A. van Vogt - The Empire of Isher

Hedrock deliberately stopped that intense emotional reaction. “Just a minute,” he said, amazed. “I’m beginning to feel as if I am his brother.”

“That,” came a thought, “ is one of the astonishing characteristics of human beings. The easy way that one nervous system responds to the impulses from another. The sensory equipment involved has no parallel in the world of intelligence. But now, sit up and look around you.”

Hedrock studied his ’stat plates. He saw that there had been a change in the scene. The big ship, whose captive he was, had rolled upward; its immense bulk filled the forward and rear plates, and was visible also on the upper right and left panels. Where it had been before was a gulf of space, and deep in that gulf swam two white, yellow-tinged suns. They were tiny at first, little more than bright stars. But they grew. They grew. And far to the left another, tinier sun appeared. The two larger stars showed after a while six inches in diameter. They had seemed a foot apart; they separated farther. One remained small while the other drew nearer and took on more size. The second sun swung farther and farther to the left; his estimators showed it finally as about three billion miles away.

Further tests showed the angular diameter of both the nearer suns of the system to be larger than that of Sol, though only one was brighter. The third sun was a mere blur of light in the distance. It would have taken a long time for his inadequate instruments to compute its character. But the fact that it was there made Hedrock frown. He searched for, and presently found a red point in the distance, the fourth sun of that system. He was beginning to feel excited, when the alien mind directed its cold vibrations at him again.

“Yes, man, you are correct. These are the suns of the system you call Alpha Centauri. The two nearest are Alpha A and Alpha B. The third white sun is Alpha C, and the red point is, of course, the insignificant Proxima Centauri, known for centuries to be the nearest star to the solar system. These latter two do not concern us. What matters is that the dead twin is on a freak planet of this system. There is only one freak. It is a planet which, by describing a figure 8, revolves in turn around the Centauri suns Alpha A and Alpha B. It does this by traveling at the unusual speed of three thousand miles a second. In its eccentric orbit, it passes very close to each star, much as a comet might. But unlike a comet it is forever unable to break away. The gravitational fields of Alpha A and Alpha B alternately whip it on its way. It is now approaching ever nearer to Alpha A, the star almost directly ahead, and we must work swiftly if we are to revive the dead body —”

“If we are to what?” said Hedrock.

There was no answer, nor did he need one. He leaned weakly back in his chair, and he thought, “Why, of course, it’s been obvious from the beginning. I took it for granted they were going to try to rig up some sensory connection between a living and a dead body, but that was an assumption based upon my conviction that a man who has been dead two days is not only dead but decomposing.”

He felt genuinely awed. For thousands of years he had been striving to prolong the lives of living men to some approximation of the immortality that he had accidentally achieved. Now, here were beings who could undoubtedly not only solve that problem but could also resurrect the dead.

Curiously, the discovery dimmed his hope that he would be able to survive in spite of their determination to kill him. He had been trying to imagine some method of defeating them based on their extremely logical approach to existence. But, while that still seemed the only possible way out, it had become a remote chance, an opportunity to be planned for because the alternative was so final. Their scientific achievements made the result extremely doubtful.

“You will now,” said a thought impulse, “ submit to the next phase.”

He lay under a light. Just where he was, or even where they wanted him to think he was, he had no idea. His body rested comfortably in what could have been a form-fitting coffin. The comparison made a gruesome titillation along his nerves, but he quieted that jumpiness. He lay steady, determined, cold with his own intentions, and watched the light. It hung in blackness above him or—the thought made a curious pattern—was he staring down at it? It didn’t matter. There was only the light, shining out of the darkness, shining, shining. It was not, he noticed after a long while, a white light; and yet, conversely, it seemed to have no definite color. Nor was it bright, nor was it warm. His thought paused; he flinched. It was the notion of heat that did it, that brought consciousness of how cold it was. The light was icy.

The discovery was like a signal, like a cue. “ Emotion,” said a spider’s mind vibrations from afar, “ is a manifestation of energy. It acts instantaneously over any distance. The reason why the connection between the twins diminished in intensity, so far as their reception of it was concerned, was their mutual expectation that it would so diminish. This expectation was almost entirely unconscious. Their respective nervous systems naturally recognized the widening distance when one set out for Centaurus. Instinctively, they yielded their connection, though the emotional rapport between them remained as strong as ever. And now, since you have become a part of the relationship…accept the connection.”

It seemed instantaneous. He was lying, Hedrock saw, on a grassy bank beside a stream. The water gurgled and babbled over rocks. A gentle breeze blew into his face, and through the trees to his left a glorious sun was rearing above the horizon. All around him on the ground were boxes and packing cases, several machines, and four men lying quietly asleep. The nearest man was Gil Neelan. Hedrock controlled his mind again, thinking desperately, “Steady, you fool, it’s only an image, a thing they’ve put into your brain. Gil is on sand, on a freak planet, headed into hell. This is a dream world, an Eden, Earth in its sweetest summertime.”

Several seconds passed, and the body of Gil Neelan slept on with flushed face, breathing stentoriously, as if it couldn’t get enough air into it, as if life was returning the hard way, and clinging with effort. A faint thought came into Hedrock’s mind. “Water,” it said. “Oh, God, water!”

He hadn’t thought that. Literally Hedrock threw himself at the stream. Twice, his cupped hands trembled so violently that the precious water spilled onto the green grass. At last a measure of sanity came, and he searched one of the boxes and found a container. He kept letting the water trickle in and around Gil Neelan’s mouth. Several times, the emaciated body contorted in dreadful coughing. But that too, was good—dead muscles jarring back to life. Hedrock, eyes glinting, persisted. He could feel Gil’s slow heartbeat, could see all the mind pictures that pushed hesitantly into the brain that had scattered far. It was the sensory relation that, until now, had belonged exclusively to the brothers. Gil stirred in awareness.

“Why, Dan—” there was a vast amaze in Gil’s thought—“you old devil! Where did you come from?”

“From Earth.” Hedrock spoke aloud into the breeze that blew in his face. Later he would explain that he was not Dan.

The answer seemed all that Gil needed. He sighed, smiled, and turning over, withdrew mentally into a deep sleep. Hedrock began to prowl around the boxes, looking for dextrose tablets. He found a bottle of the quick-acting food, and slipped a tablet into Gil’s mouth. It should, he thought, dissolve gradually. Satisfied that he had done all he could for the moment, he turned to the other men. He doled out water to each of the three in turn, and then dextrose tablets. He was straightening from the work when a spider-thought touched him, matter-of-fact in its steely overtones.