Fear That Man

second mass of jelly that rose to snatch at the grenade — unsuccessfully. Miraculously, they were tumbling through the shattered front of the ship, moving into the darkness and emptiness of space toward The Ship of the Soul, the poet’s boat that lay silently a short mile away.

Behind them, the jelly came, boiling away in the vacuum, tumbling and sputtering. Steaming, it lashed out with non-arms as it realized its chances for success were diminishing. The thunder of its non-voice was definitely not sound but thought. It bombarded their minds, unable to order them so quickly, unable to control them in their panic.

Hurkos was out ahead, his shoulder jets pushing him swiftly toward the ship’s portal. Then came the poet. Finally, Sam. A hand of false-flesh streaked around the latter, curled in front of him, attempting to cut him off from the others. Cut him off. Cut him off and devour him. He choked, maneuvered under the whip before it could sweep around and capture him in an acidic embrace.

And still it came. It grew smaller, boiled and bubbled itself away. But there seemed always to be a new central mass moving out from the hull, leaping the blackness and replenishing the withering pseudopods before they could snap, separate, and dissolve. Finally, however, there was nothing left except a speck of pinkish-tan. It turned amber-orange, then it too puffed out of existence. With it, went the noise.

Inside The Ship of the Soul, they stripped, collapsed into soft chairs without animate padding. This was a ship of comfort, not one of destruction. This was a ship built for six people, not for one man, one tool of an insane, unnamable entity without a face or a time. For a while, then, they were silent, composing themselves for what must be said. The moment the composing ended and the discussion began was signaled by a quiet suggestion from Gnossos that they get some wine to help loosen their tongues.

The wine was warm and green, a special bottle opened for a special occasion.

“It was the same sound I heard under the hypnotic trance.”

“That means,” Hurkos said, staring into his wine as he talked, “that it was the ship itself that was ordering you around. That jelly was the plotter behind the scheme.”

Gnossos downed one glass of wine, poured a second from the decanter. “I don’t agree. If the ship were responsible for Sam’s actions, there would be no reason for hypnotic controls — and really no reason for Sam. If the ship were intelligent itself, it could do everything Sam could do — and possibly better. And when he shot it, it should have been able to order him to throw down the gun. No, the ship was just a cancerous mass of goo that was to convey Sam to Hope. Nothing more.”

“But what kind of man could make a thing like the jelly-mass?”

“I think,” Gnossos said, “that there is a chance you are the dupe of an extra-galactic intelligence.”

“That’s absurd! We’ve never found another intelligent race in the last thousand years. That’s—”

“That’s frighteningly possible,” Hurkos reflected. “There are thousands and millions of galaxies out there. How do you know a bunch of jelly-masses didn’t kidnap you, take you away, and decide to train you to overthrow the galaxy?”

Sam finished his wine in a gulp. Heat flooded through his flesh, outward from his stomach. Still, it could not ward off the sharp chill in him. “Because,” he answered in even tones, “that would be one helluva backward way of invading the empire. If these extra-galactics have all this skill, can use something like the jelly for hyperspace travel and making food and operating robosurgeons, they could overturn the galaxy in a month. A week! Hell, that blob even talked to me in a computer voice. Probably forms some crude set of vocal cords when it needs them. And it operated a radar set; it—”

“It’s a living machine,” Gnossos said, almost to himself.

“That’s another thing,” Hurkos added. “Your fear of machines. You got it, obviously, because whoever — or whatever — hypnotized you fears machines also. Because he, it, or they do not use machines. They have blobs instead. We have nothing like this. It almost proves they’re extra-galactic!”

“One couldn’t live in the empire without the aid of machines,” Gnossos agreed. “One would have to be from… Outside.”

“No.” Sam set his glass on the floor. “If there were aliens with this sort of thing, they wouldn’t need me. This is something smaller than an entire extra-galactic race. This is someone who needs help, who needs an automaton to do his dirty work.”

“Agreed also,” the poet said. “Looks like there is a stalemate in this conversation and this line of thought.” He heaved his bulk to a more comfortable position. “Well, I for one, am sticking with you until this mystery is solved. I couldn’t bear to quit with the whole thing raveled up. This could be the most important, most dangerous event of the last thousand years. And one thing that there is just too little of these days is danger. Warring man might have been crude, but he sure as the devil had his fill of danger in a lifetime. Today we travel on, living hundreds of years, and everything is so safe and perfect that we hardly ever experience danger. I’m long overdue for some excitement!”

“Me too, I guess,” Hurkos said. Sam had the feeling the Mue was not terribly comfortable since the jelly- mass had attacked them. But he would not — could not — back down in front of the poet.

“So what next?”

Gnossos rubbed a huge paw across his chin, wrinkled his nose for a moment. “We set this tub on a course for Hope. When we get there, we wait for your next command. We’re going to find out the answers to this.”

“But,” Sam said uneasily, “suppose I am out to overturn the galaxy?”

“Hurkos and I will be right behind you to stop you before you have a chance.”

“I hope so,” he said.

Later, after more wine and much conjecture, as The Ship of the Soul plunged through the thick river of the void, they retired, leaning back in their chairs, belting themselves in, and shutting their mouths so that they could neither consume nor converse. And eventually they fell into sleep…

There was deep and awful darkness, save for the scattered pinpoints of the stars dotting the roof of the night. Then, as the breeze shifted, dawn came crawling over the horizon, tinting the blackness with yellow… then orange… And there was still a hill with a cross upon it. There was a man on the cross. His hands were dripping blood.

And his feet were dripping blood…

The wounds were festered and black demon mouths.

The man on the cross raised his head, looked to the dawn. He seemed very weary, as if he were ready to give up more than the body, the spirit also. There were dumps of matting at the corners of his eyes that interfered with his vision. His teeth were yellow from long neglect.

“Dammit, let me down!” he shrieked.

The words rebounded from the low sky.

“Please,” he said, groveling.

The sun was a flaming eye. When it was at its zenith, there came angels, beings of light and awesome majesty. They floated about the man, administering to his needs. Some carried water which they poured between his cracked and crusted lips. And some brought oil with which they anointed him. And still others sponged away the oil and fed him. Then they were vanished into air.

The sun was setting. It seemed only minutes since it had risen.

“Please,” the man wept. The angels had missed some of the oil in his beard. It glistened there — and tickled.

With darkness came the demons. Crawling from under brown stones, slithering out of crevices in the earth, they came. There were dwarfs, slavering, eyeless yet seeing. There were wolves with sabers for teeth. There were things with tails and horns, things with heads that were nothing more than huge mouths. They screamed and cawed, muttered, shrieked, and moaned. They came at the cross, crawling over one another. But they could not reach the man. They clawed the wood of his prison but could not claw him. One by one, they began to die…

They withered and became smoke ghosts that the cool wind bore away. They collapsed into dust. They dribbled into blood pools.

Then there were stars for a short time.

And again came the dawn…

And the angels…

And the night and the demons and the stars and the dawn and the awesome, awesome angels