Complete Short Fiction, page 171
“But I never thought it a strong enough reason to destroy their city, particularly as I had in mind something that’s never been mentioned: The groundmen, the mighty groundmen, who made both the winged men and the fishmen, created the two types for a purpose, nothing less than that man should continue to exist on Earth in spite of the greatest catastrophe that surely has ever befallen an inhabited planet.
“To undermine that plan, that great purpose, to satisfy the desire of this Clen woman to get married is the most pitiful excuse for action that I’ve ever heard.
“I’m willing to admit,” Kenlon went on less violently, “that frightful flaws may have occurred in the two species who were to make the plan work. The fishmen seem to be at fault, and to be the aggressors—Nemmo tells me they’ve got tractor electronic beams on the floor of the sea under here, and have already drawn the sky island a mile downward to the water. Their intention is to submerge it, and drown all the winged men, so Nemmo tells me. If that’s true, then something drastic should be done to stop them.”
He finished with a shrug: “It looks now as if it’s going to be done, though my idea was to get all the facts first. They—”
He stopped, because out of the corner of his eye he saw the Tenant come on deck. The woman spoke to the Joanna guard.
“Wave that winged man down,” she said. “He should have been able to see by this time that the capture was successfully carried out.”
Kenlon had the feeling that he had not heard aright. He turned, his whole body stiff.
“What did you say?” he asked in a flat voice. “The winged men are party to this assault.”
He didn’t need the affirmative answer she gave. The Joanna had beckoned; and in response the winged thing in the sky was growing second by second by second in size.
Funny that he had not during the whole period while the Sea Serpent was being captured thought of the winged men as having a pre-connection. It all fitted of course. In their desperation, they had very cunningly used the Sessa Clen’s anxiety to occupy her marriage bed.
Their desperation must be great indeed to have, overridden the gentle racial character traits he had discovered in Nemmo.
Kenlon felt a sudden sadness. The whole business was becoming more sordid every minute. Now that there was no alternative, he’d be glad when it was over.
The winged man’s gingerly extended, gray-clothed feet touched the railing. Lightly, the man wafted down beside Kenlon.
He was a little taller than Nemmo, and younger, more personable. His face, however, had the same hawklike qualities: thinness, blazing gray-blue eyes. He wore the same furry cloth from the neck down, which fitted so snugly that, as in Nemmo’s case, it was hard to believe that it was not part of his body.
His wings were a very dark gray, with here and there streaks of black.
He walked over to Dorilee without looking at Kenlon.
“Any trouble?” he asked in his own language.
“Naturally not!” was the tart reply.
Kenlon smiled grimly. It would be nice to be so positive. Not that she wasn’t telling the truth. There hadn’t been any trouble worth mentioning.
He liked her less and less.
The winged man was speaking. “There is a change in the plans.”
“Change?” said Dorilee. Before the man could answer, she went on, snappingly: “All you’ve got to do, Laren, is tell us where the undersea city is. We’ll do the rest.”
“The council,” said Laren, “wants to see him first.”
“The council!” said Dorilee. “The council! That’s all I ever hear. First, the council advises you not to tell us the location of the city; and you don’t tell us. Then—”
She paused, scowling. She lost all claim to prettiness when she scowled.
“I thought,” she finished, “you winged men were ignoring the council in this.”
Laren shook his head. He said with a quiet dignity: “We shall never ignore the council. It distresses us that, in this affair, its ancient purposes seem to be clashing with the harsh reality of our situation.”
He broke off. “I see no reason why Commander Kenlon should not be taken before the council. You will need time to familiarize yourself with the undersea craft. Nemmo will remain aboard to give you any assistance he may be capable of.” Dorilee laughed. It was a hard laugh. The sound of it brought the thought to Kenlon, that victory did not add any grace to her character. She said arrogantly:
“I do not anticipate any difficulty in operating the submarine. The commander here, and his crew, have a far more important interest in seeing that nothing goes wrong than I have. Their ship is at stake.”
She finished indifferently: “But you can have him for a while if you want him. I have sent for a technical book about ancient submarines, and naturally we shall familiarize ourselves with the machinery. Don’t let the council keep him too long.”
There was a curious resentful look on Laren’s face. It was obvious that he didn’t like her casual contempt of the council. When he spoke, it was on that subject still. He said:
“We have no desire to do without the wisdom of the council. Perhaps it will give him some information useful in the attack. We know that it will do nothing to harm our interests.”
He seemed to realize that his words were being wasted. He turned quietly to Kenlon.
“I hope you will not object to coming to our city.”
Kenlon did not reply immediately. He had been following the give-and-take of the conversation with a gathering blankness. Memory of what Nemmo had said about the council merely served now to add to his confusion.
The general picture was clear enough. The council of the winged men had released the information that made possible construction of the time tubes which were used to bring the submarine and other craft to 994,999 A.D. Yet the council opposed the actions to be taken by the seized ships. To this opposition the winged men were paying no attention.
It was clear but queer.
Laren was speaking again: “You cannot imagine, commander, how much we regret the tactics we have been forced to use. It is against all our instincts. I hope, sir, you will come up and see the council.” Kenlon had not intended to give the impression that he was refusing. Of all the things he wanted most was more knowledge—about everything that was going on. He turned to Dorilee, said:
“Before I go, Tenant, I hope you won’t mind if I take a few precautions to protect the vessel. There’s the fuel to think of and—”
“You may be sure,” said Dorilee, “that anything within reason along those lines will have my support. I realize the danger from the fishmen.”
Kenlon bowed a stiff acknowledgment, then explained to Laren what Nemmo had said about the Gihlander protective lamps, adding: “My own idea is that you detach your time machines”—he pointed—“from our nose and stern, and lower them, lighted up, into the water. Their penetrative powers are so great that they should make all the water for a considerable distance literally transparent. The Joanna guards can keep watch. That way we can shut off the engines.”
He saw, even before he finished, that Laren was smiling.
“The Gihlander lamps,” the winged man explained, “are modified versions of the time tubes. They give an equal amount of absolute light, but have none of the more dangerous properties.”
He smiled again, finished: “I have allowed this conversation to be overheard at our communications center, so it shouldn’t take long for the carriers to arrive.”
Kenlon had been wondering how he was going to be transported. The answer began to be clear when he saw more than two-score winged men wheeling down from the sky. They brought the lamps. They also brought a sling—supported by scores of thin wires, each one of which was attached to a belt around the waist of one of the flyers.
After everything else had been done, Kenlon climbed into the sling; and in a minute his feet left the deck, and he was on his way.
He was looking down at the conning tower and the long, bulging shape of the submarine floating like a toy in bright, transparent water. The glow points of the Gihlander lamps, which hung now in the water, curiously accentuated the impression of a toy sub in an indoor pool with ceiling lights reflecting from the water.
Kenlon swung slowly around and around in his harness, and swayed gently from side to side. To his left he could see the gleaming metallic shapes of the giant zeppelin-like machine and of the other craft which were physically overshadowed by the larger machine—space yacht, Dorilee had called it.
The ships receded slowly in size.
The sea took on a flat appearance. The wall of the eyrie loomed black and near to one side, and below and above, blocking out three quarters of his view in the direction the sub’s instruments had always indicated as being west.
After a few minutes more, the space yacht disappeared behind an outjutting angle of the “mountain”; and one by one, as he watched, the other craft were blotted from his view until, finally, only the speck that was the Sea Serpent, and the high-riding, red-glinting ship of the Sessa Clen, remained in his field of vision.
Kenlon estimated that he was at least a mile above the sea. Which left about half a mile to go, before he reached the building. He glanced upward to verify the distance; and it was so.
Laren must have noticed the intent expression that Kenlon always got in his face when he calculated. He winged down to a point just below Kenlon. He called melodiously :
“Anything wrong?”
Kenlon started to shake his head; and then with a jerk that was as much physical as mental, stopped the action. Anything wrong! Everything was wrong, the whole is universe topsy-turvy. Of all the things in the world that he needed it was information. Information that would straighten out the bends in his mind. Information that would fill enormous gaps. Information! First, about the council.
He stated his confusion, finished: “What I want to know is, why is the council opposed?
Laren said gravely: “It would take too long to explain the council to you. Theoretically, it is omniscient. We are disturbed by its reactions in this affair. You will realize the difficulty of our problem in a few minutes when you see the council.”
Kenlon considered that, frowning. It was not very clear. An omniscient council whose findings had to be overruled—it was puzzling.
He twisted towards Laren. “Why didn’t you,” he began, “send someone to the age of the last groundmen with your problem? Better than any 1944 submarine, they’d be able—”
He was talking to empty air. Laren, evidently taking his brief silence for the end of conversation, was swinging strongly upwards a hundred feet away.
Kenlon thought of beckoning him, but changed his mind. He had better start thinking about what he was going to ask the omniscient council.
He was still frowningly preparing his questions minutes later when he grew aware that the flight was leveling off. And that he had come to the end of his aerial journey.
They were not, Kenlon saw, at the top of the building, but about halfway up. An open door, a very large door, at least twenty-five feet wide and high, yawned directly before him. Marble steps led down from it, and terminated in space.
It was one of many such entrances in a building whose grand dimensions were only now really apparent. It towered and spread. It was wider than it was high. But it was high.
It floated in clouds, parts of it hidden in thick mists. He could see the remote upper reaches through shimmering fog; and those heights were at least an eighth of a mile further up.
The building in itself was a city.
Everywhere he looked were winged men and women, in groups and singly, though none were near the door towards which he was being edged. Kenlon gaped at the women. They were mostly too far away for him to make them out clearly.
Of the two nearest him, one had jet-black hair, the other golden. The hair was very long, and whipped behind them as they flew. Kenlon thought of angels, but he was vaguely glad that they came no closer. He had, he thought as his feet settled on the comfortingly hard marble terrace, had no fancy for disillusionments.
“Just walk in, but go carefully,” said Laren.
Evidently, he was to remain in his harness, attached to the flyers. The precaution evoked a mind picture of what the inside must be like that was irresistible. Kenlon walked gingerly through the doorway.
He found himself in a well-lighted and vast room. There were great unguarded holes in the floor, in the ceiling, in the walls; gleaming tunnels that fell away into depths, or gave tantalizing glimpses of, tastefully furnished antechambers to what must be apartments because there were closed doors visible in some of the horizontal vistas along which Kenlon gazed.
Height untrammeled by too many walls—that was the general effect. Kenlon, his neck arched, his whole manner one of a gaping tourist, walked forward until he felt Laren’s withholding pressure on his arm.
Startled, he looked down—at an abyss of a tunnel unguarded by rails of any description. The floor actually curved down, so that there was no sharp edge.
Beyond the curving edge was a gulf forty feet wide and three quarters of a mile deep.
Kenlon reeled back, and then flushed as, beside him, Laren laughed softly.
The winged man said: “Have no fear. The carriers could support you even in a sudden fall. You realize, of course, that in a world where men have wings living quarters will be different.”
Kenlon realized silently.
Laren went on: “You are to be taken down about—” He gave the winged men’s equivalent of a hundred meters. He finished with an enigmatic smile: “Do not be too surprised at the nature of the council.”
Before Kenlon could reply, Laren launched himself down the shaft. The sling tightened around Kenlon. He was swung out and down.
Below him, he saw Laren land, and stand, looking up. An intervening ceiling hid the council room; then he could see more of the floor beyond Laren. And then—
He was flying.
He was flying. There was no mistaking the movement, the free, the strong, the immensely strong movement. Flying through a thick mist of cloud that hid even the tips of his wings.
His vision included eye awareness of his legs drawn up against his body; and it included blurred visualization of his wings—blurred because the two great pinions were hammering away at the air like the pistons of a swiftly running engine.
His body glowed with power; his whole being exulted with the glory of winged flight. The exhilaration was a tingling joy inside him.
For a long minute that was all there was. Then slowly his brain began to emerge from the state of rigidity into which it seemed to have frozen. The era of pure impression ended. And a personal thought was born, the first of many.
A thought so powerful, so devastating, that his wings ceased their pumping, his body twisted with amazement; he felt bewildered, stunned. And still that thought would not be eased, but rather grew like a storm, becoming more violent with each passing moment:
What—what—WHAT had happened?
The winged men had been lowering him towards the council room; the floor of the room was actually coming into his view when—this!
Flying! With wings. Actually inside—his brain, his consciousness, his being inside the body of a winged man.
His mind poised in a wondering and dreadful surmise.
They must have done it on purpose. They must have transferred his—essence—into the body of this winged man in order to show him the mental and physical universe of the race.
Kenlon clung to that logicalization, even as awareness came that be was flying again. Without having consciously willed it, he was climbing strongly towards whatever high goal the winged man, into whose body he had been transferred in mid-flight, had been originally heading.
He felt a sudden, intense curiosity as to that goal. He fought on up through the incredible cloud formation, up and up. His wings were soaking wet, but their strength defied the clinging water. The great heart, the mighty lungs, the untiring muscles of the body he bore, accepted every ounce of that terrific strain; and still they climbed.
Kenlon’s mind grew immensely weary of that struggle against gravity and the resisting elements; and it was then that he became aware that it was not he who was doing the flying.
He tried to stop the wings in their flapping. And couldn’t. He tried to end that upward flight, and twist downward—and couldn’t!
Dismayed, he ceased the effort. He thought blankly: “I’m just a rider. The brain of the real winged man is still here, still in charge.
I’m being shown. I’m not participating.”
But then, what about the way he had stopped the wings from moving earlier?
The answer came to him instantly: The violence of his reaction at the moment of discovering his predicament had succeeded in dominating the nerves and muscles of the winged man. But only for that one feverish moment.
There must be liaison; he must be capable of potential half-control. But it would require a desperate impulse to enforce it.
He had better remain quiet, and await events.
The decision was barely made when the all-enveloping mist began to clear. First he could see the tips of his wings, then the beginning of a second pair of wings, then all around him other wings beating at the thinning air, mounting up now through ever fleecier clouds.
Abruptly, they burst into sunlight, climbed several hundred yards, and leveled off.
Whatever the purpose of it, the tremendous climb was over.
Their purpose could, of course, be to see the sun.
It was reason enough. A month of gray skies had filled Kenlon with a longing to bask in pure, unadulterated sunlight.
If he felt thus, what then must these winged ones feel, whose horizon was always hidden by fog and mist and cloud?
He watched them experiencing the reality of the sun.
For a while they simply floated, wings almost moveless. They seemed to be resting on the great ocean of atmosphere beneath them, with only an occasional shunting of a wing to take advantage of the air that breathed now this way, now that.
