Eando Binder: Anton York, Immortal

York agreed. “Tell me this. Do you know why you are here, under a dome, pitted against Earth people?’

“No.”

“You don’t know why your kind have been put here, in hundreds of domes, pitted against hundreds of life forms?”

“I did not know of the other domes.” The creature was obviously startled. “I wonder—” His thoughts trailed to nothingness.

“What is your native world?”

“The planet system of another sun, according to a legend of ours. I was born here, of course. A long time ago, our progenitors were brought here to this dome.”

“And you have no idea why?”

“None. Now give me death.”

York gave the signal and a fusillade of bullets snuffed out the life of the last hypno-beast under that dome. York looked up. Were the dome builders staring down, watching in mockery? His hatred and loathing of the Beasts swiftly transferred to them. Why hadn’t they interfered? It must be against their plans to have the hypno-beasts wiped out under any one dome.

The maddening enigma of it grated York’s nerves. Was he a pawn in their hands? Or would he have the chance yet to do something, before they were quite aware of who he was and what he planned? If he could only get to his ship!

York worked rapidly. He altered the adjustments of his machine so it would radiate sheer energy. The scientific laws of this universe were no longer a mystery to him. He had the machine dragged to one part of the dome wall, and donned his space-suit. Its oxygen unit still held a trickle of the life-giving gas.

He faced the people he had freed of an age-long menace. “I am leaving the dome. But I will be back soon, to free you and return you to Earth. I swear it.”

He stepped through a patch of the energy wall, neutralized by his machine’s counter energy. Like a god he vanished from their sight, as he had so often from the people back on Earth.

Beyond the dome wall, he crouched for a moment, quietly, warily. Would the dome builders pounce on him now, like a cat on a mouse? But nothing happened.

York left the dome, treading through a pulpy jungle. The Cepheid luminary was just at its periodic maximum, shining as a blue-hot sun. The outer coating of York’s suit, a product of his advanced science, threw off waves of blistering heat.

He reached the ship, not daring to call Vera mentally before that moment. He jerked the lever of the air-lock and rushed in.

“Vera!” he called vocally. “I’m back. Vera—”

There was no answering sound in the cabin. York ran through the storerooms and laboratory before he knew the truth. Vera was not there! At first he felt almost physically sick. Then York’s nerves eased. Perhaps she had merely stepped out to gather pulp food. Guardedly he sent out a mental call, extending its range slowly in a widening circle about the ship. When no answer came, he recklessly swept a circle a hundred miles around.

Still there was no answer. Vera could not possibly be within range without answering—if she were alive.

York’s eyes went bleak. There was only one answer. The dome, builders had discovered the ship and captured Vera!

The icy rage that swept through York’s veins at that moment would have made any of his past enemies—the fifty Immortals, Mason Chard, the Three Eternals—tremble in stark fear. No savage Stone Age man, losing his mate of a few years, could match the blazing agony that seared within York. Vera had been his love, his constant companion, for two thousand years.

York made a vow, in a cold, deadly voice.

“No matter what or who you are, dome builders, I will search you out. And if you’ve touched a hair of her head—” He could find no threat that was adequate.

ANTON YORK laboured for a month. He feared detection at any moment. Why didn’t the dome builders come back for him? Why hadn’t the ship been guarded? The sheer strangeness of it utterly baffled him. Vera, of course, would never betray him. But by adding two and two, they must know of York. Were they so all-powerful that they feared nothing?

In that month, York accomplished miracles. He worked at his gravity engine, a protective screen against weapons, and his own weapons. Before, the ship had landed almost a derelict. Now it was again a floating fortress of might, as it had been in his own Universe.

It was not miraculous. It was simply that York had finally solved the new universe’s master laws. It took only minor adjustments to fit his instruments and energy coils to work under those new principles. And by virtue of lower entropy—higher available energy—York’s ship was now a more formidable fighting craft than it had been in Earth’s Universe.

Seated at his controls, he raised the ship one day. Lightly as a feather it darted up. His energy coils drew power from the planet’s gravity field, like a sponge sucking up water. As a test, he shot into space and rammed his ship forward at the speed of light. He braked with his inertialess field to zero in three seconds, without feeling the slightest jar. The engines hummed smoothly, like a snoring giant.

As the test of his protective screen, he chased down a meteor and cracked into it at twice the speed of light. His screen shattered the huge stone instantaneously. His hull was untouched.

He chased down another meteor and turned his gamma-sonic weapon on it. The livid beam whiffed fifty millions of tons of matter away in twenty-five seconds. He was amazed himself. In his own Universe, where lower energies reigned, it would have taken at least twice that time.

Satisfied, he dropped back to the planet, hovering over the domes. He saw their full extent now. There was more than a thousand in all, occupying a good portion of the otherwise barren wastes.

York drew a deep breath. He felt better now, better than he had for the three years he had been in this universe. He was no longer a marooned, helpless being. At his fingertips again was super-power.

He pondered. What was he to do? How could he find the dome builders? And Vera? They seemed bent on ignoring him. He speculated the thought of searching the other twelve planets of the Cepheid sun. This one seemed to be merely an experiment station. Find their center and confront them—

York smiled suddenly. He had a better idea. Ignore him, would they? His hands moved to the controls. His little globular ship dropped toward a dome. York sprayed down energy neutralizing force and his ship dropped through the dome wall into its interior. The wall reformed back of him. He was within. This was the very first dome he had seen, with its pathetic ape-race dominated by the hypno-beasts.

To the denizens of the dome, it must have seemed like the visitation of a god. The globular ship darted around like an angry wasp. Whenever a hypno-beast appeared, a ray stabbed down, and a puff of black soot replaced the Beast. In an hour, York had cleared the dome of every lurking hypno-beast. At the last, he hung over a crude village of the cowering, trembling ape-people, hurling down a mental message.

“You are free of your enemies! You will be returned to your home world eventually. I, Anton York, say it!”

This last was a challenge to the dome builders. From dome to dome York went. He freed the snowbird people of their hypno-beasts, and the silicon-men, telling both that they would be returned to their home worlds. Then he rocketed to other domes, raying down the hypno-beasts relentlessly. Intelligent they might be, and as deserving of their own existence as any other race. But their connection with the dome builders branded them, in York’s mind, as inimical, only deserving extinction.

Dome after dome, and the hunt sang through York’s veins lustily. This was the sport of the gods! But suddenly the cold shock of mason doused his mind. Another ship appeared before his, going from one dome to another.