The Complete Works. Stanley G. Weinbaum
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Connor groaned. "That persistent demon!"
His voice rose in a yell of surprise and fear. The misty thing had stopped in mid–air, poised a moment, then launched itself at his head!
There was no pain, just a brief buzzing. Connor realized that the needlebeak had thrust itself into his skull, and the horror rested above his shoulder. He beat at it. His hands passed through it like mist. And then, in a squeaky little voice that clicked maddeningly within his very brain, came the words of the Messenger.
"Go back to Urbs!" it clicked. "Go back to Urbs." Over and over. "Go back to Urbs!" Just that.
He turned frantic eyes on Evanie's startled face. "Get it off!" he cried. "Get it off!"
"It was for you!" she whispered, stricken. "Oh, if it had been for me! I can fight it. Close your mind to it, Tom. Try! Please try!"
He did try; over and over. But that maddening, clicking voice burned through his efforts; "Go back to Urbs! Go back to Urbs!"
"I can't stand it!" Connor cried frantically. "It tickles —inside my brain!" He paced back and forth in anguish. "I want to run! To walk until I'm exhausted. I can't—stand—it!"
"Yes!" Evanie said. "Walk until you're exhausted. It will give us time that way. But walk north—away from Urbs. Come."
She turned wearily to join him.
"Stay here," he said. "I'll walk alone. Not far. I'll soon return."
He rushed off into the darkness. His thoughts were turmoil as he dashed down the dim trail. I'll fight it off—Go back to Urbs!—I won't listen—Go back to Urbs!—If Evanie can, so can I. I'm a man, stronger than she—Go back to Urbs! Go back to Urbs!
Clicking—tickling—maddening! He rushed blindly on, tripping over branches, crashing into trees. He scram–bled up the slope of a steep hill, driving himself, trying to exhaust himself until he could attain the forgetfulness of sleep.
Panting, scratched, weary, he paused from sheer necessity on the crest of the hill. The horror on his shoulder, clicking its message in his brain, gave him no surcease. He was going mad! Better death at the Master's hands than this. Better anything than this. He turned about and plunged toward the hill from which he had come. With his first step south, the maddening voice ceased.
He walked on in a relieved daze. Not even the dim mist of the Messenger on his shoulder detracted from the sheer ecstasy of stillness. He murmured meaningless words of gratitude, felt an impulse to shout a song.
Evanie, resting on a fallen log, glanced up at him as he approached.
"I'm going back to Urbs!" he cried wildly. "I can't stand this!"
"You can't! I won't let you! Please—I can rid you of it, given time. Give me a little time, Tom. Fight it!"
"I won't fight it! I'm going back!"
He turned frantically to rush on south, in any direction that would silence that clicking, tickling voice of torment.
"Go back to Urbs!" it ticked. "Go back to Urbs!" Evanie seized his arm.
"Please—please, Tom!"
He tugged away and spun around. What he immediately saw in the darkness halted him. In a luminous arc, not three yards distant, spun a second Messenger—and in a mad moment of perversity, he was almost glad!
"Here's one for you!" he said grimly. "Now fight it!"
The girl's face turned pale and terror stricken. "Oh, no! No!" she murmured. "I'm so tired—so tired!" She turned frightened brown eyes on him. "Then stay, Tom. Don't distract me now. I need—all my strength."
It was too late. The second horror had poised itself and struck, glowing mistily against Evanie's soft bronze hair.
Connor felt a surge of sympathy that not even the insanity–breeding Messenger could overcome.
"Evanie!" he cried huskily. "Oh my God! What is it saying?"
Her eyes were wide and terrified.
"It says, `Sleep—Sleep!' It says, `The world grows dark —your eyes are closing.' It isn't fair! I could fight it off—' could fight both of them off, given time! The Master—the Master wants me—unable—to help you."
Her eyes grew misty.
Suddenly she collapsed at his feet.
For a long minute Connor stared down at her. Then he bent over, gathered her in his arms, and moved out into the darkness toward Urbs.
Evanie was a light burden, but that first mile down the mountain was a torment that was burned into Connor's memory forever. The Messenger was still as he began the return, and he managed well enough by the starlight to follow the trail. But a thousand feet of mountain unevenness and inequalities of footing just about exhausted him.
His breath shortened to painful gasps, and his whole body, worn out after two nights of sleeplessness, pro–tested with aches and twinges. At last, still cradling Evanie in his arms, he sank exhausted on the moss–covered bole of a fallen tree that glowed with misty fox–fire.
Instantly the Messenger took up its distractingly irritating admonition.
"Go back to Urbs!" it clicked deep in his brain. "Go back to Urbs! Go back to Urbs!"
He bore the torment for five minutes before he rose in wild obedience and staggered south with his burden.
But another quarter mile found him reeling and dizzy with exhaustion, lurching into trees and bushes, scratched, torn, and ragged. Once Evanie's hair caught in the thorns of some shadowy shrub and when he paused to disentangle it, the Messenger took up its maddening refrain. He tore the girl loose with a desperately convulsive gesture and blundered on along the trail.
He was on the verge of collapse after a single mile, and Urbs lay—God only knew how far south! He shifted Evanie from his arms to his shoulder, but the thought of abandoning her never entered his mind.
The time came when his wearied body could go no further. Letting Evanie's limp body slide to the ground he closed his eyes in agony. As the torturing voice of the Messenger resumed, he dropped beside her.
"I can't!" he croaked as though the Messenger or its distant controller could hear him. "Do you want to kill me?"
The sublimity of relief! The voice was still, and he relaxed in an ecstasy of rest. He realized to the full the sweetness of simple silence, the absolute perfection of merely being quiet.
He slumped full length to the ground, then, and in a moment was sleeping as profoundly as Evanie herself.
When Tom Connor awoke to broad day a heap of fruit and a shallow wooden bowl of water were beside him. Connor guessed that they had been placed there by the metamorphs that roamed the hills.
They were still loyal to Evanie, watching out for her.
He ate hungrily, then lifted Evanie's bronze head, tilting the water against her lips. She choked, swallowed a mouthful or two, but moved no more than that.
The damage to his clothing from his plunge through the darkness was slight.
His shirt was torn at sleeves and shoulder, and his trousers were ripped in several places. Evanie's soft hair was tangled with twigs and burrs, and a thorn had scratched her cheek. The elastic that bound her trouser leg to her left ankle was broken, and the garment flapped loosely. The bared ankle was crossed by a reddened gash.
He poured what remained of the water over the wound to wash away any dirt or foreign substance that might be in it. That was all his surgery encompassed.
The Trail Back
By daylight the messenger was only a blur, visible out of