Collected fiction, p.748
Collected Fiction, page 748
What followed was homeric, in its way. The welter of silver bodies struggling and screaming in the cold, black water, the tremendous buffets that sent them reeling downward one after another, shrieking, against their wills—all of it was like a struggle in a nightmare. Ran grappled with the young and strong and broke their defences and hurled them headlong toward the depths. He cuffed the protesting sidewise and down. He sent the aged staggering. He snatched children from their mothers’ clasps and flung them shrieking into the dark, hurling the mothers after them.
By now the stars were beginning to fall, farther out, in the open water. Now and then, they found a goal, sometimes in a reeling fugitive whom Ran himself had cast to meet destruction. He could not help that; he did not think of it. Nothing mattered now but to face Leviathan with his clan before him, and take whatever came.
High overhead he heard Dagon’s diminishing, inhuman screams and the animal cries of frantic terror from those who fled upward, shaping no thoughts in minds that had ceased to be the minds of men.
Ran spared no heed for them. Perhaps they would win a way past the Destroyers, some few of them. It didn’t matter, now; they would not be human who fled so mindlessly, even if they won their way to the doubtful freedom of the upper seas. They had left humanity behind them, here in the deeps with Ran and his terrified remnant of the tribes of man. If any destiny remained to mankind, it awaited them below.
Strongly Ran drove his people downward toward the gateway and Leviathan.
The cowering clan that was all of humanity now hung shivering and whimpering before the guardian of the gate. Ran pushed through their swarm, sent out a strong, encircling thought to reassure them if he could, and then rose before the great eye in the cliff of flesh.
And this time it saw him; it heard, and saw.
For when Ran’s enfolding thought went out, it had touched other thoughts than.men’s. Thinking mind brushed upon thinking mind, and with one facet of the serene, majestic brain Leviathan looked into the face and the mind of man. With its other side and the farther field of its vision, it looked at what no man could guess, then or ever.
A shower of stars fell glittering among the clan as man’s last leader hung facing the guardian of the gateway to the world’s foundation. For an interminable instant nothing happened.
Then with infinite majesty the whale stirred. Like a moving mountain it rolled forward, the displaced water surging in tremendous backward rivers as it rose out of the gateway.
Slowly, slowly an opening showed in the walls of rock it had guarded. Here was a gateway to the farther deeps. Now mankind could hide.
Leviathan rose tremendously in the water, and under it, into the refuge of the planet’s deepest foundation, the little shuddering clan of humans darted, one by one. Ran came last.
The whale was a floating fortress above them. Ran gave one deep sigh, knowing his duty done at last and all his responsibility ended. He had kept his people men. He had not failed; the instinct which brought him here was wiser than reason, after all, but it was not the instinct, of the beast, Here a door was opened and a circle closed, but not upon man’s failure. What came next was beyond Rail’s knowledge, but he knew he had not failed.
Now he was free to lay the burden of his heritage down forever.
He bent his head and lowered his shoulders, stooping under the mighty bulwark of the whale as he followed the last men of earth downward into the dark.
WHEN THEY were gone, Leviathan swung ponderously in the water, contemplating the showers of stars which the Destroyers still rained down into this gulf where the last humans had vanished.
The stars stung upon the gigantic brow out of which the “Thoughts of the Deep” had risen and beaten for such infinite aeons. Before mankind, there was the whale. Patiently, through eternity, until now, Leviathan had bided his time. Conquerors rose and fell upon the continents, but three-quarters of the world is water, and the whale could wait.
Now at last the conflict moved downward, into Leviathan’s own world.
More of the Destroyers came into range, sinking slowly, testing a little upon the currents of “Thought” that rolled up undisturbed through the dark water. The lethal showers rained down which had made every native thing upon Earth and under the waters of Earth cower and die when the stars touched them.
Leviathan wrinkled his majestic brow and shook the stars off.
Then the Earth-Born turned slowly and powerfully in the water of his native deeps—turned and faced the Alien.
1952
THE WELL OF THE WORLDS
It was a corridor between two worlds . . . between Earth, and the strange floating islands of the godlike Isier!
A Note About the Author
FEW writers have left their individual imprints upon science fiction as indelibly as Henry Kuttner. To have his stories acclaimed as classics, not only in his own time, but while still in his youth, is a unique achievement. The glittering fantasies of Kuttner are a byword in the profession. But Hank is more, than a talented writer of fantasy; his versatility is enormous. He has written stark psychological stories, howling slapstick, keen-edged satire, nimble-witted farce and spine-chilling shockers. There is little he can’t write.
Nor is Kuttner prose “classic” by courtesy as are so many old timers—this boy can write.
Here, for the first time in four years, is a brilliant long fantasy in the vein which established his reputation.
If, perish forbid, Kuttner is new to you, reading WELL OF THE WORLDS will show you why his name is up amongst the chosen few of science fiction. —The Editor
I
OUTSIDE the hotel window Clifford Sawyer could see the lights of Fortuna burning in the Pole’s noonday darkness along all the plank paths of the little mining camp, glowing blue in the hospital windows, shining yellow in bunk houses and offices. He couldn’t see the mine, of course, from here, but he could feel it. That deep, steady, almost subsensory whump—whump—whump had never stopped, day or night, for seventeen years now, since the mine was first opened in 1953. A great many people wanted uranium ore. The government needed its share, too, and the pumps never stopped, down under the frozen cap of the world.
Reflected in the glass, he saw the girl behind him stir impatiently. He turned his gaze back toward her, thinking that he had never seen eyes quite the shape and color of Klai Ford’s. There was a touch of exoticism about her which he had been trying in vain to place, remembering what he had read yesterday in the files of the Royal Atomic Energy Commission, back in Toronto, about the curious background of this girl who had inherited half a uranium mine a few months ago.
She had smooth, caramel-colored hair. Her brow was bland and her eyes round, confiding and a singularly deep blue. Sawyer liked the way her front teeth stuck out ever so slightly, in an appealing sort of way that made him think of the ill-fated Lise Bolkonskaya in War and Peace, whose pretty little upper lip was too short for her teeth. The planes of Klai Ford’s cheeks and the way the round eyes were set fascinated him. He had never seen just those structural lines before in any face on earth, and his experience had been wide.
SAWYER smiled at her. He had very white teeth in a very brown face, and his hair and eyes were a few shades lighter than his skin. About him was that relaxed air of alertness a man acquires who has reached a satisfactory compromise with life, and knows there will always be more compromises to make, as long as life lasts.
“I’ll do my best,” he told her, trying to place the curious little accent that had sounded in the girl’s voice. “I don’t even carry a gun, though. Our outfit usually works more with adding machines than with revolvers. Maybe you’d better tell me a little more. The Commissioner wouldn’t have sent me up here if he hadn’t figured I could solve your problem, in my own plodding way—which may be the best way to tackle—you said ghosts?”
“Yes, ghosts,” the girl said firmly, and her odd little accent was as maddening as a tune you can’t quite remember. “They’re ruining our output. The miners won’t even work some of the levels any more. Our refineries down south report the percentage of uranium in the pitch-blends is dropping like that.”
She snapped her fingers and looked at him anxiously. “The mine is haunted. I’m not crazy, Mr. Sawyer, but I’m perfectly sure my partner would like you to think I am. That man’s trying to close the mine. I think—” She clasped her hands tight and looked appealingly at Sawyer. “I know it sounds mad,” she said, “but somebody’s trying to kill me.”
“Can you prove it?” Sawyer asked mildly.
“I can.”
“Good. As for closing the mine, I don’t think the Commissioner would allow it, so you needn’t worry about—”
“He won’t have any choice, if the uranium ore keeps melting away,” the girl interrupted. “After all, the government only manages the mines by courtesy these days. And Alper—” She paused, drew a long breath and met Sawyer’s quiet gaze squarely.
“I’m afraid of him,” she said. “He’s a strange old man—half crazy, I think. He’s up to something very odd. He’s found something down in the mine. I should say he’s found someone—” She broke off, laughing helplessly. “It doesn’t make sense. But film doesn’t lie, does it? What I’ve got on film, photographed in the mine, would be evidence, wouldn’t it? That’s why I sent for you, Mr. Sawyer. I want to put a stop to this before Alper and I go stark raving crazy together. There’s a woman down in Level Eight—or the shadow of a woman. Oh, I know how it sounds! But I can show you.”
“The ghost?” Sawyer inquired. He was watching her alertly, keeping his mind open or trying to. This wasn’t the time to believe or disbelieve anything.
“No. They look like—” She hesitated, and then, oddly, said, “Wheat. They look like wheat.”
“Wheat,” Sawyer echoed thoughtfully. “I see.” He paused. Then: “About this woman, though—you mean he meets one of the Fortuna women down in the mine?”
“Oh no. I know all the Fortuna women. Besides, this isn’t a real woman. You’ll see what I mean in a minute. Alper’s forbidden me to set foot in Level Eight, and the miners won’t work there either; but he goes down and talks to this—this shadow of a woman, and when he comes back he—he frightens me. I’m afraid to go out alone any more. I take two men with me whenever I check the cameras in Level Eight. It seems idiotic to be so afraid of an old man like Alper, when he even has to walk with a cane, but—”
“No,” Sawyer said carefully. “You’re quite right about William Alper. He could be dangerous. We have a pretty complete file on him. In the old days he’d never have been allowed near this mine, you know. Owner or not. Luckily there are enough uranium sources now to let the owners have their whims, up to a point. But Alper’s still on our list of potentially dangerous people. Partly because he’s a very wealthy man, partly because he’s an expert technician, and partly, you know, because of that peculiar obsession of his about—rejuvenescence.”
“I know.” The girl nodded. “He’s a strange man. I don’t think he’s ever failed at anything in his whole life. He’s got an absolute conviction that he’s the only man on earth who’s always perfectly right about everything. He’s determined the mine must close, and it drives him wild when I say no. Power’s another obsession with him, Mr. Sawyer. He’s imposed his will on so many people he must feel as basic as the law of gravity by now.”
“He’s getting old,” Sawyer said. “He’s getting panicky. Most people learn to compromise with age, but I doubt if Alper ever will.”
“He isn’t really as old as all that,” Klai Ford said. “It’s just that he’s driven himself so hard all his life, as hard as he tries to drive others. Now he’s beginning to pay for it and it makes him furious. I think he’d do anything in the world to get his youth back. He—he seems to think there may be a chance of it, Mr. Sawyer. That woman—that shadow—he meets in the mine seems to be playing on his obsession. She could talk him into doing anything at all. And she seems to want to get rid of me.”
Sawyer regarded her with a steady gaze.
“This woman in the mine,” he said, “leads me right into a personal question I’ve got to ask you, Miss Ford. A strange woman appearing from nowhere, right down there in the mine. Is that what you say is happening?”
All Klai Ford said was, “Oh, dear!” in a voice of misery.
“I’ve been trying to place your accent,” Sawyer went on with calm relentlessness. “Would you mind telling me, Miss Ford, what country you come from?”
SHE jumped up abruptly, leaving the little nest of furs which was her thrown-back coat and hood. She paced up and down the room twice, then whirled.
“You know perfectly well!” she said accusingly. “Don’t make it harder!” Sawyer smiled and shook his head.
“I know, but I never really believed it,” he said. “Naturally the Commission ordered a full investigation when you—ah—turned up here, but—”
“I don’t know who I am!” the girl said angrily. “I don’t know where I came from. Can I help it if I have a funny accent? I don’t do it on purpose. How would you like to wake up with amnesia some morning and find yourself down in a uranium mine you’d never even heard of before, with no idea how you got there or who you were?” She hugged herself with both arms and shivered. “I hate it,” she said. “But what can I do about it?”
“If you hadn’t picked out a uranium mine to appear in—” Sawyer began.
“I didn’t! It picked me!”
“—we wouldn’t feel so baffled,” Sawyer went on imperturbably. “I wish we hadn’t tried so hard to find some explanation about you. Then at least we could say, ‘Maybe there’s some answer.’ But we still know nothing whatever. I was wondering if any sort of answer has ever occurred to you.”
She shook her head. “All I remember is waking up on the wet floor in the mine. I knew my name. Just one name—Klai. Old Sam Ford found me and took care of me, and finally adopted me when nobody could figure out where I came from.” Her voice softened. “Sam was so good, Mr. Sawyer. And so lonely. It was he who made the strike up here, you know, back in ’53. Alper financed it, but he almost never came to Fortuna, until after Sam died.”
“Surely, Miss Ford,” Sawyer suggested, “you’ve connected your own appearance in the mine with the appearance of this strange new woman? From the same place as yourself, do you think? Another woman, like you, who—”
“Oh, not a bit like me!” the girl said instantly. “She’s one of the Isier, and they are gods!”
Then, as Sawyer stared at her, she clapped both hands over her mouth, gasped, and demanded, “Why did I say that? How did I know? Just for a second, I—I seemed to remember. That word I used—Isier. Does it mean anything? Is it English?”
“I never heard it. Try to remember.”
“I can’t.” Klai shook her head wildly. “It’s gone. I learned English after I came here, you know. I learned it in my sleep, mostly, from those hypnosis-tapes they have. But surely the word couldn’t have—no, I know it isn’t English. It’s part of my dreams. I—oh, this is nonsense! Let’s get down to facts. I’ve got proof of a few things, anyhow.”
She pushed up the sleeve of her blouse, uncovered a flat case taped to forearm, and grimaced as she tore the adhesive patch free. In her palm she held out a miniature case of ultra-small tape film.
“You have no idea what a lot of trouble I had getting this,” she said. “I’ve got cameras hidden in Level Eight with all sorts of special shielding against radioactivity. Even that doesn’t help when the—the ghosts come. They seem to be pure radiation. Anyhow, the film goes black every time. But—well, just wait!”
SHE WENT efficiently across the room to unlock a cabinet and swing out a small film-projector. “Will you turn that picture over?” she said, nodding toward the opposite wall. “It’s got a beaded screen on its back. I had everything ready, you see. This film’s never been out of my hands since I took it from the camera. I did everything myself. Now I think you’ll have real evidence to take back. Alper doesn’t know a thing about this, thank goodness. I don’t even want him to know I’ve talked to you, until I can prove enough to protect myself.”
She clicked the switch. A square of pale light sprang across the room and flickered on the small screen. Dark, shadowy walls took shape upon the square, and a low throbbing came from the sound-projector, blending with the steady thumping of the great pumps themselves, under Fortuna.
As the pictured walls of the mine-shaft flickered on the screen, Klai said suddenly, with a note of hysteria in her voice, “Mr. Sawyer, you haven’t asked me a word about the ghosts.”
“That’s right,” Sawyer said. “I haven’t.”
“Because you don’t believe that part? It’s true! They come out of the rock. I think that’s why they’re seen so seldom.” She hurried on, frantic now. “Don’t you see? How many shafts are there, compared to the roads—of pitchblende underneath? It’s just accident when they blunder into a shaft, but the men do see them, like—like pale flames—”
Something like a pale flame flickered gently across the screen.
The girl laughed unsteadily.
“Not a ghost,” she said. “A flashlight. Watch. Now it begins.”
The flash-beam moved over rock, over jagged surfaces wet and shining and marked by the teeth of drills. Above the throbbing of the pumps a new sound came, the crunch of a cane among rubble and the noise of a man’s heavy feet. Into the camera’s dark range came a stooped, bulky figure, dimly seen. Sawyer breathed in with a sharp sound of recognition. The tiny square that flickered on the wall suddenly ceased to be a miniature reflection and seemed reality itself. He heard Alper’s familiar, thick voice calling urgently.
