‘Enemies!’ cried Iorr.
‘Foul enemies!’ cried Tylle.
Leonard smiled a rictal smile. He felt ghastly. How long have you waited? he demanded.
‘How long is time?’ Ten thousand years? ‘Perhaps.’ Ten million years ? ‘Perhaps.’
What are you? Thoughts, spirits, ghosts? ‘All of those, and more.’ Intelligence? ‘Precisely.’ How did you survive?
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee, sang the chorus, far away.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, sang another army, waiting to fight.
‘Once upon a time, this was fertile land, a rich planet. And there were two nations, strong nations, led by two strong men. I, Iorr. And he, that one who calls himself Tylle. And the planet declined and gave way to nothingness. The peoples and the armies languished in the midst of a great war which had lasted five thousand years. We lived long lives and loved long loves, drank much, slept much, fought much. And when the planet died, our bodies withered, and, only in time, and with much science, did we survive.’
Survive, wondered Leonard Sale. But there is nothing of you!
‘Our minds, fool, our minds ! What is a body without a mind?’
What is a mind without a body, laughed Leonard Sale. I’ve got you there. Admit it, I’ve got you!
‘True,’ said the cruel voice. ‘One is useless, lacking the other. But survival is survival even when unconscious. The minds of our nations, through science, through wonder, survived.’
But without senses, lacking eyes, ears, lacking touch, smell, and the rest? ‘Lacking all those, yes. We were vapours, merely. For a long time. Until today.’
And now I am here, thought Leonard Sale. ‘You are here,’ said the voice. ‘To give substance to our souls. To give us our needed body.’
I’m only one, thought Sale. ‘Nevertheless, you are of use.’
I’m an individual, thought Sale. I resent your intrusion.
‘He resents our intrusion! Did you heard him, Iorr? He resents!’
‘As if he had a right to resent!’
Be careful, warned Sale. I’ll blink my eyes and you’ll be gone, phantoms! I’ll wake up and rub you out!
‘But you’ll have to sleep again, some time!’ cried Iorr. ‘And when you do, we’ll be here, waiting, waiting, waiting. For you.’
What do you want? ‘Solidity. Mass. Sensation again!’ You can’t both have it. ‘We’ll fight that out between us.’
A hot clamp twisted his skull. It was as if a spike had been thrust and beaten down between the bivalvular halves of his brain.
Now he was terribly clear. Horribly, magnificently clear. He was their universe. The world of his thoughts, his brain, his skull, divided into two camps, that of Iorr, that of Tylle. They were using him!
Pennants flung up on a pink mind sky! Brass shields caught the sun. Grey animals shifted and came rushing in bristling tides of sword and plume and trumpet.
Eeeeeeeeeeeee! The rushing.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! The roaring.
Nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! The whirling.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm –
Ten thousand men hurled across the small hidden stage. Ten thousand men floated on the shellacked inner ball of his eye. Ten thousand javelins hissed between the small bone hulls of his head. Ten thousand jewelled guns exploded. Ten thousand voices chanted in his ears. Now his body was riven and extended, shaken and rolled, he was screaming, writhing, the plates of his skull threatened to burst asunder.
The gabbling, the shrilling, as across bone plains of mind and continent of inner marrow, through gullies of vein, down hills of artery, over rivers of melancholy, came armies and armies, one army, two armies, swords flashed in the sun, bearing down upon each other, fifty thousand minds snatching, scrabbling, cutting at him, demanding, using. In a moment, the hard collision, one army on another, the rush, the blood, the sound, the fury, the death, the insanity!
Like cymbals, the armies struck!
He leaped up, raving. He ran across the desert. He ran and ran and did not stop running.
He sat down and cried. He sobbed until his lungs ached. He cried very hard and long. Tears ran down his cheeks. ‘God, God, help me, oh God, help me!’ he said.
All was normal again.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon. The rocks were baked by the sun. He managed, after a time, to cook himself a few hot biscuits, which he ate with strawberry jam.
‘At least I know what I’m up against,’ he told himself. ‘Oh, Lord, what a world! What an innocent-looking world, and what a monster it really is. It’s good no one ever explored it before. Or did they?’ He shook his aching head. Pity them, whoever crashed here before, if any ever did. Warm sun, hard rocks, not a sign of hostility.
Until you shut your eyes and relaxed your mind.
And the night and the voices and the insanity and the death padded in on soft feet.
‘I’m all right now, though,’ he said, proudly. ‘Look at that.’ He displayed his hand. By a supreme effort of will, it was no longer shaking. ‘I’ll show you who in hell’s ruler here,’ he announced to the innocent sky. ‘I am!’ He tapped his chest.
To think that thought could live that long! A million years, perhaps, all these throughts of death and disorder and conquest, lingering in the innocent but poisonous air of the planet, waiting for a real man to give them a channel through which they might issue again in all their senseless virulence.
Now that he was feeling better, it was all silly. All I have to do, he thought, is stay awake six nights. They won’t bother me that way. When I’m awake, I’m dominant. I’m stronger than those crazy monarchs and their silly tribes of sword-flingers and shield-bearers and horn-blowers. I’ll stay awake.
But can you? he wondered. Six whole nights? Awake?
There’s coffee and medicine and books and cards.
But I’m tired now, so tired, he thought. Can I hold out?
Well, if not – there’s always the gun.
Where will these silly monarchs be if you put a bullet through their stage? All the world’s a stage. No. You, Leonard Sale, are the small stage. And they the players. And what if you put a bullet through the wings, tearing down scenes, destroying curtains, ruining lines! Destroy the stage, the players, all if they aren’t careful!
First of all, he must radio through to Marsport, again. If there was any way they could rush the rescue ship sooner, then maybe he could hang on. Anyway, he must warn them what sort of planet this was, this so innocent-seeming spot of nightmare and fever vision –
He tapped on the radio key for a minute. His mouth tightened. The radio was dead.
It had sent through the proper rescue message, received a reply, and then extinguished itself.
The proper touch of irony, he thought. There was only one thing to do. Draw a plan.
This he did. He got a yellow pencil and delineated his six-day plan of escape.
Tonight, he wrote, read six more chapters of War and Peace. At four in the morning have hot black coffee. At four-fifteen take cards from pack and play ten games of solitaire. This should take until six-thirty when – more coffee. At seven o’clock, listen to early morning programmes from Earth, if the receiving equipment on the radio works at all. Does it?
He tried the radio receiver. It was dead.
Well, he wrote, from seven o’clock until eight, sing all the songs you remember, make your own entertainment. From eight until nine think about Helen King. Remember Helen. On second thought, think about Helen right now.
He marked that out with his pencil.
The rest of the days were set down in minute detail.
He checked the medical kit. There were several packets of tablets that would keep you awake. One tablet an hour every hour for six days. He felt quite confident.
‘Here’s mud in your evil eye, Iorr, Tylle!’
He swallowed one of the stay-awake tablets with a scalding mouth of black coffee.
Well, with one thing and another it was Tolstoy or Balzac, gin-rummy, coffee, tablets, walking, more Tolstoy, more Balzac, more gin-rummy, more solitaire. The first day passed, as did the second and the third.
On the fourth day he lay quietly in the shade of a rock, counting to a thousand by fives, then by tens, to keep his mind occupied and awake. His eyes were so tired he had to bathe them frequently in cool water.
He couldn’t read, he was bothered with splitting headaches. He was so exhausted he couldn’t move. He was numb with medicine. He resembled a waxen dummy stuffed with things to preserve him in a state of horrified wakefulness. His eyes were glass, his tongue a rusted pike, his fingers felt as if they were gloved in needles and fur.
He followed the hand of his watch. One second less to wait, he thought. Two seconds, three seconds, four, five, ten, thirty seconds. A whole minute. Now an hour less time to wait. Oh, ship, hurry on thy appointed round!
He began to laugh softly.
What would happen if he just gave up, drifted off into sleep?
Sleep, ah, sleep; perchance to dream. All the world a stage … What if he gave up the unequal struggle, lapsed down?
Eeeeeeeeeeee, the high, shrill warning sound of battle metal.
He shivered. His tongue moved in his dry, burry mouth.
Iorr and Tylle would battle out their ancient battle.
Leonard Sale would become quite insane.
And whichever won the battle would take this ruin of an insane man, the shaking, laughing wild body, and wander it across the face of this world for ten, twenty years, occupying it, striding in it, pompous, holding court, making grand gestures, ordering heads severed, calling on inward, unseen dancing girls. Leonard Sale, what remained of him, would be led off to some hidden cave, there to be infested with wars and worms of wars for twenty insane years, occupied and
