Captain Future 23 - The Harpers of Titan (September 1950) (3 page)

“Raise your hand, Simon. Raise your right hand.” There was a strained undertone in Curt’s voice. Simon understood. Curt was afraid he might not have done things properly.

Uncertainly, like a child who has not yet learned coordination, Simon raised his right hand. Then his left. He looked at them for an endless moment and let them fall. Drops of saline moisture stung his eyes, and he remembered them. He remembered tears.

“You’re all right,” Curt said shakily. He helped Simon raise his head and held a glass to his lips. “Can you drink this? It will clear away the fog, give you strength.”

Simon drank, and the act of drinking had wonder in it.

The potion counteracted the remaining effects of the anaesthetic. Sight and hearing cleared, and he had his mind under control again. He lay still for some time, trying to adjust himself to the all-but-forgotten sensations of the flesh.

The little things. The crispness of a sheet against the skin, the warmth, the pleasure of relaxed lips. The memory of sleep.

He sighed, and in that, too, there was wonder. “Give me your hand, Curtis. I will stand.”

Curt was on one side, Otho on the other, steadying him. And Simon Wright, in the body of John Keogh, rose from the table where he had lain and stood upright, a man and whole.

By the doorway, Harker fell forward in a dead faint.

Simon looked at him, the strong stocky man crumpled on the floor, his face gray and sick. He said, with a queer touch of pity for all humanity, “I told him it would not be easy.”

But even Simon had not realized just how hard it would be.

There were so many things to be learned all over again. Long used to a weightless, effortless ease of movement, this tall rangy body he now inhabited seemed heavy and awkward, painfully slow. He had great difficulty in managing it. At first his attempts to walk were a series of ungainly staggerings wherein he must cling to something to keep from falling.

His sense of balance had to undergo a complete readjustment. And the dullness of his sight and hearing bothered him. That was only comparative, he knew — Keogh’s sight and hearing had been excellent, by all human standards. But they lacked the precision, the selectivity, the clarity to which Simon had become accustomed. He felt as though his senses were somehow muffled, as by a veil.

And it was a strange thing, when he stumbled or made an incautious movement, to feel pain again.

BUT as he began to gain control over this complicated bulk of bone and muscle and nerve, Simon found himself taking joy in it. The endless variety of sensory and tactile impressions, the feeling of life, of warm blood flowing, the knowing of heat and cold and hunger were fascinating.

Once born of flesh, he thought, and clenched his hands together. What have I done? What madness have I done?

He must not think of that, nor of himself. He must think of nothing but the task to be done, in the name of John Keogh who was dead.

Harker recovered from his faint. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “It was just that I saw him — you — rise up and stand, it —” He did not finish. “I’m all right, now. You don’t have to worry.”

Simon noticed that he kept his eyes averted as much as possible. But there was a dogged look about him that said he told the truth.

“We ought to get back as soon as you can make it,” Harker said. “We — Keogh and I, have been gone too long as it is.”

He added, “There’s just one thing. What about Dion?”

“Dion?”

“Keogh’s son.”

Simon said slowly, “No need to tell the boy. He could not understand, and it will only torture him.”

Mercifully, he thought, the time would be short. But he wished that Keogh had not had a son.

Curt interrupted. “Simon, I’ve been talking to Harker. The council is tonight, only a few hours away. And you will have to go alone into the Inner City, for there Harker is not allowed to enter.

“But Otho and I are going to try to get around Moneb and into the council hall, secretly. Harker tells me that was Keogh’s idea, and it’s a good one — if it works. Grag will stay with the ship, on call if necessary.”

He handed Simon two objects, a small mono-wave audio disc and a heavy metal box only four inches square.

“We’ll keep in touch with the audios,” he said. “The other is a hasty adaptation of the
Comet’s
own repellor field, but tuned for sonic vibrations. I had to rob two of the coil units. What do you think of it?”

Simon examined the tiny box, the compact, cunning interior arrangement of oscillators, the capsule power unit, the four complicated grids.

“The design might have been further simplified, Curtis — but, under the circumstances, a creditable job. It will serve very well, in case of necessity.”

“Let’s hope,” said Curt feelingly, “that there won’t be any such case.” He looked at Simon and smiled. His eyes held a deep pride and admiration.

“Good luck,” he said.

Simon held out his hand. It was long and long since he had done that. He was amazed to find his voice unsteady.

“Take care,” he said. “All of you.”

He turned and went out, going still a bit uncertainly, and behind him he heard Curt speaking low and savagely to Harker.

“If you let anything happen to him, I’ll kill you with my own hands!”

Simon smiled.

Harker joined him, and they went together through the lichen forest, ghostly under the dim, far Sun. The tall growths were silent now that the wind had died. And as they went, Harker talked of Moneb and the men and women who dwelt there. Simon listened, knowing that his life depended on remembering what he heard.

But even that necessity could not occupy more than one small part of his mind. The rest of it was busy with the other things — the bitter smell of dust, the chill bite of the air in the shaded places, the warmth of the sun in the clearings, the intricate play of muscles necessary to the taking of a step, the rasp of lichen fronds over unprotected skin, the miracle of breathing, of sweating, of grasping an object with five fingers of flesh.

The little things one took for granted. The small, miraculous incredible things that one never noticed until they were gone.

He had seen the forest before as a dull-gray monochrome, heard it as a pattern of rustling sound. It had been without temperature, scent or feel. Now it had all of these things. Simon was overwhelmed with a flood of impressions, poignant almost beyond enduring.

HE GATHERED strength and sureness as he went. By the time he breasted the slope of the ridge, he could find pleasure in the difficulty of climbing, scrambling up over treacherous slides of dust, choking, coughing as the acrid powder invaded his lungs.

Harker swore, shambling bearlike up the steep way among the lichens. And suddenly Simon laughed. He could not have said what made him do so. But it was good to laugh again.

They avoided the clearing by common consent. Harker led the way, lower down across the ridge. They came out onto open ground, and Simon was touched beyond measure to find that he had a shadow.

They paused to get their breath, and Harker glanced sidelong at Simon, his eyes full of a strange curiosity.

“How does it feel?” he asked. “How does it feel to be a man again?”

Simon did not answer. He could not. There were no words. He looked away from Harker, out over the valley that lay so quiet under the shadowy Sun. He was filled with a strange excitement, so that he felt himself tremble. As though suddenly frightened by what he had said, and all the things that were implicit in that question, Harker turned suddenly and plunged down the slope, almost running, and Simon followed. Once he slipped and caught himself, gashing his hand against a rock. He stood motionless, watching with wondering eyes the slow red drops that ran from the cut, until Harker had called him three rimes by Keogh’s name, and once by his own.

They avoided the New Town. “No use asking for trouble,” Harker said, and led the way past it down a ravine. But they could see it in the distance, a settlement of metalloy houses on a shoulder of the ridge, below the black mouth of the mines. Simon thought the town was strangely quiet.

“See the shutters on the windows?” Harker asked. “See the barricades in the streets? They’re waiting, waiting for tonight.”

He did not speak again. At the foot of the ridge they came to an open plain, dotted with clumps of grayish scrub. They began to cross it, toward the outskirts of the city.

But as they approached Moneb a group of men came running to meet them. At their head Simon saw a tall, dark-haired boy.

Harker said, “That is your son.”

His skin a lighter gold, his face a mixture of Keogh’s and something of a softer beauty, his eyes very direct and proud, Dion was what Simon would have expected.

He felt a sense of guilt as he greeted the boy by name. Yet mingled with it was a strange feeling of pride. He thought suddenly, I wish that I had had a son like this, in the old days before I changed.

And then, desperately, “I must not think these things! The lure of the flesh is pulling me back.”

Dion was breathless with haste, his face showing the marks of sleeplessness and worry.

“Father, we’ve scoured the valley for you! Where have you been?”

Simon started the explanation that he had concerted with Harker, but the boy cut him short, racing from one thing to another in an urgent flood of words.

“You didn’t come, and we were afraid something had happened to you. And while you were gone, they advanced the time of the council! They hoped you wouldn’t come back at all, but if you did, they were going to make sure it was too late.”

Dion’s strong young hand gripped Simon’s arm. “They’re already gathering in the council hall! Come on. There may still be time, but we must hurry!”

Harker looked grimly over the boy’s head at Simon. “It’s come already.”

With Keogh’s impatient son, and the men with him, they hurried on into the city.

Houses of mud brick, generations old, and towering above them the wall of the Inner City, and above that still the roofs and squat, massive towers of the palaces and temples, washed with a kind of lime and painted with ocher and crimson.

THE air was full of smells — of food and the smoke of cooking fires, acrid-sweet, of dust, of human bodies oiled and fragrant and musky, of old brick crumbling in the sun, of beasts in pens, of unknown spices. Simon breathed them deeply, and listened to the echo of his footsteps ring hollow from the walls. He felt the rising breeze cold on his face that was damp with sweat. And again the excitement shook him, and with it came a sort of awe at the magnificence of human sensation.

I had forgotten so much, he thought. And how was it possible ever to forget?

He walked down the streets of Moneb, striding as a tall man strides, his head erect, a proud fire in his eyes. The dark-haired folk with skins of golden copper watched him from the doorways and sent the name of Keogh whispering up the lanes and the twisting alleys.

It came to Simon that there was yet another thing in the air of Moneb — a thing called fear.

They came to the gates in the inner wall. Here Harker dropped helplessly back with the other men, and Simon and the son of Keogh went on alone.

Temple and palace rose above him, impressive and strong, bearing in heroic frescoes the history of the kings of Moneb. Simon hardly saw them. There was a tightness in him now, a gathering of nerves.

This was the test — now, before he was ready for it. This was the time when he must not falter, or the thing he had done would be for nothing, and the Harpers would be brought into the valley of Moneb.

Two round towers of brick, a low and massive doorway. Dimness, lighted by torches, red light flaring on coppery flesh, on the ceremonial robes of the councilors, here and there on a helmet of barbaric design. Voices, clamoring over and through each other. A feeling of tension so great that the nerves screamed with it.

Dion pressed his arm and said something that Simon did not catch, but the smile, the look of love and pride, were unmistakable. Then the boy was gone, to the shadowy benches beyond.

Simon stood alone.

At one end of the low, oblong hall, beside the high, gilded seat of the king, he saw a group of helmeted men looking toward him with hatred they did not even try to conceal, and with it, a contempt that could only come from triumph.

And suddenly from out of the uneasy milling of the throng before him an old man stepped and put his hands on Simon’s shoulders, and peered at him with anguished eyes.

“It is too late, John Keogh,” the old man said hoarsely. “It is all for nothing. They have brought the Harpers in!”

Chapter 4: The Harpers

SIMON felt a cold shock of recoil. He had not looked for this. He had not expected that now, this soon, he might be called upon to meet the Harpers.

He had met them once before, years ago. He knew the subtle and terrible danger of them. It had shaken him badly then, when he was a brain divorced from flesh. What would it do to him, now that he dwelt again in a vulnerable, unpredictable human body?