Питер Филлипс - In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

“I can’t,” Kress said. “My skimmer is destroyed, and I can’t get any of the others to start. I don’t know how to reprogram them. Can you come out for me?”

“Yes,” said Wo. “Shade and I will leave at once, but it is more than two hundred kilometers from Asgard to you, and there is equipment we will need to deal with the deranged sandking you’ve created. You cannot wait there. You have two feet. Walk. Go due east, as near as you can determine, as quickly as you can. The land out there is pretty desolate. We can find you easily with an aerial search, and you’ll be safely away from the sandking. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Simon Kress. “Yes, oh, yes.”

They signed off, and he walked quickly toward the door. He was halfway there when he heard the noise—a sound halfway between a pop and a crack.

One of the sandkings had split open. Four tiny hands covered with pinkish-yellow blood came up out of the gap and began to push the dead skin aside.

Kress began to run.

He had not counted on the heat.

The hills were dry and rocky. Kress ran from the house as quickly as he could, ran until his ribs ached and his breath was coming in gasps. Then he walked, but as soon as he had recovered he began to run again. For almost an hour he ran and walked, ran and walked, beneath the fierce hot sun. He sweated freely, and wished that he had thought to bring some water. He watched the sky in hopes of seeing Wo and Shade.

He was not made for this. It was too hot, and too dry, and he was in no condition. But he kept himself going with the memory of the way the maw had breathed, and the thought of the wriggling little things that by now were surely crawling all over his house. He hoped Wo and Shade would know how to deal with them.

He had his own plans for Wo and Shade. It was all their fault, Kress had decided, and they would suffer for it. Lissandra was dead, but he knew others in her profession. He would have his revenge. He promised himself that a hundred times as he struggled and sweated his way east.

At least he hoped it was east. He was not that good at directions, and he wasn’t certain which way he had run in his initial panic, but since then he had made an effort to bear due east, as Wo had suggested. When he had been running for several hours, with no sign of rescue, Kress began to grow certain that he had gone wrong.

When several more hours passed, he began to grow afraid. What if Wo and Shade could not find him? He would die out here. He hadn’t eaten in two days; he was weak and frightened; his throat was raw for want of water. He couldn’t keep going. The sun was sinking now, and he’d be completely lost in the dark. What was wrong? Had the sandkings eaten Wo and Shade? The fear was on him again, filling him, and with it a great thirst and a terrible hunger. But Kress kept going. He stumbled now when he tried to run, and twice he fell. The second time he scraped his hand on a rock, and it came away bloody. He sucked at it as he walked, and worried about infection.

The sun was on the horizon behind him. The ground grew a little cooler, for which Kress was grateful. He decided to walk until last light and settle in for the night. Surely he was far enough from the sandkings to be safe, and Wo and Shade would find him come morning.

When he topped the next rise, he saw the outline of a house in front of him.

It wasn’t as big as his own house, but it was big enough. It was habitation, safety. Kress shouted and began to run toward it. Food and drink, he had to have nourishment, he could taste the meal now. He was aching with hunger. He ran down the hill towards the house, waving his arms and shouting to the inhabitants. The light was almost gone now, but he could still make out a half-dozen children playing in the twilight. “Hey there,” he shouted. “Help, help.”

They came running toward him.

Kress stopped suddenly. “No,” he said, “oh, no. Oh, no.” He backpedaled, slipped on the sand, got up and tried to run again. They caught him easily. They were ghastly little things with bulging eyes and dusky orange skin. He struggled, but it was useless. Small as they were, each of them had four arms, and Kress had only two.

They carried him toward the house. It was a sad, shabby house built of crumbling sand, but the door was quite large, and dark, and it breathed. That was terrible, but it was not the thing that set Simon Kress to screaming. He screamed because of the others, the little orange children who came crawling out from the castle, and watched impassive as he passed. All of them had his face.

Introduction: “It’s Dark Between the Stars” © 2013 by Hank Davis

“A Walk in the Dark” by Arthur C. Clarke first appeared in Thrilling Wonder Stories , August 1950 © 1950 by Standard Magazines, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency, Inc. for the author’s estate.

“Frog Water” by Tony Daniel appears here for the first time. © 2013 by Tony Daniel. Published by permission of the author.

”Lost Memory” by Peter Phillips first appeared in Galaxy , May, 1952. © 1952 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of Andrew Dibbon, executor of the author’s estate.

“Dragons” by Sarah A. Hoyt appears here for the first time. © 2013 by Sarah A. Hoyt. Published by permission of the author.

“The Last Weapon” by Robert Sheckley originally appeared in Star Science Fiction Stories , © 1953 by Ballantine Books, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Donald Maass Literary Agency for the author’s estate.

“Mongoose” by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette first appeared in Lovecraft Unbound , Dark Horse Comics, 2009. © 2009by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette. Reprinted by permission of the authors.

“Medusa” by Theodore Sturgeon originally appeared in Astounding Science Fiction , February 1942. © 1996 by the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust. Reprinted by permission of the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust.

“The Searcher” by James H. Schmitz originally appeared in Analog , February 1966. © The Conde Nast Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Barry Malzberg for the author’s estate.

“The Rhine’s World Incident” by Neal Asher originally appeared in Subterfuge , NewCon Press, 2008. © 2008 by Neal Asher. Reprinted by permission of the author.

“Nothing Happens on the Moon” by Paul Ernst first appeared in Astounding Science-Fiction , February 1939, © 1939 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc. All attempts to locate the holder of rights to this story have been unsuccessful. If a holder will get in touch with Baen Books, payment will be made.

“Visiting Shadow” by Hank Davis appears here for the first time. © 2013 by Hank Davis. Published by permission of the author.

“The God of the Asteroid” by Clark Ashton Smith first appeared in an abridged version as “Master of the Asteroid” in Wonder Stories , October 1932. Reprinted by permission of William Dorman, executor of the author’s estate.

“Sandkings” by George R. R. Martin originally appeared in Omni , August 1979. © 1979 by Omni International, Ltd. Reprinted by permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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