Harlan Ellison by The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (epub)

Author:The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (epub)
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

V

After they were gone, after the last drop of exhaust trail had been lost in the starry night sky, Tallant stood by the open door of the bunker, staring across the emptiness of the field. They had left him; all his begging, all his appeals to their humanity, all his struggling, all of it had been for nothing. He was lost, lost out here in space, with the emptiness of the field and the emptiness of his heart.

The chill winds from the ocean came rippling across the field, caught him in their wake, and smoothed over him. He felt the hunger rising once more.

But this time, if nothing else, he could drown himself in dream-dust. That was it! He would send himself into a dust stupor, and lay there in heaven till the bomb went off, killing him.

He found the trapdoor, lifted it, and went down into the Resistance headquarters.

A half hour, throwing supplies around, smashing into lockers, breaking open cabinets, and he had found Doc Budder’s supply of medicinal dream-dust. Nurmo-heroinyte concentrate; the dream-dust that had found him, made him a slave after one small sampling when he was twenty-three years old. That had been a long time before this, and he knew this was his only rest now.

He sniffed away a packet, and felt himself getting stronger, healthier, more fierce. Kyben? Yes, bring them on! He could fight the entire armada single-handed. Then let those lousy sonofabitching Earthies try to come back. Deald’s World would be his, he would be the king, the master of the universe!

He strutted back up the stairs, slammed back the trapdoor, the white packets in his jumper pocket.

Tallant saw his first Kyben then.

They were swarming across the rocket field, hundreds of them. They were average-sized, more than five feet tall, less than six, all of them. They looked almost human—only golden-skinned, and their fingers ended in silky tentacles, six of them to a hand.

Abruptly, the resemblance to normal humans terrified Tallant. Had they been grotesque, it would be something else; he could despise and hate them as monsters. But these Kyben were, if anything, handsomer than humans.

He had never seen them before, but he had heard the screams that had echoed through the city’s canyons. He had heard a girl getting the flesh flayed off her back, and in his own way he had felt sorry for her. He remembered he had wished she might die from loss of blood. Wounds like that would only take three or four hours to kill her. With the Kyben, that would have been the quickest, least painful way.

Yet they looked very much like humans. But golden.

Suddenly Tallant realized he was trapped. He was caught in one of the bunkers, with no protection, no weapon, no way out. They would find him, and kill him, not realizing he had the bomb in him. They would not ask whether or not he carried a bomb…that was too ridiculous to consider.

That was why Parkhurst had done it. It was too ridiculous to consider.

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