Forever We Die! E-Book

Stephen Marlowe

• Herausgeber: Wildside Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 107

Beschreibung

Rhodes faced the agonies of alien torture because he knew the secret which held an entire world in bondage. It was a secret proclaiming—forever we die!

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

FOREVER WE DIE!

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

FOREVER WE DIE!

STEPHEN MARLOWE

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2021 by Wildside Press LLC.

Originally published in Imagination, August 1956.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

INTRODUCTION

Stephen Marlowe was the pseudonym of Milton Lesser (1928-2008), an American author of science fiction, mystery novels, and fictional “autobiographies” of historical figures such as Goya, Christopher Columbus, Miguel de Cervantes, and Edgar Allan Poe. He legally changed his name to Marlowe when his detective series featuring Chester Drum—created in 1955 with The Second Longest Night and concluding in 1968 with Drumbeat Marianne—became his most successful endeavor. As the New York Times wrote in his obituary, Chester drum was “known familiarly as Chet...a tough unmarried ex-cop who kept a bottle in his office and a .357 Magnum at his side. Based in Washington, he took on cases involving international intrigue that in nearly two dozen novels took him to exotic locales around the globe.” Marlowe also wrote as Adam Chase, Andrew Frazer, C.H. Thames, Jason Ridgway, Stephen Wilder, and Ellery Queen.

He attended the College of William & Mary, earning his degree in philosophy, marrying Leigh Lang soon after graduating. He was drafted into the United States Army and served during the Korean War. He and his wife divorced during 1962. With his second wife, Ann, he lived in Williamsburg, Virginia until his death in 2008 from myelodysplastic syndrome, a bone-marrow disorder.

He was awarded the French Prix Gutenberg du Livre during 1988 for The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus, and during 1997 he was awarded a Life Achievement Award by the Private Eye Writers of America. He also served on the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America.

As Milton Lesser, he was a popular and prolific contributor to science fiction pulp magazines. Tyrants of Time, with its sensational title promising time travel and adventure, visits some of the greatest villains of history, including Adolph Hitler—surely much on the minds of writers of the era, since the Hitler and the Nazis had only been defeated nine years before.

—John Betancourt

Cabin John, Maryland

CHAPTER ONE

The guard spat in Phil Rhodes’ food bowl, closed the grate, and trudged away down the stone-walled corridor.

Darkness returned to the narrow, coffin-shaped cell. Rhodes reached for the bowl of gruel. It was tepid, not hot. The cell was very cold. In the square of light admitted briefly when the grate had been opened, Rhodes had seen the big, unkempt guard’s breath, a puff of smoke on the cold air. He had also seen the guard hack spittle into the bowl of gruel.

It was no whim on the guard’s part. Rhodes grinned wryly, and realized he was doing so, and encouraged his facial muscles in the act. Nothing around here was a whim. Absolutely nothing. It was all part of a plan, and the purpose of the plan was to break Rhodes.

Given: one Earthman.

Problem: to degrade him by subtle psychological torture.

Purpose: a big, fat question mark which, by itself, was almost enough to drive Rhodes crazy.

He ate the gruel. He held his breath and got it down somehow, got it down because he had to.

It had been some time since the last question period, and Rhodes expected to be summoned momentarily. Why me? he thought for the hundredth time. That was part of it, too. Why Rhodes? He was only a student at the Earth University at Deneb III, here on Kedak now—that was Deneb IV—to do field work in extra-terrestrial anthropology. And the Kedaki had come for him one night, how long ago? Rhodes had no idea how long it was, and that was part of the plan too. His sleep was irregular, usually disturbed by one or another of the guards as part of the overall pattern of psychological torture.

Rhodes began to shiver. It was growing suddenly cold. Naturally, that was no accident. The cell was very small and so shaped that Rhodes could neither recline fully nor stand up without jack-knifing his spine. Obviously, he couldn’t engage in much physical activity to keep warm. The Kedaki knew this: it was part of the maddening plan.

Rhodes shook with cold, felt the skin of his face going numb, heard his teeth chattering. The abrupt cold now was his entire universe. He made an effort of will—you’re warm, he told himself, you’re warm. His lips took on that peculiar numb puckering sensation which meant, he knew, that they were blue with cold. He felt a welcome lethargy, then, as if the terrible cold were a bed of repose, the most comfortable, most wonderful bed he’d ever had. He wanted to sink back in it, surrender to it.

If he did, if he surrendered to the blood-freezing cold, he would die.

No, he told himself. That was wrong. They wanted him to think he would die. But it was out of the question. If they’d wanted to kill him, there were easier ways. What they wanted was a state of mind. They wanted terror, a simple animal fear of death.

You’re not going to die, Rhodes told himself. They need you—for something. They’re very good at making you think so, but you’re not going to die.

A sudden blast of hot air belched into the freezing cell.

It was Turkish-bath hot, and it dissipated the cold at once. It was stifling. Rhodes, who was sitting awkwardly because the cell was constructed for minimum comfort, opened his mouth and gulped in the hot, wet air. His lungs needed more oxygen; his head was giddy with the need; his pulses throbbed.

He sank into a troubled sleep, shoulders propped against rough stone. He slept for half an hour while the unseen vents in the cell poured heat on him.

There was a grating sound, and footsteps. Something hard prodded Rhodes’ back. He opened his eyes. The heavy boot struck again, thudding against his kidney. He rolled away from it.

“Crawl out of there,” the guard said in Kedaki.

Rhodes, who was a student of the Kedaki civilization, understood the language perfectly. But even if he had not, the tone of voice was unmistakable. Rhodes crawled toward the grating on his hands and knees. The roof of the cell was so low, he could barely crawl. It was more a slithering motion. Part of the treatment, Rhodes told himself, able to bear it better because he understood. Part of the process of degradation. Turn a man into an animal, and he’ll do whatever you wish.

“More questions?” Rhodes asked in Kedaki when he stood up outside the cell, stretching the cramped muscles of his back, shoulders and legs.

“What do you think?” the guard replied, and prodded him forward down the brightly lit corridor.

* * * *

The room was very clean. It was spotless, possibly antiseptically clean. That, too, was part of the plan. For Rhodes’ cell was filthy. Rhodes’ clothing was stiff with his own foul sweat. Rhodes’ skin itched with encrusted dirt.

“Sit down,” the Kedaki said politely.

Rhodes sighed. This was the polite one. He had two interrogators, one cruel, brutal, harsh, the other as polite and suave as the rustle of silk. To keep Rhodes guessing....

He sat down across a metal desk from the interrogator. The man was, Rhodes judged, in his thirties. He had the faintly purple skin of the Kedaki—not really purple, but as purple as the skin of an American Indian is red. He was slightly built, smooth-skinned, almost beardless. His eyes were very friendly but somehow very deadly.

“You have been here three months,” he said conversationally.

“Three months! Yesterday, they told me....”

“Yesterday? Indeed? And how do you know it was yesterday?”

“Well, I thought....”

“You see, you have no way of knowing.”

“But three months! You haven’t even told me why I’m a prisoner. If I could just make a call,” Rhodes said, his voice rising to an almost hysterical whine although he attempted to keep it level. “Just one call to the Earth Consul....”

“Mr. Rhodes,” the interrogator said softly. “You are a student, merely a student. I do not say this deprecatingly, but merely to point out that you are not a servant of your government and as such shouldn’t undergo torture because you consider it the, ah, patriotic thing to do. How old are you, Rhodes?”

“I’m twenty-one,” Rhodes said.

“A very young man, but stubborn.”

“Listen!” Rhodes cried, his voice rising out of control again. “I don’t even know what you want to know! Every day you change your questions! And every day you change how you react to my answers. I don’t know what you want! I think you’re crazy, all of you!”

“Do you really think so?”

“No,” Rhodes admitted in a subdued voice.

“I will tell you something, Rhodes. We Kedaki are experts at psychological torture. You know that, don’t you, as a student of our culture? Yes?—good. Eventually, we get what we want. Since no Kedaki fears death because he knows he will be reincarnated—”

“You say.”

“No Kedaki doubts this fact. Other creatures are not reincarnated, but the Kedaki are. As a consequence, the Kedaki are fearless. The fear of death does not exist for us and therefore, the fear of pain and violence is also minimized. The Kedaki, as you know, make wonderful soldiers. I tell you all this only to prove that we are the galaxy’s most adept practitioners of psychological torture, as a necessity. I tell you all this only to save you further trouble.”

“But I still don’t know what you want.”

“Nor will you, ever. Even when we are finished with you. I’ll tell you, Rhodes. We want the answer to one question. We are asking you hundreds. When we break you completely, when you answer every question the way we want it to be answered, you will answer the one important question. Are you ready?”

“No,” said Rhodes.

“What do you mean, no?”

“Because I can never tell in advance whether you want the truth or lies. Because either way I give myself a hard time. Look: just ask me the one question. Maybe I won’t mind answering it.”

“You’ll mind. Besides, when we’re all finished here, we don’t want you to know. What kind of work do you do, Rhodes?”

“You know what kind. I already told you, fifty times.”

“What kind of work do you do, Rhodes?”

“I’m a student of extra-terrestrial anthropology at Deneb University, doing field work here on Kedak....”

“Good.”

Good, thought Rhodes. They’re accepting the truth today, not rejecting it. He settled back in his chair and answered the unimportant initial questions almost automatically. His family back on Earth. Mother, father, younger sister. What he thought of Deneb III and the university there. Why he wanted to be an extra-terrestrial anthropologist. Exactly what kind of field work he was doing on Kedak.

“Reincarnation,” Rhodes said. “At least, a planet-wide belief in reincarnation. It’s unique in the galaxy, as far as we know, and it sets the pattern for Kedaki civilization.”

“You are making a planet-wide study?”

Rhodes shook his head. He’d been asked these questions many times before, but it was the subject he loved and he felt himself warming to it. “Not a planet-wide study,” he said. “Just this city. Just Junction City. But if you can learn how a sweeping social institution controls one center of population, then....”

“I’m sure,” the interrogator said dryly.

“Besides, there are the ruins outside the city.”

“Indeed, there are the ruins.”

“Because an anthropologist is interested in the history of his subject as well as its merely ephemeral present. And there are those who believe that the Balata ’kai ruins hold the origin of your belief in metempsychosis....”

“Do you, Rhodes?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Have you found anything to fortify this belief?”

“I have.”

“What have you found?”

“The Balata ’kai Book of the Dead. Oh, it isn’t a book, really. It’s some tablets—five thousand years old.”

“You have seen these tablets?”

“Yes,” said Rhodes.

“Where?”

“The Temple of the Golden Dome, Balata ’kai.”

“They are there now?”

“No,” said Rhodes. “I took them.”

“You took them where?”

“Well, I hid them.”

“Where?”

Rhodes grinned. “I’m not going to answer that,” he said. He was thinking. Prolong the interview, Phil old boy. Because it’s clean here, and neither too warm nor too cold, and you can sit comfortably or stand if you want to.

“Why aren’t you going to answer it?”

Rhodes grinned again. “I realize this isn’t very important to you....”

“Everything is important to me while I do my job.”

“But it’s very important to me, I was going to say. Because The Book of the Dead is an anthropological find, that’s why. Because I intend to have an exclusive on it until I’ve finished my work here.”

“What makes you think The Book of the Dead isn’t very important to us?”