To The End of Time and Other Stories, page 1
BEYOND THE FRONTIERS OF SPACE AND TIME
There are no barriers to the imaginative vision of a top-notch science-fiction writer as Robert Moore Williams demonstrates in this new collection of his stories. The wonders of the universe, big and little, probed by his pen are many.
The mystery of Mars?
See WHEN THE SPOILERS CAME
The enigma of time?
Read TO THE END OF TIME
Flying saucers?
Think about LIKE ALARM BELLS RINGING
The search for Utopia?
Turn to WHERE TALL TOWERS GLEAM
Each story is a thrilling adventure in super-science.
Turn this book over for second complete novel
ROBERT MOORE WILLIAMS has been a prolific and high-rated author of science-fiction stories for several decades. His tales have appeared in virtually all the magazines in the field and have been reprinted in a great many distinguished anthologies. He accounts for his talents this way:
“Writing seems to be in my blood; it’s the only occupation I enjoy. I’ve been at it ever since I was a kid. If I may parody Mark Twain, who apologized because there was a certain amount of information in The Innocents Abroad, and said he was sorry but that “information appeared to stew out of him like the precious attar of roses out of the attar,” words appear to stew out of me. There is really nothing I can do about this except direct them at a typewriter and hope they will emerge in the form of stories or books.”
Other novels by Robert Moore Williams that have appeared in Ace Books editions include
THE CHAOS FIGHTERS (S-90)
CONQUEST OF THE SPACE SEA (D-99),
DOOMSDAY EVE (D-215), and
THE BLUE ATOM (D-322).
TO THE END OF TIME
and other stories by
ROBERT MOORE WILLIAMS
ACE BOOKS, INC.
23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.
Contents
TO THE END OF TIME AND OTHER STORIES
WHERE TALL TOWERS GLEAM
HOMEWARD BOUND
WHEN THE SPOILERS CAME
LIKE ALARM BELLS RINGING
To The End of Time and Other Stories
Copyright’©, 1960, by
Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Copyright, 1947, by Amazing Stories.
WORLD OF THE MASTERMINDS
Copyright ©, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.
Printed in U. S. A.
TO THE END OF TIME AND OTHER STORIES
The native Venusian guides, tense and sullen with fear of something they could not or would not name, had come into this region with reluctance. Thorndyke, who had no respect for superstition, was intelligent enough not to browbeat them. He had cajoled them instead with much talk about all the atjol, the fiery native drink, they could buy with their wages, and they had gone forward again, moving toward the precipitous mountain region of the hotlands jungle. Then, when it became apparent that their destination was actually the plateau that they called Kith-kal-sar, the singing mountain, they had taken council together and had decided on a course of action, without telling their employer. The first Thorndyke knew of it was when he awakened in the morning and discovered that the whole safari crew, porters, guides, cooks, and the rest, had vanished in the night.
Thorndyke was short and stubby, gnarled like an oak tree, and although he was actually one of Earth’s foremost psychologists, nobody seeing him for the first time ever believed he was anything but a pirate. Timid women had been known to faint at the sight of him. Stronger specimens, on meeting him, invariably reached mentally for a baseball bat or some other weapon, to have handy just in case. He had long since accepted the fact that he was not pretty, and as for the opinion of the female members of the order mammalia, he cared not two hoots what they thought of him. Or what anybody else thought He was a little universe all in himself, complete with his own natural laws, which he made up as he went along.
Most men, deserted by their guides and helpers in the hotlands, would have started hotfooting it out of there. Thorndyke, operating according to his own peculiar laws, spent five minutes in outraged profanity, then selected a light rifle that threw a bursting charge capable of stopping a garo or a cat lizard, added a kit of medicines and food, and headed Straight toward Kith-kal-sar.
To his mind, the goal he was seeking was sufficiently important to justify the risk. The goal was neither wealth nor fame. It was a song.
Back on Earth, where the song was being played, it was called Journey to the End of Time. Though no one on Earth knew how, it was certain that the music had come from Venus, as a recording of a native song. On Earth, it had been brought to the attention of a famous band leader, who had sensed at least part of the possibilities of the piece. The band leader had translated the weird half and quarter tones into notes capable of being produced by human musical instruments. Unquestionably the music had lost much in translation. Unfortunately it still had too much left, all of it bad.
The first effect was sadness. The second was a deep melancholy. The third was—disorientation. It might take the form of murder, insanity, suicide…The first, and last time, the number had been played on the air, over a hundred people died violently. Apparently, any dangerous tendencies already present in the human mind were accentuated by the music.
’ After one playing, the Department of Health had hastily ordered the number withdrawn from the air. But wire recordings existed and these were being played in clandestine hideouts, in fierce little night clubs, at secret orgies.
The music exploded something in the psyche; it caused a disease of the mind. Remembering the new diseases that had been brought back from the planets with the first interplanetary vessels, and the rigorous measures that had been necessary then, the U.N. had acted as they would have done if a new extraterrestrial had appeared on Earth, by sending a crew of germ fighters to the origin of the disease to isolate the germ and combat it.
If, lamed in translation, crippled by musical instruments of another world, it still possessed so much power, what might be the effect of the music in the original, as it was played on Venus? This question worried them. There were other fringe questions, though, that worried them even more.
Thorndyke was a member of the team trying to locate the origin of the music. The investigation had been difficult. The Venusian tribes living around the spaceports either did not recognize the music, as played back for them from Earth recordings of Earth instruments, or they were unwilling to admit their knowledge. Rumors and tips had indicated that perhaps here in the hotlands, at the place called Kith-kal-sar, the singing mountain, the source of the music might be found.
As he was crossing the side of a precipitous hill, with pools of swamp water and mud below him, Thorndyke’s foot slipped. He tried to catch himself, failed, and went headlong down the hill. With a mighty splash he landed in one of die pools. When he came to the surface, he caught a log that was anchored to the bottom, and seeing what he had aroused on the sandbar across from him, he held onto the log, let himself float, and did not move a muscle. He knew enough about garos, the swamp alligators, to keep still.
His fall into the pool had awakened the garo. If he moved, the vibrations of that movement would be transmitted through the water, the garo would pick them up and come to Investigate the juicy tidbit that had fallen into its private cafeteria.
Lifting its head, the garo tried to locate the source of the splash that had aroused it v
Creatures that fell into this pool always splashed as they tried to get out.
Thorndyke did no splashing. Maybe the garo would go back to sleep. Then the human could wiggle, an inch at a time along the log, and float to shore.
And maybe he couldn’t
Alligator bait! he thought bitterly.
The garo knew something strange was in the pool. Under the circumstances, the monster had no intention of going back to sleep. Thorndyke could see the creature raise itself up and look around, trying to see from weak eyes if anything edible was in sight. The garo couldn’t see very far or very well. It grunted, inquiringly. Thorndyke didn’t grunt back.
The hot afternoon was still. Sunlight glinted through an opening in the clouds. Somewhere in the jungle a rain bird shrilled. A dragonfly with iridescent wings a foot long flew across the pool. Thorndyke was aware of sound—somewhere. It came from somewhere on the slope and grew stronger—a swelling chorus of song. Deep bass voices roared a chant until the whole jungle seemed to echo with it.
Listening, Thorndyke felt a sudden, irrational anger surge within him. The lust for battle, the clash of swords on shields, the cry of the victor, the sob of the stricken, all were in this music. Thorndyke felt hate rise in him, hate for the enemy. His heartbeat quickened.
He was dimly aware that he was listening to a song like Journey to the End of Time. It was a different song, written for a different purpose, but it sprang from the same source. The first effect of this wild music was anger. The second effect was—hallucination. As if his mind were a movie screen and a new film had been spliced into the middle of an old picture, the hallucination hit him.
The pool of swamp water, with the restless garo on the bank, faded instantly. His eyes seemed to disconnect themselves. His mind looked at a new scene. He found himself in a place that he knew did not exist except in his imagination.
He was sitting in a beautiful living room with a picture window across the corner. Through the window he saw a breathtaking vista of snowcapped mountains sweeping away into the distance. He recognized them somehow as the Colorado Rockies. They were so real he could have been willing to swear he was actually looking at them, hi his hand was a drink so real he could savor the smokiness of the Scotch, and sitting beside him was a woman. He could not visualize her features clearly but he knew she was very near and very dear to him.
A woman! By this one fact, Thorndyke knew he was dreaming.
While the music swelled in a growing flood, the illusion held. When it died, the illusion vanished. Thorndyke, gulping, saw that he was still holding onto the log. The garo was leaving the sandbar to search the pool for him, but the human was not aware of this fact. His attention was held by what was happening on the hillside.
The music makers were there. They were a group of barrel-chested little men about three feet tall. They looked a lot like pygmies, like the vanished Bushmen of the South African veld, almost naked little men with barrel chests. Thorndyke caught glimpses of them scurrying through the trees on the steep slope, their bass voices emitting agonized bellows. He saw why they were running, why they were alarmed.
A human woman was after them. She had in her right hand a slim, supple tree branch, and she was laying about her with all the strength in her arm.
For a second Thorndyke gaped at this astonishing sight, then he became aware again of his own situation and lifted his voice in a yell.
At the sound, the woman dropped the switch and stared around her. She located Thorndyke in the pool.
“Hey, look out, there’s a garo in that water!” she shouted.
“Hell, I know it,” Thorndyke answered. “If I move, he’ll locate me.”
“Don’t move,” the woman shouted. She came down the slope in a surefooted run. Like a monkey, she shinnied up a slender tree growing at the edge of the water. The tree bent under her weight. Splashing her feet in the water, she began shouting to Thorndyke.
“Swim, you idiot, while I draw the garo over here.”
The swamp alligator, certain that it had now located the juicy tidbit that had fallen into its pool, headed straight toward her. She jerked her feet out of the water before the ugly snout emerged.
Thorndyke had never had any swimming lessons, but he didn’t need any now. Dripping water and mud, he scrambled up the bank. The girl slid down the tree and came toward him.
The expression on her face said that now she had seen him, die regretted cheating a perfectly innocent alligator out of its dinner.
Thorndyke didn’t mind her reaction. He was used to it. She had freckles, and brown hair and eyes the color of the skies of Earth. He liked her, instantly. “I can’t help how I look,” he said. “You can blame it on poor heredity. I’m a throwback to the ape-man.” He grinned at her.
Astonishingly, she grinned back.
“Where’d you come from? What are you doing here? Who are you? What were you doing in that pool—fishing?”
“One question at a time,” Thorndyke said. He took off his pack, upended it, poured out the water. “I’m Jim Thorndyke.”
“I’m Neva August,” the girl answered. “My father is a missionary here.”
“A what?” Thorndyke said. He never ceased being astonished at the places the missionaries penetrated, but of all the places he expected to find one, the hotlands of Venus came last. He told the girl what he was doing here.
Surprise showed on her face as she listened, then it was replaced by fear.
“The Noro music has reached Earth?” she said. “Then Haswell escaped after all.”
“Who is Haswell?”
“He is a prospector, or said he was. He was here with 11s for a while. He made a recording of some of the Noro music, then disappeared. I didn’t know what happened to him but I thought the Noros—” She paused. “They objected to having a recording made of their music and I thought—”
“They had dropped Haswell into the swamp?” Thorndyke asked.
“Well, something like that.”
“Who are the Noros?”
“I forgot you do not know them.” She looked away, searching the trees on the hillside. Her voice rang out in. a series of deep tones.
In response there began to appear around them, hesitant, sullen, staring at Thorndyke with no friendliness whatever, the three-foot pygmies of the hotlands swamp. These were the music makers of Venus.
“They’re angry with me,” Neva said. “I stopped a war between them. They’re both angry and grateful because of that.”
“You stopped a war?” Thorndyke asked puzzled. “How?”
“With a switch,” she answered. “I know you must be thinking that a war that could be stopped with a switch was not very important, but it was important, to the Noros.”
“They don’t even have any weapons,” Thorndyke said.
“They had the War Song,” the girl said, “That was weapon enough.”
“Eh?”
She looked thoughtfully at him as if she were trying to estimate how much she could tell him. “Co on,” he said. “I’m ready to believe anything. How can a song be a weapon?”
“I don’t know, but it is. There were two bands of Noros and they were going to fight each other with that song and nothing else. When they finished one band or the other would have been dead. I’ve seen it happen.”
“But the song had no effect on you,” he said.
“I have learned how to keep from hearing it,” Neva explained.
“And you dared to use a switch on them?”
“Yes. When they started the War Song, I became very angry. I didn’t stop to think what I was doing, I just grabbed a switch and lit in on them, as if they were bad children.”
“And they didn’t try to fight you?”
“No, they were just angry with me. They know that the War Song is bad and they know I am doing right in stopping it. So they let me.”
“If they know it’s bad, why do they ever start it?”
“Why do humans start wars?”
It was a question that Thorndyke could not answer.
“This is no time to talk philosophy,” Neva spoke. “You’re soaking wet and lost You come home with me and meet my father. There you will also have a chance to study the Noros.”
Thorndyke recovered his rifle from the slope where he had dropped it. The Noros clustered around him and it was in his mind to give them a demonstration of the weapon. On the other side of the pool, the garo had crawled out on the sandbank again. Thorndyke took careful aim at the head of the monster. The rifle cracked sharply; the garo’s head vanished in the explosion.
The Noros seemed totally unimpressed. One Noro spoke to Neva.
“This is Tom. He says the gun is no good, it makes too much noise,” the girl translated.
“But look what it did to the garo,” Thorndyke said.
“He says he can do more than that to the garo, with his music,” Neva answered.
“Eh?” Thorndyke said.
It was a worried psychologist who followed the girl through the jungle. Moving along with them as silently as shadows were the Noros. Thorndyke was-very much aware of the puzzling mystery presented by these barrel-chested little men.
“Here is where we live,” Neva said. They had come to a large open glade on the side of a mountain. Below them were the swamps and the rain forest. Above them a steep slope led upward to a high plateau. Directly in front of them, in the face of a limestone cliff, was the large opening of a natural cave. In the opening a tall man was standing. He waved at Neva, then, at the sight of the man with her, he came striding forward, astonished at the sight of another human being.
“Daddy, this is Jim Thorndyke. This is my father, Lawrence August.”
“It is a pleasure to meet another human,” August said, extending his hand, His grip was firm, his manners were courtly and pleasant. He came of a generation that put great emphasis on manners. “I’m glad to meet you. You are not, by any chance, the James Thorndyke who wrote the book on the psi function of the human mind?”
