section Three.
He wouldn't get himself into any jam."
"He has," said Joan Randall flatly. "And
if you'll stop being comforting I have all
the data ready to show you--what there is
of it."
SHE led the way toward the low buildings
of Patrol headquarters. The four followed
her, the tall red-haired man whom the
System called Captain Future and his three
companions, his lifelong friends, the three
who were closer to him even than this girl
and the missing Ezra Gurney--Grag, the
metal giant, Otho, the lithe keen-eyed
android, and Simon Wright, who had once
been a human scientist but who for half a
lifetime now had been divorced from
human form.
It was the latter who spoke to Joan. His
voice was metallic and expressionless,
issuing from the artificial resonator set in
one side of his "body". That "body" was a
hovering square metal case that contained
all that was human of Simon Wright--his
brilliant deathless brain.
"You say," said Simon, "that Ezra is
gone. Where precisely did he go ?"
Joan glanced at Simon, who was
watching her intently with his lens-like
eyes as he glided silently along on the pale
traction beams that were his equivalent of
limbs.
"If I knew where I wouldn't hide it from
you," she said with an undertone of
irritation.
In the next breath she said contritely,
"I'm sorry. Waiting here has got me down.
There's something about Europa--it's so
old and cruel and somehow patient..."
Otho said wryly, "You need a double
hooker of something strong and cheering."
His green slightly-tilted eyes were
compassionate beneath their habitual irony.
Grag, the towering manlike giant who
bore in his metal frame the strength of an
army and an artificial intelligence equal to
the human, rumbled a question in his deep
booming voice. But Curt Newton only
vaguely heard him. His gaze had followed
Joan's out into the alien night.
This was not his first visit to Europa.
And he was surprised to find that Joan had
put into words exactly what he had always
felt about the silent moon, the old old
moon that was scarred so deep by time.
Here, on one side, were the modern
glare and thunder of the spaceport, busy
with freighters and one or two sleek liners.
Beyond the spaceport was Europolis, a
glow of light behind a barren ridge. But on
the other side, before him and behind him,
was a sadness of ancient rock and distant
hills, of brooding forest hung with shadow,
of great plains empty in the red glow of
Jupiter, dusty wastes where no herds had
grazed and no armies fought for a hundred
thousand years.
The woods and plains were scattered
with the time-gnawed bones of cities, dead
and forsaken even before the last
descendants of their builders had sunk into
final barbarism. A thin old wind wandered
aimlessly among the ruins, whimpering as
though it remembered other days and wept.
Newton could not suppress a slight
shiver. The death of any great culture is a
mournful thing and the culture that had
built the shining cities of Europa was the
greatest ever known--the proud Old
Empire that once had held two galaxies.
To Curt Newton, who had followed the
shadow of that glory far back toward its
source, the very stones of these ruins spoke
of cosmic tragedy, of the agelong night
that succeeded the blazing highest noon of
human splendor.
The functional gleaming Patrol building
brought his mind back to the present. Joan
took them into a small office. From a
locked file she drew a neat folder of papers
and placed it on the desk.
"Ezra and I," she said, "were called into
this case some time ago. The Planet Police
had been handling it as a routine matter
until some peculiar angles turned up that
required the attention of Section Three.
"People had been disappearing. Not
only people from Earth but other planets as
4
well--and nearly all of them older people.
In each case when they vanished, they took
most of their wealth with them.
"Planet Police discovered that all these
missing persons without exception had
come to Europa. And here in Europolis
their trails ended."
Simon Wright asked in his toneless
voice, "Did they leave no clue as to why
they came to this particular moon ?"
"A few of them did," answered Joan. "A
few of them before they left talked a little
of something called the Second Life. That
was all--just the name. But they seemed
so eager and excited about it that it was
remembered."
She continued, "Since they were nearly
all aging people it seems obvious that the
Second Life they were hoping for was
some form of rejuvenation. A form of
rejuvenation that must be illegal in nature
or it wouldn't be carried on secretly."
Curt nodded. "That sounds reasonable
enough. 'The Second Life'--the term is a
new one to me. However, Jupiter and its
moons retained the civilization and
science of the Old Empire long after the
other planets had relapsed into barbarism.
To this day odd scraps of that ancient
wisdom keep rising to plague us."
"Quite," said Simon dryly. "You will
recall the case of Kenneth Lester, also that
of the Martian, Ul Quorn. Europa in
particular has always had a reputation in
the System as a repository of knowledge
that has been lost elsewhere. It's an
interesting problem. It occurs to me--"
JOAN cut him short, genuinely angry
now. "Are you and Curt going to start on
that archaeological obsession of yours at a
time like this ? Ezra may be dead or dying
!"
Captain Future said, "Steady on, Joan--
you haven't yet told us exactly what
happened to Ezra."
Joan caught a deep breath and went on
more calmly.
"When we came here to investigate we
found that the missing people who had
arrived here had simply dropped out of
sight. The Europans themselves refused to
talk to us. But Ezra wouldn't give up and
finally got a lead. He found that the
missing folk had hired native mounts at an
inn called the Three Red Moons and had
ridden out of the city.
"Ezra planned to follow that lead out
into the hills. He made me wait here--he
said he had to have a contact here. I waited
many days before Ezra got in touch with
me through our micro-wave audio. He
spoke briefly to me and switched off--and
I've never heard from him since."
"His message ?"asked Curt tensely.
Joan took out a slip of paper. "I wrote it
down word for word."
Curt read aloud. "Listen carefully, Joan
! I' m all right--safe, well and happy. But
I'm not coming back, not for a while. Now
this is an order, Joan--drop the
investigation, and go back to Earth. I'll
follow you later !"
That was all.
Otho said sharply, "He was forced to
make that call !"
"No." Joan shook her head. "We have a
secret code. He could have said the same
words and yet could have let me know that
he spoke under duress merely by a certain
inflection. No, Ezra was talking of his own
free will."
"Maybe he fell for this rejuvenation
process, whatever it is ?" suggested Grag.
"No," said Simon decisively. "Ezra
would not do anything so foolish."
Curt nodded agreement. "Ezra has had
plenty of tragedy in his life that few people
know anything about. It's why he's always
a little grim. He wouldn't want to live a
second life."
"Second Life ?" murmured Otho. "The
name tells nothing. Yet there must be a
clue in it."
Captain Future stood up. "This isn't a
case for cleverness or subtlety. Ezra may
be in danger and we're going to work fast.
We'll go into Europolis and make those
who know something talk."
5
Otho, his eyes sparkling, sprang to his
feet. Grag took a clanking step toward the
door.
"Wait, Curt." Joan's face was worried.
"You know the Patrol can't legally arrest
Europan citizens on their own world--"
He smiled without much mirth. "We're
not Patrol. We'll take the consequences if
any."
"It's not that," she cried. "I have a
feeling that since Ezra's vanishing you
Futuremen have been expected--and
prepared for."
Curt Newton nodded gravely. "Very
likely. However, we're not exactly
unprepared ourselves." He turned to the
others. "Simon, will you stay here and go
over Joan's data on the case till we return ?
And you, Grag--you'll remain to guard
them both."
Grag looked and sounded as upset as his
physical structure would permit. "But
there's no telling what kind of trouble
you'll run into ! You'll need me with you
!"
"Joan needs you worse. She's in every
bit as much danger as we are."
That was partly true. It was also true
that Grag's seven-foot-high clanking bulk
was somewhat too conspicuous for what
Curt Newton had in mind. Otho started to
say so and Curt stopped him by saying,
"Let's go."
He went out and Otho followed him,
chuckling.
"Save your humor," said Curt dryly.
"We may wish we had old Bone-crusher
with us before we're through."
They walked swiftly toward the slope of
the low ridge beyond which lay the city.
The thin dust blew beneath their feet and
the old wind sang of danger out of its long
long memories of blood and death.
CHAPTER II
The Inn of the Three Red Moons
THE city lay in a shallow bowl between
two spurs of a range so worn by the
scuffing ages that it was now little more
than a line of hills. Under the red glow of
Jupiter the lordly towers slept in a sanguine
mist that softened the scars of the broken
stone. The cool light filled the roofless
colonnades, the grand and empty avenues,
and touched with a casual pity the faceless
monuments that had long outlasted their
forgotten victories.
Curt Newton stood in a still and
shadowy street and listened to the silence.
On the near side of the ridge he could
see the outworld settlement near the
spaceport--infinitely farther away in time
than it was in distance. There were the
brilliant lights, the steel and plastic
buildings of today, crowned by the white
facade of the resort hotel. They had a
curiously impermanent look. He took three
steps along the winding way and they were
gone.
The paving stones were hollow under
his feet, rutted by the tread of a myriad
generations. The walls of the buildings
rose on either side, some mere shells with
the coppery planet-light shining through
their graceful arches, others still tolerably
whole with window-places like peering
eyes, showing here and there a gleam of
light.
Otho, moving catlike at Curt's side,
lifted his shoulders uneasily. "My back
itches," he said.
Curt nodded. "We're being watched."
There was nothing to show that this was so
but he knew it as Otho did, without
needing to see.
They came out into a wide square, from
which many streets led off. In the center
was a winged monument, so effaced by
millenniums of wind and dust that it had
the look of a grotesque skeleton, its eroded
pinions stark against the sky. Curt and
Otho paused beneath it, tiny figures beside
that hundred-foot bulk of greenish marble.
Nothing stirred in the square. The
deserted avenues stretched away, edged
with clotted shadow. The fallen palaces
6
and shattered temples reared to unknown
gods stood still and brooding,
remembering the banners and the glory, the
incense and the crimson robes.
One or two of the streets showed life,
where flaring light marked the wine-shops
and the inns.
"Down there," said Captain Future and
they went on, their boots ringing on the
paving blocks.
They entered the street that Curt had
chosen. And as they walked a little crowd
began to gather, softly, unobtrusively, the
dark-faced men in dusty cloaks coming
without sound from the doorways, from the
mouths of alleys, from nowhere and
everywhere.
They were not the young men, the hot-
handed fighters. Most of them were grey
and some were bent and even the youngest
of them had an indefinable look of age, a
thing of the spirit rather than the flesh.
They did not speak. They watched the tall
Earthman and the lithe one beside him that
seemed to be a man. Their dark eyes
glistened and they followed the strangers,
borne with them like a ring of tattered
shadows shifting, flowing, thickening.
There was a coldness on Curt Newton's
flesh. It was an effort to keep his hand
away from the butt of his weapon.
"There it is ahead," said Otho quietly.
"The sign of the Three Red Moons."
The soft-footed multitude around them
swirled and coalesced into a silent barrier
across the windy street.
Curt stopped. He did not seem to be
afraid or even angry--merely curious. He
regarded the wall of men with a patience
equal to their own.
An old white-bearded man stepped
forward. He was shorter by a head than the
Earthman but he stood erect and there was
an ancient beauty in his high-boned face, a
deep grand sorrowful pride. His cloak was
as old as he, dun-colored with the sifting
dust but he carried it as splendidly as
though it had been fashioned of the purple
cloth of kings.
He said with an odd sort of courtesy,
"There is no passage here for strangers."
Captain Future smiled. "Come now,
father--surely a thirsty man may refresh
himself with wine."
The old man shook his head. "You do
not come for wine. Return to your own
kind--there is nothing for you here but
sorrow."
"It has been told to me," said Curt
slowly, "that others have come here
seeking joy."
"Does not all mankind seek for joy ?
That is why I tell you--return to your own
!"
CURT looked over the heads of the old
man and the other men who were old and
the men who should have been young but
were not. He looked at the sign of the
Three Red Moons and he said quite softly,
"Will you stop me, father ?"
The old man's eyes were very sad. "No,"
he said, "I will not stop you. I will only tell
you this, that no man nor woman has yet
been harmed nor will be harmed--but that
he who comes in search of death shall
surely find it."
"I shall remember," Curt said and began
again to walk forward against the crowd,
with Otho close beside him.
The ranks held unbroken, the rows of
silent hostile faces, until he was almost
touching them. Then the old man raised his
hand and let it fall again in a gesture of
finality. The crowd broke and the way was
open. Curt passed on and behind him the
men vanished one by one into the shadows
again, like old leaves caught by the wind
and whirled away.
Curt and Otho entered the Inn of the
Three Red Moons.
The common room was large, with a
vaulted roof of stone, black as though
carved from jet. Lights flared in the
corners and a score of men sat around
antique massive metal tables. They glanced
at the two strangers, then ignored them.
7
Curt and Otho sat down in an empty
place and presently a dark girl came and
brought them wine and slipped away again.
They sipped the strong spicy brown
liquid. They might have been no more than
two spacemen off from the port for a
night's pleasure in old Europolis. And yet
they knew that eyes watched them, that the
inn was too quiet. Captain Future's muscles
quivered with anticipation and Otho's gaze
was very bright.
Presently Otho said in a language not
likely to be understood, "That young chap
at the next table hasn't taken his eyes off
us since we came in."
"I know." The dark fierce young face
and hungry glance were only too obviously
turned toward the strangers. Curt thought
that if anything happened it would be men
like this they would have to deal with, men
still free of the withering taint of age that
seemed to overtake the Europans in their
prime.
He beckoned to the girl again. "We're
minded to take a ride into the hills," he
said. "Can we hire mounts here ?"
The girl's face was expressionless.
"That is Shargo's province."
"And where may we find Shargo ?"
"Through that passageway. The
paddocks are behind the inn."
Curt laid a coin on the table and rose.
"Come on, Otho, it's getting late."
They crossed the common-room and
entered the passage. Without seeming to
notice Curt saw that the young man who
had watched them left swiftly by the front
door and that the others bent together in a
sudden murmur of guarded talk.
The girl glanced after them. Her face
held bitter resentment.
The passage was long and shadowy.
They traversed it swiftly, hearing nothing
to warn them of any danger. At its end it
opened into a court containing ruined
outbuildings and a stone-walled paddock in
good repair. The wall was high, for the
Europan beasts are good jumpers, and the
gate was of iron bars.
A man came toward them from one of
the ruined sheds. He was old and not
nimble. He wore the leather tunic of a
hostler and it was not even clean. But still
there was about him the same look that
Curt had seen before, the look of pride and
inward vision, as though he saw the flaunt
of silken banners in the wind and heard the
trumpets sounding far away.
Captain Future repeated his request for
two mounts.
He had expected refusals, at the least
arguments and evasions. There were none.
The old man shrugged and answered.
"You will have to bridle them yourselves.
In the day there is a young man here to
hold the brutes and rein them--but the
fools who wish to ride at night must catch
their own."
"Very well," said Curt. "Give us the
halters."
The old man produced two
arrangements of leather straps, bitted with
iron. "Get them by the combs," he grunted,
"and watch their forefeet."
He led the way to the paddock gate.
Curt looked around. The court was
empty. It was very still. Otho whispered,
"What are they waiting for ?"
"Perhaps they want us clear of the city,"
Curt answered. Another disappearance in
the shadowy hills would be preferable
from the Europans' viewpoint.
Otho nodded. "The trap could be at the
other end. These beasts have been there
before. They must know the way without
being guided."
"One thing sure," said Captain Future,
"they'll have to stop us somewhere."
The old man lifted the heavy bar of the
gate.
The paddock was not too large for the
herd of twenty or so Europan mounts that
it contained. They were huddled together,
drowsing in the Jupiter-light--serpentine
scaly creatures with powerful legs and tails
like wire lashes. Their narrow heads were
crowned with fleshy yellow combs. They
blinked and peered at the men with shining
wicked eyes as red as coals.
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"Take your choice," said the old
Europan, standing by the gate.
Curt and Otho went forward with the
bridles.
AT their approach the beasts hissed softly
and backed away. Their padded feet made
a nervous thumping on the ground. Curt
spoke softly but the herd began to shift.
"I don't think they like the smell of us,"
said Otho.
Curt reached out swiftly and caught one
golden comb. The creature plunged and
whistled as he fitted the rude bridle. Then
suddenly from behind them there came the
clang of the gate-bar dropping and he knew
that there would be no waiting for the
silence of the dark hills, that this, here and
now, was the trap--and that they were in
it.
Otho had spun around, holding his
bridled mount. He was cursing the old
man. Curt kept his grip on his unwilling
mount, turning with it to keep clear of the
clawed forefeet. The paddock walls were
high, worn smooth as glass by the rubbing
of many flanks. There was no escape that
way.
The herd was stirring uneasily, moving
with a hiss and flickering of scaly tails, a
quivering of muscles. Curt cried out a
warning to Otho but it was already to late.
A makeshift torch of flaming rags
whirled in over the gate, leaving a trail of
oily smoke. Curt heard the old man's voice
lifted in a cracked Hai-hai, urgent, shrill.
A second wad of burning cloth shot in,
dropping in the middle of the herd with a
burst of sparks. Instantly there was brute
panic, pent up and turned upon itself by the
paddock walls.
Plunging, trampling, screaming, the
penned beasts tried to flee the smoke and
the stinging fire. Curt's mount reared and
dragged him and he clung to its comb with
the grip of a man who knows he is lost if
he lets go. He dug his heels into the dusty
ground, twisted the brute's head until its
neckbones cracked and leaped up,
clamping his legs around the slender belly.
Dimly through the dust and turmoil he
saw Otho. An ordinary man would have
been trampled to death in those first
seconds. But Otho was not a man. Swift,
sure-footed, incredibly strong, the android
had imitated Curt's example and had
swung himself to the back of his plunging
mount, getting an iron grip on its comb.
It was only temporary escape. The
maddened beasts had turned to fighting
among themselves. Curt knew it was only
a matter of time and not much of it before
his creature would fall or be thrown. The
paddock was a swirling madness of leaping
bodies and tearing jaws and dust and noise.
Nothing could stand for long in that.
The old Europan remained beyond the
gate. He held another of the makeshift
torches in his hands, waving it slowly back
and forth so that all the beasts shied away
from the opening.
A solemn proud fine-cut old man. Later
he would be very sorry for this tragic
accident. He would know nothing more
than that two spacemen had drunk wine in
the tavern and had then gone staggering in
among the beasts and frightened them and
been most regrettably slain.
Even in that moment of fury Curt found
time to wonder what strange madness
drove these men--the madness of the
mysterious Second Life that urged them to
any length.
He was trying to reach the gate when his
mount stumbled over another that was
down and kicking its life out in the dust
and blood. He heard a wild yell from Otho
and a commotion by the gate. The straining
body under him staggered and fell.
Desperately he pulled the creature's head
back, forcing it up, forcing it on its feet
again, and suddenly there was a rush past
him of slaty backs and outstretched necks,
a squealing stampede outward and the gate
was open.
He fought his mount to keep it back.
Over the wall, Otho was riding a frantic
demon, twisting its comb until it shrieked.
In a matter of seconds they were alone in
the paddock and the herd was stamping
9
through the courtyard, scattering away
down the dark alleys.
The old man was gone, presumably to
cover in one of the sheds.
"The young one," Otho panted. "Stand
still, you son of a worm's egg ! The young
one that watched us inside the inn--he
drove the old man off. He opened the
gate."
The court was clear now. From the
shelter of a broken wall a figure leaped and
ran.
"Get him !" Curt yelled. "Get him !"
He sank his heels in the scaly flanks and
the creature hissed and went hard after the
running shadow.
CHAPTER III
The House of Returning
THEY caught him. They rode him down
in a narrow alley, the dark young man with
the fierce eyes, and he fought them but he
did not draw any weapon.
Curt had no time for pleasantries. He
leaned over and struck the young man hard
on the side of the jaw, and pulled the limp
body up before him.
"Out of the city," he said to Otho. "This
way, toward the hills. After that we can
talk."
They found their way out of the maze of
alleys into a broad avenue spanned by
massive arches, broken now, their heroic
carvings shattered by the slow hammers of
time. Curt and Otho sped beneath their
shadows, alone with the wind and the
blowing dust.
Beyond the arches there were no more
buildings but only the straight road that ran
into the hills between two rows of ancient
stelae, stark and rigid under the glow of the
great planet. Beyond the stelae there was
nothing, only the gaunt slopes and the
sighing in the stiff dry grass.
There had been no alarm behind them
and there was no pursuit. The warning
night was blank and still. Captain Future
led the way at random until he found a
place that suited him. Then he stopped and
motioned Otho to dismount.
The young man was conscious. Curt
thought he had been conscious for some
time but he had made no move. He was
breathless now from the jolting of the
beast. He crouched where Curt had set
him, shaking his head, gasping.
Presently Curt asked, "Why did you
open the paddock gate ?"
The young man answered, "Because I
did not wish for you to die."
"Do you know why we were supposed
to die ?"
"I know." He looked at them and his
eyes were hot and angry. "Yes, I know !"
"Ah," said Curt Newton. "Then you do
not worship the Second Life."
Otho laughed. "He doesn't need
rejuvenation."
"It is not rejuvenation," said the young
man bitterly. "It is death, the death of my
world and my people. Almost before our
beards are grown the Second Life take hold
of us and we forget the first life that we
have not yet lived. Our walls fall about us
stone by stone and we have not cloth to
wrap our bodies in and the great change in
other worlds does not touch us--but all
that is nothing so long as we live the
glorious life, the Second Life !"
He sprang up, glaring at Curt and Otho
as though he hated them, but it was not
their faces he saw. It was the sere and
sterile faces of men grown old before their
time, dead men on a dying moon.
"You of the other worlds are not like us.
Life goes forward for you. Men learn and
grow and the fields are rich and the cities
are bright and tall. Even your oldest worlds
have young minds--is that not so ?"
Captain Future nodded. "It is so."
"Yes. But on Europa what is there for a
young man ? Dust and dreams ! There is a
wall against us and after a while we learn
10
that we cannot break it down. Then we too
grow old."
He turned away. "Go back to your own
world. You have life. Keep it."
Curt caught him by the arms. "What is
the Second Life ?"
"Death," said the young man, "to those
who live it--and to those who would
destroy it. We know. We have tried."
A sharp light came suddenly into Curt
Newton's eyes. "Then there are others in
the city who feel as you do ?"
"Oh, yes--all of us who are still
young." He laughed. It was not pleasant
laughter. "We banded together once. We
went up to the valley, angry, full of hate--
we were going to make our world free.
And they shot us down in the pass--the
old men shot us down !"
He shook himself free of the Earthman's
grasp. "I have told you. Go back to your
own while you still live."
"No," said Captain Future softly. "We
are going to the valley. And you will guide
us."
The eyes of the young man widened. He
stepped back and Otho caught him from
behind, holding him helpless. He turned
his head from side to side and cried out,
"Three men, where a hundred of us failed ?
You don't know Konnur, the Guardian of
the Second Life. You don't know the
punishment. I am a proscribed man ! I am
forbidden the valley !"
"Proscription, punishment !" Curt
Newton's voice was heavy with contempt.
"You don't deserve your youth. Your
bones are already crumbling." He reached
out and slapped the young man's face,
lightly, deliberately, one cheek and then
the other.
"You will guide us to the valley. After
that, you're free to tuck your tail and run.
We can end the Second Life without such
help as yours."
Captain Future saw the flame of anger
leap in the young man's eyes, the dark
flush in his cheeks. He strained against the
android's grip and Curt laughed.
"So there's still a bit of pride left if a
man can find it ! Set him up here, Otho."
He swung up onto the scaly back of his
mount and received the Europan between
his arms, where Otho lifted him as though
he had been a child.
"Now," said Curt, "which way ?"
The young man pointed.
They rode on through the dark hills, and
after awhile the dawn came and found
them before the shadowy throat of a pass--
the dawn of pale far Sun that was only a
little lighter than the night.
Curt dismounted and stood holding the
bridle. He said to the Europan. "Go back to
the spaceport, to the Patrol base. Tell those
who wait there for us where we are."
A gleam that was almost a light of hope
began to show in the young man's eyes.
"And you ?" he asked.
Curt nodded toward the blind notch of
the pass. "We are going in."
"Perhaps," whispered the young man
softly, "perhaps it is true that you can end
the Second Life--you and those who wait
for you. We know of you even here, where
we know so little. I will go. And after I
have said your message I will go into the
city to gather those who fought once and
who can fight again !"
CAPTAIN FUTURE let go the rein. The
young man wheeled the squealing beast
around and sent it flying back toward the
city. Otho's mount ran with it.
"Let us hope," said the android dryly,
"that our boy doesn't come to grief along
the way."
He turned and walked with Curt up into
the darkness of the pass.
"If the Second Life isn't rejuvenation,
what is it ?" Otho asked. "Some kind of
pleasure-dream by artificial sensory stimuli
? No, Ezra wouldn't stoop to that."
"No, it isn't that," Curt said. "I'm
beginning to think that it's something more
pitiful and terrible than that."
It was quiet in the pass. The screes of
broken rock rose up on either side, with
here and there a stunted tree. An army
11
might have hidden there and been unseen
but even Curt's keen ears could detect no
sound of life.
And yet he was not surprised when, as
they reached the end of the pass, he looked
back and saw men closing in behind them.
He waited for them. They were
youngish men and strong but in their eyes
already was the shadow of decay. He could
see why the young Europan had called
these "the old men" too.
"I have come to speak to Konnur,"
Captain Future said to them.
The one who seemed to be the leader
nodded. "He is waiting for you. You will
give us your weapons, please."
They had weapons of their own and
there was not much point in arguing. Curt
and Otho handed them over. Then they
walked on and the men with the old eyes
came close behind them.
The valley was deep and there were
forests in it and a thin stream. Not far from
the pass was a massive house of stone,
very long and wide, that looked as though
it might have been a place of learning in
the days when the moon was young.
"There," said the leader, and pointed to
a gateway of which the valves were fine-
worked gold, bright as the day they were
hung there. Captain Future passed between
them with Otho at his side.
Inside there was the soft gloom of
vaulted chambers, cool and dim, with old
flagged floors that rang hollow under their
striding boots. The great house was only a
shell of stone, stripped of all but its
enduring bones. It was empty and very
still.
They waited and presently a man came
walking toward them down a long passage,
a tall man, erect and very proud. An aging
man but not dusty, not decayed. His eyes
were bright and clear, the eyes of a fanatic
or a saint.
Looking at him, Curt knew that he was
faced with the most dangerous kind of an
enemy--a man with a belief.
"You are Konnur ?" he asked.
"I am. And you are Curt Newton and--
ah, yes, the one who is called Otho."
Konnur made a slight inclination of his
head. "I have expected you. The man
Gurney was afraid the girl would send for
you in spite of his message."
"And where is Gurney ?"
"I will take you to him," said Konnur.
"Come."
He led the way down the long dim
corridor and Curt and Otho followed.
Behind them still came the grim-faced
men.
Konnur paused beside a massive door of
some tarnished metal and pushed it open.
"Enter," he said.
Captain Future stepped through into a
long low hall that might have held a
regiment. And he stopped with a queer
chill shiver running through him. Beside
him he heard Otho catch his breath.
There was a stillness on that place.
Above it and below it and through it was a
sound, a deep and gentle humming that
only made the silence greater.
Spaced along the hall were many slabs
of marble, mortuary couches hollowed
deep by the pressure of uncounted bodies.
Above each slab there stood a cowled
machine as ancient as the marble, of a
manufacture utterly foreign to any prosaic
mechanism of Earth. They had been kept
bright with loving care but even so a
number of them seemed worn out and
useless. It was the machines that made the
humming, the whirring song of sleep.
Men and women lay upon the slabs.
Curt lost count of their numbers in the
uncertain shadows. They lay as though in
slumber, their limbs relaxed, their faces
peaceful. Around each sleeper's head was
bound a strap of some unfamiliar metal,
having round electrodes fitted to the
temples. The electrodes were connected,
not by wires but by tendrils of glowing
force, to the hooded mechanism above,
from which a somber light poured down.
Otho whispered, "There they are--all
the old ones who have disappeared from
other worlds."
12
Old men, old women--the sad, the
burdened, the careworn. They slept here on
the ancient slabs and Curt saw that in their
faces there was more than peace. There
was happiness, the joy of young days when
the sun was bright and the body strong and
tomorrow was only a vague mist on the
horizon.
There were many Europans also and they
too had found happiness under the
humming machines. But in their faces was
reflected a different joy--a lofty pride as
though behind their closed eyelids passed
visions of magnificence and strength.
KONNUR beckoned. "Here your friend
lies sleeping."
Curt stood beside the slab, looking
down into the face of Ezra Gurney. The
familiar face that to Curt was almost that
of a father--and yet it was not the bleak
face he remembered. The grimness was
gone, the scars of time and pain had
softened. The mouth smiled and it was the
smile of a young man, a boy who has not
yet lost the laughter from his heart.
"Waken him !" cried Curt.
And Konnur said, "Not yet."
Otho asked, "But--is it all illusion ? Is
he drugged or dreaming ?"
"No," said Konnur. "He is remembering
--returning--reliving. Everyone has times
within his life that he would like to live
again. The man Gurney has recaptured the
period of his youth. He is young. He walks
and speaks and feels, reliving every action
as he lived it then. That is what we call the
Second Life."
"But how ?" said Curt. "How ?"
"These instruments of the ancients,"
said Konnur, "enable man to remember--
not just as a vague flitting vision but to
recall with every one of his senses so that
he completely relives the remembered
experience."
Curt began to understand. Each
experience left a new neural path in the
synaptic labyrinth of the brain and the brief
retraveling of that path roused a partial
passing re-experience that was called
"memory."
The Twentieth Century psychologists
had speculated long ago that what they
called "redintegration" might seize upon
one single remembered impression and
evoke from it all the many sensory
impressions of which it had formed a part.
The subtle probing rays of these machines
accomplished "redintegration" in the
fullest sense.
"And the memories of the fathers lie
buried in the brains of the sons," Konnur
was continuing. "Those parts of the brain
formerly thought purposeless are a great
storehouse of ancestral memories, inherited
through some unimaginably subtle change
in the chromosomes that even the ancients
could not understand."
"So that you can reach back through
those layers of buried inherited memory ?"
exclaimed Curt. "How far back ?"
"Far and far," Konnur replied. "Back to
the days of our world's glory, indeed--and
is it wonderful that we prefer to live in the
great past of Europa and not in its sad
present ?"
Captain Future said soberly, "But that is
a rejection of the only real life. It is a
retreat, a dying."
"Yet it is glory and triumph and joy,"
said Konnur.
His hand reached out to touch the
humming mechanism. There was
something reverent in the gesture.
"We do not understand these machines
that give us the Second Life. The ancients
had the knowledge and it is lost. But we
can duplicate them bit by bit. You will see
that many of them are worn out, beyond
repair. We needed rare metals, the
radioactive substances that are the core of
the machine.
"They are found no longer on Europa
and so we needed money to buy from other
worlds, to build new machines. That is
why we brought these people here." He
nodded to the aging folk of Earth and the
other planets who had come to Europa to
live the past again.
13
Captain Future faced Konnur. He spoke
almost in the words of the young Europan.
"This is not life but death ! Your cities
are crumbling, your people are wasting
away. This poison of the Second Life is
destroying your world and must be stopped
!"
"And," asked Konnur softly, "will you
stop it ?"
"Yes ! I have sent for the other
Futuremen and behind them are the
Patrol--and some hundreds of your own
people, Konnur, the young men who prefer
to live one life rather than to die in two."
"It may be so," said Konnur. "And yet
who knows ? The man Gurney came here
to stop it. He changed his mind. Perhaps
you will change yours !"
Curt gave him a look of contempt.
"You can't bribe me with memories of my
youth. They're too close behind me--and
most of them were not pleasant."
Konnur nodded. "I would not attempt
anything so childish. There are other
memories. The whole System knows of
your long struggle to delve into the ancient
past, the lost cosmic history of mankind.
You, yourself, can live in that past.
Through ancestral memory, you can live
again in the days of the Old Empire--
perhaps even before it."
He smiled and added slowly, "You have
a thirst for knowledge. And there are no
limits to the learning you might acquire in
the Second Life !"
Curt stood silent and there was a strange
look in his eyes.
Otho laughed, a peculiarly jarring
sound. "There is nothing in this for me,
Konnur. I had no ancestors !"
"I know. The guards will care for you."
Konnur turned to Newton. "Well ?"
"No," said Curt, with a curious
harshness. "No ! I won't have anything to
do with it."
He turned and there was a solid phalanx
of men against him, barring his way.
Konnur's voice came to him softly.
"I'm afraid you have no choice."
Irresolute, with a whiteness around his
mouth, Curt Newton looked from Konnur
to the guards and back again and a tremor
ran through his muscles that was more of
excitement than fear.
Otho sighed.
The guards moved forward one short
step. Curt shrugged. He lifted his head and
glanced at Konnur, challenging him, and
Konnur pointed to an empty slab.
Captain Future lay down, in the
hollowed place. The marble was cold
beneath him.
Another man had come, an old man in a
threadbare gown who stood ready at the
controls of the machine. Konnur set the
metal band on the Earthman's head, fitting
the chill plates of metal over his temples.
He smiled and raised his hand.
The machine came humming into life.
A somber glow illumined Curt's face and
then two shining tendrils of force sprang
out and spun themselves swiftly
downward.
They touched the twin electrodes. Curt
Newton felt a flash of fire inside his skull
and then there was the darkness.
CHAPTER IV
The Unforgotten
ONE by one disjointed far-separated
slices of his past suddenly came real and
living again to Curt Newton. Each one was
farther back in the past. And he did not just
remember them. He lived each one with
every one of his five senses, with almost
all his conscious being.
Almost all--but not quite. Some inner
corner of his mind remained aloof from
this overpoweringly vivid playback of
memory, and watched.
He was striding with Otho and Grag and
the gliding Simon upon a night-shrouded
world. In the heavens flamed the vast
stunning star-stream of Andromeda galaxy
14
and out of the darkness ahead of them
loomed the mighty Hall of Ninety Suns...
He was in the bridge of the Red Hope,
Bork King's ship. That towering Martian
pirate stood beside him and the brake-
rockets were crashing frantically as they
came in fast, fast, toward the red sullen
sphere of Outlaw World...
He was running, running toward the
ships. The whole world beneath him was
rocking and shaking, the sky wreathed in
lightnings and great winds moaning. He
was back on Katain, that lost world of time
that was rocking now toward its final
cataclysmic doom...
"Back farther--farther--" whispered
the faraway voice, and the humming note
of the machines seemed to deepen.
"You will do as I say, Curtis !"
Curt stood, rebelliously facing the
implacable gaze of Simon Wright, in the
corridor of the Moon-laboratory under
Tycho. He was only a fourteen-year-old
boy and he felt all a boy's resentment of
restrictions, of fancied injustice.
"All I've ever seen is this place and you
and Otho and Grag," he muttered. "I want
to go to Earth and Mars and all the other
worlds."
"You will someday," said Simon. "But
not until you are ready. Grag and Otho and
I have reared you here, in preparation for
what is to come. And when the time arrives
you will go... "
He could not see very clearly nor could
he understand. He had only an infant's eyes
and an infant's mind.
It was the big main room of the Moon-
laboratory. A man and woman lay
sprawled on the floor and other men with
weapons stood over them.
Simon Wright, his lens-eyes facing
those men, was saying tonelessly, "You
will pay for this very quickly. Death is
coming now."
There was a rush of feet. Grag and Otho
burst into the room. A terrible booming cry
came from the metal giant and he leaped
forward.
To Curt's infant eyes it was a whirl of
staggering figures, a spurt and flash of
light--and then Grag standing with Otho
over the broken bodies of the men.
The scene darkened--but the aloof
untouched corner of Curt's adult mind
knew that he had seen the death of his own
parents and their avenging by the
Futuremen...
"Back beyond his own memories !"
whispered the voice. "His father's and his
father's father's..."
He was in an ancient 20th Century
airplane. Curt felt--felt, even though he
knew it was a 20th Century ancestor who
had really felt it--the pressure as he swung
the plane around to dive toward its target...
He was on the sun-parched deck of an
old sailing-ship, becalmed, its sails
hanging limp and dead. He started toward
the stern...
He was one of many men, men clad in
bronze and leather, carrying long spears.
They were running into a rude village of
huts and somewhere there was a
shrieking...
Under a somber sky on a sere brown
hillside he stood as a skin-garmented
savage. The chill wind ruffled the dead
grass but he saw the movement down on
the slope that was not of the wind and he
raised his heavy stone axe more alertly...
"Farther--"
Thunder shook the night sky and
reverberated across the city of glittering
pylons in the nearer distance as one by one
the great liners came swinging majestically
down.
Curt Newton--or the faraway ancestor
whose memories he now relived--spoke
with casual interest to the grave robed man
who was walking with him toward the
starport terminal.
"We'll see what kind of officials Deneb
is sending us this time ! I must admit these
bored sophisticates from the capital, with
their patronizing attitude toward our Earth
and its System, get on my nerves !"
"But after all we're only a tiny part of
the Empire," the other reminded.
15
"Administrators who have to think of
worlds across the whole galaxy can't
consider our little System as too
important."
"It is important ! Even though it has
only nine little worlds it's as important as
any part of the Empire !"
"Perhaps it will be someday. The
Empire will last forever and someday--"
EVEN as the scene changed the watching
corner of Curt's mind knew that for a
moment he had actually lived in the
legendary Old Empire...
"Back farther still--farther--"
He could hear them singing the song
through all the ship. The old song that was
like a banner streaming, the song that they
had sung for generations in the mighty
ships that went on and on through the
intergalactic void.
"How many, many centuries since the
last of the First Born died--the First Born
who raised us from the dust ! How many
centuries since we men went forth !"
He heard and he looked ahead through
the port and there was nothing but the
same eternal scene--the vast maw of
oceanic deep space with the hosts of the
far-flung galaxies mere drowned points of
light.
All except the one galaxy ahead, the
mighty wheel-shaped continent of stars
that slowly, slowly, kept growing into a
universe of fire and splendor.
"By the arts that the First Born taught
us, by the sacred behest that they laid upon
us, we go forth to create the cosmic dream
they dreamed !"
The blinding revelation came only to
that little part of his mind that was still
Curt Newton--the revelation of that first
epic coming of men to found the Empire of
old, to fulfill the command of the
mysterious First Born.
If he could hear that song a little longer,
that marching-song of the elder human
race as it followed its destiny from far
beginnings ! If he could hear but a little
more--
"Now !" spoke the voice and light
crashed destroyingly upon the whole
scene--and he was Curt Newton wholly
and lying upon a cold slab and waking--
waking...
It was cruel, that awakening,
unendurably cruel--to have gone so far
and yet not far enough ! He heard himself
cry out, an incoherent fury of demand for
the machine to hum again, to send his
memories plunging back along the endless
track of time.
Then his sight cleared and he saw Otho
watching him, his green eyes calculating
and ironic. He saw Konnur, smiling.
Curt stripped off the metal band and
stood erect. His hands were unsteady and
somehow he could not meet Otho's gaze.
He tried to speak but the words did not
come and in his mind, already fading, was
still the burden of that song and the
blinding light of galaxies untouched and
new, ready for the conqueror.
He shivered and Konnur said as though
he knew quite well what was passing in the
Earthman's thoughts, "Remain here then.
You can order the others away and remain
here and follow your own dream. There are
no limits to the memory of man."
"Yes," said Curt to himself and not to
Konnur. "One limit--the beginning, the
time before ever there were men, before
the First Born. Who--and where and how
?"
"Learn," said the quiet voice of Konnur.
"Send the others away when they come
and remain and learn."
From a great distance then there came to
Curt the sudden sound of fighting in the
pass.
For a moment he stood motionless,
caught between that song of lost eons and
the pitiless present. Then, savagely, like a
creature driven against his will, he moved.
He tore the metal band from Ezra Gurney's
head and shook him and shouted, "Wake
up, Ezra ! Wake !"
The guards had started forward. Otho
said sharply, "Wait ! If you touch him
16
now, it will only mean complete
destruction for you all."
Konnur listened to the sound of fighting
in the valley. He sighed and motioned the
guards to halt.
"Yes," said Konnur, "let us wait. There
is always time to die."
Ezra Gurney was looking up at Curt, his
eyes bewildered and full of
uncomprehending pain.
Captain Future turned away. He said
heavily, "Konnur, go and tell your people
to lay down their weapons. There is no
need for bloodshed."
"Perhaps," said Konnur, "it would be
better for us to die fighting for the Second
Life."
Curt shook his head. "The Second Life
must be ended for Europa. By bringing in
these folk from other worlds you have give
the Planet Police and the Government
power to act and they will act very swiftly.
But..."
Konnur's eyes blazed. "But ?"
"It need not be destroyed. Go now and
speak to your people."
Konnur hesitated. His gaze was fixed on
Curt's. Then, abruptly, he turned and went
away. Curt took Ezra Gurney's hand. He
said gently, "Get up, Ezra. It's time to go."
The old man got slowly to his feet and
then sank back, sitting on the edge of the
slab, his face between his hands.
PRESENTLY he said, "I couldn't help it,
Curt. It was a chance to go back to the time
when I was young, to the time when we
were together and all that had not yet
happened..."
Curt did not need to ask whom he meant
by "we". He was one of the few who knew
Ezra's tragedy, the loved brother whom he
had long ago been forced to slay as an
outlaw in space.
He took hold of Ezra's shoulder.
"Sure," he said. "Sure, I understand."
Ezra looked up at him. "Yes," he
muttered. "I think you do. Well..." He
stood up, groping for something to say,
something normal and expected. "Well, I
guess there's nothing else to do but go and
face Joan. Is she angry ?"
"Not now," said Otho, grinning, "but
she will be !"
Ezra smiled back gratefully but his heart
was not in it.
They went out of the place of the
sleepers, down the long passage to the
outer chambers. The noise of strife had
ceased. They heard a tumult of many
voices shouting and then Grag came
striding mightily through the tall gates.
He bellowed, "Are you all right, Curt ?
I knew Otho would get you into a jam !"
Simon Wright glided beside him and
behind them a press of eager dusty young
Europans crowding like wolves.
"Shall we destroy them now ?" they
shouted. "Shall we break the machines ?"
"No !" Curt told them. "Hold your
tempers ! And listen. Konnur ! Where is
Konnur ?"
They thrust him inward through the
crowd.. They had handled him roughly but
even so he had not lost his dignity nor his
pride. He stood waiting.
Curt Newton spoke slowly, so that
everyone should hear and understand.
"This, is my proposal. There are many of
the old ones who have lived so long in the
Second Life of memory that without it they
would die--and the secret itself is too
valuable to be lost.
"Therefore I offer this solution--that the
machines shall be removed to one of the
small uninhabited moons of this system
and that those who wish to shall go with
them. It would be a sort of quarantine,
under the authority of the Planet Police,
and the Second Life would be gone forever
from Europa. Does that meet with your
approval ?"
He looked at Konnur, who had no
choice and knew it, but who did not care as
long as his beloved dream was safe.
"It is well," he said. "Better than I had
hoped."
"And you," demanded Curt of the
young Europans, "what is your word ?"
17
"They had many words among
themselves. They shook their fists and
argued, hungry for destruction, but at the
last the young man who had come with
Curt and Otho from the city stepped
forward and said, "As long as the Second
Life goes forever from this world we will
not oppose you." He paused, then added,
"We owe you that much. If it had not been
for you we would never have broken free."
Curt felt a great relief, greater than he
should have had for the mere saving of a
bit of antique science. Again he avoided
Otho's gaze and even more the cold
penetrating glance of Simon Wright's lens-
eyes.
He said to Konnur, "It is done then.
Waken the sleepers and let them have time
to think and choose. I will see that the
arrangements are made to trans-ship and
settle all those who wish to go."
He took Ezra by the arm, shaking him
from the reverie into which he had sunk
again. "Come on," he said. "We're finished
here for good."
*****
They were walking across the spaceport,
the six of them, the Futuremen and Joan
and Ezra, heading for the ships under the
red glow of Jupiter. And Simon Wright
said something that had been on his mind
to say these days during which Curt had
labored to finish the removal of willing
exiles to a remote and barren moon.
"Was it out of pity for them, Curtis--or
did you wish to live the Second Life again
yourself some day ?"
Curt answered slowly. "I'm not sure. It's
too dangerous a thing to meddle with
overmuch and yet--much knowledge
could be gained that way. If a man could
be sure of himself, of his own mind..."
He shook his head and Simon said
dryly, "The last thing a man is ever sure of
is the strength of his own mind."
Otho looked up at Grag.
"But you really ought to try it some
time, Grag."
"The Second Life ?" rumbled Grag.
"Why, now, come to think of it maybe I
should."
"Certainly," Otho told him. "It would be
a fascinating experience to learn how your
ancestral pig-iron felt in the forge."
Grag turned on him. "Listen, android--"
Curt's voice cut them short and their
step quickened as they went on toward the
ships.
But Ezra walked last, slowly, the
shadow still on his lined old face as he
looked back--back to the remembered
past, the bright lost days, the forever
unforgotten.