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EARTHMEN NO MORE
A Captain Future Novelet
By Edmond HAMILTON
When the Futuremen revived John Carey from his deep freeze,
he wanted to go home--but where in space was home ?
CHAPTER I
The Awakening
TILL and cold in its lightless vault of
bone, the brain stirred feebly. Slowly,
slowly, it began to wake and remember--
timeless memories, flowing across it in a
dark inchoate tide from nowhere into
nothingness.
He was alone in space. Quite alone,
floating, turning, drifting. He had no
destination and he was in no hurry. He had
lost the Sun and the planets. There were
not even any stars.
He did not worry. The dead do not
insist on stars. He had forgotten how he
came to die and he was glad.
After a long while, far distant in the
infinite night, he saw a tiny gleam. He
regarded it without curiosity or fear and
then he realized that some inexorable
current had caught him and was sweeping
him toward the light, hurling him at it in a
swift relentless rush. He knew that he did
not want to go to it--but there was no
escape.
The little point of light leaped and
spread into a sun, a nova, a shattering
glare. Terror overcame him. He clawed at
the comforting darkness as it fled past but
he could not hold onto it and it seemed to
him that he could hear the small thin
shrieking of his body against the void as it
was sucked into the devouring brilliance.
There was a face between him and the
light, huge and awesome. He cried out but
no sound came and then it was gone, the
light, the face, even himself, swallowed up
in the quiet night.
Memories--the aloneness, the
remembering, the timeless drift. A sound
like the rustle of far-off surf that boomed
louder and louder and became a voice
speaking out of the heavens, saying,
"Wake up, John Carey! Wake up!"
And he thought he answered, "But I am
dead."
How had he come to die?
EMORIES, groping, uncertain,
coming faster, clearer, clothed in
vivid color. A girl's face, a girl's red mouth
saying, "Don't go. Don't go if you love me.
You'll never come back."
Men and a ship--a little ship, a frail and
tiny craft, it seemed, for the long way it
was going and the high dreams it had.
Hard-faced iron-handed men, braver than
angels and more hungry than they were
brave, hungry for new worlds and the
unknown things that lay beyond the
mountains of the Moon, beyond the still
canals of Mars, beyond the glittering
deadly Belt.
He remembered now the men and the
ship, how they had gambled their lives
against glory and lost. "We shot the
Asteroids," he muttered, in the silence of
his mind. "Jupiter was there ahead of us, a
big golden apple almost in our hands. I
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remember how the moons looked,
swarming like bees around it. I
remember..."
The meteor--the tearing agony of
metal, the last glimpse of horror in the ship
before the air-burst took him with it into
space, through the riven pilot-dome. The
brief, bitter knowledge that this was death.
"Dead," he said again. "I'm dead."
The strange voice answered, "If you
want to you can live again."
He thought about that. He thought about
it for a long time in the darkness. To live
again--the light and the warmth, the
hunger and pain and hope, the wanting, the
being able to want. He thought and he was
not sure and then at last he whispered,
"How? Tell me how!"
"Open your eyes and come back, back
where the light is. You were here before,
don't you remember? Open your eyes, John
Carey!"
He did or thought he did and there was
nothing but mist, heavy darkling clouds of
it. Far, far away he saw the gleam of light
beyond him and he tried to grope toward it
but the mists were very thick.
"I can't," he moaned. "I'm lost."
Lost forever, in darkness and cold.
"Come back!" cried the voice strongly.
"Come back and live!"
He heard the sound of a hand striking
smartly against flesh. After a while he felt
it. That little sharp pain somehow managed
to bridge a colossal gulf and make him
aware that he had a body.
His brain oriented itself with a dizzying
lunge. The mists tore away. He woke.
It was a full awakening. The exploding
nova resolved itself into a light-tube,
glowing against a low ceiling of metal.
The countenance that had loomed so
hugely above him became the face of a
man. A lean face, deeply bronzed with the
unmistakable burn of space, topped with
red hair and set with two level grey eyes
that looked straight into Carey's and made
him feel somehow safe and unafraid.
"Lie still," said the red-haired man. "Get
your breath. There's no hurry." He turned
aside and his hands, very strong but
delicate of touch, busied themselves with a
vial and a gleaming needle.
Carey lay still. For the moment he had
not the strength to do anything else. The
room was small. It was fitted as a
1aboratory, incredibly compact, and many
of the objects that his wandering gaze
passed over were strange to him.
One of these objects was a small
cubical case of semi-translucent metal,
resting on a table. The surface nearest
Carey was fitted with twin lenses and a
disc, so that it bore an unsettling
resemblance to a face. Carey thought
vaguely that it must be some sort of a
communicator.
Suddenly he said, "I'm in a ship."
The red-haired man smiled. "How can
you tell? We're in free fall."
"I can tell." Carey tried to struggle up.
"But there are no ships beyond the Belt!
How..." Then he began to tremble
violently. "Listen," he said to the stranger.
"Listen, I was killed, trying to reach
Jupiter. A meteor hit us and I was blown
clear, out into space with no armor. I'm
dead. I'm a dead man. I..."
"Steady on," said the red-haired man.
"Easy." He set the needle into a place
already swabbed on Carey's naked arm.
Carey flinched. He sobbed a little and then
the trembling quieted.
"I was dead," he whispered, again.
"No," said the red-haired stranger. "Not
really dead. What we call the space-death
isn't true death but cold shock--an
instantaneous stoppage of all life
processes. There's no time for deterioration
or cellular damage, no possibility of decay.
The organism stops short. It can, by certain
means, be started going again."
He looked thoughtfully down at Carey
and added, "Many lives are restored that
way, lives that would have been considered
ended in your time."
Carey said numbly, "Then you found
me, floating in space, in frozen sleep? You
-revived me?"
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"Yes. Space law requires that any ship-
wreckage encountered on radar must be
investigated. That's how we found you."
The stranger smiled. "Welcome back to
life, Carey. My name is Curt Newton."
It was only then that it penetrated
Carey's stunned mind, the phrase that had
been used so casually a moment before.
"You said, 'In my time'," he repeated.
"How long..." He stopped. His mouth was
dry. He tried again, forcing out the words
that did not wish to be spoken. "How long
was I asleep out there?"
The man who called himself Curt
Newton hesitated, then asked, "What year
was it when you met disaster, Carey?"
"It was nineteen ninety-one. It was June,
nineteen ninety-one, when we left Earth."
Newton reached for a calendar pad, held
it up. He did not speak and there was pity
in his eyes.
Carey saw the date on it, and at first it
was too incredible to touch him. "Oh, no,"
he said. "Not all that time, all those
generations. No, it's not true."
"It is."
"But it can't be ..." His voice trailed off.
The numbers on the pad, the awful sum of
years blurred and darkened before him.
Once more he began to tremble and this
time it was for fear of life, not of death.
"Why did you bring me back?" he
whispered. "I have no place here. I'm still
a dead man."
BRUPTLY, from beyond the closed
bulkhead door, there came the sound
of footsteps. Strange steps, ponderous and
clanking, as though someone enormously
heavy walked in metal boots. Curt Newton
turned his head sharply.
"Grag!" he called. "Hold on there.
Wait!"
The footsteps hesitated and a voice from
beyond the door said mockingly, "I told
you so. What do you want to do, frighten
the poor chap out of his wits?" The voice
had a peculiar soft sibilance of tone.
It was answered by a rumbling metallic
growl, an utterly unhuman sound, that
seemed to have words in it. Carey got up.
He clung to the edge of the surgeon's table,
fighting the weakness that was on him, his
eyes fixed on the bulkhead door.
"Carey," said Curt Newton, "things
have changed and science has come a long
way. There are three others aboard this
ship besides myself. They're not--well, not
quite human, as men of your day
understood the term. Even now, in our
time, they're unique, created by techniques
far beyond the general knowledge. But you
must not be afraid of them. They're my
friends and will be yours."
A chill came over Carey, creeping into
his bones. He continued to stare at the
door. What waited behind it, what
monstrous things--not quite human, not
quite human. The words repeated
themselves in his brain, scuttling across it
like spiders spinning icy webs, tightening
until he could barely hear Newton's voice
talking on.
"Robot..." Faintly the voice came and
Carey stared at the door. The drops of
sweat ran slowly down his face. "Robot,
human in intelligence, created by scientific
genius..."
There were sounds behind the door.
There were presences not of the flesh.
Carey's mouth was dry with the taste of
fear.
"... android, human in all respects but
created also in the laboratory..."
Carey began to move toward the door.
What dreadful facet of the future had he
been cast into? What uncanny children of
this undreamed-of age were lurking there
behind that panel? He could not bear to
know but somehow not knowing was
worse. Not knowing and wondering and
thinking...
"...the brain of a great scientist, a
human, kept alive for many years in a
special case..."
Robot, android, living brain. A red-
haired man and a date on a calendar. A
ship where there are no ships, a life where
there is no living. A dream, Carey--a
dream you're dreaming, drifting along
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with the endless tides, the dark night tides
beyond the Belt. Open the door, Carey.
What difference in a dream?
A human figure, lithe and graceful,
whose face had the unhappy beauty of a
faun, green-eyed and mocking. And beside
it a shape, a towering gigantic manlike
form built all of gleaming metal. A shape
that bent toward him, reaching out its
dreadful arms, glaring at him with two
round, flashing eyes.
A harsh, toneless voice spoke close
behind Carey, saying, "Catch him, Curtis."
Carey looked for the source of the
strange voice. The cubical box that he had
taken for a communicator had risen from
its shelf, hovering upon tenuous beams.
And he saw that the surface with the twin
lenses and the disc was indeed a face.
"No," said Carey. "Don't touch me.
Don't any of you touch me."
He made his way back into the little
laboratory. The room had closed in on him.
The darkening air pressed against him like
water. He was conscious that his hands
were cold, that his feet were very heavy,
treading on a surface he could no longer
feel.
"I tried to soften the shock for him,"
Curt Newton was saying somewhere across
the universe.
And the harsh voice of the cubical metal
case replied without inflection, "Poor
fellow, he has many shocks in store."
Carey sat down. He put his face
between his cold palms, and the knowledge
came to him, the truth that he had not quite
believed before but from which now there
was no escape.
He had bridged the gulf of time. He had
left his own past in the dust of centuries
behind him and he stood face to face with a
future that was beyond his knowing. He
was brother to Lazarus, come forth into an
alien world.
CHAPTER II
Return from Space
E could hear them talking. He did
not want to hear them. He did not
want to lift his head and see them again.
He did not even want to be alive. But he
could not help hearing.
Grag's booming voice, the thunderous
voice of the robot. "I didn't know, when I
fished him out of that wreckage, that he
had been floating there so long!"
The harsh inflexible voice of the metal
box, of the brain who had once been Simon
Wright, a scientist of Earth. "A long time
indeed," said Simon Wright and added
slowly, "He is old, this man--almost as old
as space-flight."
The soft sibilance of the android, at
once cruel and compassionate. "It was no
kindness to bring this one back, Curt. He's
as much alone in the world as we are."
There was something in the attitude of
these three unhuman strangers that struck
Carey suddenly. It was a strange thing, for
one who had for all his life been merely a
man named John Carey, of no particular
importance to anyone but himself. It was
awe. And that realization brought another
with it--that John Carey was a creature as
queer and unreal to these beings of the
future as they were to him.
Curt Newton said to the android, "I
think you're wrong, Otho. I think any man
with guts enough to buck the Belt in those
old tin skyrockets would rather live, even
in an unknown time, than sleep eternity
away."
Carey did not answer that. He did not
know the answer.
"He creates a problem for us, Curtis,"
said Simon Wright. "And at a time when
we have a grave problem of our own. You
understand that."
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5
"Yes." Curt Newton went and stood in
front of Carey and spoke his name. Carey
looked up.
"I want you to know one thing," said
Newton. "You're not alone, not without
friends. You'll stay with us until you're
oriented. After that--well, we have a
certain amount of influence and we'll see
that you get a start on whatever sort of life
you may choose."
Still Carey did not answer.
"Listen," said Newton. "You were a
pioneer. Why you were or what you
wanted out of it I don't know. But
whatever it was you were trying to push
the frontiers back so you could get it.
Well, you succeeded, you and others like
you. Even in failure, you succeeded.
"There are colonies on the farthest
moons. Men have even begun to reach out
to the worlds of other stars. You helped to
make all that possible, Carey, and you're
alive to see it. Isn't that enough to make
you want to live? Aren't you curious to see
the civilization you helped to build?"
Carey smiled faintly. "Psychotherapy,"
he said. "We had it in my day and it wasn't
any more subtle. All right, Newton. I'll be
curious as hell when I have time to think
about it. Meanwhile I'm alive--so I don't
really have any choice, do I?"
He got up. Deliberately he forced
himself to look at Grag and Otho and
Simon Wright.
"All right," he said to them all, to no
one. "I'll get used to it in time. A man can
get used to anything if he has time."
"Quite," said the voice of Simon
Wright. "All of us have learned the truth of
that--even Curtis."
Carey tried in the period that followed.
But it was a hard thing to do. To his own
time-sense the great gap between yesterday
and today was only an instant of sleep. He
caught himself often thinking of Earth as
he knew it, of the men and women who
would be there just as he had left them, of
the songs and the streets and the faces of
buildings, the uncountable small details
that make up the sum of an epoch.
It was hard to teach himself that they
were there no more. But one or another of
his shipmates was always near him and
never let things get to bad. So gradually,
from constant association, Grag and Otho
and Simon Wright became familiar to
Carey and he no longer felt that uncanny
twinge when he was near them.
Simon remained enigmatic and remote,
an intelligence keen and brilliant far
beyond Carey's power to understand,
wrapped in his own thoughts, his own
researches. Knowledge was Simon's thirst
and his existence and it seemed to Carey
that, although Simon Wright had been a
man of Earth before his brain was taken
from his dying body and preserved by the
magic of a future science, Simon had
become the least human of them all.
Grag and Otho were easier. The android
was so nearly human that only now and
again did a flicker of something other-
worldly in his green eyes remind Carey
that Otho was not as other men. Even then
it was impossible to fee1 any horror of
him. Carey had known a lot of mothers'
sons but seldom one that he liked as much
as the sharp-tongued ironic Otho, whose
most pointed barbs were tempered with
pity.
As for Grag, once Carey had got used to
his seven-foot clanking bulk and enormous
strength, he became fond of the great
robot, whose only faults were over-
enthusiasm and a certain lack of judgment.
It was, however, constantly upsetting to
Carey to realize that this lumbering metal
giant had quite as much intelligence as he
and a good deal more knowledge.
The man Curt Newton, the man many
called Captain Future, remained
paradoxically the most difficult to
understand of all the four. It was only bit
by bit from the others that Carey picked up
Newton's story--his strange birth and
stranger upbringing in a lonely laboratory
hidden under the surface of the Moon, an
orphan with no other companions than the
three who were called the Futuremen.
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O wonder, Carey thought, that with
such a background Newton was
withdrawn and guarded in his approach to
the ordinary relationships of men. He, like
his companions--and like Carey too in this
new incarnation of his--was set apart
forever from the normal world. Carey
sensed that the easy casual manner of the
red-haired man had been painfully
acquired, that beneath it lay a dark and
solitary creature, much better not aroused.
Carey soon discovered something else
about Curt Newton. He was angry and it
was no mere passing rage. It was a cold
black fury that rode him all across the
spatial gulf that plunged between Saturn,
whence he had come, and Earth, where he
was going. And the cause of it was a
message he had received from a man
named Ezra Gurney about another man
named Lowther.
There was something about a monopoly
on a certain kind of fuel, which was going
to put Lowther in control of all shipping to
and from the distant star-colonies which
were not much at present but would grow.
It seemed that the star-ships took on their
high-potential fuel for the long jump at
Pluto, where the radioactive ore was mined
and refined.
And now, by devious manipulations of
hidden stock, Lowther had got control of
the refining companies and raised the price
out of reach. There were ships stranded at
Pluto and men in an ugly mood and
Newton was heading fast for Earth to see
what he could do about it.
It sounded a dirty enough deal and
Carey hoped that Newton would bring
Lowther to time. But this talk of star-
colonies and star-ships was beyond him.
His mind was still thinking of Jupiter as
the unattained and well-nigh unattainable.
Any problems of star-ships or the men
who flew them were distant and unreal.
Furthermore he was too deeply immured in
his own fears and loneliness, in the
strangeness of being alive.
He began to think more and more of
Earth. He was hungry to see it, to feel it
under his feet again, to look up into a blue
sky at the familiar Sun. He had been long
away from Earth when he fell asleep--an
eternity, it had seemed, shut up in an iron
coffin outbound for Jupiter.
He remembered now how they had
talked about Earth, crouching within the
narrow walls that hid them from the black
negation of space. The voices still rang in
his ears, the faces were as clear as though
he had only turned his head away for a
moment or two.
Craddock and Szandor, Miles and
Delaporte, Gaines, Coletti, Fenner--the
red-headed, the black and the fair--the
different particular tricks of phrase and
expression, the kindness and cruelty and
courage and fear--the wisdom and the
folly, moulded together into the separate
forms of men. And they had talked of
Earth.
They had planned what they would do
when they got back, with the wealth of a
new world in their hands. They had talked
of the women who would be waiting for
them, of the parades and the speeches, the
fame that would be theirs around the globe.
They had talked and all the time the
darkness that was just beyond the hull had
been listening with a silent mirth and John
Carey was the only one who would ever
come back again.
As the ship rushed nearer to the orbit of
Earth Carey's eagerness increased until it
was like a fever in him. He talked of home
as those other men had talked and Curt
Newton listened with a kind of pity in his
eyes.
"Don't expect too much," he said. "It's
changed--but it's still Earth, not Paradise."
The forward jets were cut in and the
ship quivered to the brake-blasts--not the
anguished uncertain shuddering of the
ships Carey had known but a controlled
lessening of speed. The green remembered
wor1d came gleaming across the forward
port and Carey stared at it, sitting
motionless and absorbed, urging the misty
continents into shape, watching the oceans
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spread into blueness and the mountains rise
and become real.
Suddenly he was afraid. He covered his
face with his hands, and said, "I can't. I
can't walk like a ghost through streets I
never saw, looking for people who have
been dead for generations."
"It won't be easy," said Curt Newton.
"But you'll have to. Until you do you'll be
living and thinking in the past." He looked
at Carey, half smiling. "After all, you came
into this world a stranger once before."
"What will they say to me?" whispered
Carey. "How do people talk to a dead
man?"
"As rudely as they do to everyone else.
And how will they know unless you tell
them? Come on, Carey, stiffen up. Forget
the past. Start thinking about the future."
"Future!" said Carey and the word had a
strange hollow sound to him. "Give me
time. I haven't caught up with the present
yet."
He was silent after that. Newton asked
for and got clearance for a landing. The
ship picked up her pattern and spiraled in.
Nothing was clear to Carey. Confused
vistas reeled and spun beneath him, a huge
monster of a city, the many-colored
patchwork of a spaceport, strange and
unknown, yet with a haunting familiarity,
like a language learned in childhood and
long forgotten. His heart pounded fiercely.
It was hard to breathe.
The ship touched ground. And John
Carey had come home from space.
He remained as he was, sitting still, his
fingers sunk deep into the padded arms of
the recoil-chair. Curt Newton's voice was
faint and far away. "Simon and I are going
to Government Center. Grag will stay with
the ship. But Otho can go along with you if
you like."
"No," said Carey. "No thanks--I..."
There was more he wanted to say but he
could not form the words. He got up and
went past the others, seeing them only as
shadows. The airlock was open. He went
out.
HE blaze of a summer sun smote
hard upon him. He looked up at white
clouds piling slowly in the sky and thought
out of some dim coign of memory, Later
there will be a storm. He began to walk
across the concrete apron, scarred with
many flames.
This was the same spaceport. It had to
be for there was the city before him and
behind him was the sea. Here, from a little
field that had looked so big and grand, the
Victrix had taken flight for Jupiter. Here a
girl had said goodbye and kissed him with
the bitterness of tears.
But it was not the same. The little field
was swallowed up and gone, drowned in
the mighty rows of docks. Where the
administration building had stood a white
pylon towered up into the clouds. The air
was filled with the thunderous roar of
ships, landing, taking off, jets flaming, lean
hulls flashing in the sun.
Great cranes clanked and rumbled.
Strings of lorries snorted back and forth
between the freight docks and the
warehouses and from beyond them spoke
the anvil voices of the foundries. Atomic
welders blazed like little suns and the huge
red tenders rolled ponderously among the
ships with their loads of fuel.
Carey walked slowly. He was listening
to the music, the titan song of the ships and
the men who served them. Good music to
one who had first helped to write it long
ago. He listened and was proud--not just
for himself but for Gaines and Coletti,
Fenner and Miles and Szandor, the men of
his crew and all the other crews who had
christened this port in their blood and
flame.
And suddenly the song was drowned in
the chattering voices of women. People
surged around him, caught him up and
carried him on toward a great sleek craft of
silvery metal, with a name and an
unknown flag on her bow--Empress of
Mars. Trim young men in natty uniforms
stood by her gangplank. High heels clicked
against the curving metal with a sound as
brittle as the voices.
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"Such a wretched cruise the last time! I
was simply bored to tears..."
"Well, Mars isn't what it used to be, so
overrun with tourists. I went last to
Ganymede for a change and you have no
idea..."
A young girl, giggling--"It's my first
trip and I'm just thrilled to death. Janet
said they have a simply heavenly orchestra
on this ship!"
Under the shrill incessant chatter lay the
heavier intermittent voices of men. Rich
men, stuffed with the tallow of good living,
men with big sweating bellies sheathed in
silk, comparing the food and service on the
Empress with the Morning Star, that flew
the luxury run to Venus, and the Royal
Jove. And here and there among them an
anxious younger man with a red-mouthed
woman on his arm, underlings stripped to
their last nickel for the privilege of rubbing
shoulders with the elite on a trip across
space.
A sickness came over Carey. He felt
smothered in perfume and smug
sophistication. He looked at the trim young
officers and hated them.
Over the chatter and the cries an
annunciator spoke with firm politeness.
"Last warning for Empress of Mars
passengers! The gangways close in six
minutes. Last warning..."
Carey stood, a silent unnoticed figure in
the crowd, thinking of other ships and
other men who had left Earth long ago, and
the sickness in him deepened. Caught in
the press of soft comfortable flesh he heard
gongs clanging and a surge of voices and
then the sibilant roar that became a purring
thunder as a glistening fabric of shining
metal lifted skyward. Then he was swept
away in the backwash of people from the
empty dock.
"She really earned a nice vacation..."
"...and those cruise-ships are so much
more fun than ordinary space-trips. They
have hostesses and games and always
something to do!"
Carey stumbled out of the stream at last
into a little deserted backwater around a
tall pillar that stood at the edge of the
spaceport.
There was gold lettering on it, only a
little dingy from the back-blast of many
ships. Carey saw a name he knew.
He looked closer. It was a tall pillar and
he had to look high to see the legend that
read, TO THE PIONEERS OF SPACE.
Now he saw. Underneath that legend
were names, and dates. First the names of
the great trail-blazers.
Gorham Johnson--Mark Carew--Jan
Wenzi--
Wenzi...Once a small boy had watched
with worshipping eyes as a grizzled one-
armed man stumped toward a ridiculous
rocket-ship.
A little farther down, not much. Lane
Fenner--Etienne Delaporte--William
Gaines--yes, all the Victrix crew including
John Carey, all with the golden stars beside
them that meant Lost in Space.
Names--names and men, his friends,
his shipmates, his rivals. Jim Hardee, the
kid who had sat drinking with him the
night before he hit for Jupiter. While he
had lain dead in space young Hardee had
gone on, doing the big things he dreamed
of. And now, like the others, he was only a
dingy gold-letter name on a forgotten
monument.
The voice of the annunciator pleaded
monotonously, "Will Pallas passengers
please report at once to Dock Forty-four?
Will Pallas passengers..."
Old Wenzi and Jim Hardee and young
Szandor and Red Miles--yes, and he
himself, bucking the black emptiness and
the cold death to push the frontiers out...
"Attention, please," said the mechanical
voice. "The liner Star of Venus will land at
Dock Fourteen at exactly six-ten. Those
wishing to greet incoming passengers..."
Carey sat down on the steps of the
monument. Otho found him there, staring
at the bright crowds going back and forth,
listening to the voices and the laughter, the
swift proud thunder of the ships.
9
Otho touched his shoulder and after a
while Carey asked him tonelessly, "Did we
die for this?"
CHAPTER III
Men of Earth
OR the better part of two days Curt
Newton was busy carrying his fight
against Lowther into one Government
office after another. And during that time,
with Otho determinedly sticking to him to
keep him out of trouble, Carey wandered
about in the city.
It was very large. It had always been
so--the largest city on the world of Earth.
Now it was no longer merely large but
monstrous, bloated, towering, spreading,
gorged with humanity and wealth. Yet it
seemed less crowded than Carey
remembered.
The buildings were taller now,
frighteningly tall, and there were covered
walks of chrome and glassite spanning the
dizzy canyons in between, so that a man
might go across the city and never touch
the ground. Traffic ran on many levels
underneath. The streets were quiet and
clean and Carey missed the brawling
taxicabs, the surge and hum of crowds.
He watched the people who passed him.
The tempo had slowed since the days he
knew. Men and women strolled now,
where before they had almost run. Their
faces were a little different too, more
relaxed and satisfied. He did not think that
they were much happier or wiser, certainly
no more kind.
Men and women, well fed, well dressed,
making money, spending it. Palaces of
entertainment, offering elaborate
amusements to suit every taste. Travel
bureaus displaying their three-dimensional
living posters, urging people no longer to
visit Quaint Brittany or the Romantic
Caribbean but luring them instead with the
ancient Martian cities and the pleasure-
domes of tropical Venus.
Shop windows, full of marvels.
Tenuous spider-silks from Venus,
necklaces of Martian rubies like drops of
blood to glow against white flesh, jugs of
curious wines from the moons of Jupiter,
the splendid furs of beasts that hunt across
the frozen polar seas of Neptune.
We opened the way, Carey thought. We
died and they grow fat.
Stone and steel and plastic and rare
metals to make the giant towers splendid.
Soft colors, soft sounds of music from
garden terraces far above, where the sea
wind tempered the heat and set the fronds
of other-worldly shrubs to rustling.
Terraces where people sat feeding on
delicacies brought across space in fleets of
special ships, watching languidly the
musicians and the dancers who were as
alien as the exotic plants. Everywhere was
the pervading softness, the silk-wrapped
cushioned luxury, the certain ease of men
who have never had to fight.
"You might as well see it all," said
Otho. And so Carey visited the places of
amusement, the parks and the pleasure
gardens, and sat upon the perfumed
terraces, a dark and sombre shadow among
the butterfly crowds. And often the women
turned and looked at him as though
perhaps they saw in his face a thing that
was lost out of the men they knew.
Every landmark was gone, every place
he knew was changed. There was no single
street that he remembered. And the names
were gone too and the faces, gone and
utterly forgotten.
Suddenly Carey glanced up at the
overtopping spires that leaned against the
sky and said, "I hate this place. I'm going
back to the ship."
Otho smiled a little wryly and they
returned to the port.
Curt Newton came back almost as soon
as they. Simon was with him and a grizzled
leathery-faced man in uniform who was
introduced to Carey as Ezra Gurney.
F
10
Otho studied Newton's face. "I was
going to ask you how it went," he said,
"but I see--it didn't go at all."
Newton shook his head. "No." He flung
himself down, retreating into a brooding
silence. Carey saw his hard dangerous
anger.
"What happened?" demanded Grag,
"You don't mean to say they're going to let
Lowther get away with it?"
"There doesn't seem to be any way they
can stop him," said Ezra Gurney. He had a
hard honest space-worn look about him
that Carey liked. He too was angry.
"The trouble is," he explained, "that
Curt has no proof against Lowther. There's
a half dozen refining companies on Pluto
and they've all raised their fuel-prices
together. Lowther only owns one of them
outright and in the open.
"He says and they all say that mining
and refinery costs have gone up so that
they have to charge more for the fuel,
which is legal enough. All right. Now we
know that Lowther has used dummy
corporations and juggled stock and so on
until he actually controls the other five
companies. But we can't prove it!
"Curt went to everybody at Government
Center. They all said the same thing. Such
a charge would require hearings,
committees, investigation, all that
rubbish--weeks, months, maybe years,
because Lowther is smart enough and rich
enough to stall indefinitely and the chances
of nailing him are mighty slim."
"And in the meantime," said Curt
Newton slowly, "the starmen are forced
either to sell out to Lowther for fuel or to
stay here in the System while their wives
and families and the communities they've
worked so hard to build go without the
supplies they need.
"They'll give in, of course, because they
have to go back--and Lowther will gain a
stranglehold on all the trade between the
System and the colonies. In twenty years
he'll be rich enough to buy and sell the
Sun."
Grag held out his two great metal hands
and looked at them, flexing the fingers
with an ominous small clanking of the
joints. "I vote," he said, "that we pay this
Lowther a visit."
"What form of execution would you
prefer?" Otho asked him. "Being melted
down for scrap or converted into a nice
useful boiler? There's a law against killing
people, even for bucket-headed robots."
"Who said anything about killing?"
boomed Grag. "He could have an accident,
couldn't he?"
"Preferably a bad one," grunted Ezra.
"But I'm afraid that approach won't do."
"No," said Curt slowly, "but I think
Grag has the right idea at that. I think we
ought to go and talk to Mr. Lowther." He
sprang up. "Come on, Carey, this will
interest you as a commentary on the brave
new world you helped to build!"
"I think I've seen enough of it," Carey
said. "I don't want to see any more."
UT he went with them. Only Simon
Wright stayed in the ship. They took
a car from the spaceport. Except that it had
wheels and seats it bore little resemblance
to the cars Carey had known. Propulsion
units sent it rushing smoothly along the
underground high-ways.
By the time they came out onto the
great elevated boulevards that led across
suburb and country the long summer dusk
was falling. Carey turned and looked back.
Outlined against the deep blue the
enormous bulk of the city blazed with
many-colored light. Even at this distance it
had an alien look to his eyes.
The sleek suburban areas fled by.
Beyond them the country still pretended to
be as it had been. But Carey's more
primitive eyes detected the deception.
Artful hands had arranged the trees and
changed the courses of the brooks and
pruned the wild hedgerows into pleasing
vistas.
The car left the highway and proceeded
along a private road. Presently, upon a
slope ahead, Carey saw a graceful structure
B
11
of metal and glass, shaped by a master
hand to fit like a huge synthetic jewel into
its setting of terraced gardens.
The translucent walls gleamed softly
and strains of music drifted on the evening
air. The gardens were full of fairy lights.
As they came closer Carey made out the
flutter of women's skirts among the
flowers, heard the sounds of laughter.
"Looks like a party," said Otho. "A big
one."
"We'll give him a party," rumbled Grag
and cracked his metal knuckles.
They came to the gates, which were
artistic but highly functional. Curt Newton
got out. He went to the small viewer that
was housed at one side and pressed the
communicator stud. After a moment Carey
saw him returning to the car.
"Mr. Lowther is engaged and can see no
one," he quoted and then added,
"Particularly us." He surveyed the gates.
"An electronic locking device, operated by
remote control or with a light-key--neither
of which helps us. Grag, would you care to
see what you can do about it?"
Grag's photo-electric eyes gleamed as he
heaved himself out of the car and strode
toward the gates. For a minute his
enormous bulk was motionless, leaning
forward a little with his hands on the bars,
testing the resistance. Then he moved.
There was a groaning and snapping and a
metallic squeal and the gates were open.
The car drove on into the grounds.
"There was an alarm on the gate, of
course," said Newton. "They'll be waiting
for us and I don't want any trouble. We had
better get out here and go 'round through
the gardens."
The air was heavy with the scent of
flowers. It was warm and on the terraces
the white shoulders of women turned back
the moonbeams. The music ran slow and
lilting and there was laughter under the
colored lights. Curt Newton walked
through the gardens and after him came
Grag and Otho and John Carey, who was
moving in an unreal dream.
One by one the dancing couples saw
them and the laughter stopped. The
swirling skirts were still and the faces
watched them, not with fear but with an
amazement, as children might look at
sombre strangers invading their nursery.
The music continued, soft and sweet.
Along the paths between the drooping
jasmine and the great pale blooms of
Venus, across the terraces, through a
sliding wall wide open to the night, and
into a pastel room with a vast expanse of
mirror-like floor surrounded by graceful
colonnades--and here too the dancers
drew back from the intruders.
Then, from one of the archways, came a
group of men headed by a tall man no
older than Curt Newton. He wore a dress
tunic of black silk and his hair was black
and his face had a clear healthy pallor.
Carey thought that it was the sort of skin a
woman might have, shaped smooth over
handsome bones and set with wide dark
eyes. Only there was nothing womanish
about Lowther's face if by womanish you
meant weak or pitying or possessing any
softness of heart.
The men with him were of a type Carey
knew and detested. They were the kind
who are always somewhere around a man
like Lowther.
The two groups came to a halt and eyed
each other. Lowther said, "If you came to
say something, say it and get out."
Newton put one hand on Carey's
shoulder and pointed with the other to
Lowther. "There he is, Carey--the most
important man in the Solar System. Oh, the
System doesn't know it yet but he is. And
he's modest too. He owns all the refineries
on Pluto but you'd never know it to look at
the records."
He had raised his voice a bit so that it
could be heard clearly above the music. A
considerable crowd had collected, drawn in
from the gardens, and there were plenty to
hear.
12
OWTHER came closer to Newton.
He started to speak and Newton went
on smoothly, politely, drowning him out.
"My friend has been away from Earth for a
long time, Mr. Lowther. I wanted him to
meet you, so that he could see the type of
man we produce now, the successful man.
I thought it might teach him a lesson while
he's still young enough to profit by it.
"You see where you made your mistake,
Carey? You went pioneering, and got
nothing out of it but hardship and danger
and sudden death. You should have stayed
at home like Mr. Lowther here, using your
wits and letting others do the dirty work of
opening up new worlds. See what you'd
have had--a fine house, a host of friends, a
good steady business with no competition?
"After awhile, with patience and good
judgment, you'd have owned the shipping-
lines to which at first you only sold fuel.
Doesn't it make you ashamed, Carey, to
think of how you wasted your youth--just
as the starmen stranded out there on Pluto
are wasting theirs?"
Lowther's face was even whiter than
before except for two streaks of dull red
along his cheekbones. "Listen," he said, "if
you're so worried about the starmen, you'd
better get word to them to watch their step
or they'll be in real trouble.
"They're threatening to resort to
violence and I'm leaving for Pluto in the
morning to see that my property is
protected. I don't know exactly what
you're trying to do, Newton, but even you
can't buck the law--and neither can your
friends."
Newton's face was tight and dark but his
voice was soft. "There are laws and laws,"
he said. "Some of them are so basic they
haven't even been written down. Perhaps
someday soon we'll have a longer talk
about laws."
He turned abruptly and went back down
the long room with the glassy floor and the
others went with him. Lowther followed
them at a distance, looking after them as
they left the grounds.
In the car, speeding back toward the
city, Grag said regretfully, "Why didn't
you let me wring his neck?"
"He may get it wrung yet out on Pluto,"
answered Curt. "When the starmen there
find out that I couldn't do anything for
them they'll try to do something for
themselves." He turned suddenly to Carey.
There was a hard reckless glint in his eyes.
"Carey,"he said, "do you want to come
with us out to Pluto and see a fight?"
Carey shrugged heavily. "Pluto,
Antares--what difference does it make
where I am? Yes, I'll go. I'll go anywhere
that isn't Earth."
He was sick with Earth and opulence
and the greedy faces of men. The old
horizons were gone and even Pluto, that
distant stepchild of the Sun, was the seat of
monopoly and all the ugly things that had
plagued mankind since the beginning. But
it would be a change from Earth.
Otho said to Curt, "You're not really
going to egg them on to fight?" He said it
not with reproof but with hope.
Curt answered grimly, "No. They'd
only get themselves killed without
accomplishing anything. Lowther was
right. As of now the law is all on his side."
He was silent and then he said, "No, it
was another kind of fight I had in mind."
He said nothing more, until they reached
the spaceport. Then he grinned at Carey, a
grin without much humor in it. "I know
what you need," he said. "Grag, go on
back to the ship and keep Simon company.
Otho and I will help Carey drown his
sorrows."
Grag went off. Newton and Otho took
Carey some distance around the periphery
of the port. There was an endless number
of joints along the fringe, some of them
fashionable, some catering to ordinary
spacehands. They entered one of the latter.
There were a bar and booths and tables and
Carey thought dully that this at least had
not changed.
They sat down. Through the window,
which looked out on the flash and thunder
of the port, Carey could see the rows of
L
13
docks and the long sheds with the names
on them of this and that line or company.
One of them said LOWTHER MINING
CORPORATION and there was a sleek
ship in its dock with an endless conveyor
taking cases of supplies up its gangway.
"Lowther's ship, getting ready to take
him off to Pluto tomorrow," said Newton
harshly.
Otho raised his glass toward it.
"Confusion to it," he said.
Newton moodily watched the distant
ship. Carey felt the unfamiliar liquor
explode in him like liquid fire. Otho
signaled and presently there was another
glass in Carey's hand.
He was in no mood to refuse it. He had
been a long, long time in space, his
awakening had been hard, his homecoming
bitter. The future was a cold and formless
presence, crouched behind a dark curtain.
Carey drank.
There was an interval wherein he knew
that he talked but was not sure what he
said. Then he found himself in cool night
air and Otho's arm was helping him into a
ship.
Even through his haze, Carey knew
Simon Wright's toneless voice by now.
"Where is Curtis?" it demanded.
"He'll be along," Otho said easily.
"This way, Carey--you need sleep."
It was later--how much later he could
not guess--when Carey half-roused to
voices. Simon's inflectionless voice and
Curt's.
"--and you won't tell me what you've
been up to?" Simon was saying.
"There's nothing to tell, Simon. We got
nowhere with Lowther so we came back.
Now we've got to go out to Pluto and see if
we can stop him there."
"Curtis, I know you and I know that you
have done something. Well, we shall see.
But one thing I am sure of and that is that
someday your anger will outrun your
wisdom and bring you to disaster."
Carey drifted into sleep again. He did
not even rouse to the shock of take-off.
When he woke, the ship was on its way to
Pluto.
CHAPTER IV
Earthmen No More
HEY made the long sweeping curve
to escape the pull of Neptune and
ranged in toward the dim speck that was
Pluto. The jumping-off place of the Solar
System, with nothing beyond it but
interstellar space, riding its dark cold orbit
around a Sun so distant that it seemed no
greater than the other stars.
Yet even here, if wealth was hidden
away, man would find it. Carey thought
that undoubtedly a few shrewd souls would
have set up concessions for mining coal in
Hell.
He had watched all the way out from
Earth but with only a flicker of the
excitement he would once have known.
He was interested, of course, because it
was his first trip beyond the orbit of
Jupiter. But the thrill was gone. People
talked of going out to Saturn or Uranus
now as they had once talked of going out
to California. It gave Carey, somehow, a
feeling of having been cheated. In his day
going to Mars had been a big thing and
fraught with danger.
From a featureless fleck of reflected
light almost too faint to be seen Pluto grew
into a recognizable world--a dark world
with black wild mountains shooting up
against the stars and eerie seas of ice.
There was something so cruel and
ghostlike in the look of it that Carey could
not repress a shudder.
It seemed rather like an invader from
outer space than a member of the familiar
System, the more so since in bulk and mass
and composition it bore a ghastly
T
14
resemblance to Earth as though alien
demons might have made it as a joke.
They were a little ahead of Lowther.
They had not had much start on him but
they had a faster ship.
"We'll have a little time," said Curt.
"Even a few hours might be enough to talk
some sense into Burke and the others."
Burke, Carey gathered, was captain of
one of the two star-ships fighting the battle
over fuel, was more or less the leader of
both crews.
"They counted on help from the
Government," said Otho. "When they find
out what's happened they're going to be
hard to hold."
"We've got to hold them," Curt
answered grimly. "They'll blow their only
chance if they start fighting."
Simon said nothing but his lens-like
eyes followed Curt intently. The forward
jets began to thunder and the Comet, still
curving, entered its long arc of
deceleration.
As they swept closer Carey saw that the
frozen plains were pocked with craters, and
that some of the mountain-peaks had been
shattered by caroming meteors. The lunar
desolation of the world was hideous.
Carey thought what it must be like to live
and work here.
"The refinery men get relief at regular
intervals," Curt told him. "And there are a
couple of small domed cities around on the
other side."
Carey nodded. "Even so Pluto seems a
stiff place for them."
"It is," said Curt. "You'll see."
The televisor buzzed. They had been
coming in on the automatic beam but now
somebody wanted to talk to them. Curt
opened the switch.
A man's face appeared on the little
screen. It wore the expression of one who
has been handed a hot wire and doesn't
know how to let go of it. "Lowther Mines
speaking," it said. "Identify yourself."
Newton did and the man's face grew
more unhappy. "We can't very well stop
you from landing," he said. "But keep your
distance from the domes--no closer than a
hundred yards. There's a charged barrier."
He added, "We're well armed."
The screen went dark. Curt shook his
head. "They're all set for trouble. Let's
hope it hasn't already started."
Curt set the Comet down at last, on the
edge of a vast white plain where it struck
against a mountain wall. Carey saw two
great dark hulls looming near them with
only their mooring lights showing. Well
over a hundred yards away, sunk into the
living rock of the cliffs so that only the
outer bulwarks showed, was a series of
steel-and-concrete domes.
Northward along the plain, in a sector
marked off by beacons to warn away
incoming ships, were other domes. Here
there were rifts and gouges in the barren
rock of Pluto, hulks of strange machinery
and structures of various sorts whose uses
Carey could not be sure of.
Occasional lights gleamed but nothing
moved. The diggers and the ore-carriers
were still and no clouds of vapor came
from the buried stacks of the refineries.
"They're shut down tight," said Curt.
"Regular state of siege." He looked at the
others. "Don't forget what our friend said
about the barrier."
They put on protective coveralls--
except for Grag and Simon, who needed no
such protection. Curt had handed Carey
one of the suits. "You've come all the way
out and you might as well see the fun," he
said.
Then they went out into the black
Plutonian night toward the star-ships. It
was intensely dark, colder than anything
Carey remembered except that one split-
second touch of open space.
Carey stared at the distant mockery of a
Sun, overcome with the feeling that he was
indeed on the outer edge of the universe.
He was so occupied by his sensations that
he was taken completely by surprise when
men rose suddenly out of the hollows of
the ice and closed around them.
A torchbeam flashed out and struck Curt
full in the face. He said, "Burke?" and
15
from beyond the light a voice grunted,
"Okay, relax. It's him."
"What's the idea?" Curt demanded.
"Well," said Burke, "we picked up your
call but we wanted to be sure it really was
you and not one of Lowther's smart tricks."
"Or," said Curt, "did you hope maybe it
was Lowther himself, trying to get behind
the barrier before you knew who he was?"
He glanced around at the shadow-shapes of
the men, who were numerous and armed.
"Maybe," said Burke. He switched the
beam around the Futuremen and onto
Carey. "Who's this?"
"He's not Lowther either. His name is
Carey and he's a friend of mine."
Burke nodded briefly. His attention
returned to Newton. "What's the news?
What did they say on Earth?"
"Let's go on to your ship," said Curt.
"I'll tell you about it there."
Burke and the others must have known
from the way he said it what the answer
was going to be. But they turned silently
and went back across the ice with the
Futuremen and Carey into their ship.
They had the port shutters down but
there was light inside. It felt very warm to
Carey after the spatial chill. They stripped
off their heavy garments and went aft into
the main cabin, sorting themselves out so
that the officers of both star-ships sat down
around the battered table and the crews
crowded where they could in the
passageways to listen.
AREY stood unnoticed in a corner of
the cabin. He could see these starmen
now. They had large scarred hands and
faces burned dark as old leather. Their
uniform jumpers were worn and their boots
were shabby and they wore their greasy
caps in a certain way that Carey
remembered. He saw the sort of eyes they
had too--and those he remembered also.
Burke leaned forward across the table.
He had an oblong face that was mostly
bone and sinew like the rest of him and a
hungry look around the mouth. "All right,"
he said. "Now tell us."
Curt Newton told them and as he talked
Carey watched the starmen. An eerie
feeling crept over him that he had known
these men before. He had served with them
in the little ships that fought their way
along the planetary roads that seemed then
so long and hard. It was strange to see
these men again, to know that they still
lived. He could almost have called them by
name except that their faces had altered a
bit and he could not be sure.
Burke was talking. "If they won't do
anything we'll have to do it ourselves.
And we will! I'm not going to sell our ship
to that pirate for a load of fuel."
Curt said, "The law--"
"To blazes with the law! When it starts
protecting thieves instead of honest men
it's time to forget the law."
There was no cheering or loud talk.
There was only a harsh mutter of assent.
"Listen," Curt said. "You can't smash
into the domes and take the fuel. You
know what they've got ready for you."
"We don't have to smash in," said
Burke. "Lowther's on his way here. We
intercepted his message saying so. Well, he
can't land behind the barrier. There isn't
room."
Curt nodded. "The same thing you
pulled with me. Get Lowther in your
hands..."
"And kill him, if we have to," Burke
finished quietly. "But, we'll get our fuel."
For the first time Simon spoke. "That is
murder."
Burke shrugged. "They'll have to come
a long way to catch us." He added in a
sudden fury, "Murder, is it? We've got our
wives and families out there! They need
the medicines, the tools, the seeds. What if
they die for want of them? Isn't that murder
too?"
Simon said, "If you kill Lowther you
can never come back for more."
Curt had got to his feet. He was about to
speak. Then Carey heard a voice clamoring
over the annunciator, crying, "Radar room!
We've just picked up Lowther's ship! He's
still in free fall but he's coming!"
C
16
Carey saw the fierce excitement that
took the starmen. There was a sudden
wolfish shouting, a ringing of boots on the
deck-plates. Burke was yelling orders. The
men in the passageways began to move.
Burke faced Curt Newton. "Well?"
Curt said, "Hold your men back."
There was a tenseness about him now.
It seemed to Carey that he was listening for
something. "Hold them back!"
Burke's face hardened. "I couldn't if I
wanted to." He added slowly and
meaningly, "They'll trample anybody that
gets in their way."
He turned his back on Newton then and
for a time nothing more was said or done.
They listened to the voice of the radar man,
calling out the position of Lowther's ship.
The voice became more and more puzzled.
Simon's lens-like eyes were fixed
intently on Curt Newton.
"He's still in free fall," said the radar
man. He hasn't started his curve yet and the
indicators don't show any rockets."
Burke put his mouth close to the
speaker-grid. "Communications," he said.
"Are you getting anything from Lowther's
ship?"
The answer came back, "No. The
Company station is calling Lowther but he
doesn't answer. It's like he hasn't any
power."
"Still no rockets," said the radar man. "I
can't figure this one. He's way past his
point of approach and going wide."
"Still no signals," put in
Communications. "He doesn't answer."
"Going wide--" The voice of the radar
man reached a tight pitch of excitement.
"He's lost his landing-curve! He's heading
right out into space with no rockets!"
For some odd reason Curt Newton
seemed to relax. But Burke and the other
officers stared at each other with dawning
comprehension and then with a joy that
was more savage than their anger.
"He's out of fuel," said Burke. "Nothing
else would kill both his rockets and
communications. He's out of fuel and
heading right out into the stars in free fall
with no power."
He began to walk back and forth with
short steps as though he could not bear to
be still. His hands gripped fiercely at the
air. "We don't have to kill him now. It's
done and not a finger laid on him. And it's
better--better! He'll learn before he dies.
He'll learn what it means to be between the
stars with no fuel!"
Curt Newton turned sharply toward the
door.
Simon glided before him. "Curtis," he
said, "this is your doing."
Curt said quietly, "Get out of my way,
Simon. I'm going after him."
Burke heard. So did the others. Carey
saw them move toward Newton.
"What do you mean--going after him?"
cried Burke.
"There are other men in that ship besides
Lowther. There's no reason why they
should die."
"Oh no," said Burke softly. "You're not
going to bring him back."
Carey saw them closing in around
Newton and he pushed in to stand with
Otho beside the red-haired man.
"Listen," said Newton. "I've fought for
you. I'm still fighting for you. Are you
going to trust me or aren't you?"
Burke's glance wavered before his. But
he said, "It doesn't make sense to bring
him back."
"Let him go," said Simon Wright
slowly. "He has done this thing for you.
Now let him finish it."
NCERTAINLY, reluctantly, Burke
stepped aside and Curt Newton went
out of the star-ship with Carey and Otho
and Simon Wright.
Not until the Comet was rising up from
Pluto on a jet of flame, rushing out into the
vast darkness where Lowther's helpless
ship was gone, did Simon speak again. He
asked tonelessly, "How did you do it,
Curtis?"
Newton shrugged but would not meet
his gaze. "There's a certain chemical, you
U
17
know, a pinch of which can kill a whole
tank of ship-fuel. An anti-catalytic. Well,
that night before we left Earth, I slipped
into Lowther's ship and used it to kill his
Number Six, Seven and Eight fuel-tanks."
He shrugged again. "One to Five would
take him out around Neptune, I knew. But
then he'd run out and couldn't curve in
toward Pluto."
"But why?" Carey asked puzzedly.
"Why do it and then save him?"
Simon said, "I can guess why. But I tell
you, Curtis, even if you succeed it was
harebrained. Once in the past your rashness
made outlaws of us four. It could happen
again."
No more was said until Curt Newton's
masterful piloting brought the Comet at
last alongside the dark silent ship that was
steadily falling toward infinity. The
emergency locks were coupled together
with magnetic grapples. Curt and Otho
were armed and Grag stood behind them
like an iron colossus, guarding the narrow
passage.
The locks were opened and Curt stood
facing Lowther. Watching from the
background Carey caught a glimpse of
Lowther's face, ugly with fear, with hatred.
"I might have known it would be you,"
he said to Curt Newton. "You caused our
fuel to go dead. How you did it I don't
know but--"
"You can't prove that," said Newton.
He spoke to the men who were crowding
behind Lowther. "Take it easy," he told
them. "You're in no danger."
A ray of hope crept into Lowther's eyes.
"You're going to take us back?"
"Well," said Newton, "I can't tow you
for my stern-grapples aren't working. And
my ship is small. I could take off your
officers and crew but I'm afraid there
wouldn't be any room for you."
Lowther thought about that. Carey could
see it in his face--the visualization of his
ship plunging on and on into the great
deeps with him alone in it.
"You couldn't do that," he whispered.
"I wouldn't have any choice," said
Newton.
Carey saw Lowther's face whiten and
crumble until it was hardly human. Then
Newton said, "However, I might sell you
fuel to get back to Pluto."
Shrewd and biting even through the
terror Lowther's eyes fastened on him.
"Now we're getting to it," he muttered.
"All right, what's the price?"
"As you know," said Curt, "fuel is very
high these days. But I'm not out for profit.
You sign over all rights in all your Pluto
mines and refineries to a Government
foundation, for the furtherance of travel
and exploration among the stars. And I'll
let you have a bunker full."
Something like a smile touched
Lowther's mouth. He smothered it at once,
beginning to protest and threaten, but Curt
shook his head. "Oh, no," he said. "There
will be no repudiation of this deal later on
when you're safe on Pluto. You're going to
make out a full confession of your
activities in gaining control of the five
other companies. It will be kept in a safe
place. And just to make doubly sure..."
Here he pointed to a fat-joweled little
man behind Lowther's shoulder--a man
whom Carey recognized as one of the
group who had been with Lowther that
other time on Earth.
"...to make doubly sure," Curt was
saying, "you will go into another cabin and
write out a separate confession. As
Lowther's secretary you know every angle
of that deal because you helped him. And
if the two confessions don't match I will
know that someone is lying--and that will
be two people there won't be room for in
my ship."
He turned again to Lowther and waited.
Three different times Carey saw Lowther
start to speak, and give it up. At last he
made a gesture of defeat and Curt
motioned him into the Comet. The
secretary whimpered once and
disappeared.
18
Less than an hour later, Curt Newton
had the signed irrevocable papers and
Lowther had his fuel.
*****
Time had passed. The two great ships
on the white plain of Pluto were readying
for take-off. Rock and ice quivered to the
deep hum of great generators running on
test. Men were feverishly busy around the
gangways.
Carey came hastening across the ice to
where Newton and the Futuremen were
watching. And as he ran he felt buoyantly
and fully alive for the first time since his
strange awakening.
"I'm going with them!" he cried. "I
talked to Burke. He signed me on and I'm
going with them--out to the stars!"
Otho laughed and said to Newton,
"You were right about him."
Suddenly Carey understood. He said,
"That's why you brought me out here with
you? You knew!"
The red-haired man nodded. "I knew that
only out on the edge, out on the frontier,
would you find your own kind again."
Newton paused and added, "You're not
the only one, Carey. I've seen it happen
over and over again to spacemen in my
own time. They go out young and eager,
dreaming and talking of how someday
they'll come back to Earth with wealth and
glory and live there happy the rest of their
lives. And when they come back they find
they can't do it, they find they're Earthmen
no more."
"Earthmen no more," Carey repeated,
wonderingly. "Why, yes. That was it, of
course. It wasn't Earth that changed so
much. It was me."
From the distance, amplified by an
annunciator loudspeaker, roared Burke's
voice. "Time to lift, starmen!"
And Carey, slipping and hurrying, went
back across the frozen plain, toward the
ships and stars that waited.