The Kings of Eternity (25 page)

Charles said, “But you are well in yourself, Jasper?”

There was a short delay, then: “Never better, Charles. Physically, I have never known such health. Which brings me to why I am speaking to you now.”

“This is more than just a social call?” I said.

“A little more,” Jasper replied. “I will call again tomorrow at the same time. By then I should know whether I can acquire the gift I have in mind.”

“The gift?” Charles said, leaning forward and staring at the glowing blue egg.

“I wanted to talk to you today, Charles, in order that you might summon Vaughan and Langham to the Grange. I wanted you to be together when I send it through-”

“Jasper,” Vaughan said, sounding exasperated, “you’re talking in riddles! A gift? Send us something? Explain yourself!”

Jasper laughed. “Is the box-like device you took from Kathan’s ship safe and sound?”

It stood upon the writing desk in the corner of the room.

Charles said, “We have it with us, Jasper.”

“Excellent! Place it beside the egg tomorrow at this time, and with luck you will be in receipt of a marvel.”

“Jasper!” Vaughan said.

Our friend among the stars laughed out loud. “I do not want to raise your hopes only to have them cruelly dashed,” he said. “There is a chance that I might not be able to acquire this gift. It is not only expensive, but rare, and prohibited on planets such as Earth. But enough! It is late, gentlemen, and I must return to subterranean dwellings where Kathan and I are lodging during our stay on this dour world. Until tomorrow, my friends, I’ll bid you good-day.”

“Until tomorrow,” Vaughan said.

Seconds later the blue glow ceased, and the communiqué from the stars was over for the evening.

We sat in silence for long seconds, each of us perhaps unable to believe what we had heard, dumbfounded as we were by the interstellar conversation.

Charles bethought himself to refill our glasses, which had remained empty and untouched for the duration of the dialogue. I took a deep draft, sat back and laughed aloud.

“I wonder what his gift might be?” Vaughan mused.

“Something that is expensive,” Charles said, “and rare, and illegal on Earth? He called it a marvel...”

Vaughan strode to the writing desk and returned with the silver bread-box. It was perhaps two foot by two, and constructed of a thin, silver material that had the appearance of metal but the feel of bakelite. There seemed to be no working parts to it - its sides were too thin to contain machine components - and its only marking was the grid pattern upon its inner surface.

Vaughan turned the thing this way and that, and finally placed it on the table beside the blue egg.

“It is obviously some transportation device,” he said. “A miniature jump portal, perhaps, for objects rather than people. I only hope that it is in full working order, unlike the shanath.”

We retired to the fire and conversed until the early hours, each one of us too excited to even think of sleep. It was almost dawn by the time I made my way to my room, sedated by alcohol, though my mind was abuzz with wonder.

I awoke late in the morning and breakfasted in the library with Charles and Vaughan. That afternoon I told Charles I wished to take a hike in the countryside, and he had cook make me up a packed lunch. I set off from the Grange at two, heading up the hill towards Hopton Wood. The day was fine, though rain threatened; great bruise-blue thunderheads were massing like an armada in the west. I made it to the wood before the downpour began, and managed to follow the path to the clearing without losing my way.

The clearing, in my memory at least, had taken on epic proportions in the time since my last visit; it had been the venue for the most wondrous events I had ever witnessed, and I recalled it as a veritable arena. In reality it was much smaller, not at all a vast amphitheatre where opposing aliens had pitched a titanic battle, but a sequestered place barely twenty paces across, eerily still with a pregnant, pre-storm quietude.

I found the smudges that were all that remained of the vanquished Vark; they were barely distinguishable from the surrounding loam. The furrow ploughed by the crashlanding of Kathan’s craft was still there, but already embroidered with fine green weed. I sat on the fallen log, eating my lunch and considering that fateful evening when Kathan arrived precipitously on Earth.

I thought of my father, then, and the marvels of the universe he had never lived to see. I felt a pang of guilt for not telling him my secret; surely, I thought, his last days might have been filled with wonder at the knowledge of the miracles that existed beyond the mundane remit of the only world we knew. But I told myself that I had done the right thing in keeping quiet; my father had been too much of a hard-headed realist to accept the fantastical nature of a reality revealed, like a magician’s final flourish, at the very last act.

I finished the sandwiches and coffee and took my leave of the clearing, wandering through the wood and this time losing myself along the many pathways that wound around the moss-covered beech and elder. I came out in the village of Fairweather Cranley and took the lane back to the Grange through persistent rainfall, arriving later than I had planned, at seven. I just had time to bathe and change before Charles announced dinner in the library.

The blue egg stood on the table before us, and beside it the mysterious bread-box contraption. We chatted desultorily, our minds on Jasper’s imminent communication.

After the meal Charles broke out a fresh bottle of brandy. “In celebration - a little premature, I grant you - of my brother’s historic communiqué. To Jasper!”

We raised our glasses. “To Jasper!”

Nine o’clock came and went. Vaughan busied himself by stuffing the bowl of his pipe with Old Holborn and puffing away contemplatively. “Perhaps,” he said, “he was unable to obtain the marvel of which he spoke. He did say that he might find it difficult, if you recall.”

I was resigning myself to disappointment when, without warning, the egg glowed blue, startling us to various exclamations and cries of delight.

Charles leaned forward. “Jasper? Are you there? Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Charles. Are the others there?”

“We’re here,” Vaughan and I called in unison.

“Excellent, gentlemen. I trust you’ve dined well - and I’ll wager that you’re partaking of claret or, dare I say, the brandy?”

“The latter,” I said.

“I must admit to missing the odd snifter,” Jasper said.

Vaughan leaned towards the blue egg and said, “How went it, Jasper?”

Jasper Carnegie laughed, like a parent indulging impatient children. “Better than expected. I rendezvoused with Kathan’s courier, and we conducted business.”

“A courier?” I echoed.

“A member of Kathan’s race. At Kathan’s instructions, he smuggled certain... devices, let’s say... onto the planet.”

“Dare I ask,” Vaughan said, “precisely what these devices might be?”

“They are known, my friend, as Styrian serum pistols, and in a matter of seconds I will place them in the transmitter before me. These I will then attempt transfer to the receiver which I trust you have before you. Are you ready?”

“The receiver is sitting in the middle of the table,” Charles said, glancing around at us. “We’re ready.”

“Then prepare yourselves,” Jasper said.

I gripped the edge of the table. Charles leaned forward, staring at the receiver box. Vaughan leaned back, puffing his pipe and cocking an eyebrow somewhat sceptically.

Seconds later a piercing whistle filled the room, and the box before us glowed white. There was a miniature thunderclap, and the dazzling white glow vanished. The whistling ceased abruptly.

We stared. Sitting within the receiver box were three implements that resembled small automatic pistols, but of a green hue and of an attenuated, alien design.

“Have they arrived?” Jasper asked.

“They have,” Charles said. “But what exactly are they?”

“Take them from the receiver,” Jasper instructed. “There’s one for each of you.”

Charles took the pistols from the box and passed them to Vaughan and myself. Mine was extremely light, almost insubstantial, and fitted snugly into the palm of my hand.

I turned it this way and that. In the small butt of the pistol I noticed a transparent window, behind which seemed to be a red, syrupy substance. On the short barrel of the device were three coloured studs, white, red and black.

I glanced at my friends, who were examining their devices with a similar mystification.

“They’re weapons, are they not?” Vaughan chanced at last.

Charles said, “Is that right, Jasper? They’re weapons to use against the Vark?”

“Are you trying to tell us that we’re in danger?” I asked.

Jasper Carnegie was chuckling to himself. “They are not to be used against the Vark,” he said, “but upon yourselves.”

We stared at each other, and then back at the pistols.

“Would you mind explaining-?” Vaughan began.

“Delighted to do so,” Jasper said. “The Styrian injector contains a substance with a long name which I won’t bother you with at this juncture. The substance contains a suspension of up to a hundred million microscopic machines.”

“Machines!” Vaughan cried. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“No joke, I assure you, but the latest Styrian molecular technology.”

“And just what,” I said, “does this ‘molecular technology’ achieve?” I tried to consider the practicalities of a substance which contained a hundred million tiny machines, but my imagination was not up to the task.

“Please permit me a small digression,” Jasper said, “by way of explanation. One week ago Kathan gave me just such a device. He said that it was in repayment for services rendered, for helping him evade the Vark and escape through the shanath. He said that its use by certain of the races of the explored universe - humans being one of them - was prohibited by the Vark. But he could not, as a compassionate, sentient being, deny me its benefits. He explained what it contained, and instructed me in its use. Thereupon I applied the pistol to my jugular vein and pressed first the white stud, then the red and the black. I felt an instant sharp pain in my neck, followed by a rush like that of blood to my head. There followed an hour of nausea, and then a period of extreme lethargy which lasted for about six hours. Thereafter I experienced an incredible feeling of well-being, which has been with me ever since.”

I was aware of my pulse. “You injected yourself,” I said slowly, “with a hundred million molecular machines?”

“Give or take,” Jasper replied, “a few thousand or so.”

Vaughan cleared his throat and leaned forward. He addressed the glowing egg. “And would you mind telling us, in your own time, quite why you did this?”

“Not at all, my friend. Each machine of the hundred million or so now circulating around my bloodstream is self-replicating; that is, they replace themselves with exact copies when they come to the end of their allotted lifespans, and are naturally flushed from the system. The exact function of the molecular machines is to facilitate the repair and maintenance of the physical structure of one’s soma-form and metabolism, in effect combating the process of ageing, the onslaught of disease, viral and bacteriological, and the effect of externally wrought injuries, such as might result from accidents. The molecular machines are known by a phrase, roughly translatable into English as, Eternal Guardians.”

He paused, and we stared at each other, and allowed the implication of what he had just told us to sink into our shocked senses.

“Did you say,” Charles said, “that these machines fight disease, and repair the body after accidents?”

“In a nutshell, Charles, that is what I said.”

Vaughan removed his pipe. I saw that his hand trembled as he laid the pipe upon the tablecloth and leaned towards the blue egg. “But in that case, Jasper, they might extend one’s life for years.”

Jasper allowed the silence to stretch before saying, very quietly, “Not just for years, my friends, but for eternity.”

“Are you trying to say,” Charles began, “that, that-”

“I am saying, gentlemen, that if you apply the pistol to your jugular vein, or any other large vein or artery, and depress the studs in sequence, then you will effectively render yourselves immortal.”

“I don’t believe it!” Vaughan cried.

“Impossible!” said Charles.

I pushed my chair from the table and paced the room. I was trembling in every limb and was overcome with sickness. I realised that I was sweating, and tugged at my collar.

I returned to the table. “How can you be sure?” I began.

Jasper replied, “I have talked to people. I have read accounts of the Styrian research. The Styrians are a race opposed to the hegemony of the Vark, and wish to aid their allies with the immortality serum. Of course, the Vark are ruthless in their extirpation of any race, or individuals, who avail themselves of the Eternal Guardians.”

I said, “Does that mean they can kill those who have taken the serum?”

“Unfortunately yes,” Jasper said. “They have developed weapons which can annihilate even ‘immortals’.”

Vaughan asked, “And the Vark? Are they immortal?”

Jasper laughed. “The serum is effective only upon the metabolisms of humanoids. With it, we stand a fighting chance of defeating the Vark-”

“And you have-?” Charles began.

“Yesterday, as I said - and I can testify to its almost immediate life-giving properties. I exhort you, gentlemen, to lose no time and use the pistols upon yourselves. Also, I thought it a prerequisite of bestowing this gift that, in each device, there is sufficient serum to treat not only yourself, but one other person of your choosing, should you wish to do so.” He fell silent. We stared at the pistols in our hands, and then at each other in wonderment.

“And now, gentlemen, I must say farewell. It might be some time before we speak again. Tomorrow Kathan and I take a ship into the Vark quadrant, and it would be unwise indeed to attempt communication with you when our enemy might intercept the signal.”

“Jasper!” I said. “I don’t know what to say. Mere thanks are not sufficient.”