Fantastic Stories Presents the Imagination (Stories of Science and Fantasy) Super Pack. Edmond Hamilton

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      “We better get him out,” the farmer said dully.

      Julia nodded.

      Between the two of them, they forced the door open and lifted Walt out to the pavement.

      “Easy,” the farmer said.

      Julia stood over Walt’s limp body. His jaw was broken and twisted to one side. His chest was bloody; blood trickled from his nose; his hair was matted with blood.

      “He’s still breathing,” the farmer said hoarsely.

      He looks so boyish, she thought. I can’t believe . . . he doesn’t seem a killer. I hate whoever made a killer out of him.

      Walt’s chest rose and fell; his breath entered his body in tremulous gasps.

      She wanted to bathe his face with cool water and rest his head on her lap. She wanted to ease his pain.

      She turned away.

      In the tool compartment of the wreck she located a tire iron. She brought it back.

      Her hand was slippery around the icy metal.

      He’s dying anyway, she thought. It doesn’t have to be my hand that kills him. Tears formed in her eyes.

      Walt moaned.

      Julia’s hand tightened on the tire iron.

      But the risk . . . she thought: if he should wake up and heal himself . . . he’ll kill me. The world will never be warned of the invasion, then. It’s his life against the world; his life against a billion lives.

      *

      She lifted the tire iron. She averted her eyes as she got ready to swing it savagely at his unprotected skull.

      Cursing, the farmer reached out with his good hand and grabbed her upraised wrist. “My God, what are you trying to do?”

      “I’ve . . . I’ve got to kill him.”

      The farmer stepped between her and Walt.

      “I’ve got to.”

      “Not while I’m here, Miss, you don’t.”

      “Listen—!” she began. Then hopelessly, she let the arm holding the tire iron fall limply to her side. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him, she thought.

      Nobody will believe me; not a person on the planet. It’s too fantastic: an invasion of earth. I’ve got to have some sort of proof to make them believe me.

      No proof.

      I can’t let Walt die! she thought. He’s the only proof I have. He’s the only one who can convince anyone of the invasion.

      He’s got to live! she thought. I’ve got to get him to a hospital.

      Walt’s face was bloodless.

      “ . . . he’s dying,” the farmer said.

      “But he can’t die!” Julia cried desperately. “He can’t die!”

      “You’re crazy,” the farmer said evenly. “First you get ready to brain him with a tire iron and then you say he’s got to live. Lady, if I hadn’t stopped you when I did, he’d be dead as hell right now.”

      “I wasn’t thinking; I didn’t realize . . . .”

      Breath rattled in Walt’s throat.

      “Gas . . . I’m out of gas,” Julia said.

      She ran to the wrecked truck. She jerked a milk can upright. She unscrewed the cap and emptied milk on the pavement.

      With the tire iron she split the gas tank and caught as much of the sharp-smelling fluid as she could in the emptied can.

      It sloshed loudly as she raced to her car with it. She fumbled the gas tank cap off. She was trembling so badly that she spilled almost as much as she poured into the opening. When the gas was all gone, she threw the milk can from her.

      “I’ll back up!” she cried to the farmer. “You’ll have to help me get him into the back seat.”

      He’s got to live, Julia thought. If the doctors can just bring him to consciousness, he can heal himself. When he realizes I’ve saved his life, maybe he’ll listen to me. He’s got to listen. I’ll convince him, I’ll reason with him. He’ll be able to prove to everybody that there will be an invasion. When they see all the things he can do, they’ll have to believe him . . . .

      They put Walt in the car. They handled him as gently as they could.

      “He’s almost gone,” the farmer said.

      “Get in front with me. You need a hospital, too.”

      The farmer slipped in beside her.

      Julia spun the car around and plunged down the road toward the super-highway.

      “Where’s the nearest doctor?”

      “Town eight miles down the road,” the farmer said. He grimaced in pain. He coughed, and blood flecked his lips. He wiped off the blood and stared at it drying across the back of his hand. “I . . . think I’m hurt inside.” There was barely controlled hysteria in his voice. He coughed again and shuddered. “My wife, she wanted me . . . to stay home this morning . . . .” He shut his eyes tightly. “I’ve got to patch the roof.” He opened his eyes and looked pleadingly at Julia. “I’ve got to patch the roof, don’t you understand!”

      “I’m driving as fast as I can. Which way do I turn down there?”

      “ . . . turn right.”

      “We’ll be to a doctor just as soon as I can get there.”

      She slowed down and turned onto the concrete slab of the super-highway.

      Then she slammed the car to a full stop; she backed up out of the line of traffic, back onto the cross road. She cut the motor.

      *

      Julia had felt the bridge in her mind snap shut. Instantly even the most obscure brain compartment was open to her. Fatigue vanished. She was alert; she was able to think with great clarity.

      The lightning recovery of herself forced a series of ever widening implications to her attention; in a blinding flash of insight she was (perhaps actually for the first time) aware of the degree to which she could transform society.

      Given time, she—she alone—like the magician Prospero in The Tempest could create some paradise of cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces and solemn temples and winding brooks and crisp channels and green lands that need never (the Calibans being transmuted by power beyond the lust for power) dissolve into air, thin air, leaving not a cloud behind.

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