A Home Among the Stars Read online

  Now he thought: or was it? What about Scoby? Wasn't Scoby's motiveless action part of a bigger picture? Especially since Scoby really seemed to have forgotten, as if not an inside but an outside power had commanded him to do what he had done to make sure Harder remained in Antarctica . . .

  But that was nonsense. Harder was going to die, and nothing he could do would change that. If the quest had been, anti-climatically, a quest for death, wasn't this the long way around?

  Harder slept.

  When he awoke, it was too numbing cold and the realization that sleep should have meant death, but hadn't.

  The door was open.

  Outside, the wind howled.

  Harder didn't feel cold.

  And he wasn't alone.

  The thing was a glowing, radiant cone as tall as a man. Harder felt the hackles on the back of his neck rising in atavistic fear, as if knowledge of the radiant cone existed in racial memory.

  A voice told him: " You have nothing to fear."

  Harder didn't believe it. The cone glowed and waited. Patiently?

  Harder made a break for the door.

  The glowing cone didn't try to stop him. The door slammed behind him and the wind swept him along. He had never felt such unreasoning fear before : he even got the notion that the fear like Scoby's strange attack on him, was directed from outside. But that didn't stop him from running.

  He stumbled in the snow. There was no place to go, really, and certainly no place to hide. He looked back. He hadn't heard the door of Major Mather's hut opening, but the glowing cone was outside now, looking like gold against the white background. Harder got up, breathing hard, and kept running.

  He stopped in his tracks. The glowing cone was now in front of him. He turned, doubling back, but the wind on the high Antarctic plateau suddenly swept down at him, and it was like running on a treadmill.

  "Stop!" the voice called. Harder assumed — somehow — that it was the voice of the glowing cone. "You can't get away from me. I wanted to prove that. Actually, you don't want to try."

  Harder's lungs were on fire — he couldn't run any more. He stopped, panting, reeling in the wind, and, with a sudden odd detachment, wondering where the fear came from. It wasn't like him at all. His life had been spent searching out new things, so unreasoning fear wasn't part of his makeup.

  "Is this better?" the glowing cone said.

  Even as Harder stared at it, the cone was transformed into a parka-clad man. The man had no face that Harder could see, or perhaps the wind whipped snow hid his face from view. But whatever the reason, fear drained from Harder with the transformation.

  "Come. It isn't far." "Where are we going?" "Come. I will explain later."

  "Who— what are you?" "Come. I serve you. I only serve."

  A rope was produced, and climbing equipment. The wind died down, as if the glowing cone — now a man — could control it.

  Harder suddenly was aware of an ice-ax in his hand. He moved forward, and felt the tug of the stranger's weight behind him.

  He could not understand what happened next. The Geophysical base had been constructed on the broad mid-Antarctic plateau. The only nearby mountain was Byrd, yet almost at once they began to climb. The going should have been difficult, but was not. Harder chopped foot-holds in the ice with his ax. They climbed rapidly. The whiteness dissolved.

  Cresting a rampart of ice, Harder saw a valley — green, humid, with mists rising from it. He had read about such things — the mysterious warm valleys in the Antarctic. No one could explain them. They were like oases in a desert, and the best theory was that hot springs kept them warm and humid.

  In the center of the valley was a round globe as big as a house. Nearby, water trickled. Above the freezing point? It seemed likely. Harder began to sweat, and unzipped his parka.

  "Wait," the other man on the rope said.

  "What is it?"

  "Wait. I can tell you now."

  "Did you make Scoby do what he did?" Harder guessed.

  "I had to. It was the only way I could be sure you'd stay."

  "What for?"

  "Because you've finished your work. Because you're going home."

  "Home?"

  "But there's something we have to do. Another has been — waiting. Come."

  With reluctance, Harder left the warm valley of the mists.

  They climbed again through a defile in the snowy mountains. Harder, in the lead, rounded a bluff of ice. And saw a vision.

  No, it wasn't a vision. It was real. It was there. Harder ran forward.

  Trapped in a block of transparent ice was a girl. Her eyes were open and she watched Harder as he approached. She was quite the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and there was a serenely patient expression on her face, as if she had been waiting for him all his life and would have, if necessary, gone on waiting indefinitely.

  In a frenzy, Harder began to hack at the block of ice with his ax. Ice chips flew, blinding him. Behind him he heard laughter. "She— she'll suffocate in there!" he protested.

  "Really? Look at her clothing."

  Harder looked. The lovely girl wore a gown which might have swept across the marble floor of a dancehall in Victorian times.

  "She—"

  "She's been there eighty years. We've been waiting for you. Can you control the fear this time?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm going to turn into the cone of light again. The fear isn't your fault, you see. Although this was the most deserted spot on Earth, we didn't want anyone coming near it, finding us — or the ship. Well?"

  "I'll try,"

  The man faded. The cone appeared, and Harder's hackles rose. With an effort he forced himself to stand still. Then he stepped back as the radiant cone bore down on the block of ice. The cone hit it apex first, and streams of water gushed away. The block of ice dissolved.

  Almost, Harder acted too late. He didn't realize the radiant cone's mistake until the damage had been done. The block of ice split, the girl started to fall — where there had been solid ice there now was an abyss hundreds of feet deep beneath her feet.

  Harder dove after her, at the same time seeking solid ice with his ax. The ax caught and held, but the torrents of water rushed over it and it would not hold for very long. With his free hand Harder caught the girl's arm before she could be swept down into the abyss. His own arm was wrenched almost from his socket. The ice ax slipped. The girl looked up at him with mute fear and hope mingled in her expression. This was no game the radiant cone was playing: the girl's life depended on what Harder did.

  Slowly he raised his arm. If he moved it too quickly, he might lose his hold on the girl.

  If he was too slow, his ice ax might not hold. Yet as he looked down at her he knew wordlessly, as if time stood still and a music like the music of the spheres sang the message to him, that this girl was a part — a very large part — of what he had been searching for.

  He felt his hand slipping, but the look of fear and hope on the girl's face had been replaced by one of trust — and love.

  With his last remaining strength, Harder pulled her to safety. By then the radiant cone was a man again, and was waiting with his climbing rope to take them both to the valley of the mists.

  There were others inside the round structure. It might have been, Harder thought with wonder, a fancy dress ball. For the people within the globe seemed to be wearing costumes from all the ages of human civilization. He saw a Greek wearing tunic and mantle; a beardless Roman in a toga; a glowering, fierce-bearded ancient Briton in blue paint ; Islanders in almost nothing ; Renaissance Italians in tight hose and fancy jackets and plumed hats; the whole gamut of human civilization.

  The girl held his hand and smiled up at him. "You saved my life, "she said.

  His mouth was dry. His tongue felt swollen. "All my life I've been searching for— "

  "This place. You found it. It is inevitable that you did. It was your mission, as it was all of ours."

  "Wh
o are you?" She was still smiling. "Well, I am Marie and I am a lady of the emperor's court in Vienna. I — disappeared — on an Alpine excursion in 1877. Or, if you prefer — "

  "But who are you?" The girl merely said: "We are going home."

  The radiant cone entered the metal structure behind them. It floated to a bank of machinery on the far wall. None of the others seemed afraid. It touched the machinery, merged with it — and disappeared.

  "It won't return," the girl said. "It had no sentience of its own. It was a robot — to help us find the way."

  "But why?"

  "I told you. We are going home."

  "We . . . don't belong here?"

  "No. Haven't you guessed what this structure is?"

  "No. Tell me."

  "We came — a long time ago. We each lived a life. We searched — and we will remember."

  "What were we looking for?"

  "Nothing. Or perhaps everything. There's a long journey ahead of us. You can get the details later. We came a long time ago, I said. We are human— as the inhabitants of this planet, this Earth, are human. An age ago, we planted them here. As we planted colonies — everywhere. We came to study them. Through the ages, we studied. That's why you seemed to be searching for something, always searching. So that you would get to see, and know, and later understand, so much of your world, your century. When we return home, when all our information is tabulated, considered, studied — an answer will be found."

  "What answer, Marie? What answer?"

  "We are a peaceful people. For some reason we can't fathom, the colonists on all the outworlds are not peaceful. They want war. They kill each other. When their science permits them to reach space — in the case of this planet, in another fifteen or twenty years —they must either seek the ways of peace, or they will bring the holocaust of war with them. It is hoped that with what we have found the mistake will be remedied, the error found, and one day soon one of us will return with the answer this world needs, the answer, inherent in its own qualities, that will bring it eternal peace. When that answer is found one of us will return with it."

  "Who? Who will return?" But strangely, Harder already knew the answer.

  "The only one who can. The one who knows this final century. You will return with it. But first, the trip home."

  "Then, is it home for me? And where is it 7"

  "It is a world you never heard of. It is home for you, is. But so is this Earth. You belong to this world too."

  "When I come back, will I have to return alone?"

  Her fingers returned the pressure of his hand. "No," she said softly. "Not alone, Jim Harder. Not alone."

  There was a throbbing roar. With them and all the others from all the generations in it, all the searchers, the spaceship blasted off and sped toward its destination.

  THE END

  About the Author

  The author was originally listed as E.K. Jarvis. E.K. Jarvis was a name used by a number of authors including: Harlan Ellison, Henry Slesar, Paul W. Fairman, Robert Bloch, Robert Moore Williams, and Robert Silverberg. It was a house name, used when they could not use the authors name for some reason, such as contractual reasons.

  In this story the authors true name is unknown. Research revealed that it was not Harlan Ellison or Robert Silverberg. Other known authors who have used this name are deceased making checking if they wrote this story difficult.

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