The Second Science Fiction MEGAPACK®. Robert Silverberg
toward Earth. Crane peered through the crystal and gasped.
Below him was the ball of the Earth. It looked three times the size of the moon. And it was no longer his Earth. It was a globe of fire mottled with black clouds. At the northernmost pole there was a tiny patch of white, and even as Crane watched, it was suddenly blotted over with hazy tones of red, scarlet, and crimson. Hallmyer had been right.
He lay frozen in the cup of the nose for hours as the ship descended, watching the flames gradually fade away to leave nothing but the dense blanket of black around the Earth. He lay numb with horror, unable to understand—unable to reckon up the billions of people snuffed out, a green fair planet reduced to ashes and cinders. His family, home, friends, everything that was once dear and close to him—gone. He could not think of Evelyn.
Air, whistling outside, awoke some instinct in him. The few shreds of reason left told him to go down with his ship and forget everything in the thunder and destruction, but the instinct of life forced him to his feet. He climbed up to the store chest and prepared for the landing. Parachute, a small oxygen tank—a knapsack of supplies. Only half aware of what he was doing, he dressed for the descent, buckled on the ’chute and opened the port. Umber whined pathetically, and he took the heavy dog in his arms and stepped out into space.
But space hadn’t been so clogged, the way it was now. Then it had been difficult to breathe. But that was because the air had been rare—not filled with dry clogging grit like now.
Every breath was a lungful of ground glass—or ashes—or cinders—
* * * *
The pieces of memory sagged apart. Abruptly he was in the present again—a dense, black present that hugged him with soft weight and made him fight for breath. Crane struggled in mad panic and then relaxed.
It had happened before. A long time past he’d been buried deep under ashes when he’d stopped to remember. Weeks ago—or days—or months. Crane clawed with his hands, inching forward through the mound of cinders that the wind had thrown over him. Presently he emerged into the light again.
The wind had died away. It was time to begin his crawl to the sea once more.
The vivid pictures of his memory scattered again before the grim vista that stretched out ahead. Crane scowled. He remembered too much, and too often. He had the vague hope that if he remembered hard enough, he might change one of the things he had done—just a very little thing—and then all this would become untrue. He thought: It might help if everyone remembered and wished at the same time—but there isn’t any more everyone. I’m the only one. I’m the last memory on Earth. I’m the last life.
He crawled. Elbows, knee, elbows, knee—and then Hallmyer was crawling alongside and making a great game of it. He chortled and plunged in the cinders like a happy sea lion.
Crane said; “But why do we have to get to the sea?”
Hallmyer blew a spume of ashes.
“Ask her,” he said, pointing to Crane’s other side.
Evelyn was there, crawling seriously, intently; mimicking Crane’s smallest action.
“It’s because of our house,” she said. “You remember our house, darling? High on the cliff. We were going to live there forever and ever, breathing the ozone and taking morning dips. I was there when you left. Now you’re coming back to the house at the edge of the sea. Your beautiful flight is over, dear, and you’re coming back to me. We’ll live together, just we two, like Adam and Eve—”
Crane said: “That’s nice.”
Then Evelyn turned her head and screamed: “Oh, Stephen! Watch out!” and Crane felt the menace closing in on him again. Still crawling, he stared back at the vast gray plains of ash and saw nothing. When he looked at Evelyn again, he saw only his shadow, sharp and black. Presently it, too, faded away as the marching shaft of sunlight passed.
But the dread remained. Evelyn had warned him twice, and she was always right. Crane stopped and turned and settled himself to watch. If he was really being followed, he would see whatever it was coming along his tracks.
* * * *
There was a painful moment of lucidity. It cleaved through his fever and bewilderment, bringing with it the sharpness and strength of a knife.
I’m going mad, he thought. The corruption in my leg has spread to my brain. There is no Evelyn, no Hallmyer, no menace. In all this land there is no life but mine—and even ghosts and spirits of the underworld must have perished in the inferno that girdled the planet. No—there is nothing but me and my sickness. I’m dying—and when I perish, everything will perish. Only a mass of lifeless cinders will go on.
But there was a movement.
Instinct again. Crane dropped his head and played dead. Through slitted eyes he watched the ashen plains, wondering if death was playing tricks with his eyes. Another facade of rain was beating down toward him, and he hoped he could make sure before all vision was obliterated.
Yes. There.
A quarter mile back, a gray-brown shape was flitting along the gray surface. Despite the drone of the distant rain, Crane could hear the whisper of trodden cinders and see the little clouds kicking up. Stealthily he groped for the revolver in the knapsack as his mind reached feebly for explanations and recoiled from fear.
The thing approached, and suddenly Crane squinted and understood. He recalled Umber kicking with fear and springing away from him when the ’chute landed them on the ashen face of the Earth.
“Why, it’s Umber,” he murmured. He raised himself. The dog halted. “Here boy!” Crane croaked gaily. “Here, boy!”
He was overcome with joy. He realized that a miserable loneliness had hung over him, almost a horrible sensation of oneness in emptiness. Now his was not the only life. There was another. A friendly life that could offer love and companionship. Hope kindled again.
“Here, boy!” he repeated. “Come on, boy—”
After a while he stopped trying to snap his fingers. The Great Dane hung back, showing fangs and a lolling tongue. The dog was emaciated to a skeleton and its eyes gleamed red and ugly in the dusk. As Crane called once more, mechanically, the dog snarled. Puffs of ash leaped beneath its nostrils.
He’s hungry, Crane thought, that’s all. He reached into the knapsack and at the gesture the dog snarled again. Crane withdrew the chocolate bar and laboriously peeled off the paper and silver foil. Weakly he tossed it toward Umber. It fell far short. After a minute of savage uncertainty, the dog advanced slowly and gabbled up the food. Ashes powdered its muzzle. It licked its chops ceaselessly and continued to advance on Crane.
Panic jerked within him. A voice persisted: This is no friend. He has no love or companionship for you. Love and companionship have vanished from the land along with life. Now there is nothing left but hunger.
“No—” Crane whispered. “That isn’t right. We’re the last of life on Earth. It isn’t right that we should tear at each other and seek to devour—”
But Umber was advancing with a slinking sidle, and his teeth showed sharp and white. And even as Crane stared at him, the dog snarled and lunged.
Crane thrust up an arm under the dog’s muzzle, but the weight of the charge carried him backward. He cried out in agony as his broken, swollen leg was struck by the weight of the dog. With his free right hand he struck weakly, again and again, scarcely feeling the grind of teeth gnawing his left arm. Then something metallic was pressed under him and he realized he was lying on the revolver he had let fall.
He groped for it and prayed the cinders had not clogged its mechanism. As Umber let go his arm and tore at his throat, Crane brought the gun up and jabbed the muzzle blindly against the dog’s body. He pulled and pulled the trigger until the roars died away and only empty clicks sounded. Umber shuddered in the ashes before him, his body nearly shot in two. Thick scarlet stained the gray.
Evelyn