Planet Run by Keith Laumer & Gordon R Dickson

Author:Keith Laumer & Gordon R Dickson [Laumer, Keith]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-05-12T22:00:00+00:00

There's no sense in going further—it's the edge of cultivation,

So they said, and I believed it—broke my land and sowed my crop—

Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station

Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop.

* * *

Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes

On one everlasting whisper day and night repeated—so:

Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges—

Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!

* * *

So I went, worn out of patience; never told my nearest neighbors—

Stole away with pack and ponies—left 'em drinking in the town;

And the faith that moveth mountains didn't seem to help my labors

As I faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down.

March by march I puzzled through 'em, turning flanks and dodging shoulders,

Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of grass;

Till I camped above the tree-line—drifted snow and naked boulders—

Felt free air astir to windward—knew I'd stumbled on the Pass . . .

* * *

He chanted on, the fire of the old poem filling his veins with its light and lifting him up, up and out toward the unknown stars as he talked. He had forgotten the past and a hundred years of penitence and sorrow. He had forgotten even the presence of Larry, staring silent across the leaping flames at him. The old call—the call that had sung him out to the worlds untrod by men ever since his strength had first come on him, was singing to him now. The last verse of the poem rolled like an anthem from his tongue . . .

* * *

. . . Yes, your "Never-never country"—yes your "edge of cultivation"

And "no sense in going further"—till I crossed the range to see.

God forgive me! No, I didn't. It's God's present to our nation.

Anybody might have found it but—His Whisper came to Me!

* * *

Slowly Henry came back from the wild cataract of feeling and memory on which the ancient words had swung him, and now he was seeing himself clearly: for the first time in a hundred years he stood face to face with himself—and saw that the flame had never left him. It had been in him, all this time, the fire that had beckoned him onward, ever onward, always onward into new worlds. A noble fire, he'd always thought it—but crimes had been committed in its name.

"Dulcie," he murmured aloud. "Oh, Dulcie . . ." He shook his head like someone coming out of a dream; and looked across the fire.

On the other side of it, Larry still sat transfixed, staring at him, the lean young face as still as if the boy had been magicked into stone.

"It's a poem," Henry said. "—The Explorer. An old Terran named Rudyard Kipling wrote it back in A.D. 1600 or thereabouts."

"I think—I almost understand, Captain," Larry said.

Henry laughed harshly. "Who ever understands anything, kid?" he growled and the spell that had bound both men together for a moment was broken.

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