Eando Binder - Anton York, Immortal

The silence became more impressive, if that were possible, as York strode into the room, followed by his dejected looking prisoner. York stood before them, a man of thirty-five years of age, tall, strong, virile. Physically he was no different from any other man in the prime of life, but he carried an aura of super intellect that was immediately noticeable. The Councillors felt themselves shrinking mentally.

“You say you are Anton York,” stammered the Chief Councillor, trying to be officious. “But what proof have you—” He broke off, staring fascinatedly into York’s wisdom-filled eyes. “You are Anton York!” he whispered, in stark realization that he could be no other with eyes like that.

York told his story, in what to them was queerly archaic English. At the end he gestured to Chard. “He is your prisoner,” York concluded. “His sentence will be in your hands.”

Mason Chard said nothing. He seemed utterly deflated in spirit But his eyes glared at York with a world of hate toward this man from the past who had come back like a ghost to spoil his plans. York stared back dispassionately. They stood thus, eye to eye, for a long minute. Two immortals from a long-ago era, meeting in a far future to find themselves opposed in aim and purpose. All the things of their time were dead and forgotten, except as history, but here they stood, a millennium later, to find themselves natural enemies.

The Chief Councillor tried to look sternly at the Immortal, but was awed by him too. This man had eluded the forces of law and order in the Solar System for one thousand years. At last guards were called in, to conduct him to a prison for later trial.

“And now, sir,” said the Chief Councillor, turning to York, “on behalf of the Supreme Council of Earth, the here-present Council of Jove, and the united peoples of the Solarian Empire, may I extend our deepest gratitude for—”

York waited patiently while the Chief Councillor, rising to the occasion, went on in this vein for several minutes. When he stopped for breath, York acknowledged the speech with a few polite words and then asked a question.

“Has the secret of immortality been rediscovered?”

“No,” replied the Councillor. “Mason Chard, the only mortal alive today, was from the original group of the 20th Century.”

Within himself, York sighed in relief. His father had been fortunate to stumble on one of the greatest secrets of the Universe, the secret of immortality. Pure, blind luck it had been, probably, against all the laws of chance. Better that the secret never again be discovered. It had caused sufficient trouble at one time. It had more possibilities of harm than good, as exemplified by Dr. Vinson’s disastrous scheme, and now this Mason Chard’s subversive career.

York stayed with the Jovian Council, an honoured guest, to ask many more questions. He had heard the histories and doings of many queer peoples in interstellar space, but this one had the appeal of familiarity. He thrilled to the epic thousand years of mankind’s advent in the Solar System.

Then, to see this great glory of man’s dominance in the nine-world empire, he and Vera embarked on a tour of the planets. But they did not leave Jupiter until they had witnessed the trial of Mason Chard. The criminal seemed to have suffered a change of heart after his encounter with York. He promised that in exchange for his life, forfeit under the law, he would work as a scientist for the betterment of mankind. By a narrow margin, his request was granted. A plan was drawn up for a laboratory to be built on the sixth satellite of Jupiter, the very one he had tried to destroy, in which he would labour, under heavy guard.

“They had better make the guard strong enough,” was York’s private comment to his wife in their ship. “Mason Chard is not the one to be trusted. The memory, of a thousand years of absolute freedom is going to irk him considerably as his prison years go by.” He shrugged. “But that is their problem. You and I, Vera, will make a tour of the Solar System, see just what the posterity of our time has done. It will be something like viewing the handiwork of our children.”

Their little globular ship was seen on every one of the worlds in the next year. The two immortals, everywhere looked-upon with awe and wonder, were a little amazed themselves at the wideness of man’s activity. Earth’s sons were in evidence everywhere, in communities ranging from great spanned cities to little isolated outposts a million miles from nowhere, literally. No environment had proved too trying. No dangers too great No difficulties too hazardous. No other race of beings equal or superior.

With little more than his bare nerve, man had gained a toehold on a variety of misfit worlds. It was the beginning of a truly colossal undertaking—the complete annexation of all. the Solar System. On remote, frozen Pluto, a band of hardy scientists reconnoitred, for possible colonization, the wastes of that planet.

On the way back from Pluto to Earth, York became very thoughtful. “Vera,” he said suddenly, “how do you suppose the colonists on Venus would like to have a moon in their skies?”

“What a crazy question!” said Vera, laughing. “Are you serious?”

“I was never more serious in my life,” York objected. He went on musingly: “If Mason Chard did nothing else, he gave me a great idea. He moved a moon—a world! Man, in progressing, must either adapt to his environment, or change the environment to suit himself. Vera, Vera!” he cried. “Don’t you see? Why not remake the Solar System to suit mankind?”

“But can they do it?” asked Vera, not quite grasping his meaning.

“They!” exclaimed York. “No—we! We can do it!”

Six months later York had completed his plans, stupendous plans which he presented to the Supreme Council on Earth n a simplified form. “All I will need,” he told them, “is the one ship built under my instructions, and full cooperation in certain state matters that will arise later.”

The Supreme Council, the rulers of all the empire, were stunned by the magnitude of the thing. They deliberated for two months. York was asked a million and one questions by experts and technicians, who were called upon to give their opinion. York was patient until they asked him if there would be danger.

“Danger?” he snorted, eyes ablaze suddenly. “No more than in any other human endeavour. No more than the pioneers who first settle a wilderness. Or to the man who first landed on Pluto with a clumsy ship. Or to the dawn man who ventured into the next jungle. All progress is hard won. It is the human heritage. It is not a question of danger—it is a question of courage!”

The grant was given. The parts for the great ship were manufactured at various centers of industry on Earth and shipped to the assembly ground York had been granted, near Sol City, the capital of the Solarian Empire. Under his watchful eye, it grew as a zeppelin-shaped craft a mile in length. Its interior was a maze of machinery patterned after York’s superscience. Only he understood their full possibilities.

Five years later it was launched, manned by a thousand picked spacemen and technicians. It rose into the sky like a mammoth cigar and lumbered off into space. As it left Earth, its great bulk delayed the next eclipse of the moon a hundredth of a second—the only man-made thing ever to do this!

York, alone with Vera in his private cabin which was perched like a conning tower above the nose, took pride in giving the orders that were to make a vision in his mind become reality. The Gargantuan ship eased past the orbit of Mars and approached the asteroids. Soon it passed asteroids which were far smaller and lighter than itself. Finally, the Cometoid, as it was named, hove to before Ceres, the largest of the asteroids, some 480 miles in diameter. A small colony of miners had already been safely taken away by another ship, leaving it deserted of human life.