The Shores of Death Read online

  He established that they came from the rogue galaxy and perhaps had a plan that might help Earth—though it might only be some kind of philosophy to prepare the human race for the end, he wasn’t sure—there seemed to be something more specific, but it was taking time.

  By two hours, Aimer had managed to get a basic vocabulary of some sixty words, plus words for abstract ideas. He was sweating heavily and under a big strain. At length, he sat back, shaking his head. “That will have to do for the time—I need to relax before I can continue.” He looked triumphantly at Clovis who was slumped on his couch. “I think we’re getting somewhere, though, eh?”

  Clovis nodded.

  Narvo said: “Come—everybody to my house—we’ll continue last night’s party—we’ve got a great deal to celebrate.”

  Clovis cursed Narvo. Everything was conspiring against him to stop him being alone with himself for enough time to collect his thoughts and begin to think and act with more coherence. And he couldn’t afford to offend anyone yet—not until he had what he wanted, and then it wouldn’t matter.

  There was no other way out, he decided. He would have to return to space. He had come back because his body and mind had felt as if they were being torn apart by his prolonged absence from Earth, but he would have to find more strength, forego his rest and begin the journey again. There was another factor that helped inspire this decision—Take knew where he planned to go. With luck, Take would remain on Earth, thinking that Clovis would need a longer rest, and that would give him the chance to get ahead of Take and lose him once and for all.

  Yes, he would leave Earth, head for the Bleak Worlds.

  The aliens were climbing into Narvo’s car. The horde of craft began to move over the sea, heading for the African continent and Narvo’s house on Lake Tanganyika.

  He joined the cavalcade, a feeling of intense desperation growing in him as he remembered the aching desolation of space and contemplated another miserable voyage—but a voyage that might mean the culmination of his ambition.

  six Two Kinds of Salvation

  From the hall below came the noise of the new party. Clovis lay in the dark, stretched out on his bed, his hands behind his head. He was half-asleep, half-dreaming. Two principal emotions were at work within him, conflicting—waves of excitement and waves of sadness.

  He tried to forget the sense of loss, the increasing self-hatred, the uselessness of his ambitions, but he could not rid himself entirely of these feelings. The habit of service to his fellows was still strong, yet it had to be denied if he was to achieve what he wanted. Perhaps then he could resume his old life?

  Yet he knew instinctively that he might never resume it, for in finding the thing he sought, he would have to sacrifice his earlier virtues.

  He liked his old self better, he admitted, but his new self would accomplish more.

  When at length Fastina sought him out, he could see that she was slightly drunk. Now that he had made up his mind what he would do, he could afford to allow his affection for her to manifest itself. He smiled at her as she entered the room.

  She lay down beside him, laughing softly, stroking his hair.

  “Hello, Clovis.”

  He smiled and held her hand.

  Her mood changed and she said quietly: “You seem worried. Was it something you heard at Yulof’s—about Take?”

  “No.” He held her hand tightly. It wasn’t too late. He could change his mind—forget about everything, settle here with her, return to his earlier life—useful work—good friends—a sense of achievement—contentment—complacency. Yes, he had been complacent, they all had. It had taken this knowledge of impending annihilation to rid them of it. This scheme of Narvo’s, though, now he considered it—a fine idea. And the aliens —had they some means of helping them—was there a way? No—the forces involved were far too great. The final cataclysm was inevitable. Why should they think they could escape? When an individual was killed he was amazed at his bad luck—and the same would happen to the race. Really monumental bad luck...

  Yet he believed that it wasn’t the same. A race had immortality, an individual had not, except through the race. But if an individual possessed immortality, then the race continued in him.

  He had loved his fellows so much, loved Earth, loved its arts and its pleasures. He had squeezed life of every experience possible, and yet he had preserved his integrity, his humanity. Perhaps he should be content to die ? But he wasn’t...

  He was stirring now, rolling over to kiss Fastina, embracing her in the same savage, hungry way that he embraced his new personality. 1 must stay selfish, he thought—1 must stay this way or lose it all.. .

  When he stood up naked from the bed, he heard the party in progress below. He felt relaxed and in good humour, felt a return of his old stoicism, his self-control. She swung her legs off the bed and grinned at him, stretching.

  “Shall we go down in a moment?” he said.

  “If you like.”

  He crossed into the shower-room, turning the dial and feeling the sting of the warm, chemical-laced water as it washed down his lean body. From there he walked into the drying chamber and let the heated air dry him. Then he went back into his room and pulled a fresh toga over his head. He had selected a white one, with red edging.

  “That suits you better than those dark clothes you normally wear,” she said, looking at him critically as he combed his hair. He sat down and pulled on his soft, high-heeled boots as she sauntered towards the shower-room.

  He paused, noticing something—silence in the hall below. Then one voice speaking. He went over to the amplifier in the corner of the room, switched it on, but only heard the last couple of words—“—is possible!” Then the amplifier roared with the sound of cheering.

  People were very excitable today, he thought, as Fastina came into the room again. “What was that?” she said.

  “Somebody making an announcement. Your friend Aimer, I think.”

  “He’s fond of making announcements. What was it about?”

  “I didn’t catch it. Will you go down as you are?”

  “I won’t be in fashion, but still...”

  They dropped into the gravishute.

  Leaving the gravishute at ground-level, they walked quickly along a passage and entered the main hall. People were smiling at one another, talking rapidly.

  Clovis heard a woman say: “Will this mean the re-industrialisation of Earth?”

  Re-industrialisation? A horrible idea. What called for that, he wondered.

  Holding Fastina’s hand, he made his way through the crowd until he found Narvo Velusi. The old man was talking to the tall, yellow aliens. Beside him, Andros Aimer interpreted.

  Cheerfully, Clovis said: “What’s all the enthusiasm for?”

  Narvo turned. “Clovis—these people—‘ Shreelians ’ is the best we can manage—they think they can save us.” Clovis looked closely at the tallest alien. Was it possible? He experienced a sense of profound excitement. Suddenly his whole pattern of ideas broke apart and reformed itself. He felt light-headed as he said: “How?”

  “Well, it’s complicated—we aren’t quite sure how they they can do it—but it sounds as if it will work. They’re already beginning to put their plan into operation in their home world. As far as we can tell it involves shunting our entire solar system out of the danger area.” Clovis said: “But that isn’t possible, Narvo. The gravity ...”

  “Their technology is far in advance of ours. It will mean converting two entire planets—probably Pluto and Mercury—into huge machines that will set up a field of force around the system, producing artificial balance when we move beyond galactic influence. Probably Pluto and Mercury will have to be re-positioned...”

  Clovis said urgently: “And you are sure they can do it for us?”

  “They can’t do it—they need all their man-power, as we shall. But they can show us how.”

  Clovis grinned involuntarily, then let the laughter come. Narvo looked at
him, smiling. “A chance, eh, Clovis? A solution we didn’t dare consider!”

  “A solution, yes,” Clovis laughed. “Salvation— certainly. This does make a difference, Narvo. Oh, yes —a very great difference. But it’s salvation in two ways, Narvo. I’m not interested in our salvation any more. I’m interested in mine”

  “You’re speaking nonsense, Clovis.” Narvo took his arm sympathetically. “You’re still under a strain. Perhaps you had better rest—the world is going to need your leadership again. We must form a government— ”

  Then Clovis had brushed away Narvo’s hand and turned, running through the crowd, following by Narvo’s shocked stare. He looked at Fastina:

  “Fastina—he must listen to me. Soon the world will be at work—tensions will arise, conflicts over plans— only Clovis can hold us together. He must not desert us? What does he mean?”

  “I don’t know,” she said as she started after him. “Clovis! Clovis! Where are you going?”

  Chuckling like a mad-man the First Citizen of Earth darted up the gravishute towards the roof.

  He heard her behind him.

  “Clovis! Isn’t that what you were looking for? Isn’t your search over now? You’d hoped to save humanity— and now it has the chance! What’s the matter, Clovis? There’s no need to go on looking!”

  As he reached the roof, he laughed and wheeled round to confront her as she emerged from the shute. She looked at his face and she felt the same shock she had experienced in the intergalactic ship when she had seen the corpse. She stepped backwards, nearly overbalancing into the shute.

  “What was I looking for? You’ve found something— but it isn’t what I want. There’s no necessity for secrecy now, Fastina—no-one will laugh at my ambition. If their scheme is successful then I shall be the one who will benefit most of all.”

  “But you heard what Narvo said. They need you now. Without you, the scheme could fail.”

  “Let them find someone else. I’m going out there. I’m going back into space again—and this time I shall find what I’m looking for.” He pointed upwards, grinning. He noticed that he was frightening her and grinned the more.

  He stepped towards his aircar and clambered into it. She followed, climbing in after him.

  He shook his head rapidly. “No! No, Fastina!”

  He turned and picked her up bodily, throwing her back on to the roof. She fell with a cry of pain.

  Then he put his sonarkey to his lips and gave the car its instructions.

  “Where are you going?” she shouted, lying on the roof, her naked body white against the dark surface. She began to scramble up, sobbing. “Which planet? Clovis—what about your loyalties?”

  The last thing she heard was his voice crying back to her as his car sailed over the sky.

  “I have only one loyalty now, Fastina. I nearly ignored it. Only one loyalty and it’s to my ambition!”

  And he laughed and laughed as he headed the car towards the spacefield and his ship.

  “Such ambitions have often been known to drive men mad,” said a melodious voice behind her. “And yet if the ambition is achieved a darker madness has to be fought...”

  She twisted herself round to look at the speaker.

  It was Take, of course.

  SECOND of two parts

  Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;

  The sun moves always west;

  The read one treads to labour

  Will lead one home to rest,

  And that will be the best.

  A. E. Housman

  Our galaxy is about to be destroyed. Another galaxy is colliding with ours and it is approaching the speed of light. When the speed of light is exceeded, it will convert to energy and we shall be engulfed by the same process. The human race prepares for death. But Clovis Marca, 30th century Earth’s First Citizen, is searching frantically for something else. He, in turn, is pursued by two people—Fastina Cahmin, who loves him, and a mysterious man called Take who appears to know exactly what Marca is searching for. When aliens from the other galaxy arrive with possible salvation, Marca leaves Fastina and rushes away, making for his spaceship. He intends to go to the Bleak Worlds of Antares where he believes he’ll find what he’s looking for. But humanity is psychologically and physiologically unable to remain away from Earth for long

  seven Work in Progress

  The hugh scaffolding rose hundreds of metres high, each piece shining, each more than a kilometre in diameter. And stretched about it were the delicate webs of wire and coils, merged circles, triangles and squares of vibrating blues and golds. Beneath it, looking up, stood three human figures and a fourth figure who was not human. His name was Sahaa and he was a bird-like Shreelian.

  The shortest man pushed his mane of white hair away from his face with an old, slim hand. “Well, Andros— it’s finished. It didn’t take as long as you expected, did it? ”

  Andros Aimer’s dark face was frowning. He seemed to disapprove of Narvo Velusi’s massively fragile transmitter. He shook his head and held his peace.

  But Fastina Cahmin, the third human member of the group, was enthusiastic. “It’s wonderful, Narvo. It will send your message through the universe for ever. Even when the Solar System leaves this galaxy, even when the galaxy itself is energised, your message will sing on— ‘ We are here! ’ ”

  “Perhaps ‘ We were here ’ would be better,” Andros’s voice was dry. “You known I’ve no quarrel with the idea of the message, Narvo—it’s the content of the message that bothers me. It was good enough, I suppose, while we were ready to accept the death of everything—but now Sahaa’s people have given us a means of escaping, I feel we should do something more. We could broadcast the total sum of human knowledge with that transmitter of yours. Then, if the Shreelian scheme fails—as we know it can—we shall have left something worthwhile behind us.”

  “That would defeat the whole spirit of the venture,” Navo said quietly. “The simplicity is important.” He sighed. “Six months age we were all agreed, all enthusiastic, now we quibble over this point and that. We should have been transmitting by now. Perhaps I am an inadequate leader, perhaps ...”

  Fastina took his hand. “You are doing marvellously, Narvo. You know how everyone was shocked when Clovis went away—everything was confused. You got both projects going—the transmitter and the artificial gravitational field. You supervised the modifications necessary for making the computer complex function on an industrial scale, you got the plants set up and working, the machinery transported to Mercury and Pluto. In another six months the field should encompass the whole Solar System and we can begin tests. It’s everything Clovis would have achieved ...”

  Narvo shook his head. “No—Clovis was a leader— people had an almost mystical faith in his judgment. They respected me, certainly, but they do not trust me in the way they trusted Clovis. The coming six months could result in a division of the people into a dozen opposed factions. Admittedly we all have the same aims —but we are not all agreed on means ...” he glanced at Aimer.

  Aimer said: “You’re overstating the importance of these differences, Narvo. After all, we cannot just go plunging off into space in a direction chosen at random. Neither can we decide at once whether to admit every outworlder into the System. The new agricultural projects can only support so many and I’m not sure ...”

  Fastina was angry. “ Narvo has made that decision. We admit everyone. The whole race! We stand or fall as a united race. If you begin to say who should come and who shouldn’t, then ...”

  Narvo interrupted. “Fastina is right. Secondly the men of the industrial and agricultural worlds will be more useful to us than the men of Earth. Our skills are largely in abstract matters, theirs are material and, at this stage, infinitely more valuable.”

  “But Earth is being ruined by the factories and the farms. Gardens are churned up, forests are cut down, landscapes are marred by the airshafts from the underground manufacturing plants. Earth is becoming an ugly world
. If we limited the numbers, we should not need to provide for so many, destroy so much.”

  Sahaa the alien looked on politely. Although he could speak Earthish and understand it, much of what was said was well below his own sonic range.

  Narvo was turning away, escorting Fastina. “You are a selfish man, Andros. Sometimes I regret accepting your offer of help.”

  As Narvo and Fastina seated themselves in their gleaming red aircar Andros shrugged and shouted: “Without me it would have taken you a very long time to understand what the Shreelians were getting at—and you might never have interpreted their science. You are ungrateful, Narvo Velusi! Luckily, the majority of the people on Earth are not! ”

  Narvo blew on his sonarkey and ignored Aimer. The carriage rose into the air. As they moved away from the shining vastness of the transmitter, Narvo rubbed his face with his hands.

  “I can’t blame him for his fears,” he sighed. “But how can I quiet them—how can I keep the race calm and moving towards the same goal? At this rate we’ll be fighting so much amongst ourselves that the Shreelians will give up helping us and leave us to our fate. It will be well-deserved.” He raised his face to look westwards and Fastina saw that his eyes had tears in them.

  He's right, she thought, we need Clovis. But, oh, my love where are you?

  She remembered on the night he had left, when she had met Take on the roof of Narvo’s house, she had tried to find out from Take what Clovis sought, but the strange man had refused to answer. And when she had asked him why he pursued Clovis, Take had seemed surprised. “I’m not his pursuer,” he had said. “I am more or less his guardian—though not of an ordinary kind, perhaps.”

  Then Take had left, following Clovis towards the space field.

  Oh, Clovis, come back. Come back!

  eight The Bleak World

  The individual who called himself Take had been following Clovis Marca for six months of his time and Earth’s and something like two weeks ship time. Take had given himself a shot of tempodex which slowed his time sense as well as ensuring that his body-processes functioned in relation to the time that would have passed on Earth had he been there. This was unusual, since most men wanted the time to pass as quickly as possibly. The anguish they called space-ache was only bearable for a short time. Yet Take seemed to suffer nothing.