Son of the Stars Read online

  He moved along the crumpled edge of the skin of the ship where it lay upon the ground. The metal was thin, but it would not bend under all the pressure he could put upon it.

  Halfway, he stopped and knelt down. There on the green metal and in the grass beside it were drops of red. Drops of blood.

  He glanced quickly upward and around him. Pete sniffed cautiously. Then Ron saw that there were more drops forming a twisted pathway along the wreckage and up into the depths of the ship.

  Someone had come out of the ship after it crashed. Someone hurt and bleeding.

  He turned slowly and tried to follow that trail of blood through the grass. Almost unconsciously he slipped his gun into his hand and gripped it hard.

  The trail soon grew faint and died away, and Ron could make out no footprints in the tall grass.

  “Come on, Pete.” His voice was a whisper. “Let’s see the topside.”

  Abruptly Pete uttered a short bark. Ron turned. Blocking the way out from under the ship was a figure weaving unsteadily against the lighter background of forest beyond.

  It was the figure of a man. Yet instinctively Ron knew, almost as if there were an invisible aura about that figure, that here was a man not of Earth, but one born out somewhere beyond the stars themselves.

  Chapter 2 Beyond Help

  For a moment the two stared at each other. Then the stranger took a slow step forward, staggering as he moved. From his throat came a single unknown sound.

  Involuntarily, Ron backed. His gun came up to the ready. With a sudden faint growl Pete brushed against him. “Quiet,” said Ron.

  He ignored the movements of the dog, keeping his eye on the advancing stranger. Without warning, the collie whirled and made a high leap, knocking the gun from Ron’s hands.

  In astonishment and with a burst of fear at his defenselessness, Ron stared at the dog—and at the fallen gun over which he stood.

  Pete whimpered a moment as if begging forgiveness, then darted away. He clambered up and put his huge paws upon the naked brown chest of the man. His weight almost bowled the man over, but the stranger put his hands upon the dog’s head and patted gently.

  Pete ran back to Ron and whimpered again with an inviting cry.

  Ron picked up the fallen gun. “So you think he’s O.K.” He spoke slowly.

  Ron trusted the instincts of the dog. He felt safe for the moment at least and wondered what could be done to make contact.

  As if understanding Ron’s decision, the man staggered forward again, uttering a stream of unknown sounds. Suddenly he collapsed upon the ground, his hands almost touching Ron’s shoes.

  Ron stared at those hands. There were six fingers on each.

  Pete licked at the man’s face and whimpered for Ron to give attention.

  Ron knelt down. He touched the brown skin which had a texture quite different from his own. His hand jerked away as if burned.

  Then he put it forward again. The temperature of the individual was incredibly high. Ron wondered if it could be normal or if the injury had caused it.

  He opened his canteen and touched the mouth of it to the lips of the brown man. A trickle of water filled the man’s mouth. He swallowed automatically.

  Ron saw then where the trail of blood had come from. There was a wide gash under the arm. Once clotted over, it was beginning to bleed again. He considered the best way to get help. The car was miles away now, but if he remembered correctly, the highway should not be more than a quarter of a mile from this point. If he had only started his search at this end of the line-He glanced upward again to the mighty, broken ship. The significance of this discovery was staggering. Here was the gateway to new worlds of which man had dreamed since he first watched the stars.

  He fought down the rising feeling of awe and near-reverence for the figure lying upon the grass beside him. Medical aid was needed and the practical question was whether the stranger could make it to the highway or not. As Ron considered this, the eyes opened and the man struggled to a sitting position.

  He murmured and indicated the canteen. Ron passed it to him and scanned his face as he upended the container. That face looked young, Ron thought. He was tall and hard-muscled, but Ron wondered if he were actually any older than himself.

  He was dressed only in shorts that came to his knees and were of some shining fabric that Ron had never seen before. The shoes were soft, like moccasins.

  In his own curiosity now, the stranger reached out a hand almost shyly and touched Ron’s clothing and his arm. Then he touched Pete’s head and smiled fondly at the dog as if there were some secret understanding between them. Pete responded with a grunt of contentment.

  This baffled Ron, but he gave no more thought to it now. He stood up and looked toward the mouth of the ravine, then began walking slowly toward it.

  Pete started to follow, then halted and looked after the stranger.

  The latter arose stiffly, as if with pain, and moved with halting steps. Ron looked into his eyes, trying to ask if he could continue or not. As if sensing the intent of the glance, the stranger smiled faintly.

  Ron led the way carefully up the hill on a long, zigzag slope. The high afternoon sun pierced the mountain air with sharp, hot light. He tried to keep to the shade of the pines, but they were too scrubby for much protection.

  Gamely, however, the stranger continued to follow with no sound of pain or discomfort. At last they came within sight of the highway and heard the rush of cars.

  Ron indicated a shady spot a few yards off the highway where the man would not be seen.

  “You take care of him, Pete,” he said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Just take it easy.”

  They sat down beneath the tree as if they both understood. As Ron turned away, Pete had his head on the man’s lap.

  Ron moved swiftly down the road. He hoped that he had done right for the stranger, and that the hike to the road had not injured him further.

  A dozen cars passed in each direction during the first few minutes of his walk. He hailed each one going his way but most were tourists hurrying to get as many miles behind them as possible before sundown.

  At last he heard an ancient, wheezing model T coming. He glanced up at the familiar sound. It was old Mike Peters who lived in a mountain cabin and came down to town each day for yard work. He considered passing up Mike’s offer, then thought better of it. The car clattered to a stop.

  “Ron, boy, what are you doing out here in the hills? Your car break down? I always told you you would mess around with that engine until it wouldn’t run at all. Now you take Old Reliable here—”

  “I’ve been out hunting, Mike. I left my car about five miles down the road. I wonder if you would take me down as fast as you can?”

  “Sure. Hop in.” The car shuddered to a faster pace as he climbed aboard.

  He kneaded his fingers impatiently while swifter cars honked and swirled around them. He wished he were in one of them, but he knew that the chances were slim that any would have stopped.

  “Where’s your dog?” said Mike. “You can’t hunt without Pete, can you?”

  “I left him chasing squirrels. I’m coming back to pick him up. If you see any of my folks in town, tell them I’ll be home in a little while.”

  In a few minutes they came to the turn-off where Ron had left the hotrod. The gleaming aluminum shone sun-bright from a distance.

  “It’s a pretty thing,” said Mike approvingly, “but she won’t last as long as Old Reliable here.”

  “Longer. Thanks a lot, Mike.” Ron leaped from the car as it barely slowed. In a moment he was in his own and roaring back up the highway toward Pete and the stranger.

  He found them almost as he had left them. The eyes of the stranger glowed with interest at the sight of the car. He touched it, gently passing his hand over the smooth surface as if it were some fine toy of which he approved.

  Ron helped him in, and Pete sat on the floor at his feet. In a moment they were speeding down the highway
toward Longview.

  The questions that flooded Ron’s mind now were those he had forced into postponement: What was to be done with the stranger? Where could he be taken for medical care? The most logical thing was to notify the police and the Air Force officials at Crocker Base fifty miles north of Longview.

  But he felt reluctant to do that. Once he did, the stranger would be overwhelmed with investigators and there would be little chance to become acquainted with him. And somehow he did want very much to become acquainted and learn the answers to the thousand questions he had about the big ship.

  He was fascinated by Pete’s acceptance of the man. That in itself was a minor mystery. He decided that the thing he’d had in the back of his mind all the time was the right thing to do. He would take him to his own house and call Dr. Smithers.

  He knew his family’s reaction when they came home would be one of uproar, at least that of his mother and small sister. His father—he wasn’t exactly sure how his father would take it.

  As for Doc Smithers, the old family physician could be trusted to help, and keep such a matter as this strictly confidential.

  Ron turned off the highway as he approached town, and came in on the back streets where he ran less chance of being recognized by someone who might later ask about the stranger.

  At last he turned down his own block. It was a tree-lined street of old and well-kept houses. His was a white, two-story house with a massive gabled roof. It was almost in the center of the block.

  As he drew up and turned in the driveway he was surprised by a call from the porch swing, and a familiar figure hurried down the steps toward him.

  With pleasure, he recognized Anne Martin, dressed for tennis in white skirt and blouse and carrying her racket. For the first time, Ron remembered their date to play that afternoon.

  “When you didn’t come, I decided to walk over to Shirley’s house, but she wasn’t home, either,” said Anne. “Why didn’t you—?”

  Then her dark eyes went wide at the sight of the brown stranger with the caked blood along one side of his chest. His head was slumped over now in half-consciousness.

  “What happened, Ron? Who is he?”

  “I forgot all about the tennis, Anne, but I’m sure glad you’re here. I can’t tell you all the details now, but the folks aren’t home, so will you take the car over and get Doc Smithers? It would be a lot quicker than if I called and waited for him to get his old crate over here.”

  “Sure, Ron—whatever I can do to help—”

  The stranger roused and looked about slowly. He glanced down the street at the trees and the houses and then at Anne. Ron motioned toward the house and helped him out with difficulty. He must weigh close to two hundred, Ron thought. “Hurry, Anne,” he said.

  She nodded and slipped behind the steering wheel. It was her pride that Ron had taught her to drive the powerful car. She was the only girl at Longview High who drove a Mercury Club hotrod.

  As the car purred away from the curb, Ron helped his strange acquaintance up the walk and into the house. Pete followed, watching carefully.

  With difficulty, Ron got him up to the second floor spare bedroom and onto the bed. He lay unmoving. Ron covered him with a sheet after removing the moccasin shoes. There seemed nothing more to be done until Doc Smithers arrived.

  Ron waited on a chair beside the bed and examined closely the features of that quiet face. He felt that the deep brown tone of the skin was not its natural color. It seemed more like an intense sun tan.

  The cheeks were very high-boned and rather thin. The forehead was high above deep-set eyes. The nose was straight and narrow. The quality of the hair on the head was perhaps the strangest feature of all, except for the six-fingered hands. It was deep black and not heavy, but it seemed to lie in a fine mat of soft, velvety filaments unlike the long, thick strands that composed Ron’s own hair.

  The eyes were closed, still. Ron wondered what scenes they had seen, what far worlds they had gazed upon. Where was the home of this visitor, and why had he come to Earth?

  Ron was convinced now that he was no more than a boy, in the mid-adolescence of his own species, just as Ron was at his present age of sixteen.

  There came abruptly the deep-throated sound of Ron’s car in the driveway. He ran downstairs as Doc Smithers entered with Anne.

  “Hello, Ron, what’s the trouble here?” said Smithers. “Anne tells me you’ve got someone hurt. Why didn’t you take him over to the hospital?”

  Ron led the way up the stairs. “I didn’t think it was serious enough for that,” he said. “It’s a very unusual case. You’ll see.”

  Smithers saw at once. He took one of the six-fingered hands that lay atop the sheet and held it for a moment while his glance went to Ron’s face. Ron said nothing. The Doctor bent over the bed.

  Smithers was a wiry little man who had delivered both Ron and Anne at birth, and he frequently expressed the opinion to them and anyone else who would listen that the world was going to the dogs in a hotrod. But he could not conceal his fondness for them, just the same.

  “Who in the world is he?” he said. “I never saw him around town before.”

  “I don’t think he’s been around town. I found him in the woods while Pete and I were hunting.”

  Carefully, Smithers cleaned and dressed the wound under the arm. “Not much injury there, but this fellow feels like he must have a fever of a hundred and ten.”

  He applied a stethoscope to the brown chest. A startled look crossed his face. Then he moved the instrument slowly over the torso.

  Putting this away at last, he drew a thermometer out of his bag and put it between the parched lips. While he waited he touched the flesh of the stranger gently, running his fingers over the bone structure. He touched the hair on the head and raised again one of the hands with six fingers.

  When he held the thermometer to the light he shook his head unbelievingly.

  “What is it?” said Ron.

  “I don’t know. This only goes to a hundred and eight. His temperature is ‘way beyond that.”

  “People can’t live with such temperatures!” said Anne.

  “They’re not supposed to. Where did he come from, Ron?” Smithers said. He sat on the chair by the bed and looked up at them.

  “This man is a living impossibility. He cant be alive, but he is—with a temperature that ought to be fatal. More than that, his heart is not on the right side. His skeletal structure is all wrong. His internal organs feel jumbled and out of position. There are these hands, and this hair—

  “This person is not even human, Ron. It’s impossible for me to begin to diagnose the injury or illness of such a structure as his. He may be dying. He should be dying by all the rules I’ve ever learned.

  “If he is, he’s beyond any medical science of which we know at present. There’s no help for him.”

  Chapter 3 Clonar

  Ron shook his head in frantic rebellion against the Doctor’s pronouncement. “He can’t die. Doc, you’ve got to do something for him. He can’t die now after he’s come from—”

  “Yes,” said Smithers slowly, “where has he come from?”

  Ron looked from the Doctor to Anne. He began with his discovery of the record on his machine. He told of his hunt and the discovery of the ship and its strange crewman.

  Smithers listened carefully, but when Ron finished he shook his head as if not wanting to believe. “Ron, boy, you’re pulling an old man’s leg. I’m too old for that sort of thing.”

  “I’m telling it just as it happened,” said Ron. “I wouldn’t have any reason for making up a thing like that. You said a moment ago that he isn’t human. And I can show you the ship.”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it, but I’ll need a week or so for the idea to soak through this ancient skull of mine. I’ve had no expectation of meeting visitors from other worlds before I die.

  “If your story is true, it makes it more hopeless than ever to find medical assistance for t
his fellow. His biological structure may be so different that our medicine might be sheer poison.”

  “Do you have any idea what might be wrong?”

  “Only guesses. I’d say that the brown of his skin is due to burn. Probably radiation burn, and if that is as fatal as some types of atomic radiation known to us, he hasn’t got a chance. I would say he is also suffering greatly from a state of shock due to the crash.

  “The only thing I could suggest is that we take him down to the hospital for a series of intense biological examinations to determine what might be normal for his species, but I’m sure we don’t have time for all that. I suspect he is quite low. We can make a try, that is all.”

  Ron stared at the quiet face. “We have to try, of course.”

  At that moment the figure stirred unexpectedly, turned partly on one side, his face grimacing somewhat as if with pain. He sat up with recognition of Ron in his eyes.

  “He must have tremendous powers of recovery,” murmured Smithers. “Or else I am mistaken about the depth of shock involved.”

  Ron had come to think of the stranger in terms of “boy” instead of “man,” and now he watched him glance across the room. Pete had come in unnoticed and was staring intently at the boy. Abruptly the dog turned and padded out of the room.

  Ron sat down on the edge of the bed. He longed to cut down the communication barrier between them and wondered if he were strong enough to try.

  He looked into the boy’s eyes and pointed to himself. “Ron,** he said carefully. He pointed to the Doctor. “Doctor Smithers.” He indicated Anne and spoke her name.

  A faint smile of understanding came to the brown lips. The boy nodded and pointed to himself. “Clonar,” he said. And then he pointed to the three of them and pronounced their names in clear accents.

  Ron pointed now to himself and Smithers. “Men,” he said. Indicating Anne, he said, “Woman.”