The Death and Life of Superman (44 page)

“No! No, I’m not letting you go!” Without hesitation, Jonathan dove after them, into the blinding light.

“We’ve got a heartbeat!” The intern took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “It’s not strong, but it’s regular.”

“I’ll settle for that . . . for now.” Dr. Lanning ran the back of his hand across his brow and started scribbling instructions onto a notepad. “Administer lidocaine and call me if there’s any change.”

Martha scrambled to her feet as the doctor came out into the emergency room’s waiting area. “Gene, is he—?”

“He’s alive, Martha.” Lanning accepted the woman’s grateful hug, deciding it was best to give her at least a few moments of relief before he gave her the rest of the news.

“Can I see him?”

“That wouldn’t be a good idea just yet, Martha. We did have a bad moment in there. His heart stopped beating and we almost lost him.”

“Oh, dear God!” Martha’s eyes widened in horror.

“I said
almost
! We got it started again. His heart’s beating regularly again, but still very weakly.” Lanning put his arm around Martha and led her down the hall. “The best thing we can do for him now is to move him into the intensive care unit and keep watch on his condition.”

“Gene . . . what are his chances?”

“Hard to say.” The doctor looked worn with frustration. “He’s in a light coma right now. Hopefully, that will pass.”

“Martha!” Lana Lang came running down the hall toward her. The two women embraced and stood holding each other for several minutes.

“Lana, how—?”

“The Colemans called and told me. I’ve called Lois. She’s catching the first flight out.” Lana glanced from Martha to the doctor. “How is he?”

Lanning could only shrug. “Stable, for now. The next few hours will tell us more.”

Lana tightened her grip as she felt the older woman sag against her. “It’ll be okay, Martha. Why, Jonathan’s one of the strongest men I know.”

“Oh, Lana.” Martha wanted to smile but couldn’t. “You’re a dear to say that. But . . . in all our years together, with all the ups and downs we’ve faced, I’ve never been so scared that Jonathan was going to die.”

Jonathan Kent emerged from the light into a jungle he recognized immediately from his army days. He was in full field uniform with helmet and rifle. He wasn’t sure why he was there, but he knew he had a mission. Yes—his unit had been assigned to liberate a captured airman.

He eased up a rise and cautiously peered over the edge. The men of his unit were sprawled all over the ground beyond—dead, all of them, from the look of things. Jonathan steeled himself to check every mangled body, just to be sure, but his first assessment was right; he was the only survivor. Near one body, he found a field telephone.

“Mission command, do you read? Over.” He tried again and again, using all the passwords he could remember, but it was no use.
Radio’s dead. Everyone around here is dead, except for me. I’m the only one who can bring that airman back. It’s all up to me.
He started walking.
There’s just no way we can abandon one of our own.

There was a light in the near distance, and smoke. Jonathan found what was left of a tiny hamlet, still on fire. There were more bodies here, civilians this time. He swallowed hard, trying to steady his stomach, and again began to check the bodies.
More death. Enemy’s been through here, too. God knows why they burned out these poor villagers; none of them is armed.

One of the villagers looked strangely different from the others. He was taller than the rest, and as Jonathan drew near, he saw that the man was dressed in bib overalls.
Funny that I didn’t notice his clothes before. Dressed like that, he almost puts me in mind of my brother . . .

Jonathan gently turned the man over and jumped back in shock. “Harry?!”
Dear God in heaven
,
it
is
my brother. But that makes no sense. Harry never went overseas. He died long before he was old enough to join the army.
But the man on the ground was undeniably Harry Kent.

“Harry? Can you hear me?” Jonathan eased an arm under his brother’s head, and the man’s eyes flickered open. “Harry, what in heaven’s name are you doing here in this Godforsaken jungle?”

Harry looked like death warmed over, and his voice echoed as if coming from the bottom of a deep well. “What am I doing here? Don’t you
remember,
Jonny? I’m
dead.
I fell under the thresher back on Pa’s farm. We’re all dead here. Except you. You’re not quite gone yet. And that other one ain’t either.”

Harry coughed, the phlegm rattling in his throat. “As for where this is, you got me. It ain’t really a jungle, that’s for sure, but the enemy . . . the enemy
has
got your boy. They can’t be far away, Jonny. Go get him. Go find him while you can . . .” Harry sighed and closed his eyes.

Jonathan shook him, gently at first, and then frantically. “Harry Kent, don’t you go dyin’ on me again! Please! I’ll find that airman, I swear. Just stay with me, Harry!”

“The boy don’t belong here, Jonny.” Harry’s body sagged, limp and lifeless, to the ground.

From behind, another voice cut into Jonathan’s grief. “He is wrong. The airman
does
belong here, but you, Jonathan Kent, do not.”

Jonathan whipped around, sweeping the enemy soldier’s gun hand away with one fist and knocking him cold with the other. “Damn your lying eyes!” Jonathan glowered down at the fallen enemy. “Damn you straight to hell!” As if to oblige, the enemy’s flesh melted away to smoke. In seconds, all that was left was a soiled and tattered uniform.

Jonathan took a hasty step back and then a couple more. He looked around for his brother’s body but found nothing. He dragged a hand across his face.
Combat fatigue. First I’m talking to Harry, God rest his soul, and then I start fighting a ghost. And none of this gets me any closer to that airman.

He turned and pushed deeper into the jungle.

In room 112 of the Lowell County Hospital’s intensive care unit, Martha and Lana sat side by side in a couple of straight-backed chairs, watching the slow rise and fall of Jonathan’s chest. They’d sat there for over three hours, mostly in silence, listening to the soft hiss of the oxygen feed and the soft, steady beep of the heart monitor. Together, the two sounds had an almost hypnotic effect. After a while, Lana began to think of the beep almost as Jonathan’s mantra.
He lives for as long as it sounds. Once it stops . . .
She shuddered and tried to banish that thought from her head.

“Martha, are you sure I can’t get you something? Cup of coffee? No? How about some water?” Lana ducked into the bathroom and emerged moments later with two paper cups of water. “Here, you won’t do Jonathan any good by letting yourself get dehydrated.”

“Thank you, dear.” The water was gone in a second, and Lana gave Martha the other cup. “I guess I am a little dry.”

Martha sipped her second cup more slowly. “You know, Lana, Gene—Dr. Lanning—had told Jonathan that he should relax more, try to avoid stress.” She took another sip. “Jon’s way of relieving stress was through hard physical labor. And that worked fairly well when he was younger, but . . . well, he’s no spring chicken anymore. Neither one of us is. We’ve both been through so much in the past weeks.” Martha stared down at her reflection in the cup. “I can’t help but wonder if Jon somehow brought this attack on himself, to try to get closer to Clark. He loved that boy as much as life itself.”

“Don’t even think that, Martha. When I was just a little girl, my Aunt Helen told me how Jonathan had been a prisoner of war, and how he’d managed to escape. ‘That Jonny Kent’s got the persistence of a bulldog,’ she used to say. ‘Once he sets his sights on something, he doesn’t give up till he gets it.’ And, you know, I never knew my Aunt Helen to lie.”

Lana patted Martha’s hand. “He fought his way out of that POW camp, and he’ll fight his way back to us. You’ll see.”

Jonathan emerged from the jungle onto a wide rolling plain, as green as the prairie in spring. He could have sworn he was somewhere in southeastern Kansas, or possibly Missouri, if not for the city in the distance. It was a series of spires, all of them thousands of feet tall, and the tallest seemed to stretch at least a mile into the sky. No such city had ever existed on Earth, yet Jonathan recognized it immediately. It was something that Clark had told him and Martha all about . . .

Years ago, long after Clark had adopted the identity of Superman, he had finally discovered the secrets of his origin. On a visit back to Kansas, he’d accidentally activated an electro-psionic recording, sent to Earth by his Kryptonian father, Jor-El, along with his birthing matrix. That recording had fed images from the history of Clark’s homeworld directly into his mind. He had learned all about the lost world of Krypton, and how it had been destroyed—shattered by a supercritical nuclear reaction within the planet’s core. He learned that his mother’s name was Lara—that
his
name would have been Kal-El had he been born on that doomed world—and that he was Krypton’s sole survivor.

Clark had described those images in detail to his parents many times. And here, now, on this green plain, Jonathan knew without a doubt that he was looking at a city from the Fifth Historic Age of Krypton.

There it is, Clark, just as I visualized it from your stories. The world of Krypton.
Jonathan scrambled to the top of a low ridge and slowly scanned the horizon. He’d made no more than a quarter turn when he saw a parade.

It was just a small procession, really, a curious combination of high and low tech. Several men wearing the black bodysuits and long flowing tunics of Krypton’s Seventh and Final Historic Age marched along carrying flags and banners embroidered with the Superman S-shield. They were followed by a cluster of servitor robots that hovered in midair, looking like wingless metal wasps. Walking alongside was a white-haired individual in a flowing black robe who had the bearing and manner of a clergyman. And in the middle of it all, four pale men in Kryptonian garb bore up a gleaming metal sedan chair upon which sat a slumped and listless Superman. He appeared to be drugged or sleeping.

The white-haired cleric was keeping pace with Superman, praying loudly and gesturing with great sweeps of his arms. “Oh, Great Rao, accept this Last Son of Krypton into your embrace! Allow him entrance into your realm, that he may be reunited with the family of El.”

“Family of El, my foot!” Jonathan came charging down the ridge, bellowing at the top of his lungs. “If you guys are real Kryptonians, how come
I
can understand you?!”

The procession didn’t stop, but it slowed, as the Kryptonians turned to stare at the strange, uniformed human who was running toward them. One of the flag bearers moved to stop Jonathan, but he feinted to the man’s right and then darted past him on the left.

“Son! You’re on the wrong path! You’ve got to wake up.”

“Silence this blasphemer!” The cleric’s voice shook with a cold fury. He rose up between Jonathan and his son, throwing out his arms to block the Earthman’s path. More flag bearers surrounded Jonathan and began dragging him away from the chair.

“Cleric?” Superman raised his head slightly. “Who disturbs my journey?”

“One who does not belong, Kal-El.” The cleric’s voice dropped to a more even tone, but he still looked angry.

Jonathan drew a deep breath. “Don’t believe that baloney, son! These aren’t real Kryptonians, they can’t be! And that black-robed creep is about as saintly as a rabid mule!”

“A rabid mule? Pa?” Superman looked up from the chair, faintly puzzled. “Pa, is that you? What are you talking about?”

“Ignore him, Kal-El, and stay with us.” The cleric assumed an injured air and put a hand on the Man of Steel’s shoulder. “Your legacy beckons. He is but an outsider, with no respect lor things Kryptonian.”

“Oh, yeah?!” Jonathan shook off a hand that was trying to silence him. “Those litter bearers of yours are dressed like Kryptonians from their last days, but that city back there—that’s from Krypton’s Fifth Age. The last of those buildings fell over a hundred thousand years before anyone dressed like these phonies!”

The cleric now had both hands on Superman’s shoulders. “Ignore his ranting, Kal-El.” The cleric glared angrily at the others, who fought to drag Jonathan further away. Jonathan made himself a dead weight to slow their progress as much as he could and drew another deep breath.

“That smooth talker called on the name of Rao—the name of Krypton’s sun! Since when were Kryptonians a bunch of sun worshipers?!”

Superman sat bolt upright, his puzzled look turning suspicious.

“That’s it, boy—open your eyes! They’re taking you the wrong way! They’re as genuine as a three-dollar bill!”

Superman quickly scanned the litter bearers and turned fully to the cleric. “Something
is
different about them, Cleric. And about you.”

“The heretic confuses you.” The cleric’s smile was meant to be soothing, but there was desperation on his face. Jonathan was still close enough that he saw the cleric’s features appear to momentarily ripple. From the way Superman’s fist shot out, Jonathan knew that his son had also seen the partial transformation.

The “cleric” dropped like a stone, transforming into a demonic, shrouded wraith as he fell. Shocked, the others froze, transforming themselves, and Jonathan squirmed to twist free of a tentacled “hand.”

“That’s it, son—give ’em hell! They’d have tried to take you there. But we’ll show ’em now! Let ’em know they’re in for a fight when they cross the Kents!”

Outside a United States scientific research station on the Antarctic peninsula, two men stood in the subzero cold as if mesmerized. To the south, lightning snaked back and forth between two banks of roiling clouds, and above that display, the eerie, multicolored bands of the aurora australis flared and swirled in a curtain of light.

One of the men let out a low, mournful whistle, the moisture of his breath instantly freezing on his balaclava. “Some light show! What the devil is going on out there, Steve?”

“Boy, you’ve got me, Marty. I’ve spent five of the past ten years down here, and I’ve never seen the aurora flare up like this.” Steve shook his head. “And that lightning—it’s unreal!”