Outside the office building, Emrys Shortmire paused and inhaled deeply.
Say what you would about the atmospheres of some of the other planets'
being fresher and purer, the air of Earth, being the air in which Man
had evolved, was the air that felt best in his nostrils and filled his
lungs to greatest satisfaction. And, after the fetid atmosphere of
Morethis, this was pure heaven. Gray sky and violet dying sun against
blue sky and radiant golden sun. No wonder the Morethans were what they
were, and Earthmen were what they were.
Well, the golden sun of Earth would set somewhat sooner than the
physicists--or the sociologists--had prognosticated. But all that would
be long after he himself had died. It was no concern of his, anyway. He
was Emrys Shortmire, born out of Jan Shortmire and no mortal woman; and
nothing else on Earth, or in the Universe, mattered.
Disdaining the importunate heli-cabs that besieged him with plaintive
mechanical offers of transportation, he walked down the street,
enjoying the pull of the planet upon the youth and strength of his
body, delighting in the clarity of his vision and the keenness of his
nostrils. He was so absorbed in his thoughts and so unaccustomed
still to Earth's traffic that he did not look where he was going. The
groundcar was upon him before he knew it. Of course something like this
would happen, he thought bitterly, as darkness descended upon him and
he waited for the crushing impact. It was always like that in the old
stories, always some drawback to spoil the magic gift.
But then it was light again. The car had passed over him and he was
unharmed, to the amazement--and disappointment--of the avid crowd that
had gathered.
"Pedestrians should look where they're going," the voice of the car
observed petulantly. "Repairs cost money."
Being part human, Emrys was shaken by the experience. His eye caught
the brilliant sign of a bar. Here, he thought, would be syrup to soothe
his nerves. And he went inside, eager to try the taste of ancient
vintages of Earth--unobtainable on the other planets, since fine wines
and liquors could not endure the journey through space.
* * * * *
He sipped a whisky and soda, trying not to feel disappointed at the
savor. As he drank, he felt eyes upon him--the bartender's. Yet the
long Qesharakan reflecting glass above the bar showed him nothing
unusual about his appearance. Did the bartender know who he was? How
could he?
Then Emrys noticed that the man glanced from him to someone else--a
girl sitting at the other end of the bar. As she met Emrys' eye, she
smiled at him. Absently, with remote appreciation of her good looks,
he smiled back, then returned to the contemplation of his drink. The
bartender's expression deepened to amused contempt.
Emrys realized what was wrong and he could hardly keep from laughing.
So intent had he been on the pursuit of his goal that he had almost
lost sight of the goal itself. Deliberately, he turned his head and
smiled at the girl. She promptly smiled back.
He sat down at her side. Now that he was close, her aquamarine hair
showed dark at the roots, and, through the thick golden maquillage,
the pores stood out on her nose. Also, she was not so very young. He
laughed then, and, when she asked why, bought her a drink. After he had
bought her several more, they went to her apartment--a luxurious one in
a good section of town. She was not going to be cheap, but, he thought
with rising anticipation, he could afford her.
However, the night was curiously unsatisfactory. For him--apparently
not for the girl, because the next morning she indignantly refused his
money. Evidently the experience had been something out of the ordinary
for her. He could not feel it was her fault that it had been nothing
for him; the lack was in _him_, he thought, some almost-felt emotion he
could not recapture.
Promising to call her, he left, went back to his hotel room and flung
himself upon the resilient burim-moss couch.
His body wasn't tired, but his head ached wearily. The liquor,
naturally, on an empty stomach ... after all those years of Morethan
qumesht. And then the trip. Even with the Shortmire engines--standard
equipment now, of course--it had taken a long, tiring time, for
Morethis was the most distant of all the civilized planets. Anyone
would be exhausted after such a trip. Added to all this, the accident.
There were no bruises on his body yet, but later, he knew, they would
be visible.
* * * * *
At last he slept, or seemed to, and dreamed he was on Morethis
again--or Morethis was there with him. The air thickened about him
into the tangible atmosphere of the dark planet--the swirling aniline
fog that never cleared. And in the midst stood Uvrei, the high priest,
robed in amethyst and sable. The term _high priest_ was vulgar as
applied to him, but the nearest terrestrial equivalent to what he was.
The lips in the shockingly beautiful face parted. "How goes it, son of
my spirit?" the familiar greeting rolled out, in the familiar voice,
deep yet sweet, like dulcet thunder.
"My head hurts, father of my soul." Emrys knew his voice was a petulant
child's, yet he could not stop himself. "I was promised--"
"You have not taken care," the ancient one said.
How ancient he was, Emrys did not know. The priests of Morethis were,
they said, immortal. And they did live for a long, long time, far
longer than the common people, whom they resembled only vaguely.
Terrestrial scholars said the ruling class was a variant of the
Morethan race, inbred to preserve its identity, probably closer to the
original world-shaking Morethans than their debased followers. The
members of this group seemed young, as coin faces seem young, also old,
like coins themselves.
"I warned you it takes time for the final adjustments to be made. Wait,
my son; haste means nothing to you."
"But I've waited so long," Emrys complained.
"Wait a little longer, then. You have all the time in the world."
The fog swirled shut about him, and Emrys sank into his personal miasma
of sleep. When he woke up, late that afternoon, he knew from the dank
odor clinging to the bedclothes that it had not been a dream, that
the priests, the "gods," the "immortals" of Morethis could, as they
professed--and even he had not believed them in this--project their
minds far through space ... though, fortunately, not their bodies, or
they would not have needed him. He remembered then the vial of tiny
golden pellets Uvrei had given him before he left Morethis, and took
one. Perhaps that was what the ancient one had meant. At any rate,
Emrys thought he felt better afterward.
He examined his body in the mirror to see if bruises had come, but
the tawny, muscle-rippled flesh was unmarked. At length he put on his
clothes and, leaving the hotel, went to a jeweler, where he bought a
costly bracelet to be sent to the girl of the night before. Such a
grandiose gesture relieved him--he had always felt--of all further
obligation.
He did not wish to repeat his experience with the liquor, so he did not
go to a bar. He had no friends on Earth--nor could he have acknowledged
them if he had. He did not wish to repeat his disappointment of the
previous night, so he did not seek female companionship--although it
was obvious from the eyes of the women he passed that he would have no
difficulty whenever he changed his mind. But what should he do? What
did young men do with their leisure, he tried to remember, when they
had nothing but leisure?
* * * * *
He dined alone, finally, on a variety of rare terrestrial foods that
did not taste quite as he expected, and went to the theater. The play
was one he had seen a hundred times before under a hundred different
names on many different planets. He went then to a nightclub, but it
was crowded and noisy, and the girls did not excite him. Going back to
the hotel, he found that sleep, at least, came easily.
_But I did not_, he thought, _do what I did merely for the sake of a
good night's rest._
The third day, he wandered into a museum. He found himself less bored
than he had expected. Perhaps culture would be most therapeutic for him
until he reached his ultimate adjustments. Accordingly, he went from
the museum to a revival of a nineteenth-century opera. He didn't like
it; in fact, it disturbed him so much that he left before the final
curtain and walked through the streets for hours, until he ran into a
girl who was also walking the streets, and went home with her.
The experience with the drab, as with the courtesan, was mechanically
satisfactory, emotionally inadequate. He paid her--knowing she, too,
would have given herself for nothing, had she known how--and went to
his hotel limp with the same not-physical weakness he had felt before.
The effects of the trip or the accident were lingering. He half
expected Uvrei to appear that night, but the old one did not come. Why
should he? This talk of spirit-son and soul-father was sophistry; there
had been a bargain and each had kept his part.
The afternoon of the fourth day, a vidicast reporter called to ask
whether Emrys Shortmire was any relation to the Jan Shortmire who had
invented the space-warp engines. Emrys could not deny his identity
without jeopardizing his inheritance; however, he refused to be
interviewed personally or let his picture be used. He did not, he said,
want to be dwarfed by his father's reputation. Nonetheless, his arrival
was mentioned on the newscasts and panic rose up in him when he heard
his name spoken publicly.
The next day a letter came for him. People rarely wrote letters
any more, except to the distant planets, yet this one had an Earth
postmark. Cold with panic again, he tore it open and read:
My dear Mr. Shortmire:
This evening's vidicast informed me that you were on Earth. You
will not, I am sure, know my name. However, I was a friend of your
father's, when we were both young men, and it would give me great
pleasure to make your acquaintance.