The Frank Belknap Long Science Fiction MEGAPACK®: 20 Classic Science Fiction Tales Read online

  Though the servants of the great dream had created it, and knew its value as a war technique, they were not unaware that its successful use might envelop them in utter and abysmal ruin. Hitherto they had hesitated to employ it, just as long millenniums ago Atasmas’ own race had refused to sanction certain deadly war gases in their hideous and sanguinary conflicts.

  The queen mother noticed Atasmas’ trepidation, and a note of reproach crept into her speech. “You will be destroyed, of course. But do you value your little life so highly?” Atasmas experienced a sudden tragic sense of shame and guilt. He made a gesture of frantic denial as the queen resumed:

  “You will plant the spore and remain until you are consumed by the fossilizing growth. If you flee when you drop the spore, it may never blossom. The future of the great dream is in your little human hands.” There ensued a pause.

  Then the queen said: “There is something I must warn you against. You will meet the night shapes—millions and millions of night shapes.”

  Atasmas’ pulses leaped with a sudden wild joy. “You mean I shall really see and touch the little ones who visit us in dreams?”

  The queen assented. “You will see them, and touch them. They will light a great fire in your heart. But you must remember the dream and resist them. Millions of years ago, when we succored your poor frozen race, the night shapes seemed to us feeble, weak things. We refused to help them. We left them to perish beneath the weight of the antarctic glaciations, of the great flood of ice that swept equatorward from the pole. Only a few survived and were succored by the weak and sentimental bees.” Atasmas’ eyes were wide with wonder. He asked: “But why do these small weak shapes still haunt our dreams?”

  “Because men will always be primitive creatures,” replied the queen mother. “Even though we have multiplied you by laboratory techniques for millions of years, the old, primitive love of women still burns in your veins. We cannot eradicate it. It is a source of weakness in your kind, and in that respect you are inferior to the aphids.”

  Atasmas affirmed: “I will not forget the great dream. I will harden my heart.” But something within him burst into song even as he promised. He would see the soft and consoling night shapes—see them, touch them.

  He said with gestures: “I am ready to die for the great dream.” The queen removed her flagellum from his forehead. She leaned backward, and a satisfied stridulation issued from her thorax.

  * * * *

  The little worker advanced, picked Atasmas up, and set him gently on its sack. For an instant it swayed reverently before the great mother. Then it backed swiftly out of the cell. When it had disappeared through the aperture the queen-preening ant leaped swiftly forward and healed the breach with a glutinous exudate from its swiftly moving mandibles.

  The small worker carried its now precious burden up through long tunnels to the surface of the earth. At the central entrance of the nest, four great soldier ants with flattened heads moved reverently aside as the solemn pair came into view. The queen mother had laid upon her little emissary a peculiar and sanctifying scent. He was no longer a leader of his little race in the depths. He had become the potential savior of the immense dream; almost, an insect in his godlike selflessness and reverent dedication. He was conscious of immense forces at war within him as he gazed upward at the star-flecked sky. Martial dedication and tenderness fought for supremacy in his breast; an immense, overwhelming tenderness when he thought of the night shapes, a tenderness curiously tempered with superiority and disdain and a sense of loyalty to the dream. The night shapes were glorious, but did not the long night of extinction which would envelop him if he died in defense of the immense dream hold a greater glory?

  The small worker turned on its side and Atasmas toppled to the earth. He arose in blinding moonlight, dazed and dazzled by the hard metallic brilliancy of the surface world. He stood waiting, scarcely daring to breathe, as the little worker rose on its hindmost legs and emitted a loud chordotonal stridulation by rubbing its elbowed feelers violently against its shins and abdomen.

  For a moment as the queer chafing sound increased in volume, he saw only the towering forms of the soldier ants, dark and glistening in the moonlight, and of the little workers beside him. Then an immense dark form came sweeping down upon him out of the darkness. It had a wing span of a hundred feet and its barrel-shaped thorax shone with a luster as of frosted silver.

  It came to rest a few yards from the earthern entrance with a loud, vibratory thrumming. Instantly the little worker approached and touched the summit of its globular head to the great bulging thorax of the aerial form. The form quivered and grew still.

  With competent celerity the small worker picked Atasmas up, carried him to the waiting form, and deposited him gently in a tiny cavity at the base of the creature’s abdomen. Touching Atasmas’ forehead with its feeler, it spoke to him in rhythmic speech which surged coolly through his brain.

  “You will be carried to Agrahan,” it said. “It will be a long, perilous flight. If a storm arises on the southern ocean you will emerge and drop swiftly to your death. The great winged one cannot carry you in a storm. If you perish, another spore of flarraeson will be prepared, and another winged one will carry another of your kind to Agrahan.”

  “Where is the spore?” asked Atasmas with excited gestures. Only his midget head and shoulders emerged above the dark, hair-lined cavity.

  The little worker withdrew a few paces, turned upon its back, and fumbled for an instant with one of its foreclaws in the loose crevices of its underside. When it drew near again to Atasmas it was holding a small metallic cylinder. Atasmas took the cylinder with reverence and thrust it deeply into his gauze-fashioned tunic.

  * * * *

  The small worker touched its head again to the winged shape’s thorax. A sudden, convulsive movement shook the great body. It moved spasmodically forward, reared with a roar and soared skyward. Fright and wild elation poured in ripples through Atasmas’ brain. He had never before viewed the kaleidoscopic skies of the surface world from such a perilous vantage point. Looking down, he saw far beneath him the mottled surfaces of earth, and looking up he saw the stars in their remote and awful solitude and the planets in their wheeling courses. He saw the great white suns that would burn as brightly when the earth was a cinder, and suns that burned no more, but whose light would continue to encircle the pearshaped universe till the immense bubble burst, and time and space were merged in some utterly stupefying absolute for which neither Atasmas’ kind nor the ants had any adequate symbol.

  When Atasmas’ gaze penetrated to the awful luminous fringes of the spiral nebula so great a pall enshrouded his spirit that he presently ceased to stare skyward. Far more reassuring was the checkerboard earth beneath with its dark and glistening lakes, ragged mountains, and valleys crammed with lush and multihued vegetation.

  The checkerboard earth was soon replaced by the turbulent waters of the great southern ocean. For thousands of miles Atasmas gazed downward at the shining water, wonder and fear fighting for ascendancy in his little human breast. No storm arose to check the smooth southern flight of the great insect.

  On and on it flew in the warm darkness, five miles above the turbulent dark sea. Belching volcanoes and white coral shoals passed swiftly before Atasmas’ vision. He saw the barnacle colonies in their ocean-breasting splendor, terraces of iridescent shell rising in immense tiers beside the storm-lashed waves.

  And suddenly as he gazed, the ocean vanished, and a dark plateau covered with gray-and-yellow lichens usurped his vision.

  The great winged one swept downward then. In immense circles it approached the leaden earth and came to rest on a gray, pebble-incrusted plain. For an instant its wings continued to pulsate with a loud, vibratory throbbing. Then the vibrations ceased, and a moist foreclaw arose and fumbled in the cavity where Atasmas rested.

  The mid
get voyager was lifted out, and deposited on the dark earth. As he stood staring wildly about him, a feeler fastened on his forehead.

  “I will not return without you, little one,” conveyed the great winged shape. “When you plant the spore, come back to me quickly. There is no need for you to die. The spore will blossom without supervision if you plant it in rich, dark soil. I pity you, little one. I wish to help you.” Atasmas was stunned and frightened. He started back in amazement and looked up dimly at the great shape. “Why do you disobey the great mother?” he asked with tremulous gestures. The winged form said: “We who fly above the earth do not obey the small ethics of your little world of tunnels. We have seen the barnacles in their majesty and the bees in their power, and we know that all things are relative. Go, and return quickly.”

  * * * *

  Atasmas went. With the glimmering lights of the enormous hives of Agrahan to guide him, he went swiftly to fulfill his destiny. Over the dark earth he moved, an infinitesimal shape in a world of menacing shadows. And as he advanced the lights of Agrahan grew brighter till he was enveloped in their radiance as in a bath of living flame.

  But no one observed him. The sentinel bees were asleep at their posts at the entrance of the central hive, and quickly he passed between their legs which towered above him like pillars of fire in the darkness. Inside the hive a luminous glow guided his footsteps. Moving with caution he ascended a terminus mound studded with several dozen yawning vents and entered one at random. The branching tunnel in which he found himself bore a superficial resemblance to the subterranean arteries of the ant people. For hundreds of feet it stretched. Its smoothly rounded earthen walls were gray-green in hue, and it had a flooring of moist, dark loam. Atasmas hugged the walls, taking every precaution to avoid being seen. He was tremulous with apprehension as he moved forward. It seemed incredible that the great central hive should be destitute of life, yet all about him silence reigned. From far ahead a dim bluish radiance illumined the walls of the passage, but no moving shape crossed his vision. He continued to move forward, little suspecting what lay ahead. The silence remained unbroken, and the only visible shadows were cast by his own insignificant form. It was not until he had advanced far into the tunnel that he encountered the dark mouth of the bisecting passage and the huge shape which filled it. As the shape burst on his vision he sprang back in instinctive alarm, and a cry tore from his throat. But before he could retreat, the thing was upon him. It fell upon him, and enveloped him. In frantic resistance Atasmas’ little hands lashed out. They encountered a spongy surface bristling with hairs—a loose, gelatinous surface which gave beneath the assaults of his puny fists. Screeching shrilly, the bee larva twined itself about him and pressed the breath from his body. He shrieked and hammered and tore at it with his fingers in an agony of terror. His efforts were of no avail. The bulk of the maggot was too enormous to cope with.

  He was dimly aware of a menacing yellow-lined orifice a yard from his face, spasmodically opening and closing. It drew nearer as he watched it and yawned above him. It twitched horribly with a dawning hunger.

  Atasmas lost consciousness then. His senses reeled before the awful menace of that slobbering puckered mouth, and everything went dark about him.

  He never knew what saved him until he found himself getting slowly to his feet in a confused daze. The first sight which usurped his blurred vision was the bee larva lurching cumbersomely away from him down the tunnel, emitting shrill screeches as it retreated. Then his gaze fastened in wonder on the night shape. She stood calmly in the center of the tunnel, a form as tiny as himself, but with a sweetness and grace about her that stirred inexplicable emotions within him. She was holding a long, many-thonged goad, which dripped with nauseaus yellow ichor.

  As Atasmas stood staring, his clearing faculties apprehended with uncanny accuracy her true function in the colony of bees. She was obviously a kind of guardian of the large stupid maggot, and the goad in her hands was an implement of chastisement. In defense of Atasmas’ little helpless person she had repudiated her function, had flailed the grub unmercifully. It was a triumph of instinctive over conditioned behavior.

  In gratitude and awe, Atasmas drew near to her. She did not retreat, but raised the weapon in warning as he moved to touch her. Something snapped in Atasmas’ brain. The wonder of her, standing there, awoke a great fire in his breast. He had to touch her, though he died for it. He touched her arm, her forehead. With a cry of utter dumfounderment she dropped the goad and her eyes widened. Without uttering a sound.

  Atasmas moved even closer and took her in his arms. She did not resist. A great joy flooded Atasmas’ being. For a moment he forgot the past and the sublime destiny toward which he moved. He stood there in silence, transfigured, transformed.

  Then, suddenly, he remembered again. Even as ecstasy enveloped him he remembered the great queen, the nursery artery of the ant people, his selfless function as a servitor in the depths, and the great dream. Deep within him, in the dark depths of his little racial under-mind, the old loyalties flared up. His hand went to his tunic and emerged with the cylinder. With an effort he tore his gaze from the rapt, upturned face of the night shape and fastened it on the soft loam beneath his feet. With swift calculation he estimated the depth and consistency of the dark soil. For a brief, momentous instant he seemed to hesitate. Then, with a wrench, he unscrewed the cylinder and released the spore of flarraeson.

  He continued to gaze deep into the woman’s eyes in reverence and rapture as the tiny green spore took root, sprouted, and spread out in a dark petrifactive shroud.

  Far away the great winged shape waited with thrumming wings as a green growth immortalized two lovers without pain in the central tunnel of the great hive of Agrahan.

  The growth spread upward and enveloped the little human forms, darkly, greenly, and so absorbed was Atasmas in the woman in his arms that he did not know that he was no longer of flesh and blood till the transforming plant reached the corridors of his brain and the brain of his companion. And then the transition was so rapid that he did not agonize, but was transformed in an instant, and remained forever wrapped in glory and a shroud of deepest green.

  CONES

  Originally appeared in Astounding Stories, February 1936.

  They had never seen such skies. Glory beyond bright glory, wonder beyond wonder, in the black celestial vault above them. Earth the brightest of all the bright stars; Venus a small, watery green moon suspended in the bottomless depths of the sky; Mars a tiny reddish dot. And all the stars of the Galaxy shining in the brilliant whorls and angles of half-familiar constellations.

  It was night on Mercury—cold night in a narrow world of infrequent night and day. Across a thin strip on the surface of the Sun’s nearest neighbor there occurred at forty-four-day intervals the familiar alternations of sunlight and darkness which Gibbs Crayley and the other members of the First Mercury Exploration Expedition knew and loved on their home planet. The librations of the little celestial body, which rotated only once on its axis in its eighty eight-day journey about the Sun, splashed alternate bands of sunlight and dark over a relatively restricted strip of its metallic crust.

  Where the face of Mercury was forever turned away from the Sun, the temperature was within a few degrees of absolute zero; there oxygen was a fine-white snow. On the bright side, continuously under the sun’s rays, heat blighted and blasted the surface, and no alien shape of protoplasm could live there for long, no matter how well protected by the sciences of man. But on the strip where light and dark alternated, the conditions of climate and temperature were less extreme, and protected human life could exist there, if only for brief periods. Encased in a flexible metallic spacesuit surmounted by a rigid helmet, with fifty-pound weights attached to thighs, and oxygen tanks strapped to shoulders, a man could survive—and explore.

  Gibbs Crayley, scientist-explorer, was leading the first expedition f
rom Earth ever to land on the surface of Mercury. It was an invasion in force, spearheaded by the indomitable will and daring of the one man whose whole life had been directed toward this moment. Crayley was a representative of the small, select tribe of pure scientist-explorers, fanatics whose driving motivations were tempered only by the cautions of science. And now he led the way as he and his small band cautiously ventured out on the surface of the unknown planet.

  Beside him was his wife, Helen. To her, the disciplines, exactions, and rewards of scientific exploration were a steadily sustaining flame; she made a magnificent complement to her husband’s cold daring, his almost personal obsession with the mysteries of the Sunward planet.

  William Seaton, trailing the Crayleys by a few feet, was impatient of natural wonders, preferring the cool precision of manmade instruments, a pattern of beauty an engineer could understand. Immediately behind him came Frederick Parkerson, a middle-aged biologist, and Ralph Wilkus, a tall, gangling youth who excelled in the arts of astrogation and cookery. These two, close friends as they had become, were alike absorbed by the fascinations and complexities of exploration in its more immediate aspects; they lived for what the next moment might bring that was new and strange.

  Behind them trailed Tom Grayson, a metallurgist, and young Allan Wilson, an associate member of the National Biological Institute, essentially unimaginative men whose minds were occupied largely with the problems of movement and personal safety on this incredible planet. They completed the roster of the crew.