Jack Williamson - After World's End.pdf - Jack Williamson - widez2

AFTER WORLD'S END

Chapter Page

FOREWORD ......... 105

I THE ROCKET ASTRONAUT . . . . . 109

II THE CONQUEST OF THE STARS . . . 116

III THE ROBOT CORPORATION..... 121

IV THE FALCON OF EARTH...... 126

V WORLD CONDEMNED...... 133

VI COSMIC STORM........ 140

VII CIRCUS OF SPACE . ...... 148

VIII ROBOT SIMULACRUM....... 156

IX THE ROBOT AND THE EMPEROR . . . 164 X TECHNOMATONS TRIUMPHANT . . .169

XI THE GIRL OF EARTH ...... 177

XII THE FASTNESS OF MALGARTH .... 182

XIII THE MIRROR OF DARKNESS .... 190

XIV THE SHADOW OF THE STONE .... 195

WE FOUND THE STRANGER, when we unlocked the bungalow after a week on the lakes, seated at my big desk in the

study. His face was an enigma of youth and age. Lean beneath his long white hair, it was gray and drawn and

hollowed as if with an infinite heartbreak—and yet it smiled. His emaciated hand, thrust out across the pile of loose

yellow sheets he had written, gripped an incredible thing.

Queerly lifelike, he was yet more queerly still.

"Why, hello!" I said.

And then, when he remained stiffly staring at that scintillating glory in his rigid hand, we knew that he was dead.

His injuries, when we came to discover them, were dreadful as they were inexplicable. All his gaunt, shrunken

body—torso, neck, and limbs—showed dark purple ridges. It looked as the body of Laocoon must have looked, when

the serpents were done. But we found no snakes in the bungalow.

"The man was tortured," asserted the examining doctor. "By ropes, from the looks of it, drawn mercilessly tighter.

Flesh pulped beneath the skin. Grave internal injuries. A miracle he lived as long as he did!"

For four or five days had passed, the doctors agreed, since the stranger received his injuries. He had been dead, by the

coroner's estimate, about twenty hours when we found his body.

It is fortunate indeed for us, by the way, that we had been together at the lakes and that friends there were able to

substantiate our mutual alibi. Otherwise, in view of the incredible circumstances, ugly suspicion must have fallen upon

us.

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"Death," ran the oddly phrased verdict of the coroner's jury, after we all had been questioned, and the premises, the

manuscript, and the stone examined, "resulting from injuries sustained through the act of persons or things

unknown."

The stranger's life, as much as his death, remains a mystery. The sheriff and the aiding state police have failed to

identify him. The manuscript is signed, "Barry Horn," but no record has been found that such a man is missing. The

medical examiners agreed that he was of contemporary American stock; but they were mystified by the freaks of cell

structure indicating extreme age in a man apparently young. -—

His clothing, even, is enigma. Textile experts have failed to name the fine rayon-like fibers of his odd gray tunic and the

soiled, torn cloak we found on the couch. The hard shiny buttons and buckle, like the bright pliant stuff of his belt and

sandals, have baffled the synthetic chemists.

The weapon we found in the yellow belt seems worth the study of science, but no scientist yet has made anything of

it. It looks like a big, queer pistol, with a barrel of glass. Its mechanism is obviously broken, and any attempts to fire it

have proved unsuccessful.

How he came into the bungalow—unless in the strange way his manuscript suggests—we have been unable to

conjecture. For the house was securely locked before we started to the lakes, and no fastening seems to have been

disturbed. A tramp, so the baffled sheriff argues, might break undetected into an empty house—but, if anything seems

certain about Barry Horn, it is that he was not a common tramp.

The manuscript was written with my own pen, on paper he found in-the desk. The task must have taken him three or

four days. The doctors seem astonished that he was able to complete it. And it must have been a race with pain and

death, for the script is continually more hurried and uneven, until, toward the end, it is barely legible.

The used dishes and empty cans on the kitchen table show that he found several meals for himself—the last of which,

evidently, he was unable to eat, for the food was left untouched on the plate. A wrinkled rug lay with his cloak on the

couch, where he slept and rested.

foreword 107

He must have rummaged for something in the medicine cabinet, for we found that open^ and a bottle of

mercurochrome smashed on the bathroom floor. He seems to have made no effort, however, to get medical assistance.

For my telephone was sitting, dusty and untouched, on the desk where he wrote and died.

He surely perceived the end, for the page beneath his hand was the opening of a will. Had he lived to complete it, his

instructions might have cleared up much of the monstrous riddle. He had written:

To Whom It May Concern:

I, Barry Horn, being lately returned out of Space and Time to this my own beloved land and era, finding myself yet

clear in mind but unregretfully aware of approaching death, do make this my last will and testament.

First I must offer belated apology to the Carridans, the relatives of my dead wife Dona, for the long bitterness I felt

toward them because they took from me, I felt unjustly, my only son.

Second, to the unknown holder of this house, hi repayment for his unwitting hospitality while it was being written, I

bequeath this manuscript, with all rights thereto. I hope that it may be published, so that men may know something of

the splendors and the dangers awaiting their race in the far-off future. So that others, perhaps, may share something of

the love I feel for Kel Aran, the last man of Earth; and for those two great women, equally beauteous— Dondara

Keradin, the Shadow of the Stone; and Verel Erin, the Stone's Custodian and Kel's brave beloved. For those three are

more to me than any others I have known, save only Dona Carridan.

Third, to my sole son and child, Barry, upon his being released from the too-jealous guardianship of his mother's

relatives, I bequeath my clothing and weapon and the large diamond block I have with me, requesting that he read the

narrative I have written before making any disposition of the diamond, which was the Stone of Dondara.

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Fourth, as Executor of this Will, I do hereby appoint my old friend and attorney, Peter—

At that point the last agony must have struck. The pen wandered away on an aimless track, dropped from dying

fingers. The attorney's last name, and Barry Horn's instructions for finding his son, remain unknown.

Weird riddles enough! But the most astounding puzzle is the diamond block. An incredible brick of water-white

crystalline fire, four inches long, it weighs eleven hundred carats—nearly half a pound! It is quite flawless, save for

that singular shadow which certain lights show in its pellucid core—if that white ghost could be termed a flaw.

Such a stone is beyond price—but for the mutual support of jewel and manuscript, it would be beyond belief. For,

while the famous Cullinan Diamond was far larger in the rough, there is no credible record of any cut stone weighing

even half as much. Dealers, skeptical of its description and astonished by its reality, have been reluctant to set any

valuation upon it.

"By the carat, millions!" cried one startled jeweler. "But I should cut up such a stone, like a cheese, never! Vait for

some prince too giff his kingdom!"

We have hesitated, despite the request in the unfinished will, to publish this manuscript, especially since so large a

part of the mystery is still unsolved. For it is sure to be received with skepticism in the scientific world, and its

acceptance elsewhere may endanger the safety of the diamond.

But all other efforts to find Barry Horn's attorney and his son have failed. Publication holds the only.remaining hope of

clearing up the mystery and establishing the ownership of the jewel. Any person knowing the whereabouts of the

younger Barry Horn, or the identity of his father's attorney, is requested to communicate immediately with the

publishers.

apter

THE ROCKET ASTRONAUT

"MOUGHT DIS BE of int'rest to yuh, suh?"

The advertisement was pointed out to me by a friendly elevator operator at the Explorer's Club. Placed in the classified

columns of the New York Standard, for October 8, 1938, it ran:

WANTED: Vigorous man, with training and experience in scientific exploration, to undertake dangerous and unusual

assignment. Apply in person, this evening, 6 to 10. Dr. Hilaire Crosno, Hotel Crichton.

That sounded good. I had been in New York just twice too long. Always, when I had come back from the long

solitudes of desert or jungle, the first fortnight on Broadway was a promised paradise, and the second began to be

hell.

I gave the grinning boy a dollar, stuffed an envelope with credentials, downed another stiff peg of whiskey, and

walked into the glittering chromium lobby on the stroke of six. My inquiry for Dr. Crosno worked magic on the

supercilious clerk.

Crosno proved to be a big man, with huge bald head and deep-sunken, dark, magnetic eyes. The tension of his mouth

hinted of some hidden strain, and extreme pallor suggested that, physically, he was near the breaking point.

"Barry Horn?" His voice was deep and calm—yet somehow terrible with a haunting echo of panic. He was shuffling

through my references. "Qualifications seem sound enough. Your doctorate?"

"Honorary," I told him. "For a pyramid I dug out of the jungle in Quintana Roo." I glanced at the room's 109

110 After World's End

austere luxury, still trying to size him up. "Just what, Doctor, is your 'unusual assignment—?' "

Majestically, he ignored my question. Gray eyes studied me.

"You look physically fit, but there must be an examination." He checked a card in his hand. "You know something of

astronomy and navigation?"

"Once I sailed the hull of a smashed seaplane a thousand miles across the Indian Ocean."

The big head nodded, slowly.

"You could leave at once, for an—indefinite time?"

I said yes.

"Dependents?"

"I've a son, four years old." The bitterness must have shadowed my voice. "But he's not dependent on me. His mother

is dead, and her people convinced the courts that a footloose explorer wasn't the proper guardian for little Barry."

Dona Carridan was again before me, tall and proud and lovely. The one year I had known her, when she had

tempestuously left her wealthy family to go with me to Mesopotamia, had been the happiest of my life. Suddenly I was

trembling again with the terror of the plane crash in the desert; our son born in an Arab's tent; Dona, far from medical

aid, dying in agony....

"Then, Horn," Crosno was asking, "you're ready to cut loose from—everything?"

"I am."

He stared at me. His long-fingered hands, so very white, were trembling with the papers. Suddenly he said, decisively:

"All right, Horn. You'll do."

"Now," I demanded again, "what's the-job?"

"Come." He rose. "I'll show you."

A huge, shabby old car carried us uptown, across the George Washington bridge, and up the river to a big, wooded

estate. A uniformed butler let us into an immense old house, as shabby as the car. "My library."

Guiding me back through the house, Crosno paused as if he wished me to look into the room. An intricate planetarium

was suspended from the ceiling. Glass cases

The Rocket Astronaut 111

held models of things that I took to be experimental rockets. The big man silently pointed out shelves of books on

explosives, gases, aerodynamic design, celestial mechanics, and astro-physics. Startled, I met Crosno's piercing eyes.

"Yes, Horn," he told me. "You're to be the first rocketeer."

"Eh?" I stared at him. "You don't mean—outer space?"

I wondered at the shadow of bleak despair that had fallen across his cragged, dead-white features.

"Come," he said. "Into the garden."

The night had a frosty brilliance. Moonlight spilled over the trees and neglected lawns; and Venus, westward, hung

like a solitary drop of molten silver. I stopped with a gasp of wonderment.

Weathered boards were stacked around the foundation of a dismantled building. Upon the massive concrete floor,

shimmering under the moon, stood a tall bright cylinder. Bell-flared muzzles cast black shadows below. A frail ladder

led up its shimmering side, sixty feet at least, to the tiny black circle of an entrance port.

"That—" A queer, stunned feeling had seized me. "That—"

"That is my rocket." The deep voice was ragged, choked. "The Astronaut" His face was bleak with agony. "I've given

twenty years of my life to go, Horn. And now I must send another. An unsuspected weakness of my heart—couldn't

survive the acceleration."

The white lofty cylinder was suddenly a dreadful thing. There is a feeling that comes upon me, definite as a grasping

hand and a whispered warning. Sometimes I have not heeded it, and always in the. end, found myself face to face with

death. Now that feeling said, There lies ghastly peril.

Slowly I turned to the tall pale man.

"I'm an explorer, all right, Crosno," I said. "I've taken risks, and I'm willing to take more. But if you think I'm going to

climb into that contraption, and be blown off to the moon—"

The hurt on his gaunt bloodless face stopped my voice.

"Not the moon, Horn." A gesture of his long arm car-

112 After World's End

ried my gaze from the mottled lunar disk, westward to the evening star. "To Venus," he said. "First."

I caught my breath, staring in awe at the white planet.

'The range of the Astronaut," he said, "should enable you to reach there, land, spend several months in exploration,

and time your return to reach Earth safely at the next conjunction—if you are very lucky."

His dark, magnetic eyes probed me.

"What do you say, Horn?"

"Give me a little while," I said. "Alone."

I walked out of the garden, and up through dark-massed trees to the open summit of a little hill beyond. The autumn

constellations flamed near and bright above; yet I could hear crickets below, and a distant frog; could sometimes catch

a haunting flower-odor from the meadows.

A long time I stood there, gazing up at Venus and the stars. Earth, I thought, had not been kind to me; life, since

Dona's death, had seemed all weariness and pain. Yet—could I leave it, willingly and forever?

Indecision tortured me, until I saw a shooting star. A white stellar bullet, out of the black mystery of space, it flamed

down across Cassiopeia and Perseus; and somehow its fire rekindled in me that vague and yet intense knowledge-lust

that is the heart of any scientist.

But I couldn't understand the thing that happened then. It was a waking dream, queerly real, that banished the sky and

the hill. Standing in sudden darkness, I saw a woman who lay sleeping in a long crystal box. Her slim, long-limbed form

was beautiful, and it seemed hauntingly familiar.

She seemed to wake, as I watched. She looked at me, with wide eyes that were violet-black, and filled with an urgent

dread. She half rose, in her thick mantle of dark, red-gleaming hair. And her voice spoke to me from the crystal casket,

saying:

"Go, Barry Horn! You must go."

In another instant, the vision was ended. The soft night sounds and the moonlight were about me again, and the

autumnal breeze swept a codl fragrance from the meadows. I caught a deep breath, and wrestled with enigma.

The Rocket Astronaut 113

The woman in the crystal had been, unmistakably, Dona Carridan!

Scientific training has left me little superstition. Walking back down the hill, I wondered if I had been trying too hard to

drown in alcohol my bitter loneliness for her. It must have been hallucination. But her beauty and her terror had been

too real to ignore. I knew that I must go. I went back to Crosno, waiting beside the rocket, and told him my decision.

But something caught my throat as I asked him, "When?"

Venus was overhauling Earth in its orbit, he said, approaching inferior conjunction. His calculations were based on a

start at three the next Sunday morning.

"Four days," he said. "Can you be ready?"

I said I could. And there was oddly little to do. I packed and stored a few possessions, called on my attorney, and then

went back to study the controls and mechanism of the rocket.

The greatest danger, Crosno said, would be from the Cosmic Rays. They would penetrate the rocket. He made me take

a drug to guard against them.

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