Helen, his mate, moved away from the bushes, inside the cave. She adjusted her rags the best she could; attempted to look half decent. But it was so hard in this world, the ravages of life cut deep in her face.
HE buried his head in his hands. They had escaped again. But for how much longer could he protect Helen? He didn't care about himself - lived only to keep her safe. But the thought of them getting Helen …
He raised his head - held his hand out to her, cuddled her, assured her it would be alright.
Burp had their smell in him. It had been a mighty hunt, seeming to go on for hours since he and his four gang members had spotted them. A male and female - a little scrawny, but beggars could not be choosers.
'They're around here somewhere. I can smell them.'
The others agreed with Burp. Whether it was more through wishful thinking or reality they weren't sure. But Burp had led them well; and if he said they were close, then they were.
Burp moved slightly away from the group, pinned back his ears, sniffed hard through his nostrils, attuned his mind to the hunter's way.
The crackle, when it came, was imperceptible to most humans, but it was doubtful whether Burp was any longer human. Rather, he was feral, a new form of life, an evolved entity. And that crackle was enough. With a howl, he rallied his gang. The hunt was back on.
He didn't know what hit him at first. He was convinced he was safe, not realising that the mere movement - the snap of one twig - as Helen moved away from the bushes was enough.
They raced into the cave as one human mass, unable to distinguish one from another with their ravenous charge.
He immediately took out his knife, began to slash, tried his hardest to pull Helen to him. 'This way,' he screamed, as eventually he darted for the escape route, the tiny tunnel in the back of the cave, sure that Helen was with him.
He crawled quickly through the tunnel, through the dark, talking to Helen all the time as he did so, convinced she was answering. And only when he was out and safe did he dare to look back and have it confirmed that she was not there.
They were horrendous thoughts that went through his mind that night. Arming himself the best he could - the makeshift bow and arrow, the rudimentary spear, and, of course, the knife - he made his way back to the cave, picked up the spoor, made easier by the occasional drip of blood. Was that due to the slashes he had made, or, heaven forbid, was it Helen's?
He didn't want to think such things, he knew. But finally, he had to think no more. The answer was plain to see.
It was a simple, temporary camp, soon abandoned, the embers of the fire dying as he stared. But the fire was not the only thing they had left. The body had been chopped up as if a bovine carcass, the bones stripped of every possible piece of meat.
And there, in the middle of the pile of bones, Helen's head, staring emptily into space, a huge hole where once her brain had been.
How do you describe the dual feelings of grief, of hate, racing about inside, peppered with a large dose of loathing?
He howled long into the night, for the first time experiencing those feral feelings that had taken over too many survivors.
He began his hunt at first light, a new found awareness of the land, of the air, with him. He followed their spoor; soon he could even smell them - that terrible smell of flesh, of warm blood that surrounded them.
They were encamped by a small stream.
He watched them for hours, downwind, hardly moving, before he made a move. Then, slowly, he skirted the perimeter, crept up behind a sentry, and silently knifed him to death.
He stood momentarily, fascinated by the flow of blood, realising, for the first time, its attraction. Yet the human in him felt revulsion, and his whole body shuddered.
Slowly, he crept further into the camp, determined he would destroy Burp and the remaining three savages. But the best laid plans ...
Burp smiled as the man was caught. Did he think he was stupid? Did he think that he, Burp, wouldn't realise he would come after him?
'What a fool,' he said, as he smiled again, baring his teeth, his eye teeth stood out as if animal.
To his side, a gang member was stacking the fire, whilst another was sharpening the knives, saliva dripping from hungered jowls.
It would be a double feast, they realised, the man they had stalked for so long, and even one of their own, more well fed than the other prey - a real treat.
It was as Burp was moving in for the kill that the man realised it was now or never. It was a murderous lunge when it carne, his head connecting with Burp's face as his hand grabbed his wrist. And as he took the knife from him and buried it deep in Burp's belly, the monster seemed confused that his blood flowed, that he was mere mortal.
Burp's death temporarily paralyzed the others, and that was all the time he needed. And for the next minute he existed in a world of slashes, raining blood, until at last all was quiet but for the occasional gurgle of bloody juices flowing their last.
The sun had set and risen three times before he came out of his depression. Where he was, he had no idea. He had just walked and walked away from the carnage. In a river he looked at himself in his reflection, and saw the dried blood on him, the hungered look of his eyes, the reality that he could not go on for much longer like this.
And he thought of Helen. Sweet Helen, who, before the bombs, could have bore him children, could have loved him, could have lived a good life with him, dying happily together in their retirement after a life fulfilled.
But the bombs came. The world ended. And they survived as best they could in a world in limbo.
Until Burp and his gang got her.
He longed to be with her, ached to see her again, and hold her hand for all eternity. And he was sure, now, that it would come to pass.
He had thought, briefly, of gorging himself on Burp and his gang, but he was not yet so dehumanised that he could do that. But life had to go on until, soon, joining Helen.
Just when that would be would depend on his ability to take it, so eaten up was he with grief, and ...
As he held up the stump that used to be his forearm, he was quickly being filled, also, with himself.
A RELATIVE ROMANCE
It didn't have to be sleek and shapely. A starship could have been any shape, even square. With no friction to push against in space, there was no resistance to hold back motion. But she WAS sleek. She WAS shapely. Man's psyche demanded such beauty from our ultimate mode of transportation.
Drake took it all in as he watched from the view room of Earth III. Being in geostationary orbit, at the outer influence of Earth, was one thing, but to view the starship, sandwiched between the dark void of the unknown and the comforting swirl of colour that was Earth, was an altogether different experience.
He felt the excitement as the docking retros fired to nudge it out of orbit; he felt, deep inside, the power surge that was building up in the guts of the thing - the pulsed nuclear explosions that would, in just four days, build up to a cruising velocity of 30% the speed of light.
It was the fifteenth mission - it was becoming a regular occurrence when viewed from Earth - but Drake felt the expectation of the tenth, some forty years ago when he was a starstruck kid of ten - and even more so seeing that he would be a crew member of the sixteenth, his own starship, hurriedly going through final checks at the other side of Earth III.
Drake would be science officer. Many felt that, at fifty, he would be too old to take the strains of star travel, but he knew different, and he'd proved it to the others. He may be fifty, but he was still an excellent athlete, and his brain was in tip-top condition. And anyway, he just had to do this.
'And that, gentlemen, is where you'll be going in a few weeks,' said Hal Western, Chief Instructor, as the starship nudged its way out of view.
The prospective twenty five man crew turned their attention to Western, a balding but lean man, and veteran of three star probe missions.
Drake could never get used to the uniqueness of the man who
was talking. Western was just thirty five years old, yet he had been on three thirty year probes, and in life lived, Western was actually one hundred and twenty five years old.
'It is a peculiarity of relativity theory,' Western had explained, 'that time is relative to the speed of the observer. No matter how fast or how slow you travel, time compensates by slowing down relative to your velocity.'
Which meant, stated simply, that a thirty year mission at 30% the speed of light took, viewed from Earth, just that - thirty years - but on the starship, it felt like just one year.
Selection and training for the probe HAD been hard for Drake.
For three years he had struggled against age to perform as well, if not better, than his younger colleagues. He had stifled the pain, acted out the fatigue. Of course, no one could doubt his academic qualifications. He was a senior lecturer in Cosmology - a recognised expert in his field. But the pressures of star travel required the stamina, physique and enthusiasm of youth. But he made it, for this was more than simply a star mission to him. It was also a form of salvation, an escape even, from the trials and tribulations of a recent unhappy life.
As a star struck youth of ten he KNEW he was going to conquer the universe - such was the destiny imbued in him by that tenth mission. But life and ambition don't always go on a parallel course.
Drake had a knack for mathematics, and at an early age turned his mind to speculative Cosmology. At the time he thought this was the road to the probe. But those academics who guided him decided that it was alright for his mind to wander through the enigmas of the universe, but the search for universal knowledge was better served by him staying well and truly on Earth as far as his body was concerned.
He accepted the desk-bound inevitability - at least, on the outside. Marriage helped, and when his son came along, and a strong paternal bond had grown, the thought of star travel lessened to a minor pang - until mother and child fried in a hyper jet explosion.
Drake knew what hell on Earth meant after that. Happiness became an unknown quality, a thing denied. Two further, disastrous marriages failed to renew his thirst for life, and during those years he twice attempted to get himself on a probe - to an environment in which he knew he could thrive. Then, at forty seven, he met Wendy Jenner.
Wendy was everything a man could hope for. To look at, she was a picture of beauty - honey blonde hair, deep blue eyes, a face like porcelain. Her figure was perfectly proportioned, and her sense of dress, immaculate. But Wendy was more than good on the eye. She also had the brains to keep up interesting and stimulating conversations even with Drake; and her kindness, warmth and humour made her an angel. And at nineteen, she instilled in Drake that vibrancy of youthful life.
She had been one of Drake's students, but the chemistry had been there from first meeting. They both knew this, and both understood. They had fought the impulses in their own personal way, trying to cope with the teacher-student taboo, not to mention that all important generation gap. Privately they rationalised the error of making a move on each other, but what is more powerful than love?
And love won.
When they came together it was with a release of pent-up emotion, flooding in orgasmic tides as the taboos came down and fulfillment thundered in.
After that first time Drake laid in bed, entwined mind to mind and flesh to flesh, stroking her hair and feeling heightened by her touch.
At that moment, and for many other moments to come over the next six months, Drake understood the reasons for his unhappy life; understood that life is born for moments like these; sculpted in view of a particular pre-destined act. And this act was his.
He never considered the star probe for a moment during those hallowed days, but life is ordered by a joker and his games are cruelty itself, snatching from the arms of the loved and exchanging for regret.
The bitter stench of condemnation came down early on in the relationship, first from the odd comment made by a colleague, and later from Wendy's parents, younger than Drake himself, cutting her off from all family ties for her 'disgusting and degrading' relationship with an older man. But cannot love conquer all?
At first. But the thoughts of others reach a saturation point which synthesises and nags in the semi-rational mind.
'Could they be right?' Drake began to ask himself, instilling doubt and sounding the death knell.
He fought against these invading thoughts. His love was consummate, was everything to him, he knew. But nothing nags like that first seed of doubt, growing with each leer, each snigger, each contemptible utterance of the self-proclaimed saints.
It was doomed, and all that was left before him was an empty existence.
'It can't work,' he told her the night it was over. There were tears in his eyes, regret in his mind. 'But I'll always love you.'
Wendy had expected it. She'd seen the signs, growing frustratingly to fruition. But nothing can reach the passion of acknowledgement. 'In another life, another time, we'll be together,' she said. 'I'll always love you and there'll never be anyone else.'
'Another time,' said Drake as he wrenched his hands from hers.
There was only the probe left now. He pursued, alone, his renewed ambition, and this time nothing would get in his way. And the training was over. The sixteenth star probe was loaded and ready to go.
Hal Western shook their hand in turn as the crew took up position. He came to Drake. 'I never thought you'd make it,' he said, a wry smile on his face, 'but you're ready. A shining example that nothing is impossible.'
Ten minutes later a nuclear pulse surged through the probe and Earth lessened to, first, a pin-prick, and then a memory in a far distant place.
Ahead of him Drake saw the stars, adventure and commitment - the fulfillment of an impossible dream. But throughout the mission an ulterior sense of purpose seemed to drive him on. It couldn't be seen in his work or even his relations with the crew, but it was something felt, something known.
Star Probe Sixteen made great inroads into understanding the unknown - one of the more successful missions, it was said, in the years following its return. And much of this success was down to Drake - his body at last roving the universe along with his mind. But the greatest success came, not from the mission as such, but a few days after arriving back on Earth.
It was a tentative knock on the door. His courage seemed to fail, to falter, at this vital moment. But seconds later the door slowly opened.
The blonde hair was streaked with grey, the porcelain face a little cracked, the body a little overweight ... but she had waited.
GERM OF DISCONTENT
Sara awoke as the tone sounded. She opened her eyes and felt the comfort of the clinical white walls about her. She'd always been content with her walls; unblemished and pure. Until, that is, Rod had expressed his displeasure.
'What we need is some decoration,' he said. 'Perhaps some flowers.'
Sara had been horrified at her young son's suggestion. Everything had its place in the city, and flowers belonged in the park. It was ridiculous to think they could exist anywhere else.
She got out of bed and dressed. Then, suddenly, she remembered what she had to do that day.
'The psychiatric report suggested that a germ of discontent has infected Rod's mind,' the section leader had said. 'You'll have to appear before the Grand Council so we can decide what to do.'
Sara knew only too well what a germ of discontent could do to the city. Their whole civilisation was based on orderliness. Without such a system, how long would it take before wars started again? And crime - perish the thought.
She left her room and walked down the corridor, joining the steady stream of identically dressed workers as they walked to work, the tone continuing to echo throughout the city. For the first time she wondered why the Grand Council bothered with the tone. After all, throughout her life she had risen at the same time. Like everyone else, the act was so instinctual as to make the tone redundant.
Suddenly she began to tremble, a
ware that the germ of discontent was beginning to affect her.
She arrived at work five minutes later. The laboratory had the same antiseptic air as the rest of the city. Sara worked for the Historical Research Section of the Dept of Information. The days of researching ancient artifacts to glean the truth of the past were long gone. Technology, and the understanding of the universe, had advanced fast in the last thousand years.
Most prominent among man's achievements was the ability to transcend time. It was all based on the discovery and understanding of the tachyon; a particle that travelled backwards in time. As atomic structures could be changed by removing, or increasing, the numbers of protons and neutrons in a nucleus, it soon became obvious that if a rogue tachyon could be fused within the nucleus, then the whole of the atom could take on the properties of the tachyon.
Of course, it was trial and error, at first. There were many accidents with unstable atoms fusing, resulting in massive nuclear explosions. But the ability was worth it. Indeed, it had taken two hundred years just to develop a form of emission control to direct the tachyonic atoms to a particular point in time.
But now, all the principles were worked out, and it was a simple matter to fuse the required techyons into the atomic structure of a particular person. And Sara, being a history researcher, was just such a person, having made some fifty journeys into the past in her career, stretching back some fifteen years.
Sara worked on the findings of her latest time expedition.
It had been to ancient Greece. She had been sent to find out the truth about Socrates and his taking of hemlock. The Grand Council had been intrigued to find out whether it had, indeed, been a noble affair, or whether the hemlock had really been forced down his throat.
Sara had had that same prickle run down her spine as always happened when she was actually there to witness such an historic event. Although she found it hard to concentrate that morning, knowing that at eleven o'clock she had to leave work and meet with the Grand Council to consider the fate of her son.