Mack Reynolds: After Utopia

He was evidently waiting for something. He knew not what. He stuck to his room, emerging only to take his meals. Even that he discontinued after spotting Whiteley passing the pension’s street window one day. From then on, he had Luigi deliver his food to his room. The little Italian said nothing. Probably he had seen men on the run before and was possibly wondering if it was the sort of thing where he might pick up a few thousand francs by informing on his guest.

A piece of delicate electrical equipment from Sweden finally came. He dumped all of his clothes and other belongings from his suitcase and filled it with some of his precision tools, the equipment he had been working on, and a small folding entrenching tool.

He carried his suitcase out of his room, locking the door behind him, paid off Luigi, and made his way into the street. As he walked down from the Petit Zocco toward the harbor and the Avenue de Espana, where he could get a cab, he heard the sound of quick pattering feet behind him.

He spun and stared. It was Dan Whiteley, running hard.

Tracy Cogswell sprinted down the long incline and past the Grand Mosque. He caromed from time to time against protesting Moors and Arabs. Behind him, the lanky Dan Whiteley was shouting in rage.

He was comparatively safe. Even if Whiteley had gunfire in mind, it couldn’t be done here. Besides, a dead Tracy Cogswell could never return the nearly twenty thousand dollars he’d had custody of, and Whiteley had no way of knowing it had all been spent by now. Besides, again, no matter how dedicated the Canadian might be, Cogswell doubted that the other could find it within him to shoot his old companion. They’d been through too much together.

He slammed out onto the Avenue de Espana and with providential luck, ran immediately into a Chico Cab the moment he emerged from the Marine Gate. He climbed in, yelled at the driver to take him to the Boulevard Pasteur. He peered over his shoulder, saw the frantic Dan Whiteley trying to find a cab and failing.

On Pasteur Boulevard he exchanged cabs and rode up the Rue Alexandria to the Marshan district in the vicinity of the Carthaginian tombs. Here he switched cabs again and ordered the driver to the Grottos of Hercules on the Atlantic coast.

It was dark by the time they arrived. He dismissed the driver, who looked at him strangely for only a brief moment and then took off. Tracy Cogswell had given him, in way of a tip, the last francs he had in his pockets.

For a moment, Tracy Cogswell stared out over the sea, watching the beer-head waves break in their desperation against the volcanic rock that lined the shore at this point. Some of the grottos could be seen here. He could see the Grottos of Hercules, where the mythological Greek hero had supposedly lived while throwing up the Pillars of Hercules and seeking the Golden Apples of the Hesperides. Probably the world’s strongest man had never existed, but Neolithic remains in the grottos indicated that humans had been here long before the Greeks had infiltrated the peninsula that now bears their name.

He took up his suitcase and walked the mile or so to the monument he had constructed. He entered it and bolted the heavy door behind him.

His conscious mind was beginning to find a horror that surpassed anything he had suffered thus far. He realized that the culmination of all that had gone on for these past weeks was now upon him. And he still had no conception of what he was about.

Tracy Cogswell brought the entrenching tool from his bag, unfolded it, and began to dig. In about two hours he had broken through to a chamber beneath: a natural chamber, related to the larger grottos in the vicinity.

He tugged and levered his large metal box until he was finally able to lower it into the small cave. He set up a heavy flashlight, brought forth his tools and began attaching the equipment he’d labored upon so long to the various entries and nipples that had obviously been built to receive it. He worked for many hours.

Finally, it was through. Somehow he knew it was through.

With the entrenching tool, he then began steps to close the cave’s narrow entrance behind him. To bury himself alive !

He strained mentally, his mind screaming its agony, without effect. He worked, zombielike, heedless of his growing horror, his pyramiding, mind-shattering horror.

When it was done, he climbed into the metal box. And now he understood. The container which looked like a coffin was exactly that.

He brought a hypodermic needle from a set that he had purchased a week before, filled it with a combination of drugs he had concocted several days before, and pressed it home in his left arm.

He leaned back, closed the metal top above him, flicked the lugs securely and—his true mind collapsing within itself—sighed and died.

Tracy Cogswell awoke. That isn’t quite the word. He came alive again.

His first impression was: I’m whole again. I’m in complete control of my own mind and body.

Unconsciously, his hand, weak and trembling, went up to caress the scar which ran along the ridge of his jaw. The scar was gone. But it couldn’t be, he’d had the scar since the age of seventeen.

And it came to him suddenly that his left arm was no longer stiff at the elbow. Was this his own body? What had happened?

Everything was flowing back to him. The insane happenings. His body taken over by… by whatever it was that had taken it over. The monument, the coffin, the expenditure of all the money the International Executive Committee had entrusted him with.

He looked about the room. A man of approximately thirty years of age was seated beside the bed, evidently waiting for Tracy to awaken. He was slight of build and looked considerably like the younger Leslie Howard playing some easygoing part. He seemed to be interested in a piece of what looked like green stone. He was holding it in a somewhat cramped fashion, running his thumb over its surface.

His eyes came idly to Tracy Cogswell’s face and lit up when he noticed Cogswell was awake. He had a lazy charm which was immediately felt.

He said, “Well, awake at last, eh?”

Cogswell took in the other’s clothes, or, rather, the lack of them. A brief vest-like top garment beneath which the chest was bare, a kilt of some ultrasoft material, and sandals. He’d never seen such garb anywhere. He still looked like Leslie Howard, but as though the actor was done up for a masquerade.

The other came to his feet in a fluid, lazy motion. “My name’s Edmonds,” he said. “Jo Edmonds. Just a moment, I’ll be right back.”

He left, and Tracy Cogswell looked about the room. His mind felt blank. There was too much to assimilate. The room was attractive enough, comfortable looking, but as alien in appearance as the costume of… what was the fellow’s name?… Jo Edmonds.

Edmonds returned with an older man, who was obviously excited.

“Well,” he said happily. “Well, we did it, didn’t we?”

“What?” Cogswell said, his voice still stiff.

The older man’s costume was as bizarre as Edmonds’ was bizarre but without similarity. His clothing resembled the haiks worn by the Arab women, or, better still, a Roman toga: white and draping.

Jo Edmonds said, “Tracy Cogswell, may I introduce Academician Walter Stein.” He paused for a moment, smiled lazily, and added, “the genius responsible for your presence here.” His thumb was still caressing the bit of green stone.

Cogswell felt too weak even to come to his elbow. “Why?” he said.

Stein bustled over to him, patted his pillow, obviously pleased. “Now, no more now,” he chortled. “Later, when you’re stronger. Now you must rest. First, we’ll get just a touch of food into you, and then you’ll rest. Oh, there must be quite a bit of rest at first.”