Pennants flung up on a pink mind sky! Brass shields caught the sun. Grey animals shifted and came rushing in bristling tides of sword and plume and trumpet.
Eeeeeeeeeeeee! The rushing.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! The roaring.
Nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! The whirling.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm –
Ten thousand men hurled across the small hidden stage. Ten thousand men floated on the shellacked inner ball of his eye. Ten thousand javelins hissed between the small bone hulls of his head. Ten thousand jewelled guns exploded. Ten thousand voices chanted in his ears. Now his body was riven and extended, shaken and rolled, he was screaming, writhing, the plates of his skull threatened to burst asunder. The gabbling, the shrilling, as across bone plains of mind and continent of inner marrow, through gullies of vein, down hills of artery, over rivers of melancholy, came armies and armies, one army, two armies, swords flashed in the sun, bearing down upon each other, fifty thousand minds snatching, scrabbling, cutting at him, demanding, using. In a moment, the hard collision, one army on another, the rush, the blood, the sound, the fury, the death, the insanity!
Like cymbals, the armies struck!
He leaped up, raving. He ran across the desert. He ran and ran and did not stop running.
He sat down and cried. He sobbed until his lungs ached. He cried very hard and long. Tears ran down his cheeks. ‘God, God, help me, oh God, help me!’ he said.
All was normal again.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon. The rocks were baked by the sun. He managed, after a time, to cook himself a few hot biscuits, which he ate with strawberry jam.
‘At least I know what I’m up against,’ he told himself. ‘Oh, Lord, what a world! What an innocent-looking world, and what a monster it really is. It’s good no one ever explored it before. Or did they?’ He shook his aching head. Pity them, whoever crashed here before, if any ever did. Warm sun, hard rocks, not a sign of hostility.
Until you shut your eyes and relaxed your mind.
And the night and the voices and the insanity and the death padded in on soft feet.
‘I’m all right now, though,’ he said, proudly. ‘Look at that.’ He displayed his hand. By a supreme effort of will, it was no longer shaking. ‘I’ll show you who in hell’s ruler here,’ he announced to the innocent sky. ‘I am!’ He tapped his chest.
To think that thought could live that long! A million years, perhaps, all these throughts of death and disorder and conquest, lingering in the innocent but poisonous air of the planet, waiting for a real man to give them a channel through which they might issue again in all their senseless virulence.
Now that he was feeling better, it was all silly. All I have to do, he thought, is stay awake six nights. They won’t bother me that way. When I’m awake, I’m dominant. I’m stronger than those crazy monarchs and their silly tribes of sword-flingers and shield-bearers and horn-blowers. I’ll stay awake.
But can you? he wondered. Six whole nights? Awake?
There’s coffee and medicine and books and cards.
But I’m tired now, so tired, he thought. Can I hold out?
Well, if not – there’s always the gun.
Where will these silly monarchs be if you put a bullet through their stage? All the world’s a stage. No. You, Leonard Sale, are the small stage. And they the players. And what if you put a bullet through the wings, tearing down scenes, destroying curtains, ruining lines! Destroy the stage, the players, all if they aren’t careful!
First of all, he must radio through to Marsport, again. If there was any way they could rush the rescue ship sooner, then maybe he could hang on. Anyway, he must warn them what sort of planet this was, this so innocent-seeming spot of nightmare and fever vision –
He tapped on the radio key for a minute. His mouth tightened. The radio was dead.
It had sent through the proper rescue message, received a reply, and then extinguished itself.
The proper touch of irony, he thought. There was only one thing to do. Draw a plan.
This he did. He got a yellow pencil and delineated his six-day plan of escape.
Tonight, he wrote, read six more chapters of War and Peace. At four in the morning have hot black coffee. At four-fifteen take cards from pack and play ten games of solitaire. This should take until six-thirty when – more coffee. At seven o’clock, listen to early morning programmes from Earth, if the receiving equipment on the radio works at all. Does it?
He tried the radio receiver. It was dead.
Well, he wrote, from seven o’clock until eight, sing all the songs you remember, make your own entertainment. From eight until nine think about Helen King. Remember Helen. On second thought, think about Helen right now.
He marked that out with his pencil.
The rest of the days were set down in minute detail.
He checked the medical kit. There were several packets of tablets that would keep you awake. One tablet an hour every hour for six days. He felt quite confident.
‘Here’s mud in your evil eye, Iorr, Tylle!’
He swallowed one of the stay-awake tablets with a scalding mouth of black coffee.
Well, with one thing and another it was Tolstoy or Balzac, gin-rummy, coffee, tablets, walking, more Tolstoy, more Balzac, more gin-rummy, more solitaire. The first day passed, as did the second and the third.
On the fourth day he lay quietly in the shade of a rock, counting to a thousand by fives, then by tens, to keep his mind occupied and awake. His eyes were so tired he had to bathe them frequently in cool water. He couldn’t read, he was bothered with splitting headaches. He was so exhausted he couldn’t move. He was numb with medicine. He resembled a waxen dummy stuffed with things to preserve him in a state of horrified wakefulness. His eyes were glass, his tongue a rusted pike, his fingers felt as if they were gloved in needles and fur.
He followed the hand of his watch. One second less to wait, he thought. Two seconds, three seconds, four, five, ten, thirty seconds. A whole minute. Now an hour less time to wait. Oh, ship, hurry on thy appointed round!
He began to laugh softly.
What would happen if he just gave up, drifted off into sleep?
Sleep, ah, sleep; perchance to dream. All the world a stage … What if he gave up the unequal struggle, lapsed down?
Eeeeeeeeeeee, the high, shrill warning sound of battle metal.
He shivered. His tongue moved in his dry, burry mouth.
Iorr and Tylle would battle out their ancient battle.
Leonard Sale would become quite insane.
And whichever won the battle would take this ruin of an insane man, the shaking, laughing wild body, and wander it across the face of this world for ten, twenty years, occupying it, striding in it, pompous, holding court, making grand gestures, ordering heads severed, calling on inward, unseen dancing girls. Leonard Sale, what remained of him, would be led off to some hidden cave, there to be infested with wars and worms of wars for twenty insane years, occupied and prostituted by old and outlandish thoughts.
When the rescue ship arrived it would find nothing. Sale would be hidden somewhere by a triumphant army in his head. Hidden in some cleft of rock, placed there like a nest for Iorr to lie upon in evil occupation.
The thought of it almost broke him in half.
Twenty years of insanity. Twenty years of torture, doing what you don’t want to do. Twenty years of wars raging and being split apart, twenty years of nausea and trembling.
His head sank down between his knees. His eyes snapped and cracked and made soft noises. His eardrum popped tiredly.
Sleep, sleep, sang soft sea voices.
I’ll – I’ll make a proposition with you, listen, thought Leonard Sale. You, Iorr, you, too, Tylle! Iorr, you can occupy me on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Tylle, you can take me over on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Saturday. Thursday is maid’s night out. Okay?
Eeeeeeeeeee, sang the sea tides, seething in his brain.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh
hhh, sang the distant voices softly, soft.
What’ll you say, is it a bargain, Iorr, Tylle?
No, said a voice.
No, said another.
Greedy, both of you, greedy! complained Sale. A pox on both your houses!
He slept.
He was Iorr, jewelled rings on his hands. He arose beside his rocket and held out his fingers, commanding blind armies. He was Iorr, ancient ruler of jewelled warriors.
He was Tylle, lover of women, killer of dogs!
With some hidden bit of awareness, his hand crept to the holster at his hip. The sleeping hand withdrew the gun there. The hand lifted, the gun pointed.
The armies of Tylle and Iorr gave battle.
The gun exploded.
The bullet tore across Sale’s forehead, awakening him.
He stayed awake for another six hours, getting over his latest seige. He knew it to be hopeless now. He washed and bandaged the wound he had given himself. He wished he had aimed straighter and it was all over. He watched the sky. Two more days. Two more. Come on, ship, come on. He was heavy with sleeplessness.
No use. At the end of six hours he was raving badly. He took the gun up and put it down and took it up again, put it against his head, tightened his hand on the trigger, changed his mind, looked at the sky again.
Night settled. He tried to read, threw the book away. He tore it up and burned it, just to have something to do.
So tired. In another hour, he decided. If nothing happens, I’ll kill myself. This is for certain now. I’ll do it, this time.
He got the gun ready and laid it on the ground next to himself.
He was very calm now, though tired. It would be over and done. He would be dead.
He watched the minute hand of his watch. One minute, five minutes, twenty-five minutes.
The flame appeared on the sky.
It was so unbelievable he started to cry.
‘A rocket,’ he said, standing up. ‘A rocket!’ he cried, rubbing his eyes. He ran forward.
The flame brightened, grew, came down.
He waved frantically, running forward, leaving his gun, his supplies, everything behind. ‘You see that, Iorr, Tylle! You savages, you monsters, I beat you! I won ! They’re coming to rescue me now! I’ve won, damn you!’
He laughed harshly at the rocks and the sky and the backs of his hands.
The rocket landed. Leonard Sale stood swaying, waiting for the door to lid open.
‘Good-bye, Iorr, good-bye, Tylle!’ he shouted in triumph, grinning, eyes hot.
Eeeeeee, sang a diminishing roar in time.
Ahhhhhhhh, voices faded.
The rocket flipped wide its airlock. Two men jumped out.
‘Sale?’ they called. ‘We’re Ship ACDN13. Intercepted your SOS and decided to pick you up ourselves. The Marsport ship won’t get through until day after tomorrow. We want a spot of rest ourselves. Thought it’d be good to spend the night here, pick you up, and go on.’
‘No,’ said Sale, face melting with terror. ‘No spend night –’
He couldn’t talk. He fell to the ground.
‘Quick!’ said a voice, in the bleary vortex over him. ‘Give him a shot of food liquid, another of sedative. He needs sustenance and rest.’
‘No rest!’ screamed Sale.
‘Delirious,’ said one man, softly.
‘No sleep!’ screamed Sale.
‘There, there,’ said the man gently. A needle poked into Sale’s arm.
Sale thrashed. ‘No sleep, go!’ he mouthed horribly. ‘Oh, go!’
‘Delirious,’ said one man. ‘Shock.’
‘No sedatives!’ screamed Sale.
The sedative flowed into him.
Eeeeeeeee, sang the ancient winds.
Ahhhhhhhhhh, sang the ancient seas.
‘No sedative, no sleep, please, don’t, don’t, don’t!’ screamed Sale, trying to get up. ‘You – don’t understand!’
‘Take it easy, old man, you’re safe among us now, nothing to worry about,’ said the rescuer above him.
Leonard Sale slept. The two men stood over him.
As they watched, Sale’s features changed violently. He groaned and cried and snarled in his sleep. His face was riven with emotion. It was the face of a saint, a sinner, a fiend, a monster, a darkness, a light, one, many, an army, a vacuum, all all!
He writhed in his sleep.
Eeeeeeeee! the sound burst from his mouth. Ahhhhhhhhhh! he screamed.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ asked one of the two rescuers.
‘I don’t know. More sedatives?’
‘More sedatives. Nerves. He needs more sleep.’
They stuck the needle in his arm. Sale writhed and spat and moaned.
Then, suddenly, he was dead.
He lay there, the two men over him. ‘What a shame,’ said one of them. ‘Can you figure that?’
‘Shock. Poor guy. What a pity.’ They covered his face. ‘Did you ever see a face like that?’
‘Loneliness. Shock.’
‘Yes. Lord, what an expression! I hope never to see a face like that again.’
‘What a shame, waiting for us, and we arrive, and he dies anyway.’
They glanced around. ‘What shall we do? Shall we spend the night?’
‘Yes. It’s good to be out of the ship.’
‘We’ll bury him first, of course.’
‘Naturally.’
‘And spend the night in the open, with good air, right? Good to be in the open again. After two weeks in that damned ship.’
‘Right. I’ll find a spot for him. You start supper, eh?’
‘Done.’
‘Should be good sleeping tonight.’
‘Fine, fine.’
They made a grave and said a word over it. They drank their evening coffee silently. They looked at the lovely sky and the bright and beautiful stars.
‘What a night,’ they said, lying down.
‘Pleasant dreams,’ said one, rolling over.
And the other replied, ‘Pleasant dreams.’
They slept.
The Time of Going Away
THE thought was three days and three nights growing. During the days he carried it like a ripening peach in his head. During the nights he let it take flesh and sustenance, hung out on the silent air, coloured by country moon and country stars. He walked around and around the thought in the silence before dawn. On the fourth morning he reached up an invisible hand, picked it, and swallowed it whole.
He arose as swiftly as possible and burned all his old letters, packed a few clothes in a very small case, and put on his midnight suit and a tie the shiny colour of ravens’ feathers, as if he were in mourning. He sensed his wife in the door behind him watching his little play with the eyes of a critic who may leap onstage any moment and stop the show. When he brushed past her, he murmured, ‘Excuse me.’
‘Excuse me!’ she cried. ‘Is that all you say? Creeping around here, planning a trip!’
‘I didn’t plan it; it happened,’ he said. ‘Three days ago I got this premonition. I knew I was going to die.’
‘Stop that kind of talk,’ she said. ‘It makes me nervous.’
The horizon was mirrored softly in his eyes. ‘I hear my blood running slow. Listening to my bones is like standing in an attic hearing the beams shift and the dust settle.’
‘You’re only seventy-five,’ said his wife. ‘You stand on your own two legs, see, hear, eat, and sleep good, don’t you? What’s all this talk?’
‘It’s the natural tongue of existence speaking to me,’ said the old man. ‘Civilization’s got us too far away from our natural selves. Now you take the pagan islanders –’
‘I won’t!’
‘Everyone knows the pagan islanders get a feel for when it’s time to die. They walk around shaking hands with friends and give away all their earthly goods –’
‘Don’t their wives have a say?’
‘They give some of their earthly goods to their wiv
es.’
‘I should think so!’
‘And some to their friends –’
‘I’ll argue that!’
‘And some to their friends. Then they paddle their canoes off into the sunset and never return.’
His wife looked high up along him as if he were timber ripe for cutting. ‘Desertion!’ she said.
‘No, no, Mildred; death, pure and simple. The Time of Going Away, they call it.’
‘Did anyone ever charter a canoe and follow to see what those fools were up to?’
‘Of course not,’ said the old man, mildly irritated. ‘That would spoil everything.’
‘You mean they had other wives and pretty friends off on another island?’
‘No, no, it’s just a man needs aloneness, serenity, when his juices turn cold.’
‘If you could prove those fools really died, I’d shut up.’ His wife squinted one eye. ‘Anyone ever find their bones on those far islands?’
‘The fact is that they just sail into the sunset like animals who sense the Great Time at hand. Beyond that, I don’t wish to know.’
‘Well, I know,’ said the old woman. ‘You been reading more articles in the National Geographic about the Elephant Bone-yard.’
‘Graveyard, not Boneyard!’ he shouted.
‘Graveyard, Boneyard. I thought I burned those magazines; you got some hid?’
‘Look here, Mildred,’ he said severely, seizing the suitcase again. ‘My mind points north; nothing you say can head me south. I’m tuned to the infinite secret wellspring of the primitive soul.’
‘You’re tuned to whatever you read last in that bog-trotters’ gazette!’ She pointed a finger at him. ‘You think I got no memory?’
His shoulders fell. ‘Let’s not go through the list again, please.’
‘What about the Hairy Mammoth episode?’ she asked. ‘When they found that frozen elephant in the Russian tundra thirty years back? You and Sam Hertz, that old fool, with your fine idea of running off to Siberia to corner the world market in canned edible hairy mammoth? You think I don’t still hear you saying, “Imagine the prices members of the National Geographic Society will pay to have the tender meat of the Siberian hairy mammoth, ten thousand years old, ten thousand years extinct, right in their homes!” You think; my scars have healed from that?’