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Hunters Out of Space

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<h2>CHAPTER 19</h2> SIX months had passed since the battle. The city of the violet dome was rebuilt. The ashes of the dead had been strewn upon the mossy plains. The two ships now stood in peace and gazed at each other across the expanse of moss and grass that had replaced the cinders left from the fighting. Another city was being built a few miles away. Ato had soon recovered from his wounds, and as ship’s captain had married Maya and Odin. So it was over. But Odin and Maya had asked for Gunnar’s ashes, and had buried them out there on the plain, beneath a gaunt tree which was something like a mesquite. Gunnar would have liked that. Twisted, gnarled, and tough, the tree spread out its branches above him; and a bird had built its nest there and sang its old song of stars and men and time. The Lorens were a happier people. One of the first things that the lights had done was to plunge back into space. Within a few days they returned, trailing a huge dust-cloud behind them. It must have been the last salvage from the explosion that Odin had witnessed back there in space. The cloud trailed out in one great streamer and slowly circled the ancient sun. Slowly the spirals came nearer to the fires. The sun fed. Its old warmth returning, it smiled at its lone child. The air of the planet of the Lorens grew warmer and fresher. The plains seemed to shake themselves as a new spring returned to enliven the land and take up its old work of helping life to begat new life. Out there in empty space, Odin fancied, Death lowered his scythe and smiled and shrugged his lean shoulders as he went away to harvest other suns. Oh, it was a wonderful spring. The trip was over, but what a haggard few had beached the boats at the vast edge of space! The few surviving Brons were happy now. Those who had been Grim Hagen’s slaves out of their loyalty to Maya were offered anything that they wished. However, it turned out that most of them wanted little except peace and rest. The families of Brons that survived were now building their houses above ground—although the Lorens had generously offered them quarters below the city. The Brons wanted no more of caves or tunnels. They preferred to live up there on this world’s surface and take their chances with frost and flood. Opal had been beautiful and wonderful. It had been like living eastward in Eden, but Eden’s gardens were no more. And perhaps it would be better to face the elements and meet them head-on instead of seeking shelter. For time and chance were working everywhere—even in Eden—and as Gunnar had always said, a fighting heart could carry a man to the last. <hr class="tb" /> The days and the nights were longer than on earth. The work was long and hard. But the world of the Lorens was being rebuilt. And at night, Odin usually set an hour aside to work on his notes. At times he talked with Wolden, although he could never be completely at ease when talking to a light. Nor could he understand half the things that Wolden told him. Wolden quoted formulas on time and space, mass and speed. Odin guessed that the belt which he had once used so briefly embodied a No-Time and No-Space factor. But this was beyond him. As for Ato, he grew moodier every day. At last he came to see Maya and Odin one evening. Sitting by the fire—for the nights there were chilly—he talked to them of his decision. “It was a great fight,” he said. “And I will always remember it. If Nea had lived, I might have felt differently. But Wolden and the others say that they will not stay here much longer. I have decided to go with them. Theirs is a sort of Nirvana, a timeless, dimensionless existence. Yesterday and tomorrow, near and far, are one—” Maya shivered. “It sounds like a frightening existence. I don’t understand it at all. It is as though they had become spirits without dying.” “Perhaps,” said Ato thoughtfully, looking into the fire. “You may be right. But they say it is wonderful to be freed from the shackles of space and time. You remember the belt, Odin? Wolden has merely improved upon it. Soon, I think, I will put on the belt that they brought for me and go forth with them like <ins title="a mythological hunting dog who always caught his prey">Laelaps</ins> to invade the night.” He paused a minute and then added cautiously, “They have brought two more belts with them. For you two, if you should decide—” Maya shivered. Odin laughed, as he shook his head. “No. I am a man. Just flesh and blood, Ato. And I choose to stay here and take the blows of time. To endure to the end—even as my fathers before on earth—” Maya snuggled against his shoulder as she nodded her agreement. Ato smiled. “I thought so—But we will say no more about it. There is one thing that you may not understand. Wolden has tried to tell you. But he is a scientist, and his words are different and difficult to follow. You and I have fought shoulder to shoulder. Perhaps I can explain—” Then he talked for nearly an hour about the passing of time—and how a ship could circle the universe at the speed of light—and upon returning it might find its home-port nothing but dust and memories. For while their hearts were beating once a month out there in space tide after tide of years had flowed over their homes and their loved ones. It was a sad, bewildering speech. It reduced time to nothing—and both Maya and Odin felt a lump of ice in their throats as Ato talked. But even after he had finished, they shook their heads and clung together. A chill wind from space seemed to be blowing through the room, whispering of time’s vagaries, and how space had different clocks, and how the affairs of men were swept by time and chance down to a sunless sea. For the last time Jack Odin and Maya refused Ato’s offer. Eden was behind him. Immortality was lost. But Adam and Eve held close to each other there at the edge of space—and as they left Eden behind an old sad nobility clung to them. Something brave and beautiful, like the last leaves of autumn glinting in the setting sun. <hr class="tb" /> The notes that Doctor Jack Odin sent me are ended. But even as before he wrote a short letter and added it to the package at the last. <div class="letter">Dear Joe: (he began) Wolden and Ato have agreed to deliver this message and the attached notes. Wolden says that it is a terrible experience to go from the fourth-dimensional light of his into a time-bound world. He will not again obligate himself as a messenger boy. I promised to let you know how we fared. And here is the tale, if you can piece it together. And I suppose you can, for you always liked to monkey around with words. (From this distance, I would say that putting words together has been both the curse and the blessing of your entire life.) I fear that I cannot understand Ato’s and Wolden’s talk. But let me put it this way. We traveled fast and furiously through space. And all the while, Father Time was laughing at us. You will remember how Grim Hagen aged on Aldebaran while we sped after him in what seemed to be only a few weeks. Well, if we left in The Nebula now and plunged back to earth we would arrive there two hundred years from the day that we took off. And from what I saw of your civilization at the last, I have no desire to see it two hundred years later. Bewildering, isn’t it? Nea always said that we would have to use new concepts and develop new mores if we ever conquered space. She was right. Theoretically, you are gone and forgotten for two centuries. And yet, Wolden assures me that he can deliver this to you in short order. Therefore, time does not exist as we know it. Or is it a river that can be navigated? Our home is finished. Maya and I are happy. This is a peaceful planet. Val’s people are philosophers. They only fought out of desperation. My sword and Gunnar’s are growing rusty upon the wall. I have a small office now, and will probably end up as a country doctor. The two ships are still out there on the plain. Our children, if they wish, can man them and go out into space. But as far as we are concerned we go no more a-hunting. The notes that I am sending you are fairly complete. It is nearly midnight and the fire is burning low. Maya is nodding beside me. So—happy at last—parsecs away and years away—I wish my old friend a hearty fare-thee-well—and it is a tale that is told. Best wishes, Jack Odin, M. D. </div> THE END <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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